ORDINATION #3 - Ordained to / for what? (John Harrison)

  What much of the wider church believes about ORDINATION by John Harrison

My father, an evangelical Presbyterian, ordained in 1954, brought me up to believe in the priesthood of all believers. Ironically. And while there are some aspects of faith and order I don’t fully understand, the priesthood of all believers is one thing I do get.

My extensive reading of the history of the church across the centuries leads me to the conclusion that things went downhill for the Church every time the priesthood of all believers was betrayed by the establishment of a separate priestly class. That does not mean things went pear-shaped when individuals and groups were set aside or commissioned for special tasks, such as the deacons in Acts 6.1, or the disciples in Mark 6.1, but when a group of people, invariably men, decided the rest of us needed a mediator between ourselves and God, and self select to perform that function while telling us it was “the call of God” and that Ordination was a pre-requisite to heeding that call.

The monopoly position of the priestly caste was one fatal flaws of pre-Messianic Judaism, and since then history has repeated itself. However, many of the great revivals of Christianity were sparked by the unordained and unannointed. Or were they?

The tradition from which I come has only two sacraments: Baptism and Holy Communion. No sacrament of ordination to the ministry, though some traditions do have ordination as a sacrament.

I have also been brought up to believe that it is that authentic celebration of the two sacraments instituted by Jesus himself that define a church - an ecclesia. So where does ordination come in? The view I take is that Baptism - which orthodoxy and the Creeds declare to be a singular event - is also the sacrament of ordination. The place where God through His grace, draws us into a relationship with him, and at the same time commissions, and marks, us for ministry. For infants, the realization of this commission takes place as we mature, “and grow in the love and admonition of the Lord” and is signified in our Confirmation. (Again, not a sacrament in my tradition).

 … where does Ordination fit in? It doesn’t.

Which brings us back to the priesthood of all believers. If Baptism is the Sacrament of Ordination, the calling to ministry empowered by the Holy Spirit, where does Ordination fit in? It doesn’t. Unless, of course, there is a need to create and distinguish a priestly caste, separate from all other believers, who have special functions which are to ….”proclaim the good news, heal the sick and cast out demons”? Hang on, is that not the responsibility of all believers? Because if it is not, what is?  Oh yes, all believers are to ….”proclaim the good news, heal the sick and cast out demons”. Uh huh.

So why are some people who do that “ordained” apart from their Baptism to do that, and some not? Unless ordination is simply an admission ceremony for an exclusive club of those who feel the need for a little extra, a spiritual top up, to get them going in ministry? The rest of us just soldier on with our Baptism certificates in our back pocket repeatedly hearing and answering the call to ministry but never hearing the call to Ordination. Who among us are the truly deaf?

 John Harrison “went forward” as a teenager at the 1968 Billy Graham Crusade in Brisbane, and was involved in the Evangelical Union at university. From 1979 he worked for the Australian Inland Mission - founded by Flynn of the Inland, and subsequently as communication director for the Uniting Church Queensland Synod from 1981 to 1990. He has written a number of books on Christianity in Australia , and today he is a lecturer in the School of Journalism & Communication at the University of Queensland.

4 Comments to ORDINATION #3 - Ordained to / for what? (John Harrison)

1. Well that throws a spanner in the works for those of us who don’t have a baptism certificate

   What can’t be denied is the importance of the Priesthood of all believers and our individual and corporate response to our role as followers of Jesus. The reality is however, and I think the 2nd article of the series picked up on this, we have become increasingly a movement where the officers do a large chunk of the work, or at least the lion’s share of programmed activities. Whether this is the fault of officers taking on too much or soldiers abdicating responsibility is probably a ‘chicken/egg’ type question.

   The key of course is whether we can turn back the clock and start re-engaging the whole of the priesthood in our corps, not simply the so-called ordained leaders! I strongly believe that my main role and biggest challenge within my officership (and I don’t particularly like the thought of being ordained next July) is to provide the opportunities for those in my sphere of influence to fulfil their potential as citizens of God’s Kingdom, whilst they also help me fulfill mine!

   Graeme Smith
Graeme Smith on December 8th, 2009

2. Yes Graeme, the function of “ministers” in my tradition is to “serve” (the word “ministry” means “service”), and the greatest service one can offer it is “equip the saints” for their mission in the world.

   We get into strife by theologizing a secular metaphor: “officers” and “soldiers”. The is a power relationship implicit in this terminology; just as there is a (diiferent) power relationship implicit in the doctrine of ministry as service to the laity.

   However, I should also add that there is a long standing joke in my tradition that “Every Presbyterian minister is a Pope in his own parish.”

   John H
John Harrison on December 9th, 2009

3. I think it has been coming to understand the scale of the changes demanded by our profoundly changing mission context that has moved the issue of ordination for me from being a second order issue - of seeing it as simply irritating and stupid - to seeing it as something that has to stop if the church is to survive.
   It isn’t even about ordination itself being counter-missional in a movement where every soldier is supposedly already ‘commissioned’ to go out and win the world for Jesus - which presupposes our being a church planting movement and hence all soldiers who possibly can as being already called to lead in every way possible - it’s about how we need to keep how we do and are ‘church’ (in the ‘unchurchy’ spiritual sense of the word) light. If we are encumbered by too many ponderous habits, we do it like this, we do it like that, then we handicap ourselves in history. We become unable to adapt rapidly and easily as missional contexts change.

   We are only at the beginning of getting the message we need to be ‘fleet of foot’ to be a church planting movement. We need to able to travel with the simple message of the gospel, the energetic and innovative charism of the Salvation Army, and as little baggage as possible around how we do church.
   A few of us are looking for a leader at the moment to help lead a small plant, and were talking about this here last night. We all noticed how God brings some to lead for a time, then to stand back, then they are the gifted person again for a while perhaps in a different situation. For sure some are more able than others, some are positively indispensable all their working lives. But if we stopped at this point to ask or wait for a particular person go through formalities, we’d lose the chance to make this plant happen, and we can’t expect someone to come and plant a group knowing they can be removed from the equation at the drop of a hat to be replaced by a ‘real’ leader the moment one is available. It’s not fair or appropriate. So it simply becomes more expedient here to disregard the various institutional church frameworks we could work within, and encourage people to work fast and light, growing the church as the Holy Spirit directs. Those gifted people who can provide depth and maturity of discipleship, transform conflict, enable healthy theological reflection and spiritual formation are people we all recognise as being so gifted. Their ordination is superfluous. They will come and go, again, as the Spirit directs, and they also really have no need to be bound up in an institutional framework (unless their call is to enable large projects that need significant fundraising.)

   We need to have the framework of apostolic leadership Alan Hirsch is describing, with a non-ordaining and hierarchically flattened institution as back-up to enable large scale social action where necessary and appropriate. It’s the invasion of the heavyweight, rigid, slow and inflexible institution into the more personal space of congregations commissioned to win the world for Jesus that is preventing the army from adapting and growing as it could. By invasion I mean something quite subtle, in the psychodyamics not the structures themselves which were originally designed to be flexible. That’s my take on this FWIW.

   Eleanor
Eleanor Burne-Jones on December 9th, 2009

4. You wrote: “the disciples in Mark 6.1”

   A logical analysis of the earliest MSS implies that the talmidim (apprentice students) in the original version of what later was redacted to “the gospel of Matthew”, was Torah-observing yehudim (“Jews”) just like Ribi Yehoshua (ha-Mashiakh, the Messiah) from Nazareth.

   Since you are Christians reading this I think that the website http://www.netzarim.co.il will be of interest to you. It contains logical and scientific research, previously unknown to most Christians, about Ribi Yehoshua (ha-Mashiakh, the Messiah) and what he and his followers taught. It is an essential read to learn about his teachings, which are in accordance with Torah – the instruction manual from the Creator.

   Have a very nice weekend!!
   Anders Branderud
Anders Branderud on December 11th, 2009

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