Reening in Tesh hin 2 (ish

Your Ministry cit ae
Mark 1314-22
January 24, 1971
John M. Buchanan

I'm never quite sure that we understand the full implications of what we
just did. Perhaps I'm in error, but I sense that ordination Sunday is not
one of the high points in the worship life of the people in the pew. Yet,
in terms of what it means to be a Presbyterian Christian, there is probably
no more significant event in the life of this congregation than the oceasion
of the laying on of hands, and the calling into specific service a group of
laymen in the rite of ordination,

In this ritualistic act we have made a very important statement about
God, the Church, discipleship to Jesus Christ, and ourselves. We have affirmed
that Llmighty God, — through his church ~ calls men to service, and that he
joins them in the on-going process of accomplishing his ends in the human
community. In the laying on of hands we have affirmed our solidarity with
a commmity of men which extends 2,000 years into the past. We have sald, |
in this act, that the church is the whole people of God, and not only or
primarily the clergy. We have said something about the matter of following
Jesus Christ as his disciples in the context of our own lives. Finally, by
ordaining laymen, using the same ruberics that are employed to ordain olergy-
men, we have said something about the common ministry shared by everyman who
calls himself a Christian. e

We've said quite a lot this morning, but probably more important than
what we've said is the time and situation in which we've said.it. It is a
orucial time for the church as an institution. We are at a pivieoteal point in
the long history of Christianity. The whole church «+ from the Vatican to the
amallest Protestant parish in the mid-west - is undergoing rapid and painful
change. ind if not change, at least severe anxiety from the knowledge that
changes are happening even though we personally may not yet be participating

in them.

colle

At thie important juncture in time no topic is more discussed, debated,
argued and written about than the role of the laity. You are the contemporary
ecclessiastioal celebrities. The books ooming off the church presses, and the
books I have occasion to read, deal with your situation far more frequently,
and articulately and urgently than my own. And when one of us becomes one of
you; when a minister or priest or nun demits; the event is the object of far
more interest and concern than when the reverse happens. In fact, if a clergy-
man wants to write a book that will sell, one of the first prerequisites seems
to be a dramatio exit from his profession.

How came we here? How did you get to be such celebrities? How did the
layman's role in the church come to be such an urgent concern in the year of
our Lord 1971? I+ began, as all good stories do, a long, long time ago when
Jesus Christ walked past several fisherman and enlisted their services in the
cause by calling them to follow him. In the early, formative years of the
Church there were no clergymen or laymen. The words for the community were
the Greek "eccolesia” and "laos", meaning “a ealled out community" and “the
whole people of God’, The real meaning of laity, therefore, is the whole
people, the whole body, a group Of individuals who sense that they exist in
a special relationship with each other, with God, and that sense that Jesus

~~ st has given them a job to do in the world in his name and for his sake.
That is to say - the laity = the whole people together have a ministry to the
world, in the world amd for the world.

That is the philosophic background; but it is not a description of how
things really are. For, one of the unfortunate tricks which occurred in the
long history of the people of God is that the responsibility for ministry
shifted from the whole people to a distinot group or class of people called
the clergy. They became the ministers; all the rest became the laity, and the
original concept was put reverently to rest.

By the time of the 15th and 16th centuries the situation had deteriorated

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so badly that the clergy came perilously close to becoming the church. All
power was theirs; and the word laity came to mean the unordained, the uninformed,
the uniniated — which definition, unfortunately maintains today.

The Protestant Reformation changed all that - in a letter. “The priesthood
of all believers” became the rallying ory of a whole new idea of the church -
or rather a very old, New Testament idea. But, the spirit didn't change much.
The humanity of the clergy became a little more evident: power was distributed
a little bit: Protestants didn't and don't revere their pastors as much. But
the reality of the situation, I would submit, didn't change at all. "Ministry"
was something a specific group of men did. And all the rest could sit back, pay
them for their work and cheer them on.

You are celebrities today because we've suddenly awakened to the faot thet
the vast majority of you never did buy the idea that the laity - the whole
people of God — the whole church regardless of how we earn a living — has a
ministry to perform,

Listen to how your church views the situation. These excerpts are from

-? Report of a Special Committee on the Laity, heard and adopted by the
General issembly of our denomination last year.

"Perhaps the largest group of all, and the most ‘alienated’, are those who
have never recognized their membership as ministry. They participate occasionally
in worship, and may call upon the minister for pastoral services, but they
minister neither within the congregation nor in the wider commnity. A barrier
of indifference separates them from the common fellowship."

And later in the report: "Ministry is response to God's loving acts. It
is the activity in which Christians are engaged at all times, whether they are
aware of it or not. . . . A few persons exercise ministry primarily in or
through the church itself. More find the basic call to ministry outside the
church in business, home or community, but all share responsibility to God for

the use of His gifts. Because ministry has so frequently been understood only

soi
in terms of institutional service to the church, many Christians are unaware of
their obligation to engage in ministry through the ordinary activities of life.
This is the real vocation of every Christian." [see pp 207-218, Minutes of the
General Assembly, 1970, Part I, Journal]

It all began when Jesus saw several rough, unsophisticated, common fisher-
men at work, invited them to follow him, and they did. Perhaps we will be
helped by looking at that particular event in a little more depth.

Immediately efter the arrest of John the Baptist, Jesus came back to Galilea -
"preaching" — Mark tells us. His message ~ unlike the gloomy predictions of the
Baptist was “Good News" — ‘Gospel. Briefly it was 'Believe the exceptionally
good news of a God of unfailing love. Believe that God is now doing a new
thing among us. See the new kingdom which is now in the midst of us. Turn
around and be a part of that kingdom,”

Evidently the fishermen know him. Notice that two were fishing, two were
mending nets ~ the latter brothers in a family of some substance because their
father Zebedee had hired help. Notice that the primary injunction in the call
to ministry involves engaging other men. Notice, also, that the phrase "I
will make you fishers of men“ takes very seriously the personalities, skills,
vocations of the men he called. He did not say, “follow me and I'll .make you
Bishops or theologians" - but “fishermen”.

These men found it necessary to lay down their nets and walk away from
jobs, family and security. Although one New Testament commentator suggest that
that is a romanticised conclusion. We are not told, after all, that they never
returned to their homes, nor that they did not have families. In fact, Zebedee's
hired help may have done very well without James and John, and their leaving
the nets may not have been a dramatio sacrifice. In any case, the call to
ministry involves following and lea ving something behind.

Now, a few brief comments. Jesus called men to service - to a job - a

task - a ministry, if you will. The Rev. Don Benedict writing an essay in a

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entitled “Who's Killing the Church” put it very succinctly. ‘'Come, Follow me!

was not a call to individual salvation by removal from historic reality but
rather a oall to participation. and involvement. Jesus called men into the midst
of the world to deal with men in the context of the social, political and economic
forces of history. The church is thus a group of secular men and women called
to be a Servant of God in history, which means within the structures of history.
It is within these secular structures of life that God's struggle to make life
human is found." [p. 43]

We mst see that the setell “salvation” has meaning in the present: ‘that
if our sense of belonging to a new kingdom has any content whatever it is in
the world in which we now live: and that to be a part of that kingdom is to be
in ministry where we are in the world. “Seoular structures of history" is
just a fancy way of saying your office, your plant, your classroom, your home,
your government. I+ is into these "structures" that Christ calls us to ministry.

Second, Jesus took seriously the skills of the men he called. They were
common fishermen: he accepted that: he didn't ask them to change that: he
needed that. So the call of Christ to ministry comes to you where you are,
and asks not so moh that you alter what you are, as that you employ what you
are, and where you are, and who you are in following him. |

Your ministry, as a Christian, is to follow Christ in the context of what-—
ever you are doing. But How? That is the crunch. It's not really too difficult
to follow in terms of worship and love and service so long as we confine those
activities to this ediface. But how about tomorrow - in the thick of things?
In an address to a group of Christian Businessmen and Engineers, Truman Douglass
spoke to the point. “I think it mst be maddening to responsible laymen, when
ministers tell them that the complex problems of our society can be solved by
narrowly religious methods, by a little more prayer, a little more Bible reading,
a little more application of the teachings of Christ.....I am in favor of all

of these activities. But the Bible and the teaching of Christ have very little

~

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to tell us specificelly about how to improve agricultural productivity in a
technically retarded area, or how to attack endemic disease in a nation without

a public health programme.* [God's Frozen People, Pp 63]

To Mr. Douglass's list we could add indefinitely. How to follow Christ as
a production worker? Or, as was asked in a meeting in this church recently,
how to be a loving Christian and fire an employee? How to weigh company profits
against product dependability, or environmental pollution? How to be honest
in a world that pays little attention to quiet dishonesty? How to be just and
fair in the complex maze of black identity and white backlash? Or just how to
be responsible and loving when your son or daughter needs help?

These are the situations in which Christ calls his people to be in ministry.
And I would take a lead from an dngelican who laid all the dsade on the table
by saying that he - a clergyman ~ didn't know how to do it. "I+ is the parson
who is the layman, and he mst acknowledge this explicitly before he oan gain
the confidence of the laity and persuade them that he kmows what he means when
he talks about the calling of lay people. It is for the olergy to challenge
the laity: it is for the laity to find out for themselves how they can meet
the challenge.** [Ibid. p 63, John Lawrence] |

Now, I'm off the hook, and you're on, and that is how it should be if we
take the concept of the whole people of God in ministry seriously. But I'd
like to be back on the hook with you, for together we are the church - we are
all the laity ~ we are all the priesthood. The difference between us is simply
a matter of expertise in different areas. Im this context, then, I would share
with you something I feel very deeply.

Simon, Andrew, James, John laid down their nets and followed him. In a
sense we wall leave something when we decide who and what we shall be in life.
In that same sense, none of us — or very few of us — can leave our nets that
absolutely, for to do so would be both chaos and selfish irresponsibliity.

wevertheless, I believe the call of Jesus Christ to ministry in the world is

jy

always a call from something: something must be left behind, I am coming to
believe that this is the only way we can really understand what it means to be
committed to him, to be a disciple.

I believe he calls us today to leave our- prejudices behind, We all have
them: they have been poured into us by centuries of racism. They are, in many
instances precious to us. Christ calls us from them. I believe he call us to
question our deepest convictions, and by that I mean the political, economic and
social shibboleths by which we live and move and have our being.

This is what I believe it means to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Savior and to follow him into your ministry. Not so mach a warm feeling in
your heart; certainly not a smug self-righteousness that feeds the ego. But
very simply, the adoption of a new standard; a new guide for every decision we
make in our daily lives. The Lordship of Christ is authenticated, not when we
verbally affirm it, but when ask only - “What would he want me to do in this
situation," |

ind, you know, I have the lingering suspicion that once we turn that corner,
and honestly ask that question, we will know his will, and therefore our ministry.
I do not mean that it will be easy; site that life is simply 4 composite of
clear choices between right and wrong. That is not accurate. Choices are
usually between mixtures of right and wrong: decisions are many times on the
basis of the lesser of two evile. I do mean that - even in these situations -
we may know how to follow once we've decided to do it.

It all began, of course, when he confronted four men and said "follow me™.
They made, in that instant, a decision. So, I believe, it is with us. It is
not a once and for all decision made some time in the past. It is a confron=-
tation with Jesus Christ every day of our lives. It is the call to follow him
today - this day. It is the necessity of deciding daily to be his disciple.

May God bless us, together, in our common ministry.

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