POWER TO THE PEOPLE John M, Buchanan
I Corinthians 12:4+13 Broad Street Presbyterian Church

April 27, 1980 Columbus, Ohio

A friend of mine couldn't wait to tell me about an incident which happened in the
family car around noon on Sunday on the way home from church. He and his family are
members of Trinity Episcopal and apparently each week his children comment on whether
or not they are getting home before the members of this congregation.

One Sunday morning our parking lot was still full as they drove by and his young
son said, “Look, Dad, we beat the Pedestrians this morning."

I didn't think it was nearly.as funny as he did. In fact, I told him that's the
kind of thing Anglicans have been saying about Presbyterians ever since English troops
chased Scottish covenanters up into the hills several centuries ago.

We are pretty pedestrian. Our liturgy isn't very fancy. Presbyterians have been
known to have major arguments about whether there ought to be candles in church.
Our highest officer is called a stated clerk and, nationally, we spend a Lot of time
trying to keep him humble. We don't have bishops, our clergy have very little authority
by themselves. We are, frankly, rather intentionally pedestrian. And once a year we
affirm it in a rite which is Presbyterianism at its most Presbyterian ~ the Ordination
of Elders and Deacons.

It is the essence of the Presbyterian idea. It is not simply a gesture. It is
not the same, for instance, as the old Layman's Sunday concept - the occasion upon which
nervous doctors, lawyers, teachers or bricklayers were asked to act like clergy...That
4) is a gesture, The ordination of lay persons in Presbyterianism means, first,that the
power in this organization is with the people, and second, that the idea of vocation
applies not to clergy alone, but to all Christian people.

The first of those ideas - that power resides in the people is, as you recognize,
the pivotal concept in Republican Democracy and, as such, perhaps the most dynamic idea
C4) in Western Givilization. It germinated in the Renaissance: it began to surface in the
ideas of Martin Luther and John Calvin: it flowered in the eighteenth century, finally
expressing itself in the fluid prose of Thomas Jefferson regarding"self-evident truths"
and unalienable rights and "that to secure these rights governments are instituted...
Ge deriving their just powers from the consent of the government..." "Power to the people",
k it wasn't invented in Berkeley in the 60's. It's as old as the Reformation, and before
that it has its roots in the remarkable experience of those remarkable saints - the

first Christians. Ae Db. G&G few -

Jn Corinth the issue of who shall exercise power was first joined, as it always is,
at the point of deciding whose particular function is most important for the overall
welfare of the organization. Those Corinthians were a very interesting bunch: vigorous,
contentious, competitive and as soon as they organized themselves into something
called the Ecclesia - the Church - they began to argue about who would be the boss, and
whose special function was most important.

When Paul heard about their arguing he wrote a letter...There are many gifts, he
told them; many different skills and abilities. God needs them ail. None is more
important, more necessary, more holy than any of the others. In facet, the church is
like a body - dependent on all of its parts performing the function they were best suited
to perform,

~2-

The point is that there is no ecclesiastical caste system: there are a variety
of ways to be a Christian; no one way is more important, more pleasing to God, than
another way. Unfortunately, much of that has been lost on the church. Very early in
tts life the Christian Church borrowed two time honored ideas from the world. The
first was the hierarchical model for exercise of power and authority. Just as a
Kingdom needed a King, an Empire an emperor, an army a general, so the church as
organization needed a leader, a head, a boss. Just as the world granted status,
privilege and rank to its leaders, so the church rather quickly followed suit with its
clergy. The second idea was borrowed from Greek philosophy; namely, that all reality
can be divided into two categories - spirit and flesh, sacred and secular. The realm
of religion was seen to be distinct, apart from the world.

When those two ideas combine - the hierarchical model of leadership and the
dichotomy between religion and the rest of life, the result simply put, is two kinds
of Christians - clergy and laity. One, granted the special status of leadership, is
isolated from the world, undefiled by such worldly concerns as earning a living and
raising a family: the other is emersed in the world but dependent now on the religious
specialist to grant access to the holy; through prayer - which it was assumed they
could do best, through the reading of sacred texts - which were kept in a language only
they could read, and through sacred ritual which ordination permitted them alone to
perform. The clergy had a vocation, which means a calling, given by God. The laity
were less fortunate, but free to pursue life on the basis of other considerations.

Now that is a very long way from the content of I Corinthians 12 in particular
and New Testament theology in general. But it has been an altogether durable heresy.
Twenty centuries later we are still operating with a slightly modified version of the
same system. Clergy, it is assumed rather universally, should have been called by God
to their profession, Doctors, teachers, mechanics come to theirs by an altogether
different route. Clergy are specialists: the wniversal assumption is that they know
about God, can pray better and longer and more effectively than the laity. And, some-
where inside all of us there lingers that old, old notion that to be a minister one
must not be worldly. I still don't know whether to be flattered or insulted when some-
one says, "You don't look like a minister.'' Charles M, Smith in How to Become a Bishop
Without Being Religious, advises that a successful preacher will "gather up in himself
a host of characteristics which advertise that here is a man of much prayer, disentagled
from the secular, soiling concerns which obsess most men...You may have a taste for
shaggy sport coats, bright ties and the like. You must ruthlessly suppress it." The
real tragedy, however, is not in the popular stereotype of ministers, but in the
resultant idea of the laity. The tragedy is that the entire Protestant experiment was
born in an idea so revolutionary that it would have erased all the distinctions within
the people of God, Listen to this significant paragraph from Presbyterian historian
Leonard Trinterud. "The ministry, said Calvin, is a function of the whole church, dis-
tributed among the members according as God has given to each various gifts and
capacities and corresponding calls. Calvin rejected the concept embodied in the terms
‘clergy’ and 'laity'. The ministry is not an order of men, religiously different from
those who are supposedly merely laymen. ‘The ministry is not even a group of men. The
ministry is basically the church fulfilling its God-given task." (Zhe Church and Its
Changing Ministry, p. 46}.

At the time of the Reformation it was called the "Priesthood of all Believers".
It was the revolutionary concept that the task of the clergy, while requiring full-time
effort, was essentially no more important and certainly no more holy, than any task
performed by any other person, I continue to believe that this idea, to which we pay
occasional lip service, is one of the most dynamic ideas within the Christian faith,
and that it has ramifications far beyond the life of the institutional church,

-3-

Consider, for instance, the broader implications. We assume that God calls
people to the clergy; that to be a minister is a hely calling. But what if God is
equally interested in politics, and homemaking and the law? What if God's call may
be answered in a variety of ways depending on the particular skills and abilities He
has already given the person? Elton Trueblood put it eloquently: "The exciting idea
behind the New Testament use of ‘calling' is that ours is God's world, in all its parts.
The way in which we grow potatoes is as much a matter of God's will as is the way in
which we pray or sing." (Your Other Calling).

The radical message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that God really loves the
world, The world is where His work is done. What that means personally is that God
values what you do in the world. Regardless of how you earn your living, or how you
spend your time, it is of interest to God. He calls you to de it fer His glory. In
fact, because you spend most of your time in the world and not in the church,your
opportunity to be an effective disciple of Jesus Christ and therefore an important part

“of the church, is far greater than the opportunity a clergyman has. Hans-Ruedi Weber

wrote: "Christ does not grant special gifts only to men and women who are full-time,
lifetime employees of the Church. All the people of God share in Christ's ministry in
and to the world, on the front lines. But the work of front-line soldiers belongs
especially to laymen, who spend most of their waking hours in social, political, economic
and cultural areas where the decisive battles of faith are being fought," (Op.cit. p.12).
That is to say, God's work may be talked about, planmed and celebrated in this building.
But it happens elsewhere - in the State House, a courtroom and banks and schools,

The simple fact is that you - where you are most of the time - will determine how
the important issues of life are resolved, You, not the clergy, are involved in making
this community livable: the vital decisions are made in your offices as you make the
city go financially and legally and commercially, in your clinic or operating room or
classroom. You are called in that context to be disciples of Jesus Christ. Your
vocation is to be His special person in the world, wherever and however you earn your
living and spend your time.

J.H,Oldham once asked, "Why should a scientist or engineer or an administrator
attach any great importance to religion unless it says to him: - 'In the work you are
doing day by day you are a partner of God in His work of creation and the realization
of His purpose for the (human family).'" (Ibid, p.62).

The radical message of the New Testament is that you are, or can be, God's partner:
that He has called you, however exalted or modest you are to an important work. He has
called you to heal or to create or to build or to teach. He has called you to help
someone else, to extend compassion and caring to someone who needs you. That is His
work too, When a child is healed - when a difficult pelitical decision is made
honestly ~- when parent and teenager extend grace and forgiveness - God's call has been
answered,

The Presbyterian idea depends on a common understanding that power here belongs to
the people ~ and out there too. We are vigorously democratic, or pedestrian, if you will.
It also depends on the radically New Testament idea that Jesus Christ calls each one of
us to follow Him by using the special gifts God has given us in His service.

Wir Shette h-

~4&-

What I want to suggest is that God's call to you is not necessarily a mystical
voice telling you what to do. Rather His call - comes in the form of that special
gift He has given to you. Our faith is that in Jesus Christ God has shown how
deeply He cares about the world. in Christ, He has torn down the barriers we
construct between sacred and secular. The world is Holy - made Holy by God's love.
We are called, you and I, in Jesus Christ, to use what God has given us.

May I suggest that there is nothing more joyful and exciting and satisfying than
to know what God has given, to claim it as one's own...and then to put it to work in
the world? May God grant us to be one body in His service. May He grant you a sensé
ef your own gifts, a joy in owning them and that satisfaction in using them in the

church and in the world for His glory.
Amen,

Almighty God, for all Your gifts we give You thanks, For those You have called
today to special service among us: for those who have served well in the past: for
the rich diversity of this congregation, we give thanks.

Lead us, Father, in the days ahead. Give us strength and courage and love to

be Your people: through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.