Considers the role of the church, the role of Christians in general, and the role of Christian ministers in particular. (1/19/64)
Scripture: Philippians 2:1-18
For January 19, 1964 (Seminary Sunday)
Let us pray: O Thou without whom nothing is strong and nothing is holy, may our speaking and hearing at this time be to the increase of our faith and to the quickening of our hope and love and to the glory of thy name. Amen.
As the inserts in your bulletin have indicated to you, today we are observing Seminary Sunday. As a way of beginning to think about this whole question of seminaries and the task they are trying to perform, I’d like to share with you an experience I had with the kindergarten class of our Church School a couple months ago. Mrs. Mannix arranged with me several days ahead of time to bring her kindergarten class into my study on the First Sunday of November. The purpose of their visit was to ask me what things the minister does. So on the appointed morning about seven or eight children knocked at my study door and came trooping into the room with faces bright and all aglow with expectation and with voices slightly atwitter with excitement. After they had got themselves adjusted in the oversized chairs in my study and in some of the tiny chairs that they had lugged in with them, they proceeded to ask me what some of the jobs that I perform as a minister are. Mrs. Mannix had prompted me to be sure to tell them that among other things I visit the sick people in our congregation. For they had brought along a number of get-well cards that they had made. ((Show a sample card)) And they wanted me to distribute these to some of our sick and shut-ins. Inside each card was a blue cardboard church that was to be used as a bookmark ((show sample))
On each card was written the Bible verse “serve one another in love.”
We found this verse in the Bible, in the Fifth chapter of Galatians, and talked about it a little. After a few minutes of pleasant talking together, the children thanked me and went back to their classroom. The next Sunday morning several of them were back in my study for a moment to bring me a thank you note that they had all sighed. ((Show the note and point out the signatures)) And if you have happened to be in my study at any time since then, you may have noticed this note hanging up over my typewriter with some of my other “treasures.”
Now what does this little incident have to do with Seminary Sunday? Well, just this: In their own uncomplicated way, these children were asking the question that any of us should be asking when we think of seminaries and observe Seminary Sunday. What does a minister do? What is the role of a minister?
In answering the children, I tried to respond in direct terms that they could understand: I told them some of the various jobs that a minister actually does in the course of his daily and weekly rounds. But with us who can look at this matter in more complex terms, I can say that there is a prior question which must be asked before we can deal adequately with this question of the role of minister. This prior question can be put in terms of what is the role of the church as a whole or: What is the role of all baptized people? What is our mission as the whole people of God?
There are no easy answers to these questions of the role of the whole people of God and the role of ordained minister. They are questions that have been up for much study and much re-appraisal during recent years. For example, twenty months ago two men from this church and your pastor spent three days in seminars discussing the church and its changing ministry. Similar seminars were held in many places across the country. And next month I shall be at Princeton Theological Seminary for about a week in a School for Young Pastors when a group of us who have been out of seminary three years shall be thinking through the same questions in the light of our first years in the pastorate.
Although we cannot expect to come to any exact and definitive answers to the questions about the role of all Christians and the role of ordained ministers, we still can come up with some fruitful ways of looking at the problem. And one way that we can attempt to answer these questions is suggested in the Bible passage that these kindergarten children put on their bookmark. Do you recall what it was?
“Serve one another in love!” “Serve one another in love!” This terse command can truly serve as the definition of the church. In five short words it gives us the core of the purpose of the church. “Serve one another in love.” The church uses that community or that fellowship of persons who are called out to serve one another in love. To repeat: The church is that community of that fellowship of persons who are called out to serve one another in love. Let us spend a moment considering several different segments of this definition of the church.
When we say that we in the church are to serve one another, this is referring to serving all mankind, not just other Christians. As you well know, Jesus commissioned us to tell the truth of God’s love to all creation: we are not just to tell one another about it. We are those who have been sent forth into all the world. We are to serve all persons, not just the couple hundred people in our own congregation, not just the several million who happen to be Presbyterian the world over, not just the several hundred million who happen to be Christian. The church of Christ is not a mutual back-rubbing society. We are to serve all mankind. We are to serve one another, and this means those beyond the confines of the church as well as those within the church’s membership.
The church is that community or that fellowship of persons called out to serve one another in love. The church is a community or fellowship. It is not just an aggregation of individuals. It is a closely knit group of persons bound together with a common knowledge of God’s love and with a common mission to serve one another in love. In sharing this common knowledge of God’s love, we also share a common knowledge of the importance of being forgiven and of being forgiving. We are a community of those who know that we have been forgiven by God and of those who are therefore released to forgive one another. And this being forgiven and being forgiving is that factor more than any other which molds us into one common fellowship; it is this being forgiven and being forgiving that enables us more than anything else to serve one another in love.
The church is that community or that fellowship of persons called out to serve one another in love. We are not to serve one another grimly or with resentment or with hostility or with heavy hearts and dragging feet. No, we are that fellowship of persons who serve one another in love. When we talk about love here we are not talking about erotic or romantic love; we are not talking about the kind of love which molds the sexes together or which holds husband and wife together. No, we are not talking about familial love; we are not talking about the kind of love which exists in the family between parent and child or brother and brother or brother and sister. Nor are we talking about love between friends, about that love which exists when persons share common interests, common likes, and a common sense of mutual loyalty. No, instead, we are talking about that kind of love which the New Testament speaks of as agape. We are talking about the kind of love which cuts through and goes beyond erotic love or familial love or the love between friends. It is that love which affirms the worth and the importance of the other person even when we personally may dislike the other person. It is that love which says that this other person as a child of God has a need to be accepted even though he seems unacceptable. It is that love which is able to respond to the other person and forgive him even when he has mistreated us and wronged us and hurt us deeply. It is that love which might be better termed concern and compassion and willingness to forgive. So for clarity’s sake we might rephrase this Biblical reference to say that we in the church are those who are called to serve one another in concern and compassion and a forgiving spirit.
The church is that community or fellowship of persons called out to serve one another in love. We are called out of our regular existence to be God’s special people – with the emphasis on special responsibilities rather than on special status or special privileges. And as we have just said, our special responsibility is to serve others with compassionate concern and a forgiving spirit. The New Testament word for church is “ecclesia”. This word of course has no reference at all to a building, but rather to a people, God’s people. The ecclesia are the people who are summoned or called out by God.
The people of the Old Testament saw themselves called out by God also. And as their spiritual and religious descendants we share this conception of ourselves as a church. But we who are Christians see our call centering in a special action of God – the action which sent Jesus into the world to live among us and serve us, to die for us, and to be raised for us. And so when we as Christians see ourselves as a community or fellowship of persons called out to serve one another in love, our attention is focused on the one who came into the world to show us how to do this and to call us out for this special purpose. Our attention is focused upon Jesus Christ.
Jesus came into the world not only to tell us to serve one another in life; he came to show us how to do this, and he came to show us by actually doing this himself. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians he tells us that Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. So when we as Christians look at ourselves as servants, we have in Jesus Christ a model of what it is to be a servant. Bishop John A. T. Robinson in his excellent book Honest to God points out that Jesus can be seen in all that he was and in all that he did as “a man for others.” And this might be used as a definition of a servant. A servant is one who “is a man for others.” A servant is one who lives not according to his own will, but according to the will of God; and this means that he lives the law of love, he serves other persons in love.
So we have now come to some understanding of what the church is. The church is that community or that fellowship of persons who are called to serve one another in love. But now how do we see the role of the minister within the context of the church? Is his role the same as any Christian, or is there something distinctive about the role of the minister? In certain respects both these questions can be answered in the affirmative. For in certain very important ways the minister has the same functions as other Christians; and in other ways he has functions that can be seen as distinctive with his role.
The minister shares with other Christians the role of being a part of that community or the fellowship of persons who are called to serve one another in love. Like any Christian the minister is part of the community of the church; he is part of that fellowship of persons who know that they are forgiven, who know that God’s action in Christ is the source and proof of this forgiveness, and who know that being forgiving is what makes all the difference in human relationships. Like any Christian the minister has been called out. He is a member of God’s people along with all other Christians. Like any Christian the minister is to serve others. He is to follow Christ’s example of being a servant. And like any Christian the minister is to perform this service in love. He is to serve others with a spirit of concern and compassion and forgiveness.
Although the minister shares with other Christians the role of being a member of the community or fellowship of those who serve one another in love, there is still a distinctive role that the minister performs. This distinctive role might be put in terms of being a servant of servants. In other words, he has the special task of helping other persons see and perform their Christian role of being servants – servants of one another in love. All Christians have the task of serving other persons with compassionate concern. The minister’s special task as servant of servant’s is to facilitate this process – to serve others in such a way that they are better able themselves to carry out the purpose and function of the church – to serve others in such a way that they are better able to be servants of one another.
To view the minister as a servant of servants has a number of ramifications. Some of the ramifications involve what this view of the role of the minister does not mean. First of all, to be a servant of servants has nothing whatsoever to do with being a dictator – whether the dictation be in terms of what to believe or how to run the local church organization or how to live an ethical life. Perhaps a few or more than a few ministers do have this conception of their role, and so do a few or more than a few laymen. A minister may lead and initiate things, as may any active layman. But to have one person who calls all the shots is not consistent with the minister’s role as servant of servants. Secondly, to be a servant of servants does not mean that a minister is paid by a congregation to lead an exemplary life while others in the congregation live as they please. Every now and then we hear such statements as “Well, a minister just shouldn’t do such a thing,” with the apparent implication that it’s not so bad for a layman to do the same thing. This whole discussion of leading an ethical life tends toward phariseeism anyway. It beclouds the fact that all of us fall short of the glory of God, that all of us need to be constantly dependent upon God’s grace, that all of us are saved through our trust in God and not through any supposed good works on our part. This is not to say that acts of concern and compassion never are accomplished by Christians (whether they be clergymen or laymen), for obviously many Christians do become more loving and more forgiving and more compassionate as they mature in the faith. But this is a result of their trust in God and their dependence upon him and not just the result of trying to live a good life.
A third ramification of this concept of the minister as servant of servants is that it does not mean that the minister is to follow just the dictates of the members of the congregation that he serves. Just as the minister cannot dictate (cannot lay down the law) for the layman, so also the laymen cannot dictate or lay down the law to the minister. All of us (clergymen and laymen) are servants to others, it is true, but it is also true that we owe our prime allegiance to the Lord God. We are first of all a servant people of a servant Lord; and it is because of this primary allegiance and primary relationship to God that we are enabled to serve one another in love.
A final way of looking at this concept in terms of what it does not mean is to say that to be a servant of servants does not mean that the minister is to be a servant to a group of persons who do nothing for themselves. A minister is not to be a servant to some kind of leisure class; no, he is called to be a servant to a bunch of workers, so to speak. The minister is not doing his job of helping his people be better servants in compassionate concern if he works feverishly while the others in the church keep on the fringes of things. No, he is doing his job best when the laymen in the church are deeply involved in study, in the worship, in the life of the congregation. And in serving the church in the community, for we are called to be servants in the world and not just in the confines of the organized church.
But enough of the negative reflections of this concept. Enough about what this idea of the minister as servant of servants does not mean. Let us say a word now about the positive ramifications, about what this idea does mean. Well, if a minister and his congregation take the view of his role seriously, then all of them will determine what he is to do, and will judge the effectiveness of what he does, according to what degree he is helping those in his flock become more effective servants of one another in love. No matter what he does, the criterion of its effectiveness is whether he is helping other Christians love God and neighbor, whether he is helping them to pay their allegiances to God and to indicate that allegiance by becoming better servants in the world.
Another positive ramification of this view of the ministry of servant of servants may mean a realignment of thinking about first what tasks are the exclusive prerogative of the minister, and secondly what the aim of any tasks are when a minister performs them (whether or not they are his exclusive prerogative). So far as I know there are only two tasks specifically reserved for clergy according to the Presbyterian Constitution. One is to marry people. And this of course is reserved for the minister only if the marriage is under the auspices of the church. A Presbyterian layman who is a judge or justice of the peace may marry persons, but this is then a civil and not a Christian marriage. The second task which is the exclusive right of the minister is to administer the sacraments. Even here laymen have an integral part in the service. The third task is to moderate a meeting of the Session. But all other tasks which ministers ordinarily perform are not only to be performed by them. These include preaching, teaching, calling and counseling, being a prophet (that is, a critic of the culture and of the society in the light of God’s word), and various administrative tasks.
What does this all have to do with the local churches and with the seminaries of our church that we help support through our benevolence giving? Well, this places a rather heavy burden upon local congregations, for it is up to us to find and encourage the young men and women who are qualified to be trained as ministers, as the kind of ministers who will be good servants of servants. To find many such people is not easy. For this task requires not only the intellectual ability to handle graduate work, but also the potentiality at least of emotional maturity – the kind of maturity which will be able to cope with temptations to dictate or to cater to the dictations of others, the kind of maturity which will be able to resist the fallacious idea that any human being can really lead a model life, the kind of maturity and skill which will help him involve persons in the total participation of serving – serving God out of joyful thanksgiving, serving other persons out of concern and compassion and forgiving love. And then it is up to the seminaries to take these persons whom we find and send to them – to take these young men and women and train them. This training involved helping them develop this maturity that we have recognized in its potential state. This training involves teaching Bible and church history and biblical languages and theology so that the minister can have enough basis for proclaiming the Word of God in his preaching and in his conversions – proclaiming it as faithfully as possible. It involved not only teaching the content of these subjects, but teaching methods of interpretation and methods of study so that he can continue to learn in these fields as he proceeds in his ministry. No minister can serve other servants if he is not grounded in the Word of God. Then this training involves teaching enough fundamentals of education that he can teach effectively and help train others to preach. No minister can teach others their role of servants if he lacks any ability. This training involves teaching enough of the dynamics of personality from psychology and other related sciences that the minister may have some proficiency in his calling and counseling – so that through these media he may help free persons to be better servants of one another. This training involves teaching enough sociology and enough Christian ethics so that the minister can be a constructive critic of the culture and the society and so that he may help those he is serving do likewise.
This is an age when it is far from easy for Christians to be servants of others in love. It is a time when it is likewise difficult to be a minister who strives to be a servant of others in love. It is a time when it is likewise difficult to be a minister who strives to be a servant of these servants. But it is a time when our world needs our service sorely – the service of all of us, clergymen and laymen alike. To help facilitate this service of compassion and concern, all of us need to put forth the effort to discover those young people in our midst who can be trained to fulfill this role of minister constructively and creatively. And to provide the proper training for these persons whom we discover, we shall need to equip our seminaries with able professors and adequate facilities so that they are enabled to do the job of training ministers for us faithfully and effectively.
Let us pray: O Lord our God, equip us all for our service to thee and to the world. But especially we would pray thee to help us faithfully to prepare those who in time to come will help thy people in the holy service of love. In the name of him who cared enough to give his life totally for our sakes, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Sermon copyright © 1964 by Marjorie D. Palmer and
the direct descendants of William E. Palmer
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