My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ

These thoughts were originally meant to be posted on our web-site to inform and stimulate our debate on the role of the clergy. Unfortunately time constraints have meant that this has become the meditation for the Ad Clerum. My meditations on the key points of the vision will resume in June.

In attempting to write this paper, I have become aware of how many diversionary issues - the fact that we make deacons, ordain priests and consecrate bishops; the difference in role and function between deacons and priests; and the differing roles of self-supported and stipendiary clergy, or between rectors and assistant clergy - could bog down our discussions. In an attempt to avoid this, I have not tried to define differences in role and function, but have addressed the problem of the role of clergy generically. Similarly I have treated the setting apart of deacons, priests and bishops in the singular concept of ordination.

In her book "In the Stillness You Will Know" Barbara Fiand writes:

"Our time is one of extraordinary transition and upheaval the likes of which have perhaps never been seen before. The security of age-old and long trusted worldviews and of the religions built within their perspectives is literally imploding before our very eyes. Old answers are simply no longer adequate for age-old questions; new questions are emerging every day and clamouring for answers."

The turmoil of change challenges the church in ways that demand new responses from its clergy; responses for which they have often not been trained. This generates confusion and uncertainty about ministry and raises the inevitable question: "What is the role of the priest or deacon in the world today?" It is not surprising, therefore, that so much has been written in recent years on the changing role of the clergy. Much of what has been written focuses on roles and duties, as if re-defining changing roles in response to changing expectations will resolve the problem. I suspect that the problem is deeper and begs the question as to why we need clergy at all.

If the role of the clergy can be redefined simply in terms of function and is reducible to a one or two page job description, then ordination is not a sacrament; it bestows no grace, but simply authorises function. But if ordination is a sacrament, then the grace of the sacrament is crucial to our understanding of the role of the clergy.

Ordination can be understood only in terms of the community of faith and the ministry of all believers. Jesus is our great high priest (Heb 3:1; 7:26). It is he who calls us to be a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people who declare the wonderful deeds of the Lord (1Peter 2:9). We are all ministers of Christ because we are baptised into Christ and share in Christ's ministry. We are not ordained into ministry, but baptised into it. It's a call to live our lives as an offering of praise to God and of giving ourselves to God for God's work in the world. It is a calling to live in God and for God, and to live with others and for others. Every baptised person is equally a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Nevertheless, from within the people of God some are called, through ordination, to be deacons, priests, and bishops. It is a call of God - "You did not choose me, I chose you." - and discerned by the church. As such it cannot be understood simply in terms of function; it has an ontological reality. Clergy, following ordination, do not merely enter into a new occupation, a new profession, and assume a new role. Ordination is sacramental. Through it God's grace acts indelibly in the life of the person to confer a new identity "en Xristo" (in Christ).

It is not so much what we do, but who we have become in Christ that sets us apart. I believe that it is the loss of awareness of this sense of being that has contributed so significantly to the crisis of the role of the clergy. While every Christian is called to live "in Christ," we who are ordained are called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to be the living and transparent image of Christ within the faith community and to nurture that image in those entrusted to our care. We occupy a special place, living in the holy space between heaven and earth, shaped by prayer, rooted in God. We become a sacrament of the church, an outward and visible sign of a gracious God.

In other words, the sacrament of ordination makes visible in us that Christian sanctity and holiness to which every Christian is called. If we are all called to holiness then we, as clergy, have a responsibility to grow in holiness if we are to act effectively in persona Christi. Relationship with God, therefore, is of the essence. Theophan, the Recluse, knew this when he said:-

"Prayer is the test of everything; prayer is also the source of everything; prayer is the driving force of everything; prayer is also the director of everything. If prayer is right, everything is right."

Scripture is the written word that leads us to the living word. It is the first word - God's word - to which our life in prayer is a response. "Ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ," says St Augustine. Lectio divina is not so much a technique of prayer as a means of allowing God greater entry into our lives. Prayer is essential if we are to be conformed to Christ and ought, therefore, to be our natural everyday environment which must be defended against the unrelenting utilitarian pressures and demands of parish life. "Train yourself in godliness" (1 Tim 4:7) for only then can we "glorify daily life with the glow of heaven;" only then can we honestly ask others, as Paul did, to imitate us.

But our calling is not simply to be, but also to do. Even as we are called into God, so equally we are called into the community of faith. We are ordained to be sacraments to the church, channels of grace; "walking sacraments through whom the presence of Christ can be touched" (Cocksworth). More than simply signs and symbols of grace, we have a vocation to be animators, activators and enablers of the true identity, life and ministry of the people of God. We are called to be an alter Christus, the pastoral leader who as a servant-shepherd protects and nurtures God's people so that they might grow in holiness.

Our vocation is, therefore, inextricably linked to the community of faith and cannot be lived outside of it. We cannot grow in the holiness that is crucial to our credibility as clergy outside the community of faith. We become holy in the community of faith through the surrender of our lives in love and leadership and as we, in turn, are enriched and enlivened by those we serve. It is servant leadership "in Christ," in which each of us are caught up in and dependent upon the other in a mutually enriching relationship of mutual indwelling.

Once we recognise that our vocation is not to privilege or status, but to be Christ to others, then our role as clergy falls into place and can be described in many ways. Jesus described his ministry in the words of Isaiah: "He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, liberation of the oppressed." As an alter Christus those words should have some resonance for our ministry.

Writing long before the ordination of women, Michael Ramsey spoke of the role of the priest as "the man of theology … the minister of reconciliation … the person of prayer … the celebrant at the Eucharist …displaying, enabling, involving the life of the Church. The categories and tasks remain valid, even though our responses will change to reflect the changing realities of our times. In a more modern idiom, as I have already said, it is the call to be animators, activators and enablers; aligning our people around a vision of the kingdom of God, to model that kingdom life in our lives, and to enable those we serve to be a kingdom people.

But as we prepare to discuss the role of the clergy, I want to leave you a three-fold image for your meditation. It is this; that of clergy as poet, prophet, pilgrim.

Poet:

Good news demands a voice of prophetic imagination that moves the hearer. That good news is rooted in the unshakeable conviction that God's sovereign rule is displacing the present socio-political systems and generating a new order that reveals God's purposes for creation. Poetic speech shatters the illusions of our present reality, exposes the promises of politicians that are devoid of real hope and, instead, invokes the truth about God to evoke the truth about human destiny. It generates hope and deep hunger for a different way of living and is an invitation to the joy of being a pilgrim, an invitation that demands of its hearer two crucial and daring moves: relinquishment and receiving.

Prophet:

For the poetic voice to carry weight it requires prophetic action, an integrity between our words and our life. The new creation imaginatively envisioned must be glimpsed in the life of the poet. Eternal life becomes reality not through theological and philosophical argument, but in the experience of how the faith community actually lives. As clergy we are called to lifestyles of prophetic difference - lives of wonder - in which the glow of heaven is visible and shared. As the human face of God in their world, we are signs of things to come, living reminders of where truth and life are to be found.

Pilgrim:

We have not yet arrived; we are pilgrims on a journey, dying and being born again day by day as we are being transformed into the very likeness of God. We do not yet appear what we shall be, and so can confess our faults and failings freely and graciously accept the help, support and encouragement of our fellow pilgrims. It is pilgrimage of community that leads us into community. We walk together in humility and in a growing common trust and obedience to the voice of our pilgrim God. We are a people who by grace are returning from a place of exile into the promised land of God. And by the grace of ordination, we as clergy are called to lead the way.

May our ministry and our lives glow with the glory of the indwelling Christ.

+Brian

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