Preacher, Chris Ayers

 

1 Corinthians 13:4-31

Ephesians 4:11-16

Do you have clothes in your closet you need to get rid of?

My closet is jammed full of shirts and pants and shoes and T-shirts I’ll never wear again, and God only knows why I hold onto them. I’ve got one pair of blue jeans that should have been discarded ten years ago. In the waist they are size---well, that’s none of your business. Let’s just say it would take a miracle right up there with Jesus’s walking on the water for me to ever get my 40 year-old body back in that pair of jeans. The jeans need to go.

There are other items of clothing in my closet unnecessarily taking up real estate. Let me see, how can I describe them? Out of style. I don’t care very much about what’s in style and out of style. I don’t mind wearing something that is not in vogue, but I’ve got shirts that date back to the reign of King Elvis. In other words, I’ve still got clothes I shaked, rattled and rolled in. One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and four to go.

I need to get rid of some clothes, clean my closet out. I’m not saying I should discard everything. I don’t want to get rid of the shoes I’m wearing this morning. I know they are 15 years-old. I am aware they’ve been reconditioned three times. These shoes are like cats with nine lives. I’ll probably be wearing these shoes when Jesus comes back. These shoes are good shoes and I want to keep them. So I’m not saying just because something is old it’s got to go. I’m indicating, though, that from time to time I need to sift through my wardrobe and keep some things and throw some other things away.

I’m not so sure that wouldn’t be a bad thing for the Church to do. And by Church I mean not only Wedgewood, but also the Church universal. From time to time the Church needs to clean out its closet.

One of the items I have been debating about whether the Church should take out of its closet is the practice of ordination. In recent years I have been struggling with the question, Is ordination a heresy?

I haven't always been this confused. No, for most of my life the practice of ordination has been a practice unexamined, but passionately held onto.

That's the way we so often live our lives, I think. Unexamined, but passionately held. Or, if not passionately held, we live lives that have hardened into concrete.

What is true of our personal lives, may be even truer of institutions, institutions like churches that have engaged in practices for so long they don't think twice about whether or not to do something.

It seems to me that if churches are to have certain practices, the practices ought to be continually examined to see if they are appropriate to the faith community. And if they are appropriate, the meaning and purpose and dangers of such practices should not go without being underscored and highlighted.

One of the reasons I’ve been wondering about this matter of ordination is because on November 1 we are scheduled to ordain four new deacons: Laura Carey, Jane Esdale, Sylvia Newton, and Greg Pankey. Of course, it’s nothing personal with respect to these people. It would not matter who was being ordained. It would not matter if we were ordaining St. Augustine or the Pope or the Apostle Paul or Jesus Christ. I still would question if ordaining deacons is good for the life of a church.

Wedgewood also has the ordination of Glenn Johnson on our plate. Glenn’s ordination council is meeting on October 26.

Glenn is the Business Administrator at First Methodist Church in Gastonia and is seeking ordination as a Minister of Administration. At Wedgewood we are not familiar with such an ordination. We’re a small faith community not big enough to hire a business administrator. But many churches do have business administrators. And as you learned from reading the statistics in last week’s Wedgewood Words, most business administrators, almost all Baptist business administrators, get ordained.

But my question is not so much whether Glenn or any business administrator should be ordained, but whether anybody, pastors, associate pastors, ministers of music, ministers of Christian education, ministers to senior citizens, youth ministers, children’s ministers, chaplains, pastoral counselors, whether anybody should be ordained.

Some days I feel like taking my nicely framed ordination certificate with the signatures of all the people who served on my two ordination councils on it---some days I feel like taking that piece of paper and throwing it into the trash can.

I do not say that lightly because my ordination process was very meaningful to me. I went before a committee at my church and they were so encouraging. I got a lot of pats on the back. They told me I was too idealistic about church, but churches could benefit from my idealism.

I also went before an association committee. They asked me this and they asked me that, and besides one minister who was a jerk---he was trying to let everyone know how smart he was---besides that one rascal, it was a very positive experience, an experience I have held onto all these years.

So I do not say carelessly or recklessly that I fantasize about throwing my ordination certificate into the garbage. I just want you to know that I wonder, I really wonder if my being ordained or any staff person at a church being ordained is a good thing for a faith community.

Ordination of staff people seems to set up a two-level ethic. Ordained people are held to a higher standard of discipleship. Ordained individuals get put on pedestals.

In the gospels, though, I don’t see Jesus making any such distinction. Gerhard Lohfink has pointed out that although Jesus required some of his disciples to leave their homes to follow Jesus, others were not required to do so. The important point, however, is that radical discipleship was demanded of both groups, not just the ones who left their homes and spouses and children. Radical discipleship was expected of every person, even if that radical discipleship took different forms.

Lohfink goes on to point out that it is very difficult in the gospels to distinguish between instructions for the whole people of God and instructions to the 12.

I would add that it is interesting that when Jesus chose his 12 disciples, not one of them, not one of them was on the temple payroll. Jesus, it would appear, had a preference for non-professional, non-ordained ministers.

I can’t believe I said that. But it’s true. It’s true.

What if ordaining professional ministers, what if having professional ministers, sets up churches to be like southern ice tea that sits for so long that it tastes more like weird, undrinkable water than tea?

And what if ordaining deacons sets the church up to be like a weed-infested vegetable garden, or like an airport with no planes landing or taking off, or like Quaker grits that have caked up and are not edible?

I turned to my Broadman’s Minister’s Manual this week and I was surprised to find the statement that "although the New Testament does not teach that ordination is an essential requirement for equipping leaders for their ministry, the ceremony seems in no way to conflict with New Testament principles." Well, we could debate that last point, especially in light of how ordination in our day has become a matter of status and power and honor and privilege. Jesus did have a few negative things to say about those sorts of issues, didn’t he? But I find myself grateful for the acknowledgement that the New Testament does not teach that ordination is an essential requirement for equipping leaders in their ministry.

I’m not trying to be difficult. Really, I’m not. I hope we ordain Glenn as a Minister of Administration. And I’m looking forward to the ordinations of Laura and Jane and Sylvia and Greg, as long as, as long as ordination is understood as setting people apart for a specific function in the church, and as long as it has nothing to do with the establishment of a two level ethic, or the conferring of power or status or honor or privilege.

It shouldn’t be an honor to be a deacon.

Being a deacon is not what you ask the best possible people in the church to be. You ask the people to be deacon who can help the church and its people bear one another’s burdens.

Set apart for a particular ministry. I think that is the best understanding of ordination.

And who is to be set apart? All of us. Every last one of us. I believe ordination should be kept in the Church’s closet only if, only if the Church ordains every church member. If we are going to practice ordination, either everyone is ordained or no one should be ordained.

Why should certain roles in the church be valued more than others? Have we never understood why Jesus washed the disciples’ nasty, smelly, fungus-infested feet?

Either we ordain everyone or we ordain no one.

How often should every person be ordained? Well, whenever someone gets a new call.

What if every year we were to ask people what they were called to do in the church and for the kingdom of God? What if people prayed about it, then publicly stated what they believed God wanted them to do. And what if we had a service of ordination in which we laid hands on, ordained, each person in our congregation? What if we made responding to our call the center of the life of this congregation? Imagine what God might do with us.

Think about what happens when church members do not concentrate on their call. We focus on the negative, not the positive. We end up obsessing about our disappointments with others. Certain church members do not behave the way we would like for them to behave or they do not believe what we believe.

Of course, focusing on call does not take away our disappointment with others or our frustration over our inability to fix or change others, but it does enable us to do something constructive for the kingdom of God, something that does not always happen when we are paralyzed by our frustrations. Focusing on our call helps us to keep other things in perspective. And it also helps us put up with other people because if we see other individuals responding to their call, if we see God working in their lives, then it’s a little harder to crucify them.

You know, ole Betty Baptist, she’s a real pain in the neck. She is far too pushy. She’s loud and she’s got a big mouth, but you know, Betty Baptist feels called to the practice of prayer. She sent me a card the other week. Said she was praying for me. She knew this week was going to be tough for me. Yes, Betty can get on your last nerve, but I appreciate, I am thankful for her praying for me and for others in the community.

Imagine what could happen in a church if everyone, everyone was ordained each year.

The apostle Paul told the Corinthian Christians that there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit, and that there are varieties of services, but the same Lord. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit. For what? Not for personal growth. No, for the common good.

Writing to the Ephesian church, Paul says the gifts are given to equip the saints for ministry. Gifts given for ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. Each part of Christ’s body, each church member, is joined together, Paul says. And if each part is working properly, if every each person is following her or his call, the church, Paul observes, grows, grows in love.

That’s what I’ve been trying to say. Paul just said it more eloquently.

Is ordination a heresy? If it is not a heresy, why are some ordained and some are not? Does the Church’s current practice of ordination set it up to be like a weed-infested vegetable garden?

 

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