Vocational identity
A lot of theological blood has been spilt over whether ordination is about what we do, a set of functions that activate our ordination, or about who we are, a way of being in the life of the Church that is indelibly marked upon us at ordination. More technically, is ordination functional or ontological? In John’s Gospel Jesus cuts through these sorts of unnecessary distinctions with the help of his own organic analogy of the vine. He tells his disciples that they are his friends, friends who love each other. They are like the branches of a vine. They are connected to Christ as the vine and to each other as fellow branches. They have been chosen to be with Christ. Christian identity is fundamentally relational. It is a called identity, a vocational identity. This calling into Christ precedes what we do for Christ and even how we live for Christ, though at the same time it predetermines our doing and being as Christians.
Our calling into Christ is simultaneously a calling into Christ’s messianic ministry, his service. Yet Jesus says that we are not slaves who are told what they have to do and who know that their obedience is required by their position in life. We are his friends, people who have been called to be with Christ and who, being with Christ, learn to love as he loves and to do as he does. Function is a modern mechanical concept, concerned with productivity. Ontology is a Greek philosophical concept, concerned with questions of being or existence. Both may betray a predilection for power – power that comes from effective control over sources and systems, or power that comes from a permanent, guaranteed existence in the scheme of things. But the only power that Jesus offers his disciples is the power of love. It is a love that we receive through being embedded into Christ and it is a love that we embody in the life of the Christian community. This dynamic, energetic, relational vitality is the sap of Christian life that propels us into Christian ministry as we live from the life of Christ into which we have been called. All that we are in Christ and all that we do for Christ arise from a vocation, a calling into a certain sort of relation to him – a relationship of extraordinary grace.
All this applies to our baptismal identity in Christ as we share in his life and then begin to walk in his way. It also applies to the particular identity of the ordained in a particular way. Christ has called us to play our part in the life of the vine. We must now consider what that part is.
The priestly people of God
The first letter of Peter is a good guide for anyone wanting to consider the place of the ordained in the life of the people of God. The letter takes for granted the ministry of presbyters (presbuteroi in Greek, often translated as ‘elders’ in English versions of the Bible), but makes some of the strongest statements about the priestly identity of the whole people of God to be found in the New Testament.
Come to [Christ], a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ . . . you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. (1 Peter 2:4–5, 9)
We will come on to the ministry of those called to presbyteral ministry in the life of the Church in the next section of this chapter, but it is worth noting at this stage that the definition of the people of God as a priestly community, within which certain members of that community are called to exercise different ministries, is not a New Testament invention. Indeed, 1 Peter is quoting a pastiche of Old Testament references which celebrate the privilege of the covenant people to minister before Yahweh, the God of Israel, and to proclaim his works to the nations. God’s people have always been a ‘royal priesthood’ (Exodus 19:6) with certain people called from within the community to shape and to form its life so that it may witness to the world. Yet the priestly ministry of Christ adds a new dimension to the identity and activity of God’s people in the new covenant. 1 Peter’s architectural analogy of the building uses a similar structure to John’s organic image of the vine. We are keyed into Christ and our lives and service operate from Christ’s life and service. We are embedded into Christ and so we embody the characteristics of Christ.
Christ’s life is lived before God and before the whole created order. Christ is the Son whose joy is to adore the Father. The tender scene of the boy Jesus absorbed in the life of the temple, saying to his parents ‘Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house’ (Luke 2:49) is a window into the eternal intimacy of God’s Trinitarian life in which the Son, moved by the Spirit, serves the Father with irrepressible devotion. Christ is the eternal priest who lives with another for the praise of another.
Christ is also the mediator between God and the world. All things were made through him. He is God’s communication with the world and the world’s communication with God. He dwelt in the world, sharing our life (Hebrews 2:17), attracting people by his holiness, astounding them by his teaching and healing, amazing people with his humility, apprehending them even in his death and then astonishing people with his risen life. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, this was ‘a man for others’ – a human being who lived and died for the justification, reconciliation and sanctification of others. Christ is the eternal priest who lives with others for the blessing of others.
Dallas Willard is fond of saying that following Christ means doing the things that Jesus did and teaching the things that Jesus taught in the manner that Jesus did and said them.3 It is a good summary of the calling of the Church. We are not just to announce the good news of God’s coming rule and reign, we are to demonstrate the presence of God’s kingdom breaking into our world and we are to do both in such a way as to express and embody the priestly mind and method of Christ. Robert Moberly, in his seminal study of Ministerial Priesthood, described the Christlike orientation of the Church as an ‘intense “for-other-ness”’. It is manifested both in the Church’s self- giving to God and in its self-giving to the world.
The Church is priestly because from her proceeds the aroma of perpetual offering towards God. The Church is priestly because her arms are spread out perpetually to succour and intercede for those who need the sacrifice of love . . . Then the Church is God’s priest in the world and for the world, alike as presenting to God on the world’s behalf that homage which the world has not learned to present for itself, and a spending and suffering for God in service to the world.4
Moberly goes on to explain that this ‘for-other-ness’ is not merely a strategy for coping with humanity’s present problems and limitations. It is not a case of some being in need and some trying to meet that need. This way of living is actually the fulfilment of God’s design for humanity. It is, in the language of David Ford, a life lived facing God and others.5 Made in the image of God, we are created as relational beings whose full human identity can be only realized through open and respectful relationships with others. This with-other-ness and for-other-ness is the sort of life that Jesus lived – a life lived before the face of God and before the face of others, open to all the possibilities of genuine encounter that come when we allow ourselves to look into the eyes and to be seen by the eyes of another.
Being with others so that we may be for others involves more than giving ourselves to others. It also requires us to receive from others. Jesus’ devotion to God is not only the expression in the conditions of human life of the Son’s eternal glorification of the Father, it is also the mirror of the Father’s glorification of the Son and of the Son’s reception of all that the Father gives. Even Jesus’ ministry was not one-way traffic. His creation of a ‘community of the face’6