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Sunday, May 03, 2009
THE MINISTRY OF THE LAITY AND THE MINISTRY OF THE ORDAINED
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Scripture: Titus 1:4-7a Good News Bible translation
4 I write to Titus, my true son in the faith that we have in common. May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior give you grace and peace. 5 I left you in Crete, so that you could put in order the things that still needed doing and appoint church elders in every town. Remember my instructions: 6 an elder must be without fault; he must have only one wife, and his children must be believers and not have the reputation of being wild or disobedient. 7 For since a church leader is in charge of God's work, he should be without fault.
Last Wednesday night I was in a very exciting and inspiring meeting in our home. Judy and I, along with my clergy colleagues, Cindy Bates and Jerry Herships, hosted most of the nine members of our church who are currently in seminary or just out of seminary preparing for ordination as United Methodist Ministers. Our District Superintendent was present as was Chuck Borgman, the chairperson of our staff parish relations committee, the group in charge of helping to decide about each person’s gifts and promise for ministry. I was humbled and inspired by this wonderful group of women and men.
They represent all ages and backgrounds. As we talked about their journey and call to ordained ministry, we heard some similarities. Several people had been deeply affected by their Disciple Bible study classes. Others, including myself, have been touched and formed by the youth ministry of the churches in which we grew up. Others of us have been greatly helped by teachers, such as Marcus Borg, who have let us know that we can move beyond the Biblical literalism we have grown up with and not have to leave our brains at the door when we come to church.
I want us to think this morning about what it means to be in ministry as lay persons and as clergy. I am assuming that every baptized Christian is in ministry in their daily setting of work and family and social relationships. We are starting with the words from a church leader around 1900 years ago, probably not Paul, who writes this letter to another leader named Titus talking about some of the qualities needed to be an elder in a community of faith. Paul didn’t write this because Paul had been executed thirty years before this question of what the church organization should be like and what the designated/appointed leaders should be like.
Let us begin with the belief that each of you, each person who has publicly affirmed faith in Christ and who has been baptized/joined in the faith community, each of us is in ministry. Our United Methodist church assumes this when our Book of Order talks about those who are ordained. Each layperson is called to carry out Christ’s great commission to be in the world inviting others to new life by our words and deeds. Most of you will have more influence and more effect than I will. Every Christian is in ministry by representing the mind of Christ and the values and ethics and compassion of Christ every day.
In addition to that, the spiritual community has needed, over the years, other designated leaders to be set apart to teach, lead, train, equip all Christians to do that work of inviting and serving and acting with justice and compassion. We have called those persons ordained clergy, pastors. The pastors’ main job is to help form and equip all persons to know the mind and heart of Christ and to live the mind and heart of Christ. The work of the ordained is not more holy or more important to God than the work of the laity, it is just different.
Let me tell you the names of the people whom many of you know who are on the journey of becoming pastors and ordained clergy from our congregation. They are Ryan Canady and Lisa Petty who are about to graduate from the Iliff School of Theology in just a few weeks. Ryan is the part time campus minister at the University of Denver. Lisa is the full time assistant youth director on our staff here. Stacy Spehn is also on the St. Andrew staff and is in her second quarter at Iliff. Steve Starliper is working in the business world and pursuing classes part time at Iliff. Bill Stevenson, from our congregation, has left a long and distinguished career as legal counsel with Farmer’s Insurance and is in his first quarter of classes at Iliff. Schawn Kellogg has continued her full time work as a nurse at Skyridge Hospital and been in classes at Iliff as well. Shani Jones, Schawn’s sister, is on the St. Andrew staff part time in adult education and has been an Iliff student for the past two or three years. Steve Risley is continuing his work as an architect in private practice as he has been taking classes at Iliff and at University of Denver and has just applied for the Master of Divinity degree at Iliff to pursue ordained ministry. Dottie Mann has just recently finished her seminary training at Iliff and is working as a hospital chaplain while she has just been affirmed by our congregation in her first steps toward ordination as a United Methodist minister.
Most of these folks were able to be in this inspiring first meeting of the group in our home this past week. The ninth person, we celebrate in seminary right now, is Jon Wilterdink who grew up in this church and is just completing his second year of seminary at Garrett School of Theology in Chicago and working part time in youth ministry at a church there.
This is a very special and talented group of people. It is extraordinary for this many people to come from one congregation. We should feel humbled and excited to have this number of folks on the ordination path from St. Andrew Church. It is a healthy sign for them and for us, and they represent a wonderful variety of interests and directions; hospital chaplaincy, campus ministry, youth ministry, ministry of organization and administration as well as preaching and teaching.
Others of them are still listening to God’s call and direction about exactly the right place for them to serve and that is as it should be since God is not finished with them or with us. I am announcing all this because this is really a remarkable number of folks from any congregation and to have them all at once is even more remarkable. It speaks well of these nine persons as well as of this congregation.
Let me remind us briefly of what we expect of people who are on the ordination journey. What do we want clergy to be good at? Will you think about that with me? We want ministers to be good at listening with their ears and their hearts. We want them to be good at communicating and public speaking. We want to be motivated and inspired and we want them to be good leaders. We want them to be compassionate and to be tough when that is appropriate. We want clergy to be good at organizing, teaching, visioning, managing conflict, interpreting and explaining scripture, creating generous hearts and generous congregations. We want clergy to be good financial managers and be able to balance their own checkbooks as well as reading complicated financial statements of congregations.
We want pastors to practice kindness and humility as well as being confident enough, in themselves, to lead people where folks would not go otherwise on their own. We want them to be comforters and counselors as well as prophets and truth tellers who have a thick enough skin to handle conflict and criticism but not too tough a skin so we cannot empathize with persons in pain. We want them to have integrity and to be role models at the same time they show us vulnerability and the ability to grow beyond where we are.
No one is good at all or most of this list. No one achieves what the goal of the letter to Titus asks for-being faultless! That is why the ministry of the laity is just as critical and that is why we are all called to offer our gifts and talents together, clergy and laity in collaboration for Christ’s work to be done.
I am taking sermon time on this topic today for three reasons. First, so we can celebrate and affirm these nine people who are on the path toward one of the most demanding and exciting and important roles I know about, the role of being ordained ministers. They need and deserve our support and encouragement.
Secondly, I want us, as a congregation, to be on the lookout from now on for others among us who may have the gifts and skill and grace to be moving toward ordination. God is at work in the lives of others of us and it usually is over a matter of time, even years. It will often take folks in our community of faith to help us hear the call to ordained ministry, to ask some folks if they have ever thought about that and prayed about that possibility. Be on the lookout around you.
Finally, I want to remind us of the ministry to which every Christian is called, the ministry of the laity, the chance to represent the mind of Christ and the ethics of Christ in our world of work and family and all our relationships. You are in ministry every day and every place, and God needs all of us, laity and clergy, you and me and other leaders, to do all the work that God needs to be done. God, we thank you for how you call each of us to represent Christ wherever we are. We thank you for these nine persons who are answering your call toward ordination. We thank you for each St. Andrew member and friend who is exercising ministry as a baptized disciple of Jesus Christ. Make us joyful and make us faithful. Amen.