10/14/62

The People of the Church

Scripture: Read Colossians 3: 12-17.

Much of the world’s attention has been focused, in recent days, on the opening of the Second Vatican Council. The public has been informed by numerous articles appearing in current magazines; by both secular and religious press, that the Council was beginning this past week and that it may last for a long while.

It is nearly a century since the last such council was held. It has been called an “Ecumenical” Council. But it is well for us to know that the word “Ecumenical” in Roman church circles refers more precisely to various facets of Roman Catholic Church life than to the general Protestant understanding. We Protestants tend to think of “ecumenical” as inclusive of all church denominations.

The present Vatican Council will have a number of invited Protestant observers present. We are informed that these observers may sit in sessions that will even be closed to the press. They may be given the right of discussion; but, of course, not the right to vote, since Council decisions will affect Roman Catholic Church policy.

The Rev. Dr. Douglas Horton is to be the American representative of the International Congregational Council (We may hope that he is really sharp with his Latin!) The world will wait with interest to see what modification or clarification of Roman Catholic doctrine and policy may emerge; what flexibility may appear; what new church positions may be declared.

One of the things that may be in the making is a new understanding of the layman’s position in the Roman church. One hears the assertion that the lay voice may be heard there just as it is in Protestant churches. We shall see what definition there may be of this concept. But it is wise for Protestants not to jump to the conclusion that the lay position in the Roman church is very similar to that in Protestant churches until there is evident a real change from the viewpoint expressed in an encyclical by a recent pope. In that encyclical a clear view of the church was expressed as related to the clergy and the people of the congregation. Part of it reads this way:

“The church is --- essentially an unequal society, that is to say, a society of two categories of persons: pastors and the flock, those who rank in the different degrees of the hierarchy and the multitude of the faithful; and these categories are so distinct in themselves that in the pastoral body alone reside the necessary right and authority to guide and direct all the members --- As for the multitude, it has no other right than that of allowing itself to be led and, as a docile flock, to follow its shepherds.”

We might observe further that this inequality of authority between priests and people can properly be maintained because members of the priesthood stand in an apostolic succession by virtue of their ordination. Because of their belief that Jesus Christ ordained Peter as the first bishop by the laying on of hands, and that the ordination of priests has developed in an unbroken succession of the laying on of hands by bishops, it may be supposed that priests are the recipients of special powers passed on to them throughout all of the Christian generations.

This view of the Roman Catholic church is part of the background against which our Protestant outlook should be understood. The Protestant Reformation made many changes in the interpretation of the nature of Christianity. One of the most important changes was in the viewing of the church as a one-fold rather than a two-fold society; a society in which minister and the people of the congregation are joined together, sharing a common fellowship in Christ and united in common responsibilities for carrying on Christ’s work.

If there was a gap between the laity and the clergy persisting in the Church of Rome for so many centuries, that gap was essentially removed in the work of the Reformation. This was done by recognizing that all members of the church are responsible for a ministry before God. There emerged a belief in what has been called the “priesthood of all believers.”

Now this has not meant, and does not mean, the elimination of the vocation of the ministry as a special calling in the life of the church. Men, and some women, who have felt a call to the ministry, and who have prepared themselves in attitude, and by careful and extensive training, are ordained to the vocation of the ministry. Sixteen months ago, this congregation sought the counsel and advice of the Winnebago Association of Congregational Churches and Ministers in the matter of ordaining a man to the Christian ministry. He had made his decision to prepare himself for, and dedicate his life in, the ministry years before. He had completed, faithfully and well, four years of college training and four years of theological seminary training. He was examined as to his faith and purpose before being set aside for, and launched into, the vocation of the ministry. A delegation of us expects to participate in a like proceeding next Sunday at Appleton when the new assistant to a new pastor there will be examined and, if the examination be sustained, will be ordained to the Christian ministry.

Protestantism understands that this kind of calling is very important, indeed, to the life of the church. It is only very infrequently in the history of Protestantism that an exceedingly informal church seeks to get along entirely with lay leadership and thus without a called, ordained ministry.

But the Protestant view of ordination does not isolate the minister into a separate class of being. In fact we tend to think that any tendency to put him in some class all by himself should be resisted. For such isolation tends to destroy his proper identification with those whose fellowship he shares in the church’s life and work.

There are some practical expressions of a tendency to separate minister and lay folk. One is the easy tendency to assume a double standard of ethics --- one standard for the minister and another standard for all other people. What point is there, for instance, in the all-too-universal comment among groups of people to “watch your language and your stories now, because the minister is here.” Isn’t this a travesty on our understanding of the church? If there is a moral issue involved in watching one’s language or stories (or whatever else the item may be), there ought to be concern for this whether a minister is present or not. How often do you hear it said that this restraint should be observed because there are Christians present -- or just because it is right to be considerate of such issue?

There is no special “clerical” standard of morality here. What may be right, or what may be wrong about it ought to apply to all, for we are all called to a form of practical ministry in the priesthood of all believers.

Here is another facet of contemporary living in that ministers are singled out as the prayer-makers for the community. Its residents appear to assume that all sorts of occasions must be opened with prayer, and that it must be done by a minister. If we are Christian folk, is not our prayer to be associated with God and our needs? And if this be so, why can not any man or woman, lay or ordained, endeavor to express those needs before God in prayer --- whether it be thanks for food; lifting an expression of joy; pleading for divine mercy and guidance; or whatever be the need?

I, for one, appreciate it when, as a guest in someone’s home, I find myself able to bow reverently while the head of that household returns thanks for food, or calls on one of his family to say grace. I treasure the experience when, upon occasion, a member of the Board of Deacons has opened the meeting with prayer; when a men’s Club was similarly led by a layman; when women have led devotions in their gatherings. I am glad that it is possible to call upon certain laymen in a luncheon club which I belong to, to say grace upon occasion.

Now I do not advocate deliberate bypassing of clergymen in the matter of praying. They have tried to practice the spirit and the expression of prayer. And surely we ministers are glad to do what we can when, out of the depth of some great need, or in the midst of some almost inexpressible joy, we are asked to lead the one, or the ones, in need of prayer. It is needless to say that clergymen are willing to pray; but ought not all Christians also be willing to pray?

Now we have been saying that there is no difference, in kind, between clergy and lay members of a Protestant church. There are, surely, certain special things in the life of the church to which the clergy are called and for which they are ordained. Ministers are to lead the experience of the people in what we have called the sacraments. They are to give themselves regularly and continuously to the conduct of public worship. They must meditate and study in constant preparation for it. They usually give their full time to concern for a parish of people. There is a proper sense in which people may learn to think of their minister as pastor, and he will strive to deserve that trust. The Hawaiian folk have a word of affection and trust which many of them apply to their minister. They may call him “Kahu,” which literally translated, means “shepherd.” But it is a term of affection and trust and willing cooperation, quite advanced over the blind unquestioning obedience of a sheep.

In the church, we are all called to be one body in the sight of God, each given gifts of the spirit to carry on his functions in the work of the church, and in the priesthood of all believers.

Now let us inquire about the functions of the church of which we are all a part (whether of this particular congregation or not). And let us think about the relation of ministers and lay members in carrying out these tasks.

1) The church exists, first of all, for the worship of God. I suppose that the distinctive function and responsibility of the ordained ministry appears quite obvious here. When men and women are ordained to the ministry, they are generally charged with the preaching of the Word and administration of the sacraments. And these are basic elements in public worship.

And there are some of the more “high church” forms of Protestantism in which it may be maintained that this authorization must come from an unbroken succession of ordinations by bishops. But in our Congregational tradition, this emphasis on the uninterrupted laying on of hands appears to be mechanical and without spiritual meaning. We can, properly, talk about a kind of apostolic succession. But it would mean our present day continuation of the Christian faith on the part of all of us. It would mean standing in the stream of Christian witness, speaking about the marvelous love of God as witnessed in the life of Jesus Christ.

The responsibility for divine worship is not that of the minister alone. Worship is not complete without worshipping people. In the Roman Catholic tradition there is generally present at the mass a devout and worshipping congregation. But it is possible for the mass to be celebrated with no one present but the priest. That is hardly possible in Protestant tradition. The very existence of the Lord’s Supper is in the participation of the congregation who hold in memory their Lord’s life and death and who receive the supper in repentance and faith; in expectation of forgiveness and of new power for life.

Public worship in our churches is not public unless there are persons present and participating. Each Christian is called upon to do more than view or listen. He is called upon to reflect for himself upon God, to let the words of hymns and prayers to be phrasing of his own adoration and supplication, or in his own mind to re-phrase these needs. He is to let Scripture speak to his own need and the proclamation of Word to his own life.

Sometimes the leadership in this process can be taken by lay persons. I think it is a rightful expression of this truth that laymen of our church have, for ten years past, and again next Sunday, prepared themselves for the conducting of one Sunday’s services of worship in this church.

Some 8 or more years ago, lay people of this church preached lay sermons for 10 succeeding Sundays at Pittsville until the Congregational Church there could find another pastor. And the list has included women. Lay men of our church have preached lay sermons in a variety of neighboring churches where the need has arisen. And two of our men are even recognized on an annual basis as lay preachers by the Winnebago Association.

This does not imply that they are identical to ordained ministers. They are not --- by training, by vocational calling --- nor by sustained ability. They may have their vocational training and calling as doctors, engineers, teachers, mechanics, nurses, housewives, corporation executives, labor leaders or institutional administrators. But all Christian people should be participants in public worship and some lay folk can be occasional leaders in it. (Somewhere in my ancestry a Devonshire blacksmith plied his trade as a blacksmith for years on end, six days a week. On Sunday, it is said that he walked for miles to serve as a lay preacher in a little Methodist church. He never became pastor; but he, and they, worshipped together nonetheless.)

2) Another function in the life of the church is study. It is the responsibility of both minister and lay members. The minister would dry up without it. Sometimes one is frightened at how near many lay folk are to being dried up without it. One of those famous Gallup polls turned up some appalling figures regarding present day biblical illiteracy in our nation. According to his poll, it was ascertained that 51% of persons interviewed could not name the first book of the Bible! 53% can not name even one of the 4 gospels! 66% do not know who spoke the Sermon on the Mount. And 79% can not name even one of the prophets of the Old Testament! The need for adult Christian education is always great. It is not merely a matter of increasing Biblical acquaintance and knowledge. It is a matter of opening up our minds, trying to lay hold of that which we believe; a matter of growing in our religious perception rather than stagnating at the sixth grade level of understanding, where a host of adults have allowed themselves to get stuck.

3) Thirdly, a church has the responsibility of mission. The only true church is the society of folk with a sense of mission. A church must share the good news it possesses. It must feel the needs of this impoverished world upon its conscience, and time and pocketbooks.

That grand old man of mission, John R. Mott, himself a layman, I believe, used to say: “A multitude of laymen are in serious danger. It is positively perilous for them to hear more sermons, attend more Bible classes, and read more religious and ethical works, unless accompanying it all there be afforded day by day and adequate outlet for their new-found truth.” The United Church Board of World Ministries is concerned, not alone with career missionaries, but with the Christian impact and witness of lay people who are going abroad in business, government service, teaching and peace corps work. I have on my desk right now a request for names of such folk from our church abroad in other countries. The Board hopes to be of assistance to them as emissaries of the kind of Christianity they have presumably professed and practiced here at home. Part of our task is to educate ourselves as practical missionaries here at home and supporters of all sort of Christian missionary offering of the good news abroad.

4) And again, the church is established, that out of its life some form of Christian action may take shape, in which the concerns of rightness and love are expressed in the social order. The church is lacking something essential if it is without concern for the application of its message. The responsibility is shared by minister and lay folk. There may be times when the minister finds he must become a kind of conscience to his congregation. There are some ministers serving in parishes now, where it is almost a necessity to remind people that God is Creator-Father to all people of every race - brown, black, red, white or yellow, and that Christ lived and died and lives for all of them.

All of us need to be concerned with the question: “How can we really bear witness in the world to the love of Christ? What can we do in society to make that love known?” The minister is challenged by it in his daily life. The layman’s action just as surely goes his step farther. For he must carry the life of the church into all his tasks, not the least of which is his daily work --- his so-called secular vocation.

The clergyman’s robe is not the only, nor even the best, symbol of the church. Alongside this symbol is the lay person, busy at the vocation wherewith he earns his livelihood. He or she wears blue or white collars; overalls or business suits; the special apparel of the operating room; apron or nurse’s uniform; train conductor’s cap or actor’s costume. In him, the dedicated layman, engaged in honest and useful employment, the Word is lived in concrete decisions and specific actions in the world. When a layman leaves his job for the day, it can be said because of him, “The church was here.” When he takes up his job the next day, it can be said, “The church is here.”

And where this happens, the church is present in action.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, October 14, 1962.