Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 7th September 2008 by Rev. Kwok Nai Wang. The scripture readings that day were Isaiah 50:4-9 and I Corinthians 4:1-5.


As KUC is pondering to ordain our own minister, I would like very much to share with you the idea of the Christian ministry.

The church reformers of the 16th Century (KUC belongs to this tradition), advocated two important ideas: (i) The Absolute Sovereignty of God and (ii) Priesthood of all believers.

I have preached on the Absolute Sovereignty of God many times before. This morning I would like to have all of us to reflect on idea of: “Priesthood of all believers”.

Throughout the Medieval Times in Europe which lasted for more than a thousand years, from around 500-1500, people from within and outside the Church considered that the Church was synonymous with the hierarchy: the bishops and their priests. Indeed, the bishops were so powerful that they did not only dominate the ecclesiastical affairs, but also the socio-political affairs in most of Europe as well.

At the Zenith of the authority of the church hierarchy, it was epitomized by the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. Already in the times of Thomas Aquinas around the 14th Century, this doctrine took its roots. Though Papal Infallibility was only officially formalized and promulgated as a doctrine much later in 1870.

Church Reformers of the 16th Century as represented by Martin Luther, Huldreich Zwingli, John Calvin… protested (that is why all the churches which broke away from the Roman Catholic Church are called Protestant Churches). They advocated that the Church as God’s Church was not only constituted by the bishops and their priests; all believers had a role to play. They should share the responsibility of caring for the Church together with the bishops and the priest.

“Priesthood of all believes” is not only Biblically and theologically sound, but it is essentially practical as well. In this day and age, if only a handful of priests and ministers assume the responsibility of caring for the Church and the world, the job can never be done effectively.

Why then even up to this day, churches do ordain certain members to be “ministers”?

Well, we have to go back from the beginning of the Early Church or the Church in the New Testament. The N.T. Church began with our Lord Jesus Christ. In his brief earthly life, Jesus did not only serve those in need and he did not only sacrifice his life on the Cross, he also chose and called 12 disciples. I guess the idea behind was that after Jesus physically departed from the world, his disciples would and could continue his earthly ministry. Indeed, these 12 or rather 11 disciples of Jesus (since Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus had committed suicide) empowered by the Holy Spirit started to preach the Gospel of repentance: Repent and believe in Jesus Christ 10 days after Jesus’ ascension.

Since these 11 disciples were physically commissioned by Jesus, as recorded in the end of all the 3 Synoptic Gospels, they started to work as apostles. The Greek word “Apostolo” literally means “I send”. Since these apostles were commissioned by Jesus, the Early Church believed in accepting the authority of the apostles, they would have accepted the authority of Jesus as well.

It is interesting to note that since Paul was not a disciple of Jesus, so defacto he was not one of the original apostles.

However, in reading the letters he wrote, we can see easily he was fighting very hard to have the Early Church accept him also as an apostle of Jesus Christ: his trump cards were that he was converted, and called by the resurrected Jesus on his way to Damascus; as well as his zest of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ even to the extent of being persecuted and suffered for Christ.

So the N.T. Church in its very beginning had accepted the authority of the apostles as their leaders.

Years later, when the Church leaders formulated the Nicene Creed in the Council of Nicea in the year 325, the clause “I believe in the Apostolic Church” was included. Even up to this day, churches of most traditions still accept this article of faith.

What does it mean by the Apostolic Church? It can be loosely interpreted as the Church is sent by God, doing God’s mission. But when the Church leaders formulated it, I am pretty sure that they were concerned about the authority of the Church, to be precise, the authority of the church leaders. Their insistence was not without any Biblical basis. Indeed according to the Gospel of Matthew, after Peter’s confession that “Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (16:16), this was what Jesus said, “Good for you, for this truth did not come to you from any human being, but it was given to you directly by my Father in heaven. And so I tell you, Peter: you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build my church…” (16:17-19).

So the leaders of the Early Church insisted their leadership and authority came from Jesus himself. Jesus had handed down these to Peter, the head of Jesus’ disciples. Then Peter handed on to his successors by the laying on hands and prayer for the Holy Spirit. This was the origin of ordination. Ordination is a symbol of passing on the authority and the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church, only bishops can do the ordination. For other churches, it is usually done by the senior ministers or the college of ministers.

Since then, throughout the ages, the Church chooses some of its members who are theologically and professionally trained and who are committed to the ministry of the Church as their primary vocation, ordain them and entrust them with the Word of God and the sacraments.

Here I wish to emphasize that an ordained minister must be trained theologically. This is one of the ways to enable him/her to set up an antenna to receive God’s Word. This is what Prophet Isaiah in the third Servant Song in II Isaiah tried to share his experience with us:

“The Sovereign Lord has taught me what to say so that I can strengthen the weary. Every morning he makes me eager to hear what he is going to teach me.” (50:4).

To minister to God’s Word is the primary function of an ordained minister. Also, according to the great majority of churches, only ordained ministers can celebrate the sacraments of baptism and holy communion as well as marriages. In some churches, only ordained ministers can pronounce the absolution and the benediction as well as to lead the funeral services. The main reason is that since ordained ministers are trained theologically and professionally, they have a more thorough understanding of all these rites and through their leadership of these rites members can experience fuller and richer meaning in their lives. To me, this makes sense when the Church insists only ordained ministers be given the responsibility of safeguarding the Church order.

So far I’ve tried to follow the tradition of the Historic and Universal Church and explain to you the relationship between ordination of ministers and the Church Order. Through ordination, the Church gives the ordinands the authority to safeguard and expand the Order of the Church. But let me give you another side about the meaning of ordination. Ordination is the recognition by the congregation that the person ordained is a “a servant” to the congregation.

In reality, the word minister means servant. To minister is to serve. The apostles in the Early Church were considered as Christ’s servants. In this morning’s New Testament lesson (I Cor. 4:1-4), Paul gave us the cardinal requirement to be Christ’s servants. It is “Faithfulness to his master.”. Faithfulness means a decision to follow single-mindedness with your whole life. As Christ’s servants we must follow Jesus with all our mind, heart and spirit. Jesus himself came as a servant. In fact, all Pauline and Paulinist epistles (that is all letters written by Apostle Paul or his close colleagues) portrayed Jesus as a servant, or rather a dulos, a slave. As a dulos, Jesus came to this world with one and only one purpose, not to be served nor for self-gain, BUT to serve the whole humankind, to sacrifice his whole life so that all people have the possibility of regaining a dignified and whole life, a life which is related to God and to other people. In the most famous Hymn to Christ as found in Philippians 2:6-11, Jesus Christ was described as emptying himself for the sake of all human beings, so that all of us may have an abundant life.

The Gospel of John specifically included the act that Jesus passed on this ministry to his disciples during the last supper by washing his disciples’ feet. In the ancient Jewish society, a teacher washing his students’ feet was unheard of. Only a slave would wash his master’s feet or the feet of his master’s guests before they entered into the door of his master’s home. But Jesus intentionally did that in order to demonstrate the importance of service in utter humility.

Indeed this had been Jesus’ teaching to his disciples all along. When his disciples argued who was the greatest (Mk 9:33-37; Mt 18:1-5; Lk 9:46-48) and when James and John requested to be in the higher positions of sitting right beside Jesus, (Mk 10:35-45; Mt 20:20-28) Jesus gave them the same answer, “Whoever wants to be the first must place himself last of all and be the servant of all”.

To the secular world, people consider authority as the power to dominate and to control. BUT what Jesus showed us is the power to serve. In fact, this is the only power which may transform lives.

Jesus Christ is not only the Chief Example of being a minister, he is also the most reliable Enabler to his followers. So when we decide to follow Jesus and serve the needy, Jesus will empower us.

Every Christian is a minister. But an ordained minister is a special minister. He/she is a servant of the servants. An ordained minister is called to serve Christians so that they will become truly Christ’s servants. To paraphrase the Apostle’s letter to the Ephesians, “An ordained minister is called to take up the responsibility of preparing Christians so that they grow up and become Christ’s servants (Eph 4:11-16). “Equipping” Christians is the most important task of an ordained minister.

We cannot underestimate the difficulties of this task. The servants chosen by God in the old Testament times were generally called the suffering servants. But rest assured that the suffering they sustained and the dear price they had to pay would not be in vain. Furthermore, during all their hard labour, God would abide by them. Let me conclude therefore by reading the second part of the 3rd servant song which we read this morning. I will read it from the New Jerusalem Bible.

“I have offered my back to those who struck me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
I have not turned my face away from insult and spitting.
Lord God comes to my help,
this is why insult has not touched me,
this is why I have set my face like flint
and know that I shall not be put to shame.
He who grants me saving justice is near!
Who will bring a case against me?
…
Look, Lord God is coming to my help!
Who dares to condemn me?”