EPISODE EIGHT: ON PRIESTS, DONKEYS, AND DIMWITS

…you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

I woke up before daybreak this past Friday morning, thinking about the draft of this episode. I seem to “beat the drum” for mutuality in ministry and for women to be allowed to do what God has called them to do, because the “walls” of the spiritual house that God is building are weaker when they can’t. As I lay in bed, something came to mind that brought me to tears again.

A week or so earlier, I had read a post by one of my denomination’s pastors. He and his family had been on vacation. On Sunday, they went to a church for the morning service. As the service began, they realized the speaker that morning was a woman. As the last song before the sermon was being sung, the pastor led his family out of the church into the parking lot, where he explained, specifically for the benefit of his son, why they had left—a woman should not be speaking from the pulpit.

This relates to what I would like to share in this post. As I mentioned last week, I would like to linger on the passage we briefly looked at, particularly 1 Peter 2:5, which says:

…you, also, like living stones, are being built up into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

In our last episode, we returned to creation, to the meaning behind a woman being taken from the man’s side, and to the importance of imagery and language that support mutuality in the spiritual house that is the church. 1 Peter 2:5 refers to the “stones” that make up the spiritual building. We women are among those stones and must be equal to the task of helping to support the whole structure of which Christ is the cornerstone. As I have mentioned before, Peter’s audience includes both men and women, and he does not target one gender over the other in this passage, though he will address men and women separately a little later.

Peter then says that these “stones,” which are part of this spiritual house, are called to be “a holy priesthood.” It is here that things get complicated for people like the pastor I mentioned earlier.

The writer to the Hebrews eloquently articulates Jesus’ High Priesthood, particularly in Hebrews 5. As joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), we now share the same calling and mission as our Elder Brother. We are priests. This is not an office; it is a role that all believers share.

What the church was in its early days after Pentecost gradually gave way to something different. An organism grew into an organization. And organizations always come with people who hold power. Power can become a dangerous thing. The abuse of power, and the fear that drives the need to control and retain it, has always posed a danger to anyone granted a position of authority.

In the days of the reformers, there was significant pushback against those who argued that only some people belonged to this “priesthood” and that only they could speak for God. Spiritual and secular were strictly divided. When Martin Luther expounded on this verse from 1 Peter, he aimed to take the axe to the privilege and power considered the exclusive domain of ecclesiastical authorities of his time. In 1520, he stated:

“It is pure invention that pope, bishop, priests, and monks are called the spiritual estate while princes, lords, artisans, and farmers are called the temporal estate. This is indeed a piece of deceit and hypocrisy. Yet no one need be intimidated by it, and for this reason: all Christians are truly of the spiritual estate, and there is no difference among them except that of office.” (Works, 44:127)

Since then, his words have become a basis for understanding the priesthood of all believers. Basically, Luther was talking about the simple idea that “everyone is equal at the foot of the cross.” Reformers before Luther, those of his era, and those who came later also sought ways to protest this “great divide” between the spiritual and the secular (those with power and those without it). Early protestors, or reformers, before Luther included the Beguines.

But Luther himself left the door open to abuse of authority. Notice the last part of Luther’s statement, “…except that of office.” He left room for a “divide.” And we’ve lived with the consequences. Many of us remember how difficult it was (and still is) to get volunteers for ministry positions because people still think “that’s what we pay the pastor and staff to do. The priesthood we are all called to has been misunderstood and misinterpreted. This is often because some men don’t want women to take priesthood too seriously, a.k.a. behind the pulpit. Remember, we are not taking “office” or title here; we are talking about a general concept—we are all called to be ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, though how each of us is gifted to do that might be different.

The early church didn’t struggle as much with this as we do, because the church has developed into an organization with positions of power built into it. As Nijay Gupta writes in Tell Her Story, if anyone had walked into an early church to talk to the pastor, no one would have known who they were referring to!

Of course, men and women have different roles. No one says they don’t! Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4. There are many roles I am not qualified for—not because they are denied to me, but because God has not gifted me to do them. What Peter is saying is that all of us are called to ministry as part of the holy priesthood of which Jesus is the High Priest. What we do within that priesthood has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with gifting. Even within gifting, there are different ways to use that gift. That, too, has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with how God has called us to use that gift. It’s His call.

But some people don’t get that. I remember all too well a situation I found myself in during my last formal ministry staff position. The pastor, who was serving as interim while the church searched for a permanent pastor, asked me to take on a particular task. It was a hefty responsibility, but one I had handled in other contexts and knew well. I told him I would pray about it. I could do the job and was willing to step into the gap, but I was already overloaded. God gives us the strength to do what He asks, so I wasn’t going to presume His answer would be no. However, the moment those last words left my mouth, the pastor looked me in the eye and said forcefully, “No, you won’t. God speaks to me, not to you!”

This was a power move, and there is a lot of backstory to this experience that I won’t get into, but it reminds me that God’s call is something each of us has to discern for ourselves. He speaks to us individually. That is not to say we don’t consult those we trust for counsel or enlist a prayer team to accompany us on our journey. It is not that we exclude those in the decision-making who will be impacted by our decisions. It isn’t that others can’t recognize something in us (or not in us) that they might bring to our attention, something we haven’t even considered when it comes to our calling from God. But in the end, each of us has to make the ultimate decision. Again, whatever “priesthood,” ministry, and mission look like for each of us is determined not by gender but by gifting and calling—God’s!

Notice that this calling to mission and ministry, the “priesthood” assigned to us by the Great High Priest and described in Hebrews 5, is called “holy.” We looked at being holy briefly in one of our earlier episodes. Holiness does have to do with our character. We are to be holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:15). But there is another aspect to this. Our calling to ministry is holy. Ministry in the name of Jesus, and as His representatives on earth, is sanctified, declared holy. Just as the priesthood of Christ, which led Him to the ultimate sacrifice of Himself in atonement for our sins, was holy, so our calling to ministry in this world—whatever that looks like for each of us—is holy and sanctified, not to be taken lightly. It’s what we are here for. We must carry it out with humility. Hebrews also reminds us that priests were to deal gently with others because they shared the same weaknesses.

Being part of the spiritual house and this band of believers called to priesthood requires sacrifice—“spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ,” as Peter describes them. There are probably many ways to interpret “spiritual sacrifices,” but something I read this week from Isaiah 58 comes to mind immediately. Like other passages, Isaiah 58 deals with hypocrisy. It begins by describing those who claim all the right attitudes, beliefs, and even some good actions like fasting, then wonder why God doesn’t seem to listen to their requests. Isaiah’s message from God is that until they have broken the chains of wickedness, untied the cords of bondage, freed the oppressed, tended to the needy, stopped pointing fingers and being malicious, honoured God’s day of rest, and behaved rightly toward their own flesh and blood, they should not expect to be heard by God or receive His blessing.

In the following chapter, Isaiah 59, the writer describes God as looking for someone to “intercede” and bring redemption to the world. He finds no one, so He comes Himself to be Redeemer. Later, in Ezekiel 22, this same idea appears as God looks for someone to “stand in the gap” between mankind and God’s judgment—and finds no one. Here, God specifically addresses the priests and their abuses as deserving of judgment. Priesthood must be redemptive, not self-serving. It is servanthood and sacrifice for others’ benefit. It is hesed.

As God’s holy priesthood, called to represent Him in this world and to be redemptive, we recognize the weight of responsibility. We recognize our own weaknesses. We recognize the enormity of the task in light of the evil in the world. We recognize that we need all of us to be what God has called each of us to be if we are to accomplish the mission He has called all of us to.

Psalm 19, among other places, reminds us that creation shouts, declaring who God is and being one of His voices. Every roll of thunder, every flash of lightning, every breeze or swirling wind, every movement of the earth and roar of the sea, every snowflake, every bird’s song and hum of the bumblebee, speaks. Every colour and unique design of what He has made declares His beauty and speaks of the diversity He values. He speaks through His creation.

He chooses through whom He speaks. He has spoken through unbelievers (John 11:49-51). He speaks through donkeys! Remember Balaam (Numbers 22-24, 31).

Why would anyone suppose that if God can speak through creation, through men like Caiaphas, who didn’t believe, and Balaam, who circumvented a divine message to do his own “thing,” and even through a donkey, He can’t also speak through a woman? Otherwise, someone should have informed Mary Magdalene that she had no business announcing the resurrection of the Saviour to a mixed group.

Oh, right, Jesus told her to do it!

The pulpit is not holy; the person behind it is called to be holy—and to priesthood.