The Priestly Service of Proclaiming the Gospel
Anglican Ordained Ministry
Why be an Anglican priest? Well, I consider it part of my vocation to preach the gospel!
A passage of Scripture that was crucial in my own journey towards the priesthood is Paul’s discussion of his ministry in Romans 15. There the apostle writes:
I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:15-16 NIV)
For me this passage shows that my calling to preach the gospel is a calling to a priestly ministry.
But why would I want to call myself a “priest”? To some folks, the very mention of “priest” conjures up medieval notions of penance and purgatory. Wasn’t the purpose of the Reformation to get away from all that kind of papal non-sense?
What I hear from my Baptist and Presbyterian students is that “Jesus is our only high priest, and we believe in the priesthood of all believers, not the priesthood of an elite few. On top of that, a priest is a mediator, and my Bible says that ‘there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus’ (1 Timothy 2:5 ). And that is most definitely not you Mike! So please dispense with the religious elitism.”
Whenever I got a response like that I do an immediate follow-up
“What do you call someone who engages in accounting services?”
An “accountant” they answer.
“And what do you call someone who engages in engineering services?”
An “engineer” they reply.
“What do you call someone who engages in consultancy services?”
A “consultant” they chime back to me.
Just when my students are getting frustrated that I’m quizzing them on the blindingly obvious I then hit them with the punchline.
“So what do you call someone who engages in a priestly service as Paul says here?”
At this point my students pause, some try to think of cute response, others go “Aha,” and most reply – however reluctantly – “a priest.”
Yep, that’s right!
This means that you do not have to be Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or even Anglican to be a priest. If you proclaim the gospel, then you are undertaking a priestly service, and you are performing a priestly ministry.
John Chrysostom, one of the Church Fathers, put it wonderfully: “For me, the priesthood means to preach and to proclaim; this is the sacrifice I offer.”
Paul would heartily agree!
Through your preaching the gospel ( and books and blogs etc), through mediating in administering the sacraments, through tending the flock we make Christ better known to all. It is to tear down the curtain around the Holy of holies so all may know Christ closer and more deeply.
Now do the title 'father'!
Seriously, I don't know how I will feel when I am an ordained priest and being called a priest. I've read 'On Being a Priest Today' and the authors bounce between priest and presbyter. My priest calls herself 'pastor' in the community because many associate 'priest' with the Catholic church. Then there are others in my diocese who call themselves 'father' (yet, still no 'mothers').