St. Tikhon’s Monastery
South Canaan, Pennsylvania
June 9—11, 1998
St. Tikhon Monastery
South Canaan, Pennsylvania
I want to begin this address with a prayer taken from the life of Saint John the Almsgiver, who was Patriarch of Alexandria during the early years of the seventh century. “I thank you, O God, who have allowed me, unworthy as I am, to be called your priest and, though the least of men and a sinner, to be the shepherd of a reasonable flock.”
In spite or perhaps because of its brevity, this prayer directs our attention to one of the most basic aspects of priestly ministry. It is the Triune and Tri-Personal God who allows us to be shepherds and pastors of his flock. It is God Himself who has bestowed upon each of us the grace to preside within the community of believers. Indeed, by this grace we are able to stand in the place of the One High Priest, leading those entrusted to our care into the kingdom which is to come.
As you all may know, this prayer is attributed to one who exemplifies the shepherd as a servant who becomes less so that Christ might become more (cf. John 3:30). For this reason I offer this simple and profound prayer as a prelude to the general topic of my presentation, “The Stewardship of Divine Ministry.” Without giving thanks to God—without the heartfelt acknowledgement that God has called us by His Divine Spirit to share in the ministry of His Son—we will easily lose our orientation and risk reducing the priestly ministry to something we merit and possess as our own. Yet, while we do not merit or possess the priesthood as our own, in our particular ministry we cannot overlook the divine and human dynamic from which ministry has its source and context. Therefore the title of my address, “The Stewardship of Divine Ministry,” requires a subtitle: “The Divine-Human Endeavor to Transfigure the Creation.” This addition makes the title a little more cumbersome but, in my opinion, it is more to the point.
The transfiguration of the creation—the renewal of everyone and everything—is at the basis of ministry. But before we can begin to speak about transfiguration and renewal I want to first speak about the need to recover the priestly ministry within the Church. I am sure that it is no secret to any of you that confusion continues to surround the very understanding and practice of the priestly ministry. In part—perhaps to a great extent—this confusion is tied to the tenuous position many priests still hold in their parishes. Here I must confess that we who are bishops within the Church need to exert more time and effort in correcting the uncanonical organization of so many parishes. This uncanonical structure, stemming from parish trusteeship, has in many cases relegated the priest to an employee contracted by the corporation to perform all the rites and duties associated with his office. Even with all that has been said and written these past 20 years about ministry within the parish framework, the priest is relegated to the position of one who is part of a group which makes up the leadership team of the community.
The priest is not an employee of the parish. And, in spite of what has been said and published, he is more than part of the leadership mechanism within the parish. In his refreshing and poignant book on Saint John of Kronstadt, Bishop Alexander Semenoff Tian-Chansky gleans the great pastor’s diary entitled My Life in Christ and describes the priestly ministry in this way: “Father John thought…of the priest as the officiator of the sacraments, as the minister of consecration, transfiguration and finally, deification of man. With respect to priesthood, he knew that the priest’s entire strength is gathered from his prayerful presence at God’s altar and mainly through the accomplishment of the Church’s sacrament—the Eucharist” (p.51).
Skillfully Bishop Alexander uses the insights of Saint John to articulate a context from which the priestly ministry is to be understood and lived. Parish life stems from the celebration of the divine services. From this context of liturgical prayer, culminating in the celebration of the Eucharist, the priest strives to instill within his flock a yearning for the heavenly kingdom. From within the liturgical context, the priest is to be seen as the father of his parish who cares for the well-being and salvation of his flock. He is the one who blesses, who teaches and exhorts, who guides and corrects, and who co-suffers with those whom God has placed in his care.
To be the father of the community—to be the one charged with standing in the place of Christ so that the Gospel of Christ may be imparted to all seeking the knowledge of the truth—implies that the priest loves his parish. Without love the priestly ministry is reduced to sacramental functions. Without love the Gospel of new and eternal life is veiled in arrogance
To stand before the holy table—to stand in the place of the One High Priest—requires us to possess the love our Lord has for His people. Here we encounter one of the most difficult aspects of the priestly ministry. For to love as Christ loves means that we are to love those who hate us, those who betray us, those who misunderstand, resent and oppose the work of the Gospel. And yet, if the priest is to truly preside in his parish, he must possess the universal and evangelical love of the Savior. It is this love that enables the priest to face and draw near to those in his care—those who love him and those who hate him. To possess Christ’s love frees us from those painful and gnawing anxieties that restrict or even destroy the priestly ministry. Having Christ’s love reigning in our own lives helps us to fearlessly proclaim the Gospel which heals, encourages, chastises, corrects and transfigures.
Because of his love for God and for his flock, it is the priest who draws and binds the parish community in the unity of faith. As the one who presides over the entire life of the parish, the priest is entrusted to guide the faithful into the Kingdom of heaven. It is the vision of the kingdom that must be the foundation of every facet of parochial life. It is love for the Gospel proclaimed and expanded upon by the priest that is to enlighten every facet of parochial life.
Unity built on the love for the Kingdom and the Gospel is not one of many items on a parish’s annual agenda. It is not something achieved either through committees or programs that are not always rooted in the Orthodox ethos. Unity built on the love for the Kingdom and the Gospel weighs upon our shoulders. We as bishops and priests—we who preside at the Eucharist—have as our ministry the responsibility of ensuring that what binds together the diocese or the parish is not opposed to what is celebrated and proclaimed in the mysteries of the Church.
The priestly ministry must be permeated by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit abiding in our lives we cannot truly preside within the community. Without the Holy Spirit the priestly ministry becomes self-serving; the pastor acquires a misguided love that ultimately draws him and those in his care away from transfigured life. A priest and his ministry become self-serving when what is done at the altar ceases to be the core of life. One’s trust moves from God to the self so that ultimately what is said and done makes God less so that the priest might become more. The self-serving ministry is one that rests on the personality or charisma of the priest. It is not a ministry that leads to healing and transfiguration, but draws one into a painful, confusing and finally destructive relationship with the priest. The self-serving ministry does not give life or light. On the contrary, it seeks to overpower and manipulate, thus depriving everyone of the freedom that originates in and through the Holy Spirit. The self-serving ministry distorts the relationship between the priest and his flock. Consequently what some priests might consider to be the love and obedience the flock has for his office and ministry are actually expressions of fear and spiritual enslavement.
To see and live out the priestly ministry as a divine-human endeavor brings to my mind the prayer said over the one who will stand and preside in the place belonging to the Lord. The prayer for ordination to the priestly ministry will—I believe—provide a point of reference for what I have shared with you. In this prayer the ordaining bishop calls upon God to fill the candidate with the Holy Spirit so that “he may be worthy to stand in innocence before Your altar.” It is God’s Spirit who makes us priests. It is His Spirit who enables us to stand in Christ’s place before the table of the Kingdom. The ministry we receive belongs to Christ. All the ministries of the Church belong to Him. They are given to the Church so that His evangelical and saving ministry may continue here and now. To stand in innocence means that we offer ourselves as gifts to the living God. To stand in innocence before the altar presupposes that we serve the Triune God and that we therefore engage in the spiritual warfare which manifests our faithful and loving service to Him. Not all of us are monks—yet all of us are called to be ascetics. All of us are called to fight against all which would remove us from the path of righteousness.
To stand in innocence before the altar of God requires one to live and impart to others the Gospel of life. For as the bishop continues to pray he asks that the Holy Spirit will fill the candidate, enlighten him to “proclaim the Gospel of Your kingdom; to minister to the word of truth; to offer to You spiritual gifts and sacrifices; to renew Your people through the laver of regeneration.” The ministry we receive commissions us to proclaim the Good News of regenerated life. Here we are reminded that the Word of Truth is a sacrament which renews and nourishes. For this reason the priest must never cease studying both the Old and New Testaments. But here I want to also stress that studying scripture cannot be reduced to an intellectual exercise. It must fill our lives, drawing us into dialogue with the Savior. To know the Scriptures with the mind and the heart is to know Christ. To know the Scriptures enables us to speak with power and authority through which others are drawn to new and eternal life.
Faithfulness to the Gospel is fundamental to the priestly ministry. And it is this faithfulness, manifested in how we live from day to day, that establishes us as good stewards. Quoting chapter and verse may impress some, but unless the words we quote are rooted in our desire for transfigured life, they will not feed the searching and hungry soul.
Once the newly ordained priest has been vested, the bishop places in his hands a portion of the consecrated bread. For me as a bishop, this act, accompanied by words of exhortation, never ceases to be difficult. This is so because of the words I am charged to say: “Receive this pledge, and preserve it whole and unharmed until your last breath, because you shall be held accountable for it at the second coming of our great Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
These words are difficult because they remind one that I and the one receiving the consecrated bread are responsible for how we live out the ministry of Christ. To preserve the Holy Bread “whole and unharmed” is linked to how I see and care for the ministry that has been given to me. I am accountable not primarily because of the mistakes I have made and will make. No, this is not what is being stressed. I shall be accountable—we shall be accountable—to the Lord, based on how we have received and imparted His ministry and His Gospel to the world. Yet, though these words of exhortation are difficult, I know that if I humble myself and allow the Holy Spirit to work within me, the ministry of Christ cannot be compromised—the ministry of Christ will continue to draw others to new and transfigured life. This enables me to repeat with joy and humility the prayer of Saint John the Almsgiver: “I thank you, O God, who have allowed me, unworthy as I am, to be called your priest and, though the least of men and a sinner, to be the shepherd of a reasonable flock.”
Amen.