Theology of Mission

XME Formation: Christiological Basis for Missio Dei

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.¹

A man stands on the corner of a over-populated city street. People, created in the image of God, whiz past him as he shouts like a voice in the darkness: “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” He is a voice in a concrete desert. He wears a sandwich board reading “Turn or burn,” rather than fur. He eats the peanut butter and jelly sandwich his wife made rather than locusts. Regardless, he considers himself the prophet John and as a passer by, offended and scourged by his isolated and isolating words, spits on him, he is vindicated. Just like John the Baptist, he would suffer persecution in this evil world. To this man, Christ’s mission happened, bought us salvation after death and left us with the mission of inviting the damned to repent.

A woman sits in her Lazy Boy recliner in front of the television. She watches a preacher who estimates the time of Christ’s second coming. Next to her sits the thirty-sixth volume of the Left Behind series. She’s just finished reading it and wonders when Kirk Cameron will come out with the theatrical version. She hibernates with her remote control and tattered Bible as she waits for the second coming. To this woman, Christ’s mission happened, accomplished eternity, and left us to wait.

A couple, fresh out of seminary, longs for the second coming. They pack their bags and move to a remote area of Africa. Excitement bubbles inside them as they dream of reaching un-reached people groups so that all can know and Christ can come again. To this couple, Christ’s mission happened and gave us the mission of making sure everyone knows about it.

We look at Christ’s anointing from Luke 4, and these lives and somehow, these do not add up. There are a multitude of question and corrections that rush to mind. How did the mission described in Luke 4 give birth to the missions depicted in these three stories? A church historical survey could answer that mourning question. However, our task is not to trace what has led astray, but to vision what true mission is. Our quest for a missional re-visioning of church in the twenty-first century finds life as we revisit and encounter a missional Christology. As Guder explains:

The church must takes its cues from the way God’s mission unfolded in the sending of Jesus into the world for its salvation. In Jesus’ way of carrying out God’s mission, we discover that the church is to represent God’s reign as its community, its servant, and its messenger.²

So it is with Jesus’ mission that we begin to explore God’s mission in order to find our place there.

In this quest, the questions we will seek to answer are: Who is Christ? What is Christ’s mission? What is the Christian mission? And, how is this lived out in the church? These questions fall under the headings of Christology, missiology, and ecclesiology. These three topics are intricately woven together in the exploration of missio dei (or the mission of God). This is what Mark Anderson calls the XME formulation (or the Christology, missiology, and ecclesiology formulation). He states: “Your Christology informs your sense of mission and your sense of mission informs your ecclesiology.”³ In the next several pages, we will explore begin by understanding who Christ was and the nature of his mission in the world. We will then progress to the missiological and ecclesiological implications for several key aspects of this mission.

Returning to the stories above, we look at these children of God and ask, what is mission? We wonder about Christ’s mission and don’t even know the question to ask. Do we ask what was Christ’s mission? Do we ask what is Christ’s mission? Then, do we dare ask who is this Christ who has or had mission in the world? When we do ask these, what answers can we expect? As we look for our answers, we start with the beginning and the ending.

Many people hypothesize about chapters of history. Brian McLaren proposes seven stages to the history of the world. The first is creation, which is followed by crisis. After crisis, God’s work begins to funnel through one family who becomes one nation. This chapter McLaren calls convenant, which is followed by conversation. Christ’s coming signifies a definite change. The next chapter is called community. This is the church – the chapter that we are in. The final chapter is called consummation.⁴ What’s more important about his hypothesis is that he imagines the dawn of history to be pushing us into history and consummation to be pulling us toward eternity.⁵ In this understanding, the bookends of history are creation and re-creation. Talking about creation, Rob Bell says the important thing is “not that it happed but that it happens.”⁶ If this is the case, then Christ’s mission is not a historical event, but an ongoing life. If this is true, then re-creation is God outliving God’s creative nature. If this is true, then Christ’s reconciling mission may have been finished on the cross, but Christ’s mission also happens. We live in the happening of Christ’s mission.

Our next, rightful question asks, “Who is this Christ whose mission happens?” First, Christ is relational. Christ is a member of the triune Godhead who is perichoretically three but one. He has existed eternally in communion. Second, he is the creator of all things⁷ and the re-creator of heaven and earth. Third, he is the God-Man. He is fully human. In its description of Jesus’ humanity, scripture he is called “The image of the living God.” This echoes the creation of humanity: “In his image he created them.” Christ is, ultimately, the most fully human being of all time. In this God-Man paradox we see that this Christ is relational and incarnational.

Traditionally, Christ is also known to be prophet, priest, and king. Dan Allender unpacks these three offices.⁸ Christ as prophet is the curator of hope. Christ as priest is the keeper of stories that form faith. Christ as king is the loving leading servant who cares for the people. The prophet is concerned with the future, while the priest tends and recapitulates the past and the king focuses on the present. Through these three roles, we come to see further that the Christ is not only relational and incarnational; he is incubating hope, living story, and lovingly serving.

Finally, we ask what was the nature of Christ’s mission. Here we return to his anointing in Luke 4. He preaches good news to the poor and freedom to the oppressed. He heals the blind and proclaims the Kingdom of God. Looking deeper into Christ’s mission, he is friend to the marginalized – to the tax collectors and sinners.⁹ He mandates care for the poor, the thirsty, the hungry, the isolated, and the sick.¹⁰ The nature of Christ’s mission was not, as many had expected, a triumphant kingly rule. Christ’s rule, rather, was simple, subversive, and that of a servant.

Missiology and Ecclesiology: The Mission of God

Our Christology transitions to missiology as we ask the question, “What does it mean that Christ’s mission happens?” What this means is that the church is the extension of the relational, creating, incarnational, revealing, reconciling, and ruling mission of Christ. Scripturally, it is clear that the church continues Christ’s mission.¹¹ Stanley Grenz offers new sight into this reality as he explains that Christ shares his name with us.¹² So it is that the mission of Christ becomes the mission of the church.

But, that’s not quite right. This mission belongs to the church in as much as Christ’s mission was his own. John chapters 14-17 repeatedly remind us that Jesus never saw his mission or his words as his; they came from the Father. This is missio dei: God’s mission, which Christ submitted to and joined in. The invitation and calling of the church, then, is to do the same. In doing so, we become a relational, creating, incarnational, revealing, reconciling, and ruling community. This joining of missio dei births ecclesiology as we exegete our culture and time, look for the Kingdom and practically join in. The next section of our discussion examines each of our nine marks of Christ’s mission in light of the theology and practical living of the missio dei in a postmodern, globalized world.

The relational aspect of missio dei began at creation. God created humanity to be in relationship with God and with other humans. These relationships were affirmed as Christ gave the Two Great Commandments.¹³ Christ’s prayer over the church in John 17 focused on unity in these two relationships. Clearly, the missio dei invites the church to relationality.

In the postmodern globalized context, genuine relationship is a rare commodity. As Mark Anderson states, “The more we think we have under control our own reality, the more we objectify people. It is natural for us to not see people in our daily tasks.” We overlook humanity and, in result dehumanize God’s image bearers. This dehumanization is birthed as we live our isolated lives steeped not in relationality but in individualism. Today’s church joins missio dei as we seek to create community and to envelop the world around us. As we bring in individualistic, disenfranchised, and disenchanted individuals, inviting them to become community, we participate in missio dei. Practically, this means listening well and being present to culture, to our neighbors and living invitationally.

As God is relational, God is also creating. The misso dei, therefore, is inherently a creative endeavor. While the arts are certainly a part of this creativity, it is not necessarily an aesthetic pursuit. This means creativity in work, in stewardship of the earth, in creating communal hubs. Not only does the missional church seek to create for the Kingdom of God, it seeks to enable creativity outside of itself. In the same way as the church relationally reaches to restore relationality in God’s image bearers, it seeks also to unlock and restore the creativity of God’s image bearers.

Ecclesiologically, this suggests a church in the round, a place where the creative nature and thoughts of all people are valued and added to the creation of a Kingdom minded community. This also suggests Kingdom-minded voices in the workplace as human endeavors seek to shape the world. These voices applaud, encourage and guide as human creativity moves forward in restorative movements – be it using fair trade coffee or creating a solar powered home with recycled material. These voices would also act in prophetically subversive opposition to movements away from the Kingdom and into the empire of the world.

The missional church is also incarnational. The church is incarnational in two ways. It is incarnational as it represents Christ and actually embodies Christ. As the church joins missio dei, it gives flesh to God’s work in the world. This is incarnation. The missional church is also incarnational as it incarnates culturally relevant forms. Colossians remixed is a brilliant example of this. Here, the authors have studied the thoughts, symbols, socio-political structures, and general culture into which they deliver the gospel of a subversive Kingdom. They deliver the text in a way that incarnates the world around them. A missional church, as it puts flesh to God does so relevantly, wisely, and subversively.

From the relational, creational and incarnational ministry of Christ, we turn to his roles as prophet, priest, and king in the missional church and in our postmodern, globalized era. As priest, Christ is the keeper of the stories of Israel. The missional church joins in this calling. In a world void of metanarrative and filled with cynicism, the stories of faith are infinitely valuable. The ways that the church tells stories is not only, and often not primarily through voice, but through rhythms of life such as Eucahrist. Sacraments and a sacramental way of life offer the wandering and un-rooted postmodern a place in story. As we live and tell the stories of redemption, we create faith. Not only that, we create communities of faith. In creating faith communities, we subvert an empire that dines on individualistic cynicism and denial.

Christ is also prophet. So too, the missional church joins God’s prophetic work. The prophet creates, as Allender suggests, “faith for the future.”¹⁴ The Westminster Confession, alternately conceives of the prophet as revealer. These two, in our globalized world, seem at odds. To reveal the evils of trade, slave labor, genetically engineered foods, and so many other dark issues hidden within the empire is not, on its surface, a hope birthing revelation. However, hope based on ignorance is not hope at all. The missional prophet today is an artist (either figuratively or literally). She cleverly crafts her subversive revelation to bring truth and invite a dream, or hope, of something different. The role of prophet, like the role of priest, is infinitely valuable today.

Finally Christ is King. Here especially, it is important to remember that the church does not have mission but is the vehicle of mission.¹⁵ Christ is the servant king and the missional church is the vehicle through which he brings his serving reign. According to Allender, the king is one who loves and cares for those in his kingdom. It is here that we see the Matthew 25:31-46. The king is the one who feeds the hungry and clothes the naked. As we participate in Christ’s kingship, our calling is to be present to the needs of those around us and around our globe and to be mobilized in response to the suffering of others and to subvert an empire that would harm them.

With all this in hand, let’s revisit the men and women whose stories we began with. Their Christology left them in the wake of Christ’s greatness and in wait of Christ’s return. At the end of this discussion, we see now that, in the wake of Christ’s greatness, we become Christ’s return. Therefore, when we long for eschatology, when the not yet of already/not yet causes us to pray, “Come quickly Lord!” a missional church, which is any church as the church is God’s instrument of mission, prays this with longing hearts and responds with incarnation, relationship, creativity, and the life of prophet, priest, and servant to the king.

Bibliography

Allender, Dan. “Faith, Hope, Love.” Lecture delivered at Mars Hill Graduate School, Bothell, WA, September 2005

Anderson, Mark. “Discipleship Pods.” Lecture delivered at The Church Has Left the Building. Seattle, WA, April 2006.

Bauckham, Richard. Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003.

Bell, Rob. Trees. Grand Rapids: Nooma, 2002

Clapp, Rodney. A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1996

Grenz, Stanley J.The named God and the question of being : a trinitarian theo-ontology. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2005

Guder, Darrell L. ed., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998

Walsh, Brian J. and Sylvia C. Keesmaat. Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2004

McLaren, Brian. The Church on the Other Side. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003.

McLaren, Brian. The Last Word and the Word After That. Jossey-Bass, 2004

McLaren, Brian. The Story We Find Ourselves In. San Francisco. Jossey-Bass, 2005

Rutba House, ed. School(s) for Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism. Eugene, Or: Wipf and Stock, 2005.

Snyder, Howard A. Radical Renewal: The Problem of Wineskins Today. Eugene, Or: Wipf and Stock, 2005

Theology of Church

A Tale of Three Priesthoods

They walked with some strange sense of fear and joy as they entered the temple. As they entered with sacrifices in hand, they would bring peace and reconnection between the people and God. These ancient Hebrew priests were healers, reconcilers, bringers of hope.

He struggled up the hill, falling, bleeding, crying, and yet harboring a greater joy and hope than any had ever known. As he was brutally murdered, he would forever bring peace between people and God. This God-man and eternal high priest was the healer, the reconciler, the true hope.

They ignorantly left home with video cameras and little knowledge of what they were getting themselves into. They ended up in the path of danger, in houses of desperation, in the hearts of the abused, unseen, and desperate children of Northern Uganda. As they video taped a young boy named Jacob bitterly weeping, they were annointed with his tears and became the bearers of peace. These modern priests fathered a movement, Invisible Children, of healing, reconciling, and sparce but undeniable hope.

In a world of genocide, isolation, famine, war, child soldiers, and a seemingly-insurmountable AIDS pandemic, we are in desperate need of priests. To the world's great fortune, God seeded a nation of priests when God chose Israel to be God's people. God again blessed the world beyond what we dare hope for in the person of Jesus Christ, the eternal High Priest. Today this blessing continues in the church, a nation of priests, a peculiar treasure, upon a hungry dehumanized world longing for the relational connection it was created for. For this reason, it is timely to re-examine an ecclesiology of priesthood.

XME Formula

Ecclesiology cannot stand alone. It is born out of a Christology that births a missiology. The church does not have a mission but is by nature mission.¹ Edmund P. Clowney states, “The church does not have a mission, but is mission….the church exists only in mission.”² Therefore, in discussing the priesthood of the church, we begin with the priesthood of Christ and the on-going mission of Christ's priesthood.

The foundational question for an Eccliology based on this Christological missiology, or the XME formula, is "Who is Christ and what did Christ accomplish?" Torrents of ink have been placed on paper in answer of those two questions. Suffice for founding a priestly ecclisology that Christ was and is the eternal High Priest and that Christ's death and resurrection can be viewed as X suggests, as victory over sin and death. Donald Miller speaks of salvation as historically completed: "Objectively, the correct answer to the question: 'When were you saved?' would be: 'Around the year 30 AD.'It was when 'the place of the skull was transformed by an open tomb that our salvation was effected."³ Clowney depicts the church as “Those who know that the whole world is saved and can declare its salvation.”⁴ Christ’s death is entirely efficatious for reconciliation and Christ is fully potent as the eternal High Priest. The church's ministry, then is founded only on Christ, who is the source of our very existence⁵ and the one from whom Christian priesthood flows. Further, the purpose of the church can be defined simply as the continued work of what was completed on the cross. Manson writes, "The work, decisively done on the Cross, is continued in the church."⁶

As our priesthood flows from Christ’s, our mission is born of God's mission in the world.⁷ Hall consistently refers to God as "the one whose mission precedes ours."⁸ There are many facets to this mission, but the common thread is reconciliation. Yoder writes, "The priestly character of the community of faith arises out of its very mission: the role of the church is not to serve itselfbut to be the bearer of reconciliation. The royal character of this community can be specified in terms of its participation in God's intentions for the direction of the world."⁹ Again, this mission is clearly to join in God's reconciliatory presence¹⁰ and mission. "The eternal purpose of God for [humanity]," states Miller, "[is] rooted in the divine determination to bring [humanity] into perfect fellowship with [God's self]."¹¹

From this Christological mission, we can begin to form an ecclesiology. The obvious conclusion is that the church is a reconciliatory entity. The missional church is clearly an "intstrument of redemption."¹² Hall explicitly states the mission of the church as "A meeting in which the One whose mission predeeds ours brings together for reconcilliatoin and communion those who are alienated from one another."¹³ Hall further explores this humanizing role of the church as cultivating connection in a world of isolation and violencce: "Christian mission orientated toward the 'mending' of this world and its creatures would first hope, not that persons would be prepared for heaven, but that they would be enabled more fully to enter into the life of earth: to be more human; to be neighbors; to be with rather than against or alone."¹⁴

Having arrived at this foundational understanding of the church as, in its very essence, a Christological mission, we begin to see the importance of the biblical metaphor of a royal priesthood. In the next several pages, we will explore the meaning of this metaphor and its implication for the world. In this exploration, we will begin by exploring the role of priesthood. Then we will enter into the crucial question: to whom are we priests? In the end, we will find the rhythm of our three priesthoods living and calling forth new life and hope in the world.

Reconciliatory Role of Priests

The primary role of a priest is as a reconciliatory and relational entity. Christ, the perfect high priest is eternally and unbreakeably connected to God and to humanity,¹⁵ so too must be priests. First, priest are connected God. Gnuse writes, "Throughout the biblical text preists are defined not according to what they do but by what they are - people who live in the divine presence."¹⁶ Second, the priests are connected as a community. Craddock writes that this priesthood is "clearly community and not individual [designation]."¹⁷ Priests, then, live reflexively between God and humanity, bringing the two together. Herschel Hobbs depicts this as the primary definition of the priesthood: "A priest was one who stood between God and humans in order to bring them together."¹⁸

This historical reconciliatory role of priests is, through Christ, passed on to the church. As the new royal priesthood, church holds the hope of connection in a world marked by disconnection and isolation.¹⁹ So key is this connection that it is the very foundation of this new priesthood of all. Hillyer reveals that the priesthood of the Old Testament was a priesthood that was limmited to a caste in response to the moral failure in the story of the Golden Calf. This new priesthood is based on a new connection between God and humanity that allows all believers, once again, to be priests.²⁰ Karkkainen sees this connection as the ultimate purpose of the church: "The final goal of the church [is] the unity of all people of God under one God."²¹

Peter depicts this royal priesthood as offering sacrifices. This offering marks priesthood.²² It was through this sacrifice that humanity was able to draw near to God. Dozeman writes, "The mediation of sacrifices purged humans, drawing them closer to the realm of God, now centerd in the sanctuary...The well-being offering even allowed Israelites to feast in t he presence of God before the sanctuary."²³ As he depicts the priestly officiation of sacrifices, Dozeman notes a three-stop movement toward reconciliation: sin to forgiveness to celebration.²⁴ Manson concurs with this celebratory end: "The sacrifice may be thought of as a sacred meal which the worshippers share with their God."²⁵

Christ, as the High Priest, offered a final sacrifice, uniting humanity to God and ensuring the eschatoligical feast of reconcilliation. What, then, is the priestly role of the church in Christ's wake? The clear answer is the Eucharist. As Manson writes, "Those who celebrate and lead in the celebration of Eucharist become the priests."²⁶ As a sacrifice, the Eucharist can be seen as a) a shared meal, b) gifts offered to God, and c) means to repair relations between God and God's people. The Eucharist moves us from sin to forgiveness to celebration and is, at its very heart a celebratory feast. But is the priesthood of the church about ritual? Surely not. However, Craddock sees the church's priestly role, as depicted in 1 Peter, as highly ritualistic - to the point that Eucharist is not only an enacted church service, but a live way of being: "Rather than being anti-ritual as some have claimed, [Peter] presses ritual to include relationships and benevolent behavior."²⁷

Seven Other Roles of Priests

The primary mission of the priestly church, then is to live a priestly life of Eucharistic being, bringing forgiveness to sin and celebration to forgiveness and uniting all people to God. There are, however, many other facets to the priestly role. Craddock offers a list of priestly actions: "Acts of praise, deeds of kindness, sharing of goods, acceptable conduct, and proclamation of the Gospel."²⁸ Craddock's list is a fine addition to the recolciliatory role of the priesthood. However, Dozeman offers a more complete list that we will not consider: 1) Preists administer temple worship. The church, as a royal priesthood, is then a community dedicated to the curation of worship and to the praises of God. 2) The priests are charged with the maintenence of the temple: there are two applications for this role to the life of the church. a) The whole world is the Lord’s. Therefore, maintenance of the temple means care of the world. And b) the church, as Peter suggests is the temple.²⁹ Our priesthood then binds us to each other’s well being and to the well being of the church as a whole. 3) The work of the priest is to discern God's vision for the world. Dozeman is careful to separate this vocation from that of the prophet’s visionary insight. Instead, the priesthood discerns an institutional vision for the people of God. 4) Priests are teachers. In his treatment of the priesthood of all believers, Luther saw priests as participating in a double role of intercessor and instructor.³⁰ Reidar Byornard states of Hebrew priests that “They were teachers and guides.”³¹ Clearly the teaching role of priests, and by extension of Christ’s church is of great import. 5) Priests are judges. In Numbers 5-6, priests discern guilt and innocence within the people of God. 6) Finally, priests are healers.³² Dozeman compares the priestly function of ancient Israel to the medical vocation of today: "The ordained preisthood in anceint Israel is not unlike health care professionals in contemporary society, only the priesthood is a form of religious health care, since it allows for the divine medicine of holiness to be distributed to humans on earth."³³ He further applies this role to the work of medical ethics today, asserting that the priesthood of the church calls for a voice in rapidly changing currents of medical law and ethics: "It is also a priestly responsibility to evaluate the ethical frontier of health care, where the church must clarify the meaning of life and death as medical preactices continue to change."³⁴

The seventh function is drawn from the work of first name Hayward: story keeping.³⁵

Hayward proposes that the priestly function of story keeping involves telling stories doxologically. This doxological story telling has eight key aspects: 1) Mold stories in ways that enable rather than hinder illumination and leading of the people. 2) Discern historical events that are signs of the "Rule of the Lamb" and those that are "setbacks."³⁶ 3) Appropriate the ambivilance of the Jewish experience and the usability of other nations or majesties. 4) Claim movements of democracy and humanization for the Gospel. Though, the current author suggests extreme caution in tying the Gospel too tightly to democracy, which is like any government, a failing human system. 5) Describe behavior as resulting from Good News and not out of a concern for justification. 6) Present history in its liturgical setting. This aspect of story keeping challenges priests to live their present lives in the rhythms and with the past stories of the historic people and story of God. 7) See Christ's victory in our current time. This role is of specific importance today. As television reports a failing, cynical world and film more and more tells stories of death and loss, priests must proclaim the stories of victory. The third priesthood in our opening discussion was that of Invisible Children, an organization that is raising funds and awareness for the children whose lives are being decimated by a twenty-year-old war. Within the last year, great progress has been made and Invisible Children road crews are storming the country with the stories of victory in our time. This way of story telling must be key facet of the church’s priesthood. 8) Finally, it is the priestly role to see history with the resurrection as a guiding backdrop. Hayward states, "Hope is not a reflex rebounding from defeat but a reflection of theophany."³⁷ This also connects with what Miroslav Volf terms remembering rightly.³⁸ We remember the desolations of this life in light of the resurrection and therefore, for the expectantly sure hope of redemption

Priests to Whom

The next question is, to whom does the church live as a royal priesthood? The first answer is God. We are primarily God’s. Herschel Hobbs unpacks the use if the term peculiar treasure in Exodus 19:5. A peculiar treasure was a treasure that the king kept for himself. Thus, by parallel, the kingdom of priests is primarily a kingdom for God's enjoyment.³⁹ Peter H. Hobbie agrees that this priesthood is specially dedicated God: "Christians form a priesthood, dedicated to God's service."⁴⁰ Edge also echoes this primary purpose of our priesthood: "The totality of one's life is to be lived under God and for God."⁴¹

But, does our primary status as God’s leave us there? Some, such as Hobbie, suggest a retreat from the world, that the priest maintain the priestly body, stating that "community...is an end in itself."⁴² Hobbie further states, "God has chosen the Christian community to be God's own nation and race, separated from secular society and culture."⁴³ However, according to Trevor Hart, this is a scandalous thought that would require re-thinking the very concept of "Good News." He states that such exclusionary belief, "militates against the traditional perception of Christianity as truly offering good news to all human persons, and makes such claims to salvific universality or absolutes essentially scandalous."⁴⁴ Hall also counters the separatistic stance, stating, "The object of the divine Spirit, biblically understood, is not to get us out of the world but to get us into it."⁴⁵

The royal priesthood of the church, then is for the world. Dozeman reflects on ancient Hebrew priesthood as a basis for this stance: "All biblical writers agree that the goal of the priestly vocation is for the entire people of God to become a priestly nation in service to the world."⁴⁶ He further and firmly states: “The people of God must take on the role of priests to the entire world."⁴⁷ By far the most ecumenical of the popes, John Paul II demanded that the Christians be agents of reconciliation throughout the world: "[Pope John Paul II] calls all Christians to do their utmost, not just for the unity of the church but also for the unity of all divided humanity."⁴⁸
III. Conclusion
* "They were perfectly willing to be [God's] 'peculiar treasure' and even to be a 'kingdom of priests,' but they were not willing to assume the accompanying responsbilities." - Hobbs 17

* Put this someplace else As Peter mentions the church as a priesthood, he also calls it a "spiritual house." Miller sees this house as an eschatologically theraputic home: "[Humanity] is delivered from sin in order to achieve the meaning of [their] existence apart from sin. The purpose of the building of a house is to establish a home wherein all the complex aspects of family relatioships may be progressively worked out." – 413

Bow, Beverly A. 2000. "Melchizedek's birth narrative in 2 Enoch 68-73: Christian correlations." In For a later generation, 33-41. Harrisburg, Pa. : Trinity Press International, 2000.

Brueggemann, Dale A. 2002. "Priesthood in ancient Israel." Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 45, no. 4: 685-686.

Clowney, Edmund P. The Church. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995.

Collins, C John. 2002. "The priesthood of some believers: developments from the general to the special priesthood in the Christian literature of the first three centuries." Presbyterion 28, no. 2: 115-119.

Craddock, Fred B. First and Second Peter and Jude. Lousiville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995.

Davis, Peter H. The First Epistle of Peter. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990.

Dozeman, Thomas B. 2005. "The priestly vocation." Interpretation 59, no. 2: 117-128.
Edge, Findley B. 1963. "Priesthood of believers." Review & Expositor 60: 9-21.
Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1998.

Gerrish, Brian A. 1965. "Priesthood and ministry in the theology of Luther." Church History 34: 404-422.

Gnuse, Robert. 2005. "A royal priesthood: literary and intertextual perspectives on an image of Israel in Exodus 19.6." Catholic Biblical Quarterly 67, no. 3: 487-488

Hall, Douglas John. Confessing the Faith : Christian theology in a North American context. Philidephia, Penn.: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1998.

Hagedorn, Anselm C. 2002. "Zadok's heirs: the role and development of the high priesthood in ancient Israel." Vetus testamentum 52, no. 1: 141-142.

Hahnenberg, Edward P. 2006. "The priesthood of the faithful: key to a living church." Worship 80, no. 4: 368-369.

Hart, Trevor. "Universalism: Two distinct types." In Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell: Papers presented ath the fourth Edinburgh Conference on Christian Dogmatics, edited by Migel Cameron. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1992.
Hayward, C T R. 2004. "Priesthood in ancient Israel." Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 28, no. 5: 52-52.

Hillyer, Norman. 1 and 2 Peter, Jude. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1992.
Hobbie, Peter H. 1993. "I Peter 2:2-10." Interpretation 47: 170-173.

Hobbs, Herschel H. You are Chosen: The priesthood of all believers. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1990.

Holmgren, Fredrick Carlson. 2005. "Priests and prophets: spirituality and social conscience." Worship 79, no. 4: 304-316.

Karkkainen, Veli-Matti. An Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, historical & global perspectives. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2002.

Leithart, Peter J. 1999. "Attendants of Yahweh's House : Priesthood in the Old Testament." Journal for the Study of the Old Testament , no. 85: 3-24.
MacLeod, David J. 2005. "Christ, the believer's high priest: an exposition of Hebrews 7:26-28." Bibliotheca sacra 162, no. 647: 331-343.

Manson, T W. Ministry and Priesthood: Christ's and ours. Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1958.
Miller, Donald G. 1986. "Luke 4:22-30." Interpretation 40, no. 1: 53-58.

Old, Hughes Oliphant. "Why Bother With Church." In Essentials of Christian Theology, edited by William C. Placher. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.

Phillips, David M. 2004. "Priesthood in ancient Israel." Ashland Theological Journal 36: 130-131.
Renz, Thomas. 2005. "A royal priesthood? the use of the Bible ethically and politically: a dialogue with Oliver O'Donovan." Vetus testamentum 55, no. 1: 131-131.
Russell, Letty M. "Why Bother With Church." In Essentials of Christian Theology, edited by William C. Placher. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.
Torrance, James. Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997.

Volf, M. Exclusion and Embrace. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996.

Yoder, John H. The Royal Priesthood: Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994

Theology of Pastoral Care

Priests and Pastoral Care Words are strange. They can make my skin crawl. They can excite me. They can cause hope or fear or confusion or the intense desire to run away and follow Jonah into the belly of a whale. Priest has always been such a word for me. I refuse to consider it or to wear it. If God called me to be a priest, I would gladly become fish food rather than to assume that calling. Worse, as a woman, it excludes me and priestess is meant for crazy pagans who love nature but don’t believe in God. Forget it all. I will never live a life described by the term priest. Or so has been my visceral reaction to that word in the past.

Words are also strange because their meaning can change when studied, when experienced, when we stop to take a new look at the word and at the world it lives in. Lately, I’ve seen priest in a new light and, suddenly, like Jonah who eventually went to Nineveh, I’m willing to be a priest or, more accurately, a priestess. A priest is the one who presides over the Eucharist. More specifically to the topic of pastoral care, the priest is one who lives a Eucharistic life with her people. The Eucharistic life reenacts the salvific drama of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Eucharistic life is marked by reconciliation – of people to God, of people to each other, and of people to creation. It is dedicated to telling and living the story of redemption and is a marker of God’s crescendoing Kingdom. If this is priesthood, if this is the vocation of a priestess, I will gladly go to Nineveh.

Priests have many roles: They are agents of connectivity and reconciliation.¹ They administer worship and care for the temple.² They discern God’s vision for the world and for specific communities.³ Priests are teachers⁴ and healers.⁵ Finally, priests are keepers of the story. Priests tell and live the story in ways that lead and that reveal the crescendoing Kingdom. Their stories are tell history in liturgical form, uniting the rhythms of the past with the tumult of the present. To priests, the story is always one of Christ’s victory in our time. Finally, priests tell the story with the constant backdrop of the resurrection.⁶

Each of these priestly roles gives new light and life to the word priest. Of all these priestly roles, the connective/reconciliatory is the most pertinent for pastoral care and so will be the one that we explore. Over the next few pages, we will both academically and personally explore my life and ministry as a priest of Eucharist-life and tri-fold reconciliation.

The Eucharistic life of a priest is primarily reconciliatory. The Eastern Orthodox tradition views the ordained priest as a special relational entity.⁷ Christ, as a priest, was inseparably connected to God and to humanity. ⁸ I then, as a priestess, must be a relational entity: connected to God, fellow humanity, and to God’s creation. Gnuse writes, "Throughout the biblical text priests are defined not according to what they do but by what they are - people who live in the divine presence."⁹ Second, as a priest, I must be connected to community. Craddock writes that priesthood is "clearly community and not individual [designation]."¹⁰ Priests, then, live reflexively between God and humanity, bringing the two together. Herschel Hobbs depicts this as the primary definition of the priesthood: "A priest was one who stood between God and humans in order to bring them together."¹¹

A third realm of connective living for the priest is to God’s creation. This is not a designation of connectivity found in scripture. I believe this is because never before in history have we seen such enmity between humanity and creation. We have become separate and abusive to God’s world. God’s stewardship commandment in Genesis¹² is meant to be observed; it is, today, is a highly pertinent call. The term priest, today, can benefit from the connotation priestess held for me as a child. A priestess cares for, celebrates, and invites others to celebrate creation and to live in harmony and unity with God’s created world. When I recycle or ride the bus or take a hike in the Cascades or grow organic basil in my backyard, I do so as a priestly action. My life as a preist is not only rooted in my connection to God and to community, but in my connection and care for God’s world.

The priest, as a relational entity, does not only live in relationship to God, people and creation – she invites others into this holistic life of connection. As a priest, I listen to the hearts and stories of others. I listen to where they are connecting with God and where there is disconnection. As a relational entity, I am constantly looking and listening for ways to build bridges where there are caverns and to walk with people across these bridges.

Further, as a priest, my life and ministry invites reconciliation and connection between people. I become and expert in conflict management; I am willing to stand knee-deep in the mud and muck of human strife. I am like the word “and;” I stand between separated people, linking them together. For example, tonight I met some homeless people living under the I-5 over-pass, just a few blocks from my house. Knowing that my community wanted to celebrate Easter morning by blessing a homeless community, I invited them to Easter breakfast. This is a priestly, connective role. This is pastoral care.

This pastoral care of connection, in a global world, must stretch beyond the local sphere. Having my church watch Invisible Children and begin working with them for the healing and hope of children in Northern Uganda is a priestly act. Telling stories of specific people across the globe; uniting with other faith communities in the vastness of the world; knowing the state of the Iraq war and the plight of the Dalit in India – these are all priestly activities.

Another aspect of this connection that cannot be over-looked, though it often is, is connecting people to themselves. How is a person in division? How is she hating herself? How is he not seeing or hearing himself? How is she bifurcated between body, soul, mind, and spirit? These are also areas where a I, as a priest, must learn to bring reconciliation and connection.

The third type of connection is to the world. As a priest, my calling is to invite my community to plant trees. It is church to go for walks in the woods. Pastoral care is looking at the vastness of the starry summer sky. It is reconciliation to stand with our feet in the crashing tide. This, too, is the life of the Eucharistic life of the priest.

So you see, the word priest, that once meant separation and difference has come to mean dynamic connection and a life of reconciliation. As a priest serves Eucharist on a Sunday morning (or Sunday evening in my case) she is doing something more than one of her many tasks, she is presenting the symbol she lives into. As the priest walks in the woods with one of her community members or invites people to a time of body prayer or sits with a warring husband and wife, she is saying to them: “This is the body of Christ, broken for you; and this is the blood of Christ the cup of salvation. Eat and be made whole.” This is the priesthood I long to live.

Bibliography

Craddock, Fred B. First and Second Peter and Jude. Lousiville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995,

Dozeman, Thomas B. 2005. "The priestly vocation." Interpretation 59, no. 2: 117-128

Gnuse, Robert. 2005. "A royal priesthood: literary and intertextual perspectives on an image of Israel in Exodus 19.6." Catholic Biblical Quarterly 67, no. 3: 487-488

Hayward, C T R. 2004. "Priesthood in ancient Israel." Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 28, no. 5: 52-52, 52

Hobbs, Herschel H. You are Chosen: The priesthood of all believers. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1990

Karkkainen, Veli-Matti. An Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, historical & global perspectives. Downers Grove, Ill, 2002

Manson, T W. Ministry and Priesthood: Christ's and ours. Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1958, 58