V rctSoi IW5 03b The Laity of the Priesthood THE LAITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD A SERMON PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL CRYPT, NEW YORK, AT THE ADVENT ORDINATION, 1903, BY THE REV. RALPH BIRDSALL, RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH, COOPERSTOWN, N. Y. * Printed by Request. The Laity of the Priesthood Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. I Corinthians iv: i . 8. Paul declares the duty of the clergy when he describes them as ministers, or servants, of Christ. He declares their office when he claims it to be nothing less than a stewardship of divine mysteries. He declares the esteem demanded from the people for the Christian ministry as for men fulfilling so high a duty and as possessing so great an office. "Let a man so account of us," he says. He declares the necessity for Holy Orders in the Church, in the peculiar dis tinction which he claims for the duty and the office. So that S. Paul's words here may well be taken as the text of the sermon which our rubric requires for such occasions as this — "a sermon declaring the duty and office of such as come to be admitted deacons [or priests], how necessary that order is in the Church of Christ, and also how the people ought to esteem them in their office." For the purpose of touching upon so large a theme with reasonable brevity, it will be legitimate to throw the emphasis for this occasion upon one point and to show how the other topics are related to that one, to .... 2 .... raise the question "How ought the people to esteem the clergy in their office?" And to answer it by show ing how this popular esteem should be related to the necessity of Orders in the Church of Christ and to the duty and office of such as are ordained to its holy functions. There ought to be great spiritual power in the in tention of the Church at these Ember seasons — seasons set apart for this one thing, that men should be called and examined and by the Bishops ordained as Priests and Deacons of the Church, while the lay people throughout the land give themselves to earnest prayer that the Bishops "may lay hands suddenly on no man" and that the grace of God may be the strength of all who are called to any office and administration in the Church. That is the theory. But of the practice, I need not assure you that the number of men to be ordained throughout the Church at this season, or at any sea son, will be altogether insufficient to mert the demand of the great opportunities of the Church at this time, in this land. And while the Church asks the prayers of the laity and the collects for those to be admitted to Holy Orders have everywhere been duly said, it may well be questioned whether the lay people of the Church have any conception of the vital concprn to them of what is to be done at this service todaj here and elsewhere. The ordination of men to the bacred Ministry and the subjects related to it are regarded by the file and even by the rank of Church people as of purely academic and sacerdotal interest, very proper .... 3 •¦¦• to be discussed at an occasion like this, but not to be obtruded into the isolated routine of ordinary parish life. They are subjects so long restricted to merely professional discussion that they have been kept away from the minds and therefore from the hearts of the lay people. And yet, whenever the occasion arises which brings the subject within the purview of the laity; whenever, for instance, in any parish, the vestrymen are in the field for a new Rector, then there is no lack of general interest; rather there comes to be an em barrassment of lively interest and suggestion on every hand, which arises from the unusual nature of the problem with which the congregation is faced. On such occasions it comes to be realized how vital it is to the welfare of the particular parish church that the Rector shall be forthcoming who may fulfil in some measure the ideals of priestly life. But the real problem is more than parochial and more than occa sional. The vestry committee in search of a Rector touches only the surface of it. For when the members of the committee have discovered their ideal, if they can, and have secured him, if they can, to the dismay of some other parish, the incident is closed, so far as they are concerned, together with the whole problem which lies behind it. And yet the real significance of the incident so soon forgotten in the normal round of parish life, — its permanent significance, is that the consecration of men's talents to the Sacred Ministry should be always a concern of vital moment to the whole Church, and to every congregation in the land .... 4 •••¦ should bring its claim for intelligent consideration and the acceptance of a measure of responsibility. The message of Jesus Christ means one of two things to every man who receives it. It means that he must become a follower of the Nazarene in the lit eral and primitive sense, that he must detach himself from the material interests of the world and give hia study and his time and his energy to the sp reading of Christ's Kingdom among men. That was the only way of being a Christian which could satisfy a Saint Andrew or a Saint Peter or a Saint John or a Saint Paul. Or else the message means that a man must become a follower of Christ in the applied and devel oped sense, striving to put into practice in the ordi nary business of life those principles which grow out of the life of our Divine Master. Upon this derived interpretation of the call to be a Christian we justly lay the stronger emphasis. For by this adaptability to fill all the needs and to influence all the activities of life Christianity has won its place as the religion of progressive civilization. But at the same time that more primitive and lit eral interpretation of the call to serve Christ must never become obscured. So far from being an extra ordinary and presumptuous thing that a man who pro fesses to be a Christian should think of entering the priesthood as a means of more directly discharging his duty, it would rather appear that a simple reading and interpretation of Christ's call in the Gospel would present this as the very first possible duty to Christ .... s ••• and His Church which a man must carefully weigh be fore deciding that he can best serve God in some other calling. Instead of being a thing apart from the ordi nary Church life, the whole Church was primarily a ministry; it was fundp.mentally the whole Church as the Body of Christ in which priesthood was held to inhere. And while the exercise of priestly functions is necessarily specialized, the Sacred Ministry ought never to pass beyond the range of vital interest in the minds of the lay people. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that when there was a need of deacons to be ordained the Apostles looked first of all for the assist ance of the laity. "The twelve called the multitude of disciples unto them and said, * * * Look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom." The power of ordination be longed to the Apostles alone, but the responsibility of bringing forward the fit men rested upon the congre gation. There are boys and men in every congregation who have the talents which ought to be consecrated to the service of the Church. Why do they not come forward? Not because, for the most part, of any intel- tectual difficulties in the Christian faith. Nor yet be cause of any lack of attraction in the priesthood as a calling. The real reason of hesitancy is rather to be sought in that reluctant reverence to which the man with the one talent gave expression when he sjaid, "I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth." There was much to be commended in his reverence for the Master, and it was that very reverence which made .... 6 .... him fear to venture in the professed service of so august a Lord. But it was an exaggerated and dis torted reverence, which served as no excuse in the presence of his Judge. And so it is an exaggerated religious individualism, a view of the dealing of God with the individual soul, commonly traced to the Reformation, which hinders many an earnest, honest man from taking Holy Orders. He is afraid, and hides his talent in the earth. Because he does not have a revelation like S. Paul's with the light blazing at noonday on the road to Damascus, he fears that there has been no inward call. Secular life has many men among its foremost work ers who have at one time thought seriously of entering the Sacred Ministry. They tell you about it rather sheepishly and affect to make light of it. B-nt at one time they were in earnest about it And there was none who would advise them. None dared to encour age them. Some sneered. And so they were afraid and hid their talent in the earth. Far be it from me to underrate the importance of that inward call of the Holy Ghost without which no honest man will seek to take Holy Orders. But the Holy Ghost speaks in many ways. And He has other means of stirring the hearts of men than by the sight of visions and the sound of heavenly voices. Therefore if I have any message for you who have come here to take these vows of service to the Church of God as the best thing that you can do with your lives, my message . is that your object shall be not only to help all men to solve the problems of life by the application of the Christian .... 7 ... faith, but also that you shall help some men to find this solution of the problem, and to take the same step that you are taking now. I contend that we should use all tl j influence and power which the pulpit of the Church assigns us to persuade men to enter the Chris tian ministry, to induce them to renounce the rewards held out to them by the businesses and professions of the world, — not that there is any heroic sacrifice in that, but to leave all other opportunities and become the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of Gnd, trusting in whatever subsistence may be offered by the funds of the Apostolic company. You cannot preach the whole Gospel without preaching that. Now here we have touched upon one message of the Gospel that is not being widely proclaimed. All professions and industries are bidding for the talent.-! of men on every side, but the priestly profession con sistently interprets the Master's message to men, "Follow me", as signifying "Stay where you are, and do your duty there", in its way a most excellent inter pretation. But I take it that the men who received the divine commission to go into all the world and prea-h the Gospel to every living creature carried out that commission not merely by converting people to a faithful service of Christ in their old employments, but also by persuading men in Christ's name to devote their lives exclusively to preaching that message, to throw in their lives and fortunes with the Sacred Min istry of tht^Church. just as the first called of the dis ciples had doue in the beginning. Let the call to -the Christian ministry resume its .... 8 .... rightful place in the Gospel which has been given to us to preach to men and we shall no longer have a laity indifferently regarding the ministry as a kind of self perpetuating oligarchy, which not only makes the priests, but must somehow create the men. If preach ing, by the grace of God, is really a power to influence men and to shape the course of their lives, then that simple direct appeal to leave all and follow Christ, just as you find it in the Gospel — that incisive com mand of the Master, taken up by the whole Church, would bring us a multitude of men, with lips touched with fire, saying, "Here am I. Send me !" If men are saying that they are not called to serve God in this way it is largely because the Church is sues no call, ami because the priesthood, which claims to impress upon men the divine call to repentance, to Baptism, to Confirmation, to Holy Communion, ex tends no direct call to men to enter the Sacred Minis try, challenges the worldliness of life with no echo of the command of Jesus Christ, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." With the cry for men for the ministry always ring ing in our ears, how amazing it is that we do not look to our own congregation as a source of supply, that we are so reluctant to enforce the appeal there where we are in honor bound to deliver the whole message of the Gospel as we see it! Where are we to look for candidates for the Sacred Ministry if not in our parish congregations? Show me the priest who believes that Christ's appeal for men, widely taken up by the Church, or consistently proclaimed even by those who . . . . 9 • ¦ • are here today, would effect nothing, would bring no valuable men into the ministry, and I will show you a preacher who has lost faith in his message as an am bassador of Christ and who is really willing to believe that preaching the Gospel, when it is put to the test, can accomplish nothing. Plainly it may be the duty of ninety-nine men out of one hundred to serve Christ just where they are. They may be more effective for the Kingdom of God in some other calling — ninety-nine men out of one hun dred. But we must reach the hundredth man! And the only way to reach him is to call for him and give him an opportunity to answer that call. Well, should we not have too many ? What should we do with them all? What of the ways and means? Something may indeed be said in behalf of the number of clergy already ordained who are without parochial cures. One cannot ignore the fact that there are many industrious, self-sacrificing priests who be long to the great army of the unemployed. But when every consideration has been given to the causes and conditions which have wrought injustice in individual cases, it cannot be argued from them that there is no room in the ministry. If we are to compare the min istry with other professions on the basis of employ ment, it will be seen that every profession, through various causes, must necessarily have its proportion of unemployed, and the most striking fact in such a comparison will be the small proportion of unemployed in the profession of Christian ministry. One would count that a happy day for the Church which should find more men waiting to be educated for Holy Orders than could possibly be accommodated. For in that day the Church w ould choose its men, guarding their development, selecting some, rejecting others, assigning them finally to their tasks with a view to their special fitness and capacity. The Church would no longer be compelled to wait for men to choose the Church, accepting by necessity practically all who present themselves. And a great company of eager and earnest volun teers for the Ministry would solve the further problem of places to put them and means to support them. It would make possible, what we have not now, a true diaconate, and an exercise of subordinate ministries which would go far to solve many of the Church prob lems of the times. It would make new fields and create means of support by sheer force of consecrated and manifold service. Much more than all this might be said in answer to the question "How ought the people to esteem the clergy in their office ?" If you ask "How do the peo ple esteem the clergy in their office ?" you will find in the answer some serious reasons for the lack of any enthusiastic movement of young men toward the choice of the Sacred Ministry. Some people indeed there are among our faithful Churchmen who esteem the clergy in their office as tbe true Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the mysteries of God. But there are two common errors with re spect to the Ministry which are curiously enough II ... . direct contradictions of each other. One is this. Some people esteem the Priest in his office as a man who lives an easy, slow going sort of life, a kind of professional idleness, altogether out of the current of human activity. It is not strange that a man whp has any notion of doing the world's work, and looks upon a clergyman as the gentleman of the community who has the most spare time to waste, should be loath to enter a profession which permits such idleness. Idle ness in this day is not the ambition of youth. They long for activity, excitement, work. And you and I ought to be able to tell them that in the service of the Church, they may realize their desires. It is true that there are few professions which allow a man so wide a field for idleness, if he is content to be idle. But it is also true that there are few professions which visit laziness with so certain and terrible a retribution. As for being out of the current of modern activity, the priesthood touches human life at more points and more intimately than any calling in which men of the world are engaged. And what a field there is for work ! The whole world calls out for men to go forth into the Vineyard of the Lord. Any land, any clime, any place to which men have penetrated is full of oppor tunities for a man who desires to count for some thing in bringing the Kingdom of God to pass upon this earth ! Then there is the other misconception of the Min istry which I said was so unlike the first. Instead of thinking the Ministry an easy calling there are some devoted Church people who think it very hard. They esteem the clergy in their office as objects of commis eration. They are alw iys pitying the parish priest in the performance of his duties; they have little sym pathy for the toils of the business man, but they are quick to detect symptoms that the Rector is breaking down beneath his load of care. It seems to them a doleful thing to be a clergyman, a kind of living mar tyrdom in an atmosphere of gloom. Oh, how far wrong they are ! If men only knew the happiness and satisfaction of a life given to the service of the Church, if they knew that here is a call ing in which the daily rewards are richer than gold, with just that infinite variety of employment and in terest which keeps a man from going stale and makes weariness of life impossible ; with the forming of ties deeper than friendships, with the enshrining of blessed memories, with the opening of unexpected paths in the future; and with all this to be doing God's service in obedience to the call of Jesus Christ — if men knew this they would rejoice to answer that call and Christ would choose His ministers instead of waiting for His ministers to choose Him ! It is true that most of those to whom you address your message cannot answer that call in that way. It is too late. Their lives are fixed. Their occupations are chosen. But is there no man among them who will send his son ? Is there no devout Hannah who might dedicate a Samuel to the service of God's temple ? Cannot earnest Christian men and women be persuaded to hold up before their sons the calling of a clergyman as one of the possibilities ? .. They will do anything in ....13.... their power to encourage a son and help him on the way to become lawyer, physician or merchant. Why not give him at least a fair opportunity to enter the Church ? Why delay until it is too late to give to the young men of today the training and education neces sary for the Church ? Oh, that men would be per suaded to give the Christian ministry a place, only a fair place, in their hopes and ambitions for their sons ! Tbe Church needs them and the field awaits them. 08540 1967