Stewards of God's Mysteries: On the Sacraments and Lay Celebration

Presbyter's stoles

It's a bit ironic that as the Church in the United States lives into its renewed emphasis on weekly celebration of the Eucharist, the number of ordained clergy is beginning to decline and local parishes are struggling to afford full-time pastors.

This is leading to some difficult conversations about how to fill these positions: do we change the requirements for ordination? Do we permit lay persons to celebrate the Sacraments in specific circumstances? If so, what's the mechanism for such licenses?

As it stands today, both my tradition of origin (the UMC) and the tradition in which I currently serve (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) permit lay celebration in particular circumstances. In the UMC, lay persons may be licensed as local pastors; with the bishop's approval, they are appointed to a charge and granted the title "Reverend." In the ELCA, the bishop may approve a lay person as a "synodically authorized minister" -- who is not considered a pastor. In both traditions, the lay celebrant is limited to their parish. Unlike a fully ordained presbyter,* these lay persons may not celebrate the sacraments outside the regular duties of their ministry to that single congregation.

Over the next few weeks, I'll consider some of the arguments for and against lay celebration.

With all due respect to my family and friends who have served the Church as lay celebrants, there is a better way. It better serves the Church catholic if we ordain all of our celebrants as presbyters.

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*Definitions and snarky side notes:

• Yes, I know that both the United Methodist Church and the Episcopal Church prefer to style themselves as "The". I'm not going to do that because it's stupid.
• I know that charge, parish, and congregation are not, strictly speaking, the same thing. However, for sake of ease, I'm going to use them interchangeably.
• We don't seem to agree on what to call our parish pastors: are they pastors, priests, elders? I'm going to stick with the Greek and call them presbyters -- which is especially helpful when talking to "low church" folks and when comparing presbyters to deacons and bishops, who also fulfill a pastoral function.
• Instead of "licensed local pastor" or "synodically authorized minister," I will be using the term "lay celebrant" as it gets directly the heart of the matter I want to discuss.

Praxis: Faith Inspires Justice and the Care of Souls

Over at Covenant, Episcopal seminarian Matthew Burdette writes on the place of theology in theological education as seminaries and seminarians push ever further towards the "practical":

A useful illustration of this dynamic is the centrality given to pastoral care, the current conception of which is a 20th-century innovation. Prior to this time, pastoral ministry was generally conceived of in moral and sacramental terms, rather than in therapeutic (and therefore medical) terms, which is currently dominant. It has become a widespread requirement for ministers of different faiths to undergo the training of Clinical Pastoral Education, or CPE, usually in the context of hospital chaplaincy. One of the stretching and beneficial characteristics of CPE is that ministers work with ministers of other faiths, as well as offer pastoral care to people of other faiths. Beneficial as interfaith learning is, a question does loom over the whole process: If I can offer the same pastoral care to a patient as the imam, and if I think that pastoral care is at the center of ministry, then what is the significance of those doctrinal matters that separate me from the imam?

The question is a serious one, and my own suspicion is that there is a correlation between the pervasive focus on this model of pastoral care and the implicit Unitarianism espoused by many clergy in mainline Protestantism. The same question emerges from the focus on social justice. When a parish’s or cleric’s social vision is indistinguishable from a party platform, and when the Church’s message is said to find its telos in that social vision, one must wonder why anyone should bother with the religious baggage. Again and more pointedly: When pastoral care or social action are assumed to be the goal of theological education, then the particular matters of doctrine that are the content of the Christian faith become irrelevant and distracting; focusing on them deters from what theology or ministry is allegedly about.

...The presumption that theological education is for some practical end is perhaps also related to widespread biblical illiteracy and poor catechesis. It is difficult to prioritize teaching the Christian faith when the implicit assumption is that its content is inconsequential.

I couldn't agree with Burdette more. Just as "Intro to Worship" is about more than just what color stole to wear and the proper way to bless the assembly, so to should our classes on conflict transformation and pastoral care more than crash-courses in community organizing and family systems.

As I've said before, so many young clergy and seminarians are passionate about social justice and pastoral care but neglect any sense of theological framework. Instead, many of my colleagues -- wonderful and loving people that they are -- try to wrangle a Christian identity out of progressive social actions. In this view, the Church would function just as well without God -- perhaps even better if we get to catch up on sleep on Sunday mornings.

The Church's rediscovered passion for social justice and pastoral care -- even among younger fundamentalists! -- is commendable. Good will come of it. But this new passion is not enough if it is not based in belief in the Triune God.

The Church is called to work for justice and to care for souls, but those vocations flow out of our sacramental identity. We are the Body of Christ. Here we stand. We can do no other.

"Go Weird or Go Home"

Living Church's blog, "Covenant," offers these reflections on "Evangelism of the Weird":

The weirdness of the Christian faith is a potent weapon against indifference among the faithful and a strong tool for fanning the flames of curiosity among the unchurched. Strange practices abound in the tradition — Rogation processions, the burying of the Alleluia before the start of Lent, eucharistic adoration, the marking of the forehead with ashes on Ash Wednesday, the washing of the feet on Maundy Thursday, the entire drama of the Great Vigil of Easter. And these are just the liturgical bits. Something as simple as making the sign of the cross in a public place, offering a blessing over a meal, or even carrying a Bible or a prayer book under your arm is enough to get you strange looks in many places today. These things are strange to people who do not understand them. They may even seem frightening.
As Christianity has become increasingly domesticated in its practice in the West, our tendency has been to let these strange practices go or to try to do them in secret so as not to draw attention to ourselves. This has been a mistake. What the current moment calls for is an even greater commitment to our distinctiveness from the world. While emphasizing these practices may turn some people off, many of them were never going to darken the door of a church anyway. Embracing the oddness of our faith reinforces the power of the Christian narrative for those of us already committed to it and sends a strong signal to others that there is something different about the Christian Church, that Christianity is not just one more club or party but a radically unique way of living and being in the world.
This is not to say that we should just seek out weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Not every strange practice is salutary. Whatever we are doing ought to be congruent with the faith proclaimed in Holy Scripture and taught by the great saints of the Church for 2,000 years. In that same vein, while newer practices can be very useful and meaningful, we ought to give a preference to those activities that have a long, rich history in the life of the Church. This is especially true when we are attempting to recover something that has been lost or obscured. The washing of feet at Maundy Thursday, for instance, has been discontinued or played down in many parishes, but it goes back to the New Testament and has been practiced liturgically since at least the post-apostolic age.