I love the liturgy. I love the liturgy for many reasons, not the least of which being that it guards us from our own agendas and amnesias. What struck me today as I prepare to preside at the liturgy tomorrow in my congregation are these words: "called and ordained." They have been with me since my childhood in the Lutheran church. "Upon this your confession, I, by virtue of my office, as a called and ordained servant of the Word...." They've gone that way from TLH to LW to LSB. LSB adds a little reference to authority, which is the essence of office, the permission to speak and act granted by another. "As a called and ordained servant of Christ and by His authority...." You can't say Office of the Holy Ministry any clearer than that.
Called and ordained. Some would have the call be everything; others would have ordination be the clincher. What God has joined together, let man not rend asunder. "Called and ordained" is how the liturgy has us confess it. Here is the right use of that little slogan "lex orandi, lex credendi." As the church prays in the liturgy, so she believes. The liturgy bears witness over and against our attempts to bend things our way like some wax nose.
Called and ordained is the way of our tradition. In the 14th article of the Augsburg Confession, the Reformers defended themselves against Eck's slanders that they were like the radical protestants, making everyone ministers without distinction. "It is taught among us that nobody should publicly teach or preach or administer the sacraments in the church with a regular call (an "ordered call," ordentliche Beruf)" (AC XIV). Ordination by a pastor, or by a bishop, if such is the arrangement, testifies and confirms that the call is ordered, that is "in order." "Afterwards a bishop, either of that church or of a neighboring church, was brought in to confirm the election with the laying on of hands; nor was ordination anything more (else) than such confirmation" (Treatise 70).
Called and ordained. Both are essential in the making of a pastor. When the bishops attempted to choke out the Lutheran congregations of Germany and refused to ordain pastors to fill their vacancies, Melanchthon and the Reformers argued that the authority to ordain inherently resides with the congregation as an inalienable right. "Consequently, when the regular bishops become enemies of the Gospel and are unwilling to administer ordination, the churches retain the right to ordain for themselves. For wherever the church exists, the right to administer the Gospel also exists. Wherefore it is necessary for the church to retain the right of calling, electing, and ordaining ministers" (Treatise 66-67).
Ordination by a bishop was, and is, a human arrangement (de jure humano), granted by common consent for the sake of peace and unity among the churches. However, "since the distinction between bishop and pastor is not by divine right, it is manifest that ordination administered by a pastor in his own church is valid by divine right (de jure divino)" (Treatise 65). Every congregation manifests the fulness of the Church; therefore every congregation possesses the right to elect, call, and ordain pastors, for without the preached Word, the Church would perish.
Ordination is not a "sacrament" in the same sense as Baptism, Absolution, and the Lord's Supper. These are "rites which have the command of God and to which the promise of grace has been added" (Apology XIII.3). Baptism, Absolution, and the Lord's Supper benefit the recipient and bestow on faith the gifts of salvation. Ordination provides ministers of the Word and sacraments. The Office of the Holy Ministry is the instrumentality of the Word and the sacraments, the means by which these are administered (AC V). "If ordination (that is "order," ordo) is interpreted in relation to the ministry of the Word, we have no objection to calling ordination a sacrament" (Ap. XIII.11). Further, "if ordination (order, ordo) is interpreted this way, we shall not object either to calling the laying on of hands a sacrament. The church has the command to appoint ministers; to this we must subscribe wholeheartedly, for we know that God approves this ministry and is present in it." (Apology XIII.12).
We best understand "call and ordination" in terms of what is proper to each one. The call locates a man in a particular place; there is no such thing as absolute, unlocated, floating ordination. Ordination ratifies and confirms the call, placing the man into the holy order of the Office in such a way that the congregation may receive him as the gift from God that he is as their pastor. Externum verbum, extra nos. We have an approximate analogy from public offices of the state. We elect a person to be president on the first Tuesday of November. And in January we inaugurate him into office with a solemn vow. Only then are we given to address him as "Mr. President."
God calls and ordains through His instruments, the churches and her pastors. There is much that is confessed in that little persistent phrase, "I, a called and ordained servant of Christ...." And much for which to be thankful.
Posted On: July 26th, 2008 at 8:06pm by Dan at Necessary Roughness [ + ]
Thank you. It moves the debate away from whether someone is academically qualified to be a pastor, and more to the point that the Lord has instituted this office for good order.
Posted On: July 27th, 2008 at 12:00am by Father Marc [ + ]
Does the "congregation" have the right and power to call, ordain, etc. pastors or does the Church Catholic? In the Confessions you will find the German word usually translated "congregation" - Gemein(d)e used commonly in the phrase "Gemeinde der Heiligen," that is, "the Congregation of the Saints" and you will see the Latin parallel (where applicable) refers to the Una Sancta. On the other hand, Walther commonly used the word "partikularkirche" to refer to a single, local congregation.
Long story short...
When we say something like, "The CONGREGATION retains the power to call, ordain, etc.," are we saying the same thing today that the Confessors were saying?
Just some observations. Corrections are welcome... I don't sit around and read the Triglotta all day and I'm sure there are many hear with better German than mine.
Posted On: July 27th, 2008 at 7:55am by Rev. William M. Cwirla
Homonym errors are the most common in the keyboard age. Mine tends to be its and it's along with there and their.
You raise a good point regarding church/congregation. The trouble is that there is no equivalent for the German regional, territorial church in America. The "denomination" or church body in America is the loose approximation to the territorial or state churches of Europe.
I believe Walther was correct when he saw that the individual congregation independent of the state fully manifested the Church in her fullness. This is the essential ecclesiology of AC VII/VIII. The argument of the Treatise makes sense only if "church" refers to the gathering of believers around the Gospel and sacraments.
For what it's worth, the German version of the Treatise is a paraphrase of the official Latin, though one should never diminish the importance of the translated versions since they were done in full view of the author and represent the Reformers' understanding. I'll check my BKS later on today to see how the Latin handles it. In my piece I was going largely from memory.
Posted On: July 27th, 2008 at 10:06pm by Rev. William M. Cwirla
In the Confessions you will find the German word usually translated "congregation" - Gemein(d)e used commonly in the phrase "Gemeinde der Heiligen," that is, "the Congregation of the Saints" and you will see the Latin parallel (where applicable) refers to the Una Sancta.
Actually, in the Confessions the usual terminology is Kirche/ecclesia. Congregatio sanctorum is translated as die Versammlung aller Glaubigen in AC VII. Walther frequently uses Gemeinde or Ortsgemeinde as well as Kirche.
Treastise .66-67 cited above reads as follows:
Itaque cum episcopi ordinarii fiunt hostes evangelii aut nolunt impertire ordinationem, ecclesiae (die Kirche) retinent jus suum. Nam ubicunque est ecclesia, ibi est jus administrandi evangelii. Quare necesse est ecclesiam (die Kirche) retinere jus vocandi, elegendi et ordinandi ministros. (BKS, 491)
Notice that Melanchthon's "jus vocandi, elegendi, et ordinandi" corresponds to and parses out his "nisi rite vocatus" of AC XIV. (Both documents are written by the same author.) To be "rite vocatus" is to be called, elected, and ordained. Unfortunately, this point is typically lost on American Lutherans who have little or no acquaintance with the Latin texts of the Confessions and are entirely dependent upon the English of the Triglotta or Tappert.
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