From
Living Theology in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church In America
Volume 2, Number 1
Epiphany 1997
Ministerial Formation
Servants
Ready to Listen
Philip
Hefner
How inspiring it can be to behold a
minister in God’s Church who has both an office of authority and the character
to exercise that office with integrity. How discouraging it is to watch someone
from whom we expect so much, who has lost, or never possessed, the personal
qualities it takes to care for and challenge God’s people in their ministries.
In any setting we can be saddened or
angered by watching someone with an assignment to fulfill, but inadequate inner
resources to get it done. But it is so much more tragic when these office
holders are expected to mediate to us the spiritual things of word and
sacrament and it is apparent that they have not been formed by those same
forces they must represent.
We speak of that tragedy most commonly
from the lay person’s point of view when we complain about youth ministers who
have all the right tricks, but can’t lead the children in prayer, or organists
who want us to admire their virtuosity, but file their nails during the sermon,
or pastors who misuse church funds or sexually abuse those they have been
called to counsel and care for.
But AIMs and pastors also often feel
trapped between ever expanding expectation attached to their office and their
own sense of diminishing spiritual resources.
Fortunately it is rare that our
ministers are as devoid of good spirit as were Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of
Eli, who cared only for their priestly prerrogatives and nothing for the people
of God or the sacred traditions. And, though our call committees are always
hopeful, rarely does a Samuel come along who possesses both the priestly and
prophetic charisma in spades. But Eli gives some advice that can benefit us all
(1 Sam 3:9): When God calls, say “Speak
LORD, for your servant is listening.”
If there is to be any hope for the Church to nurture the character
traits needed to fullfill the office of ministry it will come through the
discipline of listening for the Word of the Lord.
Readiness to listen for the Word is
essential because the character traits of ministry are not simply natural
occuring aspects of personality. Hans von Campenhausen points out in his book, Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power
(Stanford, 1969), that strongest theological traditions of the Church followed
Jesus’ lead in subordinating issues of both office and character to the charge
to bear faithful witness to the Word. Unbalanced reliance on the authority of
sacred office corrupts the church as it is bent to serve the needs or mistaken
goals of its leaders. But if charisma is made the ultimate reality then the
Chuch dissipates its energies in a chaos of enthusiasm. But the biblical and
orthodox tradition of the church always closely correlates ‘Spirit’ to Word and testimony. We know the Spirit who
“has spoken through the prophets.”
Keeping office and charisma together
the Lutheran Confessions recognize that the ministerial character is not formed
through purely interior exercises. The line from God to God’s people is through
Christ and through His Church. It comes to us when we hear the Word proclaimed
and experience the sacramental ministry of the Church, and in this way it is an
act of grace received by faith and not merit (Augsburg Confession V).
The way we get people who are ready to
listen to the Word of the Lord is by the Spirit working through others who have
been ready and have been touched by this Word.
Any discipline that can nurture this
readiness must be marked by a dialectic, much like that which Martin Luther
spoke of when he said that the Christian is perfectly free from the law to be
perfectly servant to God and ministry to God’s people. To be ready to listen we
must be slave to the Word, but to no other form of self-censorship.
Hefner