The Authority of the Ministry

by Frederick H. Borsch

from Towards a New Theology of Ordination: Essays on the Ordination of Women, pp.12-22.

Ed. by Marianne H. Micks and Charles P.Price, Virginia Theological Seminary,
Greeno, Hadden &Company Ltd. Somerville, Mass., 1976

Frederick H. Borsch is Dean of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and formerly was Professor of New Testament at General Theological Seminary.

—I—

Aspects of the debate regarding the rightness of opening all orders of the ordained ministry to women have been concerned with the issue of the proper exercise of proper authority. Is it legitimate and is it fitting that the authority pertaining to the offices of bishop and priest be exercised by a person who is female? Can a woman really do this in an effective and legitimate manner in and for a branch of the catholic church? One more than suspects that, even when such questions are not brought explicitly into the debate, they lurk behind other arguments, acting as specters of implicit doubt.

When best formulated, this questioning has nothing to do with the issue of whether women actually have the ability to carry out the duties and responsibilities of these offices. One presumes that in a time when women have been running governments and companies, working above, below and alongside of men, we are not asking whether there are women who can wisely and skillfully lead diocesan councils and vestry meetings, preach, manage budgets and say expressively the words of blessing, formal absolution and eucharistic consecration. The significant question is whether it is right and effective in and for the church that women should do these things—especially whether they should have authority to be stewards of the Word and the sacraments. Are there biblical. theological or psychological reasons why it is necessary or at least best that only men bear this authority of stewardship? In other words, the real question concentrates attention on a different kind of authority than is commonly understood as authority in the halls of government, schools and business.(1)

I intend here to focus on a particular and essential character of the authority of Christian ministry, especially as it is presented in the New Testament. Because of this focus, the study can be neither comprehensive nor definitive. A number of important issues will be left aside. What we will attempt to accomplish is to show that this particular character is of the essence of the authority of all Christian ministry—not the least the ordained ministry; that is, the authority of ministry becomes unrecognizable as true Christian authority without this character. It will then be asked whether this essential character should be viewed as pertaining especially or necessarily to male human beings.

—II—

From its inception the Christian community has rightly understood its ministry as an extension of that of Jesus. All ministry takes place as a function of the body of Christ serving in the world, and all Christians are to see themselves as “ambassadors of Christ” (2 Cor 5:20). Although the members of the body are many and the gifts of the Spirit diverse, there is a fundamental Christ-likeness which is to characterize Christian living.(2) All ministry and all priesthood are regarded as being enacted in the imitation of Christ.(3)

Paul gives insight into a vital property of true discipleship when he calls upon Jesus’ followers to,

Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.(4)

It is indeed through this humbling of himself—especially to the obedience of his death—that Jesus’ authority of Lordship (“the name which is above every name”) is bestowed upon him by God, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Phil 2:9- l0) . The authority of God made known in Christ is an authority which posts at its heart the cross of Calvary. The hands by which humankind is to be judged are known by Christians to have holes in their palms.

This understanding also forms one of the basic motifs of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Jesus is “crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death” (2:9). Because he is “made like his brethren in every respect”, he is able to “become a merciful and faithful high priest.” In that “he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted” (2:17 - 18) . Christ did not exalt himself to be high priest. Rather “was it granted by God,” for, “although he was Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” So was he “named high priest by God” (5,:5, 8- 10).

The theme is given its full resonance through the memory of Jesus’ ministry as it is presented by the evangelists. Not only is he remembered as having told stories about the meaning of true humility and the servant character of leadership, but he is seen standing in and behind his words—enacting his own parables. At the Last Supper, Jesus presides as the one who gives of his very life “for many” (Mk 14:24 = Mt 26:28). In the fourth gospel, the Lord rises from the table to wash his disciples’ feet, wiping them with a towel with which he had girded himself. “I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (Jn 13 :15) .

Yet repeatedly the disciples do not understand the nature of Jesus’ authority. They wish to interpret it in terms of rights and privileges and ask that they may receive special positions of honor. Jesus admonishes them:

You know that those who are supposd to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve. (Mk 10:42 - 45)

This is a lesson that is never completely learned by Christians, and time and time again, throughout church history and in our own lives, it is doubted or dealt with by rationalization. Paul finds the same problem cropping up in the Corinthian community. By the standards of worldly wisdom, the power of the cross seems no power at all.(5) There is an aspect of each one of us which, together with those first onlookers, stands watching Jesus being crucified and taunts, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” “Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him” (Mt 27:40, 42).

It would be far easier to worship God if he demanded that we serve him. Instead, he serves us, and in so doing calls us to serve each other. Indeed this motif of communal ministry to one another resounds through the New Testament and is intended to echo in the different persons of the disciples as they seek to let the spirit of Jesus be manifeted in their own lives. “Wash one another’s feet” (Jn 13:14); “forbear and forgive one another” (Col 3:13); “comfort one another and build each other up” (1 Thes 5:11); “Love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (Jn 13:34); “serve one another” (Ga1 5:13); “teach and admonish one another” (Col 3:26); “bear one another’s burdens” (Ga1 6:2); “be at peace one with another” (1 Thes 5:13); “God himself lives within us if we love one another” (1 Jn 4:12).

By means of the narrative of his testing by the devil, the Gospels dramatize Jesus’ own temptations to misconstrue the character of his ministry. The story of his denial of the three temptations to demonstrate the authority of his messiahhip (by means of supplying immediate needs, dominating in terms of worldly power or dragooning faith through miraculous activities) is set forth as a way of indicating his awareness of what the uses of power can do to corrupt those who wield it, and their causes. Especially it is understood that spiritual and moral power is the strongest and most readily corruptible power of all.(6) It can only be used for the benefit of others by those who have learned the meaning of servanthood.

In Christian theology the ministry of the historical Jesus is understood as an exemplification of God’s own eternal will and character. “No one has ever seen God; but God’s only Son, he who is nearest to the Father’s heart, he has made him known” (Jn 1:18). Jesus is for Christians a kind of aperture through which insights into the divine presence can be perceived, revealing that God is always willing to give and share of himself. In and through Jesus there is realized the possibility that one of humankind’s repeated myth dreams has become a reality. The great king himself comes to share in the life of his people. He rules not from above but among and within, through the offering of his love.

—III—

Given this understanding of the significance of Jesus to the Christian community, it is hardly surprising that a word often used of disciples in the New Testament is servant. Disciples are servants of God and of Jesus and of one another in the body of Christ. As Jesus had been among them “as one who serves” (Lk 22:27), so a follower like Paul, though free from all, makes himself “a servant to everyone to win over as many as possible” (1 Cor 9:19). Paul understands that his authority in Christ is best manifested when he presents himself as servant to those whom he calls to faith in Jesus. This interpretation of the disciples’ role has made its way into the English language in one form though the very word minister, for a minister (from the Latin word for servant or assistant) has a minor role: service to others.

At their baptism, all Christians are commissioned to be such ministers and to “confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.”(7) Every disciple is to signify in and for the body of Christ and to the world the character of servanthood which is so vital an aspect of all Christian ministry conducted in the imitation of Christ.

That which is so significant for all Christian ministry must be recognized as essential to the ordained ministry. “The Canterbury Statement”—the agreed-upon statement on the ministry drafted by representative Roman Catholic and Anglican theologians—speaks of the ordained person as a necessary focus of leadership and unity. It continues: “In the New Testament a variety of images is used to describe the functions of this minister. He is servant, both of Christ and of the Church.”(8) By giving it a primary position, this statement rightly stresses the necessary character of servanthood for those who are to act as foci for the Christian witness and community. It is our argument that—just as this character distinguished the authority of Jesus as Lord and Christ and was commended to his disciples by Word and enacted parables—so it must be understood as of the essence of the exercise of all genuinely Christian authority. This is not to attribute the efficacy of particular sacramental acts to the virtues of the ordained person or to suggest that these acts are not efficacious when performed by those who do not exemplify servanthood in their lives. But it is to say that the practice of ministry—and specifically the exercise of its authority —becomes unrecognizable as Christian (in the imitation of Christ) when it is done by those who do not know themselves to be servants.

This awareness can be given special emphasis in every office of the ordained ministry. The very name deacon derives from the Greek word regularly translated as servant. Although from the inception of the office deacons have been understood to have a variety of duties, their first and chief responsibility has been to render service —oftentimes menial— to the larger community. They are authorized to act as servants; they have the authority to carry out certain tasks, in some cases felt to be best reserved to those with training and a calling, for and on behalf of the body of Christ.

In the All Saints’ Chapel of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific there is a stained glass window depicting the traditional figure of Christ the King as a royal priest. Yet underneath his chasuble there is clearly visible the dalmatic, the garment symbolizing his work as deacon to his people. It is a proper understanding of the entire ordained ministry that, though other responsibilities may be added, the office of deacon continues to be an aspect of all other offices.

There is a sense in which all other offices should be viewed as an intensification of the role of a deacon. The bishop is a locus of meaning for all Christian ministry but particularly the ordained ministry. This person is to serve the priests and deacons in special roles. For and on behalf of others the bishop is to be a steward of Word and sacraments, having been asked to bear the authority necessary for this work. Together with other bishops this individual is given a special responsibility as a preserver and proclaimer of the Christian faith and for the sacrament of ordination which commissions others to act for the community in sacramental roles. The episcopal authority extends from Jesus through his body, the community of Christian witness. The bishop is a servant to the servants of God.

The priest acts as a focal point for ministry in local Christian communities. For and on behalf of others the priest takes on the responsibilities of being a steward of the Word and sacraments. The authority to serve as priest is understood to come from the Lord through his body and through the bishop acting for Christ and Christ’s body. But once more, as the authority given by Jesus, it is by its character of servanthood that it will most clearly be known, and through this same character that it is to help win the hearts of men and women to follow the one who best showed what it means to serve rather than to be served.

With these understandings in mind, it is appropriate that our greatest concerns with the rightful exercise of Christian authority should have at least as much to do with issues involving its servant character as with other definitions or descriptions of legitimacy. So often in the life of the church it is forms of clericalism—the misapprehension and misuse of the authority of ordained persons—which does the greatest damage to the practice of the ordained ministry and all ministry.(9) How easily is the authority of the ordained ministry twisted about so as to cause lay persons to be understood as the servants of the ordained clergy rather than the clergy as those specially chosen to enact particular forms of service for the sake of the body.

—IV—

The subject of the authority of the ministry is complex and cannot be fully dealt with under any one category. We have attempted, however, to indicate how fundamental and crucial to the exercise of ministerial authority is the character of servanthood. It is by this character that this authority can be recognized as Christian. The next question we are led to ask is whether there is anything about this character of servanthood which— on biblical, theological, psychological or other grounds—pertains exclusively or predominantly to either the male or female sex.

The argument might be made that servanthood is more characteristically female than male. Historically, in many societies, women have been thought of, and more importantly, sometimes have thought of themselves, predominantly in servant-like roles. Very often their authority as mothers and wives has stemmed from the essential service they offered. The gift which women will bring to the ordained ministry—through the experience of this tradition—will be of great benefit in reshaping the face of more aggressive models of authority.

It is of significance also to recognize how female imagery for God and Jesus finds expression in the Judeo-Christian tradition when the idea of loving service and sacrifice comes to the fore. The Lord God, acting to save the people of Israel, “will cry out like a woman in travail” (Is 42:4). When it is said that the Lord has forgotten Zion, the prophet asks rhetorically, “Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?" (Is 49:15). Thus says the Lord, “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you” (Is 66: 13) . Jesus cries out in anguish to the holy city of his people: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, . . . How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you would not!” (Lk 13:34 = Mt 23:37).

What has been called the earliest Christian hymnbook, The Odes of Solomon, speaks with mixed imagery of the fulness of God the Father’s breasts and how the female Holy Spirit gives of this milk for the chosen.(10) Julian of Norwich, one of the great mystical writers of the Anglican tradition, not infrequently pictures God and Jesus in the language of maternal imagery:

The human mother will suckle her child with her own milk, but our beloved Mother, Jesus, feeds us with himself, and with most tender courtesy, does it by means of the Blessed Sacrament, the precious food of all true life . . . The human mother may put her child tenderly to her breast, but our tender Mother Jesus simply leads us into his blessed breast, through his open side, and there gives us a glimpse of the Godhead and heavenly joy, the inner certainty of eternal bliss.(1l)

The quotations could be extended, but it is in fact not our concern to attempt to demonstrate that the character of servanthood and of sacrificial love belongs in some predominant manner to either sex. Fathers, sons and husbands as well as male friends can act as loving servants too. We take it to be Julian’s point that the imagery used of self-offering and giving, while not excluding sexuality, reaches beyond the lineaments of maleness and femaleness to include the wholeness of humanity. Similarly we maintain that the unique property of the authority of Christian ministry, which derives from its character of servanthood, should be understood to be manifested through our humanity—as God has chosen to do through incarnation—and pertains in no particularistic manner to either sex.

This is not to say that sexual nature makes no difference. One has little doubt but that women acting as priests and bishops will add new dimensions to our understanding of the practice of ordained ministry and of the exercise of its authority. It can be argued that their presence may be catalytic for one of the periodic reformations which the ministry needs regularly to undergo. Yet even this consideration is but secondary to our main point: the authority of the ordained ministry, insofar as it derives from the essential and vital character of servanthood, can very well be exercised by women.

—V—

One point bears stressing: the Christian servanthood we understand here is born in strength and not impotence. Among its properties are the humility of spirit, meekness, mercifulness, and desire to be a peacemaker of which we hear Jesus speaking in the Sermon on the Mount. Yet it is in conjunction with the qualities and not in distinction from them that the servant may also need to act as prophet, as one who hungers and thirsts after righteousness (Mt 5,:6).

Jesus can drive the money changers from the temple because he comes as one who serves. The same Mary who is presented to us as the lowly handmaiden and humble mother can proclaim God’s justice in ringing words.

He has shown strength with his arm,
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts,
He has put down the mighty from their seat,
and has exalted the humble and meek. (Lk 1: 5 l - 2)

The authority which God gives into the hands of his servants, though it may sometimes appear like other forms of human authority, has a very different and sometimes surprising basis. Many of us keep thinking it ought to work some other way. Like Jesus’ disciples we prefer to call down fire from heaven rather than to follow him to Jerusalem (Lk 9:51 - 6) . We choose to employ anger in our own causes rather than to speak of the healing justice of God which challenges and seeks to liberate all persons. (So does anger uncontrolled by the spirit of servanthood turn righteousness into self-righteouness.) Often it is much easier to try to maneuver people by the strings of their guilt—as do so many would-be reformers—rather than to give them the acceptance and caring which can really make them free to change.

Of course this is true of us. We are only beginners, people barely starting to grow toward “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph 4:13) . Yet we are the very same people for whom the strength of servanthood begins to become a possibility. It is our acceptance and forgiveness by God in Jesus which enables us to know that we are loved. In the power of that love we are made loveable—able to love ourselves and so able to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are commissioned to offer service and challenge with the authority of a love which seeks never to dominate but to share the power of acceptance and forgiveness with others.

In that commission and authority all human persons may share. Here we find reason to believe that women as well as men can participate in the particular responsibilities of servant authority which pertain to the ordained ministry. Thus in this area of concern, as in others, we feel compelled to ask the same question as was forced upon the first evangelists: can the good news of and about Jesus be proclaimed in variant cultural conditions and in the context of understandings of reality different from those in which it was first preached? The early disciples’ answer to that question is written all over the pages of the New Testament. As participants in a faith more oriented toward the future than the past, they were made to learn how they could risk giving up all that was not essential to the gospel in order to preach and practice its fundamental beliefs in new ways among new peoples. We should hardly be surprised to discover that similar tasks and opportunities are ours.

NOTES

1. This understanding is forcefully stated by the Roman Catholic theologian George Tavard, who in his book Women in Christian Tradition (Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1974) argues for the ordination of women to all offices in the Church: “Those who build their case for women priests or women ministers on the basis of feminine emancipation in society can never reach a persuasive conclusion. For we are not at this point dealing with society, but with the Church, and we should not base our views on political and social convenience and opportunity, but on the Gospel and the dynamics of the coming Kingdom. Neither here or anywhere else should the Church take the world as its norm.” (p. 219). While agreeing with Tavard’s important insight, we would nevertheless not wish in any sense to exclude the possibility that the Holy Spirit is in “the world” acting to bring about human liberation. Indeed, there is much in the Gospels, Paul and the Bible generally that—sometimes quite apart from “church activities” — may have permeated our societies, helping to incite a hope reaching toward new understandings of freedom and justice. In this sense the Church ought to be prepared also to learn from the Holy Spirit acting beyond any visible delineations of the Church.

2. See 1 Cor 12 where Paul discusses how the different gifts of ministry are inspired by the same Spirit, Lord and God.

3. This is expressed most forcefully for many Christians by Jesus’ bidding, “If any one would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Mk 8:34. Similarly Mt 10:38, 16:24, and Lk 9:23, 14:27. See also Jn 12:26, “If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also.”

4. Phil 2:5 - 7. Two of the Greek words most frequently translated as “servant” in the New Testament and used to characterize Christian discipleship are doulos and diakonos. Doulos,which is used in this passage from Philippians, is also translated as “slave.” Although careful distinctions between the two words were not kept, doulos can be employed to contrast slaves to masters and free men. It is often used to stress dependence. Diakonos carries more the connotation of a helper or assistant without implying that the individual is in a situation of total subservience. The doulos would be thought to have a lesser degree of freedom than the diakonos, but doulos is given a special meaning in Christian usage, since Jesus or his disciple is said freely to choose this status.

5. See 1 Cor 1:18 - 31.

6. The story is found in Mt 4:1 - 11 and Lk 4:1 - 13. We here suggest that the Lucan version, which puts as the last and greatest temptation that of throwing oneself down from the pinnacle of the temple, is the more dramatic in psychological and spiritual terms.

7. “Holy Baptism” in Authorized Services 1973 (N.Y.: The Church Hymnal Corp., 1973), p. 12.

8. “The Canterbury Statement” has been reprinted in a number of places. It is found conveniently in The Anglican Theological Review, LVII/1, 1975. Pp. 95 - 100. The report of a colloquium reflecting on the statement precedes it. The quotation is from p. 97 of this edition of the statement.

9. This understanding of the dangers of clericalism on the parts of both men and women clergy is well stated by Alda Marsh in “Sexism in the Church: A Case for Listening to ‘The Other Woman’.” A Journal of Ministry in Higher Education (Winter, 1974), pp. 4- 12.

10. J. H. Charlesworth (ed.) The Odes of Solomon (London: Oxford U.P., 1973), 19.1 - 4; see also Ode 8.14.

11. Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (trans. and ed., Clifton Walters. Baltimore: Penguin, 1966) p. 170. The passage is quoted by E. L. McLaughlin, “The Church Past: Does it Hold a Future for Women?” The Anglican Theological Review (LVII/1, 1975), p. 49.

Copyright (c) 2007: All of the texts and techniques (pedagogical and relational)
displayed in this site are copyrighted materials.