The Priest as Professional

by F. H. Borsch

from To be a priest, pp. 111-116,
edited by Robert E. Terwilliger and Urban T. Holmes, Seabury Press, New York, 1975.
Republished on our website with the necessary permissions.

Frederick H. Borsch is Dean of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and was previously professor of New Testament at General Theological Seminary and Seabury-Western Seminary. He has published extensively in his field of special research, the New Testament.

I well remember an incident that took place shortly after I had been ordained. I was visiting an elderly parishioner who had recently entered the hospital. After we had talked awhile and prayed together, she thanked me for visiting. She then added, “But I suppose it is your job to come see me, isn’t it?” For the first time I knew from the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes what it meant to be a “professional” in the less valued sense of the word. She was still glad I had come, but it was indeed my job to be there. I was paid to come visit her, and somehow this seemed to make our relationship less personal and meaningful from her point of view.

The experience has not been isolated. A casual conversation at a party will gradually come to test the waters of more serious discussion. Finally there comes a sincere and searching question: “Do you really believe in a personal God?” As I reply in the affirmative, I again see that withdrawing look in the eyes: “Oh yes, of course! He’s a priest. He has to say that.” Again I am a professional.

In this sense, ordained persons may understandably find the word “professional” not much to their liking. Priests may wish to protest that they are not paid all that much for this work (in some cases not at all) and that it was not for the money that they became priests in the first place. It may be well outside normal working hours as they are making their hospital calls, with no one checking up to see whether they are doing or saying the right thing. Besides, priests may wish to reflect, they are really acting on behalf of the entire Christian community which supports them as they visit the sick and answer the inquirer. Yet, no matter how much much one protests, the priest is wise who understands and takes seriously the awareness that ordained persons are regarded in many of their words and actions as professionals—people do much of what they do either because they are paid to do so or because it is a responsibility of their office or for both reasons. This perception of the ordained person represents a truth that the individual priest must learn to live with and through.

The word has more favorable connotations, however. The professional person is one who is trained and educated for his or her work. To be called a professional can mean that a person is regarded as reliable and well capable of carrying out particular functions. To this person one can go with assurance that the individual will have knowledge and the wisdom of experience.

But the work of most priests is highly variegated in character, and this has caused some uncertainty and even quandary in an era of increasing specialization. Explicitly or implicitly a number of priests have questioned their professionalism in the sense that we are now using the word. Perceiving themselves to be jacks of several trades but masters of none, some priests have chosen the route of increasing specialization as a way of maintaining a professional stance. Many positive developments have resulted from this movement as ordained persons have been able to grow in skill areas and to contribute these capabilities as members of team ministries or through individual practice.

In the last several years, however, there has been a rebirth of the awareness of the place of the generalist in society. In medical, legal, academic, and other professional fields the need is felt for persons who are good at doing a number of related tasks and who have understanding and appreciation for them in their interrelationship. This development has already had some effect on educational programs in these fields. One can well believe that this renewed sense of the need for and value of the generalist will help to foster among priests a heightened feeling for the importance of their work as professionals. No doubt in the future, as before, individual priests will be better at doing some things than others; but, with the growth in the realization that people want to relate to persons with a broader sense of life’s interconnectedness, the priest may better understand breadth of skills as a strength and not a weakness.

Throughout the history of the Christian ordained ministry there has been a fair degree of fluidity in the understanding of the variety of roles which the priest is to perform for and on behalf of the community. Certainly in our highly pluralistic contemporary world expectations of priests vary considerably. Also, because of the very interrelatedness of the tasks of priesthood, one cannot easily categorize functions of ministry. In the daily life and ministrations of a priest these functions interthread, thereby affecting the very texture of the other roles. For our purposes, however, we can describe briefly five major areas of priestly endeavor for which expectations of professional competence are usually to be found.

The priest is a teacher, and a teacher of many things. The priest is to know the model revelations — the stories which give form to and unite the many Christian communities throughout the world. This individual should understand the Bible from the perspective of those who first experienced its sayings and stories in order effectively to guide the interpretation of contemporary Christian inspiration. The teacher-priest should know the history of Christianity in a manner that helps others to be free for the future — strong in the awareness that there have been, and therefore can be, many different ways in which the Church may be organized and act for mission, ministry, and worship.

The teacher-priest must be a theologian of the common life. One of the great values of a theological education is its enhancement of perspective, enabling one so educated to teach the same truth in different ways instead of knowing only one way of approaching a Christian view of life. The priest as teacher is able to help individuals from a variety of backgrounds of experience to reflect in their own terms upon their lives as lived in the presence of God. As a contemporary teacher, the professional priest will have sufficient knowledge of such disciplines as psychology and sociology as to appreciate their applicability to an understanding of human growth and development. There is a reasonable expectation that the priest will know how people learn.

Among the vital concerns of the priest will be the teaching and sharing of insights regarding prayer. The ordained person should have both knowledge and experience of varying approaches to the awareness of God in human life in order to be a companion and guide to others in their growth and development. In this area as in others, the priest, for the purposes of Christian mission, is to be a teacher of those who are themselves in their own ways to be teachers and witnesses to others.

Closely related and often integral to the priest’s role as teacher is that of proclaimer or preacher. Here especially the priest is to make available for use the insights gained from the community-shared stories of the Bible in order that they might become cause for creating and interpreting new insight and revelation. As one who is a pilgrim and witness, the priest is to search out new stories or parables by means of which the themes of biblical parables can find contemporary expression. As a herald of the new possibilities of the kingdom which Jesus announced, the priest is also to be a prophet — pointing to ethical imperatives and seeking to make sure that the word of God will be heard at the same time as a word of judgment and grace, hope and challenge In terms of this role, too, the professionalism of the priest can be in-creased through experience, practice, and learning from the insights of others.

A third role of the priest is that of steward of the sacraments. With theological understanding and sensitivity—with awareness of the meaning of symbols and liturgical acts—the priest is to give leadership in the presentation of sacramental, life-interpreting activities. For and on behalf of the community, the ordained leader is to be a focal person for this vital witness. Without the effective drama of sacramental gesture and event people can quickly become rootless and out of touch with the profound meanings of a life which is at once bodily, psychic, and spiritual.

The priest is normally called upon to be a counselor in a variety of situations, especially to be an individual who is with other people to help them in the hard spots of life. The wise and professional priest learns how to develop a number of counseling approaches to suit different circumstances and people, recognizing a time to listen creatively and a time to advise, being aware of opportunities to teach and opportunities to allow those being counseled to teach themselves. The professional priest as counselor will also have further resources near at hand (in the persons of psychiatrists, social workers, and others) and be alert to the need for them.

One of the chief functions of the priest as counselor is to be a reconciler, one who seeks to make peace and also to pronounce healing words of forgiveness and new acceptance and hope. In this way the priest is to carry the Christian ministry of healing to the minds and the emotions of men and women. Sometimes the new health and freedom so engendered will extend to healings of the body as well.

A fifth professional role of the priest is that of administrator. Many priests will be expected to be competent in helping communities of Christians to organize themselves for ministry and mission. A vital work of the ordained ministry is this form of giving assistance and support to others in their ministries.

Since we are living in a society and a decade which is understandably suspicious of many styles of leadership and forms of institutions, it is not surprising that a number of priests, as well as those planning to be priests, tend to minimize the need for institutions and, at least outwardly, also to eschew roles of leadership for themselves. But rarely in the course of human events is it a question of whether there should be institutions and leadership for certain purposes, but rather what kinds of institutions. There is a sense in which Jesus could even be said to have formed the first men’s club. The disciples seem to have recognized his1eadership and there are references in the New Testament to economic arrangements made for the support and furtherance of their work.

It may well be that simpler and less hierarchical organizations will better serve Christian communities in the future. Certainly it would be helpful if the contemporary Church were less engaged in maintenance and more in service and mission. Yet to accomplish this very goal will require leadership from men and women who have developed abilities for encouraging community self-awareness and decision-making, conflict management, eliciting commitment, and the sharing of personal resources. It is to be hoped that these leaders will also have grown in the spirit of servanthood in order to have moved beyond merely manipulative skills. They will need to know themselves well enough to begin to deal with their own propensities to control others — especially through the subtle instruments of moral and spiritual authority. Not all of this leadership will or should come from the clergy, but there is a proper expectation that priests should have studied and worked to develop these and other administrative and leadership talents in a professional manner.

A third way of understanding the word “professional” is closer to its root meaning; a professional is a professed person, someone whose very life publicly declares certain values and commitments. So we speak of individuals professing vows and of members of a religious order as being professed.

This sense of the word reminds us of two fundamental and related characteristics vital to any true priesthood. Standing in and behind the several roles of priesthood described above, there must be a person who is known in these roles and is accessible through them. In addition, the power for Christian faith is best manifested when there is such integrity between the person and the enacted roles as to bring integration to the roles and the character of personal conviction to their practice.

Behind the new movement that has revalued the place of the generalist in professional fields, one can detect strong sociological and psychological factors. People do not regularly wish to be treated as though made up of many different parts which can be dealt with separately and objectively. Specialization has its obvious uses and merits, but people also wish for relationship with professional individuals on a person-to-person basis.

For theological reasons the significance of this awareness must especially stressed for the practice of the Christian ministry. Again and again the New Testament witnesses to the understanding that God’s chosen means for revealing and sharing himself in the world is human persons. Christians believe this to have been accomplished decisively in Jesus. There seemed in him to be an extraordinary integrity between his words and his actions. This was why he was remembered as having taught with such power. He did not just tell parables, he did them, standing in and behind his words. In a very real sense he was the Good Samaritan showing what it could mean to be free enough not to have to ask the negative and legalistic question: “Who is my neighbor?” In this sense Jesus is for Christians the preeminent professed person and the model for any professional ministry which is to be done in the “imitation of Christ.” In his ministry as teacher, proclaimer, and prophet, celebrant of his own self-offering, healer and counselor, and— yes—administrator and leader for his little community, Jesus was authentically and uniquely present as a person.

We become aware, then, that the essence of the profession of priesthood is to be found in the development and offering of the gifts of personhood. It is through persons that God most intends to be present in the world, and priests best represent the God that is Jesus-like through their ministerial roles when they themselves are seeking to be present to others. It is for this reason above all that we can never expect to be able fully to define or describe priesthood. With its rootedness through the personhood of Jesus in God, priesthood is ultimately a mystery. All our attempts at definition and description must be understood to fall short, for we do not yet know all that God intends persons, or persons as priests, to be. In the context of this awareness, and while acting as a focus for the ministry of all Christians, the one who would serve as priest must seek so to give of the true self as to move through and beyond any mere professionalism toward the profession of the full Christian life.

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