PREACHING THE LECTIONARY: THE McGREGOR PAGE
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Pentecost 16 -- Page 211, October 1, 2000
The Church in God's World
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
(Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29) Old Testament Lesson in 1997
Palm 124
James 5:13-20
Mark 9:38-50
Moses selected seventy elders, but when the spirit descended on them, it splashed over and landed on people who were not chosen as elders. The distinction that Moses had made was not so distinct to God. Moses, ever on the side of God, sees the possibility that there would be no distinction at all between elder and laity.
James emphasizes the enfranchisement of the laity by comparing their access to God through prayer with that of Elijah.
Jesus refuses to grant the disciples patent rights to his name and power. He promises dire consequences for anyone who thwarts even the most modest of attempts to align with him.
M. Scott Peck insisted on a non-denominational baptism because he rejects the idea that church doctrine and order control the door to the kingdom. He says that taking communion while yet un-baptized was an essential step to his conversion. His comment reminded me of a time when I, a young pastor and full of my newfound authority, invited all baptized Christians to come forward for communion. It hurt my feelings after the service to find that other feelings were hurt because of me. A young boy who had always taken communion, though he had not been baptized, felt excluded by my action. I have never quite reconciled my servant role and my pastoral responsibility for church order.
The church serves God's love for the world by treating holy things sacredly, but the church doesn't make them holy. God does that. How does one treat something as holy? You submit yourself to it because it is deserving of your devotion. So, the church submits itself to the sacraments, but in administering church order, that delicate distinction can be subverted into the implication that the sacraments submit themselves to the church.
The distinction between elder and tribe, clergy and laity, is only appropriate as a submission to the Spirit of God and the leadership of that Spirit. Moses submitted to God's call to be the pastor of God's people. He wasn't elevated to that position. In fact he says he'd rather die on the spot than bear that burden. This spirit is crucial in church order. Earlier in this month the Vatican produced a document reasserting the unique claim of Christ on the world and the unique place of the Roman Catholic Church to mediate that claim. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between Rome's mediating God's claim on the world and Rome's laying claim to the world, the Vatican anguishing over its servant role both to God and the world and the Vatican's relishing its authority. We all have the same problem with church order, but we don't all have equally tempting credentials.
Church order is not a matter of laity submitting to clergy, of course, but rather laity and clergy submitting to God. Just as the seventy gathered around Moses to support him in his submission to God, so the laity gather around the clergy when the church is in submission to God. For, as the Psalmist reminds us, it is God who saves us; and, as that reminds me, it is not the church that saves us.
Roland McGregor, Pastor
Asbury United Methodist Church, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
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