Up until this point in the narrative both Saul and Barnabas are identified as "elders" (presbyters - in medieval english, priests) or "deacons". In the opening verses of chapter 13 Saul and Barnabas are set apart by the church and the action of the Holy Spirit, have hands laid upon their heads and are subsequently identified as apostles. Did you notice that from the next paragraph on Saul is no longer called Saul, but becomes Paul (without any particular reason or notice given that this change will happen)?
The word that Luke uses to describe what today we would call their "ordination" is "set apart". That Lukan term is probably closer, in our use, to our word "consecration". The two men are "consecrated" by the Holy Spirit which acts physically through the gathered local community of the Church, at least one of them is given a new name (not unlike what happens in some Christian traditions upon ordination) and they are sent out. The sending out is a recognition of their particular ministry as apostles, a word that might be translated for us as "ambassador" or "emissary".
What do you think it means to be "set apart"? In the Prayer Books of the Anglican Communion we sometimes read the phrase rendered as "ordered" for ordained ministry (where the term "Holy Orders") comes from. There's a sense here that the Church is being arranged by the stirrings of the Holy Spirit so that it is able to care for its own and to respond to Jesus' command to proclaim the Gospel to all the world. Notice that immediately after their "ordering" Paul and Barnabas head toward Europe, striking out to take the story of Jesus to the gentile nations of the north and northwest. Both Paul and Barnabas are set apart for a particular task. There's no sense in this narrative that they now more holy than they were before being set apart.
As someone who was recently ordained, I can tell you confidently that something was changed in me as a result of that action. But I can't yet tell you exactly what because I'm still discovering what it was. I can also tell you that I don't find myself more holy as a result. But I have been ordered, consecrated for a new and particular ministry; one that is different from the one I had as a deacon or as a priest. My experience is similar to what the narrative in Acts describes, I was set apart and sent to my new task. The holiness might yet show up, but…
Years ago, when I was the Dean of Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix, I was asked to bless a comfort quilt that had been made by members of the Cathedral for a member who was gravely ill. It happened to be the Sunday that I was preaching a children's sermon and I decided it would a good chance to explain to everyone (by apparently speaking directly to the children) what was about to happen. I asked the children to watch carefully as I prayed over the quilt. Doing so, I asked them if they had seen the quilt change in anyway. They said they hadn't. I asked them what had they heard? They said they'd heard me ask God to set this quilt apart for the purpose of being a sign of our love to the person who was going to receive it. I told them they had it exactly right. The quilt was consecrated, ordered, by a person in the Cathedral community to whom that responsibility had been given, for a special purpose. It was not more holy at the moment, but the holiness was going to come it in the next days. Because, as we gave the quilt to our friend, and they held it tight as their life was ending, the use of the quilt would make it holy to all of us.
That is a particularly Episcopalian understanding. We make a distinction between consecration and sanctification. Things are consecrated for a special use, and then made holy by that use. The vessels we use on the altar, week in and week out, become holy because of what they come to represent to us as a result of that use. We remember those moments when God acted in the liturgy, becoming closer to us, feeding us. They become worthy of being treated in a special way and their presence becomes a trigger to our memories of all those special moments of grace encountered in worship.
This weekend, as you attend worship, look carefully at what is happening at the altar. The bread, the wine, the chalice and paten, the vessels are all being sanctified by their use in the community. As you look carefully at them, are there any memories awoken in you? Do you remember their use at the last Easter, at a Christmas service, at a particular baptism?
What is true for the things we use in worship is even more true for the people who are doing the worshiping. God orders things and God orders us. How has God ordered you for your ministry? Only a few of us in the Church have been ordered to live under the special discipline of being clergy. But all of us are ordered for ministry. What task has the Holy Spirit ordered for you? (I love how that sentence can be read in two ways - as a setting apart and as a compulsion.) We believe in the Church that everyone is ordered for God's purposes. Today, while you are going about your daily tasks, why not ponder your own particular calling to ministry in your heart?
I enjoy the multiplicity of ordered as well. I see it as order that cannot be ordered.
ReplyDeleteYour use of the word “compulsion” seems a kind interpretation. One could also see it as a directive in the form of a command. And one could further suppose that this command comes from some external leader or some external direction. Can a lasting order ever emanate from such a leader or from such a direction?
Order is the unique ability of living systems to self-organize, heal, maintain, and transcend. Each of us began as a single cell and through differentiation that single cell divided and organized to create the 1000 billion cells that make us who we are in form. The cells were aware of their environment and “knew” to become a heart, eyes, nose, fingers, nerves, tissue, or brain cells. Thus, there is an innate and mysterious ability in each of us to organize, reorganize and grow more complex. This also applies to larger systems and institutions. Yet, it requires something; it requires self-examination, understanding, curiosity, openness, the way of kenosis, trust, and faith.
The trinitarian aspects for order are intent, the dance along the edge of stability and chaos where new information is permitted even if it appears to be disruptive, and the complex web of boundless relationships. Perhaps the rules and the subsequent order emanate from the smallest aspects of a system and in its relation to its surroundings and its profound relationship with the whole. Am I aligned and synchronized with the whole, or the evolutionary impulse of the universe? When I am, I am ordered. I am ordered not by direction but by disturbance.
In our daily motion, even while being still, we are participants in life's great cohering process. Can I trust in that? Am I resisting that? That is the order, the order to organize, reorganize, and grow more complex. I wonder if we all share the same purpose and meaning (God’s purpose), but are merely different expressions and experience of that purpose and meaning (Ministry). It is order that cannot be ordered.