“We do nothing that people might object to, so as not to bring discredit on our function as God’s servants. Instead, we prove we are servants of God….”2 Corinthians 6:3-4a
“He said, therefore, to the crowds who came to be baptised by him, ‘Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the retribution that is coming? But if you are repentant, produce the appropriate fruits….”Luke 3:7-8a
The congregation of which I am a member encourages its members to celebrate their baptismal anniversaries every year by presenting those who are baptized with a small baptismal banner and a candle. The banner has the name of the person embroidered upon it, along with “… child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” The candle is to be lighted every year to remind people that they belong to Christ and his Body, and that they are “to let their light so shine before others that they may see their good works and glorify their Father in heaven.” It is really an “ordination” candle, because that’s really what happens to us when we are baptized. The light that shines through out witness to the gospel, our ministry, if you will, declares that the cross is still there.
You see, all of us are “ordained” in baptism into some area of ministry of the Christian church. When we are initiated into the church, the caring community, through holy baptism, we are also being ordained into the ministry of serving and witnessing in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Do you remember the end of the baptismal service? The baptismal liturgies of most churches have something like this that is read toward the end of the rite: “Through baptism God has made these new sisters and brothers members of the priesthood we all share in Jesus Christ.” Do you think of yourself as being a priest of Jesus Christ? Probably not, although the priesthood of all believers is a cardinal doctrine of the Lutheran church and some other churches. Priesthood is more than having direct access to God in prayer; it is also the discharge of ministerial responsibilities by the faith.
Ministry is a matter of response, commitment, and self-sacrifice. Jesus -- now as then -- gathered disciples around himself, calling for complete commitment in terms of “the cross”: “If any man (woman) would come after me, let him (her) deny himself (herself), take up his (her) cross, and follow me.” The last statement of the baptismal service (Lutheran) affirms that we, as Christians, are “following” Jesus, and we, therefore, invite the newly baptized to join us in our ministry: “We welcome you into the Lord’s family. We receive you as fellow members of the body of Christ, children of the same heavenly Father, and workers with us in the kingdom of God.” The exhortation in The Book of Common Prayer makes the “work” of the baptized most specific, a clear command: “We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.” Jesus Christ calls us to follow him, to work in his kingdom, that is, to live out the Christian faith in the world, and he ordains us for that work in holy baptism.
From one perspective, this means that we will engage in the “obvious” activities generally associated with the Christian faith -- evangelism, works of mercy, world missions, stewardship -- but these activities will have to be done in a new manner in a radically changing world. Therefore, stewardship will have to assume new meaning and new directions; it cannot mean simply going to the church at home or abroad, to the support of ecumenical activities, or even to the poor and needy today, although such activities need to be continued. The care of the earth becomes basic for Christian stewards, who hear God’s voice from the garden telling people to ‘‘care for the earth and fill it up.” Real environmental concerns make us aware of the importance of this kind of basic stewardship. Time may be running out on all life here on the earth! Something has to be done now!
“Canary In A Coal Mine” is the title of an article researched and written by Karin Winegar, a staff reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It isn’t about a canary, nor is it about a coal mine; it is about a woman, Cindy Froeschle Duehring, who is living like a “canary in a coal mine.” She is dying from “environmental illness” (El), which “is not something you are born with; you get it from the 20th century.” It is also known as “multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) or total allergy syndrome or chemical hypersensitivity.” Most people who have it don’t know it; their illnesses are frequently misdiagnosed. Cindy is the wife of a Lutheran pastor, who lives with her husband outside Williston, North Dakota. Her illness is so acute that she can’t go outside her home; she can’t even look at the outside world through the windows.
Karin Winegar writes in her article about Cindy Duehring: “To survive (her illness is so bad that she goes into seizures when she is exposed to too much light, to perfume and hair spray, to gasoline fumes -- almost anything else in the environment), she has retreated to a sealed, filtered house built of non-toxic materials on a remote slope in the North Dakota grasslands.”10 Sleep, diet, activities -- anything she does -- are all carefully monitored, but she still gets sick when she eats; she is a virtual prisoner -- “a canary in a coal mine” -- who is amazingly cheerful and “up” most of the time. She is a symbol of what is occurring in our world and may happen to all life if we do not really “care for the earth.”
Two things are evident: One, we are all “canaries in a coal mine” and, like Cindy Duehring, we must face that reality. The world is closing in on us. Our environment will destroy us sooner or later; we all live with the threat of the El “virus,” environmental illness. But unlike Cindy who was “innocently” poisoned by pesticides, we have brought this possible malady -- unintentionally, of course -- on ourselves. And two, she is doing everything she can to cope with and conquer her illness. And that’s a sign of the direction in which people have to go in their basic stewardship of the earth, if they want to survive in the world. It is a matter not simply of protecting ourselves from the environment, but of protecting it, doing all we can to preserve it, and the resources of the earth. Another writer, Connie Koenenn, suggests the “Top 10 simple steps to save the Earth:”
1. Turn down your water heater (to 130_).2. Put a plastic bottle in your toilet tank.3. Install low-flow faucet aerators and shower heads.4. Keep your car’s tires properly inflated.5. Bring your own shopping bag (to the store).6. Eliminate waste before you buy.7. Recycle cans, glass and paper.8. Replace a regular (incandescent) light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb.9. Buy rechargeable batteries for household use.10. Set the blades higher on your lawn mower.11
These suggestions are at least a beginning and really will make a difference, if people care enough to take such measures in ‘‘saving’’ the earth.
The waters of baptism, through us and our “care of the earth,” can wash clean the face of the earth again so that it remains hospitable to all life. Because the cross is still there, it reminds us that this is basic business of our ordination, and that it belongs to the work of the kingdom of God. As ministers and priests of Christ, we have to save the earth as well as participate in saving the people who live on it.
God not only calls us to work in the kingdom, but he gives us gifts for service, all kinds of gifts, so that the work of the kingdom can be done here on earth. The church is made of ministers, many of them, who are given abilities that will be useful to the upbuilding of the church in the world. The work that gifted people do, in the name of the Lord, is just as important as the ministry of the pastors of the church. A theological seminary is a mother lode of these gifts. Every seminary has students who have extraordinary, as well as ordinary, gifts for ministry -- in this case, the ministry of the word and sacraments. God calls all sorts of people to full-time ministry -- young and more mature persons, scholars and scientists, mathematicians and mechanics, poets and police persons, musicians and magicians, teachers and truck drivers, pilots and painters. God gives people gifts for ministry, not only in word and sacraments, but in caring for people and the world and by doing so testifying and witnessing to the grace and goodness of Christ. It is our responsibility to discover these gifts and to use them in the work of the church in the world.
We had a pastor on our staff at the seminary a couple of years ago who resigns his parish every 10 years and engages in a different type of ministry for a year as a kind of educational sabbatical leave. He worked in our contextual education department, which supervises students as they do field work in parishes and in their intern year, the third year of the four-year course of study at the seminary. He was with us only that one year, because he filled the position of a person who was on a year’s leave and returned in the fall. “Shortly,” he told me during the spring, “I will begin looking for a call to a congregation; I love parish ministry. But I want to go to a congregation where all the members know that they are or dained priests and are actively serving Jesus Christ in his church.” He said, “When I interview with a committee and church council, I will ask them how they have functioned during their pastoral vacancy. If they have been actively serving Christ and been effective in their ministry, I will ask them ii they are willing to continue to work and serve as they did during the vacancy. I want to spend as much time as I can doing the specific things a pastor must do -- preaching and teaching, calling, studying, counseling, visiting the sick and administering the sacraments, bringing comfort to those who hurt. I want to spend as little time and energy as possible in administration, in attending meetings, or otherwise doing the things that the people have been doing while they had no pastor. That’s the sort of parish I’m looking for,” he declared. More importantly, that is the sort of parish that Christ is looking for, a parish that knows the meaning of baptism as the ordination of all, and goes about responding to God’s grace by producing the “fruits of righteousness,” actively engaging in God’s work -- all of it -- here on the earth.
To fulfill our baptismal covenant means that we will recognize our ordination into the ministry of Jesus Christ here on earth is a privilege, not a burden, and that it is what we do every day, full-time ministry. Ministry is really a way of life, not only for the relatively few persons who are called and ordained to the ministry of word and sacrament, but for all Christians. Baptismal ordination calls for a lifestyle that tells the world that we belong to God and to Christ and his Body, the church, here on earth. Therefore, all baptized Christians are ordained ministers, ordained to serve God and people -- deliberately and positively -- and to do all of the work that God has given us to do as good stewards here on earth -- in the name of Jesus Christ.
It would be well if all of us would celebrate our baptismal anniversary every year, and come to celebrate it as an anniversary of our ordinations… and then do our best to serve and witness to Christ every day of our lives. The cross is still there, and it is a symbol of our ordination, of who we are and what we are to do in the world in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. It means that we all have been marked for ministry here on earth.