Matthew 22:1-14

This morning is a very important morning for us. This morning we install two associate pastors in their pastoral office within this local congregation, Jeff Kane, who has a district license, and thus will have the authority to consecrate the elements in the Lord’s Supper; Shawn Benson, who is locally licensed, will need to wait for his district license before he receives the authority to consecrate the elements at this Table. This is important to understand the pastoral office – we cannot disconnect pastoral offices from authority at this Table, the wedding banquet of which our Gospel reading speaks. I would like to take the opportunity to talk about ministry, and then move to speaking of the pastoral office within the life of the church. We need to keep the image of Jesus’ parable in mind – the call into the wedding banquet, refused by the wealthy, the powerful, the influential; accepted by the poor, the sick; but then the one person who is removed from the banquet into eternal suffering for an inadequate response.

1. What then is ministry? Ministry, diakonia, in the NT, in the earliest church, means representing the one who has sent us – Jesus Christ, and Christ’s body, the church.
The twentieth-century of ministry has witnessed a revolution in the Christian understanding of ministry. Ministry has come to mean “meeting a human need”. Technical theologians have taught it. Hans Kung, a European theologian, teaches this understanding of ministry: Ministry “is in no danger . . . of being misinterpreted as an honour or a new kind of rule. . . . Diakonia means an activity which every Greek would recognize at once as being one of self-abasement” (The Church, “Ecclesiastical Offices as Ministry,” p. 390). Jesus’s “fundamental concern is with living for others. . . a completely personal service is implied. This is an essential element in being a disciple: a man is a disciple of Jesus through service of his fellow men.” (p. 391). Popular preachers have taught it. Robert Schuller built a ministry empire by the simple phrase, “Find a need, and fill it.” Ministry has come to mean meeting a need that people experience. Ministry has no authority in and of itself; authority lies in the one who experiences a need to whom the minister is obliged to respond.
Ministry becomes defined by the type of need being filled. Of course, as society has been defined more and more by market categories, market demographics defines ministry. We’ll have “children’s ministries”, “teen ministries”, “single adult ministries”. We’ll have “recreation ministries”, “Jazzercise ministries”; we can market Christian cosmetics to young pre-teen males . . . oh, wait a second, I guess it’s females, as a “ministry”. We’ll have “divorce ministries”, “needle exchange ministries” . . . if any particular group can make up a distinct market niche, addressing this need can be called a ministry. I’ve been known in other contexts, never from the pulpit of course, to suggest that, given this definition of ministry, we should start a “brothel ministry” to reach young, single males: you know, safe sex for Jesus, an act of self-abasement, a completely personal service – hey, it fits Kung’s definition!
Can’t we see that ministry has been perverted by our living in a society defined by late capitalism? Ministry is not about self-abasement to meet personal needs. An Australian named John N. Collins has studied the word from NT times. He writes, “If the words denote actions . . . of ‘inferior value,’ there is at the same time often the connotation of something special, even dignified, about the circumstance . . . . Because the root idea expressed by the words is that of the go-between, the words . . . never express the idea of being ‘at the service of’ one’s fellow man with what that phrase implies of benevolence; . . . the words . . . speak . . . of an action done in the name of another. . . . In accepting such undertakings or in having them imposed . . . , the agent has a mandate as well as a personal obligation, and . . . whatever ‘rights and powers’ the mandate extends to” (p. 194). Diakonia, ministry, means being sent to re-present another of higher office, taking the authority of another upon oneself in one’s actios. For Christians, ministry means re-presenting Christ through engaging in the works of Christ in obedience to God in the world.
Ministry is nothing less than representing the one who has sent us – Christ and his church in the world.

2. Now we can see how we are all called to be ministers. In baptism, all Christians are called to ministry, re-presenting Christ in the world.
In baptism by faith, one dies and is raised with Christ. We are “clothed with Christ.” We are commissioned to re-present Christ, the kingdom of God, and Christ’s body, the church in our life. “You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.” Ministry is not defined by need, but by the One who has sent us into the world to present the Triune God. In Christ the baptized are called to ministry in the world – it is our mandate, our obligation. Where can we see what this looks like?
We see ministry best in those who have re-presented Christ in the world – the lives of the saints and the martyrs. For instance, we see ministry in the life of Macrina, a fourth century Christian woman. She forsook marriage to care for her mother and care for her 10 brothers and sisters. In the face of a death of an adult brother, her mother broke down psychologically, she sustained her in patience. Macrina put away luxuries that she easily could have wanted to live simply, and began a profound life of prayer. She converted her home into a place for the distribution of food to the hungry, and care for the sick, and started a community on her family property, tied together by a common rule, to continue this life. Here we see ministry – concrete life re-presenting the kingdom of God, especially witnessed in the works of mercy, in the world.
But more, ministry in its deepest sense is found in the witness of the martyrs, those who in faith, have had their lives united to the sufferings of Christ in death for not conforming to the allegiances that the world demands. We could talk about those who give their lives in the Muslim world today. But think of Archbishop Oscar Romero. Romero embraced the lives of the poor. He wrote to Jimmy Carter, President of the United States, "You say that you are Christian. If you are really Christian, please stop sending military aid to the military here, because they use it only to kill my people.” He ordered Catholics to no longer serve in the military because they were engaging in the systematic killing of the poor. On the next day, he was shot and killed at the altar while consecrating the Lord’s Supper during worship. In the bloody body of Romero on the floor in front of the elements, we see ministry.
It’s not exactly Jazzercise to the songs of Sandi Patti. Ministry, re-presents Jesus Christ, God’s kingdom in the world, a ministry seen in the works of mercy, the lives of the saints, and the death of the martyrs, is the life to which we are called, all of the baptized.

3. Yet to sustain the unity of the church, a unity lived at this Table, the church grants an office of authority, pastoral authority, for a unique ministry.
Let me be honest with you, pastoring is very difficult in this culture. Once ministry becomes defined by market forces, authority goes to the market; pastoring becomes a “helping profession”. The pastor is emptied of any authority, constantly under review and question, not judged on orthodoxy or faithfulness in the sacraments, but one’s ability to facilitate ‘community’, a therapeutic means that help people with the needs they experience. The statistics are ugly; talk with a pastor who will be open and honest, they’ll show you the wounds. Will Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas write, “The pastoral ministry is doomed to the petty concerns of helping people feel a bit better rather than inviting them to dramatic conversion. The pastor becomes nothing more than the court chaplain . . . or else the pastor feels like a cult prostitute, selling his or her love for the approval of an upwardly mobile, bored middle class, who, more than anything else, want some relief from the anxiety brought on by their materialism. . . . Because the church is not a place to worship God, but rather a therapeutic center for the meeting of one another’s unchecked, unexamined needs . . . . pastors try to do everything and be everything for everybody. The most conscientious among them become exhausted and empty. The laziest of them merely withdraw into disinterested detachment. . . . Self-hatred is inevitable in someone who feels abused, prostituted, unfairly criticized. The burden of being a generally good person, open and available to people of unbounded need, is too great for anybody to bear. Self-hate and loneliness result” (Resident Aliens, pp. 123-124).
Yet from the beginning of the church, God has called some to special authority within the church for the sake of its unity, a unity not only among a particular congregation, but its unity, its catholicity, with congregations throughout the world, the faithful who’ve come before, and those who are yet to come. Jesus called the twelve; Paul speaks in his earliest letter about overseers, bishops that the Thessalonians are to respect. Make no mistake, the members of this office, called for a particular role within the congregation, are human, oh so human. Yet God calls, and the church confirms, the call of individuals into the authority of this office. Those who occupy the office re-present the church in a unique way, in the preaching of the gospel, a bodily witness for the congregation when the congregation is dispersed in the world. They lead the congregation in true worship at this Table. They live a life that is no longer their own – they live under orders, called to Christ and Christ’s church. They live in a chain of authority, in submission, in obedience, not merely to the local congregation, but sometimes to a senior pastor, a district superintendent, the faith given to the saints, and ultimately to God through Christ. This is the life of the pastor, bearing an authority of their office, not for themselves, but to sustain the unity of the witness of the church, experienced in Christ, together.
Listen to the description of the pastorate in Polycarp, a second century bishop who ultimately was martyred. “Let the elders be compassionate and merciful to all, bringing back those that wander, visiting all the sick, and not neglecting the widow, the orphan, or the poor, but always "providing for that which is becoming in the sight of God and man;" abstaining from all wrath, respect of persons, and unjust judgment; keeping far off from all covetousness, not quickly crediting an evil report against any one, not severe in judgment, as knowing that we are all under a debt of sin. If then we entreat the Lord to forgive us, we ought also ourselves to forgive; for we are before the eyes of our Lord and God, and "we must all appear at the judgment-seat of Christ, and must every one give an account of himself." Let us then serve Him in fear, and with all reverence, even as He Himself has commanded us, and as the apostles who preached the Gospel unto us, and the prophets who proclaimed beforehand the coming of the Lord. Let us be zealous in the pursuit of that which is good, keeping ourselves from causes of offence, from false brothers and sisters, and from those who in hypocrisy bear the name of the Lord, and draw away vain persons into error.”
The ministry of the pastor in the local congregation is to take authority to oversee the work of the local congregation, to sustain it in a unity of mission that is found in Christ, particularly in the body and blood of Jesus found in the Eucharist.

Conclusion: You see, God has invited us to a banquet through Christ. We go forth to make sure that all are invited; many reject the offer. The poor, the sick, the sinners, all of us, are brought in. But some are not dressed appropriately, those who seek to take the witness of banquet in different directions from the kingdom of God in Christ. In all of this, there are servants, slaves who invite, who reach to the poor, who exercise discipline within the banquet, not as its host, but as representatives of their Master – those who represent the One who gives the banquet. Before we go to this banquet, I would ask Jeff Kane and Sean Bensen to come forward before us this morning, to be installed as associate pastors.

Jesus Christ, Our Lord, who came among us as to re-present God the Father in obedience to the Father’s will, calls us to faith and a life of love to God and our neighbor. You, Jeff Kane and Sean Bensen, have been called as associate pastors in this congregation by myself as Senior Pastor. You have had that call approved by the Church board and the district Superintendent. We have called you to embody this office for the sake of Christ and this congregation’s witness to the kingdom of God the Father that has been revealed in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

One or more of the following lessons are read. Other associates in ministry or members of the local community where the associate in ministry will serve are encouraged to serve as readers of these lessons.

Deron: Romans 12:4-8 Kathy: 1 Peter 4:8-11

The presiding minister questions the candidate:
P Will you accept the office of associate pastor to which you have been called in the confidence that it comes from God?
R I will, and I ask God to help me.
P Will you carry out this office in accordance with the Holy Scriptures and the Manual of the Church of the Nazarene?
R I will, and I ask God to help me.
P Will you be diligent in your study of the Holy Scriptures and faithful in your use of the means of grace, especially the works of mercy, and in prayer?
R I will, and I ask God to help me.
P Will you trust in God’s call, depend upon God’s care, seek to grow in love for those to whom you are called, live in obedience, and adorn the Gospel of Christ with a godly life?
R I will, and I ask God to help me.

The presiding minister addresses the assembly:
P People of God, will you support and honor Jeff Kane and Sean Bensen for the sake of their ministry? Will you remember them in prayer, listen to their counsel, and honor their leadership to be exercised here?
C We will, and we ask God to help us.

The presiding minister addresses the candidate:
P Jeff Kane and Sean Bensen, you have been called to as associate pastors amidst the English-speaking congregation of the Church of the Nazarene in Mid-City, San Diego. You and this congregation have made your mutual promises before God. I therefore install you as position in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray: