1 Timothy 4:11-14 MSG and 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 NRSV
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Rev Melissa Krabbe
How do you eat an elephant?
One piece at a time.
How do you change the world?
One step at a time. One person at a time. One moment at a time.
But whose job is it?
It’s everyone’s job.
Early in the process of becoming a pastor, I was asked a question that I had to wrestle with for a bit: “Why a Minister of Word and Sacrament?” That’s what pastors or teaching elders were called back then in our denomination. I immediately thought about what the Bible teaches about the priesthood of all believers which basically says that everyone is called to the ministry of grace, to love our neighbors, to serve one another. Did we need to become pastors to do that? No. So why was I feeling called to ordained ministry?
I got one answer the day I met with the session at Seneca Presbyterian Church to talk about going under their care. One of the elders said, “Why would anyone want to spend all their time studying the Bible?”
Well, I DID want to do that.
One of the verses that explains the priesthood of all believers is I Timothy 2:5 says, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus.” This is why we in the protestant church don’t have to make confession to a priest. We are all empowered to talk directly to God because the Holy Spirit helps us.
It’s kind of like using Netflix. On Netflix, or whatever streaming channel you choose, you can pick whatever you want to watch, whenever you want to watch without needing anyone to intercede with Netflix for you. God is able to hear our prayers on demand, anytime we want.
One of my colleagues who pastors a church in Tulsa, Lucus Keppel, posted about the priesthood of all believers on Facebook this week. (Coincidence? I think not.) He’s a word nerd like me. In digging into the word “priest” he found that it comes from the word “presbyter” which is Greek for “elder.” In the presbyterian church we have teaching elders who are the pastors, and ruling elders. “Incidentally,” says Keppel, “Ruling Elder uses the older meaning of ‘rule’ – to measure. Ruling Elders guide the church through measuring its path ahead, listening to the guidance of the Spirit and reflecting that in making decisions under the moderation of the Teaching Elders.[1]
But we all vote for these leaders. That’s one of the ways we play our part.
In our first scripture reading today, the apostle Paul is writing to one of his disciples, Timothy, about his work with the churches in Ephesus. Apparently, Timothy is young, and that’s getting in the way, either because people don’t seem to want to listen to him, or because he’s lacking confidence. So Paul says, don’t let anyone put you down because you’re young.
As much as we probably don’t want to admit it, we do have age bias in the church. Some of us are ignoring the older people and focusing on the young, and others of us are more likely to listen to the old and ignore the young. It’s a challenge, especially because we might think we’re doing a good job of listening to each other, but people might still feel like their opinions and ideas are not being seriously considered. Have you experienced this age bias?
I love what our PCUSA website says: “[The Priesthood of All Believers] teaches that because of Jesus Christ, there is no need for someone to act as a mediator between the people and God. Everyone is just as spiritual, just as capable of speaking to God, and just as called to deliver God’s message to the world. Everyone is equally called to do God’s work and to minister to God’s people.”[2]
Rebecca Putman, the pastor of Northville United Presbyterian Church in New York, wrote about this for the magazine Presbyterians Today. “The question, [she says], that many of the people in the church I serve ask is, “What does ministering look like if you’re not a minster?” The answer is complex,” she adds, “and it looks different for different people, but the short answer is that it looks like you serving others and showing God’s love as you go about your daily life.”
That’s just what Paul tells Timothy. He says, “Teach believers with your life: by word, by demeanor, by love, by faith, by integrity.” ( 1 Timothy 4:12)
Rebecca Putnam gives an example, telling the story of John and Raul. “[Back] In 1986, they worked at the corporate headquarters of a retail chain in New York City. They were both supervisors and frequently spent 12-hour shifts working together. They developed a friendship. Eventually, John was promoted to manager. One day, John noticed Raul had a lesion on his right cheek and that he hadn’t been feeling well. Raul went to see a doctor in June and went out on disability. In August, Raul asked if he could come back to work, though he would need some accommodations because of his health. John, John’s boss and the vice president of the human resources department all agreed. However, Raul’s co-workers soon learned that Raul had been diagnosed with AIDS. They were afraid and angry that he was coming back to work.
The first morning when Raul came into work, John walked out of his office, smiled, shook Raul’s hand and told him how glad he was that he was back. As the weeks passed, Raul continued to grow weaker until he went out again on disability in October.
When Raul died that December, John and his boss attended Raul’s funeral, which surprised and touched Raul’s {life] partner. When John recounted this story to me, “Putnam says,” he said that he still remembers the sound of Raul’s voice and the look of his face. John also mentioned that in retrospect, he’s amazed that he and the company were so willing to stand by Raul to the end, especially given the fears about AIDS at that time.
Putnam says that “the story about John and Raul is an example of what it means to be a priest amid our daily lives. John was just doing what he thought was right. He would never describe what he did as something godly, Christ-like or priestly. Like the lepers in Jesus’ time, Raul was visibly marked as ill by the lesion on his face. People didn’t want to work with Raul, let alone touch him. But John accepted Raul with an outstretched hand.”
Putnam points out that “In that moment, John proclaimed God’s message to Raul loud and clear: You are my beloved child. John’s handshake and smile delivered a more perfect sermon than even the most gifted preacher on her best Sunday.”[3]
A handshake and a smile. These are things we all can do, and that make more of a difference than we might think.
The priesthood of all believers doesn’t mean we’re all the same, but it means we ALL are empowered by the Holy Spirit to change the world.
In our second scripture reading from 1 Corinthians 12, Paul expands on the idea of ALL.
He says, “there are many members yet one body.” (1 Cor 12:20). The amplified version says, “But now [as things really are] there are many parts [different limbs and organs], but a single body.”
The way Paul talks about hands and feet and eyes and ears in this passage reminds me of a Picasso[4] painting, with body parts all mixed up and all over the place. This painting is called Guernica, named after a city that was bombed in 1937.
Picasso was known not just for this sort of mixed-up body parts art, but also for painting the same subject multiple times, emphasizing different parts in each one, which is sort of like what Paul says in verses 22 and 23:
“…the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect, whereas our more respectable members do not need this.”
The point is that we need all the parts. All ages, all colors, all genders and orientations, all abilities….
In the past, I have thought this scripture was talking about just within a particular church. At the time it was written, Paul was talking to the people at the church in Corinth. But back then, followers of Jesus, and believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were only a small part of the population. Now that’s not the case. In America, 75% of the population believes in God,[5] and almost the same percentage of the world population.[6] So I think we have to have a broader view. We need all the parts, not just in our congregation, but in the whole community, state, nation, and the world.
Every person is a beloved child of God. But we don’t listen to everyone equally. Or treat everyone equally. That’s why we’re working on learning to do better and to work on eliminating systemic racism and structural poverty, and including people of all ages, races, education and economic level, gender and orientation, ability, and the list goes on.
Our democratic system here in the United States ought to be doing that. It’s not, for a variety of reasons. One of those is that not everyone votes. The highest turnout we’ve had for an election is 66%.[7] More often the turnout is closer to 46%. Part of the problem is that there are too many obstacles to voting. But voting is an example of how much every person matters, no matter who they are. Every vote counts. If everyone voted, the outcome could be quite different. There would be transformation.[8] So vote! It’s one way to change the world.
Another way is trusting God to work in you and through you by the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul tells Timothy:
And that special gift of ministry you were given when the leaders of the church laid hands on you and prayed—keep that dusted off and in use. I Timothy 4:14
There is lots of speculation about Timothy’s “gift” in this verse. The Greek word used here is charisma which literally means grace. In the context of laying hands on someone, it means to divinely empower a believer to share God’s work with others.[9] It is NOT a coincidence that we lay hands on someone to ordain them as an elder or deacon as well as to commission and to baptize. We might also lay hands on someone as we pray for healing. All of these are works of the Holy Spirit.
Today six of our youth will be participating in a confirmation retreat. Next Sunday we will be confirming them and laying hands on them, commissioning them as disciples of Jesus. Their preparation today is less about commitment to an institution and more about a commitment to be like Jesus, bringing God’s love and grace to change the world through acts as small as a smile and as big as…well, as big as God inspires them to be. And we are all called to do the same.
How do we change the world?
One bite at a time? One step at a time. One person at a time. One moment at a time. One prayer at a time. One smile at a time.
And whose job is it?
Everyone’s.
Thanks, God.
[1] Lucus Levy Keppel on Facebook, April 18, 2024. https://www.facebook.com/lucus.keppel/posts/pfbid02MNZMTbuym16r2k1edBkNghsgPiNsuKTZjj65M5o1YUSWwzSa5QQYofEXEP6wRuo4l
[2] https://www.presbyterianmission.org/what-we-believe/priesthood-of-all-believers/
[3] Rebecca Lawson Putman is the pastor of Northville United Presbyterian Church in Northville, New York. She also serves as the co-chairperson of Albany Presbytery’s Committee on Ministry. This article originally appeared in the August/September 2018 issue of Presbyterians Today. https://www.presbyterianmission.org/what-we-believe/priesthood-of-all-believers/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PicassoGuernica.jpg
[5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1412740/us-belief-in-god-by-party/#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20survey%20conducted%20in%202023%2C,States%20said%20that%20they%20believed%20in%20God.
[6] https://www.gallup-international.com/survey-results-and-news/survey-result/more-prone-to-believe-in-god-than-identify-as-religious-more-likely-to-believe-in-heaven-than-in-hell
[7] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnout-2018-2022/
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FABvXpUpd8E
[9] https://biblehub.com/greek/5486.htm
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