3rd April 2004 Pusey House, Oxford
8th April 2004 St James, Wednesbury

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. (ESV: Rev. 1:5b-6)

T IS FORTY YEARS this year since the Constitution of the Second Vatican Council on the Church was published. Lumen Gentium, as it's usually called, reflected a major change in the presentation of the Church's teaching. Some Protestants, perhaps with justification, said that the new emphasis on the priesthood of the whole People of God, for which Lumen Gentium is famous, was the Roman Catholic Church catching up with Reformed theology. Whether or not that was true, the new emphasis was here to stay. References to the royal priesthood of the whole People of God, if anything, have increased as time has gone on.

Another of the ideas which has been knocking around since then, especially in ecumenical theology, is the idea of koinonia, communion or community. Koinonia has been the basis of the ARCIC discussions, to give an obvious example. New light has been shed on that, for me, by a couple of ideas of Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP. You may have come across them seventeen years ago in New Blackfriars. I found them more recently, thumbing through a new book on the priesthood, Roderick Strange's The Risk of Discipleship. Radcliffe notices a helpful co-incidence with the word 'community'. Koinos means 'common' and by the time of Jesus had come to mean 'impure'. The Christian koinonia is, then, a group of people who are not afraid to be called 'common' - and 'common' can be a term of abuse in our culture too. Or, to put it another way, the Church is a community of sinners, a community of those who, though they have pledged to follow Jesus will often stumble as they bump into their own frailty.

We are reminded of the words of St Paul to the Corinthians

Consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. (1 Cor. 26f)

That's us! If the royal priesthood of the People of God has to reckon with being something less than la belle monde, then it's a vocation which through the ages we should have got used to. There it is in Corinth. It was there in the Roman Empire when Christianity spread like wild fire. It is there in Asia and Africa, as Christianity has attracted lower castes and simpler folk. It is there in our own country, where the poor and some of those who are not 'wise according to worldly standards' show an instinctive feel for the Gospel, when others are too choked on riches or intellectual pride to see the wood for the trees.

So much for the royal priesthood of the People of God. What about the office and work of bishops, priests and deacons - those of us who are today renewing our commitment to ministry - ready to lead all the baptised in the renewal of baptismal vows on Easter Day. Once more we find some help from Fr Timothy Radcliffe. Radcliffe sees that Christ has turned on its head what it is to be a priest. The high priest, as described by the Epistle to the Hebrews, is a solitary figure, separate from others and ritually clean, purified from all impurity. Christ the high priest - and therefore we priests who exercise our priesthood in him - is one who immerses himself in the community. He is not solitary or separate. In the parable, he is the Good Samaritan and not the Priest or Levite.

'God's creative act', says Radcliffe, 'happened in a grasping of the ultimate impurity and its transformation so that "through death he might destroy him who has the power of death"'. 'The author of the Hebrews turns [the principle of the solitariness of the priest] on its head and bases the priesthood of Christ on his solidarity, closeness, to others' (my emphasis).

Though we too find ourselves in the holy of holies, offering the eucharistic sacrifice, interceding daily for others, we can do this only as servants - bishops, priests and deacons, immersed in the life of Jesus himself who came amongst us as one who serves. The bowl and towel, the symbols of the pedilavium, the foot-washing, are the tools of the trade. Priestly humility is part charism - God gives us a helpful push in that direction when we are ordained deacon, and live the life of a deacon for a year. But humility is mostly an acquired virtue, a constant struggle against egotism and selfishness, a reminder that the Man for Others calls you to be a man for others too.

On Thursday this week, like many of you, I found myself reading these words from Lumen Gentium:

This messianic people, though it does not actually include [everyone], and may at times look like a small flock, is nonetheless a lasting and sure seed of unity, hope, and salvation for the whole human race. Established by Christ as a communion of life, love and truth, it is also used by him as an instrument for the redemption of all, and as the light of the world and the salt of the earth is sent forth into the whole world.

Perhaps the most inspiring thing of all about Lumen Gentium is not its recovery of the royal priesthood of the baptised, nor its understanding of the ministerial priesthood as a ministry based on solidarity rather than solitariness…. Perhaps the most inspiring thing is that it enables the Church in a dwindling Christendom to come to terms with its vocation. Particularly in a Europe where secular relativism and moral chaos, it's necessary for us to recover our nerve…. The Church 'may' indeed 'at times look like a small flock' but the metaphors chosen to describe her vocation are all from the Gospels. We are to be 'light' and 'salt' and 'seed'. And, if you want something more Johannine, we are to be a communion of 'life' of 'love' and of 'truth'.

In the See of Ebbsfleet, we too have to learn these things. Let me sum up what I have been saying by applying these matters more immediately to where we are. We must be confident, if and when we evolve into a new local church, that we are an authentic expression of the royal priesthood of the People of God. We must not be discouraged if we find that we are the little people, common folk, not many of us wise according to earthly standards. We priests must be priests of the pedilavium, the bowl and towel are the tools of our trade as we live in solidarity with God's people. Though at times we look like a small flock we take heart that God's holy Church is nonetheless a lasting and sure seed of unity, hope, and salvation for the whole human race. Established by Christ as a communion of life, love and truth, it is also used by him as an instrument for the redemption of all, and as the light of the world and the salt of the earth is sent forth into the whole world.

And so:

to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

The Bishop of Ebbsfleet
Bishop's House, Dry Sandford, Abingdon, OXON OX13 6JP
Tel: +44 (0) 1865 390746

Email enquiries

All text and images on the web site of the See of Ebbsfleet are
© The Bishop of Ebbsfleet unless otherwise acknowledged.

The menu system is the intellectual property of www.milonic.com