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Sacred Teaching
When an eight-year-old girl spent her pocket money to buy her mother a gift, her mother was grateful and happy, for a mother and housewife generally gets much work and little appreciation.
The girl seemed to have understood this, for she said, "It's because you worked so hard, Mother, and no one appreciates it."
The woman said, "Your father works hard too."
Said the girl, "Yes, but he doesn't make a fuss about it."
*Anthony de Mello. Taking Flight.
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Today, I stood before my people for the last Sunday as pastor. I rejoiced to have been a servant of Christ to them. I was blessed that they, too, served for Christ to me. We blessed each other in serving each other. That is how the Body of Christ operates - to serve the Christ to each other, to be Christ to each other, for the Body is in the Head, the people in the Master.
During this pastorate, I began wearing the priestly collar. I had not done this before, but I felt wearing the collar gave a witness to others of my priestly calling, and reminded me of the nobility of the vocation.
What is the meaning of the white clerical collar? The collar, like unto a yoke, signifies being a slave. The priestly collar is a confession and reminder to the Body, the pastor or priest is devoted to be the slave of the Trinity.
Each true Christian is a slave of Christ, whether he or she is ordained by a church, or not. The true Christian is ordained by the Holy Spirit to serve - and no human or institution can give or take away that ordination.
But you are ... the King's priests ... chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into his own marvelous light.
*I Peter 2.9 (GNT)
Of this passage and priesthood, Andrew Murray (1828-1917), a champion of the life of holiness, wrote, linking the general calling of divine priesthood to prayer:
Are you willing to offer yourself for this holy work? You know the surrender it demands — nothing less than the Christ-like giving up of all, that the saving purposes of God’s love may be accomplished among men. Oh, be no longer of those who are content if they have salvation, and just do work enough to keep themselves warm and lively. O let nothing keep you back from giving yourselves to be wholly and only priests — nothing else, nothing less than the priests of the Most High God. The thought of unworthiness, of unfitness, need not keep you back. In the Blood, the objective power of the perfect redemption works in you: in the Spirit its full subjective personal experience as a divine life is secured. The Blood provides an infinite worthiness to make your prayers most acceptable: The Spirit provides a Divine fitness, teaching you to pray just according to the will of God. ... You will not only join in the general prayer of the Church for the world, but be able in your own sphere to take up your special work in prayer — as priests, to transact it with God, to receive and know the answer, and so to bless in His Name. Come, brother [and sister], come, and be a priest, only priest, all priest. Seek now to walk before the Lord in the full consciousness that you have been set apart for the holy Ministry of Intercession. This is the true blessedness of conformity to the image of God’s Son.
*Andrew Murray. With Christ in the School of Prayer.
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