Pondering Priesthood

Two priests outside Church House on day of Synod vote on women bishops

I had two main problems with the call to ordination in the Church of England. Well, actually there were multiple problems - the course of vocation never did run smooth - but two main intellectual ones. And they were big. They kept me thrashing around in the bible and Christian tradition for about six months before I dared talk to anyone official.

The first was some formative church experience where women as teachers and leaders were at best absent and at worst disallowed. This reflected a conservative theological reading of St Paul where Eve's deception in the garden of Eden, and the perceived creation hierarchy, were cited as reasons women cannot hold authority over men. I needed to know if I shared this view or rejected it. With something of a tussle, I rejected it.

Second, and more pressing, was the problem of priesthood. If you are ordained in the C of E, after a preliminary year you will be a priest. What did this mean? Was it legitimate in terms of the New Testament's 'priesthood of all believers'? Could I come to an understanding of 'ordination' that felt, not  so much comfortably numb, but comfortably mine?

So much hangs on language. If you are brought up non Conformist it's hard to even say 'priest' with any real meaning. To my ears 'priest' sounded male and it sounded Roman Catholic. It also sounded Old Testament. The female equivalent was worse - cult-ish - in a bad way - priestess of the cult of Diana or Astarte or something. My meetings with those that prepared me for selection were all around this problem. 'What do you understand by priesthood?' To which I would mumble something about 'the priesthood of all believers' and the patient response would come: 'yeeees, but what do you understand by priesthood?'

And so I was stuck, grappling with something that was fundamental, and yet excessively difficult to pin down theologically, which has furthermore been the cause of so many divisions within the church. Only men can be priests. Only the priest can 'celebrate'.The priest is representative. The priest is one of the people. The church can do without priests. The church can't exist without priests. Anglican orders are null and void. There were no priests in the the early church  There were priests in the early church. Ordination is indelible. It's just setting you aside for a function. Only the Bishops' hands. 'Tainted' hands.

So, reeling and tripping like an amateur ice skater, I came to the night before Ordination. We were holed up in a small chapel for the final Eucharist. I must admit I found that last Eucharist as a 'lay person' very hard. It had an awesome sense of the Holy. In fact I had taken my shoes off. It's the only time I've ever taken the bread and wine in bare feet. It felt like the final ascent of a high mountain. The lower slopes had been manageable but I feared failing at the last few metres. I desired yet drew back from the summit. It was like when you can see the bank on the other side of the water and you really need to get over there but there's a huge jump.

Three years in and I am no closer to defining priesthood. It grows to encompass many things, but with an expanding breadth of meaning it tends to get diffuse. President, intercessor, conductor, enabler, sign, presence, shepherd, witness, leader, visionary? 

I felt decidedly weird on the day of

'Ontological instability'?

Ordination, but this had a lot to do with getting up too early, being nervous, being hot, being photographed a lot, being told what to do by multiple Church of England officials and being first in the alphabet. At the end of the day a friend wondered facetiously if I was suffering from 'ontological instability'. I thought 'how clever, it must be that'. But was anything ontological really happening, or was it more a rite of passage, with all the attendant  feelings of liminality, uncertainty and unique spiritual opportunity? 

Recently I was challenged by reading a former Bishop in Australia reflect on the phrase 'ordained ministry':  'The notion of the ordained ministry suggests an ontologically distinct order within the ecclesia into which certain persons are inducted. This generates the entirely fictitious idea that those whom the church calls to the office of deacon, priest and bishop, are, in the first instance, being relocated to a different metaphysical realm, that is the ordained ministry.'* 

So I don't know...My gender and background keep me from identifying wholly with a position which makes me 'Christ's representative'. Yet it has to be more than just the 'charism' of leadership taken to its logical conclusion. Maybe its

meaning will always elude me. Maybe it doesn't matter day to day. Maybe the more you focus on priesthood the less you remember you are still just an ordinary Christian trying to be obedient.

I suppose the bottom line is this is where I seem to have come, this is where I am now, and this is where, with God's grace, I'm going.

*Stephen Pickard, Theological Foundations for Collaborative Ministry, p. 21, my italics. 

Part time and proud.

A visitor to church expressed surprise that I 'work two days and Sunday duties' and am therefore a 'part time' Curate. And that's what it says in my working agreement. Which I have signed. 

An older gentleman, he was operating on different model of priesthood. I'm afraid he may have gone home from church thinking 'mercenary'. Even the phrase 'I work...', spoken by a member of the clergy, suggests you can turn it on or off. Surely, once a priest always a priest, available to all, at any time, if needed?

Being 'part time' is something I have struggled with on and off since the arrival of three children meant 'working life' would never again be as simple as 'going to work' at 8am and leaving at 5pm to come home.

So from motherhood to priesthood...and comparing the two vocations:

I became a mother. I gave up 'work' to look after my children. I 'worked from home' with no pay and unlimited hours. I retrained as a minister, and now I 'work from home' with no pay and unlimited....no, no, no!!!.....that's where boundaries come in isn't it...?

In the Church we don't call people like me 'part time' because it's discriminatory. Similarly, we're not 'non-stipendiary' because that's definition by a negative. We're supposed to call ourselves 'self supporting ministers'. But I'm not self supporting; I'm supported by a full time wage earner, aka long suffering partner. The acronym LSPS (long suffering partner-supporting) is not going to catch on any time soon. And the only reason I can afford to have no pay is the clergy house thrown in, so the church is supporting me pretty well in one respect.

So I'm quite proud of my 'working agreement' - it says 'two days and Sunday duties', and that's what I try and do. Hours are worked out over several days though; maybe four here, six there, ten there if I have to...whatever's needed to meet the work, which tends to be very un-boundaried in itself (evenings/weekends/working when everyone else is celebrating...) There are morning things, afternoon things, evening things. Not all work uses up the same amount of energy. I do take one whole day off in seven. Properly. A working agreement protects this mother from working 'all hours' for the church. Given the twin vocation thing, doing two jobs could be detrimental to personal health. I've flirted with it once or twice, in very busy periods, and it's mental. Even Jesus took time off didn't he?

And yet...occasional conversations, such as the one above, make me think...can you be too boundaried? It's harder to respond spontaneously when you're 'part time'. Going away is complicated. Saturdays are tricky. Sunday evenings precious and private. If revival broke out I'd have trouble fitting it in. The children say I'm sometimes preoccupied. The house is not very clean. I love combining motherhood and priesthood but it would be easy at the end of the (very long) day, to feel compromised in both.

40. Phoebe - are you being served?

I'm trying to be fair here...yesterday I wrote about the conundrum facing some Evangelical women who recognise a vocation to teach the bible but who have faced, if not actual restrictions in this, at least demotivating suspicion and a lack of actual role models in the pulpit.

Today, this last day of the Fabulous Forty through Lent (sniff) I'm thinking about the suspicion and restrictions that come from other quarters regarding a vocation to be a priest and 'rightly and duly administer the sacraments.'

Can any fabulous female step forward?

Enter Phoebe.

As well as having a desirable girls' name (like Lydia, Hannah, Eve...it makes me broody........for a nano second) she is introduced by Paul thus: 'I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea (...) for she has been a great help to many people, including me' (Romans 16: 1).

Here's the thing: 'servant', 'minister' and 'deacon' (as in ordained deacon) are all English words that derive from this word rendered 'servant.' So an equally good translation would read 'our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church', a designation which suggest a recognised public church role, usually ordained, which in the C of E at least, is now tied up with ordination, first to the diaconate, then to the priesthood and presiding at Holy Communion.

Ecclesiology is contested within Christendom and all our words are a jumbled mess in people's minds: I've given up trying to explain why I was first ordained deacon and couldn't preside at Holy Communion even though I was a Rev and wore a dog collar, and why I had to be ordained again (as priest) but didn't stop being a Curate at this point...and why I can be known as a Minister but not a Vicar yet...(but always a deacon in spirit...) 

Enough!!

I'm just glad that it would appear, in essence at least, that women's public ministry roles in the Christian church didn't start in 1994 with the C of E finally getting round to ordaining women, but perhaps a little bit earlier....

The wonderful Rev.

Reaching for the alka seltzer at 5.30am; crib services; school nativities; carol services; visits to the lonely; difficult parishioners; awkward relations and an awful lot of mince pies. This is what Christmas means to Rev. Adam Smallbone, hard-pressed vicar of St Saviour-in-the-Marshes, inner city London. It has been difficult not to be transfixed watching this unlikely success story on TV. Our Rev. is endlessly used and abused, suffers doubt, discouragement, envy, lust and everything else normal human beings (and priests) feel. Each week something goes wrong - generally he is not blessed with a large, responsive congregation - even the local school children are rude and ungrateful - and the weasly Archdeacon is constantly on his back. The Christmas episode (19.12.11) was no exception. An untimely death, a difficult father-in-law, a blow to the eye from Colin the tramp and the sheer grind of daily ministry at the church's busiest time of the year all take their toll, coming to a head at Midnight Mass. A rowdy bunch of strangers gather in church, calling out, mocking and interrupting worship, letting off party poppers while the Rev. patiently offers bread and wine for consecration on the altar. A man starts up drunkenly: 'And did those feet in ancient times...' Hardly a carol...but at the precise moment he reaches the line 'And was the Holy Lamb of God/on England's pleasant pastures seen?' Adam holds the host up for all to see. A few more rowdy, irreverent comments, and Adam sighs: 'Great is the mystery of faith.' The Holy Lamb of God not in pleasant pastures perhaps, but in the world, in the mess, and certainly amongst those who do not even recognise him.

an oxymoron for starters

Is it sacrilegious to speak of being a part time priest? Isn't the phrase an oxymoron? (Perhaps it is but it is also pleasantly alliterative, so I'll stick with it). But part time priest? Isn't priesthood an all encompassing calling for life which is rightly held up as a serious undertaking which cannot simply be switched off when you've 'done the hours'? Yes - however a 'non-stipendiary' Curacy in the Church of England comes with a certain number of hours per week, and this suits me, because I have another 'job' - and have had for nearly eighteen years - my job is the work of motherhood. I'm saved, if you like, by that little phrase 'part time' - it reminds me that amidst funeral preparation, sermon writing, study, phone calls and PCC meetings, I do need to hold back time and energy for my 'other job', even if it only really begins at 3.30pm with school pick up time.

So are demands of motherhood and priesthood in unredeemable conflict or do they merge beautifully into one joyful holistic experience? The clue is in being rather than doing. Whilst I do often switch off from both the sermon writing and the ironing, what I generally find is that I'm always a priest and always a mother.