For This Reason 18

[HKHaugan]

For This Reason 18

It was June 1959. Nine seminary graduates including me are set for ordination. As young seminary graduates you think you finally made it. You get to wear the uniform, get the title and open your professional life. The day of ordination is something special. Seven years and there you are, you and your seminary roommate, full of readiness and excitement, heading into the Cathedral to be ordained with seven others. Quickly you head forward to sit in the front pew to wait for instructions on how to go through the service. You want to impress the boss (the bishop) and show him you are ready. After a few minutes he comes in, his manner thoroughly ecclesiastical and, in his most formal voice walks up to you and says, “I want you to take your seats five rows back in order for the servers (choir, altar servers and additional people) to be instructed.” Sheepishly we slid back very conscious of the fact we should have waited before we sat where we did. That single moment has stuck in my mind for a long time. It was a teaching in humility. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted (Lk.14:11).”

I think of young football freshmen who coaches have wooed, interviewed and told how great they are and why they need to let him coach them only to find out later that practices are humiliating and humbling taunting by the same coaches until they become contributing members of the team. Every profession including the military has its own hazing techniques.

Hold those thoughts because we are coming into Ephesians 4.

Having been elevated by Paul in the first three chapters to a spiritual position far above the world by the Lord’s acceptance, blessing and anointing, you would think believers could boast of that position. No, no, no, just the opposite. You go back to the fifth row and learn relationally that humility, love, gentleness are the qualities flowing from such a position. You wait to be instructed, to be led and to act as the Spirit moves you. It’s all about belief, trust and faith. The Lord will bring you to the front row in His time and in His way. In fact it will come in being invited to the front row of unexpected blessings where he will give you totally different and far better experiences that fill you with gratitude and lifting praise to God.

Real ordination is the recognition of your spiritual childhood in the presence of the Lord. It is the sign of accepting obedience to His will being done, not yours. It is the introduction to being a leader whose leadership is to lead people to the Lord through Scripture so He can be their personal leader as He is yours. It is the sealing of an attitude that puts the Lord first, others second and yourself third. Ordination is not taking authority but living under it, living and sharing the Lord and His Word.

What ordination is not is being in charge, taking control, telling people what and what not to do. Those are the Lord’s tasks and He does them quite well. It’s not about being religious, establishing a reputation, looking for a career, looking the part, looking and sounding like you’re ordained, starting small and building big, counting members instead of praying for them and giving the Word its due and proper exposure. “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord (2Cor.10:17).”

I’ll bet you thought I was talking about ordination as a religious event. True, but I used that personal experience to illustrate a much more important point. Religion tends to separate clergy from people and put the worship leader above the worshiper. Ordination is about all of us. The truth is that we are all priests; we have all been elevated in Christ to be humble before Him in the presence of others. When we accepted Jesus into our hearts, when we were baptized, we were ordained to be His priests. “As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1st Peter 2:4-5).”

Peter goes on to say, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (vs.9-10).” This is also found in Ex.9 and Is.61. That’s front row ordination and fifth row humility.

Having strongly stressed humility, Paul, in contrast to existing culture, shows the simplicity with which the Lord has presented Himself. Unlike the Gentile world with its multitude of religions and philosophies ‘one’ is the key to holding us all together. There is one Body, One Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father. Humility and unity are the themes that bring us into the rest of Ephesians. This is how spiritual gifts are introduced, in the cushion of a lifestyle of humility and unity. This is how God’s will is identified and followed.

Spiritual gifts are our identity and ministry in the Body of Christ. They are the hands, feet, arms, legs and organs working together to present Him to the world. The Body of Christ is the good news for the world. They are the person of Jesus giving us a front row seat in His plan of reconciling the world through Jesus starting with each individual heart. As we practice those gifts in the Body we discover our service identity in the Body, who we are spiritually, and share it. This is how the Lord heals us, fills us, matures us and prepares us for recovery work in and for our mission in the world.

Note the context. Here is the complete recognition of the bipolar nature of human reality, pride/humility and how it is transformed. Before and after each gift passage (not only here but in Rom.12 and 1st Cor.12), in which the gifts are ministered, there are general exhortations to make sure the atmosphere in which they are practiced is love and humility. Here in Ephesians the atmosphere is especially specific from vs.17 to vs.32 as it details in contrast the difference between secular and spiritual lifestyles. One is ego and the other is being an image of God. One is for selfish superiority and momentary pleasure while the other is for the spiritual recovery of humanity and eternal life.

So as the individual matures in the use of gifts and breathes in the atmosphere of love and humility the Body matures. ‘Elementary, my dear Watson!’ Bipolarity is on the way out, unity and wholeness in Jesus is on the way in. That’s the Gospel, the good news, we present to the world.