Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.09.2008, Page 37

— with the Risen Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit on their tongues
— they will speak to resist evil, gather the outsiders, forgive sins, enable a
community of multiple houses and multiple siblings (10:30), and give life.
And these leaders will serve with a service that is not servile, bathing those
who come, serving the Bread and the Cup, and pointing to the One whose
gift of life is at the heart of this service.
I have wanted to spend so much time here especially on the Gospel of
Mark because I think that the paradoxical proposal of that book about
leadership is so important for us. Of course, there are three other Gospels
and there are other images for and ideas about leadership in those other
books. But I think that it is useful to hold ourselves for a moment before
the Markan proposal about scribes and rulers. That proposal accords with
the Markan understanding of both the gospel itself and the church around
that gospel, with both the Markan “secret” and the Markan ecclesiology —
and so it invites us to see ideas about office and ministry as woven into what
ever we will try to say meaningfully about the gospel and the church.
That proposal also accords with the classic Lutheran proposal about
ministry. The Augsburg Confession welcomes the traditional Christian
way of appointing ministers: AC XIV says, “no one should teach publicly
in the church or administer the sacrament unless properly called — ohn
ordentlichen Beruf— nisi rite vocatus.” At this point, as at many others,
Lutheran Churches are quite conservative. They do have regularly called
and appointed bishops and priests. On the grounds of this confessional
point, there is no reason at all why Lutherans cannot gladly rejoice in the
use of the historic succession or the practice of quite traditional ordination
rites. Ordinarily, barring all emergency, they will do so. But such call and
appointment do not guarantee that the authority of these leaders will be
exercised as the Rock of building rather than the Satanic stone of stumbling.
The Augsburg Confession also requires continuing reform, also requires of
this ministerial power that it be broken to the service of the gospel and the
sacraments: AC V, about the means of grace that enable faith, is called Vom
Predigtamt — De ministerio ecclesiastico; AC VII, about the church around
these means of grace, makes clear that those ministers serve the church by
the right preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments
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