Last Sunday I had the opportunity and great joy to announce that Kate Maxwell and Aron Kramer are joining our clergy team at St. John’s.  Kate has discerned a call to continue at St. John’s as our Associate Priest.  In this capacity, Kate will preach and teach and serve at the altar, lead a newly formed Liturgical Planning Team, help coordinate adult Christian formation, coordinate and provide training for a new lay-led pastoral support network called Community of Hope, and a host of other duties.  Aron will be among us as a Priest in Residence, assisting with liturgical leadership, teaching, and engaging in other ministries as he is interested and willing (he does have a full time job elsewhere!).  We are so incredibly blessed to have such gifted and giving servants among us, and I am personally grateful for their presence and assistance.

But as we add Kate and Aron to our amazing clergy team at St. John’s, I am also well aware of the fact that the church is truly firing on all cylinders only when all of our lay people claim their priesthood as well.  What?  Laity claiming their priesthood?  Father Art, you might need to head back to seminary to get straightened up!  Lay folks can’t be priests!  That can’t be right!  

Well, actually, yes it is.  The author of 2 Peter declares, “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ … But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:5-9).

Now, the author of 2 Peter was not writing to just priests; he was writing to the entire assembly and calling them the following: living stones, spiritual house, holy priesthood, chosen generation, royal priesthood, holy nation, his own special people. While the early Jesus-followers were just beginning to formulate their own structure for the emerging church, one thing was crystal clear… all believers share in the authority and power and work of the church.

We would do well to remember this truth, for what was true for the early emerging church is still valid for us today.  The Christian Church is comprised of a Priesthood of All Believers. While we raise up some to be bishops and some to be priests and some to be deacons, each with their particular type of ministry, the great truth remains that the authority and the power and the work of the Holy Spirit happens through us all.  And we all bear the responsibility to respond to the call, to claim our share of the work, and to help bring about the Kingdom of God here on earth as it is in heaven.

We do welcome Kate and Aron, and I am confident that they will each take their share of the work before us.  But Kate and Aron are joining not just the other clergy at St. John’s in this great work.  They are joining all of you, all of us, the Priesthood of All Believers, as we joyfully proclaim the good news of God’s love in word and deed.

~Father Art