26 January 2020
Text: Titus 1:1-9
You know, I remember,
one of my older colleagues told me that during his childhood his greatest fear
was ordination. At the same time, he really wanted to become a priest.
He grew up in a free
country where religion was not prohibited, but, on the contrary, every Sunday
the churches were filled with Christian people. The boy tried to get as close to the altar as
possible to observe how the priests are moving in there. Instinctively, he even tried to repeat their
motions, as if brandishing a censer or lifting up a chalice and a paten with
holy gifts.
And only one thing bothered
him a lot. The fact was that one day a
bishop came to their parish for ordination, and when the priests surrounded the
candidate on all sides, the boy asked his father what they are doing there. “They
pulled his spine out of him,” his father replied.
After that, for many
years the boy stopped wanting to become a priest, and even approached the altar
not to observe how the priest was “turning” bread and wine into the body and
blood, but to understand how he does that without a spine.
Nevertheless, the
desire to become a clergyman did not pass, and once, having already finished seminary,
he knelt down with feet bending in holy fear to receive the sacrament of
ordination. His spine remained with him.
Well... Let’s read now from the beginning of the
epistle of Saint Paul to Titus:
To
Titus, my true child in a common faith:
Grace
and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Savior. This is why I left you in Crete, so that you complete the unfinished,
and appoint presbyters in every town as I directed you.
Today the Church
celebrates the Festival of Saint Timothy and Saint Titus. As the Holy
Scriptures speaks of them, Timothy was a native of the Asia Minor town of
Lystra, the son of a Greek man and a Jewish woman. He was a Christian from
childhood and became a companion of Saint Paul in his missionary travels, and then
became a bishop of the Church in Ephesus.
Titus was a Greek
convert to Christianity; he also accompanied Saint Paul on his travels, carried
out his instructions; and then Saint Paul consecrated him to be a bishop of
Crete.
Paul treated both of
them not only as his beloved disciples, but even as his beloved children,
calling them “sons” in his epistles:
Paul, the
apostle of Jesus Christ...
to
Timothy, my true child in the faith...
Paul,
the servant of God and the apostle of Jesus Christ... to
Titus, my true child in a common faith.
The apostle dedicated the
epistles to both of them, which are often called “pastoral” epistles, that means,
addressed not to the churches, but personally to the bishops. In these letters, much is said about the Church
hierarchy, about its three steps: bishops, priests and deacons:
For
this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in
you through the laying on of my hands.
The
saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of bishop, he
desires a noble task.
This is
why I left you in Crete, so that you complete the unfinished, and appoint
presbyters in every town.
Deacons...
must be... honest. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a
clear conscience.
According to the Church
calendar, the Feast of Saint Timothy and Saint Titus immediately follows the
Day of conversion of the Apostle Paul, and this is not by accident. This is
because the today’s festival is a continuation of the previous one, but not
only in the sense of the calendar, that is, not only because Jesus first
converted Paul, and then Paul called his faithful helpers Timothy and Titus.
This, of course, is right.
But the Feast of Saint Timothy and Saint
Titus is celebrated after the feast of Saint Paul, primarily because exactly in
this sequence Christianity increased.
You know, if you ask a
common person, an ordinary Christian, about how, in his opinion, Christianity increased,
he is unlikely answer about the clergy, in other words, about the priests.
It happens because of
the post-Protestant influence on our brains; sometimes it seems to us that the increase
of the Church was very “laymen”: somebody went to someplace, said something to
someone and called somewhere.
We, too, are often
captives of this error. But now think
about this: is Christianity possible without the Church? Now, people who went to someplace and said
something, where did they call those who listened to them? To their home?
They called them to
the church. Because only in the church you
can be baptized, only in the church you can hear the word of forgiveness spoken
with Divine authority, and only in the church you can taste of the salvific
Eucharist.
And without what the
Eucharist is impossible? Without what absolution of sins is impossible? Or,
better, I will ask in a different way: without whom? Without whom are the sacraments impossible? Without priests, of course.
You know, a several years
ago in one of our eastern parishes, two parishioners had a great conflict with
a priest, and then, they left slamming the door, and organized their own “church.”
Before joining
Lutheranism, they were Pentecostals, but I think that they remained
Pentecostals: they left us because they never became ours.
They declared
themselves as the priests, created an “altar” and began to serve “liturgy.” And they tried to explain to me their “right”
to serve the Eucharist using this “argument”: well, they said, really, if we
take bread and wine and pray how we should from all our heart, they will for
sure become the Body and Blood of Christ!
No, they will not, I
answered them, of course. You can yell
as much as you can with a loud voice, and even, like those prophets of Baal,
stab yourself with swords and lances until the night time, but the bread will
remain ordinary bread and the wine remains ordinary wine.
And the words of
forgiveness that you say to your “parishioners” will remain nothing more than a
good wish.
The Augsburg
Confession says this, “We teach about the church ministry that no one in the
Church should publicly teach or preach or conduct the sacraments without being
legally ordained” (Art. XIV).
And this means that if
a person is not ordained, then all his “sacred actions” will be just a
beautiful (if you look positively) performance. But if you look realistically, this performance is deadly: because in fact, it brings death to its participants: after
all, some of them sincerely trust the actors who illegally put on the clothes
of priests. Can you imagine what that means? This means that sins are not forgiven.
It often happens that
some people like to steal what they have no right to, but God does not play
such games. He will never contradict
Himself. Because in order to save His people,
He created the Church, and granted her a succession of ordinations of priests.
This is
why I left you in Crete, so that you complete the unfinished, and appoint
presbyters in every town as I directed you.
Yes. The Epistles of Saint Paul to Timothy and
Titus are very, so to speak, hierarchical. They emphasize the special importance of the
clergy in the Church. “Special” does not
mean “privileged.” You know, sometimes we
hear that priests have seized authority in the Church and are doing what they
want. I have heard this -- also from our
two former parishioners about whom I just have told you.
Well... Priests, of course, are different, some of
them are intolerant and inattentive. I myself am also one of those. But we did not seize any authority. Because apart from the clergy, no one in the
Church has ever had any authority. And this
is God who gave us authority - the authority to forgive your sins, to baptize
your children, to conduct Holy Communion, the authority to serve you and care for
you.
And it was so from the
beginning. In the Old Testament, God
chose certain people to stand at the altar and conduct the sacrifices. The Old Testament hierarchy was genetic: of
the twelve tribes of Israel, God chose the descendants of Levi, whom God
ordered to serve at the altar.
No one else could stand
near the altar, God would not accept the sacrifice from anyone else. Although already in the Old Testament we repeatedly
encounter rebellions against the hierarchy. One of these rebellions is described in the
sixteenth chapter of the Book of Numbers. Do you remember that story?
They
assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to
them, ”You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy,
every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt
yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?”
The idea of the
so-called “universal priesthood” is often attributed to us Lutherans, even in
some dictionaries and encyclopedias you can read that everyone in our Church may
celebrate the liturgy and that a person becomes a pastor as a result of voting.
But it is nowhere in our confessions. There has never been universal equality in the
Church. And those who want to argue with this will have to argue not with humans,
but with God - because it was God Who was the author, the Creator of the holy
hierarchy.
The New Testament
priesthood is different from the Old Testament. Because it is not genetic. Christ called the twelve apostles and gave
them authority to forgive sins and to conduct the sacraments.
And the feast of Saint
Timothy and Saint Titus follows immediately the feast of Saint Paul because it
was from the Apostle Paul that his disciples Timothy and Titus received
ordinations and became priests and later the bishops. This is exactly how the
Church extends:
• The Lord gave the
authority to forgive sins to His apostles;
• The apostles
transferred this authority to the first generation of bishops;
• Bishops transferred
this authority to the next generation of bishops,
• and so it has
reached our days.
The Church is
continuous. This her continuity is
commonly called as “apostolic succession.” It is about this continuity and this
succession that we speak every liturgy when we pronounce the Creed: “I believe
... in ... one holy Christian and apostolic Church.”
And today’s festival is
a feast of the apostolic, in other words: a continuous Church. It is very
important for us that the Church did not stop, that her tree, even it was
divided into several branches (denominations), still grows and stands on the foundation
of the apostles.
That is why we can be
sure that our sins are forgiven and that the church tradition is not
interrupted, because the hierarchy is continuous and modern clergymen have the
same authority to forgive sins, which Christ gave to His apostles.
So Saint Paul gave the
direction to bishop Titus,
complete
the unfinished, and appoint presbyters in every town.
And on the Feast of
Saint Timothy and Saint Titus it is customary to preach about holy ministry. And
during the liturgy, we read the prayers about holy ministry, include preface
prayer from the order of ordination:
“It is truly good,
right and salutary, always and everywhere to thank You, O Lord, Holy Father,
Almighty eternal God. By the anointing of the Holy Spirit, You have made Your only
begotten Son High Priest of the new and eternal Testament, and by the indescribable
authority You have honored the Church with the consecration, granting her the continuous
priesthood of Christ. For He not only crowned His people with the dignity of
the royal priesthood, but also, by His grace, He chose the people who, through
the laying of hands, partake in His priesthood. Therefore with the angels and
archangels...” (end of quote).
Complete
the unfinished, and appoint presbyters in every town.
And so it continues to
this day. Until now, the bishops complete the unfinished of the apostles when we
ordain new priests and deacons in every town around the world.
This is how the ministry
of the apostles continues, and this is how the Christian Church grows and increases
and the word and sacraments are given to the people. And so it will be until the end of this world.
Brothers and sisters! Through the succession of ordinations, God continues
to give His priests authority to forgive sins and to conduct the sacraments. To
forgive your sins and to conduct the
sacraments for you. So you and your children will be saved.
(And by the way, nobody
pulled out the priests’ spines when the bishops ordain them -- you should trust
me!)
So always rush to the church
and receive here the gifts that the Lord offers to you here.
I congratulate you
with this festival, dear father Larry and my dear brothers and sisters, with
the festival of the Saint bishop Timothy and Saint bishop Titus! Amen!
