Where is Howard? Do you know who I am talking about? The man who sat right over there, close to the column. He came nearly every Sunday the first three or four months I was here. He came to hospitality after church. I made it a point to talk to Howard each time he came to church, as I try to with each and everyone. He was a quiet, soft-speaking person.
One day I saw him walking in front of the church, headed toward downtown. I stopped him, he said he was on his way to a mission—I don’t remember the name—where they served lunch to the homeless. He said he volunteered there as much as he could.
That was the last time I saw Howard.
When he stopped coming, I asked the church administrator to look in our database, so I could call or write him. But he wasn’t there.
Have you seen him lately?
I would like to know how he’s doing. I wonder why he stopped coming to church.
Where is Howard?
And what does he have to do with the “priesthood of believers?”
And what is the priesthood of believers?
To answer these questions, we have to know more about early Christianity. I will come back to
We will come back to Howard in a moment.
Our first reading today is from First Peter. There are few scholars who believe that First Peter was written by the disciple known as Simon Peter. Most believe it was written by an anonymous author who used Peter’s name. It was probably written after the disciple Peter and Paul the apostle had died. Yet, it was written before the end of the first century, certainly before the Emperor of Rome became concerned about this growing religious sect.
The churches he was writing to were the churches planted by Paul and the outgrowth of those churches around the Mediterranean. The believers gathered in homes, led by women and men, trying, just as we do, to live out their beliefs and faith. From sources other than the New Testament, we know those hearing this message were once a part of the Roman culture of their time, but have chosen to set themselves apart.
First Peter encourages the new Christians to “rid themselves” of the sins of “malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.”
Unlike those well-known, seven deadly sins—which are personal sins—the sins listed in First Peter are sins that affect the “community of believers.”
Malice—wickedness, cruelty, hatred—
Guile—deviousness, deceit, duplicity—
Insincerity, envy, and slander – all have detrimental, negative impacts on communal relationships.
The author is concerned about the community, “the body of Christ” as Paul calls the church.
These words are instructions and encouragement to the early believers.
The author uses images “like newborn infants” to indicate that they are new believers who need to “grown into salvation.” Then, we hear them called a “holy priesthood” and a “royal priesthood.”
The author encourages them to stand together to be a priesthood that declares God’s message.
They are like Jesus’ disciples called to be “fishers of men” and to proclaim the good news of Jesus’ radical religion.
As a religious people what does this say to us today?
According to James Luther Adams, Unitarian and Universalist, the “priesthood of believers” is an integral and significant part of our religion.
He says that the priesthood of all believers to which Paul refers is the believing community and Paul calls the community to do what priests do—point to the holy and care for souls.
In our free religious church, we do not have priests; we have ministers, pastors, and reverends who do those things. However, in a free religious church, all of us, the entire congregation is called to these priestly acts. Just as the body of believers was called to these acts in the early church, so, too, is the congregation called today.
All of us are called, just as Jesus was called, to servanthood. Jesus said in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve…”
Adams continues, the “priesthood of believers” analyzes, criticizes, and when needed, transforms the church.
As we gather in worship each Sunday, we are declaring ourselves a religious people. Now we may not all share the same theology, that is the beauty of the free religious church, but we do share a need to be here.
… we do share a need to be here.
Once there was a couple who came to church every Sunday. They were a church-going couple. Their children grew up in Sunday school and after they children were long grown and gone, they continued to go to church. They grew old and as is the way of life, one died first, the wife, and her husband was left alone. He was sad and lonely. He quit going to church. He said whenever anyone visited him and asked him why he didn’t come to church, “I can’t go without her.”
This went on for months.
A new minister was called to the church and everyone told her about their old friend who didn’t come to church any more. She went out to visit him; he let her in, took her coat, and pulled a chair up for her beside his chair in front of the fire. They just sat there quietly watching the fire. The minister must have gotten an inspiration, because after a long while, she got up, took the fire poker and moved a small bit of burning wood out of the fire, pushed it over, and sat back down. The wood eventually quit burning of course, and grew cold. She never said a word.
After quite a while, she took the poker again, pushed the wood back into the fire and sat back down. Soon wood was burning brightly again. They both sat there neither one saying a word. After a while, she said to the elderly widow, “We are all like that bit of wood. When we are together, we burn brightly; heat up the place, and keep people warm. When we are alone, we turn cold, lose our fire, and can’t do anything for anyone.”
“Won’t you come back to church?” And having spoken those words, she quietly retrieved her coat and let herself out.
The next Sunday, the widow was back in church, and it was as if he’d never left.
As a religious people, we have many different reasons to be here, what we share is the need to be here.
So what would it look like if we lived out a call to be the priesthood of believers?
We begin to understand that worship gives us the opportunity to share the joy of being believers. It gives us the opportunity to proclaim God’s love. And most of all, it gives us the power, the courage, and the strength to share that love with the world.
As our need to be together is fulfilled, then we look beyond ourselves, to those around us. What did Adams say, “we shall be concerned with interpersonal fellowship … and our’’ relating to each other, especially those in need.
We have many guests each Sunday. Some are here from out of town, and come this one Sunday to see this historic building, or to visit a traditional Universalist congregation. Some are guests from other Unitarian Universalist churches who drive in to “try out” our Universalist service.
There are other guests who feel called to come this one time, and may or may not come back, depending on their experience here and their needs.
As a priesthood we welcome our guests and find a way to let them know are called to “care for their souls.” Caring for another’s soul implies reaching out, approaching another person with love, acceptance, and empathy.
As a priesthood we are called to analyze, criticize, and transform the church. This congregation has done that recently. The result of the process was a congregational covenant. It is our guide to living out our faith and religion. But it is our guide to priesthood.
Just as Peter said to get rid of those sins which have a negative impact on communal relationships, our covenant calls us to account for our behavior when it has a negative impact on communal relationships.
We call ourselves to analyze, criticize, and transform our behavior.
Another process, recently completed by the congregation, is the revised Declaration of Faith. It demonstrates the shared effort to care for our souls.
While we were doing all this, Howard was coming to church—sitting over there, listening to the sermon, and going to hospitality afterwards.
How long did Howard attend services here?
I don’t know, because he was here when I got here, and I never asked him how long he had been coming.
Where do we go from here?
We have a congregational covenant and a revised Declaration of Faith.
We also have a religion that is “good news.”
A radical, religion of inclusiveness
We are a church with a religion that has the potential to speak to this city and this region. We are a priesthood of believers. When a guest visits, we need to make sure they are welcomed with love, acceptance, and empathy. When a guest visits a second time, we need to make sure someone of our priesthood approaches them with love, acceptance, and empathy.
As a guest becomes a “newcomer,” visiting regularly we need to make sure we live out our priesthood. You may ask, “Aren’t we doing that?” Are we?
If we were, would we know “why” Howard doesn’t’ come anymore.
If we were would we know whether the church met his spiritual and religious needs, or not.
If we were would we know if he needed anything, or not.
Maybe, maybe not
One of the first things I learned in seminary is that I can only be a minister to people who want to be ministered to…we can only be a priesthood to others if they want a priesthood to “care for their souls”!
We will never meet the needs of every person who walks through our doors, but my prayer for us today is that regardless of whether a person keeps coming back or never comes back, she or he will know that we take our call to priesthood as seriously and religiously as Jesus and Paul did.
The Readings
First Peter 2:1-7, 9-10 – The Living Stone and a Chosen People
Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built* into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture: ‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him* will not be put to shame.’ To you then who believe, he is precious; …, …But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,* in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.
Selections from The Prophethood of All Believers by James Luther Adams, the preeminent Christian Unitarian Universalist theologian in the Twentieth Century
Adams was a Unitarian minister for years before he taught at Meadville Lombard Theological School, University of Chicago Divinity School, and Harvard Divinity School. He died in 1994 at the age of 93.
The priesthood of all believers refers at least to two things. In all religions the priest points to holy things and offers thanks. The priest is also concerned with the care of souls. It is, then, the vocation of the laity to express and to elicit a sense of the sacredness, the holiness, the preciousness, of all gifts of creation… [In addition] it is the vocation of the laity that everyone shall be concerned with interpersonal fellowship in the family, in friendships, in work and play, and particularly in affectional relatedness to those especially in need.
The priesthood of believers entails the obligation to share in the analysis, criticism, and transformation of… the church.
…
Presupposed here is the biblical message, beginning with the Old Testament prophets who remind us that we are a covenanted people responsible not only for human kindliness but also for the character of our institutions, and especially for seeking justice for the poor at the gate. Something of this may have been in Jesus’ mind when he said… ‘Be ye all-inclusive as your father in heaven is all-inclusive.’
Benediction
May we take our priesthood religiously and seriously,
May we demonstrate by our actions that we care for souls
With love, acceptance, and empathy
This week and in the weeks to come