So it is understandable that some priests, often younger men, are attracted by a return to ,the good old days, when the priest was a cultic figure with sacred hands. Other priests dread this as a return to clerical elitism, and delight in a theology of service, but some will admit that they are unsure as to who we are and what it means to be a priest today. Is there a way forward?
I believe that there is, and it is to be found in the Letter to the Hebrews, the only document of the New Testament that develops a theology of priesthood. There we have a vision of Christ the High Priest who is a sacred figure, who celebrates the heavenly cult. But his holiness does not separate him from other people but weds him to us. This offers us a profound vision of priesthood which I have not the time to develop here, but which carries us beyond the polarisation of those who see the priesthood in terms of service and those who are nostalgic for the priesthood as a sacred figure.
The Old Testament understanding of holiness implied the separation of the priest from all that was impure and imperfect.The high priest could not go near a corpse, and if you wanted to stop a rival becoming high priest then a nifty move was to bite off his ears! But in Hebrews we find this vision of holiness is turned upon its head. Christ's holiness is shown in his embrace of us in all our sinful imperfection. His holiness is displayed not by distance from us but by closeness. And the culmination of his sacred ministry was when he embraced death, that most impure thing, and became himself a corpse. Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his blood. 'Let us therefore then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured.' (Hebrews 12.12).
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The gospels never speak directly of Christ as a priest, but we find this same theology of holiness. He embraces the untouchable, the lepers; he eats and drinks with sinners; he is sacrificial lamb who dies on the altar of the cross. So the whole people of God is a holy and priestly people, because it embodies Christ's embrace of us all in our messy lives, with all their weakness and failures. And the sacrament of that holiness is the Eucharist, in which Christ gave his body to us all, including to the disciples who would betray and deny him. The holiness of the Church is shown in its inclusion of sinners, not their exclusion. As James Joyce said of the Church: "Here comes everyone." It also offers us ordained ministers a vision of our priesthood which is utterly free of clericalist elitism, and which is founded upon our intimacy and identification with people in their struggles and failures.
This is part one of an edited version of a speech given at the National Conference of Priests at Digby Stuart College, Roehampton, London on 3 September 2002. Click here for Part 2 and Part 3. Sourced through CathNews.
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