One of the questions I’m asked from time to time, and have been since I was ordained, is whether I’m a vicar or a priest? Actually, since I was inducted as the incumbent of St Mark’s and St Gabriel’s, I’ve been both! But, have you ever wondered what the difference is? For many people, the difference is denominational; Roman Catholic clergymen are priests and Church of England ministers are vicars. However, that’s not right. Unusually amongst Reformed Churches, the Church of England has continued to call its clergy ‘priests’ and so, the Church of England still ordains priests. Priests though, may or may not be vicars. A priest becomes a vicar when they become a parish priest, that is, when they’re inducted as the incumbent of a parish. So why do we call parish priests, vicars?
Well, quite simply, a parish priest is called a vicar because they hold a vicarious ministry. A vicarious ministry is one that’s performed or exercised on behalf of someone else and, in the case of a parish priest, that someone else is their diocesan bishop. In effect, a vicar is given the authority to carry out the bishop’s ministry in the parish because the bishop, being unable to be in more than one place at once, can’t do it. But vicarious can also mean to experience, or enjoy, something through another person and it’s very important that this meaning of vicarious is not applied to the ministry of a vicar. Because, whilst a vicar carries out their ministry on behalf of their bishop, they don’t carry out their ministry on behalf of the people of their parish. What a vicar does in their parish is, of course, done on behalf of the people of the parish but it’s not done for the people in a vicarious way, and shouldn’t be seen that way. I’ll give you an example of what I mean.
A few years before I was ordained, some people at the parish church I used to attend were trying to drum up support for a Bible Study. But, when they asked one man, a stalwart of the Church there, he said, “Why do I want to study the Bible? That’s what we pay yon man (the rector) to do for us.” That’s an example of someone in the Church who wanted to do something vicariously, through the parish priest; in this case, understand the Scriptures. Of course, it’s part of the vicar’s ministry to teach the Christian faith, and explaining the Scriptures is part and parcel of that. But that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t read and study the Scriptures themselves too.
And it’s the same with lots of other things that a vicar does. The vicar leads the people in worship, but the vicar doesn’t worship God on behalf of the people; the people can’t worship vicariously, through the parish priest, they must worship God themselves. A vicar prays for the people of the parish, but they’re the subject of the vicar’s prayers, the vicar doesn’t pray for the people so that they don’t have to pray; they must pray themselves. And perhaps above all, whilst a priest has offered themselves to the service of God and his people, and in that sense is ordained for others, they don’t offer themselves for ordination, nor are they ordained, on behalf of others. All Christians are called, in various ways, to offer themselves in service of God and his people. And they can’t do that vicariously, through someone else.
The ordained priesthood is a particular vocation within the Church’s ministries. Those who are called to it are, in a sense and to a certain degree, called to be set apart from the preoccupations of everyday life so that they can concentrate on the things of God and the spiritual and pastoral need of others. Those who are vicars are called to carry out this ministry in a particular place and time. But the ordained priesthood is a specific vocation within the more general vocation of all Christian people. All Christians are called to devote themselves to the things of God and the needs of others. They’re called to read the Scriptures, to worship God and to pray regularly. Above all, they’re called to offer their lives to the service of God and his people. They are all called to live Godly lives and to show the love of God to those around them. That is what it means to be
“…a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for (God’s) own possession…”
as the first Letter of St Peter puts it. It’s what it means to be part of the priesthood of all believers from whom the ordained priesthood is chosen and called to a more specific ministry.
All Christians are part of this ‘royal priesthood’ of all believers and because all are ‘priests’ in that sense, none can exercise their ministry vicariously, through another, they have to carry out their ministry for themselves. Jesus himself tells us as much in the Scriptures. He tells us that to be Christians, his disciples, we must take up our cross and follow him. He doesn’t tell us to let someone else to carry our cross for us and follow him on our behalf, so that we don’t have to. And indeed, Jesus tells us in this morning’s Gospel that, if we are his disciples, we will do what he calls us to do:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do…”
So, all Christians are called to carry out their own ‘priestly’ ministry, and it’s important that we do carry it out because, whatever that ministry is, it is ours and no one else’s. No one else can carry out our ministry for us and if we don’t carry it out, it will never be carried out because each and everyone of us is special and unique: none of us can or will ever be replaced because there never has been and will never be anyone else exactly like us. That’s something Jesus hints at in this morning’s Gospel when he says that there are many rooms in his Father’s house, there are rooms for many different people, and elsewhere in the Gospels when he says that even the hairs of our heads are numbered.
So, we all have our own priestly ministry to carry out. We might not know what that ministry is but, so long as we try to follow Jesus’ example each and everyday of our lives, we won’t go far wrong in carrying it out. And the present situation we find ourselves in, doesn’t stop us from carrying out our ministry. God knows the situation, and he knows us, intimately, and so he will present us with ways to be about his business. It might be helping someone with shopping or a phone call to someone who lives alone. And it doesn’t matter if other people could do that, or have done that, they won’t do those things in the way we do them: their voice is not our voice, their words will not be our words. It could just be that our voice and our words will mean much more to the person who hears them than we realise and will help them in ways we’d not even considered. One thing we can be sure of though, is that one day, we will be told what our own unique ministry has been. So, let’s make sure we’ve at least tried to carry it out, and perhaps above all, let’s make sure we’ve not let someone else try to carry it out for us.
Amen.
You will find the Propers for the Fifth Sunday of Easter here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 