"Born a Priest, Made a Pastor" (Sermon on Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16)

"Born a Priest, Made a Pastor" (Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16)
Circuit Pastors' Conference, November 10, 2015

Today is Martin Luther's birthday. He's 532 today, although I'd say he doesn't look a day over 490. Yes, it was on this day, November 10, in the year 1483, that Hans and Margaretha Luther had a baby boy, in the town of Eisleben, Saxony. The next day, November 11, that little squirming baby was taken to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, there in Eisleben, and he was baptized. Since it was November 11, the feast day of St. Martin of Tours, the boy was given the name Martin. Martin Luther, born November 10, baptized November 11, 1483.

So maybe we should be celebrating his birthday tomorrow, on the day he was baptized. For that was the day he was born again, born from above, born of water and the Spirit. That was the day he was given a name, not just the name Martin, but more importantly, the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The triune God placed his name on this child and claimed him as his own. On that day, his baptismal day, little Martin was called into the kingdom and became a priest.

"What?" you say. "I thought Martin Luther didn't become a priest until much later." Well, yes and no. Martin Luther was made a pastor, an ordained minister, many years later, as an adult. But he became a priest on the day he was baptized. And you know what? So did you. For every Christian is born a priest in Holy Baptism. And out of that priesthood of the baptized, some are later called to be pastors. So our theme this morning: "Born a Priest, Made a Pastor."

And I think it honors Luther's memory and celebrates his life to point out that Luther upheld and taught both of these aspects of God's work in the life of the Christian and the life of the church, namely, that God anoints all of us baptized to be priests and that he then calls some of us also to be pastors. Born a priest, made a pastor.

First, every Christian is born a priest. Keep in mind, at Luther's time, becoming a priest, that is, becoming an ordained priest in the church, having a specifically religious vocation, becoming a monk or a nun or a priest--this was seen as a higher calling, a holier estate, than living a merely mundane, secular, ordinary life. You were racking up points with God by being a religious priest. And Luther himself had gone along with that line of thinking when he entered the monastery.

But the more Luther read the Bible, the more he saw this notion of the religious priest holding a holier estate didn't line up with God's word. What Luther read in the Bible was that every Christian had a holy calling and could serve God in any honest vocation that serves his or her neighbor. The mother changing her baby's diaper was doing a more God-pleasing work than the Carthusian monks withdrawing from the world and babbling away. The butcher or the shoemaker serving his customers well was a channel of God's blessing by providing for people's daily needs. Luther rescued the doctrine of vocation from the dung heap it had been consigned to. In the Catechism's Table of Duties, he quoted Bible passage after Bible passage, to show that any Christian in any walk of life was carrying out a holy calling when he or she performed the responsibilities appropriate to that person's station in life, whether in the church, in the government, in the workplace, or in the home.

What Luther found in the Scriptures is what is sometimes called the priesthood of all believers, or the priesthood of the baptized. All of the baptized have a spiritual calling. They are set apart and sanctified, dedicated to the Lord's service by virtue of their baptism. This is a lifelong calling, this priestly work of offering your whole life as a spiritual sacrifice. Luther found this in passages like those we heard earlier. Romans 12: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." 1 Peter 2: "You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. . . . You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation," and so on.

Now what was even more pernicious than the notion that ordained priests held a holier estate than the laity was the idea that the priests could offer up meritorious sacrifices by the performance of their work. But this robbed Christ of the glory that is due him, for only he, Christ, has offered up the one and only sacrifice for all sin for all time. Only Jesus, the Son of God who died on the cross, atones for our sin. There is no other. Jesus Christ is our great High Priest. He entered the heavenly Holy of Holies with his own blood, the perfect sacrifice to cleanse us from all sins. He is your High Priest. His blood pleads for you. His blood cleanses you and cleanses all your works. Now you are God's holy people, with a clean slate, with a new nature, with the Holy Spirit, set apart and equipped to do good works, which God has already prepared for you to do. Because Jesus is our great High Priest, who atones for our sins and cleanses us, apart from anything we do, now we are his holy priesthood, enabled and empowered to do good works, offering up spiritual sacrifices, as God's priestly people.

This is the good news, the gospel of forgiveness, life and salvation in Christ. This is the justification of the sinner, by grace through faith in Christ, which was the hallmark of Luther's teaching. It shone through so brightly, in all the writings and the reforms that he undertook.

And so in this way Luther was fulfilling his vocation as a pastor and teacher in the church. Not everyone has this particular calling, but some do, and Luther did--and man, do we give thanks that he did! What a blessing to the church this man's work was and still is! Think of all the contributions: The great treatises, such as "The Freedom of the Christian." The reform of the Mass. All the wonderful hymns: "A Mighty Fortress"; "Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice"; "O Lord, We Praise Thee"; "Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word." The list goes on and on. Then there are the Catechisms, Large and Small. Luther's Small Catechism has probably had more positive influence on the faith of so many millions than just about anything else I can think of. The Lord Jesus, when he ascended on high, gave gifts to his church--apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers--to build up the body of Christ. And certainly Dr. Luther, with his prolific and productive ministry, has been one of the greatest of those gifts in the entire history of the church. Luther was made a pastor, and he definitely made the most of it.

How about us? We pastors, how are we fulfilling our vocation? Let us receive God's forgiveness for the ways in which we have failed. Let us seek God's help to make the most of our calling. In our preaching and our teaching. In our conduct of the liturgy. In our administration of the sacraments. In our pastoral care. In ministry to the sick and the shut-in, to the wayward and the straying, to families and singles, to widows and the needy. Brothers, we have been made pastors, we have been placed into the office of the ministry. This is the Lord's work, and that means he is committed to helping us carry it out. And he will do it.

Born a priest, made a pastor. Luther upheld both callings. Listen to what he wrote that puts this all in perspective:

"Before anyone becomes a preacher or a bishop, he must first be a Christian, a born priest. No pope or any other man can make him a priest. But having been born a priest through Baptism, a man thereupon receives the office; and this is what makes a difference between him and other Christians. Out of the multitude of Christians some must be selected who shall lead the others by virtue of the special gifts and aptitude which God gives them for the office. Thus St. Paul writes (Eph. 4:11, 12): 'And His gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the equipment of the saints' (this means those who are already Christians and baptized priests), 'for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ' (that is, the Christian congregation or church). For although we are all priests, this does not mean that all of us can preach, teach, and rule. Certain ones of the multitude must be selected and separated for such an office."

"But you must know this, as I have also stated before, that Christ is the only High Priest. Before we attempt to do such priestly works, we must have the benefit of His priestly office; yes, we must possess it. The doctrine and preaching by which we are saved comes from Him; He brought it from heaven. He alone has made the complete sacrifice for us all by which we are reconciled to God."

"But after we have become Christians through this Priest and His priestly office, incorporated in Him by Baptism through faith, then each one, according to his calling and position, obtains the right and the power of teaching and confessing before others this Word which we have obtained from Him. Even though not everybody has the public office and calling, every Christian has the right and the duty to teach, instruct, admonish, comfort, and rebuke his neighbor with the Word of God at every opportunity and whenever necessary. For example, father and mother should do this for their children and household; a brother, neighbor, citizen, or peasant for the other."

"Thus we do not make a distinction among Christians regarding the priestly office, but we do make a distinction among Christians regarding the office of the ministry, so that a man can administer comfort, absolve, etc. However, in the priestly office we are all the same, for I do not have a better baptism than that which I received as a child."

And that baptism, which Luther received on November 11, was his birthday into the priestly office. Born a priest, made a pastor. Both are the Lord's work, his calling, his working through us, in whatever station in life we may find ourselves. The Lord worked mightily through Luther, as both born priest and made pastor. And, while maybe our work will not be as mighty as Martin's, still the good Lord will work through us in our callings, as well. And the glory will all go to God.

Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16 (ESV)

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call--one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. . . .

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Not everyone has this particular calling, but some do, and Luther did--and man, do we give thanks that he did! What a blessing to the church this man's work was and still is! ...

He wrote the blueprint for the Holocaust and his work was adopted by his countrymen in earnest four centuries later.

The following are excerpts from Luther's work entitled "The Jews & their Lies":

What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must practice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:

First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly Â and I myself was unaware of it Â will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. (remainder omitted)

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. For they have justly forfeited the right to such an office by holding the poor Jews captive with the saying of Moses (Deuteronomy 17 [:10 ff.]) in which he commands them to obey their teachers on penalty of death, although Moses clearly adds: "what they teach you in accord with the law of the Lord." Those villains ignore that. They wantonly employ the poor people's obedience contrary to the law of the Lord and infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. In the same way the pope also held us captive with the declaration in Matthew 16 {:18], "You are Peter," etc, inducing us to believe all the lies and deceptions that issued from his devilish mind. He did not teach in accord with the word of God, and therefore he forfeited the right to teach.

Fifth, I advise that safeÂconduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let they stay at home. (...remainder omitted).

Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they possess. Such money should now be used in no other way than the following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest. With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble. For such evil gains are cursed if they are not put to use with God's blessing in a good and worthy cause.

Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen 3[:19]}. For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.

* * *

But what will happen even if we do burn down the Jews' synagogues and forbid them publicly to praise God, to pray, to teach, to utter God's name? They will still keep doing it in secret. If we know that they are doing this in secret, it is the same as if they were doing it publicly. for our knowledge of their secret doings and our toleration of them implies that they are not secret after all and thus our conscience is encumbered with it before God.

* * *

Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is:

First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss in sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire. That would demonstrate to God our serious resolve and be evidence to all the world that it was in ignorance that we tolerated such houses, in which the Jews have reviled God, our dear Creator and Father, and his Son most shamefully up till now but that we have now given them their due reward.

* * *

I wish and I ask that our rulers who have Jewish subjects exercise a sharp mercy toward these wretched people, as suggested above, to see whether this might not help (though it is doubtful). They must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in, proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did in the wilderness, slaying three thousand lest the whole people perish. They surely do not know what they are doing; moreover, as people possessed, they do not wish to know it, hear it, or learn it. There it would be wrong to be merciful and confirm them in their conduct. If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs, so that we do not become partakers of their abominable blasphemy and all their other vices and thus merit God's wrath and be damned with them. I have done my duty. Now let everyone see to his. I am exonerated. "

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