What is a Priest?

Bringing church to people, maybe not people to church.

I’m continuing to read through Michael Plekon’s book, ‘Ministry Matters’.

In the second chapter, he asks the question, ‘what is a priest?’ (or a pastor, if you’re not in a sacramental tradition). He lets a colleague answer that:

‘Someone who takes God to the people and the people to God.’ - George Keith

This is an engaging image, but something about it just doesn’t sit right with me.

As a priest, I don’t feel like I’m standing between others and God.

Plenty of people (most?) have relationships with God directly, and definitely don’t need a mediator. In fact, I think one reason many people no longer go to church is that they don’t feel like they need an institution (or its representatives) trying to mediate their relationship with God.

I understand how this would be off-putting.

Instead, I feel like it’s my job to mediate the church. The tradition. The faith.

We live in an era when it is fairly common for people to not follow any particular religious tradition, or not even see why that’s important at all. I feel like it’s my job to say: ‘here’s why belonging to the Christian faith really does matter: Jesus died and rose again for the love of you, and all of us.’

Whether or not others find this compelling is not as important to me as making sure they know it’s there.

I was running with a friend the other day and she shared that she believes God is everywhere, and part of everything. ‘I pray to the Universe, and that’s what works for me,’ she said. I could not argue with that (nor do I think I need to or should).

The fact that she shared that with me is, in fact, what a priest is for!

I walk around metaphorically carrying the church on my back. I’m a symbol of the Christian faith. I give people permission to engage with it.

During this conversation with my friend, she also told me about negative experiences she has had with other Christians, who judged her for not specifically following Jesus. She worried I might do the same (‘Do you hate me?’ was her exact question). Her experience had led her to believe that the Christian tradition is about condemning those with non-Christian beliefs.

Unfortunately, I think this is a fairly common view that non-Christians have of Christians.

I don’t have to bring God to my friend, or my friend to God. She and God know each other. I do have to hold the Christian faith up for examination, and not get in the way of that. I do have to clarify what Christian Scripture and tradition says - as I told my friend that judging others for the kind of faith they have is something Jesus specifically warns against.

I do have to represent what I believe is the true Christian faith: forgiveness, reconciliation, joy, resurrection, love that is stronger than death.

I appreciate what I think is underneath the idea that clergy ‘bring God to people, and people to God’: walking with those on spiritual journeys, helping them strengthen and develop their own relationship with God. Still, I think it’s not God who needs representation.

It’s the church itself. It’s those of us for whom following the Christian tradition is life-giving.

Bring church to people.

It’s one of my mottos. It’s what I think being a priest is.

Maybe it will bring people to church, maybe not. That’s between them and God.