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By Thomas R. Hurst, S.S.
In this Year of St. Paul we, as a Church, remember and celebrate the person and message of the great Apostle to the Gentiles. It is therefore fitting in this special year to consider what Paul thought of the Church, the community of faith and love in Christ.
On his missionary journeys he preached the good news to both Jews and Gentiles with zeal and firm conviction. The success of his preaching led others to believe in Jesus as Messiah and Lord. These early believers formed communities of faith with the assistance of Paul and his co-workers. Paul knew the necessity of communities not only as places of support but, more importantly, as an essential aspect of belief in Jesus. To be a Christian was to be joined not just to Christ but to other believers. To put it another way, salvation in Christ always has a corporate character and is given and received in a community chosen by God.
Paul called these early communities by a number of names, e.g., saints or holy ones, elect, and beloved of God. However, the name he used over 60 times to address Christian communities was the Greek term ekklesia, literally, ''those who are called.'' In the Roman world this meant an assembly of free citizens. In the world of Judaism, however, the Hebrew equivalent of assembly was qahal ''the assembly or people'' of God. Thus Paul had a profound understanding of the early Christian communities as local assemblies/ churches of those called and chosen by God.
In this brief reflection, I would like to highlight two images of church from the Pauline letters: body of Christ and household of God. Both point to aspects of the ministry of leadership for priests in today's Church.
The first image is the Body of Christ, which comes primarily from Romans, 1 Corinthians and Ephesians. While all scholars consider the first two written by Paul himself, opinion about the authorship of Ephesians is divided between those who consider it written by Paul himself and those who think it came from a disciple of Paul. For our purposes, we will treat these letters as part of the Pauline corpus.
Although the phrase ''body of Christ'' as it pertains to the community of Christians is found only four times in these three letters (Rom 7:4; 1 Cor 10:16; Rom 12:27; and Eph 4:12), it has exercised a powerful influence on the Church's self understanding through the ages. In Romans and 1 Corinthians, Paul describes believers as those who are joined individually to Christ by baptism (Rom 6:3) and the Eucharist (1 Cor 10:16-17) and, therefore, form relationships with one another that are like those of a human body. Although the origins of the image of the body for the Church are debated by scholars, Paul probably drew upon the Hellenistic idea of the state as the body politic. More important than the origins of the idea are the implications for being church expressed by the metaphor body of Christ.
Three key points emerge in Paul's presentation of the Church as the body of Christ: unity and diversity, the power of the Spirit and the responsibility of Christians for one another. These three points are critical to understanding who we are as church, how we have become church and what we should do as members of the Church.
In the letter to the Romans Paul makes clear that just as has the human body has many members and these members are joined together in one body, so it is with the Body of Christ. We live in communion with Christ and, therefore, with one another. This communion shows the church forth as an assembly of those chosen by God.
For as in one body we have many parts, and all the parts do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another (Rom 12:4).
However, this unity is not established by human effort but by the power of the one Spirit who makes all members one body. It is not we who make church; it is the Spirit of God who makes us who we are.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body (1 Cor 12:13).
At the same time individuals have a role in forming the church. Each member bears a responsibility for the others.
But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another (1 Cor 12:24-25).
As Paul concludes his treatment of the Church as the Body of Christ, I think that it is no coincidence that in the section following he set out in a beautiful poetic passage love as ''a more excellent way.''
The letter to the Ephesians, in chapters four and five, enlarges and expands this image of the Body of Christ by making Christ the Head and source of life, authority, and power for those who make up His body. In this elaborated image the Church is depicted as having its origin in Christ. It is therefore dependent upon Him for its continued existence. With Christ as the head, the Church is also subject to Him and His teaching. The Church exists only by Christ's power and for Christ's will.
The moving and powerful image of the Church as bride is linked to the metaphor of church as body (cf. Eph 5:23,29) to emphasize the dependent yet intimate relationship that exists between Christ and His Church. This relationship of Christ to His body, as Ephesians says, is ''a great mystery'' (Eph 5:32).
A second image of the Church in the Pauline letters is that of house or household. In 1 Cor 3:9, Paul tells the deeply divided Corinthian community, ''We are God's co-workers; you are God's field, God's building/house (oikodome).'' House is the ''root metaphor'' that then leads Paul to speak of the work of ministry as building and edifying the Church (1Thess 5:11 and 1Cor 8:1) and the role of its ministers as household servants and stewards (1 Cor 3:9).
In the Pastoral Letters (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus), which many scholars consider written by a disciple of Paul after the master's death, we find again an unfolding and developing of the image of the Christian community as household. In 1 Tim 3:15 the author says, ''You should know how to behave in the household of God which is the Church of the living God.''
While this phrase household of God occurs only here in the Pauline corpus, it captures an understanding of the Christian community that dominates the Pastoral Letters.
Early Christians gathered in individual homes of Christians who had the space and financial means to host the gathered assembly. It was natural then, as the Church grew in size and organization, to describe the assembly as the house/household of God and to picture the community's relationships on the basis of a well organized Roman household. Thus, in 1 Timothy and Titus one of the qualifications for a leader in the community, whether bishop or deacon, was to manage his household well. Ministry, according to the Pastorals, as in the undisputed Pauline letters, is for the ''up-building'' of the household.
The qualities for a leader are those of the head of a family or household: temperate, self-controlled, hospitable (cf. for example 1 Tim 3:2). Later in both 1 Timothy and Titus, reliant on the accepted social structure of the Roman household, we hear of the proper relations that must exist between members of the household family and the family of faith. These proper relations of husband/father and children, older and younger, even master and slave allow the members of the Church ''to live temperately, justly and devoutly in this after as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of our great God and of our savior Jesus Christ'' (Tit 2:12-13).
In these brief reflections we have considered two images or metaphors that set out aspects of Paul's understanding of the Church. What implications do each of the images have for the contemporary role of the priest, in particular, the role of priest as shepherd of the Church?
The Church is the Body of Christ united yet diverse, filled with gifts and charisms given by the Spirit for the common good. Christ himself is the head of the Church, His body. On the basis of this Pauline perspective, the priest as shepherd has a double role. First, since he is by ordination configured to Christ the Head and acts in His name and person, the priest must seek first to know the will of Christ as the source of all authority and to follow that will not only in his own life but in the life of the local church he serves as shepherd. This is no easy task, even with the grace of Holy Orders.
Second, the priest as leader must recognize, draw forth, and coordinate the gifts given by the Spirit of God to the local community of faith. Each of the three works of recognizing, drawing forth, and coordinating is again no easy task. It is only with the grace of the same Spirit who gives all gifts that the priest-shepherd will fulfill his truly pastoral duties.
The second image of the Church as the household of God is also a source of insight into priestly ministry. The Church is served by leaders who are temperate, prudent, hospitable and, above all, stewards of the mysteries of God and who build up the community by right teaching and virtuous behavior. Again, it seems to me, that the priest-shepherd has another double role. First, he must be conscious that it is God's house and not his that he lives in and serves as steward. For those of us who have been in priestly ministry for a number of decades this is critical acknowledgement, and the lack of it brings disaster to others and disappointment to the priest himself.
Second, the Pastoral Letters lead us to understand that the priest must be a man of firm conviction as well as deep compassion, as any good father. The Pastoral Letters direct us as shepherds of the community to lead the Church which is the ''foundation of truth'' (1 Tim 3:15), to ''hold fast to ''the mystery of the faith'' (1 Tim 3:9), and to exhort with sound doctrine (Tit 1:9). At the same time, the Pastoral Letters encourage us as shepherds to be hospitable to all and gentle with the flock of the Lord (1 Tim 3:2-3). This combination of conviction and compassion in a leader is a ''noble task'' (1 Tim 3:1).
As Paul ended his letters with a farewell and blessing, so I end this reflection. May the grace and peace of the Lord Jesus be with us and our churches in this holy year dedicated to St. Paul. TP
By Thomas R. Hurst, S.S.FATHER HURST, S.S., is President- Rector of St. Mary's Seminary & University in Baltimore, Maryland, where he also teaches Sacred Scripture.
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