Priesthood of All Believers

7 minute read

During the quarantine of 2020, my grandmother visited Spring Church. She doesn’t maintain a connection to the church, but during that time when everything was only on Zoom, she wanted to come to visit Spring Church and support me. I’ve attended church with her a handful of times in my life, and it was an honor and a delight to have her log on.

Afterward, she asked me a great question: “Matt, I loved coming to your church, but I was confused. Why were all those other people talking? Aren’t you the priest? Why weren’t you leading the service?”

My grandmother continues to be a regular reader of this blog, and I’m assuming she’s reading this one, too (Hi Grandma!). I’d like to share with everyone how I answered her, and use the story of the Woman at the Well in John 4 to do so.

I’d like to start by asking a very familiar question to Spring Church:

If God is sending invisible/overlooked people to disciple us, will we notice?

And I’d like to answer that question with one of my favorite theological principles:

The Priesthood of All Believers.

What is the “Priesthood of All Believers”? To quote Martin Luther:

“There is no true, basic difference between laymen and priests, princes and bishops, between religious and secular, except for the sake of office and work, but not for the sake of status. They are all of the spiritual estates, all are truly priests, bishops, and popes. But they do not all have the same work to do.” {1}

This notion emerged with great enthusiasm during the Reformation that all of us have access to God. Everyone who has been baptized into Jesus has a relationship with Jesus. All of us can connect to the Holy Spirit. {2}

Let’s take a look at two ways our story in John 4 highlights the Priesthood of All Believers.

First, who would you want to baptize you: Jesus or one of his disciples?

Without hesitation, I would much rather be baptized by Jesus himself. HOW AMAZING WOULD THAT BE?!?!?! Can you even imagine what it would be like to receive the baptism of Jesus from the man himself? Where do we sign up for that?

This story recalibrates that dream. Even if we were alive at the same time as Jesus, we likely would not be baptized by him. The very beginning of this story lets us know that Jesus wasn’t doing the baptizing himself, rather he wanted to see other regular humans do the work:

“Jesus realized that the Pharisees were having meetings about how he was baptizing and making more disciples than John (although Jesus never baptized anyone, his disciples did the baptizing). “

Thus our story starts off with a recalibration of how Jesus seems to prefer engaging with the world around him. The Son of God isn’t going to be doing the baptisms, the normal humans will be doing that work. And then, this recalibration takes a very crazy turn.

Second, who would you want to preach the good news to your neighborhood: Jesus himself, one of his disciples, or the destructive social outcast?

Without hesitation, I would much rather hear from Jesus himself. HOW AMAZING WOULD THAT BE?!?!?! Can you even imagine what it would be like for Jesus to walk through our neighborhood and preach in the grocery store, the school, the pub, the street corner, the coffee shop, the office? I’m getting goosebumps as I type this out, I would love this so much.

This story recalibrates that dream. Even if we were alive at the same time as Jesus, we might not hear him preach the gospel. This story lets us know that he didn’t go into Suchar (the Samaritan town where our story takes place) to share that the Son of God has arrived. Rather, he wanted to see other regular humans do the work. So, if Jesus isn’t going to do the preaching, which of these regular humans would you rather preach the good news to your neighborhood: one of his disciples, or the destructive social outcast?

So which of these regular humans would you rather preach the good news to your neighborhood: one of his disciples or the destructive social outcast?

Well, I think people who have spent the most time with Jesus are the best qualified to preach the gospel. I think people who have walked with Jesus, listened to his teaching and been trained in how to do what he’s done are the people I want in my neighborhood. And even if people like that aren’t available, I really don’t want to hear from the destructive social outcast. It’s hard, slow, annoying, inconvenient, and distracting to try to listen to someone who isn’t a part of my social rhythm. And if I’m going to interact with social outcasts, I would much rather simply do something FOR them, I certainly don’t want to wonder if God might be sending them to do something FOR ME! Really, sit with this for just a moment: You might be the sort of person who wants to do something FOR someone experiencing homelessness, or trauma, or mental/physical health struggles, or the elderly, or the youth, or the incarcerated, or the outcast.

But what if, in addition to your desire to care for them, that person is the very person Jesus is sending to care for YOU.

But Jesus didn’t send his disciples into Suchar to preach the gospel. He sent them to run an errand: go buy food. The people in this story that we would expect to have the VERY IMPORTANT job of preaching the gospel instead got the rather mundane job of going to the grocery store.

I wonder how different our neighborhoods would be if more people embraced the reality that it’s ok for us, as Jesus’ disciples, to hear the voice of Jesus calling us to the grocery store to buy food.

*We talked about our vocation into the mundane a few years ago in our series on Ruth, and if you’ve got time, I’d encourage you to go read this blog.

As we continue to carry this story into our neighborhood today, we have to recognize that the “Priesthood of All Believers” includes our social outcasts. And that isn’t something I’m attracted to.

Look, I’ve been walking with Jesus for several decades now, I’ve worked in and for the Church, I’ve earned an advanced degree in theology, I’ve been ordained. When I read this story, I like to imagine myself as one of the disciples, who’s shocked and appalled at who Jesus includes in his Kingdom. And when I do that, I walk away feeling challenged that I need to be more open to who Jesus loves, which is a good thing. Good, but incomplete.

When I read this story, I don’t like to imagine myself as one of the people in Suchar, who is doing everything right, taking care of my family, working an honest job, and worshiping God with my neighborhood. Because when I do that, I walk away feeling the impossibility of what Jesus is asking me to do: Be open to hearing the social outcast preach the gospel to me.

Honestly, there are other options that feel much more attractive to me. I don’t like how powerless I feel when I think about the social outcast preaching to me, and there are several other things that feel a lot better. Let’s return to a familiar analogy.

If I think of my heart as a compass, then I’m going to be drawn to whatever is my magnetic north.

If I want Jesus to be my magnetic north, then this story reveals three magnets that I often find more attractive than walking in the direction Jesus draws me:

CHOICE:
The best way for me to grow closer to Jesus is to be with people like me. I wouldn’t choose to listen to a destructive social outcast. In fact, I try to ignore them.
COMFORT:
I already like and respect the people God is sending to disciple me. I don’t feel comfortable receiving discipleship from people I don’t like and respect.
CONTROL:
I get to control how Jesus will transform my love for others. I just don’t wanna go there.

But this isn’t the whole story, is it? We need to also imagine what it would be like to be a citizen of Suchar, too.

Imagine a time when Jesus sent a social outcast to disciple you: Did you miss it?

The sermon this woman preached was, as far as sermons go, pretty underwhelming. Yet this woman was used by Jesus to preach his gospel to her neighborhood. I’m left with a fairly basic observation: This is impossible without the Holy Spirit. It’s too hard for me to see the invisible, it’s too hard for me to listen to the outcast, it’s too hard for me to receive from people I don’t like or respect. Only the Holy Spirit, and the community of the Church, can cultivate this in me.

This brings me back to my grandmother, and her wondering why all those other people were leading the service when I’m the priest. If I don’t know who God is sending to Spring Church to disciple us, and if I don’t know who Jesus is sending to our neighborhood to preach the gospel, then cultivating a space where we can hear from anyone feels very important. And that’s what the Priesthood of All Believers is all about.

Footnotes:

1 - Martin Luther, “To the Christian nobility of the German nation concerning reform of the Christian estate,” trans. C.M. Jacobs, rev. James Atkinson, in Luther’s Works (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966), 44:129-130.

2 - While the concept of the Priesthood of All Believers emerged with great force in the Reformation, and Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, et al, wrote a bunch about it, my thinking on it was influenced most by the following:

John Swinton, in particular Becoming Friends of Time.

Samuel Wells, in particular God’s Companions.

Lesslie Newbigin

Christopher J.H. Wright, in particular The Mission of God’s People.

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