Autumn 2005

Apostolic Succession and Academic Success: Ecclesial Occupations and Personal Vocations During a Time of Ecumenical Reconciliation

By William H. Lazareth

Note: A version of this text was first delivered as a sermon to graduates of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago on May 15, 2005, in Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago.

Most graduation talks are quickly forgotten. It's not necessarily because the speakers are so poor and their material so trite. It's because the competing forces are so powerful. The crowd, the relatives, the excitement and insecurity, even the unfamiliar ceremonies and the uncomfortable attire — these all combine to lead one to dismiss any further oration as being functionally irrelevant. After all, isn't such oratory what you're now supposed to be graduated from?

The bottom line, of course, is that in a few short years from now, you will likely not be able to remember either who spoke or what was said today. So my only hope is that some of you, as currently alert religious persons, will at least be able to recall when it all took place. For, after all, it is just a short time after the lingering suffering and eventual death, the mourning of millions of pilgrims, the ancient funeral rites, and the traditional conclave to select a successor for the memorable and outstanding ministry of Pope John Paul II, who is already now being popularly acclaimed by the faithful in the streets as "El Grande" (the Great). These events you will not quickly forget.

You will therefore perhaps understand why these recent momentous papal events have persuaded me to organize and illustrate my remarks here today around the two themes of "succession" and "success," with the latter serving the former. Moreover, in pastoral deference to our honored theological graduates present, I want to try to interrelate more deeply, your apostolic succession and your academic success. For these are important days for you, as you explore the unfamiliar new borders between your personal vocation and your ecclesial occupation. For your Biblical compass in these explorations, I ask you graduates, especially, to listen for God's word to you in the 16th chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. (Matt. 16:13-24)

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say that the Son of Man is?'
14 And they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.'
15 He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?'
16 Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.'
17 And Jesus answered him, 'Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.
18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.'
20 Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.
22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, 'God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.'
23 But he turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.'
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.'

I.

I turn first to the ecumenically thorny issue of "apostolic succession" in the light of the recent events at the Vatican of Rome. There, engraved on stone in Latin encircling the base of the monumental dome of St. Peter's Basilica, are the authoritative words of the church’s Lord and Head:

"Tu es Petrus [you are 'Peter'],
et super hanc petram [and on this 'rock']
aedificabo ecclesiam meam [I will build my church]."

The exegetical and doctrinal questions surrounding this long-disputed verse raise a host of ecumenically unresolved issues today.

1. To whom (or what) is this promise addressed? Is it to the person of Peter, or to Peter's confession of faith, or to some combination of the two, whether with or without Christ's subsequent words of sharp rebuke to Peter?
2. What is the relation between Peter and the other apostles in fulfilling the modern so-called "Petrine function"? In Matthew 16, the promise of the keys of the kingdom is made to "Petrus," in the singular. Yet only two chapters later, in Matthew 18, the same keys are promised by Christ, in the plural, to all the "discipuli," the disciples.
3. What is the relation, if any, between Peter and the other apostles, on the one hand, to the Roman papacy and the college of Roman bishops and Cardinals, on the other hand—about which gap there is only total silence in the New Testament?
4. Indeed, did this alleged conversation between Jesus and Peter, the first of the apostles, ever take place at all? The term "the church," as such, is unmentioned by the historical Jesus in the New Testament, with the solitary exception being these isolated few verses in St. Matthew's gospel. We recall that throughout the rest of the Synoptic Gospels, the proclamation of Jesus centered not on "the church," but rather on the unbreaking "basileia tou Theou," the kingdom, or reign, of God.

Today's working convergence of ecumenical ecclesiology was formulated by Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant theologians in the text, "Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry" (World Council of Churches, 1982). There it is proposed that we should no longer speak at all about Papal or priestly "apostolic succession" (which is neither historically demonstrable nor doctrinally defensible). Instead, we should affirm the whole church's "apostolic tradition," within which there is to be found an "episcopal succession."

That is, an "apostolic tradition" affirms the unity and continuity of today's church in the apostolic word and the apostolic sacraments, which head the list of permanent and essential characteristics of the ancient church of the apostles. Only in this context may an "episcopal succession" also be viewed far more modestly as "a sign, though not a guarantee," of one of the ways by which the apostolic tradition of the whole church is guided in an orderly way by its guardians of the faith. This ecumenical convergence is deemed justified, because the New Testament “does not describe a single pattern of ministry which might serve as a blueprint or continuing norm for all further ministry in the church."

Well, is this not what the Lutheran Reformers contended already in the 16th century? "We preach, teach, and confess," they declared in the Book of Concord, that "when you offer the Word of Christ or the sacraments, then you offer them in the stead and place of Christ, as Christ himself teaches, 'whoever hears you, hears me'." (Luke 10:16) In other words, whenever an ordained Lutheran pastor publicly and officially opens his or her mouth or hands locally, set apart as the "minister of the Church of Christ and by his authority," then she or he does so as the "vicar of Christ" to God's people at that time and in that place.

So, for illustrating application, many of you baptized graduates are also soon to be ordained into the apostolic office of the means of grace. You will then be asked by your regional overseers, the bishops, to take ordination vows, the first of which reads:

Before Almighty God, to whom you must give account, and in the presence of this congregation, I ask: "Will you assume this holy office, believing that the church's call is God's call to the ministry of Word and Sacrament?" And you will answer confidently: "I will, and I ask God to help me."

II.

I turn now, secondly, from so-called apostolic "succession" to your academic "success," as based on this church's doctrinal success. For as your former seminary years were theologically centered on "faith seeking understanding," your future years in the church will be governed by your "understanding guiding service."

Today your parents and other loved ones, your professors and other mentors, your church leaders and ministerial colleagues, all gather together to sing God's praise, and to salute you and congratulate you on your impressive academic achievement. It takes time and effort to prepare for a learned ministry, and you have prevailed.

Your degree from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago attests that you have successfully fulfilled the demanding academic requirements of an outstanding institution of higher theological education within the United States. Years and years of classes and lectures, of midterms and finals, of community service and clinical experience, of homework, and more homework, and still more homework — all find their culmination on this joyful day of public recognition and communal affirmation. It is a celebration that is surely richly blessed by our Lord's reassuring commendation. "Well done, good and faithful steward."

Many of you will now also move from the state of a dedicated individual to that of a representative office-holder, not only as an ordained pastor, but also as a commissioned associate in ministry, as a consecrated deaconess or diaconal minister, or as a lay professional leader contracted in the church's cognate fields of health, education and welfare. It is for you especially that I want to highlight the interrelation of your academic success on the one hand and the church's and its theological schools' doctrinal success on the other hand.

This interrelation of academic and doctrinal success is especially significant in reconciling traditional church — divisive differences. You are graduating during a period—unprecedented since the 16th century — of interchurch and full communion agreements between Lutherans and other ecumenical churches. You have a historic opportunity to participate actively in this reconciling activity. Once again, I will cite the Roman Catholic evidence as illustrative.

After the Second Vatican Council, the foundations were laid for the belated entry of Roman Catholics into the mainstream of common action for manifesting Christian unity. It was Pope John Paul II who built on these foundations by encouraging and structuring numerous ecumenical dialogues on the international level. The most fruitful proved to be those between the original theological adversaries of the Reformation, Catholics and Lutherans. Superlative biblical, patristic and liturgical research was authorized and coordinated over several decades through the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Lutheran World Federation, the global communion of 138 Lutheran churches in 73 countries representing 66 million Christians. With John Paul's blessing, they concentrated on the Reformation's original biblical concourse over the doctrine of Justification, "the doctrine on which the church stands or falls," in articulating how sinners are declared and made righteous by a gracious God.

The 1999 Joint Declaration amply demonstrated in charitable hindsight that both sides rightly condemned doctrinal errors that neither side had officially and publicly taught (whatever the unorthodox shortcomings of their individual polemicists). While the Roman Catholic and Lutheran formulations were rarely identical, they are now judged to be compatible. They proved to be complementary rather than contradictory, once seen in full context. Together they now represent what is called the compatible "reconciled diversity" of doctrinal differences in a "differentiated consensus" that are no longer considered church-divisive. The two churches judge that the 16th-century mutual condemnations of the Council of Trent and the Lutheran Confessions are no longer currently applicable to the signatories of the Joint Declaration.

Its central affirmation: "Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works" (a paraphrase of the 4th and 6th articles of the Augsburg Confession).

Its grateful conclusion: "We thank God that the decades of dialogues have reached this result. We are confident that it represents a good basis for the continued rapprochement of the ecumenical partners and that it will also be of value within the wider ecumenical movement."

Never before has the Roman Catholic Church approved the results of an ecumenical dialogue officially and in a manner binding to the doctrine of the church. This Roman Catholic-Lutheran Joint Agreement marked a major breakthrough in Christian ecumenism. On the occasion of John Paul’s death, the ELCA Presiding Bishop and LWF President, Mark S. Hanson, issued a public statement in which he declared, "Lutherans will always remember John Paul II as the pope who fostered an unprecedented growth in Lutheran-Catholic relations. We live in the new hope that the Spirit of the living Christ will continue that work, and bring about an ever stronger relationship between the two church bodies."

Grounded in Christ's final earthly prayer "that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you ... so that the world may believe" (John 17), the Joint Declaration served to fulfill part of the biblical vision that empowered the living legacy of Pope John Paul II. May this vision also be yours in the decades to come, as you, too, "deny yourself and take up your cross to follow him" who is your Lord and Savior.