“In the Midst of Life,” A Reflection

A minister holds a strange position in society. He wears black from head to toe. He is neither blue-collar nor white-collar, but is vocationally connected to both and called to minister to both. In fact, his collar is black all the way to his neck, until a hint of white wraps around the neck to remind him whom he serves. Black is the default color of ministry. Black shoes, black socks, black shirt, black cassock, and even the white surplice is weighed down by the black tippet. It’s a reminder that ministry requires getting dirty.

Even our baptisms require the minister to move from being dry to wetting your hands and vestments as you pour water over the infant’s head, or better yet, get into the baptismal waters and immerse the catechumen – now a member of Christ’s body. The Ministration of Publick Baptism to Such as are of Riper Years, 1662 Book of Common Prayer. (“[A]nd then shall dip him in the water”). Celebrating Holy Communion involves physically breaking, tearing, and separating the consecrated bread, and provides the celebrant a physical reminder on his hands of how Christ achieved our salvation. The rubrics remind the minister before the Words of Institution, he is positioned at the Table so “he may with the more readiness and decency break the Bread before the people” and then at the moment of praying the appropriate Words of Institution, “break the Bread.” Christ embodied Himself, broke Himself, and gave Himself for us sinners. He did it while we were rebels and despised Him. He humbled Himself while His disciples deserted Him. He dirtied Himself and cleansed His creatures. Therefore, all disciples are called to get dirty as His servants by serving fellow sinners.

Perhaps, the most visceral liturgical reminder that both ministers and laity are called into the trenches is when they dirty themselves during the committal of the body of the faithful departed into the grave. “Then, while the earth shall be cast upon the Body by some standing by, the Priest shall say, ‘as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.'” I have yet to witness or officiate where this rubric was literally applied as there are never “some standing by” who are willing to do this final act. It always falls to the priest, the one who administers the service while ministering to the living, who reaches down, casts the dirt, and becomes dirtied for the flock.

It is such a deep physical act to reach into the soil, pull forth the earth, and “cast upon the Body” of another saint. It is too much for the friends, family, and fellow laity to do, but it is never too much for the minister to lead by example in doing. It reminds us in our ministries as laity or clergy, we share the same vocation as Christians – to serve one another. Even when the call is to bury our faithful departed. Beautifully, the prayer book reminds that very same earth cast upon the faithful departed shall soon be cast aside by the same saint as he moves through the soil and rises in the resurrected body. We merely plant a seed, God gives the growth on the Last Day.

However, if a minister only engages his people during these liturgical acts, then he fails to truly get into the trenches with them. Ministry ‒ both lay and clerical ‒ involves getting involved with your neighbor. Regrettably, we live in a highly populated yet densely isolated world where even Christians bubble themselves off from one another. Ironically, whenever a parish or church claims it is “creating community” it is often merely providing programming to be consumed and not relationships to disciple one another.

Despite the deep theology of our prayer book, we Christians – again both lay and clergy alike – simply do not want to get dirty. We appreciate keeping things clean. Yet the horrifying reality (to our isolated post-modern minds) is Christ made us for one another. Community, or more properly, the gathering (ecclesia) of God requires the dirty work of getting to know one another and loving each other by serving one another. We are members of His body and built for one another to serve and love each other and our neighbors in need of the Gospel. Relating to the body is not something that can be outsourced. Discipleship requires relationship. Yet the Church is so infected with distancing itself from the dirtiness of ministry that we even outsource the very reason Christ became man, destroying death. We profess Christ has trampled down death by death, but in reality we outsource death. We make others “handle it” for us.

Many Western nations will see the largest generation go to their eternal reward within the next several decades. Yet parishes neglect and forget the older generations as they are outsourced to nursing homes without so much as an occasional visit from ministers and laity alike. However, when our parishioners move to a nursing home or are otherwise unable to attend, they do not cease to be a member of the body. They may be arms set in a sling and unable to move, but we are the legs: able to move and to greet the slung arm and to bring them Communion, prayer, anointing, laying on of hands, discipleship, and relationship. We cannot forget those who cannot physically make it into the house of the Lord.

Our ill, our sick, our hospital-bound and hospice-care members need their ministers, their laity, and their parish to surround them and bless them with prayers, with tears, with communion ‒ both Holy Communion and communing over Scriptures. Such ministries to our sick, suffering, surgery-recovering, and soon-to-be-with the Lord is the everyday discipling and ministering Christ calls us to fulfill. It is not a ministry to be outsourced solely to our overworked chaplains. It is a loving duty we offer to Christ Himself by being His body and serving His body. Matthew 25:36 (ESV) (“I was sick and you visited me”). We need to enlarge our parish by going to ‒ not streaming services for ‒ the homebound, hospices, hospitals, and hopeless.

We also cannot forget our faithful departed. Nonconformists and Anglicans alike have forgotten the need for church cemeteries. We need cemeteries because the Gospel is that even the dead are not dead. Matthew 22:31‒32 (ESV) (“And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”). Yea, in the twinkling of an eye they shall be raised to new life. 1 Corinthians 15:52 (ESV) (“in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.”). As the Southern Baptist minister of my teenage years bellowed from the pulpit, “that [cemetery] is full of resurrection soil,” and as I learned in my journey down the ancient way of traditional, catholic, Anglican Christianity, our souls do not “fly away” but go to be with the Lord until He fulfills His promise to reunite body and soul in the resurrected body. 1 Corinthians 15:53 (ESV) (“For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.”). If we believe this crucial doctrine of our salvation (and we must), then let us resurrect the reality of parish cemeteries again. The parish cemetery boldly proclaims the Gospel reality that the dead shall be raised and until then, on the sacred soil of our parishes we gather together as one body: where the Church militant and Church triumphant are united on common soil, giving common worship, singing common praise “with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven” as we sing the Sanctus. The Order of the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, or
Holy Communion, 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

We should be honored to look out the window from our pew and know that the tombstones bear witness that sure as we are worshipping a couple of hours during the week, those who are buried on church grounds are surely praising our Triune God unceasingly. I pray every new parish building plan and those parishes with the property include plans for a cemetery for the Church triumphant.

Dear Christian, it is time to soil our Sunday best and get to work. Do not let the only time your hands get wet and dirtied be during baptisms and funerals. Let not the breaking of bread solely be at Sunday eucharist. Get to know the people of God ‒ yes those sinners around you ‒ by being a part of their lives and letting them be a part of yours. Boldly visit the bashful and break open the shut-in from their exile. Take the worship of God to the laid up in Christ. Laity, dirty yourself with ministry and support your minister. Ministers, earn the black you wear in public and make yourself blacker still with the ministry you have been called to. Stain the clergy shirt, ruin the dress pants, and show the pew-sitter that the priesthood of all believers involves serving all believers – those within the pews and without. The time is short and the day draws near when we shall give an account for our ministry, both lay and clergy alike. For “In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?” The Order for the Burial of the Dead, 1662 Book of Common Prayer.