A Masculine Office and the Courage of the Holy Spirit

In the ancient world, no one ever thought that males and females were interchangeable. Nor did anyone ever conceive of the possibility that one could pass from one sex to another or inhabit a space in between sexes. This wasn’t merely a matter of physical capabilities. It was a matter of  virtues. It was understood that certain virtues were more organic to one sex than to the other. Women were defined primarily by motherhood. As such, they were expected to be kind, comforting, and accepting. Men were expected to display these virtues also but they weren’t seen as defining for men as they were for women. Instead, men were defined by fatherhood and therefore were expected to be courageous and self-sacrificing. Again, women could and often did embody these virtues as well, but they did so generally out of necessity and were not defined by them as women.

Modern culture in general, and the modern Church’s culture in particular, is extremely and effectively effeminate. As such, the virtues that are most admired and which we are prone to foster and seek in our leaders tend to be what were classically feminine virtues. So it is that it would sound strange to our ears to speak of excommunication or the minor ban as being a pastoral act whereas we might use that description to speak of making an exception at the communion rail for someone that we are not in fellowship with. In the same way, we are not likely to see a refusal to marry those who are living together as being pastoral, but very well might explain the joining of an unbeliever and believer together in marriage as being such. That is because we have redefined the word “pastoral” to mean “nice” and made it basically a feminine reality where the primary concern is to avoid hurt feelings and conflicts.

We have done much the same with the title pastor. I once heard a very kind and sincere district president insist, with great emotion, that he was a “pastor” and not a bishop or a president. He insisted that he knew this beyond all doubt because that very day he had sat in a nursing home and held a man’s hand while smelling stale urine. Here is the problem: holding a man’s hand is not pastoral care. It was kind and good, and it could certainly be done by a pastor, but pastoral care, strictly defined, is Word and Sacrament. Pastoral work is not synonymous with acts of kindness. Pastoral work is preaching, teaching, rebuking, exhorting, absolving, baptizing, and communing. The district president was moved by compassion, no doubt, and he did a good work. The confusion is that he had the idea that that good was pastoral work, but it wasn’t: it was simply Christian kindness. I do not mean to suggest in any way that any Christian is “above” such work, even as no mother is “above” the physical defense of her children and even the sacrifice of herself on their behalf, but hand holding is the sort of work that defines deaconesses not pastors.

All of this needs to be noted for the Office of the Ministry is limited by God to males and we have feminized it without even knowing it. We are not told in Scripture exactly why God limits the Office to males, but it is surely related to the fact that God in the Flesh chose to be born of a woman as a male, He gives Himself masculine pronouns throughout Scripture, and ultimately He reveals Himself to us with the masculine names: Father and Son. The Church is Herself feminine, of course, but the Office that represents Christ and stands in His stead, and serves His Bride on His behalf, is markedly and exclusively male.

It seems fair to me, then, that this Office ought to be marked by and embody masculine virtues more than by feminine virtues. I think that in recent years we have largely gotten it backwards. Times were easy. We wanted pastors who were nice. We wanted moms who made cookies and praised us, not dads who made us do chores and told us to man up.

Now times are hard. We need fathers. We need pastors who will stand up against false doctrine and the immorality of the world, who are willing to take a punch and lose members or be persecuted and slandered and, if necessary, even martyred. We’ve been coddled and we’ve allowed pastors to flee from the plague, to hide behind by-laws. Rather than confront one another in love we’ve protected the guilty with fully fabricated, obviously imaginary scenarios as though that is what Luther meant by “best construction” or as though Matthew 18 were the Biblical equivalent of Miranda rights and one could get out of sin on technicalities. We’ve been soft and foolish and coasted on the work of our fathers. 

Now times are hard. The momentum won by our fathers is gone. We can coast no further. A feminine pastorate won’t cut it in today’s world of COVID, BLM, and sexual deviancy gone mainstream. We need pastors who will follow Jesus’ example of touching the bier and socializing with lepers and of Paul’s example of going to prison. We need pastors who can and will rouse us to faith, by word and deed, who will teach us to detach ourselves from mammon and the false comforts of this world for the joy of Christ. We need pastors who do more than simply hold hands and speak calmly and who can fit in with the powerful. We need John the Baptists, Elijahs, and even a few unruly St. Peters. 

Those who are in the Office need our prayers and support, but, of course, that is not enough. Like us all, they need God’s grace. Fortunately for them God has made a promise for the Office. St. Paul tells it to Timothy: “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” What then has God given us? He has given us the Holy Spirit of courage. 

In that courage we are not ashamed of the “testimony of the Lord.” We are not ashamed of His Word even when it comes up hard against community standards. We are not called according to our own purposes or success, but are called with a holy calling, according God’s purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began and which has now been revealed to us by the appearing of Our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel, which has saved us, and of which we were appointed preachers (2 Tim 4:6-12).

My colleague Larry Beane is fond of quoting the sainted Ken Korby in this regard and I can think of no better way of saying it: “God calls men to be pastors. Be one.”