Proemium: Admonition or Ammunition?

Admonish the disorderly;
encourage those of diminished soul;
support those who cannot stand alone;
be patient with everyone!

(1 Thessalonians 5.14; translation mine)

For the Clergy.

I try my best to live that verse. I memorised it twenty years ago, back when my religion was Free Church Protestant Christian (i.e., 'Christianity is a relationship not a religion'), from the New American Standard Bible.

Now, although the NASB claims to be the most accurate English translation around, I, an impeccable Greek scholar, have translated it afresh for you. Well, like our Patron at age 11, I do know a bit of Koine Greek.

May I also suggest a hermeneutical insight or two? That's a rhetorical question. Of course I may. And you may read them if you choose.

As I interpret this verse from St Paul's correspondence to the Church in Thessalonica, which was experiencing 'affliction' (Greek thlipsis), in order to help others, one must first discern and discriminate their 'need type'.

1) Those who need admonition. The Greek word I've translated 'disorderly' originally referred to soldiers acting 'out of rank'. They must renounce disorderliness and adopt Godly expectations.

2) Those who need encouragement. They are of 'diminished soul' (Greek: oligopsychous). Contentment seems impossible, since more is expected than they can possibly give. They must renounce unbounded expectations and adopt orderly ones.

3) Those who need support. They are too weak to support themselves. Sadly, people who aren't helped at type 2) may move into this type. They must lay aside all expectations and simply rest in God.

And the imperative binding them all? Be patient with everyone!

Now there are few prospects that frighten an Anglican priest or deacon more than 'Godly admonition' from a bishop. Let me reassure one or two of you who might be trying to anticipate.

You can stop that compulsion! And I've never received Godly admonition...though I did come close just once.

I did the internship for my theology degree in Dallas. I was placed in a lovely, ancient (in Dallas terms, i.e., 1890) Anglo-Catholic parish. As a freshly ordained deacon, one of my first diaconal roles was to sing the Exultet at the Easter Vigil, 'the most important mass of the liturgical year'. What an honour!

If you know me well, you'll also know that I was 'chomping at the bit', to use an American idiom. The Choirmaster commended and handed over to me a lovely Exultet setting in English with Gregorian chant notation. It was approved for the Church of England, which certainly raised my Anglophile smile even further up my face. So I sang that Exultet, chanted the Gospel, and set the Altar: all those 'orderly' things Angl0-Catholic deacons do at the Easter Vigil.

After mass, as my wife and I were leaving for home, and I was still aglow, my mentor said, 'Deacon, can you come to my office for a moment please?' Which of course I did. Happily my wife was happy to stay as well. It was quite a long drive home. Soon it got quite a lot longer.

He was livid. I'd committed a grave transgression of canon law by using a form different than the only one authorised, i.e., The Book of Common Prayer 1979. I pleaded, 'But Father, surely I'm on safe ground using a Church of England setting'. Not so. I'd broken the rules, and he was as adamant as he was canonically compliant. 'If I told the Bishop you'd get a Godly admonition. But I won't tell... this time.'

The upside of that American attitude is, ironically, its orderliness. Similarly, it is expected that through the Sacrament of Ordination,

• bishops should mostly do episcopal things,
• priests should mostly do sacerdotal (priestly) things, and
• deacons should mostly do diaconal things.

Through the Sacrament of Confirmation, the Order of the Laity should mostly do everything else, since they're empowered to do them. I do rather miss that American Anglican obsession with orders. For here I know no permanent deacons, those empowered for service and to bridge Church and Society. Thus, English Anglican priests typically are expected to do

• everything we were ordained to do as priests, plus
• everything we were ordained to do as transitional deacons, plus
• everything we were confirmed to do as laity.

That's theologically valid, but practically impossible. One curates' training manual I've read puts it bluntly as a warning to the newly ordained: expect 'unbounded expectations'.

I had a chat with a priest in another deanery than mine about the alarming number of English Anglican clergy breakdowns, both personal and marital. He stated without any trace of dissent that only two types of priest exist.

a) Workaholics. They are expected to work six days per week, generally 8.00am-10.00pm, taking a meal at home if time permits. Some will manage to delegate some work. They take one day off, preferably a weekday, since Saturdays are for 'being available' to working parishioners and writing sermons.

b) Lazy.

Soon I surmised which type I am.

But if all priests necessarily work either too much or not enough, then can a priest ever be truly virtuous? Both extremes are vicious, at least to my American mind.

So my first urge is to admonish those who accept this grim dichotomy with such glib deliberation. Surely it's better to correct such disorder than simply to accept it.

But I stopped my tongue short of those admonishing words, if not quite my fingers from typing these. My colleague was simply reporting – not supporting – such disorder. Obviously, few needful clergy are truly amongst the deliberately 'disorderly'. Most are 'of diminished soul' or 'cannot stand alone', and need patient encouragement and support.

Otherwise, helpful admonition could become harmful ammunition.

FrD+

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