The present practice of The Presbyterian Church in Canada is to place retired ministers of Word and Sacrament on the appendix to the roll of presbyteries. As members on the appendix to the roll these persons have the right to speak on matters before the court but do not have the privilege of moving or seconding motions or of voting.
This practice diminishes the honour of the ministerial office: In the Presbyterian tradition, we do not honour any individual over any other individual. We are charged as Christians to “honour all people.” However, we do confer honour on certain offices. And no office is given more honour than that of minister of Word and Sacrament. The present practice implicitly relegates the office to a merely professional and functional status.
- Ministry is authorized by Scripture: John Calvin made no distinction between the office of bishop and presbyter. He held that those two terms were interchangeable. Hence our detractors gave us the name Presbyterians; it stuck. Because Calvin interchanged these two terms, he found scriptural description of ministry in such texts as Titus 1:7-9 and I Tim. 3:1-7. “The substance is,” Calvin wrote of these verses, “that none are to be chosen save those who are of sound doctrine and holy lives and not notorious for any defect which might destroy their authority and bring disgrace on the ministry.”
Since there was parity between presbyters, how could there be distinctions or ranking among Christ's ordained servants? There is not a word among the Church Fathers or the Reformers in opposition to this kind of two-tiered practice because they simply did not view ordination in such a limited sense. - The ordination questions asked of a minister of Word and Sacrament have little to do with the function of a minister, but with her spiritual life. Even the final question regarding the work of the minister goes beyond the merely functional: “Do you promise in the strength and faith of the Lord Jesus Christ to conduct yourself in your private and public life as becomes his gospel and do you give yourself diligently and cheerfully to the service of Christ's Word, sacraments and discipline, for the furtherance of his reconciling mission in the world?”
It is obvious that ministers are not being merely licensed into the practice of a profession in a specific venue. Ministers are being ordained, receiving spiritual confirmation for positions in the worldwide mission of Christ, which they will hold so long as they are faithful to it. - In the beautiful charge suggested for the Church of Scotland service of Ordination, it is clear that the office of ministry is broader and deeper than service to any particular congregation: “Love Christ and feed his flock, taking the oversight thereof, not as if thou wert lord over the people committed to thee, but being an example to all in word, in conduct, in charity, in spirit, in faith, and in purity. Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, and to teaching. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Pray always, watching thereunto with all perseverance. Thus shalt thou save both thyself and those that hear thee; and in that day when the chief shepherd shall appear thou shalt receive a crown of glory which fadeth not away.”
- The minister is a member of presbytery in much the same way that a layperson is a member of a particular congregation. In presbytery, the presbyter listens to the Word, receives the sacrament and submits to the discipline of Christ's Church. Is it fair that ministers when they reach the age of retirement no longer be allowed to participate fully in the life and work of the presbytery, synod and General Assembly of the Church?
- Our church is following a course quite different from that of other reformed churches around the world, certainly different from nearly all other denominations with either a Presbyterian or Episcopal polity. Our sister churches, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Church of Scotland have no such practice.
Apparently the motivation for adopting this unusual practice was to professionalize or functionalize the ministry. The logic is that when the minister no longer functions as a full-time (or half-time) minister, that person is demoted to a lower status. She/he has lost accreditation. The reality, however, is that if the minister has been properly ordained and properly understands the office, she/he is serving Christ by word and example, by study and prayer, by presence and influence, by faith, hope and charity all the days of life, “Until the chief shepherd shall appear.”
