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Praise for Living on Border of the Holy
“You may not think of yourself as a priest and you may be in some doubt about what it means when others use the label. But by the time you have finished reading Bill Countryman’s work you will have discovered that you are one. You will have learned something about the joys and perils of serving as one. And you will have captured a glimpse of what it means to live ‘on the border of the Holy.’
“As a culture, we are more than a little lost. We are drawn to an encounter with the Holy, but we find it easy to shun its demands. We sporadically search for guidance, but we are suspicious of religion and religious leaders. . . Bill Countryman cuts through our malaise without being simplistic or obscure, grounding his vision in the larger priesthood of humanity.”
—Frederick W. Schmidt
Canon Educator, Washington National Cathedral, and author of A Still Small Voice: Women, Ordination, and the Church
“For anyone struggling with how to live in the thin places between heaven and earth, Dr. Countryman’s brilliant book offers hope, companionship, and the fruits of years of experience. His theory of a ‘fundamental human priesthood’ gives us all a compassionate guide to follow as we enter the borderlands, and it should help end the division between clergy and laity. Countryman’s human priesthood leads us into the future, where God calls us to be. This book could save the church.
—Nora Gallagher
author of Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith
LIVING ON THE BORDER OF THE HOLY
LIVING ON THE BORDER of the Holy
Renewing the Priesthood of All
L. William Countryman
Copyright © 1999
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Morehouse Publishing, 4775 Linglestown Road, Harrisburg, PA 17112
Morehouse Publishing, 445 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Morehouse Publishing is an imprint of Church Publishing Incorporated. www.churchpublishing.org
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Countryman, Louis William, 1941-
Living on the Border of the holy : renewing the priesthood of all
/ L. William Countryman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
ISBN 978-0-8192-1773-8 (paper)
1. Priesthood, Universal. 2. Priesthood. 3. Episcopal Church—Clergy. 4. Laity. I. Title.
BX5182.C68 1999
| 234—DC21 | 98—42777 |
| CIP |
Printed in the United States of America
for Joe McInerney gardener & priest
Contents
4. The Priesthood of the Christian People
5. The Two Priesthoods in the Church
7. An Ordained Ministry in and for the Fundamental Priesthood
Preface
By “priest” I mean any person who lives in the dangerous, exhilarating, life-giving borderlands of human existence, where the everyday experience of life opens up to reveal glimpses of the HOLY—and not only lives there but comes to the aid of others who are living there. The HOLY that the priest encounters in the borderlands is none other than TRUTH, the TRUTH that underlies, permeates, upholds (and judges) us and our everyday world. It is remote and transcendent, and yet also as close and intimate as our own breath. The border where we encounter the HOLY is not just at the edge of our existence but, even more truly, at its center. There all of us must find ourselves sooner or later, and when we do we want a priest to engage us in a mutual ministry of support and encouragement, of interpretation and understanding. Without such priestly ministry, we are in danger of finding ourselves bewildered and cast adrift.
This priesthood belongs to all humanity. That is how we have been fashioned. In living it out, however, we find that we learn our priesthood and practice it in terms of a particular cultural and religious heritage. Priesthood is common to us all, yet it is lived out in myriad ways. Much of the guidance we get for our priesthood comes from religion, for humanity creates religion in an effort to hold onto some of what we have glimpsed in the borderlands with the HOLY. With religion we can construct a language of words and signs that will enable us to communicate these glimpses. Accordingly, to speak and think clearly about priesthood, we need to be constantly aware of how it is anchored in common human experience and also of how it is shaped in specific religious traditions. I write with particular reference to the Christian churches of the Western world. Many questions and problems about ministry have troubled churches in the latter part of the twentieth century. I hope to show how two distinct but related priesthoods coexist in the life of the church—the fundamental human priesthood and its sacramental counterpart, the priesthood of religion. When we understand their relationship, perhaps we can find a way through some of our present uncertainties and perplexities.
Priesthood (or “ministry,” if you find that term more familiar and comfortable)* stands in the midst of a complex constellation