Last month, I began a discussion on the doctrine of vocation. In short, our vocations, or stations in life where God has placed us, define who our neighbor is and give shape to our love for that neighbor. For a mother, her nearest neighbors are her children, and the love God calls her to show them takes a particular shape: feeding them, clothing them, changing diapers, and protecting them from danger. If you missed last month’s article, it’s available on the District website: www.nodaklcms.org/blogs/district-president-s-blog.

Luther often wrote about vocation and about what developed into the Doctrine of the Three Estates: the Church, the Home, and the State. Though Luther didn’t coin this term, the concept is found throughout his writing. In these Three Estates, God provides for the proclamation of eternal life in Christ, the propagation of new life, and protection and order for this life. Let us take up the Estate of the Church.

The Estate of the Church is the Estate that the Lord has given to proclaim eternal life in Christ. While Christians serve God faithfully in the Home and the State, here—in the Estate of the Church—the Lord is the one who is primarily serving us through His Word and Sacraments. 

In the Smalcald Articles, Part III, Article XII, Luther writes, “Thank God, today a seven-year-old child knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd.” The Church is all the Lord’s sheep, who, having been called by the Holy Spirit, are gathered unto Christ. The Church is those who are gathered around the Lord’s Word and receive His Gifts. The Lord’s little lambs are those who have Spirit-wrought faith that looks to Christ and believe and trust that He has accomplished their salvation, who look to Jesus on the cross and say, “For me. He’s there for me.”

In 1 Peter, the Apostle writes to the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. That is, those Christians who are dispersed and separated throughout the world. And to these little lambs, he writes, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10). The Church is this people of the Lord's possession, this holy nation and royal priesthood, called to offer spiritual sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving to God, who called them out of darkness into His marvelous light.

The Church is all the believers in Jesus. But the Apostle Paul asks the question, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’” (Romans 10:14-15). And he concludes in verse 17, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ.” If the Church consists of those who hear Christ's Word, then there must also be those whom Christ sends to preach that Word. The two belong together. So the Lord calls certain men from among His royal priesthood and places them into the distinct vocation of preaching His Word and administering His Gifts.

The Office of the Holy Ministry is an Office, a vocation established by Christ Himself for the benefit of His Church. In John 20, the resurrected Lord, though the doors were locked, stands before the cowering disciples and says, “‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.’” The Lord turns these disciples (meaning students) into apostles (meaning sent ones). Just as the Father sent Him into the world, so the Lord Jesus now sends His apostles to forgive the sins of the repentant and retain the sins of the unrepentant through His Word.

The New Testament repeatedly speaks about the Office of the Holy Ministry. Jesus tells Peter three times to “feed my lambs and sheep” (John 21:15-17). Paul, as he left Ephesus, tells the Ephesian elders (another New Testament word for “pastor”), “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock” (Acts 20:28-29). Flowing out of this Scriptural witness, Philip Melanchthon writes in the Augsburg Confession, Article V, “So that we may obtain this faith, the ministry of teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted.”

Bringing this back to vocation, when you walk into the Sanctuary as a hearer of the Word, your primary vocation is to receive. Yours are the ears into which the Lord uses His minister to speak His Word from the lectern and pulpit. Yours is the mouth into which the Lord places His body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins. And in response to these Gifts, you give the Lord your thanks and praise. But the beauty of the Divine Service is that even the thanks and praise that you return to God are, by and large, His Word. You sing with the angels that starry night in Bethlehem as you sing the Gloria in Excelsis. You sit on the side of the road with Blind Bartimaeus when you sing the Kyrie. You sing with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven as you sing the Sanctus. Having held the Lord on your tongue, you stand next to Simeon and sing the Nunc Dimittis. You receive the Lord’s Gifts; you’re fed by Christ through the mouth and hands of His sent servant, and then you sing His praise. Such is the vocation of every Christian in the Estate of the Church: first to receive Christ's Gifts in faith, and then, strengthened by those Gifts, to offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

Luther writes in his work On the Councils and the Church, “Now wherever you find these offices or officers, you may be assured that the holy Christian people are there; for the church cannot be without these bishops, pastors, preachers, priests; and conversely, they cannot be without the church. Both must be together” (Luther’s Works, 41:164). The Estate of the Church is the Estate through which the Lord proclaims eternal life in Christ. It is the Estate through which sinful men are reconciled to God through Christ. It is the Estate where His Word is both proclaimed and heard, and where the Lord’s little lambs are fed. It is the Estate where the Lord Jesus meets us, just where He promised to be: In His Word and Sacraments. Thank God, even a seven-year-old child can confess this.