If you asked, I would say that I am a confessional pastor, but I admit to taking the Confessions for granted most of the time. I would do well to spend an hour with the Bible and an hour with the Confessions daily, as Luther encouraged students and pastors to do, but program planning, meetings, visits, and the usual parish schedule impinge upon me (I say this by way of description, not excuse) and the Confessions gather dust. Abdication of authority is not erring on the side of grace – it is omitting it altogether.

Of all the editions of the Lutheran Confessions on my bookshelf, it is the Tappert edition I reach for first. Probably because it is the one I read first, the basic text for seminary – in those days-- and the easiest to hold and use (German students don’t call the blue hardbound10x7x3 inch Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch Lutherischen Kirche the "Blaue Monster" for nothing!). The Tappert edition also has margin notes from the Confessions course with Robert Jenson and Eric Gritsch and the silly questions of a seminarian tucked inside. If you asked, I would say that I am a confessional pastor, but I admit to taking the Confessions for granted most of the time. I would do well to spend an hour with the Bible and an hour with the Confessions daily, as Luther encouraged students and pastors to do, but program planning, meetings, visits, and the usual parish schedule impinge upon me (I say this by way of description, not excuse.) and the Confessions gather dust.

I don’t even remember the reason now, but recently I took my Tappert edition off the shelf to re-read the Augsburg Confession and bits of the Apology when one of my margin notes and underlining caught my eye. It was in reference to AC XIV "Order in the Church," as Tappert reads: "It is taught among us that nobody should publicly teach or preach or administer the sacraments in the church without a regular call." In clear small letters, I had written rite vocatus. Those two words brought to mind the fervency of that classroom discussion about the importance of the ecclesial call in the exercise of ministry. On the one hand, the objectivity of the "regular call," i.e., Christ’s summons to a person, issued by the Church, for him or her to exercise the Holy Ministry of Word and Sacrament is a comfort to the pastor when assailed by doubt about gifts and abilities. This call is not a confirmation of personal gifts or charisma, but a battle cry – "Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!" (Isaiah 40:9) To be rite vocatus, regularly called, is to be placed into service and equipped by God through the Church. In this sense, the call is done to us, so it is not subject to the ebb and flow of human emotion or established by our own experience or self-confidence. Luther found this particularly comforting. "Die vocatio tut dem Teufel sehr wehe." [The call pains the Devil terribly.]

On the other hand, this regular call is the basis for the public exercise of ministry, which is an expression of the authority of God over the lives of individuals and congregations. An ecclesial call, as my margin notes from seminary indicate, serves to preserve the incarnation of the Word. God’s Word is never disembodied; the office of ministry provides for the continuing embodiment of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus in Word and Sacrament; regularly called pastors are those whom the Church, the living Body of Christ, has chosen to embody the living Word of God. That those who preach and administer the sacraments are regularly called is important for the integrity of God’s Word and for the unity of the Church in life and doctrine.

When rite vocatus caught my eye, I started thinking about the practical implications. Certainly the structure of seminary training, the work of candidacy and examining committees, and the prerequisite of ordination to the public administration of the sacraments derive from this confessional article. Lutheran pastors do not independently set up shop in town and Lutheran congregations do not simply hire warm bodies to give Sunday morning speeches, baths, scalp rubs and snack. It matters that a person was trained, endorsed, and ordained to have authority over other members – for Christ’s sake! For the incarnate Word’s sake! – and to stand before the congregation as the embodied presence of Jesus Christ.

It is also true that we do not hold to this article in the Confessions with slavish exactitude. It is common practice for seminarians and lay theologians to publicly preach; for pastors no longer under regular call to publicly preach and preside, absolve and baptize as visitation pastors, supply pastors, interim pastors, and the like. We have developed a whole host of "special" or "extraordinary" calls that transfer the privilege and responsibility for call from the congregation to the synod or agency. These are, by and large, understandable pragmatic adaptations, whether one agrees with all of them or not.

One significant aspect of rite vocatus that has far-reaching implications has all but disappeared. It is the exercise of the Office of the Keys. We easily omit the words during the public absolution "As a called and ordained pastor of the church of Christ, and by his authority." But why? Why is that authority, given by the Lord himself, of such little value? Why is it not sought after, required by every congregation, and taken seriously by all? AC XXVIII "The Power of Bishops" reminds us that the highest spiritual gifts, ". . . eternal righteousness, the Holy Spirit, and eternal life . . . cannot be obtained except through the office of preaching and of administering the holy sacraments," that is, by being a regularly called and ordained pastor of the Church. When the authority by which sins are forgiven is no longer specified or upheld, then we are left, finally, with no authority whatsoever. We wind up forgiving ourselves and trusting ourselves for grace and mercy, which is idolatry – incurvatus in se.

Those who cannot tolerate outside constraints, who make the rules (and break them), who denounce organized religion for its corruption, and who claim to worship in solitude have a problem not with authority, or structure and rules in general, but with God in particular. God whose authority rests upon a baby in a manger, a crucified rebel rabbi. God who acts in carne –in the flesh – in the flesh of those regularly called and ordained by the risen Body of Christ.

If we want to affect the faith of people, both inside and outside the Church; if we want to restore the life of those who are blinded by their own idolatry, then we who labor rite vocatus need to uphold the authority by which we are stewards of God’s holy gifts: the preached Word, forgiveness of sins, the sacraments. And those who are not regularly called, who are the faithful people of God who hunger and thirst for that which only God gives, must demand to know by what authority someone speaks and acts. For if it is not by Christ’s authority, if it is personal authority or charisma or charm, then it is nothing more than a cheap imitation. "The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith." (Rom. 1:16)