This week we ask to reflect on our call to ministry and our vocations. Each of us through our baptism have become members of the Body of Christ and are called to be ministers of reconciliation and instruments of God’s peace. In today’s frist reading Paul reflects on his own call to ministry as one who is called to be a “servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ.” Paul also tells Titus to appoint presbyters or bishops in each town. While later priest (presbyter) and bishop (episkopos) were two separate ministries here they refer to the same person. Notice the presbyter/bishops could be married: “married only once, with believing children”. The duty of the presbyter was “to exhort with sound doctrine and to refute opponents.”
This “sound doctrine” is what Paul calls “religious truth” or the “truth of the Gospel.” This truth is not some abstract term but rather Jesus Christ in the flesh. Jesus shows us truth, that is the will and way of God, through his words and actions. The truth of God is that God loves all and wills to save all. Jesus lives this truth by welcoming tax collectors and sinners and even eating with them. Jesus reveals God’s truth by healing the sick, driving out demons, and inviting all those who labor with heavy burdens to come to him and find rest (Matthew 11:28-30). Jesus shows us the way of truth by his way of service and sacrifice.
This week we are asked to reflect on our own vocation and our own call to ministry. Each of us, like Paul, is called to be a servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ.” We are called once again to hear the Word of God, to discover anew God’s will and God’s way. We are invited once again to encounter Jesus and to follow his way of truth, the way of service and sacrifice.
Image: “SMBC graduates serve as cross-cultural missionaries and ‘tent makers’ in locations around the world” by SMBCollege is licensed under CC BY 2.0.