"The Indelible Mark of the Priesthood"

Monday, July 7, 2025

Happy Monday, my friends! This is one of the Monday Moments in which I’m writing, in part, about something which is still in the future as I write but will be in the past when you read about it. I’m preparing for my trip to Atlanta, GA, for the 2025 Holy Convocation of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries (TFAM). Not only is this my first time attending Convocation, but during Convocation this year I will be ordained in TFAM with nearly 50 other Queer and allied leaders from around the world. Some of these folks have never been ordained, commissioned, rostered, etc. in any church or denomination. Some, like me, hold ordination in our respective local congregations, but not in any regional, national, or international organizations. And some hold ordination in well-established denominations which are either not affirming of LGBTQIA+ people or in which they struggle to find the resources and community with TFAM offers particularly to our Queer Siblings of Color. Many TFAM clergy hold ordination and privilege of call of in more than one denomination, organization, or congregation.

I’ve written on my journey to ordination beginning in the Roman Catholic Church previously. Catholics often talk about the “indelible mark of the priesthood” which is the idea that when a man is ordained a priest something about him changes and remains changed forever. Even if he leaves the priesthood, gets married, and has children, he remains forever marked as a priest. While perhaps not embracing this “mark” as a theological or ontological construct, my clergy friends in other traditions and denominations talk about how ordination or joining the official clerical class of their tradition does change something about them in ways that they have trouble identifying.

While being ordained by Blue Ocean Faith Columbus last year was a special and powerful moment, nothing about it seemed to change who I was. Yes, it confirmed my role as pastor and my public ministry, but my work and the tangible quality of my ministry didn’t change. A year later I still don’t feel like anything has changed which makes it difficult for me to understand the change my clergy friends sense in themselves at ordination. A possible explanation is that my theology of ministry strongly embraces the pastoral and ministerial call that every Christian has as a child of God and an integral member of the beloved community. Yet, as soon as I name that theology I hear several of my Episcopal priest friends in my head shouting that they too would understand their theologies of ministry in very similar terms (to say nothing of my clergy friends in other traditions more typically associated with the priesthood of all believers).

How do you understand ordination? Does something change when a person is ordained?

Let us pray: God, bless all those you have called to serve your church as ordained clergy. Grant us the grace to serve your people with humility and empower us to speak kindly to our congregations and prophetically to the powers and principalities of our world. Enable us to have positive impacts on the people you put into our paths. We ask this in the name of our model in ministry, our only advocate, and our liberator, Jesus. Amen.

Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

Faithfully,

Ben +