The Ordination of Robert Schivers — St. Matthew's Ev. Lutheran Church — Wilmington, NC
Dear Saints in Christ,
Last month we observed the 486th anniversary of the presentation of the Augsburg Confession to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, at the Diet of Augsburg on June 25, 1530. The Augsburg Confession, with its 28 articles, is a proper exhibition or presentation of the Christian faith as taught in the Holy Scriptures.
I’ve always been edified at the godly wisdom that constructed this important confession of our faith. Article One comes right out the chute and addresses “Who is God.” Thus there is no doubt who we worship. Article Two immediately brings up and addresses that we have a problem, a deadly problem, and that is – original sin. With this original sin we could never stand before a Holy God. So then comes Article Three, “On the Son of God.” Christ Jesus comes to us so that He might “reconcile the Father unto us.” Now comes the linchpin: Article Four, “Of Justification.” Because we can’t possibly make ourselves presentable before a Holy God by our own “strengths, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith”, and this “faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight.”
Now, Article Five explains why we are here today. Article Five “Of the Ministry.” “That we may obtain this faith,” Christ Jesus created the “ministry of teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacrament.” Christ Jesus calls, equips, and sends pastors for you to have a saving faith.
The meat of this message may seem to be focused on our beloved Robert, but you are witnesses that, in real time, Christ Jesus is doing amazing things for the sake of your faith.
And for you pastors here, who have received Holy Orders, the point of this message is just as relevant as the day you were ordained.
Let us pray.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Amen.
Robert, in a few minutes you will kneel, hands will be laid on your head, and the Church will ask the Holy Spirit to do to you that which He has done to every faithful pastor since the apostles: make you a servant of the Word. But first, hear the charge under which you are about to stand.
“I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:1-2).
Saint Paul was advanced in age when he wrote these words. He was imprisoned in Rome and, as he acknowledges two verses later, he was aware that his death was imminent. This passage is not intended as a professional development seminar. Rather, it represents the final and crucial instructions from a man who knew his time was short to his successor. Every element in these five verses is crafted as a father addressing a son whom he does not expect to see again, at least on this side of Heaven. Receive it in that spirit today, Robert, for that is the context in which it was originally written.
Notice first who this charge invokes. Paul does not say, “I charge you before this congregation,” or “before this Ministerium,” or “before your seminary faculty.” He says, “before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead.” In a few minutes you will make several promises: fidelity to the Holy Scriptures, fidelity to the Lutheran Confessions, fidelity to this pastoral office. You will make those promises to the Church, and the Church will hold you accountable to them, as it should. But you are not, finally, answerable to The AALC or to the congregation of St. Matthew’s. You are answerable to Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead. That is a sobering thing to say to a man on the day of his ordination. I say it because it is true, and because rightly understood, it is also the most comforting thing I can tell you.
How is this comforting? If you were accountable only to this congregation, or to me, or to your brother pastors, your standing in this office would rise and fall with our opinion of you, and our opinion, being human, is changeable. You have a better Judge than that. The same Christ who judges you is the Christ who died for you. He does not sit on the judge’s bench looking for grounds to unmake you. He has already made you His own in your baptism, and He is the one who, in the laying on of hands today, makes you, His minister. This office does not rest on your worthiness. It never has, for any man who has held it. It rests on His call.
That is worth saying plainly, because you are going to need it. Look for a moment at the chosen Old Testament text.
The Lord said to Moses, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.” (Exodus 4:11-12).
Moses’ objection is not humility. It is much closer to fear. He has just been told to go stand before Pharaoh, believed by many to be a god among men, and his response to the call is laden with excuses, that he is not eloquent, that he is slow of speech and of a slow tongue. God does not argue with him about his rhetorical gifts. God does not pat Moses on the head and try to boost his confidence by say, “You speak perfectly well.” God asks him a question instead: Who has made man’s mouth? And then God does not offer a compliment but gives Moses a promise: “I will be with your mouth.”
Robert, you are not being ordained today because this Ministerium polled your gifts and concluded you are eloquent enough, or wise enough, or strong enough, for this office. Some of us who love you know your limits better than you think we do. That was true of Moses. It was true of Peter. It was true of Paul. It has been true of every man who has ever stood where you are about to stand, including the one laying hands on you. The question was never whether you are sufficient. You are not. The question is whether the One who called you is sufficient, and whether He has promised to be with your mouth. He is and He has! The promise made at the burning bush is not one degree less true for you than it was for Moses.
Paul’s charge. “Preach the Word.” Not your opinions about the Word. Not your feelings about the Word, however sincere. Not a running commentary on the news of the day with an occasional biblical footnote attached. The. Word. God’s Law that accuses, and God’s Gospel that actually absolves, actually forgives, actually raises the dead. That is your job description in three words, “Preach the Word,” and everything else you will do in this office, the counseling, the hospital calls, the committee meetings, the budget, the building, all of it, either serves that one task or it is not pastoral work at all.
“Be ready in season and out of season.” Which means: Be ready- whether it is convenient or not. Be ready -whether people want to hear it or not. Be ready-whether you yourself feel equal to it or not. St. Paul tells you exactly why this need to be said, in the very next breath:
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
That is not a description of some distant future crisis. It is a description of every age of the Church, including this one, including the year 2026. Robert, you have received a call from a congregation that has traversed though a difficult season defending the truth of Scripture and the faithfulness of the Lutheran Confession against real pressure to trade it for something more convenient, more of the spirit of the age. You watched a good deal of that up close. I charge you: do not let that experience make you bitter, and do not let it make you cynical about Christ’s Church. Instead, let it teach you exactly what Paul was teaching Timothy, that faithfulness to sound doctrine has never once been the popular position, in any century, and it is not going to start being popular in yours. Preach the Word anyway. In season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort, and do all three of them, Paul says, with longsuffering. Patience is not optional in this office. A man who reproves without longsuffering is not doing the Lord’s work; he is only doing his own.
Which brings me to the Gospel text, because a charge to preach, reprove, and rebuke could sound, if I stopped here, like a job description for a prosecutor. Far from it! Listen to how the risen Lord, Christ Jesus commissions a man for this same work.
“So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Feed My lambs... Tend my sheep... Feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17).
Three questions, because of three denials. Jesus does not step around Peter’s failure to get to the good part. He goes straight through the failure to reach it. He restores Peter precisely at the point of his greatest shame, and He does it by asking not, “are you competent?” but “do you love me?” Robert, the foundation of your ministry will not be your competence, though I fully expect you to grow more capable every year you serve. The foundation is your love for Christ Jesus, and even that love, on your best days, will be smaller and more mixed with self-interest than Peter’s was on the night he wept bitterly. Have no fear! Have no fear! Jesus builds His Church on the confession of repentant sinners who love Him imperfectly and obey Him anyway. He built it on the confession of Peter. He is building it, today, on your confession.
And notice what that love is asked to produce. Not a feeling. But duty. “Feed and tend my sheep.” Not admire them, not manage them, and certainly not to entertain them. But to feed them. Tend to them. With what? With the Word and Sacrament that you must dwell in and have been charged to preach. This is the same mercy the Psalmist sings, that the Lord “forgives all your iniquities,” that “He has not dealt with us according to our sins,” that His mercy toward those who fear Him is as high as the heaven is above the earth. That mercy is the food. The sheep of this congregation, the ones who will be in your care and the ones you have not yet met, are hungry for exactly what Paul told Timothy to give them: doctrine, loving reproof and correction, comfort, all of it delivered with patience. That is what feeds a sheep of Christ’s. Give it to them, even on the days they would rather have something else.
So here, dear Robert, this is your charge, given to you today in the words of three men who each knew what this office costs: from Moses, who was afraid and was sent anyway; from Peter, who had failed and was restored and commissioned anyway; and from Paul, once an persecutor of Christ Jesus, spending the last letter he would ever write to make sure the next generation understood what actually mattered, namely Christ Jesus alone.
Preach the Word, Robert! Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine. Feed His lambs. Tend to His sheep. And when you doubt whether your mouth is equal to what this Church is about to ask of it, and you will doubt as the pastors present hear have and will, remember the promise given at the burning bush: “I will be with your mouth.” That promise was not given to a gifted man. It was given to a called man. That is what you are about to become, a man called by Christ Jesus.
The Lord who has called you will keep you. Preach Christ crucified, and Him only, and you will have preached enough. Amen.