This saying, now part of English folklore, comes from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – from a speech in which Juliet bewails the fact that Romeo’s name condemns him to be an enemy of her family for ever. (quick quiz: which way round is it – which of Romeo and Juliet is a Capulet, and which a Montague? – answer at the end of this post). The point is that Romeo is the same person, whatever his name is, and that the scent of a rose would be just as lovely if it were called a sputnik.
This thought was provoked by a discussion we have been having in various fora of the Lutheran Church in Great Britain lately about our Lay Ministers. There is little doubt about the valuable role that these able and dedicated servants play in the church: but the problem is in the name. When LCiGB first started to discuss the setting up of a recognised lay ministry within our congregations, the Synod had a loooong discussion about the name to be used. There were various sugggestions – Deacon, Evangelist, Reader, Lector, Lay Assistant, Pastoral Assistant and so on. Each of those has its own associations and connotations: so, for instance, Readers have a particular role, meaning and training within the Church of England, and it doesn’t exactly correspond to what we had in mind. So to avoid confusion we abandoned that idea. Deacon is a particularly thorny term, as there are as many definitions of deacons as there are churches – some are ordained, some are lay; in some places church elders are deacons, in others the diaconate is a step on the way to ordination and so on. So, in a spirit of compromise, we opted then for Lay Minister.
But it turns out now, almost 8 years on,that the term has raised various forms of confusion. Just to explain for those who aren’t aware – although English is the main language of LCiGB, we have communities from the four corners of the globe worshipping among us, and for many of our people there is no equivalent in their native languages to the English word ‘Minister’. So in our Chinese congregation, where both Mandarin and Cantonese are spoken, the term ‘Lay Minister’ sounds like a complete contradiction in terms – there is only one word for ministers, and that is pastor, which always implies ordination. The same is true in Polish, for instance. So, while in English it is easy enough to grasp the idea of a lay person who has a licensed role in the ministry of the church, it is much more difficult for people from some of our other language groups.
This has prompted something of a reassessment of what we should call these members of our churches, who perform such a valuable role in maintaining the worship life and pastoral care of our congregations: because it looks as though a change of name might well enable the role to be better understood. In this case, the rose by its present name probably doesn’t smell quite as sweet as it ought to!
In thinking about this, though, I began to notice how many other aspects of our church life have different terminology in different languages. Take the word Congregation, for instance – the local expression of the church. In English the word congregation implies a group that is coming together, congregating – in secular terms, you would normally congregate for some particular purpose or occasion, but it implies no sense of becoming a community or of a shared purpose, except that of coming together for worship.
In German the word is Gemeinde, which has a completely different origin and meaning. It means a commune, or community; and is related to words like gemeinsam, which means to have something in common, and Gemeinschaft, which has meanings of community and togetherness. Gemein was a word that Martin Luther often used to emphasise the way in which Christians share each others lives, burdens and joys, for instance.
In Swahili usharika comes from shiriki – to join, to participate or to share; and in Latvian, the word for congregation is draudze, which is related to friendship.
What we call a thing, though, is not neutral: and the shades of meaning that these words have must also influence the way we see this body, this assembly, community, sharing or friendship; giving a body a name also confers something of that meaning on the body.
Just one more example. The word for the person who is the ordained clergy of a church also varies enormously from one language and culture to another. Pastor (mchungaji in Swahili) implies care, guidance, nourishment and safekeeping; mācītājs in Latvian actually means teacher; but in Polish ksiądz is derived from words like knaz and Konung, implying high status and lordship.
So does that mean also that what we call our pastors/priests/teachers/lords affects how we view them, and what we
expect from their ministry among us?
There is probably more thinking to do around this whole area, to ensure that when we refer even to the most basic elements of church life in a beautifully diverse church like ours, we have a shared understanding of what we are talking about.
Meanwhile – here is a picture of some of the pastors and lay ministers of LCiGB, congregating for a shared, communal retreat last October!
I’d suggest there is room for two roles : Deacon and Assistant. The Deacon would be ordained and wear liturgical vestments for services. The Assistant would not. Member congregations can select either or both depending on their history and traditions.