It is important to recognize that neither Aaron nor his sons claimed the office of priest for themselves. Their calling came from God. There were no self-appointed priests in the Bible. In fact, whenever a man in Israel, even a king, presumed to act in the place of a priest, it was considered a grave sin. Remember King Saul, who was impatient because Samuel did not arrive when he wanted him to. Saul offered an unlawful sacrifice, he was not a priest, and Samuel told him when he arrived, “You have done foolishly…Your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought a man after his own heart…” 

The same principle remains true today in the church. There are no self-appointed pastors, elders, or deacons. The Spirit of God calls people into those offices. He will give an inner calling to men who desire to be elders or pastors. Paul said, “The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” That inward desire, if it is a calling from God, will be confirmed by those who have spiritual authority in the church.  It is a dangerous mission to decide on your own, as many men and women have done, that you have been called by God to be a spiritual authority, and since no one around you can clearly see that calling and affirm it, you will just go and start a church on your own. It happens somewhere every week. Those who are not called should not assume that office. And the flip side is true: those who are called by God should not shake off that calling or walk away from it! I mentioned George Herbert last week. He was a minister in the Church of England in the early 1600’s. He was also a poet and one of his poems is titled, “The Collar.” A play on words with collar of an Anglican priest and the call to preach. Read his complaints about the pain he suffers from ministry, and listen as he tells himself to leave his calling to pursue his own pleasures. Then listen to the call at the end: 

“I struck the board, and cried, “No more; I will abroad! What? shall I ever sigh and pine? My lines and life are free, free as the road, Loose as the wind, as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me blood, and not restore What I have lost with cordial fruit?… Recover all thy sigh-blown age On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy cage…But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild At every word, Methought I heard one calling, Child! And I replied My Lord.”

May I remind all of us that it is not only elders and pastors and deacons whom God calls to love and serve him. And to serve one another. This calling is repeated all through the Bible. Here’s one example where God tells all of us to wear the collar, in a manner of speaking. Paul wrote, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” Peter also, who learned humility the hard way, tells us this: “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” We don’t need a collar, but He calls us to put on humility. 

As the old saying goes, “The tree that bears the most fruit bows the lowest.”