NOTES for Pe1 5:1-4

Addressing the Church's pastors, the apostle reminds them of something the Saviour Himself said more than once: in the Kingdom there are no superiors and subordinates, masters and slaves, shepherds and flocks in the form familiar to us in our fallen world. It is not merely that a pastor leads the flock not by issuing orders as a superior does to subordinates, but by offering a personal example and inviting others to follow it. All genuine teachers and spiritual guides of every time and nation have been like that.

The point is that in the Church a pastor does not govern anyone at all. In any way: neither through commands and instructions nor through personal example. Simply because only the One who brought the Kingdom into the world and became its King can give orders in the Church. The Church is merely the continuation of the Kingdom on earth, its earthly representation, neither more nor less. There is only one Shepherd in the Church; all the others are merely His helpers. Yet it is not only a matter of this obvious fact.

It is also a matter of the Kingdom's very nature—if and insofar as we can speak of its nature. In the Kingdom, all the distinctions so significant in this world are levelled out. Of course, people remain themselves in the Kingdom and differ from one another just as they do in our world. But here those differences determine a great deal, both about a person's possibilities and about their place in the world. In the Kingdom everything is different: differences between people determine not the extent of their possibilities, still less the fullness of their life, but only the form and manner of their existence.

Their way, so to speak, of being in the Kingdom. And the only thing one learns there is existence: being, abiding. Everything else consists merely of means and ways of learning what matters most. But if you are a Christian, you must begin learning here and now, during the earthly stage of your journey. Of course, in a sense this stage is only a preparatory class, but even here much can be achieved with willingness and appropriate effort. The pastor's principal task, then, is to teach those in their care the life of the Kingdom.

Naturally, only through personal example: there is no other way. Yet not by an example of this or that activity, but by the example of one's own spiritual life. On the principle not of ‘do as I do’ but of ‘be as I am’. Then rivalry and protest against ‘the authorities’ disappear of themselves. The question is not who will occupy a particular position, or even who will do a particular job, but how to live and how to be. Here rivalry is impossible by definition: each person's being and life are their own. In the Kingdom too.

At first glance, these are instructions for the leaders of Christian communities, but if we think about them, they apply to all of us, who are to some degree not free from the passion for power and who often succumb to the temptation to manipulate those around us for our own purposes, which are not always noble. But Peter recommends living not lording it over others, but submitting to one another, and here he anticipates an objection to those who, for centuries and with considerable success, have sought to introduce the social norms of a sinful society into relationships among Christians and would like to see the Church as a structure resembling the state. But even if its external organizational forms may resemble the organization of earthly human communities, its inner essence immeasurably surpasses them. It was created to unite people not by coercion and external discipline, but by unity in faith and love. And if this is indeed so, then Christ’s words are not only heard but lived: “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all” (Mk 9:35). Such were many saints and ascetics, from the apostles to Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh and other worthy pastors of our day.