"Christian ministry isnot fully understandable merely as a sociological function based on the group's need for leadership. Nor is it redicuble to a psychological function based on the unresolved inner need to care for others as if that were a complete explanation. Rather Christian ministry from the outset has been conceived as a continuation of Christ's own ministry. ... By both teaching and example Jesus left the church a highly suggestive if not explicitly developed conception of ministry. He himself personally addressed and called individuals into discipleship patiently taught and nurtured them toward apostolicity despite their resistances and misconceptions and then sent them out with the promise of his continuing presence. This sequence entered into later doctrinal formulations of the sequence leading to ministry that spoke systematically of Christ's calling Christ's preparation and Christ's commissioning of an ordered ministry." [Quote pp.59-60]
There is a dualistic flavour to this however. Drawing on Chrystostom Oden says -"As Christ is sent by the Father into the alienated world so are his ministers sent into the darkened world by the Son. ... As Jesus is stranger in the world so will the apostles be strangers. ... The apostolic mission is sent from God into the world and is therefore not finally explainable in term of the world's criteria yet it is sent in service to the real [sic] world to proclaim the healing word that the world may believe and be saved." [Quote pp. 61-2]
He is convinced of the validity of an ordained ministry (suitably circumscribed) and the priestly role -"The Protestant tradition has rightly spoken of the whole people of God as a priesthood following Hebrews chapter 6 but the priesthood of all believers has never meant the priesthood of each independent believer but rather of the whole community gathered and unified in Christ the high priest who ironically is also the lamb slain on our behalf." [Quote pp.87-8]
"There remains line thin as hair but hard as a diamond between ordained ministry and the faithful layperson." [Quote p.88]
Oden offers (in a chapter on the ordination of women) this telling rationale for accepting change in our conception of ordination -"Rather than treat the historical church with disgust and impatience we do better to think empathetically with the struggling church throughout the slowly developing choices that it has faced in different stages of its historical development. We have something to learn from the church's wide experience. The historical church has faced conflicts sufferings and limitations that we have never dreamed of." [Quote p.38]