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[ Back to index of May articles ] BEARINGS: "Can we rescue a word and discover a universe? Can we study a language and awake to the truth? Can we bury ourselves in a lexicon and arise in the presence of God…?" I have always been struck by these words from a sermon by Sir Edwyn Hoskyns, one of the last century's great Anglican biblical scholars who wrote a classic commentary on John's gospel. They speak of classical Anglicanism's love of careful scholarship, of tracing origins and investigating the sources and roots of our faith. Take the word "ministry." Surely a word so overused and taken for granted that it deserves attention to its family tree. It's the 35th anniversary of my ordination to the diaconate this month, so I am thinking about "diakonia" the Greek word for ministry. "Konis" means dust and grit. The original image behind Christian service and ministry is activity that takes you through the dust. The great Anglican bishop and divine Lancelot Andrewes always insisted that every kind of office in the church is a form of deaconing, "on foot and through the dust, for so is the nature of the word." Ministry refers to something close to the ground, a continuous journey through the grit and grime of the everyday. The word contradicts everything grandiose, lofty or even sublime. Ministry is quite literally dirty work. Ministry always deals with the nitty-gritty of real human needs and struggles. If the Greek word emphasizes the "gritty" aspect of ministry, the Latin emphasizes the "nitty." I remember being surprised when Father John Julian OJN reminded me that our word ministry comes from the Latin root for small things, as in the word miniscule. It had never occurred to me, even though I am trained in the classical languages. Of course! A minister is a person involved in little matters, small affairs. A magister is responsible for big affairs and large issues. We shouldn't be surprised if all of us engaged in ministry - and of course all of us are called to varieties of ministry - are subject to self-doubt. Few of us have 'big lives,' careers that make a huge visible impact in the public sphere. Our lives and our ministry seem to deal with such ordinary things that it is often difficult to grasp their lasting worth. Ordained ministers are no exception. Much of what they do consists of words and gestures that are usually hidden from view and often feel utterly fleeting and insubstantial. A sermon is preached, and who knows what if anything will be remembered? A private and intimate conversation about life and faith, and who knows what if any impact it will make in the long run? It is healthy to express these doubts in prayer. At some level all of us want to make a difference, leave a legacy, to have changed for the better the world we passed through. If we have a gnawing sense that not much that we do really makes a difference it can sap our motivation. It can tempt us to rationalize apathy and inaction. The call to ministry is one that demands that we confront our tendency to go along with the belief that little acts, small gestures, everyday service, don't count. The entire thrust of the gospel, of course, is based on the contrast between the apparent value of those whose actions are public and dramatically effective and the apparent worthlessness of the unnoticed actions of the "little ones." We speak often of empowerment these days and take a great risk in deluding ourselves that this means gaining access to the same kind of control enjoyed by the powerful. Jesus empowered by unlocking the secret that hidden and small actions have enormous transformative potential when we understand them as expressions of God's energies, interactive participations in that encompassing web and force-field of love and hope known as the "communion of the Holy Spirit." The long conversations at the last supper that we find in John's gospel is a rich resource for meditation on the intrinsic worth and power of the nitty-gritty gestures and little, hidden actions of ministry. Jesus returns again and again to themes of ministry. He speaks with astonishing humility about the fact - and it is a fact! - that those who choose to follow his way of service would achieve far more than he could in his short ministry. "Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I go to the Father." (John 14:12) And he speaks about the lasting reality of works of ministry, their eternal worth as gifts that are actually building up God's eternal family and weaving his everlasting community. "You did not choose me, but I choose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last." (John 15:16) [ Back to index of May articles ]
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