Some of what I have done in life would be explicitly called
ministry. But most of the things I have
done would not have been called ministry, but in fact were a form of
ministry. In this country the term,
ministry, usually has religious overtones.
People think ministers are special people within the church who often
have designated roles. Clearly, priests
and pastors are doing ministry. In fact,
they are often called “ministers.” And
there are other folks within the church structure who also minister.
This is not a bad use of the idea of ministry. Truly there are people who are doing amazing
ministers in their church context. But
the problem is to limit the word, minister, to a church context. It is a much broader word. The word comes from the Latin word, minister, which means to serve. Therefore, it means servant. It can be noted that the term, minister, is
widely used in the British system to designate a political role. There is the Prime Minister, the Minister of
Defense, etc. There is nothing
inherently religious in the Latin word, minister.
Given the nature of much of my work teaching Religion, folks
might assume that my ministry is religious.
Some of it doubtless is. Of
course, what is tricky in trying to assess this is deciding what counts as
“religion?” But I have no interest to go
in this direction. Actually, I would
prefer to talk about spiritual instead of religious. But again, I don’t want to get into detail
about the difference between spiritual and religious. I am interested in thinking about the nature
of service (ministry) as part of what being spiritual means.
In effect, I want to suggest that to be spiritual is to be
willing to serve---to be a servant.
Think about it: I don’t see how you can talk about spiritual and
selfishness in the same breath! To be
spiritual means a willingness to serve.
You may not have to serve, but you need to be willing to serve. It is with this simple
distinction---willingness to serve, even if you don’t actually have to serve---that
I want to introduce the idea of “availability.”
The idea of availability intrigues me because the
willingness to serve is an issue of availability. There are two key facets of
availability. In the first place
availability contains the notion of present or presence. If we are available, we are present. There are at least two levels of
presence. One level is the literal level
of being present. It means I am
literally there. I remember elementary
school when the teacher would take attendance.
She would call a name and we would individually answer, “present.” Of course, if you are absent, you can’t
answer and you obviously are missing.
The other level of presence is the conditional. This means I am not literally in the place,
but if desired, I can come to be there.
This could be called “the promise of presence.”
Availability is the willingness to be present and as helpful
as possible. If I have this kind of
availability, then it means I am willing to serve. This has characterized much of my life. I have a willingness to serve and, hence,
make myself available. One way to be
available is to tell people you are available.
The other way is to be around. We
can literally spend some more time in situations where our availability is evident. Yet I remind us that availability means a
willingness to serve. I might or might
not actually have to serve.
The second key facet of availability is to see availability
as a readiness to serve. Although this
may sound like the first aspect, i.e. willingness to serve, I think it is
different. To be ready is to be prepared
to jump into service whenever and wherever it is needed. Indeed, I think we could be willing to serve,
but not ready. Readiness presupposes a
readiness for action when it is immediately needed. Additionally, it is a special kind of
readiness to serve.
Service asks for us to be present in a non-egocentric, but
non-invasive, way. Service has nothing
to do with my will---what I want to wish to see happen. Service serves the will of the other. It cannot be egocentric. It cannot be invasive. This can be difficult for some of us, because
we tend to be driven by our ego.
Thinking more deeply about service in this fashion helps me
understand why so much of my work is, indeed, ministry. I am not sure where it came from, but I have
always had a service mentality. But I
also knew if you were authentically a servant, you could not always choose the
venue of service. The best we could do
is to be willing to serve. Of course, I
could volunteer for service duties---soup kitchens and the like.
But ministry opportunities come in various ways. All we can do is be available. We are willing to serve and are ready to
serve.
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