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Minister

             He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (II Corinthians 3:6)

            Competent: having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully: acceptable and satisfactory, though not outstanding

             Minister: (archaic) a person or thing used to achieve or convey something.

             Administer: To be in charge of…

 

            If you’re like me, “He has made us competent” will get a cheer. I’m competent! That means I’ll get things right, and everything will turn out as it should. Everyone will point at me as I walk down the street and say in an awed voice, “She’s competent!”

           I’m not quite that silly. I keep saying I want to be invisible because I don’t want people pointing at me and saying, “Aren’t you the one who ____?” I use a pseudonym as a writer so that I don’t have to be “the author of___” when I just want to be myself. But I suspect we all want to be competent…good enough…valuable (not just valued, and there is a difference.)

            But Paul doesn’t just say that we’ve been made competent. He tells us we are given the competence to do: minister. And if your first reaction to that word is, “Oh no, I don’t want to be a pastor,” don’t worry, that’s not what it means. If nothing else, these days, pastors get paid. Ministers may or may not be paid.

            I spent a few years as an administration assistant to the guy who was responsible for the function of the county properties and the county executive’s right hand. Technically, I was a right-hand woman to the right-hand man of the county executive. It was my job to take care of the routine details for the departments of operations and administration. All of the work, none of the rewards. If anyone knew who did the real work, it was someone within the office.

            As ministers, we’re supposed to be like members of Jean Luc Picard’s crew and “Make it so.” When we pray “The Lord’s Prayer,” one of the lines is “Thy will be done.” I tend to want to pray it and sit back to watch God get to work, but as ministers, it’s our job to do that will, to live in the spirit and to minister that life to others.

 

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