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Ministry

          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)

Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. (Psalm  8 :2)

          An idea that has been wandering through my head for months involves ministry. If I am going to change my perspective about my writing, the Master Gardeners, or my involvement in church, in my neighborhood, or at my job, I need to stop examining Exhibit Me, and figure out how to do whatever it is God wants me to (or even that I want me to), I would do well to learn what it means to minister. The basic definitions concern taking charge (administering), representing, and serving.

          There was a time when I focused on administration. I probably still could, except I want to be invisible. The idea of representing is one I run from even more, though I’m going to have to get over it, because representing is what Christians and Master Gardeners do. Given a choice, though, the version of ministry I think I want to do is serving. And I am.

          But today’s passage says that we’ve been made competent as ministers of a New Covenant, and nowhere does it say that we get to choose among them. For the next ten seconds, we might be administrators and for the next two years, servants, but we act as representatives 24/7, whether we want to or not.

          Equally, we may have some idea of what we consider competence, but the second verse above tells us that children and infants perform a ministry of protection from our enemies through their praise. I can’t say I understand it because we tend to count children and infants as incompetent, but Jesus refers to this verse in Matthew 21:16.

          The logical and humbling response is to hand our ministry over to God and let Him accomplish through it what He desires, rather than trying to polish it into some sort of shine and claim it for our own.

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