Your Ministry

Your ministry is the person in front of you.  

That was written on a little chalkboard stand on my desk for a year, and now it sits on my kitchen table as a reminder.  I’m not sure where I first heard that phrase, nor can I find to whom it should be attributed.  It is a powerful statement and reminder, though.  

Maybe you’re like me.  I’m a task person.  I see what needs to be done, and I do it.  The goal is always right there in sight if I just work hard enough; and I push, push, push until I reach it.  My laser-focus on the goal can sometimes blur the things between my current place and the end-line…even if those “things” are people. 

 

Your ministry is the person standing in front of you.

If you’re like me, you need that reminder that the person- not the task- is the ministry.  

And your ministry is not just to the person who benefits from the completed task. It’s the person you encounter on the way to completion.  The person who may feel like an interruption or a nuisance. The person who is needy or overbearing. The person who pops up just when you most want a break.  

Recently, I read about the woman at the well in John 4 and was reminded of my chalkboard.  I’ve heard that story since I was a little girl. Perhaps it’s just as familiar to you. Something about it always rubbed me a little wrong, but I never dove more deeply into that feeling.  Instead I just listened to whatever the sermon was about and moved along.  

You see, everyone I ever heard speak on the woman at the well focused on her many marriages- “You have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband”- believing this was indicative of major sin in her life.  

With COVID and self-isolating, I’ve had the opportunity to listen to different pastors as we worship from home.  For the first time in my life- almost 40 years of sitting in church services- I heard a pastor speak on this topic and not discuss what a sinful woman she was.  He instead spoke of the culture at that time.  He spoke about how few rights and agency women had, and how if she’d been divorced five times, it almost certainly wouldn’t have been her choice. Further, given the life expectancies at that time, it was very likely that she had been widowed multiple times. 

So, she wasn’t necessarily a sinful woman.  She was more likely a very broken woman.  Either cast off by a man multiple times or left to fend for herself following an untimely death.  And yes, perhaps now she was engaging in sin with a man to whom she wasn’t married, but then again, maybe marriage wasn’t an option for her.  Maybe no one would have her given her history.  Or maybe she no longer trusted the institution.  Maybe now she was jaded.  

Broken. Distrustful.  Jaded.  Abandoned. Hurt.  Sinful.  Any one of these words, and probably more than one could have described the Samaritan woman.  Any one of these words, and probably more than one could describe me.  They could describe any one of us at various points in our lives if we’re honest.  

This begs the question…how often do we see the person standing in front of us, whether it’s the one in the mirror or the difficult student or staff member, and choose one word to describe them- “the sinful Samaritan woman”- when another word would be more appropriate?  How often do we jump to conclusions about a person’s character based on too narrow a view of them?  

How often do we view the person in front of us as the interruption, not the ministry opportunity of the moment?  

Your ministry is the person in front of you.

Maybe that overly chatty person is actually really lonely.  Maybe the irritable one is having problems at home. Maybe the one cracking inappropriate jokes is trying to mask his depression.  Maybe the needy person who is too dependent upon you just can’t face the possibility of one more failure. 

The person- not the task- is your ministry.

May we see the person in front of us as Jesus does, and may we be his method of ministering to their needs.  

And, maybe, it will be in that moment that Jesus ministers to us today, too.  

Interested in More Devotions for Educators?

Visit the Methods with Meaning Educator Devotions page for more encouragement.

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