Our Minister at Walgreen's: Claiming the Ministry of the Baptized by The Rev. Donald L. Hamer
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Epiphany 1 – Year A – January 12, 2014
Our Minister at Walgreen’s:
Claiming the Ministry of the Baptized
As I was on spiritual retreat at the Monastery of The Society of St. John the Evangelist during the first week of Advent, I was reflecting a lot upon all of the attention we in our Diocese and in this congregation have been paying to “mission” over the past several years. The question we have been presented is, “What is God up to out there?” We have preached a lot about it. Our Vestry has spent two annual retreats considering it. It has been part of the focus of my Doctor of Ministry work at Hartford Seminary – which, God willing, will be completed in this calendar year. And we now have a “Mission Discernment Initiative Group” established by the Vestry to consider and pray over what it means, and what it might look like, to be Trinity Episcopal Church on Asylum Hill, in the City of Hartford, as we move deeper into the 21st century. Yet, something was missing and it was troubling me.
And then I remembered an article I read a couple of years ago in Congregations Magazine. It was written by Dwight Dubois, a Lutheran pastor who is the Director of the Center for Renewal at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa. In that article, he recounts the story of a woman who works at Walgreens pharmacy. Dubois writes,
The woman told a heart-warming story of her work and of her concern for what she saw as “her congregation,” that is, the customers she got to know and care for over time. In particular, she talked about an uninsured mother who needed a $400 prescription for a child. ‘I worry and wonder,’ the woman behind the counter said. ‘What will this mother have to give up so that her child will have the medication he needs?’
[He] commended the woman for her care and compassion, and then asked, ‘Does your church know that they have a minister working at Walgreens?’
‘My church?’ the woman asked with some surprise. ‘Why, no. I hadn’t thought about that. No,’ she admitted. Then she added, ‘They wouldn’t think that is important.’
Dubois concludes the story, ‘That broke my heart. It broke my heart that this woman has the perception that her church has the perception that what she does outside the church doesn’t count. I’m pretty sure that if we went to that particular congregation (or any of ours, for that matter) and asked leaders or members if this woman’s work is important, we would get resounding affirmation. But if we asked what that congregation (or ours) had done to affirm or support her day-to-day ministry, we would probably get puzzled looks.
As I re-read that article, I began to understand why my heart has been so disquieted. Our focus on mission, looking outward, being the Body of Christ in the world, furthering God’s mission of restoration and reconciliation in the world, is absolutely what the church is about. But the church, and its ministry, are rooted in something deeper, the teachings of Jesus. And in his Summary of the Law, Jesus teaches us that “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all our mind. This is the first and the great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mt 22:32-40; BCP 851).
It occurred to me that with all of our talk about mission, the institutional church has in effect defined “ministry” as church work. Let’s be clear: Mission is our reason for being, the goal of all that we do. In focusing on mission, however, I fear that we may have given the impression that what we really value – and what counts – is what our members do for and in the church. I know we have done them here at Trinity, and I’m sure you have at some point in your life filled out what the church called a “gifts inventory” or a “time and talent survey.” When I look back at those, virtually every single item on them involved doing work either in or at or for the church. Choir members, altar and flower guild members, church school teachers, Stephen Ministers, Loaves and Fishes, Church by the Pond, Place of Grace Food Pantry – I could name all 30+ of our ministries here at Trinity – all of these are critically important, and they are a part of what our church does as part of its mission. When a minister asks people how God is active in their daily life, what we typically hear are stories about volunteer activities. And while all of these are important and wonderful, and certainly further the mission of the church, they do not include the vision of ministry we see in the Minister of Walgreens.
I want to affirm today that ministry can and does take place wherever we are and whatever we are doing if it furthers God’s mission of restoration and reconciliation in the world. As Dubois points out, ministry happens “in the farm field, where food is grown so that people might be fed. Ministry happens in classrooms where children and adults receive education necessary for their welfare and for the sake of the world. Ministry happens when parents change a diaper, clothe, feed, shelter and raise their children. Ministry happens when adult children care for aging parents. Ministry happens in the workplace where products are produced, where countless decisions are made, where people and all creation are protected and served.
“Ministries” are the activities in which we engage that further that mission. “The ministry of all the baptized is rooted in God’s desire to be incarnate – enfleshed – in the world – in us – so that the world might be restored to what God intended it to be from the beginning. When Jesus himself was baptized by John the Baptist – even though he didn’t need to be baptized – He was giving formal witness to God’s desire to be one with us. And ministry is God’s way of being present and active in us for the sake of the world.
I would like to suggest, however, that unless and until each of us has an acute awareness of the ways in which God works in and through us on a day to day basis, we are going to continue to understand “mission” as ‘outreach” – to think that when we are “ministering” we are bringing Jesus from inside the church to the outside, instead of understanding that when we are outside the doors of this church we can meet and join up with God where God already is. We will be inclined to think of “ministry” as just one more thing we have to add on to an already long list of daily and weekly activities instead of believing that doing ministry is part of who we are and what we do in our everyday Christian life. And all of us are ordained for that purpose in our baptism.
The season after Epiphany is a season of light – a season in which we are enlightened through Scripture about the ways that Jesus was gradually, one ministry at a time, shown to be the Messiah, the one sent by God. And so, during this season after Epiphany, I am asking each of us to concentrate on this life into which we have been baptized, which is, after all, our life in Christ. To assist us in focusing on baptism, each Sunday during this season in lieu of the Nicene Creed we will pray an affirmation of our faith adapted from the Book of Common Prayer of our brothers and sisters in the Anglican Church of New Zealand.
In focusing on our baptismal vows, it is my hope that we will be more intentional about understanding who we are as ministers. I hope we will become more aware in our daily lives of the opportunities we have to spread the light of Christ using our every-day gifts in our every-day lives. I pray that during this season, each of us will develop a sense of our own innate, God-given gifts, and that we will be aware of the ways in which we can and do use those gifts both in and out of this church. I would like you to share your stories – stories of how you minister in your everyday life - with me and with one another. I pray that we will have a stronger sense of coming here to be strengthened, refreshed and renewed, and will have a new sense of how, by our very presence on a regular basis, we strengthen one another. Just as when we exchange a hug with someone, we strengthen the other person even as we are strengthened by their embrace. This is a first step to reclaiming the ministry of all of the baptized; as each member of the body is strengthened and grows, so we will grow stronger as the Body of Christ, and we will grow stronger in furthering God’s mission of restoring the world according to God’s plan. I think being part of a congregation like that would be tremendously exciting. Let’s make it happen! Amen.