Four wonderful qualities that should flow from our baptism and permeate ordained service for laity and clergy.
By Magdalena I. García
Last night we had the first Session meeting of the year. The Session is the local governing body in a Presbyterian congregation. I led the opening devotional, and I used the opportunity to remind our officers about my favorite ordination question (there are nine in total): “Will you seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination and love?”
The question is reminiscent of the heart of Jesus’ teaching, as summarized in Matthew 22:37-40: “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” And it invites all of us into constant reflection about our service.
Energy, intelligence, imagination and love. Most of us find it pretty easy to honor one or two of these qualities at any given time. But embodying all four simultaneously is quite a stretch. If truth be told, a lot of what we do in the name of God and ministry at all levels of the church tends to be driven by one of those virtues at the expense of the other three. And most of us have a personal tendency to live and minister out of one mode, or to have a dominant style of operation. This is the beauty of committee process, where as members engage each others’ ideas we can clearly see these four virtues competing for attention—and dominion—like wrestlers in a ring.
But the challenge is to seek—and find—balance. So perhaps it’s not too late to make a New Year’s resolution to live and minister in 2010 seeking to engage and exhibit all four qualities: energy, intelligence, imagination and love. This surely makes losing weight and working out look like a piece of cake!
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