Word to the Wise
Friday, May 27, 2016 - Friday in the 8th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Pet 4:7-13 and Mark 11:11-26]Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's variied grace. Whoever preaches, let it be with the words of God; whoever serves, let it be with the strength that God supplies, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ....[1 Peter]
One of the very challenging tasks of being a pastoral leader (indeed a political or other leader) is to identify people with particular gifts that can be used in service to the community as a whole. We all have talents and skills. Some of these we might wish we did not have because they may be less fun to use: e.g. administration. Others may not be what the community needs at the moment, but we continually look for a way to make them known. The leadership has to balance the known needs of the commuity with the available supply of talent. Inevitably, egos are chafed or bruised. Nevertheless, finding those people can make a great difference in realizing the goals of a parish.
The First Letter of Peter (as well as some of St. Paul's writings) makes it clear that the challenge is a very old one. It requires prudence and vision. One of the lines about preaching with the words of God stirkes home with me because of my ministry as an itinerant preacher. Occasionally I get to sit in a pew and hear other preachers and wonder why they think what they are saying is helpful to the community or just an opportunity to ventilate about pet peeves.Serving with the strength provided by God may require that our "less-liked" skill be used and we give way to someone else in a more attractive area. The First Letter of Peter offers us good advice today. I pray we can all take it to heart. AMEN
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