Administration – A Ministry
Ezekiel 34: 11 – 16;
Matthew 25: 31-40
In the May 12th section of Brightest and Best A Companion to the Lesser Feasts and Fasts by
Sam Portaro it is Florence Nightingale who is remembered. As the author says in
the text, “Florence nightingale is probably best remembered for her service in
the Crimean War … where she reordered the military hospitals in less than three
years … and during the same period she established the Nightingale Fund for
training nurses.” He goes on to say that, “… her contribution was not in the
particular care she rendered…” (to individuals) but that she “… was an
administrative genus - something we do
not often recognize as heroic.” We often think, justifiably, of administration
as being guardians of the status quo. An opinion we have accepted through
observation. Florence Nightingale, however, did not fit this mode of doing
administration. As the author says, “Florence Nightingale had to be both
innovative and creative in her administration … in her time and ours, the old patterns and the
accustomed ways will hardly serve our stewardship. No doubt the fire she knew
on the Crimean battlefield was as nothing compared to the strafing she took
within the human institutions who resisted … the reform she advocated.” (Emphasis mine)
I can imagine that as a priest in exile Ezekiel had to deal
with change for probably the people in exile with him would say, as do the
lyrics in a Godspell song, “How do we worship God in a foreign land?” Jesus too
had to deal with change that was resisted by the religious authorities of his
time. For example, they said that his disciples should not be gleaning grain on
the Sabbath for it was against the law (the rules the established way of doing
things). Jesus, however, was more concerned that his disciples were hungry than
he was with the establishment rules. He was also more concerned with the
welfare of people when he healed people on the Sabbath, again a crossing of the
establishment rules. Compassion dictated a change in the rules; the accustomed
way of doing things.
As Ezekiel and the people of Israel were in a foreign land
that required change in how they worshiped, as Jesus attempted to drag the
people of his time into a “foreign land” of change and as Florence Nightingale
did the same thing in her time; today we find ourselves “in a foreign land”.
Our accustomed ways of “doing church” do not seem to be working. Our
congregations grow smaller and grayer and the emerging generations, for a
variety of reasons, are not coming to church. So what do we do in this foreign
land of the post-modern twenty-first century? Perhaps a part of the answer
resides in the phrase I used above, “… not coming to church.” Perhaps it is the
church that needs to get outside its walls and go to them. Perhaps we need to
recognize that some things have been left behind in Jerusalem and it is time to
“sing a new song”. This is not a comfortable place to be or a comfortable task
to embark upon; but where is it written that comfort is a prerequisite to
Christian discipleship? Indeed, much of scripture would suggest otherwise.
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