My friend Bill, I discovered only recently, once arranged housing for a woman of my acquaintance when she had to leave home with her children because of violence directed against her by her husband. Bill (not his real name) found a house in Maine (not the real place) where the woman could stay until it became safe for her to return home.
I had the good fortune to become a friend of Bill when we were 14 years old and classmates in the same small high school. His friendship, in my eyes a gift, has continued over the many years since then. This means I have held a privileged vantage point for observing up close at least a few of his acts of kindness toward other people.
Providing a temporary residence for the woman in crisis is only one sample from a lifetime of generous services that Bill has provided to others. I have often felt buoyed up in spirit by knowing about some of them.
Bill has affected my spiritual life in other ways as well. If ever I needed a motive for feeling humble, all I need do is compare myself with him. He does more good, often at considerable cost to himself, than I could even imagine doing myself.
He often visits the sick, keeps in touch with old people in need of human contacts, has long supported a house for people with developmental disabilities, and reaches out to impoverished residents of a Latin American country who need medical attention.
Long ago, my friend managed to turn his career into a kind of ministry. As a businessman, he has always regarded his customers, not primarily as sources of money, but rather as human beings who often needed more than what anyone could sell them. In paying attention to their human problems, Bill went far beyond the call of his profession to serve them more deeply.
If Bill has a secret behind his attention to the needs of others, I suspect it lies in his ideal of ministry. Like many other people, he realizes how his spiritual tradition expects of him concern for others and service to them.
He does not leave ministry to members of the clergy but realizes that the laity also are mandated to serve. Whether explicitly or not, Bill exercises what a long tradition calls the priesthood of the faithful. It is not a mere sharing in the ministry of clergy but is a response to the call to service that each layperson receives at baptism.
If questioned, Bill would undoubtedly attribute great importance in his life to the example of Jesus “who went about doing good.” As a Christian, he takes seriously the words of Jesus: “As long as you did it to the least of my brethren, you did it to me.”
Like everyone else, Bill has known adversity. Health has often been a problem for him; so has the loss of family members and friends in death. But these experiences have probably had the effect of strengthening his ministry. As a “wounded healer,” he feels much empathy for those who are in difficulty.
Often people like Bill do not receive much recognition for their good deeds. He, however, has the admiration of more friends than anyone else I know. Among ourselves we sometimes joke about having a party for him but needing to rent Fenway Park in order to fit everybody in.
At a time when his church is suffering a deep crisis of confidence in its ordained leadership, Bill and countless others like him take on new importance. They are proving themselves to be the church in action as they reach out to their brothers and sisters in the human family. They show how the development of lay ministry has become one of the most important features of church life in modern times.
We would perhaps find ourselves on firmer ground spiritually if we changed our associations with the word “ministry.” Instead of immediately thinking of professional clergy, we might benefit by thinking first of people like Bill.
They are the bedrock of our communities of faith, the ones who each day carry out ministry to soul and body. They are church, they are everywhere, and to them we can look for inspiration.
Richard Griffin