c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Last summer, a neighbor and I watched a woman back her boat and trailer into a ditch. We went over immediately to help.

My neighbor is a retired firefighter. He diagnosed the problem, identified a solution, and initiated a response.

“That’s what I did for a living,” he said afterward.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, before the politicians arrived, it was people like him who made the difference. Firefighters, police officers, emergency workers, nurses, physicians, clergy _ people who could function effectively under stress at “ground zero” _ stepped forward, often at great risk to themselves, and responded.

One executive who was trapped in a building near the collapsing World Trade Center said later that it was a maintenance worker who led him to safety. The worker had been an Army Ranger and knew how to handle danger.

I wasn’t surprised. I remember an admiral in Europe saying that officers get saluted, but “it is senior chiefs who run the Navy.” They know people, systems, and how to get jobs done.

In my opinion, the heroes of modern faith aren’t the prelates who gather importantly to pronounce judgment on lesser souls, or the highly visible stars who preach grandly here and jet there to garner more applause, or the religious partisans who wage endless war to turn the headlines in their direction.

The heroes are the local clergy and laity who do the stressful work of actual ministry. While the important breeze through airports, the real heroes sit with the dying, comfort the lost, and engage in countless hours of conversation about frustrating jobs, irritating spouses, wayward children and failing health.

While the elegant make extravagant claims about the mind of God, these local doers adapt to changing economic and cultural realities, learn second languages, and sit late into the night wondering how to cope with a world at war.

While the warriors of doctrine and church politics wedge their way into photo-ops, God’s people serve food to the hungry, provide shelter to the homeless, distribute clothing to the naked, and deal as best they can with fundamental injustice.

It is they, not the leading lights of religion, who actually shine the light of faith into people’s lives. No one was ever argued or photo-opped into faith. Faith springs from being loved and forgiven, and that happens at ground zero.

In any organization, of course, there is need for both leaders and followers, decision-makers and implementers. But as history shows time and again, when leaders forget that they are servants and instead get enamored of power, prestige, and sitting on high in the company of successful people, the organization suffers, and its work goes sour.

The best theology and ethics happen from the ground up, not from the top down. Just as Jesus spoke plain words to the everyday realities of life, so do today’s best thinkers seek God in the here-and-now of a failing employer, Army units sent back into combat too soon, a teacher bewildered when 47 of his 200 high school students are failing, and the shameful spectacle of the world’s richest nation deporting its most vulnerable residents.

Hierarchs might want to debate global initiatives and sexuality protocols. There is intellectual delight in such concerns, not to mention overseas travel. But the grinding work of ministry _ the work to which Jesus consistently gave himself _ happens far from conference table and convention microphone.

That work happens on dusty roads where beggars cry out, and Jesus stops and says, “Bring them to me.”

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” was published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org.)

KRE/LF END EHRICH

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