The presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry met Wednesday. Though working in a United Methodist congregation, I remain ordained in the Presbyterian Church USA. I serve on this committee as part of my service to the denomination.

Three candidates appeared before us, each on a different segment of the path to ordination.

One began seminary last summer with an intensive Hebrew course, a year’s worth of grammar squeezed into seven weeks. (Biblical languages are required for Presbyterians.) She barely passed, and unfortunately this left her poorly prepared for Old Testament courses. Her GPA sank, and she lost her full scholarship.  Many thousands of dollars gone.  Now she’s scrambling to fund her education.  And the dominoes started falling with the Hebrew requirement.

Her situation reminded me of a poem by Robert Frost, On a Tree Fallen Across the Road:

The tree the tempest with a crash of wood
Throws down in front of us is not bar
Our passage to our journey’s end for good,
But just to ask us who we think we are

Insisting always on our own way so.
She likes to halt us in our runner tracks,
And make us get down in a foot of snow
Debating what to do without an ax.

And yet she knows obstruction is in vain:
We will not be put off the final goal
We have it hidden in us to attain,
Not though we have to seize earth by the pole

And, tired of aimless circling in one place,
Steer straight off after something into space.

This student is persistent.  I trust she ‘will not be put off the final goal’ but will find resources to continue her journey.

I took a year of Hebrew in seminary.  Afterward it evaporated. Although it’s essential to scholarship, I question its necessity for parish ministry. If denominations require future ministers to study Hebrew, how much more should they insist on courses in finance or web design? At any rate, putting incoming students in an intensive summer language course seems unwise.

A knowledge of Hebrew will enrich a pastor’s teaching and preaching.  But the absence of such knowledge will not inhibit ministry (and may leave extra room in the brain for other knowledge).

In this student’s case, too, making the language a requirement can all too easily make it a costly hardship, a great tree fallen across the road.