Serving... Love - Love

                                                                                                                              [The Tune]

All of the faith practices we’ve been blogging about are relationship based. Worship – relationship with God and community, Prayer – relationship to God and self; Study, Relationship to God and scripture; Invite- relationship with your neighbor. Service is no different – it is an extension of Invite and is possibly the hardest faith practice to truly do well. Service certainly seems foreign to a “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” culture.

“Wait a minute!”, you may say. There is service all over our culture: there are servers in restaurants and bars, almost every company has a “customer service” department, every time we re-write our resumes we say things like “ I was proud to serve as the chair of …”! We live in a service economy for Pete’s sake!

Jesus challenges us to re-think service. Service is not something we do to get something we want [or get something in return], rather service is something we do especially if there is no way for us to be repaid. And then, if we can accept that idea, Jesus asks us to do it with an open heart - joyfully!

Mohandas Gandhi’s quote is

    “Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.” 

So – do it for free and be happy about it.  

Service ala’ Jesus is Patient, Kind, Humble, Respectful, Selfless, Forgiving, Honest and Steadfast. Sounds remarkably like the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 doesn’t it? Service and Love are interchangeable here. Love thy neighbor = serve thy neighbor.

But what if the people I serve just waste what I give them?

But what if the people I serve don’t believe in you?

But what if the people I serve don’t need it?

But what if the people I serve don’t have the same values I do?

But what if the people I serve are just different?

But what if the people I serve make me uncomfortable?

But what if the people I serve don’t change?

It’s easy to come up with lots of rationalizations of why we shouldn’t serve. Jesus’ answer to each of these questions is “That doesn’t make any difference”.  Jesus calls us to be a relationship with our neighbors and we cannot love our neighbors only in the abstract. Jesus’ commands us to make it real, because serving is the incarnation of love.

Lord, help us to go forth to love and joyfully serve, as you have shown us.

Amen.

Paul S