The Serving
1991 (Year B), 4 August / Pentecost 11
St Peter de Beauvoir Town
Yesterday, just as we prepared to come home, part of the shower unit packed up. It had to be replaced very quickly before the next people came so we had to go to this enormous old-fashioned shop. It’s like a vast Aladdin’s cave and there’s a man who served me. He took great care and time to make sure that I had the exact parts I wanted. He didn’t want me to have to buy a complete unit if it wasn’t necessary. I thanked him for being so helpful and he was genuinely pleased. I haven’t the nerve to tell you what he said, but he was happy and so was I. Everyone benefited.
The story is remarkable because service like that doesn’t happen very often. It used to all the time, so we’re told, in the good old days. Changes in our society and the pressures on people today ensure that it doesn’t happen now. The exact reasons are probably extremely complex, all I know is that when it does happen, it makes everybody feel good.
It’s sad then, if it makes everybody feel good, that service seems to be abused by so many people. Those who perform it often appear insincere. The ‘Have a nice day’ kind. A friend, recently returned from America says the new improved version of ‘Have a nice day’ is followed immediately by, ‘Missing you already.’ I guess that this insincerity is a form of self-protection against those who treat the people who serve them as if they are of little worth.
Proper service has little to do with the ‘Have a good day’ kind, although sometimes even that’s sufficient to cheer up an otherwise bad day. Proper service is divine. It’s a gift and a Godly action. To be able to receive the gift of service with no-one feeling the poorer is in itself a grace and a blessing.
This I believe to be true, yet we’ve managed to produce a distorted view of service. And it’s one we all ‘buy into’ because I guess that we all associate service with weakness. Slaves are the ones who serve. We all know that. When they become free they stop serving. Service is something the powerless do for the strong. If and when they in turn become strong they will stop serving and have others to serve and wait on them. All too often, we feel uncomfortable and ill at ease either when we act as server or the one who is served.
St Peter is a classic example of the emotions involved in service. Jesus prepares to wash his feet. Immediately he is confused. He feels unworthy. He doesn’t want it to happen. He manages to misunderstand and get it hopelessly wrong. Then he is told that the Son of man came to serve, not to be served and that unless he submits to the process of being washed he cannot share the fullness of a relationship with Jesus. It just makes it all worse.
He simply doesn’t see that service is fundamental to religious life. Not only for us as individuals, but as a community. It is to be the mark of Christians. It’s so fundamental and so important that all who serve will receive the same reward at the end of the day. Everybody gets the same, even though those who have served longer are a bit miffed.
Yet service, like love, is a much abused word. Actions are performed in the name of service and love which in truth are nothing of the kind. We say we are serving and yet the truth is we are more often trying to control. When a person knocks on our door asking for food and drink or a night’s shelter. I sometimes serve him, but I also control what he gets and he must comply with my wishes or he will get nothing. If we look honestly at our motives, my guess is that we will not be altogether pleased with what we see.
Having said this we do ourselves a disservice when we fail to recognise the very acts of service we perform. We get embarrassed. After all it’s not done to make ourselves appear better than we are. We dismiss them, pretending that they are mere nothings. Anyone would’ve done the same we say.
It’s crucial that we see ‘service’ at the very heart of God. Obedient service of God by Jesus, even to death. That we can see the desire in God for service from creation. If we can do that then service itself suddenly becomes Godly. We can recognise that Godliness in ourselves and those around us as we seek to serve and accept service in turn. We can even call them to mind here and now and give thanks to our divine creator. AMEN