The Serving Community
1992 (Year C) 23 August / Pentecost 11
St Peter de Beauvoir Town
The traditional picture of a clergyman – sadly clergywomen are altogether too new to have entered tradition yet – is of a bumbling elderly man, much given to long talks and vagueness. And it’s true. Clergy, if they play their cards cleverly can spend much of their life actually saying very little, just being incredibly vague and drinking tea.
They have a good role model. Many of the things Jesus is recorded as saying are pretty vague. ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed,’ we are told. How much like a mustard seed? Well it’s not really, ‘It’s like a pearl that’s been found.’ But it’s not really like that either. God, well when we come to talk about God, that’s hard too. God is like the Prodigal Son’s father, all hugs, welcomes and kisses – well he’s not that really he’s like the avenging vineyard owner putting people to death.
It all has to be a bit vague because the God we try to describe is beyond our understanding. Anything we try to say about this divine creator is bound to be vague. And we can carry on talking vaguely for years and years.
Eventually there comes the point when vagueness will not do. Some bright spark comes along and asks, ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Then in an instant everything changes. When Jesus was asked this, all talk of mustard seeds and the Kingdom of Heaven is like so and so stopped abruptly. ‘Go sell all that you have and give it to the poor and come follow me.’ Direct, clear, concise. No vagueness and no mixed messages here.
And what happens when we follow Christ. There is no ambiguity here either. Following Christ means we are to spend a life of service. Bound to God in service and the service of our sisters and brothers. That’s the essence of it all. Anyone who finds it hard or unpalatable had belter stop. The role model is the one who sits in the lowest place and woe betide the person who puts on fine clothes and lauds it over others.
Most of us find at least part of this very hard. With our heads and our hearts, we can affirm our service to God – it’s laudable, even holy and to be much admired. But to serve other people, and to be served in our turn, that’s very different. For service is associated with weakness. It’s demeaning. It’s something those of lower status do for their betters. Servers are dependent, vulnerable, to the point of life or death.
Yet service is what God is continually asking of us, (as individuals and as a community) and that service involves us in serving all that God has created. And the service, so we are told is, ‘To open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.’
Our service should have certain characteristics. It should be enriching, for that is what God wants for each of us and we are all to become what he wants. So it is not to be patronising. It should not reduce the person being served to something less than human. Service is a joy for in it both the server and the served are liberated. Both find God.
And when we’ve learnt how to serve properly we must then discover an even harder thing. How to accept service so that the one who serves us is also enriched and empowered. They must not be patronised and we have to feel comfortable. Since coming to this church I have seen actions of service performed with absolute humility yet with almost overpowering dignity and care. By the action of that service both the server and the served have been enriched and when that has happened I have felt myself to be in the presence of God.
I guess we learn best from our own experiences, so it is well we recall service done for us, both small and great. Everyone of them enriched us. Brought us healing and strength. Give thanks to God for them now, for they are actions done in his name. We will all remember times when we have been made to feel poorer by those who should’ve served us better. We can learn from that too, seeing clearly what was wrong and why it was so. We can pledge ourselves not to repeat such actions.
Let our prayer be; Almighty Father, whose Son Jesus Christ has taught us that what we do for the least of our brethren we do also for him. Give us the will to be the servant of others as he was the servant of all, who gave up his life and died for us. One God now and forever. AMEN