The Discipline of Service

[February 2008 newsletter article]

Last month, I started a series of articles on spiritual disciplines, with a discussion of the inner discipline of meditation. This month, let us explore the outer discipline of Service.

When Jesus called us to be his disciples and we responded, he charged us to daily take up our cross and follow him. . . . follow him into service to the world he died to redeem, through the church he rose to establish. We take the word ‘service’ for granted. For instance, we refer to Sunday morning corporate worship as a worship SERVICE. We gather in our beautiful sanctuaries, with padded pews and climate controlled environment. We greet those we know and love, and together we sing and pray and proclaim God’s word. Is that SERVICE? Who served? Who was served? This sounds more like pleasure than service.

Jesus gave us the example for service. At the Passover dinner just before he was arrested, they were need of their feet being washed. It was the custom. Yet, everyone knew that only the least of people washed feet. Even among those blessed to be Jesus’ closest companions, no one wanted to be the least. So finally Jesus himself took the towel and the basin and washed their feet! Can you imagine?! Would we be any less appalled than Peter, who did not want a Savior who washed feet? We want a God who is powerful and sophisticated, who acts like . . . well, like GOD. That is the God that we want to follow and imitate. What if we become too sophisticated, too cultured, too reverent, too refined, to follow the example of Jesus? In John 13, Jesus says, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to was one another’s feet, for I have given you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

Jesus illustrated for us true service, rather than the self-righteous service so common in our world. Self-righteous service requires rewards. It seeks notice and applause, (always with the appropriate modesty, of course). True service finds satisfaction in the knowledge that God has seen. Self-righteous service needs to see results – an increased attendance from visits and cards written, a new building built as a result of the capital campaign, professions of faith from the new ministry. True service is free of the need to calculate results. One plants, another waters, but it God, who in His time, gives the increase. Self-righteous service chooses whom to serve. It invites to church those who will be faithful givers, or whose presence we will enjoy. It prefers to serve the pleasant rather than the unpleasant, friends rather than enemies, the lovely rather than the unlovely. Self-righteous service is insensitive, demanding the opportunity to help. True service listens with patience and tenderness, can withhold service as freely as perform it, and can serve by waiting in silence even.

There are many ways to serve of which you may not have thought before. Let me suggest just three.

• The service of not having our way. Sometimes we insist on doing things the way we have always done them, or being in charge of events to insure they go as we would prefer. Without intending, we can even quench the Holy Spirit of God as we insist on our preferences, rather than allowing God to do a “new thing” that changes the status quo we value. Dare we serve by allowing change?
• The service of hospitality. Invite someone to a few moments outside the rush and bustle of life. Your house doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to bake unless you want. You don’t even have to have them to your house – meet at a local restaurant, or park. Serve someone by giving them a few moments of your time!
• The service of letting others serve you. In so doing, you allow them to respond to God’s leading in their life. Be gracious! It is, in fact, arrogance to think that you are the only one who should get to experience the joy of serving others! Mutual acts of courtesy will knit us together and help us all mature in our faith.

Remember, Jesus said, “whatever you do of one of the least of these of mine, you did for me (Matthew 25:40), so it really is the Lord Jesus Christ you are serving (Colossians 3:24).

Serve the Lord with Joy!