Loving and Serving Others: The Practice of Risk-Taking Mission and Service involves offering ourselves in purposeful service to others in need, making a positive difference even at significant personal cost and inconvenience to our own lives. We serve.
Loving and Serving Others: The Practice of Risk-Taking Mission and Service involves offering ourselves in purposeful service to others in need, making a positive difference even at significant personal cost and inconvenience to our own lives. We serve.
Loving and Serving Others: The Practice of Risk-Taking Mission and Service
Loving and Serving Others: The Practice of Risk-Taking Mission and Service
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Overview
Loving and Serving Others: The Practice of Risk-Taking Mission and Service involves offering ourselves in purposeful service to others in need, making a positive difference even at significant personal cost and inconvenience to our own lives. We serve.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781630883058 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Abingdon Press |
| Publication date: | 07/15/2014 |
| Series: | The Fruitful Living Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Sales rank: | 842,610 |
| File size: | 993 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Loving and Serving Others
The Practice of Risk-Taking Mission and Service
By Robert Schnase
Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2002 Eugene H. PetersonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63088-305-8
CHAPTER 1
WHY SERVE OTHERS?
For those who want to save their lives will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
—Mark 8:35
"Why would I want to do that?" Brad asked, at the prospect of getting up early on Saturday morning to join others from the church to prepare lunch for the homeless at a soup kitchen. "I've got my own things going on. I need time for myself and my family. And besides, what difference is it going to make, anyway?"
I've heard those questions spoken by others, and to be honest, I wrestle with them myself. They are not questions of planning and time management, but of spirit, focus, and purpose.
We live to ourselves. It is comfortable, safe, and natural to do so. We take care of our own. Instinct. Self-preservation. Love of family. Cocooning. Enjoying the fruits of our labor. These are important, and we don't need unearned guilt for wanting to rest on the weekend.
Each of us has a whole world of private concerns, personal passions, hobbies, entertainments, family responsibilities, and work obligations. The circle in which we live, work, and play is small, but intense, and important. And it is ours. Why give the time or make the effort to reach beyond our world to serve other people? And would it make any real difference, anyway?
Since time immemorial, prophets and religious leaders, philosophers and poets, reformers and civic leaders have taught the importance of helping those in need and directing our lives outward to make a difference in the world. They remind us to act with kindness, gentleness, and self-control in our everyday lives in the way we regard strangers. They teach us to interrupt our routines and suffer inconvenience to aid those who are in temporary distress, to tend the injured, comfort the bereaved, feed the hungry. They call us to more deliberate efforts to relieve suffering, protect the vulnerable, and respond to the human trauma of natural disasters with compassion and assistance. They prompt us to address social change, to confront unjust systems, to direct resources toward eliminating disease, and to hold purveyors of violence to accountability. A critical key to a life that is rich in purpose and that, in the end, we find satisfying, involves serving other people and making a positive difference in the world around us. But why is that? Why should we serve others? Why help?
This ethical consensus conflicts with other messages and myths that pervade our culture. "Look out for number one." "Love yourself first." "If we all pursue our own self-interests, the collective results help everyone thrive." "Helping people in need feeds dependency and squelches initiative." "It's survival of the fittest." "Taking care of me, my own family, and my own community comes first." "People are responsible for their own misfortunes." "Trying to help everyone takes us all down, and sinks the lifeboat." "It's not my problem." "One person's efforts make no real difference at all."
These attitudes influence us, even if we seldom articulate them so pointedly. Sometimes we act as if we believe that if we merely focus on our own personal circle—our work, our family, our homes—that the great issues of human suffering do not impact us, and that we have no role or responsibility. To avoid, deny, ignore, or blame others for the causes of suffering helps us live a carefree, less anxious life.
"Most people, given the choice between having a better world, or a better place within the world as it is, would choose the latter." This cynical analysis of the human condition, attributed to Ralph W. Sockman, captures the magnitude of the issue. Our energy naturally goes to making a better place for ourselves.
Society convinces us that this is the best way to care for ourselves and our families.
So, why serve others? Why work for a better world?
First, some people serve others out of a sense of duty, obligation, and responsibility. Helping others is imperative, and they serve others without regard to the personal cost or inconvenience. If the church needs volunteers at the soup kitchen, they show up. If a community agency needs coats for the poor, they dig through their closets and give what they can. When a hurricane devastates coastal homes, they contribute generously. Being part of the church team means they wear the uniform, show up for practice, and offer their best, and some become quite skilled at the tasks of helping others.
Imagine how it would change your life to take Jesus' commands seriously and to cultivate such trust that when Jesus says "do it," you would respond with complete and utter obedience. Jesus tells us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, welcome the stranger. Many people take those words at face value, and offer their best and highest, trusting that whether they enjoy the work or not, these are the right things to do. Following the imperatives of Christ becomes a way of life they adopt whole-heartedly. I've known lay prison chaplains, volunteers at homeless shelters, tutors of underprivileged children, directors of medical clinics, and workers with addicts for whom their initial motivation was simple and obvious: "Jesus tells me to do it, and so I do it."
Whatever inner spiritual work, personal passion, or satisfaction they enjoy are after-the-fact results of the activity rather than motivations that initially draw them in. Never underestimate the impact of people motivated by duty.
Second, there are those who serve because helping others contributes to the social fabric of human life. Living in this world requires an unspoken social contract that requires me to help you when you need it, trusting that you will help me when I need it.
Serving greases the machinery of social interaction and creates a sustainable mutuality that is essential for co-existence. If I care for you and you care for me, then both of us find ourselves cared for.
This motivation surfaces after catastrophes and natural disasters. People imagine their own home flooded, their own house on fire, their own school struck by violence, and they think of how devastating that would be and how deeply helpful the community would become for them. They gather around, and offer their best, even across great distances. However, the more remote the need, the more difficult it is to see the interconnections and the reciprocities that motivate courageous action to help. While I may be able to imagine my home burning down and temporarily depending upon other people, I may not be able to see myself as a homeless addict living on the streets of the inner city, or as a refugee starving in a camp on a foreign desert and so I may not see the connection between their lives and mine.
Third, some people discover that serving provides immeasurable personal satisfaction for themselves. They like the way it feels to know that the work they have done, a project they have sponsored, or a policy they have supported has truly relieved suffering, or improved the conditions of people in need. As one person says, "I like myself better and I'm happier when I help others in concrete ways." Making a difference enriches our lives, adds an element of enchantment and adventure and satisfaction that other activities cannot match.
The Holy Spirit purifies all of these motivations when we serve others with the right spirit and focus genuinely on meeting human needs in ways that respect recipients and serve the purposes of Christ.
Need-focused service and passion-driven commitment do not necessarily conflict. In Wishful Thinking, Frederick Buechner describes God's call to service and ministry as "the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."
Picture a graph-like matrix. Along the left side of the graph are all the deep human needs, sufferings, and challenges that require bold and courageous service. These are the things God needs people to work on.
Along the bottom of the graph are all the particular gifts and passions that characterize our life. These things personally motivate us. Somewhere on the graph, unmet needs intersect with our own personal passions, and that's where we find ourselves offering effective help. That's where we take our place in God's service, making a difference in ways we find satisfying.
If someone responds only to needs for which they have no passion, they work slave-like for purposes that do not compel them.
On the other hand, if they disregard the world's needs, and only do what they want to do, then they risk offering ministry that is irrelevant for God's purposes, and they serve themselves rather than responding to God's call.
Out of Touch with Reality?
* * *
Philosophers ponder the question of why a stranger walking by a burning building and hearing the cry of someone inside would put his life at risk to enter the building to try to save a person he does not know.
Think about this with me. The stranger who responds puts everything on the line in that moment. He places at risk his entire future—seeing his children graduate and grow to adulthood, holding in his hands his own grandchildren, decades of future earnings and support for his family, years of affectionate partnership with his wife, all that he might accomplish at work and in the community for the remainder of his natural life. In a split-second decision to enter the burning building, he puts all this at risk for a person he does not know and without regard as to whether the person deserves it or not, is healthy or sick, lives with riches or in poverty, or whether the person's prospects for the future are positive or negative. Why does he do it? Is he out of touch with reality?
In that critical moment of pure insight and absolute choice, the person is not out of touch with reality. In that moment the person perceives the truest reality of all, that our lives are interconnected, that our futures are intertwined with one another, and that we are ultimately one. In moments of such revelation, we see so clearly that we are propelled to the highest and truest of responses. If I let you die, I kill something inside myself.
Ultimately people are not isolated egos, separate and self-absorbed, capable only of self-preservation. I do not live in a universe occupied only by myself. We are one; we belong to one body. In theological terms, you belong to me and I belong to you because we both belong to God. You are my sister or brother and I am yours because God gives both of us life and loves us both unconditionally and completely. God's grace laces our lives inextricably together. When I perceive that reality, I can do no other than to try to help you. In the bold, risky, sacrificial action of entering a burning building to aid a stranger, we witness a raw distillation of the impulses toward what is true. We willingly pour ourselves out because no other way ultimately leads to life.
The deeper truth that we see so clearly in dramatic life-and-death events is one we intuitively perceive in our daily lives and non-critical moments, and this leads us to pour out our lives in small ways each day in service to our families, our children, our communities, and even to strangers. A well-lived life that is in touch with reality involves sacrificing ourselves in the daily care of our children, the love of a spouse, the care of a neighbor, and the service to strangers, each day giving parts of ourselves up and losing our lives for others. Nothing sustains the flourishing of life and spirit like genuinely pouring ourselves into the lives of others. This does not diminish life; it fulfills it. This is love.
On September 11, 2001, the United States experienced unfathomable pain and loss with the deaths of innocent people. In the countless heroic stories of people who sacrificed their lives to save others, the world also perceived a glimpse of the reality of human connection that was sharper and more focused than we usually see. The tragedy provoked a reality check for countless people, causing them to explore profound questions, such as "Who am I? Who is important to me? How am I related to the people around me? What really matters?" In the brokenness, violence, and grief, we also saw more clearly than usual what is sustaining and trustworthy.
REFLECTION
For those who want to SAVE THEIR LIFE will LOSE IT, and those who LOSE THEIR LIFE for MY SAKE, and for the SAKE OF THE GOSPEL, will SAVE it.
—Mark 8:35
Questions
* * *
• Who taught you to value serving others? How did you learn to serve? Who modeled the life of service for you?
• What's your earliest memory of helping others as an expression of your faith?
• What motivates you to serve, to relieve suffering, or to seek justice? Do you delight in doing good?
• What particular gifts, abilities, or experiences prepare you to make a positive difference personally or in your community?
• Where do the world's unmet needs intersect with your own personal passion?
Prayer
* * *
Help me forget myself enough to truly help others. Shape my worries into prayers and my prayers into practices that serve your purposes as I serve others.
CHAPTER 2AN ESSENTIAL TRUTH
Hundreds of scriptural stories reveal this essential truth that our lives are interwoven, and that we discover ourselves fully in giving ourselves to others. Paul writes, "We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's" (Romans 14:7-8).
Scripture suggests that to encounter Jesus Christ face-to-face in the most tangible way, the whole reality he embodies, involves serving another person by relieving suffering through feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, and welcoming the stranger. "I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40, The Message).
Serving others does not merely involve helpful activities that make a difference; Christ-like service helps us become the persons God created us to be. It fulfills God's hope and will for us.
Do we really believe that the ultimate revelation of the heart of God is the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Was Jesus out of touch with reality when he embraced the lepers, interceded to protect the vulnerable, healed the blind, took the role of a servant and knelt before his disciples to wash their feet, welcomed the children, ate with tax collectors, told stories about a Samaritan assisting a foreigner, and taught his followers to visit the imprisoned? Or was Jesus in touch with the truest reality of all? Do we believe Jesus was leading us toward a flourishing life with these practices, or carelessly leading us astray?
By serving others, we bear witness that Jesus' reality is true, that fullness is discovered in the giving and not in the taking, that abundance is found in loving rather than in fearing, that happiness comes in opening ourselves rather than by closing ourselves off.
CHANGING THE WORLD
The real you, your true self, is discovered in letting Christ lead you into serving others with compassion. In serving, we mediate the grace of God. The unsolicited, unconditional love of God that we receive flows through us to others. God's purpose permeates us. As God's love runs through us, we see Jesus Christ more clearly; we work with him and he works through us. Serving puts Jesus' love into practice, and the ultimate reality we see in Christ becomes tangible once again, revealed as a force and power in the world. Serving others, we live the truth.
Separateness, suspicion, distance, fear, and estrangement pale when set alongside the generative, creative power of God's Spirit. We are made separate by fear; by grace, our lives are inextricably interwoven. We can serve out of sheer obedience or out of a sense of mutual obligation, or because we find meaning in it. The bottom line remains: in Christ, human suffering requires response.
Ultimately, the practice of compassionate service in Christ's name grows from interior decision, a spiritual reorientation. As our life with God becomes more vibrant, dynamic, and real, we discover that we can choose to stand in a place of love, of hope, and of risk with an outward-focused posture; or we can choose to stand in a place of fear, defensiveness, protection, and self-absorption. Our hearts turn outward toward others and follow Jesus toward them, or we focus inwardly and away from others and go our own way. The more consciously aware we become of our interior life with God, the better choices we make. Growing closer to God draws us closer to one another.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Loving and Serving Others by Robert Schnase. Copyright © 2002 Eugene H. Peterson. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
The Fruitful Living Series,Why Serve Others?,
An Essential Truth,
Training the Heart,
Social Witness,
Leader Helps,
Notes,