I learned about service one Friday morning high in the mountains of Yemen
just as the Muezzins began calling the faithful to prayer.
Bang! Our truck hit a rock and we slammed to a stop. There was an angry hiss and
as we scrambled out, the truck began to list drunkenly to one side. It wasn’t until we
went to the trunk and saw the empty tool-kit shaped hole that we remembered the
first rule of borrowing a car in this country: always check it first before leaving the city.
This was a cell-phone free land and anyway, who would we have called? The nearest
AAA man was a world away.
Just then we saw a disturbance high on the track above, a cloud of dust that rolled
down and pulled up beside us. As it cleared, an old Landcruiser the color of the desert
with a bullet hole in the windshield appeared. The doors burst open and four Qabilis,
men of the mountains with wild hair and wilder eyes, jumped out. They pushed us
aside, changed our wheel, jumped back into their car and roared off anxious to get to
the midday prayer. The driver held up his hand and waved until the dust filled the air
and swallowed the car.
Like the Good Samaritan they did not pass by. They asked neither for money nor
thanks. It made me wonder why they helped us. And that is the point. When we serve,
which after all, is nothing more, or rather nothing less, than love in action, people
wonder about the condition of our hearts. They ask about the inspiration behind the act.
It is clear then that the works and the words, the good deeds and the good news go
hand in hand. At the heart of every act of service, no matter how insignificant or
mundane, lies an opportunity to spread the gospel. The actual work, packing medical
supplies, driving someone to an appointment, cooking a meal is important and the
recipients appreciate what is being done, but it is getting them to ask, even if they only
ask themselves, what lies behind it that is fundamental. The doing is critical; the sharing
is vital.
Christ made this explicit when He told His disciples to let their “light shine before men,
that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” He knew that
an act of kindness may have more power to illuminate a dull human heart and fill it with
the light of God’s love than all the sermons in the world. During His short life, the people,
reluctant to believe, asked Him for a sign and so He healed them when they were sick,
fed them when they were hungry, brought wine when they were thirsty and brought
peace when they were troubled. They began to ask, themselves and one another, who
is this man and why does He do these things?
As disciples we want to be like Christ. Indeed, He directed us to learn from Him. And, if
we do as we are bid, we learn that service is fundamental to a true follower of Christ. He
is not asking us to do anything He has not already done before us. “The Son of Man
did not come to be served, but to serve.” It is not a choice; it is an obligation, a
commission that comes directly from Him. “As my Father sent me, so I am sending you.”
It seems that there are two problems with service to the modern mind. The first is humility.
This is a difficult quality to embrace in a culture that values arrogance as an antidote to
low self-esteem. Having the most money, the biggest car, the best job are the things to
which we as a society aspire. There are no paparazzi hanging around trying to get a
photograph of the man with the most humility; we don’t value that enough to put him on
the cover of People magazine. It is a wrench to set aside the things that we have
learned to want and to focus on the things that we do not yet know that we need.
As disciples, we have to put ourselves under Christ’s authority and accept that it is He,
and not we, who is at the center of our lives.
The second problem lies in words like Service and Missions. I use capital letters because
that’s the way they appear to us. Large, important and overwhelming. To be undertaken
only by those equipped with theological diplomas and medical degrees and money and
time and talent and a really strong vocation! We need to modernize our idea of mission
work, tweak our concept of service and trust in God.
For some reason, a picture of Moses always comes into my mind when I hear the word
“Mission”. His was a life of service and I am daunted by its magnitude. Then I remember
that God has seen my shoe collection and knows that I am simply not up to wandering
barefoot for forty years in the desert. Just as He knows my shortcomings, He also knows
my skills and will find ways to use them if I look for opportunities to serve Him.
With a humble heart and the knowledge that you are called to do it, seek to serve in
small ways and trust that God will use your skills and talents wisely. Changing a wheel
doesn’t demand a degree, but it had the power to unlock a mind. Look at the small acts
that live in your daily lives and do them in the spirit of service. They are tiny seeds that
may one day grow into mighty trees if the soil is fertile and they are well-tended. The
gardening can be left safely in God’s hands.
