2021 10 24 Sermon

Sermon for October 24, 2021 Sermon Series: Week 3 House of Prayer Lutheran Church

“The Walk: Serving Others” Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

Mark 10:35-52; Micah 6:6-8; Psalm 116

The words serve, serving, service, or servant appear over 1,000 times in the Bible. I kind of get the feeling that God is trying to tell us something! In today’s gospel James and John were tempted to follow Jesus for the potential to achieve personal glory. The other ten disciples got mad at them when they heard about James and John’s request. Was this because the other ten disciples knew James and John were not exhibiting a servant’s heart, or because they hadn’t thought of asking for personal glory first? In response Jesus teaches: “Whoever wishes to be great must be a servant…for the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus doesn’t expect or want any of us to try to be a Messiah in his place--but he has given us his Spirit to that we can reflect his grace in our own small ways to others. I was thinking back over some of the opportunities in my own walk with Christ where I’ve been a servant. And that’s the thing—when you offer yourself in service to others, these experiences tend to stick with you. Again, I feel like God is trying to tell us something! One experience I had, when I was in high school or college, was at a homeless ministry back at my home church where I grew up in Queens, NY. Once a month, ten homeless men would arrive at the church by van. Church members would cook a meal and eat with them, set up cots with blankets for them to sleep on, and provide personal care products. The men would have a warm and safe place to stay for a night.

I had not been involved in this ministry, until they were short-handed one week. They invited me, and I agreed to sleep overnight in the church building along with the homeless men, just to make sure everything was alright and check on things through the night. They set me up in the church office with a cot, and gave me my instructions. It was an uneventful night, and in the morning I chatted with some of the men during breakfast. One of them showed me an order form for some kind of gift item with classic Looney Toons characters. He asked me, “Do you think I should get this for my kids? I mean, these are classics!” It’s such a brief and random conversation to remember all these years later, but I think it stuck with me because this was the first time I looked at homeless people, not as stereotypes who I wanted to avoid, but as actual regular people. Like this guy who had children, and he just wanted to do something nice for them. Like people who had lives, and stories, and families, who were capable of kindness and decency. When I got home, I remember my parents telling me how proud they were that I had served in this way. I felt good about it, but I didn’t feel like I had done very much. Instead, I had received from these men, probably without them even knowing it. I received a better understanding of the brokenness in society, of what these men had to go through to try to get back on their feet, of the people who wanted to help them, and basically just more empathy for the setbacks people go through in life.

And this reveals a key point that Adam Hamilton makes in his book The Walk (p.67): “God’s primary way of working in the world is through people.” God chooses people and uses people, like you and me, and even ten homeless men, to heal the world, help others, repair things that just aren’t right, and bring new sight to the blindness we each carry within ourselves—and God works all of this within us by calling us to serve others.

Throughout the Bible, we can read descriptions of things that break God’s heart. Violence and evil, lies and dishonesty committed against others. Pain, brokenness, poverty. God sent prophets again and again to call us to speak up for the vulnerable, for those who are taken advantage of, for those who are trapped by systemic injustice. There are so many things—back then, and still today—that need to be made right. So God sent Jesus to make things right. Jesus accepted all of the injustice, and brokenness, and pain; all of the violence and evil and lies; he took all of human sin upon himself by going to the cross. He gave his life for us, and rose again with new life and salvation, so that we might come to have true life by following him and his way.

I know that many of you have had a taste of serving others, or have been served by others yourself, and learned firsthand of how God works in the world through people. Sometimes these experiences might give you a new ability to see a reality you had once been blind to, or you might even find your life to be radically changed. Probably most of them time, it’s not so dramatic—but that doesn’t mean it’s not significant. Maybe you’ve been on a youth mission trip, or made quilts to send to Lutheran World Relief, volunteered at a food pantry, or raked leaves and did yard work for elderly neighbors. Maybe you helped build a ramp so a disabled man could easily leave his house. Maybe you are trying to figure out what to do with the “Seeds of Love” money that we distributed a couple weeks ago or how to partner with others. Maybe you prayed for and supported someone who is sick, anxious, depressed, or living with grief. All of these, and more, reflect the grace of God first given to us through Jesus Christ, who came not to be served but to serve.

In Psalm 116 the Psalmist asks the question, “What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me?” To answer that, let’s look at a Hebrew word that’s used over 240 times in Old Testament, “hesed”. This one word is translated in several ways: kindness, steadfast love, faithfulness, mercy, grace. This one word points to what is central in our Christian faith: we are saved not by works, but by grace—the grace embodied in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Because we are saved by grace, therefore God frees us to offer our own “hesed” to others. We return kindness, grace, and mercy to God by serving others with kindness, grace, and mercy.

The opportunity to serve others (or to be served by others) is a God-given gift, and we can even benefit from it in surprising ways. The Mayo Clinic did a study of those who volunteered to serve others. They found that volunteering led to reduced risk of depression, lower stress levels, and greater physical and mental fitness. Another study by sociologists followed 2,000 people over the course of 5 years, and they found that those who reported being “very happy” over that 5-year span volunteered an average of 6 hours per month! Once again, I feel like God might be trying to tell us something—he created us so that serving others would be our way of life. Serving others is the way God works through people to bless and heal; it opens our eyes, like blind Bartimaeus in today’s gospel, so we can rise up and see the presence of Jesus in our midst, and follow him on his way.

Serving others is something we have to learn and practice. There is more than one way to serve others, and most of the kindnesses we offer others is done in small ways. So once again, like we’ve done the past couple weeks, hold up your hand. With one hand, clench your fingers together, as a reminder of the importance of serving with others. Then with the other hand, look at your five fingers. Let each finger be a reminder to do five small acts of kindness each week. Adam Hamilton points out in his book that the average church in the United States has 50 people. Multiply 50 people, times 5 acts of kindness, times 52 weeks, and that’s 13,000 acts of kindness per year that the average church is capable of, at minimum! Is 13,000 enough to make an impact in helping and healing our community in the way of Christ? You bet it is! Amen.