Service and Sign (Lent 3)

We’re continuing in our Lenten study of spiritual disciplines. We began two Sundays ago by talking about fasting, and noting that fasting in the Scriptures is about preparation for mission—for service. Rachel spoke last week about Sabbath and rest. At one point she used the image of the “intermission,” in a hockey game. Do you remember why teams have intermisssions? Teams need to recharge—they cannot be on the go all the time. They need to rest to be ready to go for the net period. They need to regroup—make adjustments, repairs, listen to the coach (Ray, that was a great point!), again, to be ready to go out for the next period.  

Over at Whitewater, we spoke of Sabbath as a gift given by God to his redeemed people. A gift that freed them from constant work to live life with God (for God rested on the seventh day) and to live in tune with creation (God consecrated the seventh day and made it holy). And we wondered how our disposition toward rest might change were we to receive it as a gift, rather than a burden. Sabbath, though, is not only a gift to be received by God’s people. It is one also to be shared with all people. Remember the Sabbath commandment in Deuteronomy? When you rest, rest in such a way that no one else has to be a slave for you! In other words, share your freedom. Share the gift of rest! 

So, two sermons, to images. Sabbath as rest for return to the work of mission—which is no doubt right. And Sabbath as a gift to be given away—which is the mission to which we are called. Both come together in our third discipline today: service. Let’s think about three questions this morning—What is Christian service? How do Christians serve? And why do Christians serve? 

To get at the first question I want to take a little detour. Will you come with me? 

Looking at monasticism—the life of monks and nuns—is not something we usually do. In fact, as a result of our Reformation heritage in general and our decidedly Orange heritage in this region of the Ottawa Valley, we tend to look at them rather suspiciously if we look at them at all. While perhaps inevitable, it’s not entirely fair. And I’d like us to look at two very different monastic orders briefly this morning to see what they have to teach us about what Christian service is. 

First, let’s look at the Order of the Cistercians of the Strict Observance. That’s a mouthful isn’t it? But if you ever read a book by an author with OCSO after his name, you now know what it means. Their founding monastery is in La Trappe, France and so they are more likely to be called Trappists. The monks and nuns of this order are cloistered, or enclosed. They are closed off from the world. They take strict vows of stability—they will not move from their monastery—fidelity to monastic life—they will follow the rules of their order—and obedience—they will do what they are told by their superiors. If you know anything about Trappists at all, it’s likely that they also take a vow of silence. That, though, is not true. Their life together warns of idle talk, and so it might look to us, surrounded incessantly by noise, like silence. But it isn’t.  

Their life of service is a life of prayer. Their communities are self-sustaining; they rely on manual labour to produce either what they need or what they can sell to obtain what they need to live together. Otherwise, they pray. Early morning prayer, morning prayer, Noontime prayer, Evening Prayer, Night Prayer. Pray. Pray. Pray. Their service is prayer. 

On the other hand, we can also talk about the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Theresa of Calcutta. Like the Cistercians, they do pray in a structured way regularly; far more often than lay people. Unlike them, they are not cloistered or enclosed. They are in the public to serve. They exist as the result of the call of Our Lord to a little Albanian nun to make Christ known to the poorest of the poor. And that is what they do. Like the Trappists, they take vows—they are quite similar, in fact. Like them, they worship and pray. Unlike them, however, their life of prayer is a life of service. They began in the backstreets of Calcutta, in living conditions that are unimaginable. Mother Theresa’s first home was called a home for the dying—nothing romantic about the service offered there! 

So what is Christian service? Well, Christian service is anything offered to God for God’s glory, offered to Christ out of love for him and for his world, any service undertaken at the prompting and in the power of the Holy Spirit that falls between Trappist-like contemplation and Theresa-like action. Now, here’s the question for you. Do you fit on that continuum somewhere? Good. Welcome to Christian service.   

This brings us to our second question: How do Christians serve? There are two ways to think about this question. The first has to do with prayer. I wonder whether, when in our prayers we talk with God about our service, we ask the wrong question. Henry Blackaby, in his book, Experiencing God says that far too often, Christians ask a version of this question of God: “What do you want me to do for you?” And then are frustrated when no clear answer is given. He suggests—wisely, I think—that no clear answer is given because it is the wrong question. A better question, he says, is this one: “What are you already doing?” 

That’s a better question because it acknowledges the priority of God’s agenda, not ours. How often, when we ask God what He wants us to do, do we really mean, please bless what we have in mind already. I’ve done that. Have you?  

That’s a better question to ask because it acknowledges God’s action, not ours. God is already at work. Not just in the world, but here in Shawville. And at all places in between. What does Jesus say to his critics in John 5? My father is always at work and I too am working. God is at work here and now. He is not waiting for us. He does not depend on us. We will not bring in the kingdom as part of our service strategy so that we can show it off to God on the last day and wait for our hard earned rewards. God is at work. God will bring in his kingdom. And God draws us, the body of Christ—the extension of the work of his Son in our time and space—into that ongoing work. When we ask, where God are you at work, we are expecting God not only to show us, but to draw us in to that same work. 

That’s the first way to think about this question. We serve by coming into and sharing in the work of God that was begun before us, is going on around us, and will continue after we’re gone.  

Here’s the second way. How do Christians serve? We serve by becoming ourselves. What on earth does that mean? Last week, Rev. Billy Graham entered into the presence of God. He once said that the first question he would ask Jesus when he met him was why God chose a farm boy from North Carolina to preach to so many people. Part of the answer, it seems to me, is because in God’s ongoing work, no one else was fit for the job. Only Billy Graham could be Billy Graham.  

So, it’s not up to me to “wait on the Lord” for some sort of supernatural gifting that makes me a different person from the one I am right now. Does God want to equip, improve, gift, enable? Absolutely. But that work is not an overturning of the person you are; it is an intensifying of it. Your service is not “on hold” until you become Billy Graham. It’s never on hold. When you dare to ask God, “Where are you at work?” God will both show you and draw you into that work because you’re you and not someone else. And in that service, you will become even more you and not someone else.  

John Henry Cardinal Newman put it this way: “God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments. Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.” 

Finally, why do Christians serve?  

In our Gospel this morning, the Jewish leadership asked again for a sign. That’s a loaded word in the Gospel of John. It is John’s word for miracle. The other Gospels use a different word altogether: a mighty work or a work of power. For John, the seven miracles are signs—they reveal the identity of Jesus. Water into wine, healing the official’s son, restoring the withered arm, feeding the 5000, walking on water, restoring the blind man, and the raising of Lazarus. All wonderful stories. But the point of each is not the miracle, but he who did it. “He revealed his glory; and his disciples believed.” 

In our story today, the Jewish leadership ask again for a sign. And now Jesus looks ahead to the greatest sign. The fulfilling of his hour, about which he speaks throughout the Gospel. The hour of his glory. The hour when the whole world will see the glory that is the Son’s from all eternity. He says, “I will destroy this Temple and in three days raise it up,” in reference not to Herod’s building, but to his own body. His own life. He will lay down his life; it will not be taken from him. He will give it as a gift for the sake of the world. AND he will take it up again. For those believe—whether they have seen or not—this is THE sign that authorizes Jesus’s words.  

Now, friends, the world today and we today do not see Jesus. What do we see? We see his body. We. See. Us. We are the Temple built up after three days. We are the sign intended to provoke the world to inquire after, test, prove even Jesus’s words given in the pages of Holy Scripture. We are the work of God made visible. We are the mission of Christ, directed in the power of the Spirit by Him who is our head.  

That’s why we serve. Whatever our service is, whether it skews toward contemplation or toward action, whether it is small and behind the scenes or large and upfront, whether it is our vocation or our a-vocation, whether it is our paying job or our volunteer efforts, THAT is why we serve. We serve as a continuation of the service of him to came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. 

In the weeks that remain for this Lent, here’s some homework for some of you.  

(1) Ask God, where are you at work? And expect God to show you. 

(2) When God does, get on board with it. 

(3) As you get on board, remember, God has entrusted you with this task because no one else has the gifts or skills to do it; remember you are the sign given that the world might see Christ and believe.