Mission Control | Serve

Today is the last in our three-part series on mission. We have been talking about the three key words of our mission statement here at Fellowship Church: love, grow, and serve. Today we pick up on what it means to be a follower of Jesus who serves others. Maybe you’ve heard of the term random act of kindness. In fact, according to the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation tomorrow—February 17—is Random Acts of Kindness Day. The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation provides a 2020 calendar to download from their website which has a suggestion of one kind act to do for someone else for each day of the year. Sometimes those stories of kindness pop up. Just this week, WOODTV8 did a little segment on someone locally here in West Michigan who performs these small random acts of kindness in a way that encourages others to pay it forward and repeat these acts with others.

These are examples of the ways we find to highlight the importance and positive effect of serving others. And sometimes serving other people can certainly present itself at random times and in random opportunities. But today I want us to take the idea one step further. Because a mission of serving means that our service is NOT random. Our acts of service to others is has purpose, it has a mission which is about more than just being a kind person who helps other people. So, today let’s consider the ways in which our acts of service move from random kindness to mission purpose.

Jeremiah 29:4–14 NIV

4 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” 8 Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. 9 They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord. 10 This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

Exposition

Living as those who serve others probably becomes the most convoluted part of our mission as followers of Jesus. By convoluted, I mean it is the one thing we do as Christians which loses its purpose and orientation quickly. And since this series is talking all about mission control, perhaps it is the mission of serving others that needs the greatest reminder of what it is that controls our mission of serving. Let’s think, then, about all the ways we make an exposition out of our service. We somehow make a show of it, let’s figure out what that is all about.

why do we make a show out of serving others?

highlight need and opportunity (good)

On one level, the exposition is not a bad thing. I mean, it seems like we are always highlighting the need for volunteers to sign up and be involved in something—to serve in some way. That’s not bad. It shows that there is an intentional push to meet the needs we identify around us and we are intentional about encouraging people to use their gifts of time and abilities to serve, to meet those needs. We cannot engage these acts of service unless we are highlighting the need and showing what a difference those acts of service make in the lives of our local community. After all, we want to know our service counts for something, accomplishes something.

check a box (bad)

But what happens when our acts of service then turn into something that just checks a box. I did my part. This pastor never seems to shut up about encouraging us to serve others; so, there you go, I did something to show that I contributed in some way. I don’t have to feel guilty about it anymore. It is amazing to me how much junk is donated into a thrift store like Good Will. Sometimes it’s junk that Good Will just has to put right in the dumpster, it could never go out onto the shelves in the Good Will store. And sometimes it’s piles of stuff that nobody actually needs, but we’re just looking to get rid of our old stuff in a way that makes us feel better about ourselves—maybe a little less guilty about the ways we are constantly making room to fill up our own houses with new stuff. Is there anyone who has ever gone to a Good Will store and asked the coordinators what kind of items they need more of? And then look for ways we can serve to meet the actual need?

why am I serving others? meeting a need or checking a box?

Sometimes it may be very important for us to take a step back and ask why it is we are serving in the first place. What is it we are trying to do? Who are we trying to help? What is our service for? Author Steve Corbett writes in his book When Helping Hurts about the ways we mean to do well, but actually can make things worse for those we are serving. It is definitely worth asking the question and considering why it is we serving and what it is we are hoping to accomplish by helping others.

Expectation

Expectations can be huge. Often it can be expectations that motivate and drive us. So often school graduation ceremonies fuel the notion that young people feel as though they can take on the world and do anything. They enter every contest with victory on their minds. I’m at the age where if I can leave the gym without getting hurt it’s a win. Expectations form and shape how we go about our activities.

what expectations do I have when serving others?

Serving other people is no different. We carry expectations into our acts of service. Sometimes we have clearly thought out those expectations and know exactly what it is we hope to see and accomplish. And sometimes we carry expectations that are unspoken and lurk just beneath the surface in ways that we might not be fully aware of. And it is these unintentional expectations that can sometimes cause more harm than good when our acts of service take a sour turn.

For quite a while now I have been leading a community Bible study at a local apartment complex here in Grandville. As I have been building relationship with the residents I am noticing an interesting pattern. You see, I am not there as a pastor from a local church. This is not a Bible study that is a ministry of this church or has any official connection to this church at all. In fact, there are two other local churches who host events at these apartments every month. And those events are sporadically and poorly attended. The people who meet with for Bible study do not go to those church-hosted events at the apartments, and here’s why. Those churches hold expectations that we want no part of. These are people who have been burned and hurt by a church before at some point. So they steer clear because they are always wondering, what do those churches really want? What do they really expect of me?

In my time as a hospital chaplain, I remember visiting a patient who was very polite and cordial, but also seemed very much like he was afraid of me and was anxious about me being in the room. So, I kept the visit short and told him I would be on my way and let him rest. But then he stopped me as I was turning to leave the room. “I thought you were just here to ask me for money” is what he said to me. In his experience, pastors and chaplains who represent the church are only trying to take money from people. He was waiting for that to happen. He was expecting me to launch into some sales pitch about needing a donation. Our encounters of serving other people are loaded with expectations that sometimes we know nothing about.

seek peace and prosperity of local community

peace = shalom FLOURISHING

How about it, then? What expectations do you carry into the acts of service which you provide? Because the people we serve are paying attention; they notice. Look again at what God tells the people of Israel through the prophet Jeremiah. “Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Peace and prosperity of the city, our local community of neighbors. We have talked before about this word peace. It is the Hebrew shalom and means flourishing. God is telling his people, your acts of serving others should be so that their lives may flourish and thrive in all the ways God has created life to flourish and thrive. Jesus says it this way in John 10,

John 10:10 NIV

10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

we serve so others may thrive in the shalom of God

Jesus is talking about shalom flourishing. We serve so that other people may know and experience the shalom of God in their lives.

That is the expectation I carry into the way I serve other people. I want you to have a life which thrives in every way God has created you to flourish as his beloved child. That is what I am after. This is what it means to seek the peace and prosperity of the city—the local community—of which you are a part.

Exile

There’s just one more detail in this passage that cannot be overlooked. God is sending this message to people in a place of exile. They are a displaced people in Babylon. It’s one thing to pray for the people I love; it’s one thing to serve the people I care about; it’s one thing to seek the peace and prosperity of those I adore; but it is another thing altogether to pray for, serve, and prosper those who I hold as enemies.

Jesus gives a similar instruction by telling a story about a Samaritan man who does not let the bitterness of ethnic rivalry get in the way of serving the one who is in need. I have to admit, I’ve gotten pretty good at only serving the people I want to serve while ignoring the people I would rather not serve. In fact, I’ve gotten so good at it that I hardly recognize anymore that I have become so selective in directing my service only to a chosen few.

Michael Harrington in his book The Other America notes how the Eisenhower Interstate Act changed the landscape of our communities in the 1950s. Suburban expansion took off in the 50s. And the creation of highways made it possible that we could travel by car to go past cities instead of through cities. Americans could travel by car right on by the slums and ghettos without actually having to go through them. Harrington argues that interstate freeways had the unintended consequence of making poverty invisible right in our own communities. We have cut ourselves off into a bubble from which we severed any real physical contact with those on the outside. We have cast them out of our sight. We have displaced them from our world. We have made them to be exiles right here in our own communities.

Jeremiah has a startling reminder for us today. We are the exiles. It is the followers of Jesus who pick up on the theme of those Old Testament Israelites who have been carted off to Babylon. We are the ones who now exist in a broken and fallen world in which we do not quite belong. We are the ones who long for Christ’s return to make all things new, just as the Israelites in Babylon longed for God to restore Jerusalem for their return. Have we forgotten this? Have we let go of the idea that Christians live in this world as exiles? It changes the way we look at our mission of serving others. Our acts of services are bended and warped when we live as those who forget what it means for us to live as exiles in a world which is not quite the place in which we belong. Oh, we still somehow know Christians are exiles, we just forget what it means to live as exiles. Let me give some examples.

the wrong way to live as an exile

mission: retreat

There are some who, then, bend their acts of service into a mission of retreat more than a mission of serving. Columnist Rod Dreher in his book The Benedict Option calls for Christians in America to essentially pull back into cultural monasteries, separate ourselves off from those in our communities who reject faith and turn away from God. his call for so-called “service” is to isolate further into a safe bubble and let the godless heathens of our communities destroy themselves while we focus on protecting the faithful.

The Benedict Option certainly acknowledges that we are exiles. It most assuredly points out that we are planted in a world into which we do not truly belong. However, the Reformed faith of John Calvin in which our church and tradition stands firmly rejects anything like retreating away from our surrounding culture. At the same time, we do not abandon all that our faith means to us and simply join along with anything and everything our broken world embraces. Our solution to exile is not complete assimilation. In a world like that, acts of service to others have no guide or direction at all. Is there another option? Is there something in the middle?

Look again at these words God speaks to exiles who find themselves in a world in which they do not really belong. “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.” (Jeremiah 29:5–6) It is not a Benedict Option of pull back and retreat. Jeremiah goes on—pray for this community, seek their well-being.

mission: surrender

Another possible way to live as an exile is surrender. Give up my faith and what I stand for and simply assimilate into the culture in which I have been carried off. Sometimes this may be the extreme case of turning away from God completely and abandoning all commitment to faith. But more often this happens in moments when we may get caught in situations where we simply leave our faith out of the equation. As an exile in a broken and fallen world, are there moments in which we choose to temporarily place our faith on hold, moments in which we all-to-quickly assimilate into the surrounding brokenness of our world? This may not be a whole-sale rejection of the gospel. Rather, it is a compartmentalization of life into categories. There are some areas of life into which my faith affirms my status as an exile. And then there are other areas of my life which surrender any sense of faith, into which faith makes no difference at all.

mission: conquer

Still another way to live as an exile is conquest. This seems to be a favorite of those who happen to find themselves with close ties to political power. When there is access to the means of control over other people, it starts to look rather appealing to go from being an exile into being the one in charge. The way to press influence is by power. Take over and dominate your enemy. beat them into submission and show them their place. In effect, turn the tables, take over, and make them the exile.

In this view of exile, God is not the one who does the rescuing, we do it ourselves by attacking and overcoming those who oppose us so that we become the ones in power and control. We do this by force, even violence if necessary. And if successful, we then no longer live as exiles who are forced under the control of a world which is against us. Then we get to be the ones in control who force others to live in a world which we set up to be by our own design.

These are all possible ways to respond to living as an exile. And these are all the wrong ways. The Bible gives us another path to follow.

the right way to live as an exile

mission: serve

We are called into a mission as the church of Jesus to serve our local community even though we are here as exiles. We reach out to those beyond our walls so that the lives of those apart from us may flourish with the peace of God. We make ourselves a part of this community not to blend in and become one with it, but to be used by God to lift up those who struggle to find the flourishing peace of God. It is not a mission of retreat; neither is it a mission of conquer. It is a mission of serving.

Jesus says it this way in Mark 10,

Mark 10:42–45 NIV

42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Remember how Jesus comes to us in his love and grace. Jesus did not embrace a mission of retreating from the sin which held our lives captive. Jesus did not embrace a mission surrender and give up on us. Jesus did not embrace a mission of conquest and destroy us in our broken sinfulness. Jesus embraced a mission of serving so that his shalom flourishing could take root in your life and renew your soul to grow in his love and grace. We may be exiles; but the shalom flourishing of God still shows up and changes lives in the people we are called to love and serve in this world today.