For Matting. Who's Matting?

Service Sunday 2011. Poster by the
great Debbie Noffsinger

Service Sunday is a joint collaboration by BVS, BDM, and the Youth and Young Adult office of the church.
It's a chance to focus the entire congregation on the full body of service - there are many ways to give of yourself besides tithing and BVS. Because of my schedule, Highland Avenue had Service Sunday this past week. Us three volunteers were asked to lead worship, and give short meditations on service. Of course, I can't speak without having something written down, so what did I do? I blogged about it first! Then I forgot to actually post it until two days later :-(

For my portion, I also led the opening "call to worship." I started off pretty poorly:

God I don't like praying out loud. Most people wind up talking to the rest of the people in the room instead of actually praying. It's kind of annoying. Then they start using the 3rd person for you because they're not really talking to you anymore. But now I sound like a Pharisee. Great. I just want it to be meaningful, which means personal to me, but that's hard to do in a large group. How do I incorporate these 100 other people without letting them talk? Call and response is annoying because no one really means what they say; they're just reading it. So here's my feeble attempt at praying to you in front of a bunch of other people:

Isaiah 6 says:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Then I decided complaining about praying isn't a good way to pray in church. So I tried again.

God, we come to you today in worship. You are great, and we are each small. The whole earth is full of your glory: what can we say or do that will make us worthy of your love? We are of unclean lips, and yet we have experienced the divine. You have made us clean, Lord, and we give you praise. Now, give us the strength to spread the good news. God, help us be known not by the color of our robes or the books on our shelves, but the actions we take. Help us not to stop at saying "Here am I." Send us out, with fire and excitement!

Meditation:

The word "service" reminds me of an auto-mechanic. Probably because that's what my grandfather was. He taught his two sons the profession as they were raised, though only my uncle took it on as a career.

It's a very spartan, impersonal definition. People bring something that is broken, the mechanic fixes it, the owner pays and then leaves. It's about making things right, but something is missing; there's no heart - no chatting with the mechanic as he dissects the engine, no stories explaining the little dings in the fender or that one time the belt slipped on I-95.

In BVS we talk about cold climate vs. warm climate cultures. In a warm culture, people are friendly, get to know you, and always see how you're doing before getting down to business. Cold cultures are business-minded. No one wants to hear about your problems; just take my money and let me get on with the day. I am very much aware that I fall in the latter.

Even in college, when I signed up for Brethren Volunteer Service, my mindset was one of cold computed justice. I decided before graduating that I was being led to volunteer for a year in New Orleans. A hurricane had trashed things pretty thoroughly, and I would help fix it. Not because my heart bled for the recently homeless, but because something wasn't right but I could help fix it. Here I was, making a huge life decision - basically resigning to be selfless for a year or two - and it was more out of anger than compassion. At first, I tried to work as hard as I could, sometimes through lunch, and didn't get bogged down in survival stories or feelings or other human things.

I realized pretty quickly, though, that rebuilding people's homes is kind of hard to do without involving the people. They like to pick things like curtains and paint colors. Skipping lunch didn't help either. Slowly, over the next few months, the people wore on me. Or is it grew on me? Maybe both. I started to put tools down when the owner showed up. We'd talk; They'd tell their story and I'd just listen.

Work progressed more slowly, but, after being thanked by homeowners week in and week out, it started to dawn on me that something much greater than drywalling was going on here. People's lives were being transformed, healing was taking place and the only thing they could do was give back: cooking lunch for us, taking us to lunch, maybe cooking us another lunch that week. It was surreal. It was like they cared or something!

I don't think I'll ever understand what kind of an impact us volunteers had on the people we served; I think it's the kind of thing people write about and think they grasp before it happens, and they can't believe how amazing it really is. But I do know that the people I served and the experiences I had with them had an impact on me. A lot of people say "it's better to give than to receive" and "when you volunteer, you get more than you gave." Well, it's true I say!

The definition of service I hold has changed after a few years in Brethren Volunteer Service. Though I'm still cold-climate and task-oriented, I acknowledge that the reason for what I do must be love

1 Cor. 13:2-3 ... if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

So, every once in a while, I have to tell myself to stop and remember why I'm here, doing what I'm doing. Warm up a little bit, culturally. Service should be an attitude, a way of life, a lifestyle. Dying to yourself should be a decision that has an eternal impact.


So there you have it, friends. I am by no means a great orator or thought-provoking theologian. But I do know hot climate / cold climate like it's my job! Peace out,

Don