Christian Practice #9: Serve Others

Text: Matthew 17:1-9, The Transfiguration

Last year the Vestry surveyed the leadership and a variety of representatives from our congregation in what is called a “Mutual Ministry Review.” In that review members rated, among other things, our strengths and weaknesses as a congregation. The primary weakness and complaint that was received above others from that review was that we lacked the volunteers we needed to fully accomplish our ministry. Even though we have seen a rise in attendance in worship, there is still a big gap in terms of service and involvement beyond that.

With Lent nearly here, starting this Wednesday with Ash Wednesday, this is the time to prepare and decide on a Lenten discipline. What will you give up? What will you take on? Hopefully the practices of Lent will enrich the rest of your year and will ultimately carry you more deeply into your spiritual life and your relationship with the Lord. Our ninth practice from our Guide to Christian Practices is “Serve Others.” I’d like everyone to consider this practice more deeply as we enter Lent, given the feedback we received in our ministry review.

I think we are all, like Peter in our Gospel lesson from Matthew, tempted to set up camp, basically pitch our tents on the mountaintops of our lives, be that in worship or wherever we experience God. Peter, James and John had hiked up a high mountain to be alone with Jesus and had this amazing spiritual experience of Jesus’ transformation and seeing Moses and Elijah. Peter decided that this was the ultimate and was ready to camp there indefinitely. But this wasn’t what was meant to be and Jesus had to bring them all back down the mountain after that mystical experience, to go do what they were meant to do as servants of God. This event on the mountaintop occurred right before Jesus’ final days, when he would soon face betrayal, arrest, beating, the crucifixion and death. This was essential to Jesus’ life and ministry, this was the work God had given him to do. The transfiguration was a necessary preparation for the hard work of this ministry. Like Jesus and the disciples, we too have to make our way down the mountain to do the work of ministry and serve others.

Serving others can take so many forms, but it is something we’re all called to do and it is an essential part of the Christian life, even if it is not fashionable within our culture, where self-centered rules the day. And we have many so many opportunities to serve every day, and even right here at St. Alban’s.

In our 2009 Stewardship Time and Talent Survey the Vestry and I identified a number of service opportunities in the areas of Adult Education, Children & Youth Ministry, Communications, Church Governance, Finance, Fundraising & Fellowship, Hospitality, Human Resources, Pastoral Care, Outreach, Property, Stewardship, and Worship. Does anyone want to guess how many individual opportunities for service and ministry we identified? (95) That’s nearly 100 things you could do to serve others, just at St. Alban’s alone. Don’t let that overwhelm you though.

We don’t need you doing 100 things, as we discussed at our Vestry retreat last week, we just need every member, which is over 100 adults, to commit to about 2 things beyond morning worship, and then we would have all the volunteers and help we need to really thrive in our current ministries and make a difference, far beyond what we’re doing today.

So some examples: You could join and be committed to the Choir & Coffee Hour, or Sunday School and the Lenten Study, or being a Money Counter and a Sewing Sister, or do bake sales and Vacation Bible School or serve on Vestry and the Worship Remix, or the Prayer Chain and Stewardship, or the Refugee Ministry and the Altar Guild. The possibilities go on and on, and we haven’t even begun to talk about things we could do to serve beyond the ministries that are here at St. Alban’s.

My concern is that too many of us are getting stuck on the mountaintops and not making our way back down the mountain to serve regularly, in a committed way.

On the one hand, I want to say with Peter, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.” It IS good for us to be here together on Sunday mornings as a community and it essential to us as members of Christ’s Body. At the same time, we have to hold out the vision of what our lives are meant to be in God’s eyes, way beyond this morning.

A Rector I used to work with always dismissed the congregation by saying, “This service has ended, your service has begun” to which we yelled, “Thanks be to God!” and I would chuckle because it sounded like we were thanking God that the worship service was finally over, but in reality, we should be grateful that, having been fed here with one another’s presence and in the Eucharist, we can leave and get back out into the world to serve. Archbishop William Temple once said: “The church is the only organization in the world that exists solely for the benefit of its non-members.“ Let me repeat that: “The church is the only organization in the world that exists solely for the benefit of its non-members.”

We do tend to get that backwards, including me: we tend to think that the church exists just for us, who are here. But when we fall into that trap, we are totally missing Jesus’ entire life, ministry, and message. The Church’s life, like Christ’s, is lived totally and completely for the wider world, in order to reconcile all people to the love of God. We do not exist as a church for our own benefit, even though there are many benefits to being a part of the Church.

It is good for us to be here. It is even better for us to be here and out there, down the mountain, serving others, because we are Christ’s hands in the world.