Sunday Worship 14 June | Serving Others

Philippians 2:1-11

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing    by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself  by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place    and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Today we come to the penultimate of our holy habits, serving others. I didn’t think twice about putting it on the list, but then I sat down to write this reflection, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say about it. It just seemed so obvious that serving others is a holy habit, that it must be part of a life that seeks to honour God and follow Christ and embrace the Spirit, that it shouldn’t really need saying. And then I remembered Tommy Robinson and Russell Brand and Mike Pilavachi and all those others who profess faith but act in ways that are entirely self-serving, who wear Christianity like a mask because they think it gives them authority or absolution or power but have not allowed it to transform their souls. Perhaps serving others is not as obvious as I thought it was.

I’m not suggesting that anyone here needs convincing of the merits of serving others, but I do think we have to recognise the reputational damage that self-serving Christians have done to the gospel. People see megachurch pastors putting helipads on their mansions while they close their doors to displaced communities, and they see churches accepting huge donations from powerful people in the right wing media, and they see clergy closing ranks to protect one another and leave their victims out in the cold, and they ask what kind of God it is that they are serving.

It is tempting to say that these people are not really Christian, and try to shrug them off as nothing to do with us, but while they blaspheme the name of Christ, they are everything to do with us. We must condemn the false prophets of our age. And we must counter the arrogant and selfish faith they demonstrate with humble and generous faith of our own. The risk if we do not is too great. People walk away from the church thinking they are walking away from God, when the truth is that the church has hidden God from them. We have to live a better way and speak a better word. I’m getting ahead of myself though, because speaking out is our focus for next week.

I’ve come in quite heavy, and perhaps that wasn’t what you expected from a reflection on serving others. It took me by surprise too, but sometimes you just have to go with it! Let's try and get to some more expected territory now. We talked last week about how we live ethical lives, and serving others is one of the fundamental moral imperatives of scripture.  It is at the core of the laws in the Torah, even if it is sometimes worked out in ways that look a little strange from our own cultural perspective. It is the cry of the prophets, who again and again call the people to defend the vulnerable and speak up for the powerless. And Jesus held it to be the second of the great commandments, along with loving God.

Of course the language Jesus used was that of loving neighbours rather than serving others, but surely they are the same thing. The feminist scholar bell hooks wrote that “the word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet we would all love better if we used it as a verb”. It is something we do, something we choose, and so it must be worked out in action, in service. And when Jesus was pushed on the definition of 'neighbour', he told the story of the Good Samaritan to show that it is anyone who is in need, that is 'others'. To put it simply, serving others is how we live out the command to love our neighbour.

But Jesus didn’t just tell the story, he lived it. As the reading from Philippians reminded us, we serve others in imitation of Christ, who humbled himself even though it cost him greatly. It is as we follow in the way of Christ that we learn how to “value others above [ourselves], not looking to [our] own interests but each of [us] to the interests of the others”.

How then do we serve others out in the big wide world? I lost track of the number of times I was told during training for ministry that sermons should have a practical application, a neatly packaged take away for the coming week, but that’s not how I tend to preach, because I don’t think preachers are meant to do all of the work for us. My part is to make you think, not tell you what to think. I am here to encourage you to action, not tell you how to act. And so I am reluctant to give you a to do list of ways you might love your neighbours this week, because I kind of think you have to figure it out for yourselves.

So instead of advice, I offer some questions. Who are the people around you? What is that they need and what is it that you can offer?  And here are some more questions, this time from priest and theologian Henri Nouwen: “Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone's face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.”