This morning, as we are facing Remembrance Day, I invite us to ponder briefly on a life of service: what it means to serve, what it means to be served, what it means to offer our service to others, to the world, and most importantly: to God.
Service is knowing what you have to offer, and then offering it freely. It is not about parades and fancy attire, it is not about social status or recognition.
Service is taking all that you have, and all that you are, even when - especially when - you don't want to or feel you can't - and giving it for the benefit of others.
Service is not a demonstration of giving a portion of what we have, service is living a radical generosity whereby everything we do speaks to what is living within us.
Service is throughout today's texts; from Ruth giving her child to her mother-in-law to raise as her own; to the labourers who toil for the sake of the Lord’s house – and household- in the Psalm; to Paul reminding the Hebrews that Christ offered himself to bear our sins; to Jesus' teaching of the poor widow giving all she had.
Service is not something to be remembered just one day, but to be lived all the time. It is not something that only happens in a uniform, it is something that we are called to wear in our hearts. it is not something that we do, it is a full expression of who we are: as we strive for peace and justice, as we remember all who serve to bring about the kingdom, and as we commit to be the ones who serve for the love of God.
In Remembering, we are invited to re-member. To bring back into one all who are divided: all who have distanced, all who have departed.
This is the understanding that Jesus is bringing in his teaching: that the household of God is open for all. That God wants us all as members of the household. That God is inviting – summoning – engaging! Each and every one of us to come and serve: to offer freely, to rejoice in the giving.
Because in the giving, we receive:
• We receive the benefits of community.
• We receive the joy of shared experiences.
• We receive the support of knowing that we belong: we are wanted and welcomed.
• We increase our resilience to the weariness of the world.
• We increase our sense of safety and security – and thus increase our desire to contribute.
• We increase our expressions of love and loving: a love really lived – which is, as I heard in a sermon yesterday, “our vocation in such a time as this.”
• Knowing that in giving love, we are continuing to share the love that God has already gifted to us.
And this is what Jesus wants to teach.
And he teaches! Bless us; he teaches.
Jesus teaches about service to the folks who are gathered in the Temple, who are living a good and comfortable life. They are the religious dignitaries, and the disciples and the scribes. They are the money-changers, the money-lenders, the authorities.
And he teaches them that not everyone who holds a position of authority and power is really acting in the best context of service. Some of them were more interested in self-promotion than community service: and we hear specifically how some of them “devour widow’s houses” – possibly by over taxation, mismanagement of funds, possibly even as far as fraudulent behaviour. And this – the plight of the widows – is addressed by repeated expressions of concern for them throughout the biblical texts. The use of the strong “Beware” as Prof. Amanda Brobst-Renaud says, “would not be a surprise to Jesus’ auditors.”
And so Jesus’ teachings continue.
Yet the venue has changed. Part-way through the passage today, the context of Jesus’ teaching shifts. Jesus himself leaves the confines of the Temple, and sits down outside, in the crowd, where the folks gather to make their offering. The treasury was a very public place, where everyone could witness what folks were placing into it.
And so: with this venue change, we also have a contextual change. Because Jesus is still teaching, but his audience is now the broader public: the ones who want to see and be seen in what they are giving – and the ones who want to contribute but do so privately.
And the giver now is a poor widow – the very expression of Jesus’ indoor teaching. And though she is unknown to the crowds, she is well-known to Jesus. He knows her heart; he knows her financial situation. He sees her sacrifice and service as she engages in offering all she can: not just her finances, meagre as they are; but her whole life. All she has. Given to God.
It’s a lot. It’s a large lesson: the lesson of giving that weaves its way throughout our scriptures today. The widow Ruth who gave up her kin and kith to be with a mother-in-law who would then request her child; the priest who would give up personal practices to offer sacrifices of himself and of his people; the Christ who made the ultimate offering and oblation.
It is a profound spirituality that we are hearing of today, in the call to service. And it is a counter-cultural one; it is not the way of the world to give all that we have: but it is the way of Jesus.
So I invite us to consider how we serve: our families, our friends, our communities.
I invite us to consider how we serve: God’s people, God’s church, and God’s world.
I invite us to consider this deep spirituality of service: because this spirituality is not new, rather it takes us deeper into a very old, very traditional, very faithful expression of living in loving service to God. It takes us into discernment of service, of love, of the divine.
So my prayer as we engage in this discernment:
May the wisdom of Jesus be heard;
may the teachings of Jesus be learned;
may the love of Jesus influence us to empower our life of service. Amen.
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