How Do You Serve
Wisdom 1:16-2:1, 6-22
Psalm 54
James 3:16-4:6
Mark 9:30-37
Tim
Christoffersen
St. Anselm’s
September
24 , 2000
Good
morning. Let me ask you a couple questions.
When you were a young
child, did you ever dream of being famous, or being the president or a movie
star or a great athlete?
Do you remember wanting
to be powerful or have influence as a leader?
Today, do you sometimes
suspect the motives of those who want to have public positions of power or
influence?
When Jesus and
the disciples get to Capernaum and they are in the house, Jesus asks them,
"What were you arguing about on the way?" They are silent
because they are embarrassed that they had been arguing about who was the
greatest. So Jesus sits down, calls to the 12 disciples and says, "Whoever
wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."
Jesus says nothing about wanting to be the greatest. He passes right by that
as if it is a natural desire and goes directly to what they must do to be
first. The issue addressed is ‘how’ to go about being first.
The question not addressed is ‘whom’ do you serve? That is the first
question for us.
The collect and readings from Wisdom and James are pretty clear in describing
the alternatives between which we must choose.
One way is characterized by ‘earthly things’, ways of the world,
ways of the flesh, ways of the self focused on itself. "Let us take
our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no flower of spring pass us
by." (Think of the phrase we hear so often in TV commercials: "You
deserve it!") It is serving the self first. "Do you not know
that friendship with the world is enmity with God?" say James.
The other way is characterized by ‘heavenly things, ways of the spirit,
ways of the self focused on others. "Don’t be anxious about earthly
things, seek the wisdom from above that is pure, peaceable, gentle, full of
mercy and good fruits." This is the way of God’s redemptive
activity through Christ crucified for us.
The second question, how do you serve, takes on a clearer focus once we have
no doubt about ‘whom’ we serve.
Let me share a personal story that bears on the "how we serve."
I had been working for a small but rapidly growing technology company in Pasadena
for about a year until this June. The company had a controller who was an
Asian female. She was extraordinarily meticulous and detailed in her work.
She also shared a cultural tendency to remain in the background and avoid
interaction with the management. I worked a little less than two days a week
and traveled to Pasadena a day a week at the most. One of my goals was to
get her to understand she was part of management and she needed to understand
the information needs of the CEO and the two founders. We had a number of
quite candid discussions over several months. I gave her specific ways to
facilitate her interaction with the managers. As the business continued to
grow, she complained increasingly about her workload. One result of her attention
to detail was she did a fair amount of work that was not really necessary.
When I pointed this out, she felt she needed to do it for her own comfort.
Eventually, I tired of the complaining and her unwillingness to address the
needs of management. From their side, they did not have confidence in her.
I wrote an email to the three of them sharing my frustrations and letting
them know I would fire her if things did not begin to change soon. Unintentionally,
I copied her on the email. She was enraged and stormed around for several
weeks. Then something changed for her and one week she came in with a new
attitude. Everything changed and in fairly short order she had won the confidence
of the managers. When the company was acquired a couple months ago, she listened
to my counsel on how to interact with the acquiring company. I had lunch with
her last week and she is doing well and is happy in her new position.
So what is the connection of the story to ‘how we serve’? I lost
sight of the person and the journey I was on with her. I left the journey
and tried to jump to the destination. The right thing to do would have been
to tell her personally what I intended to do. Yet God produced the right outcome
in spite of my handling of the issue.
I believe ‘how we serve’ is made up of daily choices we must make
about the ordinary things in our life. If we are walking with God, we realize
we are on a journey. The destination is up to God. Let me close with an excerpt
from a commencement address by Anna Quinlen that I really love.
I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad happened
to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my druthers,
it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned from it is what,
today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all. I learned to love the journey,
not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that
today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in
the world and to try to give some of it back because I believed in it completely
and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had
learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the
fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn
to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do you
will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.
AMEN.
