Introduction
We are working through a short sermon series called Growing in God and we are looking at how we grow as individuals and as a church. There are, we have discovered, four prongs to Church growth - growing spiritually, growing in maturity, growing in service of others and growing in numbers. Just as a chair needs its four legs to be of the same length, so a church needs all these areas of growth to be the same if the church is to be well balanced. We can't have one area of church growth longer than the others - it will make the church fail in its God-given purpose.
Two weeks ago we looked at growing spiritually and we gave out prayer resource booklets for us to use every day either for morning or evening prayer with a little scriptural passage and thought for the day. We are producing these for every week of the year and I hope you are using them and finding them helpful as a format and framework for prayer. Please do let us know how you are finding them so we can improve them. If we take time to pray and read the Bible each day we will grow in spirituality.
Last week we looked at growing in maturity and we said that this requires three things: a willingness to deal directly with others - especially those with whom we disagree, a willingness to be part of the solution not the problem and finally a willingness to take the Biblical teaching on giving seriously. If we do these things we will grow in maturity.
Today we are going to look at the third "leg" of church growth - the idea of growing in service of others. Will you pray with me?
Prayer
Lord Jesus,
Your life was a life of service,
You washed your disciples feet
And leaving the glory of heaven,
Took on the form of a servant,
Becoming like us in all things but sin.
Help us to serve you and others,
So that we may follow your example
More clearly and more closely.
Amen.
Jesus' Example of Service
Over and over the prophets of the Old Testament call us to let our faith find expression in how we serve those in need. That was also the call of Jesus. We wouldn't argue with the prophets, nor with Jesus, but neither will we obey them.
My objective this afternoon is to provoke you to deeds of love and kindness. I want to provoke you first by the example of Jesus.
In the gospel reading, we heard the amazing story of Jesus kneeling to wash the disciples' feet.
In that day people wore sandals and their feet became quite dusty. At feasts like the Passover, when the guests arrived, a servant would wash their feet. This was important because they didn't sit in chairs, but reclined around the table, therefore the person next to you had their feet near your face. Washing the guest's feet made the whole experience much more pleasant. Since Jesus and the disciples couldn't afford servants, they usually washed one another's feet. On this particular occasion, however, they had been arguing about who was the greatest and no one was about to wash the other's feet. Finally to heal the tension and teach them about true greatness, Jesus got up and took the role of the servant washing their feet.
Shortly after this the example of divine service found its most perfect expression when Jesus was hung on the cross. Jesus served us by paying the price for our sins. The most commonly sold piece of jewellery is the cross. Hanging on a cross is not something many of us will do. And none of us will do it more than once. But serving other people is something we can all do every day. One of the reasons we passed out cloths this afternoon was to suggest that this, or a towel, might be a more appropriate symbol for how we practice our faith.
Serving Through Giving
I heard a story about a little country church was in financial trouble. Their roof leaked and so the pastor started visiting members to ask them to increase their giving. She went one day to talk to a farmer and said,
"Jake if you had a million dollars, would you give ten percent to the church?"
"Sure I would pastor, you know I love the church," Jake quickly answered.
"I know you do Jake, and if you had ten thousand acres would you sell a bit of it to help put a new roof on the church?"
"Why, of course I would pastor," said Jake, puzzled at her questioning.
"I figured you would," she said. "Also Jake, if you had twelve pigs would you sell a couple of them and give the money to the church?"
There was a long pause. Finally Jake said,
"Pastor, that ain't a fair question, because you know I've got exactly twelve pigs."
It's easy to imagine ways to serve God through the Church if we win the lottery, but rather more difficult to imagine how we could do it with the resources and skills God has already given us.
Some of us would prefer the cross to the towel as a symbol of our faith, because there aren't many Romans around to make us use the cross! There are, however, lots of people out there whose feet need washing. I'd like to urge you to take the towel as the symbol of your faith in action. Besides provoking you with the example of Jesus, I'd like to provoke you by appealing to your own self interest.
Serving Is Good For Us
Some years ago a bio-feedback experiment was done with groups of college students. They were connected to machines which measured their responses. The two groups were shown different videos. The first group saw video tapes of beautiful vacation spots; white sand of pristine beaches, cottages on the marsh, cabins in the mountains. They noted that the viewers stress level dropped, dramatically. Their pulse slowed, their muscles relaxed.
The second group saw a tape of the staff and volunteers in a hospital that cared for terminally ill patients. The average stay in this hospital was 26 days and patients only left when they died. The students were visibly moved by the caring of the volunteers and staff. The machines registered that biologically their response was much the same as with the first film. Their stress seemed to drain as they saw people with needs much greater than theirs and as they saw one human caring for another.
The one difference the research noted was that in the second group, a chemical called endorphins was present in their blood stream at a much higher level than the first. Endorphins are chemical cousins to medications like morphine. Just watching people serving gave them a natural high. Imagine how much good it would have done them if, instead of being spectators, they had been disciples of the King who ruled with a towel from a cross.
I am convinced our souls shrink when we spend all our time, energy and effort on ourselves. That which is beautiful in us withers and dies. But if we are willing to die to serve something, beauty grows.
It was Jesus who said, "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and is buried it abides alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit."
But People Will Take Advantage?
Will some of those you try to serve take advantage of you? Are some of them undeserving of your service? Of course. The poor are neither better nor worse people than the rest of us. Yet we don't serve just for their sake. We also serve for the sake of Jesus and for our own sake.
The habit of the towel ensures that two out of three always benefit. I heard this week about a woman who saw a man face down in the street and rushed over to help him. She discovered that he had a pulse, but he didn't appear to be breathing. She flipped him over and began giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation. After a few moments the man stopped her and said, "Lady I don't know why you're kissing me, I get paid to clean out these sewers."
Not everyone we try to help is grateful. But it isn't about them. It is about the Saviour who made a towel a symbol of holy living. Will a life of service cost us? Absolutely.
However, if we are to grow as individuals, and as a church, then we need to learn to serve.
OK, But How?
There are many ways to serve and today I want to suggest three ways in which, as a church, we can start to serve others outside of ourselves. We can continue to campaign for prisoners of conscience, we can start again to offer food for the Booth Centre and we can continue to raise our giving to the work of God in this place.
Amnesty
The first follows on from the work Steve Gray is doing with Amnesty International Campaigns. Last month Steve got people to send cards of support and a letter of protest about two men who have been imprisoned in Egypt for being gay. We have not received a reply from the Egyptian president so Steve, being persistent, has drafted a similar letter for us to sign to the Egyptian Ambassador to the UK. The two men Zaki Sayid Zaki'Abd Al Halak and Wissam Tawfiq have been imprisoned simply because they are, or because they are perceived to be gay. They have committed no crime of violence, have done nothing to harm society yet they have been imprisoned. We serve them, the cause of justice, and our Lord Jesus, by campaigning for their release.
This month Steve would like us to sign a letter to the President of China about the case of Yu Cangxin who was in the Chinese Air Force and has been imprisoned for being part of the Buddhist Falon Gong movement. Again he has committed no crime of violence yet he has been subjected to degrading and inhumane treatment. By signing a letter about him and by sending cards of support we serve him and our Lord Jesus.
Some people may object that this is not an obvious and ordinary way to serve, some people may see it as "political" - well most things we do involve politics - it is not party political, but it is about protesting about injustice in an effective way - we know that the Amnesty Campaigns get results.
Booth Centre
When we were at St Peter's we were very good at collecting food for the Booth Centre - a centre for the homeless in Manchester. Every day they feed people who either sleep rough or live in insecure accommodation. They collect things like tea, coffee, razor blades, soap, cup a soups or pot noodles. Jam and sandwich fillers are always popular too. They don't have any cooking facilities so the food needs to be stuff which does not need anything more than hot water added to it. I would like to start collecting for them again - and join with our friends at St Chrysostom's who do so. This is a simple thing we can do which has immediate effects and shows the towel is an appropriate symbol of our faith.
Giving
The third thing is about increasing our giving. "Hold on" I hear you say - "he spoke about giving last week!" I did! These areas of growth are all inter-related and anything we do in one area has immediate effects on the others. As we pray more we start to grow in spirituality, and the Lord challenges us to serve. As we mature more we recognise our need to pray and to serve, and as we serve we realise we need both maturity and the grace that comes through prayer.
We give for many reasons. We give because God requires us to give a proportion of our income to God's own work. We give because we see the church grow and benefit from the money we give. We give to allow the church to support and serve others - which is a lot of what we will be doing over the Europride weekend.
Growing in Service
Our Lord Jesus gave us the ultimate example of service when we donned a towel and washed his servants feet. We are called to follow that example and see the towel of service as much as a symbol of our faith as the cross. We are called to serve and I urge you to get involved in our Amnesty Work, in bringing food for the Booth Centre and in increasing your giving to the work of God in this place so that we become the church God dreams of.
Prayer
Lord Jesus,
Help us follow your example of service,
Help us to give of our time, of our talents and of our money,
And not to count the cost.
Help us to serve others,
So that our people may become your disciples
And find their salvation.
Amen.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.