Engage in Systemic Service
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
June 4, 2023
Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. Today, at the Meetinghouse we are celebrating our Graduates and Volunteers. It is always a wonderful celebration and an opportunity to give thanks for so many dedicated individuals! Congrats and Thank You!
As well, today we will continue our “Systemic” series with looking at service. The scripture I chose for my message is Galatians 5:13-15 from the Message Version.
It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
For several weeks now, I have been categorizing my sermon topics as “systemic” issues. Some people could easily say that categorizing them this way is painting too broad of a picture and its simply too overwhelming to ponder. But I have been using this term, systemic, to look more at the system of our spirituality or as we friends say, our “Faith and Practice” and our interplay within it.
To help clarify what I am saying, let me explain briefly. There are many systems in our lives, and they range from micro to macro, from simple to complex.
We are made up of biological systems.
We utilize mechanical systems.
We live within a myriad of ecosystems.
We interact through social systems.
We put ourselves within and under institutional systems.
Even our earth is part of a greater solar system.
And I believe our spirituality is an “umbrella-like” system that impacts and supports them all.
Thus, systemic goodness, integrity, joy, and today, service, speak to the greater condition of our systemic lives. They transcend the systems of life to provide a universal connection, a deeper accountability, and a needed support for all humanity.
Last week, several people commented during waiting worship on the connection between goodness, integrity, and joy. And we don’t have to look too far again this week to see the connections when looking at service. People have been noticing these universal connections for some time.
Philosopher Rabindranath Tagore once pointed out,
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
Farmer and former Secretary of State, Ezra Taft Benson once said,
“If you really want to receive joy and happiness, then serve others with all your heart. Lift their burden, and your own burden will be lighter.”
And I could go on, but many have made the connection between joy and service.
Even the apostle Paul in his second letter to the people of Corinth combined joy and service or as he labels it “cheerful giving” or hilaros in Greek (meaning both hilarious and exhilarating), he said,
But I will say this to encourage your generosity: the one who plants little harvests little, and the one who plants plenty harvests plenty. Giving grows out of the heart—otherwise, you’ve reluctantly grumbled “yes” because you felt you had to or because you couldn’t say “no,” but this isn’t the way God wants it. For we know that “God loves a cheerful giver.” God is ready to overwhelm you with more blessings than you could ever imagine so that you’ll always be taken care of in every way and you’ll have more than enough to share.
Not only does service bring joy, it brings sustainability with our fellow humans - everyone being taken care of in every way.
Throughout his life and especially in the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. often asked the following query of his listeners,
“Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?”
He even equated greatness with service when he stated:
“Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.
Much of what King learned about service was from the example of Mahatma Gandhi who believed, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
For 40 years Civil Rights and Women’s Rights leader Dr. Dorothy Height lived out and taught these truths from King and Gandhi, and lifted the conversation to an even more transcendent height for generations after her by teaching,
“Without service, we would not have a strong quality of life. It’s important to the person who serves as well as the recipient. It’s the way in which we ourselves grow and develop.”
Service is such a foundational aspect of our lives that Garrett Gunderson, contributing writer for Forbes, wrote an article titled appropriately (and here I will give a PG13 warning), “Serving Others Is as Important as Food and Sex.”
Just listened to what Gunderson had to say, it really fits with what we have been talking about:
“Helping somebody cross the street or buying them a muffin in line will make you feel good, but it's not the same as finding a younger version of you who's facing the exact same problem that you went through, and now you represent hope to them because they don't see a way out and haven't gone through it,” says Evan Carmichael.
I have this theory that some of the people that really do profound things had somebody irrationally believe in them before they had evidence. Maybe it was my grandfather when I was just a baby and the way he believed in me, or maybe it was a teacher, but one person can make such a meaningful difference to someone that can end up influencing a lot more people.
One of the greatest ways we can serve each other is by being willing to mentor each other. Sharing our wisdom, our mistakes, our challenges, is a service to our friends, neighbors, even family. I think back to the people who have mentored me over my 28 years of ministry and cannot believe how freeing the advice, the nudging, even the rebuking has been.
Deborah Gin, Director of Research and Faculty Development at The Association of Theological Schools in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania pointed out the top lessons good mentors help with (listen carefully to what all is covered):
1. Navigating our life systems.
2. Recognizing our worth.
3. Maintaining Integrity.
4. Recognizing that knowledge is power.
5. Nurturing networks (aka connecting with others).
As Quakers we have a long-standing tradition of mentoring, some even would say it is it is foundational to the practices of spiritual direction and clearness committees. Actually, I would say that our clerk and committee systems at First Friends would not be successful without mentoring and passing on the wisdom and spiritual insight from those who have gone before.
Now, do we always do it right, do egos get in the way, do personal agendas drive the mentoring…sadly sometimes they do, but that’s why we need good mentors, who we can trust, learn from, and collaborate with.
I think overall our world is seriously lacking good mentors, today. Our children, youth, and young adults are crying out for trusting mentors who will offer them the wisdom and guidance to navigate the many systems driving their lives.
The wise mentor and philosopher farmer, Wendell Berry captured it well when he said,
A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other's lives. It is the knowledge that people have of each other, their concern for each other, their trust in each other, the freedom with which they come and go among themselves.
Knowledge, concern, trust, and ultimately freedom amongst each other - that is the systemic goal of service in a nutshell.
In a couple weeks, we will celebrate July 4th – what we label as “Independence Day.” I know this is not a popular thing to say, but I believe it gets to the real issue for us Americans when looking at service – our hyper focus on independence runs right against this sustainable dependence on each other.
It is interesting that Wendell Berry even uses the word, freedom, as part of his understanding of service and community. It seems that to embrace our independence is counter to what brings real freedom.
Just maybe our lack of dependence on and service to one another is what is causing us to erase the history, ban books, and neglect those neighbors that we consider different than ourselves. Those things lack knowledge, concern, trust, and yes, freedom.
Today, marks the first Sunday of Pride Month. Sadly, the church throughout history has often lacked the knowledge, concern, trust I just described in its regard for the LGBTQIA community. To me, it has only become clearer over time, how important the lives and voices of our LGBTQIA family are. Way too often, they have been silenced and their freedoms taken away – not just in our country but even in a greater way in our churches. I am grateful that we are working hard here at First Friends to accept, welcome, embrace, and serve our LGBTQIA family. I truly believe the change must start with us.
And to be a people of systemic service, may just be the beginning of the systemic change we need in our world and may be the path to ultimately finding true freedom – a freedom that Eugene Peterson so beautifully spelled out in our scriptures for this morning. Just listen once again,
It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
That final query from Paul should probably be pondered in greater detail this morning. And along with that one, as we enter waiting worship, I have a couple of more for us to think about this morning.
· When has service brought me and others joy?
· How might my skills, talents and wisdom be used for mentoring someone? Who might that be?
· How might I embrace a more dependent and serving life with those around me?