kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth

In whose service lies perfect freedom

It’s all too easy, I find, when we think about service or servanthood, to get caught up in the negative aspects of service to others.

We think of the servant/master relationship where the poor lowly servant has to do anything and everything their all-powerful, and sometimes cruel, master wants them to; and relying on that master for their livelihoods, and even their lives.

Picture the upstairs/downstairs environments, where the servants were expected to work long and hard hours for little monetary reward. And they could be thrown out of home and job on the whim of a master who virtually owned them. To maintain their livelihoods they had to bow and scrape to their “betters”.

Picture the slave trade where the masters did own their slave, and could, and did, demand everything from their “property”. Where to go against their master’s wishes, slaves risked more than their mere livelihoods, but risked their very lives.

Picture modern forms of slavery, where people are bought and sold as sex slaves, and trafficked across national boundaries; and bonded labour, where people are tricked into taking out small loans, and then forced into working seven days a week for basic rations — but their loans are never repaid and can be passed down for generations.

Unfortunately, it’s all too easy, to see negative aspects of service to God too. We can too easily confuse serving God with serving “the Church”, or, even worse, serving people in authority or of a “higher status” within it.

But is any of that the kind servanthood Jesus was talking about when he said, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45)? And how does that fit with the idea of service being perfect freedom?

I think the example Jesus gives us through the pages of our Bibles gives us the answer. Jesus served those around him, but wasn’t subservient to them, or make them feel subservient to him. He served as one amongst equals; and that’s how we should serve each other.

Our service to the Church should be just the same as our service to other people, as service to equals. A Bishop might wear really fancy clothes, and carry a lot of authority, but they are still humans, not gods. The same applies to others in the Church, they are people, human people.

And in service to God, Jesus taught us to call God our Father, though he used the word “Abba” which means Daddy. Our English habit of naming God as “Father”, rather than “Daddy”, implies a different picture of service. We’re not serving a tyrant Victorian Father, but a Daddy that loves us more than we can even imagine, and our service to him is an expression of our love for him.

To my mind, serving others as equals, and serving God as Daddy, are both all about expressing love. And both are immensely liberating, freeing us to be the people we really are — perfect freedom.

Almighty God,
in whose service lies perfect freedom:
teach us to obey you
with loving hearts and steadfast wills;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect for The Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council

You search us and know us

In Psalm 139:1-6, we read:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
   you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down,
   and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
   O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before,
   and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
   it is so high that I cannot attain it.

In many ways, that’s quite a scary thought. We cannot lie to God; he knows the truth. In fact, he knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows all about our daily lives, when we sit, and when we rise. He knows all our ways, our mannerisms and character traits, our motives and goals. He even knows what we’re going to say and think, before even we do. A scary thought indeed.

But there are a couple of ways that, for me, make this a comforting thought too:

We don’t have to pretend with God; he knows us. We don’t have to try and be the person we think others want us to be; he knows who we really are. It’s the real person who we are that God wants, and calls into his service.

And, despite him knowing us so intimately, knowing all the bad things in our lives and character as well as the good, already knowing the things about us that we’re ashamed of, as well as those we’re proud of, he still loves us. God loves the real us, the real me — warts and all!

It’s because of that love that we can rely on him in strength, and rest on him in weakness.

Almighty God,
you search us and know us:
may we rely on you in strength
and rest on you in weakness,
now and in all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect for The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council