SERVING OTHERS

Washing Feet & Serving Others in a Pandemic

I recently read a short and sweet phrase on “serving” while facilitating an adult class on How Happiness Happens by Max Lucado.  He summarized the process of serving others this way: “Doing good does the doer good!”  In fact, if we’re serving others that have no hope of repaying us, we’re doing God’s work.  If we’re expecting something in return, we’re doing business!

My wife Karen and I volunteered to participate in a community mission effort a number of years ago. We gathered as a group in our JUMC Fellowship Hall and were given an assignment for the day to make a difference in our community. And before we all departed, our Bishop gave us a rather daunting instruction. We were challenged to “see Jesus along the way”.

We ended up working with a retired law officer who was trying to offer after school assistance to elementary school children. He had received a large number of books from a major school supply company that desperately needed to be organized. In the course of spending the day with this man, we got to know him better and understand that his heart was in the right place, but his resources were woefully lacking. After the kids arrived later, he slipped outside and grilled dinner for all of us on a small charcoal grill.

When we returned to JUMC for a debriefing, I was able to confirm that we had indeed seen Jesus that day in the form of a man that had seen too much suffering and pain in his community and sought to do something positive about it at its core.

Later, our church was able to initiate an Agape initiative at an elementary school in that community which funded and staffed after school care.

I had been helping a young second grade boy with reading a Christmas book and another about a pig that outfoxed a fox in our after-school mission.  He actually didn’t need much assistance except for just a few foreign words. When a woman with similar features appeared to pick up one of the children, I noticed that the boy was gathering his backpack and putting on his winter coat. So, I approached her and mentioned that he had done a very good job of reading two books to me today. She asked if I was from the church and I acknowledged that I was.

She then thanked me for helping her family have a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas with the donations that had been sent home with every child before the school break. Her eyes revealed a true sincerity. Without giving my response much thought I mentioned that it was all in the spirit of Christmas and it was a two-way street. I had experienced a much better holiday season this year because we were able to provide the interaction, presents and food. And it was especially gratifying to observe that this woman was able to see Jesus through the efforts of the people at our church.

USING OUR GIFTS

Lost Everything, Chicago, IL

By the grace of God, we’ve all been given certain gifts in this life to use as we are so motivated.  These gifts are as far reaching as the diversity of the human race.  I would challenge anyone who claims that they have no special gifts.  All it takes is the time to stop the merry-go-round and meditate on our abilities and the activities that we enjoy in life.

The parables that Jesus related to the people and his disciples always had a deeper meaning than the story that unfolded in the telling.  On the surface, his parable of a man who was going on a journey seemed to be routine enough.  He called three of his servants together and gave the first a total of five talents (an ironic term for money), the second received two talents and the last was given one talent, each according to his abilities.  These talents represent any gifts or resources we have received in life that we can use to enhance the lives of others less fortunate.  The first two men doubled their money while the last one literally buried his talent.  The master rewarded the first two men with more responsibility and they shared in his celebration, but the third who did nothing was ordered to give it to the one that now had ten talents and he was dismissed.

All of these men had the opportunity and free will to use their abilities responsibly, but only two of them used their resources to improve the state of the enterprise.  That analogy also applies to using our individual free will and talents to improve the lives of those within our sphere of influence, either directly or through charitable organizations we trust.  I’ve read that if all the volunteer time and resources donated by individuals in this country were abdicated to the government, it would be overwhelmed. 

In the final analysis, it all has a lot to do with how we as individuals have helped the poor and underserved, not how we’ve empowered the government to do it for us with other peoples’ money.   

ALTRUISM AND AGING

Lost Everything, Chicago, IL

Recent technical developments in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans of our human brains have opened up all sorts of fascinating insights into our human behavior. A recent study in the AARP Bulletin revealed that “more than half of all donations to charity are made by those over sixty. And it’s not just because those people have more money”. The article noted a study at the University of Oregon of volunteers ranging in age from 18 to 67 where they were shown money going either to charity or to themselves while being monitored with an MRI.

MRI scans have showed that both pure monetary rewards and charitable donations activate the primitive mesolimbic reward pathway of our brain. However, when volunteers generously placed the interests of others before their own by making charitable donations, the subgenual cortex/septal region was also activated. This area is intimately related to social attachment and bonding. The experiment suggested that selfless altruism, caring about the welfare of other people and acting to help them, was basically hardwired in the brain and pleasurable. It is usually contrasted with egoism, which is defined as acting to the benefit of one's self.

Altruism is central to the teachings of Jesus found in scriptures such as the Sermon on the Mount. Love and compassion are components of all forms of Buddhism and are focused on all beings equally: love is the wish that all beings be happy, and compassion is the wish that all beings be free from suffering.

The AARP study found that the brain’s reward areas tended to become more active in volunteers over 45 when they saw money go to charity. It became more active when the money went to themselves in the younger volunteers. The article concluded that “your odds of experiencing suffering and others’ suffering goes up the longer that you’re around. As a result, you become more benevolent, more altruistic as you get older.”

And that’s a good thing, as folks over sixty have hopefully had a lifetime to earn, save and invest and they’re now in a position to transition from lives of success to lives of significance. This fourth period of life enables reflection and experience to give back and help those that are now in struggling stages that they quite possibly emerged from as they themselves sailed on the storms of life.