Today I’d like to focus on
my favorite prayer, one attributed traditionally to Francis of Assisi.
Lord, make us instruments
of your peace: Where there is hatred, let us sow love:
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that we may not
So much seek to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in forgiving that we are forgiven,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
As Christians God calls us in
three ways.
We are called to worship.
We are called to community. And we are called to service. Like a three-legged stool, we do not have a
stable Christian life or complete relationship with God if we ignore any of
these three tenets. While we tend to
focus on worship and community, we sometimes dismiss the service requirements
of our faith.
In his prayer Saint Francis cuts to the core of our call to
service. His prayer reminds us that
Christianity is a verb. We are not
created to experience life passively. To be a Christian is to engage the world actively
through service to others. We are called to sow faith, hope, light, and
joy. We are called to console, to
understand, and to love.
I had the opportunity
to witness the power Christian service on my 2005 trip to Mississippi after
hurricane Katrina. My brother in law,
Glenn, and I traveled to Long Beach to help his Aunt Nickie clean up after the
storm. While not destroyed by the tidal
surge preceding the hurricane her home, nonetheless, was heavily damaged, as
were those of her neighbors.
On a regional level, complete strangers opened their homes
to evacuees and provided food, clothing, shelter, and medicine to those in
need. In fact, the Salvation Army had 54
kitchens opened across the gulf region the day after Katrina struck; providing
three meals a day to those in need. They
did this despite the fact that 200 of their own were trapped in New Orleans and
feared dead. None of these people were
paid professionals. They were our
neighbors and countrymen.
On a local level we saw:
- Neighbors sharing their scarce food and water with those who were short of both.
- Neighbors sharing gasoline so that others could run generators
- Strangers stopping to help with particularly difficult tasks such as tree removal
- Private citizens clearing highways so emergency vehicles could reach the injured.
- Neighbors providing transportation to those in need to distribution centers for food, ice, and water.
- And finally, in the midst of ruin, strangers of all Christian denominations gathering as one on Sunday morning at the local elementary school to give thanks to God for all their blessings.
Of course, none of this should surprise us. As Christians,
this is what we are called to do. But why? What is it about Christianity that calls us
in this unique way? Again, Saint Francis
provides the answer in what I’ve come to think of as the paradox of
Christianity: we are forgiven through forgiving, we are born to eternal life
through dying, and we receive God’s love by giving it freely to others.
In his book, "Our Mutual Friend", Charles Dickens tells us
that “No one is useless who lightens the burden of another”. In closing I’d like to ask you to consider
the following:
- Both as individuals and as members of the broader Christian community, who’s burden have we been called to lift?
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