Let Me Serve You

I am so tired and I really don't want to write, but as I've said before, when the urge to write comes it's like an uncontrollable bladder, (and after 4 children you know I have one), plus it's the 2 posts in one day sacrilege my children warn me about--but this is important, at least to me--

I had no part in the Maundy Thursday service tonight other than being a congregant.  How easily we forget how important that role, that place is.  How easily we forget as we are preparing perfect liturgies that what matters really matters is whether our liturgies, perfect or not, reach the people we are serving.  Tonight's liturgy reached me; it reached out its long arms and embraced me, brought me in and then held me at arm's length and unearthed a vulnerability I have had buried for many years.

Mother Betty gave a warm, challenging, provoking sermon.  Two lines, however, are sticking to me like flies to honey on a mason jar in July.  The first, "Jesus paid close attention to the voices of those whose voices were muffled." I love that and will probably use it--giving credit of course.  But that's not the line that has me sitting up in bed late  (I'm old 10 pm is late!) writing.  She also said, "Jesus came to serve--to serve us all." And she may or may not have said, "Why won't you let him serve you?  Why are you trying so hard to keep him at arms length in the name of holiness?"  Okay, she didn't say exactly that, but it's what I heard.

I'm a total control freak and I love ministry.  You would think those two things might work well together, but right now they absolutely do not.  I want to know today what the plan is for me tomorrow and so I work and work to figure it out.  I look for signs; I grasp at any and everything set before me turning it over and over and inspecting it for all it's perfections and imperfections.  I keep crying out during my sleepless pain filled nights, "I don't understand--God I just want to serve you."

Tonight I heard through Mother Betty's voice--"Katherine, I want to serve you.  Will you let me serve you?"  And like Peter I shook my head and said, "No, no, no.  You are my Lord, I am here to serve you."  I sat in the pews and kept hearing Jesus' voice, "I want to serve you and until you allow me to serve you, serve you, not just comfort you, not just help you through a crisis but totally serve you, you will not be able to serve anyone else."

Most Maundy Thursday sermons I have heard and/or given focus on how we are to learn to serve as Christ served.  There is no mistaken that is clearly what Jesus has called us to do--it's what he told his disciples to do. (John 13:17)  But first he served them; first he cared for them; first he forced them to expose themselves and their vulnerabilities and he gently cared for them as he washed their feet and loved them.

I leave tomorrow and won't hear Mother Betty's continued sermon through this Triduum--I wish I could, but I do know tonight I heard Jesus and somehow, someway I need to respond.


PS--Best part of tonight after the service--learning Mother Betty knows two of the people I love best in the world and they know me and still love me!  I LOVE THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH!!  (Candyce, I felt your love through Betty--it's been a long 24 hours...)