Service

I find it funny (ironic) that so often the good we do goes unnoticed while our screw ups are seen by all. It turns out that we spend an awful lot of time trying in discreet and "humble" ways to tell people about our good deeds. Meanwhile our mistakes spread like wildfire.

Wednesday night at youth group we were talking about David and Bathsheba, about sin that we try to cover and simply how there are times we think we get away with something only to find out it was either seen by someone or God simply uses pure hearted people to convict us. One of the questions for our group was Have you ever done something bad and thought you got away with it, only to later get in trouble." Their answers were somewhat revealing and at times entertaining but I had one of my own that for the sake of time I didn't share. Time is no object here, in fact that's why you're here at this blog, to waste time so here goes. For some of you, this is a repeat story.

It was my 6th grade year and I don't remember much about it except this particular story and one other, where during the first month of school we were playing kickball and a kid on my team dropped a fly ball. Being a mature Christian at my wonderful Christian school I turned to him and simply exhorted him with the words: "You freaking suck." Turns out the encouragement aspect was missed and next thing I knew I was spending each and every recess alternating between sitting on the wall outside our classroom and spending the other sitting in the office (where I consequently learned all sorts of gossip about the school by simply pretending to not listen--secretaries can be quite chatty at times....more about the office in a minute).

Anyway, I had a teacher named Mrs. Davis. She was a witch. Seriously. This woman I'm quite sure spoke with Satan on a daily basis and had some sadistic desire to make young boys angry. She was an unfair grader, totally favored girls (her daughter was in the class--another detail we shall soon return to), and was just mean. She even looked like a witch and it was quite easy to draw a witches hat on her and by simply adding a wart to her nose would have scared even Wes Craven.

I honestly don't remember why I finally became militant. I don't know what actual situation caused the breaking point but somewhere in there me, my friend Andy (who's dad was the guidance counselor) and our buddy Wes all dreamed up our perfect retaliation for a school year of oppression.

At a predecided time during a lecture, when Mrs. Davis-witch turned her back to write on the chalkboard we would simultaaneously stand and salute her...with just one finger.

Now, there were varying degrees to the emphatic nature with which we honored her. I think it was in direct connection to the amount of oppression and thus bottled up anger which our little pure hearts possessed. I for one chose the hold out the left arm across my body while thrusting the right under it and up giving a sort of ancient cross/not so much cross effect. We executed our plan to perfection and found much admiration from our fellow men and a few snickers. We were safely taking notes/making more witch drawings by the time she sat back down.

Our plan worked to perfection and we had a lunch as cult heroes as all the boys sang our praises and I'm sure created banners in our honor. We were like a modern day Harry Potter and that red head Weasley dude. Minus most of the witchcraft and coke bottle glasses.

For some reason I was called to the counselors office later that day (Andy's dad) and we talked about really nothing and he sent me back to class. Upon my return I found Mrs. Davis to be strangely unfriendly. I do not know why I remember this, but that day our class was disecting owl poop. It's that hairy mess of stuff where you dig through and try to find the bones of deceased mice. Why we do this I do not know. Why they poop bones, hair and all I don't know either, again I missed most of this day.

Turns out Andy's dad had chickened out on calling me on the carpet for fear of his own son. Long story short the 3 of us were again summoned to the office, given a lecture by Andy's dad about how what we did strangely didn't fit in the approved conduct of a christian school and basically we watched as Andy's dad directed most of his wrath towards Andy. We were given 3 days suspension and it wasn't long after that I had to transfer schools because my reputation was, oh less than Christlike might be a little too harsh.Then again.....

So that's the bad. But what about the good? We've been talking a lot this week about our upcoming summer of Know Sweat stuff and we are going to do, I think, a pretty solid evening program. We're diving into the sermon on the mount and talking a lot about service and a life that speaks of what's happening in our hearts. On our next to last night the discussion will land on what we're calling quiet service--serving because its the right thing to do and not for what we'll get out of it or the recognition we might recieve. We're going to hammer into them--and our interns for that matter--that this is really not about us and that some of our finest acts are things that no one except God and those they were done for will ever know about. Our AA wrote an incredible devo about it for the students and her words brought to mind others from a dude I rarely can understand due to his intense knowledge. And I quote:

"Self-righteous service is temporary. It functions only while the specific acts of service are being performed. Having served, it can rest easy. True service is a life-style. It acts from ingrained patterns of living. It springs spontaneously to meet human need."

"Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service."
::Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline

As I prepare for my life, I'm wrestling with that inner tension between self-righteous service and true service. Service as a life-style. Serving becuase I believe it is one of the key foundational elements of Christianity and doing so because it is a spontaneous response to the human need I see and not becuase I simply feel better or even because it helps soothe the pangs of guilt I feel in certain moments. If only I could get that to sink into my heart and mind then maybe this silly discussion about what is seen verses what I want to be seen doing wouldn't be so necessary.

One final note: I say all that because I just got done signing a bunch of letters for registrations for the summer and at least for me I really mean whatever I say in both the letter but also in the sign off, you know, where we put things like: Sincerely, in his grip, saved by grace, blessings, don't eat ducks, whatever we say. Here's what our letters say: Committed to service. Yeah, I sure hope I am.