Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Service is Our Prayer

The Crew from UUCAS helps with the community meal.

I was walking on a trail along the shore of a beautiful pond one winter’s day, relishing the sounds of the birds, the peace of the calm water, and began to notice a bottle cap here, a bit of broken plastic there. It seemed only right to do something to protect the beauty of this space this eco-system that had filled me with wonder and peace. I filled the pockets of my coat, and resolved to come back for a couple of cans that wouldn’t fit in my pockets. The next day I was happily picking up cans and bottles as I walked, until I rounded a corner and saw the pile of trash that had accumulated along the bank in the winter storms. It made the full bag of trash I was feeling so good about seem puny by comparison.

I decided two things in that moment- first, that I had hit my limit. My bag was full, I was tired. I was not up to tackling that oversized mess entangled in the steep bank. Second, I remembered that I am not alone. There were other folks in this community that I was visiting, I had to trust that others who cared about this beautiful place would also lend a hand as they were able.

There’s a wonderful group on social media called “the Glorious Trash Birds” who organize cleanups, and take photos of what they pick up while they walk. They have a tradition called “one piece Wednesday” where they encourage everyone, trash birds or not, to pick up a piece of trash on Wednesday, something easy and achievable. This encourages me when I get down on my small efforts. But still… There’s a lot of trash, much that is beyond my control. I can’t even get all the trash I see on my morning dog walks. Does it matter when I pick up a few loose bits? This was when I remembered the words we shared for our chalice lighting “service is our prayer” The act of bending down and picking up the plastic bag drifting across the sidewalk is like a body prayer saying “I love this place and want to protect it. I worry about the plastics in the ocean, and pray for a solution. The solution is bigger than me, but it is my heart’s desire. I pray for a day when the creeks and lakes and oceans are clean again.”

There is a great theological debate that has been argued along the centuries: “faith vs. works” – which is more important to our salvation, what we believe or what we do? [i]

It says in the book of James in the Christian scriptures:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. [2:14–17]
Whereas Paul says “a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ” so there’s a strong belief in some protestant traditions in “faith alone”

I bet if you’ve spent any time at a UU church you have figured out that we put a lot of stock in good works. We like to roll up our sleeves and as my seminary buddy used to say “build the kin-dom of God on earth”

Faith is where we can struggle. In prosperous, peaceful times, we see our little acts make a real difference. We work hard and the work pays off. But sometimes, in times of struggle, we see our work scattered and broken. We know clearly that the work of our hands alone cannot repair the world.

The history of the Ladies’ aid society of the Cortland UU church, begins this way: “The Aid society in the beginning no doubt grew out of groups of women who met together during the Civil War to sew for the Army.” I can only imagine what it was like to live through that time of the Civil war, here in Cortland. Far from the front, but worried for family members who were away fighting, dying. Here at home there were food shortages, and economic hardship. With a whole generation of fighters away at war, the women sewing those bandages most likely had additional responsibilities and burdens. There was much work to be done and not enough hands to do it.

Still thousands of people all over the country sewed for the soldiers. Imagine a time when the US army could not even supply it’s wounded soldiers with enough bandages, much less proper uniforms. It reminds me a bit of those first months of covid when there were not enough masks, how quickly industrious people set to making them for the folks near and far who needed them. It helped to be doing something when so much was out of our control. I know I was sure grateful for the beautiful handmade masks neighbors and friends made for me. The bandages made by the ladies’ aid society could not staunch the great would of the civil war, or bring their loved ones home safe, but I am certain that each and every bandage was a help and support to the nurses struggling in impossible conditions, and the people whose lives they helped save. And I’m sure it helped those women too, to come together in someone’s living room with tender anxious hearts to do the thing they could do. [ii]

I know when I knit a prayer shawl for someone in specific, they come to mind often as I knit. It really does help me hold that person in my heart, each time I pick up my knitting. This is what I think of when I hear those words “service is our prayer”

Now a hug shawl is not nearly so practical as bandages, but both require work and faith. The work of doing what things we can do, and the faith of knowing that it is not by our efforts alone that the war will be ended, that the wounds will be healed, that hearts will be made whole.

There are many ways to serve. Tasks of all shapes and sizes. What’s interesting to me about that word “serve” is that it is a transitive verb – we serve someone or something. So it is important to ask who or what am I serving? It is a humble word -- it puts the needs of others before ourselves. Humility is important here because we often think we know what someone else needs. Harms have been done over the centuries by people of faith deciding they knew what another needed; think of the Indian boarding schools, the great harms that were perpetrated there in the name of saving souls. Paternalism is a word that comes from a root that means “father” to help someone like a father would. Which means treating the person being helped like a child. It’s a characteristics of white supremacy culture.

This is something we were very aware of when the Athens congregation wanted to do something to support the black community. When we reached out to a group called “Mother’s Helping Mothers” to ask what they needed, the leaders told us that we were the only organization to ask what they needed, Most called to tell them what we wanted to do for them.

Here's another example, I was part of the project grow board as we chose exotic heirloom tomatoes to grow, excited about increasing the diversity of food species and keeping heirloom varieties going. We held an open meeting of our members and heard back from the community that people don’t know what to do with a green tomato, and could we just please provide some ordinary red tomatoes that was what they truly wanted, that trying to grow your own food and eat more healthy vegetables was already a lot for most families. Serving with humility means asking those we serve what it is they most want and need.

The Athens congregation takes as its mission “To live ethically, grow spiritually and serve lovingly” I think that’s important- that we serve lovingly. The love we put into the doing is important. There’s a line from the Hobbit movie, Gandalf the great wizard says to the homebody hobbit Bilbo, who is not sure how he can be of use in the epic fight of good and evil that is unfolding around him. Gandalf says:
“Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”
These are challenging times in which we find ourselves. It’s hard to know what we can do to ease the suffering of neighbors and friends, much less those far away whose stories break our hearts. But like the women who sewed bandages during the Civil war, we can make service our prayer. Spirit of life, May each stitch we sew, peace of trash we pick up, ride we give to a friend, hand we hold in the hospital, raised bed garden we build, tomato we harvest for the foodbank, may the work and the faith of our small acts of kindness and love be part of the healing of our world.

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