JESUS CAME TO SERVE: WE LIVE TO SERVE by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    There’s an exercise that is sometimes used at staff retreats to help folks think about their priorities in life. We also use it with teen agers at youth camp. You imagine going through a cemetery and seeing head stones, those old fashioned ones that would have some phrase to sum up a person’s life.

    On a teacher's tombstone, Elkhart, Indiana..."School is out
Teacher has gone home."   Susan B. Anthony’s simply says this:  Liberty, Humanity, Justice, Equality"

It’s a good exercise to think about how you want to be remembered. What are the values that are most important to you? What do you want to pass on to the next generation?

    In today’s story from the Bible, Mark 10:35-45 for those following along on the web, two of Jesus closest disciples, the Zebedee brothers, James and John, knew, (because Jesus told them), that Jesus life was coming to an end. It must have given them pause to think about the end of their own lives on this earth.

    They began to think about what place they would have in the hereafter. They did not just wonder how they would be remembered here, but they began to ponder their status in the realm of God in heaven. They walked right up to Jesus and did just what a couple of 5 year olds would do. “Hey Dad, will you do something for us?” You know how kids do this, right? They sort of try to get us to say yes, before we know what the question is.

    Jesus asks what their request is and they say: “Arrange it, so that we will be awarded the highest places of honor in your glory—one of us at your right, the other at your left.” Ah, I’ve got to tell you, as a mother, even though I do not go in for violence, I want to slap these two boys. Are you kidding me? Who do they think they are? Have they not learned anything from this man of humility and grace?  Not surprisingly, the other disciples react in just the same way! But Jesus calms them down.

    He reminds them: “You’ve observed how godless rulers throw their weight around,” he said, “and when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It’s not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not to be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage.” Jesus came to serve.

    Jesus tells them right away – to forget about status. Being blessed when you stand in front of God is not about which place you get to sit at the table. The greatest will be those who have the heart of a servant. This was Jesus’ message from day one, and it continued until the day he died on the cross. He lived to serve – not to gain status.

    The Village Church is three years old this week. We are really still a baby church. But it’s important for us to think about who we are, and what we want to be known for. We don’t want to be a church full of people concerned about status.

    For a moment in the story, James and John forgot that. They got caught up in those values of the world, and what the world tells us what to measure. The world tell us to measure wealth, and production.

    In churches we usually measure success by numbers of people. Now sometimes that’s ok because numbers do represent people who matter to God. But when the institutional leaders get caught up in putting numbers of people, over and above the relationships and what those people are actually doing to live out our faith, then we get into trouble.

    You see, our life together as The Village, is a life of building relationships and serving our community. Before we ever had weekly worship, we gathered to serve. Did you know that? Some of our first Village activities were community service projects. Small groups of us would gather for meals with homeless families with children with a ministry called Family Promise. Near Christmas time back in 2009 our families served and ate dinner and then sat around a church fellowship hall and sang songs. Our kids played with some kids who were staying in a church building as their temporary home.

    The next year, we were back, borrowing that same church’s fellowship hall to make Christmas cookies and homemade Christmas cards. These would go along with the food baskets. We raised more money with our Christmas offering that year to provide food for people in NW Ohio living with HIV/AIDS. This is how that project got started.

    A case manager from the AIDS Resource Center was attending The Village. We wanted to do something special for Christmas, to honor Jesus. I went and talked with the staff there. They said they had a small food pantry for their clients, and the previous year they had put together a few small food baskets, 3 or 4. They could not afford turkeys so they had gotten those tiny Cornish hens that they put in each one.

    The ARC serves several counties in NW Ohio. I asked if they ever asked the churches to help because I know there are many cooperative projects in these communities where churches come together to form food pantries. The case managers told me they had been discouraged from going to the churches because there is a stigma associated with living with HIV/AIDS. When we told this story to the people of The Village and our friends, our hearts, and our wallets opened up. We had been worshipping a little over a year and challenged ourselves, just 40 or so in worship, to raise $3,000 for them.   We raised $4000 for those food baskets.  The year before they had only given out a handful of baskets and with our help that year they gave out 70 or 80 baskets ; and you better believe they had turkeys and much more.

    Another year on Christmas day some of us went down to the Library. An organization called “Food For Thought” is down there every Saturday, 52 weeks out of the year. They started out giving away sack lunches, make with peanut butter sandwiches. (They use PB because it is high protein and it won’t spoil if it gets hot.) The project just grew organically. Other folks joined in. On any given week, you will see people giving away toiletries, hot food, coats, and all sorts of things. The atmosphere is what is so great.  It is almost like a family reunion or a street fair rather than a soup kitchen. Because many of the folks are there every week, they know each other. I have taken girl scouts there and for a few months Becca and Kurt went every Saturday.

    Becca who was 10 said I want to down on Christmas day.  It was a Saturday and she didn’t want to miss it.  She bought and we gave away razors to the homeless.  This was a need they expressed every week how they needed razors.  Next month, on Friday, Nov 30 our church is going to go to a church in Oregon Ohio where they make the peanut butter sandwiches and bag lunches. I hope you will go with us.

    Kathy Keller come up during the service at this point and told us about why her family went to our last project at the Seagate food bank. We harvested pounds of green peppers and they are sharing them with the elderly and stretch their food budgets.  She described the fun of serving others.

    Edie Recker who attended our first worship service also came forward.  She told us the story of being in search of a new church home having been rejected by a local mega church because of whom she is.  She told of the fear of being rejected at a new church.  Instead she was hugged and welcomed with open arms.  And now she helps others find homes like the Village and is helping one of our sister UCC churches go through the process the Village did on day one of existence.   And is helping other churches around the country.

    So here’s the thing, not all of these projects are huge. But we do them, because we follow Jesus, and we want to change the world. And little by little we are changing the world. And you just never know which person, as their life is affected, will be empowered to do something really big.

    So here is the thing. We are all part of a web that is connected. There are a gazillion needs out in our community. We can’t respond to all of them, but we trust that there are other faith communities and other generous people who are also doing their part.

    And for those who are not, well… we hope that when people see our spirit of service, they might be inspired to get out there and do something positive.

    So, we have an outreach team who plans some of our projects. They organize the trips to the Seagate food bank to fill boxes of food for seniors. They invited us to bring gifts for the YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter today. We chose those projects because we talked to you and we learned that many of us are concerned about the basic need of food for hungry people in our community. We have a connection to the Battered Women’s Shelter. One of our members, Kelly Phillips is the Volunteer Coordinator and Victim’s Advocate there.  And you can still donate online through the Village to the YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter.  Just tell us your gift is for that and we will get it to them.

    As our Outreach team guides our service for the next year, we would like to know what you care about, and what your connections are. Put simply, “What breaks your heart?” Because if it breaks your heart, it breaks God’s heart too, and that is a good place for us to start in our service together. We also want to know where your connections already are in our community. Do you already volunteer at a school or with some organization? Do you give financial support to some local organization that might also need people who can serve with our time?

    There were colorful Post-It notes on the tables. We asked people to write down any ideas you have for our Outreach team and any connections people have in our community. People who already have a connection to a charity, wrote them down. The idea was that there might be someone else here who says, I’d like to help with “x” and it might be just the thing you are already working with, and we can help you get connected today.  This is something you can still do via the web.  Email Pastor Cheri by contacting her at cheri@villageohio.org

    This is what we celebrate today. We are The Village Church. We live to serve and we change the world. If there were tombstones for churches, to remember us after we are dead and gone, I hope this might be what ours would say: The Village people lived to serve. We lived to serve. When they saw a need, they would respond, with whatever resources they had. Oh, how those Village people loved to get out into the community, and serve. Jesus came to serve. As we move into our next year, let us follow him. Let’s live to serve our community with bold vitality.