What’s so wrong about serving?

We’ve just got back from a weekend away at a wedding. Friday afternoon flight, Saturday wedding and a Sunday flight home made for a very quick visit – but a lovely one none-the-less.

I was asked to do one of the readings at the wedding. The original plan had been to write and to read a poem for Emma and Joseph, but there was a service written out and coming off script wasn’t encouraged. The passage, not familiar to me, is taken from Ecclesiasticus which sits somewhere in the Apocrypha, that middle section between the Old and New Testaments where most Protestants don’t visit.

Happy the husband of a really good wife;

The number of his days will be doubled.

A perfect wife is the joy of her husband,

He will live out the years of his life in peace.

A good wife is the best of portions,

Reserved for those who fear the Lord;

Rich or poor, they will be glad of heart,

Cheerful of face, whatever the season.

The grace of a wife will charm her husband,

Her accomplishments will make him stronger.

A silent wife is a gift from the Lord,

No price can be put on a well-trained character.

A modest wife is a boon twice over,

A chaste character cannot be weighed on scales.

Like the sun rising over the mountains of the Lord

is the beauty of a good wife in a well-kept house

(Ecclesiasticus 26:1-4, 16-21)

I thought there were one or two lines to take issue with.  It doesn’t really describe a modern marriage, does it? I have always had a bit of a problem with the silent part of anything. The well-kept house would be nice but doesn’t happen very often. Describing anyone in terms of how they benefit another person seems to do an injustice to both partners in a marriage.

I tracked down the missing verses, the bits between v4 and v16.  They describe the kind of wife that a man wouldn’t want to have – the selfish, vain woman who nags him.

I sit somewhere between the two women.

I wasn’t sure I could do justice to the passage. It wasn’t something that I felt I had signed up to myself.  Perhaps my husband has a different view of me as a wife. Maybe I am his joy and he lives out his life in peace because of me. Maybe. If the lenses in my glasses were of an up-to-date prescription I might have seen from my lectern position the eyes of all the women in the room rolling at one line or another. The church, yet again, failing to keep up with today’s world.

“What’s so wrong about serving?” asked God this morning.

Take away the context of a marriage and if people put that kind of thinking into any relationship the world would be a different place.

Why can’t we all be the joy in the lives of other people? Why can’t someone else have years of peace because of the way I live my life as their friend? Do I have to surrender my gladness when the end of the month comes and my wage packet is all spent? Should other people have to live with my misery? “Cheerful of face, whatever the season” – we all respond to a cheerful face.

Silence is not always the option that we choose. We are so quick to defend or justify ourselves.  We feel the need to supply the context for our actions and insist on not being misunderstood. Our silence allows the other person to be free to supply the context and to misunderstand. Yes, there are times when silence is not the right option – there are things that need to be talked about, discussed, air cleared and so on. But there are a lot of things said that need not be.

The “well-trained character” seems to apply more to the dog than to the wife – but let’s not forget that we are all in training for righteousness as Christians.

I do yearn for a “well-kept house” – not particularly for my husband’s benefit but for my own. We all need a place of peace and our surroundings contribute to that.

“There’s nothing wrong with serving,” I admitted, “but why is all down to the wife? Where is the husband’s part in it all?”

“Why not be the instigator?” said God. “Why not set the tenor of the relationship? Why not be the starter of all things good in any relationship? The alternative it to be in a relationship where you have to earn or deserve the good.  The good become something to barter over, to withdraw at times – and that’s not the kind of love that reflects the relationship between Christ and the Church which is what marriage is all about. It’s not the way I do love and it’s not supposed to be the way you do it either.”

Happy the wife of a really good husband;

The number of her days will be doubled.

A perfect husband is the joy of his wife,

She will live out the years of her life in peace.

We should all be the instigators in every relationship we have, setting the tenor, being the starter of all good things – acting rather than reacting.

All For Jesus

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Eph 2:8-10

Familiar words, yes? I daresay it is one of the top ten verses memorised by the entire Christian world! I read it this morning and it was like greeting an old friend.  In one of my previous churches the pastor was very keen that learning verses wasn’t just something for the children to do but for adults as well.  Each Sunday meeting incorporated a memory verse complete with people standing in a circle and throwing a ball about or jumping along a string cardboard stepping stones as we recited the verse.

I took it a step further, as I often do.  The last line, which was the line we were supposed to remember, I set to music.  Feel free to phone me and ask me to sing it to you if you are so inclined! The tune is Caribbean/ Calypso in nature and I have no idea how I came up with it but it has stuck with me.  I no longer read Ephesians 2:10 but sing it – it’s my default setting now.

One might expect someone to be impressed that I can sing the verse – but I have come to the realisation that singing it is not as impressive as doing it!  You know, those “good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

I was watching a documentary on Mother Teresa earlier.  She probably couldn’t sing Ephesians 2:10 like I can, but she put it into practice. When God challenged her to step out of a clean and peaceful convent into the streets of Calcutta to serve the poor she obeyed. She did the good works that God had prepared for her. She put herself in a place – not just a physical place on a retreat in Darjeeling – but ion a spiritual place of listening to God and He spoke, not in an audible voice, but clearly enough in her heart for her to act on it. There is a well-documented account in books and magazines of the help she gave to people in Calcutta. She consistently refused to take any credit for her actions saying repeatedly “All for Jesus.”

Some people might frown about some aspects of her life. She responded to people in poverty but did not really address the issue of why people were in such poverty.  Perhaps you can only pick fault with the woman when you have matched her compassion and service.

There have been times when I have heard and responded to God’s call to the “good works” he has prepared for me.  There are other times when I have just fallen into something which may or may not be His “good works”.

Come the end of next month, our church has planned a day away together – a retreat focussed on the “us” part of our Christian walk.  We are in the process of planning how to organise the day to make the most of the opportunity we have to be together. I can’t help thinking about God choosing the time when Mother Teresa was on her retreat to talk to her about His plans for her life. God is still in the business of talking to people about His plans.

I cannot help but sing Ephesians 2:10.  It’s like breathing.  It’s something that I do. But – the greater challenge is to do it. In doing it I change not only the world around me – but I change me too.