Service as a Prayer

A Worship Service by the Rev. Jonalu Johnstone

Presented to the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Reading

We continue this week with our sermon series on the affirmation that we speak together each week.  This week’s installation – “Service is its prayer” – reminds me of the Hebrew prophets, including Jesus, who repeatedly admonished the people that God didn’t care near as much for their prayers, their Sabbaths, and their holy festivals as he did for their devotion to good.

We don’t read the Bible a lot, but there are things in it that we like, especially when it seems to condemn traditional worship in favor of action for good.

 Amos 5:14-15, 21-24

Seek good and not evil, that you may live;

and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,

            just as you have said.

Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate;

it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,

will be gracious…

[And Amos quotes God here:]

I hate, I despise your festivals,

            and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,

            I will not accept them;

and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals

            I will not look upon.

Take away from me the noise of your songs;

            I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

But let justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

A little extreme.

In the Muslim tradition, the Sufi Saadi said it a bit less shrilly:

To worship God is nothing other than to serve the people.

It does not need rosaries, prayer carpets, or robes.

Service as a Prayer

A Worship Service by the Rev. Jonalu Johnstone

Presented to the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City

Sunday, February 20, 200

Despite the words of the prophets, we continue to have worship services that include music and meditation and prayer, though we’ve pretty much left behind the burnt offerings and fatted animals – except maybe at potlucks.  Amos said God called worship music “noise,” and Saadi said we didn’t need these robes.  I suspect there are people here who agree with at least one of those complaints. 

Personally, I’m not ready to give up all our traditional accoutrements in favor of just being good, though it is a very Unitarian inclination.  We come out of the Protestant tradition that deplored the selling of indulgences and the worship trappings of the Catholic Church.  We come out of the Puritan tradition that claimed that other Protestants didn’t simplify it enough and stripped the sanctuary of ornamentation and art, going for simplicity of architectural line and enforced commitment to being good.

We prefer deeds, we say, to creeds; action to mere reflection; service to prayer. 

Sometimes, we even choose to view our emphasis on action over reflection as morally superior to those who submit their prayers as evidence of religiosity.

We don’t have to pray – we’re too busy doing good stuff.  That’s a quick read of “Service is our prayer.”  Too quick a read.  We need to delve into the words a bit more.

 “Prayer” – that’s one of those hard words that Mark & I preached about last year. 

Many Unitarian Universalists would just as soon we set the whole idea of prayer aside. 

First, to whom are we praying?  The old joke says it’s “To Whom it May Concern.”  Which may not be far from the truth for those of us who do pray. 

No matter our particular beliefs around the existence or non-existence of God, there’s also the question of “Why pray?”  What’s the point?  Are we begging some interventionist God to come over to our side?  Or using a spiritual technique to sort and settle our personal life issues?  Are we changing anything at all in the world through prayer, or only – and this may be one of those “only’s” that’s pretty big – only changing our own hearts?  Can rote prayers – like “The Lord’s Prayer”  or “St. Francis’ Prayer,” or a Buddhist Metta – have any role or use for us?  Can prayer mean more than a selfish appeal for a winning touchdown or other personal favors?  Is prayer productive at all?  That’s what we wonder.

So if we can just chuck prayer aside completely by saying “Service is our prayer,” what a relief.  We’re not expecting God to get it done for us; we are praying by making it happen ourselves.  If we can simply act in the word – feed the hungry, heal the sick, visit the prisoner, clothe the naked, and avoid having to struggle with the theological issues of prayer, how convenient!

Service is our prayer.  Then again, the word “service” raises its own issues. 

Whom are we serving?  God?  Humanity?  Our own church community?  Our neighborhood?  Our own family?  There’s quite a bit of wiggle room here.  But beyond that, “service” is one of those words with a lot of baggage.  When we serve, we put our own interests and desires aside for someone else. A servant doesn’t make policy; a servant follows orders.  The head has to bow nearly as low as for prayer.  If we are serving others, we’re not asserting what is right for them, and seeing that they pursue it; we’re not defining what needs to be done.  If we’re serving, we’re following someone else’s commands, dictates, desires, will. Not always a strong suit for independent-minded UU’s.

So, we’ve got problems with the word “prayer.”  And the word “service.”  What about the word “is?”  Does the truth of this statement depend on what the meaning of the word is is? 

Well, I know it got Clinton in trouble, but yeah.  Each of the clauses we’ve considered so far in this affirmation uses the word “is.”  Love is the doctrine of this church.  The quest for truth is its sacrament.  And service is its prayer.  Are we using “is” as a literal equivalence, as in “David is my brother,” where David literally grew up in the same family as I did as my sibling?  Or are we using a metaphor, saying, for example, “Mark is my brother,” meaning actually, Mark is like my brother – part of the human family and that we care for each other like brother and sister.

It may be a fine point, the meaning of “is.”  But I think that our affirmation is closer to poetry than it is to a dictionary.  This matters because service need not replace prayer for us.  Rather prayer has qualities which we want in our service.

These statements – Love is our doctrine; the quest for truth is our sacrament; service is our prayer – they work because we don’t expect such equivalencies.  Try it the next time someone asks you, “What’s the doctrine of your church?”

“Love is our doctrine.”  It’s a good answer, but not satisfying to your Baptist neighbor.

How can love be doctrine?  How can a quest for truth be a sacrament?  How can service be a prayer?  Our affirmation demands reflection.  We know service isn’t exactly the same thing as prayer. 

How can service be prayer?

I’ve certainly seen service that is not a prayer.  I’ve received it from salespeople and waiters, as I’m sure you have.  But the best example was in an episode of “Desperate Housewives,” where uptight Brie explains it clearly to her somewhat estranged husband, who’s recovering from a heart attack.  When he comments that she must still love him.  Why look at the delicious meal she’s served him with a flower and gorgeous presentation and their best china.  What trouble she’s gone through. 

She must still love him.  With a sly smile dripping with contempt, she declares, “Don’t confuse my anal retentiveness with love.”  She served him, but it wasn’t with love, and it wasn’t a prayer.  Unless, perhaps, a curse is one form of prayer.

The problem with Brie’s service was that it wasn’t about the receiver of the service – her husband.  No, her service was about herself. She couldn’t bring herself to prepare a shoddy meal.  That may be the surest way to keep our service from being prayer.  For our service to be about ourselves.  When we chair the committee to add it to a resume, or join the service club to round up business, or work on the charity fundraiser so that others will have to work on our project later, or even when we do service to get the name of the church out there, then we’re not doing prayerful service. 

We may still be accomplishing good, and there may be nothing at all wrong with what we’re doing, but service with personal motives isn’t prayer.  No, prayerful service needs to be focused on the person or people being served.

I remember standing around a little garden pond one winter day with family members when a preschooler, my partner’s great-nephew, slipped and fell in. 

My first thought was, “Oh, my god, someone needs to grab that child.” 

My second thought was, “Oh, my god, I’m closest.”  I plunged in, scooped up the boy and handed him to his mother who was running towards us as quickly as she could.  I knew I couldn’t get that child without getting cold and wet, but my only thoughts, really, were for him, for what had to be done. 

When we see something that needs to be done in the world – safety that needs to be assured, justice that needs to be attained, hunger that needs to be assuaged, happiness that needs to be achieved – when we see the needs and just meet them, without thought of what we will gain, or lose, then we are truly serving others.  Every once in a while, we have a clear moment, like the boy falling in the pond, when there’s no question what to do, but most of the time, it’s murkier.

Action is good, but there can be danger in prompt action, done without reflection.

We can get tired, resentful, angry, burnt out.  What’s more, we can do the wrong thing. 

The prophet Amos argued that we need to “seek good,” and to “hate evil.”  Part of the struggle is how to know what’s good and what’s not.  I observe Unitarian Universalists – often with beautiful motives – jumping in the pond all the time – but sometimes, it’s when the child hasn’t fallen in yet, or someone else has already got him, or the child turns out to be a discarded baby doll.  And we’re all wet and cold for no reason at all.  

I recently heard the phenomenon called “congregational left-foot activism.”

There are many ways we can be misled in our efforts to do good.   A common one is to act from anger.  We’ve seen a lot of it in the political realm of late, people acting out anger in the name of right.  The transgender activist and performance artist Kate Bornstein cautions us about anger as a motive.  She writes: 

            …anger and activism mix about as well as drinking and driving.  When I’m angry, I don’t have the judgement to select a correct target to hit out against.  I do believe that anger is healthy, that it can lead to a recognition of the need for action, but activism itself is best accomplished by level heads….  [Gender Outlaw:  On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us.  New York:  Vintage Books, 1995, p. 83]

Left-foot activism, misdirected service, can come from not sorting through our own emotions, from not knowing all the facts, from not listening to the ideas of others, from dismissing what people say they need in favor of what we believe we can offer.

We human beings, we fallible, vulnerable, human beings, get awfully mixed up some times.   We need to find ways to sort out our good motives from our destructive ones, our cherished ideas about reality from reality itself, our own wishes for others from their dreams for themselves, our own best selves from our lesser selves.   We need to know our own motives.

I remember a story that Parker Palmer, the Quaker educator and activist, told about himself.  He was offered a job as a university president at a small school, and found it inviting.  A great way to serve people, one might think, a good way to live out his values about education and activism.  As Quakers do in their tradition, he gathered a Clearness Committee to help him discern whether to take this opportunity.  The job of a Clearness Committee is not to give advice, but to listen to the person seeking clearness, to ask questions, to sit in silence, and to wait for the promptings of the spirit to indicate the right action. 

Palmer sat with his committee and talked about all the things he’d hate about the job – the fundraising, the wearing a suit and tie, the responsibilities.  Finally, a member of the committee asked, “Parker, why would you want this job?”

In a fit of honesty, his answer rolled out, “I’d get my picture in the paper.”

Realizing there are many other ways, perhaps more consistent with his own calling, to get his picture in the paper, Palmer turned down the job.

We’re not Quakers.  Our practice is not to gather Clearness Committees to discern right actions, though it might not be a bad idea.  We need to do good in the world, but we need to reflect, too.  Often, we need help from others to reflect.  We need to somehow set ourselves aside, so that ego and emotion don’t clog our decision-making. That could be called prayer. 

In liberation theology, based in Central and South America, small groups gather to study the Bible, but more, to say, what does this say about our own liberation?  What do we need to do to bring justice to our world, based on our study?  Then, after acting together, they return for more study. This action-reflection process, called praxis, is the reason for these base groups, as they are called.  What they do together is service as prayer.  We, too, need to find ways to step out of our chronic high activity levels, to find a source of reflection, a way of getting outside ourselves to better know what we should do.

We need to let go of ego.

A story is told of a monk who never gave advice, but did offer people questions to contemplate.  A priest on retreat at the monastery came to him and asked for a question to consider.

The monk offered this question, “What do they need?”

The priest struggled with it for awhile, writing out answers, then realized it really wasn’t what he wanted to be thinking about.  He returned to the monk, and said, “Excuse me.  Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear.  Your question has been helpful, but I wasn’t so much interested in thinking about my parishioners during this retreat. 

Rather I wanted to think seriously about my own spiritual life.  Could you give me a question for my own spiritual life?”

“Ah, I see,” said the monk.  “Then my question is, ‘What do they REALLY need?’” [Father Theophane in Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart:  Parables of the Spiritual Path from around the World, Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, Eds.  HarperSanFrancisco, 1991, p. 152]

We have to get ourselves out of the way if we are to serve.  We have to release our own expectations, adopt the Buddhist way of non-attachment to results.  One of the best-known examples – I’ve seen it in Thict Naht Hanh’s writings among others is how to wash dishes.  To wash dishes in order to have clean dishes is to be attached to the results.  To wash dishes only to wash dishes is to release our attachment to the results and to be fully in the experience of washing dishes.

In the same way, to be of service, in a prayerful way, we must not expect gratitude, or victory, or praise.  We must be satisfied with doing what is the right thing to do.  When we do service with no more than that in mind, with our focus not on our motives, but on the needs of others, we are praying.  We do what’s right – giving food to someone who’s hungry, treating a whining child with dignity instead of derision, listening to a co-worker’s domestic struggles, offering gratitude when it is due, advocating for someone whose voice has been stilled, raising money for a good cause, tutoring a child, writing letters to legislators – we can do all of these without attachment to results, with a prayerful attitude of service.

Is it an awfully high standard?  Yes.  Prayer, after all, is a spiritual discipline, a spiritual practice.   Spiritual disciplines – whether prayer, meditation, chanting, journaling, or service – are supposed to challenge us, not simply soothe and relax us.  They often call us away from ourselves to a greater will, a more profound understanding and a deeper way of being in the world.  If we are to take service seriously as a discipline, we need to approach it thoughtfully, selflessly, and regularly. 

Not simply when we feel like it or when it’s convenient.  We have to ask consistently, if not “What would Jesus do?” “What is the right thing to do?”  “What needs do I see that I can meet?”  “How can I help?”

I think that’s the way of breaching the chasm sometimes perceived between spirituality and social responsibility.  Churches often struggle between the two because spirituality is seen as individual reaching into the self in order to grow religiously, while social responsibility is seen as outreach into the world to serve others.  Tensions erupt between factions and even within individuals about the value of one over the other.  

If we live with the certainty that service is our prayer, we overcome the dichotomy.   Service is our prayer because action and spirituality intertwine, enhancing each other, leading to both spiritual growth and a better world.  Service is our prayer because when we serve others with a solid spiritual foundation, we avoid burn-out, resentment, regrets and mistakes. Service is our prayer because we believe that humans must partner with the Divine to achieve goodness, that simply asking God to take care of it is not enough, but relying only on our individual selves is not enough either.

This weekend we’ve hosted such an opportunity.  Fifty-three junior high UU’s from around Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana came here, to this church, for a social action conference.  They worked at the Food Bank, heard about the problems of homelessness, and participated in an Oxfam Hunger Banquet, where they experienced the inequity of distribution of the world’s food. We gave them a chance to serve others, to reflect and to learn. We taught them what we say together every week -- That service is, indeed, our prayer.

May we do as well ourselves, grounding our struggle to live righteous lives spiritually as well as socially, praying through the service we offer to our loved ones, to our church, to our neighborhood, to our world, and to our God.

So may it be.

AMEN