Canadian Mennonite
Volume 13, No. 23
Nov. 30, 2009


Giving and receiving

Exploring the spirituality of service

In April 2008, Leah Reesor won the Conrad Grebel University College annual Peace Speech contest, including the $300 first prize, for her speech about the lessons she learned through her experience as a peace intern in Jamaica. Her speech is published below in a slightly edited format.

By Leah Reesor

Leah Reesor, seated with guitar, was part of the worship band at Waterloo Mennonite Church in Kingston, Jamaica, during an internship there.

Give, and it will come back to you,
Good measure, pressed down,
Shaken together, and running over,
Give, and it will come back to you.
When you give, give to the Lord.

This song is sung every Sunday during the offering at Waterloo Mennonite Church in Kingston, Jamaica. During the year that I spent there with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), the song came to have a lot of meaning for me as I struggled to understand what it means to give and to serve. I am using this song and my experiences in Jamaica as a starting point to explore what sustains us, as Christians, in our work for peace.

Something is better than nothing

One of the first lessons I learned in Jamaica was that something is better than nothing.

In complex situations with limited resources, you cannot do the “best” thing all the time; you have to do what you can and be satisfied that you tried.

In Jamaica, I worked for the Council for Human Rights. One of our projects involved assisting Haitian boat people seeking refugee status in Jamaica. As a child, I lived in Haiti, where I learned to speak Haitian Kreyòl. I hadn’t spoken Kreyòl since I had returned to Canada more than 10 years ago. But for these asylum-seekers who spoke limited or no English, I was the only person available who could interpret their stories and take their statements for their refugee hearings.

It was a responsibility that I struggled with for a long time. These asylum-seekers deserved a qualified, competent translator, someone who could be counted on to fully understand their stories of violence and persecution. I felt like I was in over my head. I couldn’t even remember the words for “gun” or “shoot.”

But there was no one else. And somehow I muddled through, asking questions and repeating things back to make sure I understood what the men and women were saying to me. My something was better than nothing. In the end, all of the asylum-seekers that I interpreted for were denied refugee status in Jamaica and were deported back to Haiti. I achieved nothing, but at least I could do the “something” of listening to their stories.

Expect to be treated like a servant

But “something is better than nothing” doesn’t mean just any effort will do. When you give, you have to be prepared to go all the way.

Jeshana, a vivacious four-year-old, helped illustrate an important lesson in giving when I stayed with her and her family in the country for a week. The first day I was there, I helped her practise the alphabet on a piece of paper torn from my journal. After that first page she wanted more and more, and eventually I had to set a limit of one page a day, or my notebook would have been empty.

Since I had given once, she expected me to keep on giving. So often when I give I want to set up boundaries. I will give this, once, and you will appreciate it and thank me, with no expectations of anything else.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. My friend and fellow MCC worker, Nebyou Berhe, once said, “If you expect to serve, expect to be treated like a servant.”

If you expect to serve, expect to be treated like a servant. So often I want recognition for my hard work. I want to be thanked for going out of my way, for doing something instead of nothing. But as a Christian, that’s not why we serve. As nice as it is to be recognized and thanked for serving, that cannot be our motivation.

When pushing is enough

We also cannot rely on seeing results as a motivation for serving. In Jamaica, a complex tangle of social, economic and historical factors has led to the current problems of violence, crime and corruption that are plaguing the country. The situation can’t change overnight. In working for an improvement in the human rights situation in Jamaica, I had to have faith that there was a purpose for my actions and that somewhere down the line the work of the Council for Human Rights would have an impact.

Another MCC worker once compared service in Jamaica to pushing a rock:

As the story goes, a person was told by God to push a rock, a big boulder. Every morning, the woman pushed that rock as hard as she could, leaning into it with all her strength. Each day she would return to the rock, determined to move it, and yet the boulder wouldn’t budge a centimetre. Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer.

“God,” she said, “I’ve failed. I can’t move the rock.”

God responded to her, “I didn’t ask you to move the rock, I only asked you to push it.”

It’s not a particularly encouraging story. None of us likes to work without seeing any progress made. But it’s a reality that we can’t always expect to see the results of our service. And sometimes what matters is not that we actually get anywhere, but that we commit ourselves to the act of service.

More than a theology of service

I came to Jamaica with a theology of serv-ice. By theology, I mean what I believe about God and God’s relationship to the world, and how I believe I should act. I was, and am, committed to following Jesus’ example of active peacebuilding, of listening to the call to free the captives and raise up the oppressed. At the Council for Human Rights, I literally did try to free the captives and raise up the oppressed.

I left Jamaica realizing that to live out a theology of service in a sustainable way, to be able to serve without burning out, I needed to go beyond theology and develop a spirituality of service. Hans Denck, an early Anabaptist leader, echoed the giving and receiving theme when he wrote that “no one can truly know Christ unless he follow him in life. And no one can truly follow Christ unless he first know him.” The act of service can’t be sustained apart from the experience of a relationship with God.

Susan Claassen, in an MCC paper on the spirituality of service, writes that “a theology of service provides our foundation for action in the world, but we need the Spirit to give life to that foundation by rooting us in love and grace.” This is part of giving to the Lord: we serve, or we give, not just because we think that’s what Jesus wants us to do, but as we receive God’s love we naturally share it with others.

We also recognize that what we have to give is not of ourselves, but is what God has first given us. In Matthew 10:8, Jesus instructs his disciples: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons; freely you have received, freely give.”

Freely we have received, freely we give. In this exhortation to serve, what we have to give is what we have first received from God.

With that mentality service is not draining, but energizing. Instead of a mentality that I am giving something of mine away, or that I am the one taking action, I have learned to see myself as more of a conduit—a channel—for God’s peace, for God’s desire for action in the world. A spirituality of service asks us to see ourselves not as the initiator of the action, but as part of the process of showing God’s peace. True service is not just actions done for others, but in its fullest form is worship, praise and thanks to God who has first given to us.

In Jamaica, I learned that service is giving without holding back; it’s serving without recognition, without thanks; it’s giving what you have, even when you feel inadequate. Service is committing to working even without being able to see results of your actions.

For an idealistic peace and conflict studies student like myself, there are so many things to be done in the world, so many places where I see the need for change, situations in our own community and in the global community where we need to actively work for peace. But to sustain ourselves, we need to ground our action and our giving in a spirituality of service, so that we’re giving as we receive, rooting ourselves in God’s peace as we strive to share peace with others. Give, and it will come back to you. When you give, give to the Lord.

After graduating from Conrad Grebel last year, Leah Reesor is currently working on a masters degree in development studies at York University in Toronto, where she attends the Jane Finch Faith Community. She represents MC Eastern Canada on the MCC Ontario board.

For discussion

1. What have been some of your service experiences? What motivated you to serve? How have you benefited or been enriched by serving others? What have been the challenges in your service experiences?

2. Leah Reesor quotes a line from a song, “Give, and it will come back to you.” Is it true that generosity results in a blessing for the giver? Is this a selfish motivation for giving? How can we encourage each other to greater generosity?

3. In reflecting on her own service experience, Reesor says that service should not be motivated by a desire for recognition or thanks. Do you agree? How idealistic is her theology of service? How does her attitude towards service compare with that of Mother Teresa?

4. Where and how do members of your congregation serve others? Is service still important in Mennonite theology? How are service opportunities different today than in earlier times?


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