Service, Not Serve Us: The Art of True Compassion
March 26, 2024 | McKenzie Davies
2-3 Minute Read Time
What Does It Truly Mean to Serve?
One of my favorite things about my job at The Block Community Outreach is the people I meet. I meet volunteers—people who are taking time out of their busy lives to help others. What a gift it is to see people at their best!
However, it is an even greater gift to meet our clients. Asking for help is hard, and meeting people who are willing to be vulnerable and tell me that they need support is humbling. Witnessing their strength, their transparency inspires me to prove myself worthy of their trust.
My clients have helped me to more fully understand what Jesus taught in Matthew 19, which The Message paraphrases in this way—
This is the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first.
It is easy for me to assume that I know what I’m doing because, by the standards of the world, I am relatively successful. I have stable housing, I go to work 5 days a week, I finished college. I find myself seeing someone asking for help and assuming that I have the answer, that I know the best way to provide that help.
But the Standards of God's Kingdom are Different.
I think that Martin Luther King Jr.’s description of the Beloved Community captures those standards well. The King Center puts it this way on their website—
In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood.
Help is not “all-inclusive” if it doesn’t provide space for the person who is seeking help. The person who best understands a person’s needs is that person. They are living with that need; they are the experts.
And how many times have I fallen short of this standard of including everyone? How many times have I made my voice the loudest, the first? How many times have I not taken time to listen to someone who is asking for help on the street? How many times have I not spoken up when someone says something hurtful about a group of people who are different from them? How many times have I failed to include others and build community?
And so, my clients teach me.
In God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time, Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote—
It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul.
Vulnerability Leads to Growth
My clients make themselves vulnerable by asking for help. In response, they deserve that I also make myself vulnerable. I need to admit that I don’t have the answers, that I don’t fully understand their experience. But, I believe, that when we can be vulnerable, we can build community. Coming from an honest and vulnerable place allows trust to build. And then we can work together to help solve problems.
James H. Cone wrote in Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of a Black Theologian—
Luke's Gospel was clear: Jesus's ministry was essentially liberation on behalf of the poor and the oppressed.
I think that the difference between service and “serve us” is how we respond to this call for liberation.
If we say that we know the “right” way for people experiencing poverty and oppression to become liberated, we are missing the point. We are putting ourselves at the center of the conversation. We are putting “us” in service.
However, if we trust God’s promise of liberation, we can take ourselves out of the equation. We can come alongside our siblings and support them without making it about ourselves.
This is the lesson I am learning from my clients. Where do I place myself in relation to service? If I’m putting myself in front, I’m missing the point. Taking a step back and decentering myself does sometimes feel like trying to fit a camel through the eye of a needle, but aligning myself with God’s Beloved Community is worth the work.