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Serving others
Lesson for August 8, 2010 — Philippians 2:1-13
By Muriel T. StackleyThe best mission work, the best cross-cultural work, happens when the speaker identifies with the hearers.
Stackley
Our crowning example is Jesus taking on human form. Our Philippians passage contains a hymn, verses 5 through 11, describing how Christ humbled himself. When the Philippian Christians sang this hymn, what a marvelous teaching tool it was.
Here are stories that speak to the five obstacles listed above.
Examples of witness
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Driven to action by a needy society, a “new monasticism” is being given voice by Shane Claiborne, a young Christian leader who spoke at the Mennonite Church USA convention a year ago. New monasticism has been described as building a society where it’s easier for people to be kind to each other. One day, followed by a middle school gang, Claiborne and a companion turned to face the boys, and Claiborne said, “You guys were created in the image of God. You can do better than this.”
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Convicted by the needs in Haiti, 10-year-old Zachary Wirzba challenged his congregation, Lethbridge (Alta.) Mennonite Church, to “go hairless for Haiti.” Four had their hair or beards shaved on Feb. 14, sending $4,600 to Mennonite Central Committee for rebuilding Haiti. Several hundred miles south, in Kansas, Bethel College students, staff, faculty and community members packaged 220,750 meals to send to Haiti.
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“You cannot make us Christians hate you” are the words of Melkite priest Elias Chacour, author of the timeless book Blood Brothers. A school near Bethlehem, begun by Chacour, is a laboratory for this refreshing solution to conflict in the Middle East.
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The witness of Loren and Donna Kampen Entz’s 30 years among Burkina Faso’s Muslim community began with a feast-day visit to an influential imam. On Christmas Day in 1979 the imam returned the invitation. The two communities began singing Old Testament psalms that are mentioned in the Quran. An early convert said, “Music will communicate God’s message to my people.”
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Let us respect our various expressions of Christianity so as to not damage our combined witness to an aching world. Therefore, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you” (Phil. 2:12-13).
Retired from editing and pastoring, Muriel T. Stackley worships at First Mennonite Church in Lincoln, Neb
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