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| A master of customer service |
By service I mean a huge variety of activities undertaken with the express purpose of improving other people's lives in a meaningful way. Repairing houses after a natural disaster, educating kids, educating adults, feeding people, cleaning up a park, visiting prisoners, counseling families, building stuff that people or communities need, etc. All of these things serve to build God's Kingdom (or Queendom, if you prefer) by getting us closer to a world where everyone loves everyone else and takes care of them. This world looks a lot like a good bar at a certain point in the night. Everyone in there loves each other. If the service staff do a good job of making sure everyone is adequately served, the party rocks!
If you're wondering who works in God's bar, that's a great question. Answer: everyone does! Well, at least all believers. All Christians have an unwritten contract to be God's servers. Priests, pastors, nuns, monks, etc. are an important part of this but they are by no means the only employees. If anything, the role of a pastor is more like a barback. In many bars, the barback is an employee who runs around from the storeroom to the serving area making sure that the bartender has all of the supplies they might need. Barbacks stock fridges and tap kegs, etc. They support the bartender. Similarly, the role of a pastors and religious professionals is to support the believers who are busy serving the world. They serve the servants.
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| Jesus serves the servants, washing their feet |
Working at a bar, if you practice bad customer service, the boss gets on your back. As a Christian, God is the boss. A bar owner would be ticked off if someone came in wanting a vodka-cran and they had to wait inordinately long only to get a beer that they didn't order grudgingly shoved in their face. How much angrier must God be that there are needy people out there who have waited for help only to have a few thousand dollars thrown at them to buy things that won't fix the problem? Even worse, there are people whose needs are completely ignored! This is unacceptable in God's sight.
Consider this scripure:
"The people of the land have practiced oppression and committed robbery, and they have wronged the poor and needy and have oppressed the sojourner without justice... Thus I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; their way I have brought upon their heads," declares the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 22:29,31
If I ignored customers, my boss might threaten to fire me. But God threatens those who ignore the needy with LITERAL FIRE! That's serious.
So whether you're a Christian or not, I invite you to join the staff and serve the world in whatever way you feel empowered to. Pretty soon I'll be a pastor and I will gladly barback for you. I can fetch you kegs of scripture and handles of theology or whatever you need.
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| My father, a great man, serving others |
This week's drink is dedicated to my loving, hard-working, brilliant, humble, and service-focused girlfriend who is starting an Americorps position. She will serve so many people with so much love it's amazing!
Grapefruits of Wrath
I ordered her a gin and grapefruit once and she loved it. Also, cardamom is her favorite spice and it goes well with the flavor of gin so...
Ingredients: 1 shot gin, grapefruit juice, finely ground cardamom seeds.
Lightly salt the rim of a lowball glass by moistening the edge and dipping into a pile of salt. Pour gin over ice into the glass. Fill the rest of the glass with grapefruit juice. Sprinkle powdered cardamom on top (sparingly, it's strong stuff!).
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