Tag: servants

Brother, Sister, let me serve you

Today’s choice of hymn from Sing Praise is, unlike many of the others, very well known to me.  “Brother, Sister, let me serve you” is sung in many churches, but was also one of the hymns that my wife and I chose for our church wedding at St Luke’s Eccleshill.

The reason it makes a good wedding hymn is that it covers the many ways in which a couple in a long-term relationship serve each other, irrespective of what religious affiliation they may or may not have, but it is also a thoroughly Christian text that begins “Brother, Sister, let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you, pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too”.  The inclusion of “grace” reminds us that we need God’s help to make our relationships work well, and that second line points to the truth that being served by others graciously takes effort and grace just as much as being the servant.

These various ways of serving are summarised in the second verse as “we are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load”, a reference to Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:41) that “if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile”. This is itself said to be a reference to the Roman law that a soldier could make someone carry their equipment for one mile, a law invoked when Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry Jesus’ cross on the way to his crucifixion.   But forcing? compulsion? crucifixion? How does that square with love? Perhaps it is intended to mean that when our partner is suffering, is under the pressure of external forces, we are expected to share that burden.  It finds expression also in the traditional English marriage service where each partner is asked to make a vow to love the other “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health”.  Marriage cannot be expected to be a lifetime of easy happiness, but where there is the commitment to support each other in all circumstances, it can survive and even flourish and grow in difficult times.

The following two verses (3 & 4) list some of the ways this will work in practice: “I will hold the Christ light for you in the night-time of your fear, I will hold my hand out to you, speak the peace you long to hear”; “I will weep when you are weeping, when you laugh I’ll laugh with you, I will share your joy and sorrow till we’ve seen this journey through”. 

The fourth verse is again thoroughly Christian as it looks forward to “singing to God in heaven in perfect harmony”, although “we” here must mean the whole Christian community, past, present and future, since Jesus taught that there will be no marriage in heaven: our individual loving relationships will be blended into the perfect love of God that God intended for all creation.

Linda and I have been married for nearly eighteen years now. We’ve certainly known the ups and downs of “sickness and health”; while not experiencing poverty we’ve known the uncertainties of the private rental market and times when expenditure exceeded income; and certainly our share of weeping and laughter.  We can testify to the truth of the words of this hymn. 

The one line I haven’t quoted yet is the first half of the second verse: “we are pilgrims on a journey, and companions on the road”. Now you know where our domain name (pilgrims.org.uk) comes from – from this hymn and our experience of living it out.

The Bible in a Year – 22 April

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

22 April. 2 Kings chapters 5-8

These chapters cover mainly further stories about the signs and miracles of the prophet Elisha during the wars between Israel and Aram (Syria). We read how he healed the Aramean commander Naaman, prevented attacks by the Arameans but saved the lives of some of their men, thus achieving a lengthy truce, and saves the people of the Israelite capital Samaria from total starvation by causing the Arameans to think they were being attacked. Eventually he visits the Aramean king Ben-Hadad, and prophesies to Hazael that he will become king, knowing that he will do so by murdering his master.

 

Clearly Elisha had considerable powers of telepathy or clairvoyance, as many of these miracles rely on him reading people’s minds, knowing what was happening elsewhere or would shortly come to pass. There have always been people with such gifts, still inexplicable to science, and which are therefore generally understood as “spiritual”. The exercise of these powers other than in the name of God is frequently condemned as sinful in the Bible, and is still regarded with suspicion by many people of faith today, as ‘occult’ powers that some people think come from the Devil.  But when used in God’s name, such people are called prophets, and Elisha is one of them, who seems to have been the head of a “company of prophets” although their gifts may not have been so spectacular.

 

The other thing that strikes me about these chapters is the role played by servants and other ‘unimportant’ people in the stories. It is an unnamed slave girl who tells Naaman’s wife that there is a prophet in her own country who could heal him; Elisha’s servant Gehazi who goes out to tell Naaman Elisha’s words (which angers Naaman) and Naaman’s own servant who persuades him to act on them.  When Samaria is besieged, it is four men with skin diseases, ritually unclean and forced to live outside the city wall, who take the initiative and discover the enemy camp empty, thus saving the whole city from starvation.  Sometimes it is those with the least official authority who, acting in faith and with courage, make the most difference.