From the Pastor

Dear friends in Christ,

In the fourth chapter of the Book of Genesis, after Cain murders his brother Abel, God asks Cain, “Where is your brother?”  And in a vain attempt to avoid responsibility for his evil deed, Cain replies with the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  That searing question has been repeated endlessly ever since, as we human beings find ever more insidious way to try to avoid our moral responsibility for the welfare of our brothers and sister created in the image of God.  But if we claim to serve Jesus Christ, if we acknowledge Jesus as Lord and King, then there can be only one answer to Cain’s question.  If we are to call ourselves Christians and mean it, then we are our brother’s keeper.

As Wesleyan Christians, we believe that serving others is a means of grace, just like prayer, searching the scriptures and worship.  John Wesley himself had a compassionate heart for service to the poor, the downtrodden, and to those who were overlooked by most of the society of his time.  It is little wonder that the Methodist Societies were known for their creative ministries to the poor.

One example of the transformative power of grace experienced through service to others is seen in the life of Jean Vanier.  In 1964, Vanier, the son of a former Governor General of Canada, visited the chaplain of a small residence for mentally disabled people.  At the time, Vanier was a professor of philosophy, teaching at the University of Toronto; but that visit became a turning point in his life because it became clear to him that God was calling him to something new.  Soon after, in a small town outside of Paris, he invited two disabled men from a nearby institution to come live with him.  In time, others joined them, until the community grew to over 400 people.  Their success in ministering to the mentally challenged in a radically new way — a way inspired by Jesus — gradually spread until more than 80 L'Arche communities were founded around the world.

Vanier often spoke of the great love and compassion that he experienced while living with the mentally disabled.  He came to see the face of Jesus in the people he came to serve; he came to experience the truth that in serving others, we receive the greater blessing.  And he began to understand that in serving others, we become transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. 

In one of his sermons, Vanier described this truth of God’s kingdom in these words:  “The whole of the mystery of Christ is to change us so that we become the face of Jesus, we become the hands of Jesus, that we become the heart of Jesus, that our body becomes the body of Christ, that our words become the words of Christ. That's the mystery — that he gives us his Spirit so we can continue this work….”  By serving others we become, in the words of the apostle Paul, a new creation as we surrender ourselves completely to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Grace and peace,

Alan