It's About Shoveling A New Cultural Pathway

Jordan, Mrs. Lucy & Keith

This past Saturday Keith, Jordan and I spent 4-5 hours shoveling the driveways of senior citizens in town who could not do it for themselves. Our senior center gives us an updated list of seniors in need every winter and we do our best to check on them after every snowstorm. We shoveled 10 driveways on Saturday and met some beautiful elderly people.

Lucy, the lady pictured above, about jumped for joy when we arrived for she was shoveling her driveway all by herself at the age of 85. She knew we were from the Brunswick Church of Christ and had heard that we would be out checking on people. We talked about the Lord together in the 20 minutes we were there and even prayed with her as we left.

But about this day of serving through shoveling let me say this: It was more than just serving. Yes we put into practice Matthew 5:16: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven”, but it was more than that too. Our day of shoveling was also about re-shoveling a path in our culture for a way of life which makes the love of neighbor primary again.

When we go out to serve as a congregation, no matter what service we do, we are not just trying to let our light shine so that others can see Christ in us, although we are trying to do that eagerly. Neither are we just trying to gain opportunities to meet people so that we can share Christ with them, but we are doing that proactively. In addition to these things we are also trying to do something else. We are trying to shovel a new pathway of life in our community which sets up the next generation for unobstructed life in Christ.

Our community has taken the pathway of life that leads to the greatest financial gain. Most of America has. This pathway, however, has come at the expense of our neighbor. For this reason we as the church of Christ must be shoveling a new pathway. In this new pathway everything must change. We must change why we do what we do. We must choose our work based on its serving potential not its earning potential. We must work not because it makes us wealth but because it is a means to love our neighbor. That was the Lord's design for work.
 

Shaun & Keith

On Saturday we continued shoveling a new pathway in our community. This new pathway charts a way of life in which Jesus is center, our neighbor is second in line, and everything else takes a back seat...and, of course, in the end the Lord provides for us through it.

Let me close this conversation with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that makes excellent sense for us today. He said,

“On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring” (Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City).

It is not enough simply to serve in Jesus name today. It is not enough simply to evangelize the world with the Gospel message and baptize people. We must do both of those things! But we must also, by the power of the Holy Spirit, be about changing the edifice of our culture such that the love of neighbor no longer takes a back-seat to making money. That’s what we were doing on Saturday with Mrs. Lucy. Did we convert her? No. Not yet. But we can be assured that it shall do no good to convert her if afterwards we shall abandon her to the cultural pathway of greed and materialism where we have no time for her needs anyway.

 

Let us cotinue shoveling the new pathway of life around Jesus in our community!