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.
It's one thing to be a servant. But it's another thing to allow others to serve you, too.
What about you? Were you served by someone this morning? What did Rev. Williams' Forgiveness sermon teach you?
I'll be singing that hymn as a solo at a wedding of two Gracefield friends this coming Friday. It's a very wedding appropriate hymn, actually: serving, partnership, upholding one another, journeying together.
ReplyDeleteIt's sort of like the challenge to receiving grace and redemption. It isn't that it's difficult to be forgiven - Jesus did the hard part, and the rest for us is remarkably easy! - it's only that it is difficult to accept that we can be and will be forgiven.
I like that hymn too. I found the sermon very challenging (in a good way). It seems so daunting to exercise the muscle of forgiveness and really mean it and then to let the issue go. The examples that are in the text are fine, but it would be interesting to share experiences of forgiveness both successful and un- from our lives.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Geoffrey, real life examples are so valuable. I found the Matthew 18 readings a bit difficult. In the first example, the brother is told to "treat him like a pagan or a tax collecter" if he doesn't listen to the church. Whereas the second example, it's "seventy times seven" forgiveness. Are they different kinds of situations? The only thing I could think of was the difference between a continuing fault (in the first example) where the person just keeps doing the same thing, versus a one-time fault that's over, done and can be forgiven.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't know. It's where real-life examples would definitely come in handy.
When I saw that Tom had chosen this hymn for Sunday, I was so sorry that I would not be there to sing it! I think the words sum up, in a very simple way, what it means to be a Christian. Ever since I heard this hymn being sung at the initial gathering at General Assembly from Cape Breton in June (via the PCC website), I can't get the music, and words,out of my head. If we can all learn to serve each other, day by day, year by year, how much grace there will be.....
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