Band of Brothers

"Never put yourself in a position where you can take from these men." The words spoken so eloquently by Sgt. Winters in the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers resounded within me. In this scene, one of the commanding officers plays poker with the other men. Sgt. Winters reprimands him for it and challenges him to think about what would have happened if he would have won.

The scene has played over and over in my mind. As most of you know I am a media whore. I love to search for truth in the weirdest places, so it is no surprise that I found a truth on this episode.

This scene caused me to reflect on my own journey and that of the church. To take pop culture or a show and turn it into a spiritual lesson can seem a bit…Purpose Driven so to speak. The underlining principle however, resounds as something a bit more of substance.

Several years ago I was in my youth group getting ready to go on a mission's trip. Most of us in the youth group couldn't afford to go with the price of the plane tickets, food, and lodging. We decided to have a car wash for the community. We had our event and raised a good bit of money. Several people would ask what our cause was and we would reply, "A mission's trip" to which most of them would say, "Isn't that nice".

What is wrong with this picture? Hundreds and thousands of churches probably have car washes every year in their community. I am in no way saying they are wrong, but I wonder what these churches do to serve the community.

We have been called to servant hood and are not willing to be selfless and serve without a benefit to us. So many times I think to myself that I deserve something from someone or something. Somehow in my mind, I think that people owe me or that I am somehow better than everyone. This goes against what I am starting to learn about being a missional Christian as a citizen of The Kingdom of God. I think that I missed the point of what service is all about. In fact, I know I have.

When I hear the word, "Service" I think of two scenarios. The first is in a restaurant. I think of a waitress that serves me food and then I give her a tip. She serves me in order to get money to pay bills, rent, gas, etc. The second I think of is tennis. Although I am not good at sports and can barely play tennis, this is what I think of. I can remember one of the times that I "Attempted" to play this sport. I sat on the other side of the net and went A.D.D. for a moment (Probably a bird flew by and I thought, "How nice.") and the aggravated voice came from across the net shouting, "Service!" My friend was shouting this in order to cause me to react and volley the ball back across the net so he could score on me…again.

I am starting to realize that my idea of "Service" is way off from the call of Christ to serve. Even when I attempt to do something nice, I am somehow expect to be rewarded for it. So what happens when we start to take advantage of those we love because we want something? We begin to feel that these people, who we are called to serve, are worth less than the object that we crave. In the case of the car wash, we crave the money that we need in order to go do missions. The people that would come through the car wash were not people who we loved, but an organic ATM.

Christ calls us to act as though we have only one motive which is "Love". Instead of serving someone with the idea or intent of "Taking", I should serve with the motivation that I love them.

I would like to take this moment to apologize for the way I have acted towards some of you in this regard. I have hurt some of the people that I am closest to because of what I thought I deserved. I pray that I can love you all more because of being shown "The beast" inside. Let us work together towards the Kingdom.

On a crazy journey with you,