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An essay by Henry Frederick Cope |
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Divine Service |
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Title: Divine Service Author: Henry Frederick Cope [More Titles by Cope] The Ideal Service
The surest way to impoverish your heart is to hoard up your love. A really smart man will refrain from saying things that smart. Many a prayer for vision ought to be changed to a petition for vertebra. The damning doubts are those that deter us from good deeds. The leaders of men are not the ones who are trying to get ahead of their fellows. Folks who are too good for anything are good for nothing. It's hard to steer a straight course if your conscience is in your pants pocket. You do not have much faith in your Father unless you have some in His family. No man can have a place in the kingdom of heaven who is complacent to the ills of earth.
Never was the greatest of all greater than when He put about Him the badge of the servant. His example has made the towel, the apron, the badge of true honour. Nothing could have surprised those men who were quarrelling over their precedence more than that their great Master should stoop to perform this menial service of washing their feet. Like many who call themselves His to-day they strove over chief seats, honours, titles, and dignities. They were seeking the chief places and by their strife showing themselves fit only for the lowest. Nowhere is the sense of honour more easily slain than in the search for honours. The only dignity that really adorns a man is that which comes without his demanding it. How often have the servants of the meek and lowly Jesus turned the world away from Him by their examples of vanity, greed, lust for power, their pomp and pride of self-glory. They who were sent to be the shepherds of men have fleeced the flock for their own adorning and then fought amongst themselves to see who should wear the choicest robes. History has shown that they were wrong and their Master was right. The greater their greedy ambition the greater their shame; the higher the place they have claimed the lower has been that which the voice of humanity has awarded them. On the other hand there shine forth those who have followed Him in lowly service; theirs is the honour to-day. Because He took upon Him the form of a servant then now is the kingdom and the power and the glory His. So it has always been, sovereignty comes by way of service; heaven and earth unite in honouring those who have not scorned the humble place of helpfulness. John says that it was because Jesus was conscious of His divine origin and His glorious destiny that He took the towel and did the work of the slave. Only those who realize their true greatness can ignore the littleness of man's petty dignities, can lose all sense of stooping, of condescension when they serve others, and so can be of service to mankind. A man proves that he is the son of a heavenly Father by his service for his least brother. When that dignity, heaven born, is in a man's heart there is nothing in the dirt he may touch by deeds of kindness that can defile him; contact does not contaminate. Love never thinks of any of its services as loathsome. That from which a superficial dignity would revolt love does with rejoicing. It thinks nothing of the honour or the dishonour, but only of the helpfulness it may render. It is not asking whether men are approving or whether promotion is coming. It needs no promotion or approval; the work itself is the highest reward; the service elevates to the loftiest of all positions. The world's sovereigns are its servants. He makes an alliance with God who helps a fellow man. Work is that by which the Creator has lifted man above the creatures of the field, and the work that sacrifices that it may serve is that by which God lifts man to Himself. The heavenly gate may be shut to robes and miters, epaulettes and crowns; but it shall be open wide to that great throng who bear the stains of toil, who have served their fellows, who wear the apron of sacrificing service; and the Son of the carpenter shall lead them in. This is a working world; its Maker is pictured as a worker; there is no better evidence of religion than willingness to serve. Work determines a man's worth to the world. And religion must be known by the things it does, and not, as many have fondly supposed, by the dreams it has.
THE ORTHODOX SERVICE This is a working world, with no place for the idler, whether he be high or low, rich or poor. The measure of a man is the service he renders humanity. Actions are measured by the same rule. The value of religion to life, its right to time and place, is measured by this, Does it help or inspire men to service, does it increase the quantity or improve the quality of the work that they do for their world? Men rightly ignore the piety that satisfies itself with platitudes on the duties of others, or with philosophical speculations on problems which, if they were accurately solved, would contribute nothing either to our peace, our possessions, or our personal characters. Yet, how many imagine that they are profoundly pious because they cherish properly indorsed opinions, duly certified as to their antiquity. They who profess to follow the Man of Nazareth cannot do it by sitting in their pews or kneeling at their altars; they cannot do it by dreaming of a place of bliss or picturing one of torment. One of the first lessons He gives His disciples is that it is not he that speaketh the word, but he that doeth the will, who is pleasing to God. Nor do men do His will in any important or complete sense by going to church or serving in its meetings or on its committees. When a man is ordained to divine orders, that is, to give himself wholly to do the will and work of the Most High, it is said that he becomes a minister. If "minister" means anything at all it means servant, one who works for others, who ministers to them. The Master spoke of Himself as being among men as one who served them. The only orthodox service is the service of humanity. This is religion, such a consciousness of the reality of the Infinite Spirit that you will steadily do the things that that spirit of love is doing in this world, ministering to men, binding up the broken in heart, lifting the lame, and leading the wandering, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, bringing light and love and cheer to those that sit in darkness, you will become feet and fingers to God. One does not need to wait for a special garb to do this religious work; one does not need to wait for formal ordination; whoever loves men already is divinely ordained to serve them. One does not need to wait for a church or a special organization; the sufficient motive is deep, sacrificing love; the method will be just what the Master's was, to go where men are and help them. After all, what this world needs is not so much that men shall go to their fellows with money, with clothes, or even with employment; it needs that they shall just go to them. The good mixer, who mingles with men, who knows how they live, and what they think, how they suffer, and what they feel, if, going amongst them, he carries a clean heart, a love for his fellows, a firm faith in heaven, and hope for men, is doing them more good by his presence than he who may send carloads of goods. Men did not need that Jesus should wear a label saying that the Most High was with Him; the more He mingled with men, the more clearly they saw He belonged to God. What He was willing to do for them showed that they, too, were the children of the Most High. If any man would have that infinite presence with him, if he desires the deep sense of the spiritual, let him seek it not in closet or convent, but in the touch of hand and in the sight of the face of friend and fellow being. Many of us are worried at times because our lives seem wasted in doing little things; we would become immortal by saving our powers for some great deed. We need to remember Him whom the world most easily remembers and most highly honours, the Man of Nazareth, whose life was spent in trivial services, doing the next thing that came to hand, helping ordinary people in every-day needs. Yet God was with Him, as He ever is with those who love their fellows in sincere service.
THE HEAVENLY SERVICE It seems easy to see something peculiarly holy, something deeply religious in the occupations and acts of the priesthood or the ministry. But thinking of these as religious and of such service as divine we fall into the habit of thinking that they alone, in all the world of action, are divine. We set on one side of life the religious service limited to these formal acts and on the other side what we call the secular life and service. We have sacred days, sacred deeds, sacred callings, religious services; all separate from the rest of life, belonging in a department, a pigeon-hole, by themselves. Whatever is not of these is of the world, worldly, secular, lacking in the peculiar aroma of sanctity that attaches to the church or the profession of religion. There are many who desire to do some religious work; who fain would engage in divine service. There is in almost every breast a desire to do something high and holy, something that is not necessary, utilitarian, with some other motive than bread-winning. But there seems to be no opportunity; such deeds are supposed to belong to special callings; one must be ordained to do divine service. The truth is, divine service is the duty and high privilege of every human being; we all are divinely called to the ministry; the service of God and humanity belongs to us all. We must not wait for ordaining hands nor ecclesiastical robes nor for the environment of official sanctity. Every impulse to do good, to show human love, and do loving service is a commission from high heaven. The good Master invites men and women to His kind of service, the highest and holiest known to all the ages. He never was separated to a clerical calling; He did not wait for an ordaining council nor did He confine His divine service to prayer and praise or to the activities of the church ritual. His divine service was the service of the sons of men, the going about doing good. Heavenly work is not work for some far off heaven; it is the work of making this present earth like heaven. The work of God is not working for an absent deity; it is doing the work that the God of all love would do in this world; it is being feet and fingers, voice and lips to the great Spirit who is over and in us all. It is making that spirit of love real, actual, concrete to our fellows. The holiest work in this world may be done in the humblest places; the most divine service may not be in the cathedral but in the cottage; the angels may pass by the intoning choir to listen to a mother's crooning cradle song or to watch the patient service, the loving kindness shown in washing the faces or wiping away the tears of dirty and destitute children. The holy service which will fill your heart with joy and give you the unfading crown of eternity, never will be done if you are waiting for some ecclesiastical uniform to do it in. Whatever is done in the spirit of the infinite love, in the spirit of the great Master, that truly is divine and glorious. It is the good work that is glorious. It is a thing more truly divine to do well your daily duty, to put out good, honest work, than it is to wear a clerical garb or perform professional religious duties. The honour, the worthiness, the glory of your work may be measured by the spirit in which it is done and by its helpfulness and worth to the world. All life becomes glorious as we see that even in the least of our daily tasks we may be doing the will of God, that it may be just as necessary a part of the divine service that I should serve at a desk, a counter, or a machine, should sweep a room or tend a child as that another should preach or pray. For the great Master of all who knows all our work, measures it all, not as we do; He sees the glory of the cup of cold water and the divinity of the commonplace. [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |