Wisdom Wednesday: Submission and Service

Grace and peace to you. I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. Welcome to Wisdom Wednesdays. I’m posting videos each Wednesday sharing devotions and church news. During this season of Lent, we at Peakland are reading this book, Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. Over the past month, we at Peakland have talked about and practiced the spiritual disciplines of prayer and meditation, Fasting and Study, Simplicity and Solitude and this week, we consider the disciplines of submission and service.

One of my takeaways from this weeks readings is Richard Foster’s guidance of what submission free us to do and to be and what really constitutes service.

Foster writes that submission frees us from the terrible burden of always needing to get our own ways. I like that very much. Submission frees us from the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way. Submission frees us to focus on the important things in life.

Many things in life which we think are important and want to go our way may not be that important after all. Comparing ourselves to others, holding on to the resentments and grudges of the past, trying hard to fit in. None of that is that important in the long run. We submit, we turn away from our ego and pride and vanity.

Submission frees us to focus on what is essential and what Christ would have us do and be about: following the ways of Jesus Christ, ensuring the well-being of our families, promoting justice and peace in our world, providing relief from poverty and oppression in our communities, and stewardship of the environment.

When we submit our need to always get our own way, we are free to love one another as Christ loves us. We are free to love our enemies and seek reconciliation with those who hurt us.

When it comes to service, Foster differentiates between self-righteous service and true service.

Self-righteous service is done mostly for our own benefit. We who have lots give and serve those who have little. Self-righteous service seeks external rewards. Did you see what we did for them? Wasn’t that so generous of us? Self-righteous service is done only when it’s convenient for us and we feel like it

True service, Foster writes, is built on the small everyday kindnesses that we can extend to other that don’t seek the limelight or validation. True service includes courtesy to others and refraining from speaking evil of others. True service includes time spent listening to others and providing empathy to others. True service focuses more on the needs of others rather than our needs.

Foster readily writes that service and submission can be misused and abused.
If I don’t pick and choose who I serve and if I don’t look for results in my service then I can be taken advantage of. If I submit to everyone and anything, then I will absolutely be taken advantage of!

To do submission and service in the best ways, we remember that submission and service and all our disciplines are spiritual disciplines, to be done with our hearts open to where Christ is leading us. We must keep our souls open to how Christ would have us serve and submit. We practice submission and service as a community too. We as a church pray and seek God’s guidance on how to submit with love for others without compromising our own sacred worth. We as a church pray and seek God’s guidance on where we as church are needed to provide care and compassion in our communities. We help each other figure out how to practice these disciplines.

I hope you’ll join us here in Peakland as we practice our spiritual disciplines and as we are reaching out, serving all and extending God’s table. Contact me if you’d like to know more about the our great church community.

Next week, we look at the disciplines of confession and worship.


Thanks be to God. Amen.