I was walking home from an early meeting this morning when I thought to myself, “Well, it’s a balance.” I was thinking about my responsibility to serve and care for those around me. In other words, I was saying to myself, “Yes, you need to serve people, but it’s a balance. You can take that too far.”
Then I realized, Jesus wasn’t balanced. Jesus was on a radical mission, living as a wandering teacher and prophet who was crucified because he upset the religious establishment.
When we think about serving God and serving others, we like to look at the times that Jesus stepped back from serving to pray or to spend time with his closest friends. He did this in spite of the fact that there were unmet needs among people around Him.
But there are two things that make this different than our situations.
First, Jesus stopped serving to pray and to fellowship with and teach the people closest to him. NOT TO WATCH TV!
Second, Jesus practiced balance in a radical context. As I said before, He was on a radical mission. He was out to redeem the world and restore the broken relationship between God and creation. He consistently lived that out. He had no permanent home and spent his life serving others.
We want to practice balance in a life of incredible comfort and ease. We want to go to work and come home to our comfortable and luxurious surroundings and not be bothered. (Yes, my small, old apartment is luxurious by most of the world’s standards.) We want to spend our weekends lounging around and caring for our own “needs.” And then we’ll throw in a little service. If we’re asked to do more we’ll say, I’m already serving, and…
It’s a balance.
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