Majoring in Christianity: The School of International Service
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
September 23, 2007
Isaiah 49:1-7; Revelation 22:1-5

Is. 49:1                Listen to me, O coastlands,
                        pay attention, you peoples from far away!
            The LORD called me before I was born,
                        while I was in my mother's womb he named me.
2             He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
                        in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
            he made me a polished arrow,
                        in his quiver he hid me away.
3             And he said to me, "You are my servant,
                        Israel, in whom I will be glorified."
4             But I said, "I have labored in vain,
                        I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
            yet surely my cause is with the LORD,
                        and my reward with my God."
5                And now the LORD says,
                        who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
            to bring Jacob back to him,
                        and that Israel might be gathered to him,
            for I am honored in the sight of the LORD,
                        and my God has become my strength--
6             he says,
            "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
                        to raise up the tribes of Jacob
                        and to restore the survivors of Israel;
            I will give you as a light to the nations,
                        that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."
7                Thus says the LORD,
                        the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
            to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations,
                        the slave of rulers,
            "Kings shall see and stand up,
                        princes, and they shall prostrate themselves,
            because of the LORD, who is faithful,
                        the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you."

Rev. 22:1   Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.   3 Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him;   4 they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.   5 And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

A call to Christian vocation is not limited to the clergy alone.   Every Christian is called to Christian service.   It is our calling to find ways to make whatever work we do work that serves the Kingdom of God.   In this sermon series, we explore ways in which the careers for which you are preparing can be Christian vocations.   Tonight we start with the School of International Service.

I suppose the School of International Service is that school here on our campus that is most obviously connected with Christian service.   In addition to the fact that it has the word "service" as part of its name, there is also the fact that there is a large bronze plaque hanging in the SIS lobby that reads:

The School of International Service of The American University Established by the Methodist Church Dedicated to the Glory of God and the Service of Humanity and pledged to the study, proclamation and practice of the principles of freedom and the maintenance of civil, economic, and religious liberty by training competent and consecrated men and women for the international service of the state, the community and the church. G. Bromley Oxnam, Bishop of the Methodist Church, Washington Area 1958

            So, it might seem somewhat obvious that those who are studying in SIS have a leg up on the rest of us when it comes to Christian vocation.   Christian vocation, apparently, is built into SIS majors.  

But how do we understand how international service is Christian vocation?   How is it that someone serving in the State Department, or the Foreign Service, or in International Development, or in any one of the many related fields best embodies Christian service?

It is useful to look at what it is that Christian service usually entails.  

The first and most obvious member of the Christian foreign service would be St. Paul.   St. Paul was not one of Jesus' original disciples.   He was a later convert to the faith but became very strongly convinced that he had a mission to reach out to the Gentiles--members of the non-Jewish nations of the ancient world.   For he believed that in Christ God was inaugurating the Kingdom of God and that this was happening soon.   If the Gentiles were ever going to be a part of this, the time to go and share the gospel with them was now.  

Paul founded a number of churches throughout the Gentile world in what is now Turkey and Greece.   His letters to those churches comprise most of the New Testament.   But what is most instructive of all is the manner in which he went about his missionary activity:

1Cor. 9:19   For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them.   20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law.   21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law) so that I might win those outside the law.   22 To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.   23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings

Paul's practice was not to force his listeners to conform to his way of living and thinking, but to conform to theirs.   His practice was to meet people where they were, in order that authentic relationship could take place.  

As foundational a model as this was, our current understanding of mission would not come until much later.

In 1907, a young Methodist missionary named E. Stanley Jones went to India.   After a short while there, he realized that the way that the church had long been doing mission--the way that you read about in The Poisonwood Bible --that is, to simply set up Western style churches and try to convert as many people as possible by preaching at them, Jones realized that this way was a failure.

And so he developed a way of mission that would revolutionize Christian mission.   The technical term for it is "contextualization" but behind it lies the basic idea is that one does not simply impose Western Christianity on others, but seeks to understand the culture in which one is trying to share the Gospel.   Jones would say that he had as much to learn from the Indians--perhaps more--as they had to learn from him.   He never attacked the local religions--Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam or any other of the Indian religions.   He believed that Christ was not to be presented as a message but as a living encounter with Christians--those who make up the Body of Christ.   His 1925 book The Christ of the Indian Road would change the way that Christians thought of mission.   Mission was not through preaching and attempting to change other people's cultures, it was through being Christ for the world and understanding their culture.

III. SERVICEMEN'S MANUAL

And that's a helpful lesson for more than just those who are doing missionary work.   Interestingly, some of the best Christian advice on mission comes from an institution not usually associated with the church.

This little book is entitled Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II. It is a facsimile reprint of the original Army field manual A Short Guide to Iraq that was distributed to American soldiers who were being stationed in Iraq in 1943 to shore up the British there.   It is an amazingly frank and helpful book and has only recently been rediscovered and republished.   The Army lieutenant colonel who writes the new forward to the text laments that it was unknown when he was deployed in 2003.   Among the many sage pieces of wisdom are:

Differences? Sure there are differences? Differences of costume. Differences of food.   Differences of manner and custom and religious beliefs. Different attitudes toward women. Differences galore.
But what of it?   You aren't going to Iraq to change the Iraqis. Just the opposite.   We are fighting this war to preserve the principle of "live and let live."   Maybe that sounded like a lot of words to you at home. Now you have a chance to prove it to yourself and others.   If you can, it's going to be a better world to live in for all of us. [1]

That last portion is telling: by respecting the Iraqis for who they are, the G.I. insures their well-being and ultimately the triumph of the value of "live and let live".

For Christians, the message is likewise clear.   If we believe that God loves everyone and is the God of everyone, then we encounter people with respect and give them the dignity to which they are entitled.  

Those of you who will be going into international service--or any career in which you will encounter people of diverse cultures and beliefs (and that can happen here at home)--you will serve them best when you, like Paul, like E. Stanley Jones, and like the U.S. Army in WWII, meet the people where they are.   It is not the task the change people, but first to serve them and to develop relationship with them.

Those of you who are studying foreign languages, foreign cultures, conflict resolution, international relations, and international development will discover that the aims you seek: the betterment of relations or aiding development of other nations will be a far greater Christian endeavor--and ultimately more successful--if you adopt the attitude that you are not there to change others, but to serve others and to share with them.   It is a reminder of the essence of the Christian mission is, like Christ, "not to be served, but to serve."  

But it is more than simply the manner in which you go about your work that makes it a Christian vocation--it is the nature of the work itself.   

In the passage from Isaiah we read earlier, we find the following passage:

I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."

It is a passage in which God is speaking to the Servant, often identified in the passage as the people of Israel.   In it, God gives to the people a sense of mission: to be a "light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."   By this God declares that God's purpose is to save the world and that the people are to testify to this hope.  

As Christians we cannot ignore the rest of the world.   We cannot be content to have our own little community and as long as everything is fine there, then we are all right.   No, there is far to much poverty, far too much war, far too much injustice and suffering in the rest of the world for us to be complacent.   Christian service requires engaging the whole world--and those of you working toward careers in international service will be doing just that.   Indeed, all of us have to remain committed to the service of the world, whether we serve directly ourselves, support those who do, or whether it is in our paying attention to the products we buy, or the charities we support.   We are called to be a light to the world and that means that we are to be engaged with the world.

For we know that the God who "so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten son..." cares about the welfare of the world.   The text of Revelation that we heard earlier makes this plain:

Rev. 22:1   Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

The healing of the nations is ultimately why we serve in international service.   We believe in a God who seeks the redemption of all people--regardless of race or origin, regardless of class or tribe.   We believe that all humanity is made in the image of God and that all peoples can experience the love and grace of God.

Our work for better relations between and among nations testifies to the God whom we have faith will one day heal the nations.   As E. Stanley Jones showed us, our mission is not to preach the message but to be the message for others.

Because our mission is not to fix the nations--it is to be a light to the nations.   A light doesn't fix anything--but it gives people the ability to see for themselves and to accomplish the work that lies before them.   When we go on our Alternative Spring Break to the Cherokee Nation, we do not pretend that 17 college students are going to solve all the problems of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee.   No, in fact, in terms of who has things to teach, it is the Cherokee who teach us far more than anything we could offer.   And yet, simply by being there, simply by listening , by honoring their traditions, and by showing that we care , we can send a tremendous message of hope.  

And in that hope is where healing lies.

We are all called to mission.   We are all called to engage the world.   We do not engage the world as others do: but we engage the world with humility and out of a desire to serve.  

For those of you who make international service your vocation, when you engage in international service with a sense of humility, not of superiority, but out of a sense of caring and service, you engage in Christian vocation.   And in so doing, you testify not only to the healing of the nations, but to the God who seeks to establish this healing in our midst.

Notes
[1] Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II , United States Army, University of Chicago Press, 2007, p. 5