Serving

Available for 27 days

Spiritual reflection to start the day with Bryan Kerr, a Church of Scotland Minister in Kilmacolm, Inverclyde. Script: Good morning. In one of the communities in which I was minister, there's a woman who, for as long as anyone can remember, has been the one who shows up. When someone's bereaved, she's the first round with a cool box filled with food for a meal. When the church steps needed sweeping before a funeral or a wedding, she's there an hour early. When a neighbour is ill, she does the shopping without being asked. People have tried to thank her properly over the years, and she often looks genuinely puzzled and tries to downplay it, as if she didn't quite understand what the fuss was about. Now that's what real service looks like, I think. Not a grand project or a job title. A long, quiet habit of turning up for other people, until it becomes just who you are. The world is held together, mostly, by people like her. People doing small things for other people. Not for reward or applause. Just because, somewhere along the way, they've understood that this is what being human asks of us. For those who follow the Christian faith, serving Jesus has sometimes been misunderstood as something you do inside a church. Tea after the service. A rota for flowers. Now all of that matters, but it's the small change, not the main currency. The deeper service is what happens on the Tuesday morning. The lift you give someone who didn't ask. The phone call you make to the friend nobody's checked on. The patience you find when you'd rather be sharp with someone. You don't have to be religious to recognise this. We all know someone like the woman in that community. The people who hold our communities together usually aren't the ones with the loudest voices. They're the ones who turn up, week after week, and don't make a thing of it. God who served us first, give us today the patience of small kindnesses, and the courage to keep showing up. Amen.