The many ways we can say "Yes!"

I had to admit, as I got ready for our church’s first annual Day of Service last Saturday morning, that I wasn’t quite as psyched for it as I thought I would be. Maybe it was the overcast sky and the drizzle, or the awareness in the back of my mind that I would need to get spruced up right afterward for wedding later in the day, but I was sort of hoping, deep down, that I would hear a crack of thunder to let me know our outdoor service project was canceled for the day.

Well, there was no crack of thunder, and I’m so glad. What a good morning it was! I was blessed with an all-too-rare experience of spreading mulch, and blessed much more with great fellowship – delightful conversations with some of my new friends in the church, the joy of working side by side, the freeing sensation of realizing the rain was erasing any bit of earlier effort to make my hair look “right.” On top of that, there was that sense of quiet goodness – knowing that our team was one of four from our church working at various church and community outreach sites; and that our teams were just one part of efforts across the country for people to be in service for the good of others.

Being a small part of a Day of Service seemed especially important this year on September 11. Too much publicity had already been given to a few people who wanted to mark the day in poorly-aimed acts of division and hatred. How grateful I was to spend part of the day as Church, with people who were, in simple ways, demonstrating kindness.

Jesus spoke to ordinary people in a time when the powers of injustice seemed overwhelming. One of his early invitations to those who heeded him was to simply be different – in common, consistent ways. He invited them to be like salt – a tiny, but transforming, healing agent in day-to-day life of that time. He invited them to recognize their responsibility to let their light shine – quietly, unrelentingly, to make a small difference in a dark world (Matthew 5:13-14).

Our Lord extends that same invitation to us today. How good to be able to stand side by side, and to work together, as we discover the many ways we can say “Yes!”