Sidney Flack’s Post on Facebook: (reposted with permission)
Christian worship… challenges complacency and sends one out into the world to walk with the suffering stranger without discrimination of age, race, gender, sexuality, or legality. It is a service that sees need and asks how it can help.
Christian life does not look for enemies. It sees neighbors, sisters, brothers: all children of God, not by any right personal choice, but simply because the other is always created in the image of love.
Nor is Christian service afraid to speak the truth. Whether willful neglect, unjust policy, or outright violence, it names evil for what it is and then models a life of love, labors for peace, and strives for justice, while calling for the same for the oppressed.
At the same time true faith recognizes ambiguity and contradiction. It is not afraid of hard questions that challenge the status quo. But it asks hard question of God and seeks discernment, knowing that life is far from rosy. It can be painfully hard, deeply challenging, and incredibly unfair.
When opposition is especially challenging, Christian service does not back down. It knows that turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, and giving the shirt off their back are not passivism, but public calls for equality and justice in the face of injustice and dehumanization.
Finally, Christian faith knows that one need not be Christian to live a Christ-like life. Service for the other is not limited to any select few. Anyone who loves the other, who seeks and sees relationship in community, and knows that the world is one home to us all in which justice and peace is for all who live here and seeks to make it a reality is living a Christ-like life.

Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service
Albert F. Bayly, 1901-1984

Lord, whose love in humble
service bore the weight of human need,
Who upon the cross, forsaken,
worked your mercy’s perfect deed:
we, your servants, bring the worship
not of voice alone, but heart;
consecrating to your purpose
every gift which you impart.

Still your children wander homeless;
still the hungry cry for bread;
still the captives long for freedom;
still in grief we mourn our dead.
As you, Lord, in deep compassion
healed the sick and freed the soul,
by your Spirit send your power
to our world to make it whole.

As we worship, grant us vision,
till your love’s revealing light
in its height and depth and greatness
dawns upon our quickened sight,
making known the needs and burdens
your compassion bids us bear,
stirring us to ardent service,
your abundant life to share.

Called by worship to your service,
forth in your dear name we go,
to the child, the youth, the aged,
love in living deeds to show;
hope and health, goodwill and comfort,
counsel, aid, and peace we give,
that your servants, Lord, in freedom
may your mercy know and live.