Is God a Servant or a Serve-ee?

Like most of us, I grew up believing that God requires us to serve Him. (Or Her, or It . . . ) And it made sense at the time. Well, after all, here is this Old Man in the Sky who can send disaster upon you if you fail to serve Him, right? Of course you are going to serve God!

Then I grew up. First physically, then (this part took a little longer) psychologically, and finally (this part took still a little longer) spiritually. But I still wanted to serve God. This time it wasn't a matter of self defense but a desire to give back to that fascinating Being for returning my life to me.

Then from somewhere - I don't remember now, it may have been something I read - I got the idea that maybe God wants to serve us, rather than to be served by us. What a concept! Can there be any truth to that? Is there a way to answer such a question?

Actually, there is. Despite my dispute with much of what Christianity teaches (well, most of it to be honest) there is one thing I still agree with. I still believe that Jesus shows us what God is like. And did Jesus sit back on his fanny, demanding that his disciples bring him meat and bread and drink? Or did Jesus travel all over the place on foot, teaching and preaching and healing the sick? The gospels reflect the traditions, the stories that people remembered about Jesus, and even if eyewitness accounts disagree with each other and stories get stretched in the retelling, the healing stories are pretty consistent. So I have to think there is truth in them.

Okay, if Jesus helped people, served people, and showed God to us, what does that make God? Is God a cosmic Servant?

I think that I would have to say God is both Servant and Serve-ee. Here's why.

I wrote in a recent post that I am a piece of God. Why would God make little ole me a piece of Himself? If I am not special (and I definitely am not!) then everyone would be the same as me, and each of us is a tiny piece of God.

That means that when I do something to serve you, I am serving God by serving the piece of God that you are. You receive that, so God is a Serve-ee. But as a piece of God myself, as I serve, then God becomes the Servant as well.

See what I mean?

Of course God is there to help us through our crises and give us good things and all that. But God often does that through other people, each of whom is a piece of God. So no matter how you look at it, God is both.

There isn't much I can do for that august Being Who built the cosmos. That Being is the Source of All Things, utterly beyond anything I can say or do, and surely He can make whatever He desires. But there is quite a bit that I can do for His pieces who live around me.

So every time I hear someone going on about how we must "serve God" when they mean that Old Man in the Sky, I smile on the inside. It seems much more cozy to see it the way I do.