Using Scripture from Matthew 16: 24-25 and Mark 7: 7, this is my article from the July 2001 issue of the Wesley Chapel UMC (Jacksonville, IL) monthly newsletter, the ‘Circuit Rider’…

  View     Point    by the Editor

       Larry and I came to know one another through a mutual interest in electronics and singing in the Boys’ Choir during our sophomore year of high school. We were soon best friends and doing any number of things together. Over the years we designed, setup and operated a number of lighting and sound systems for various plays, dances, and concerts, as well as performed in a number of them. We worked together on parade floats, building sets and scenery, fundraisers, and anything else that came our way. For one dance, I crawled through the rafters of the high school gym (about forty feet up) dragging extension cords with me to hang a blue spotlight directly over a fountain in the center of the floor. At the junior high gym, where we did our musicals, our extension ladder was about a foot short of reaching the girders overhead. Since I was the lightest (at that time), four guys would hold the ladder straight up as I would climb to the top of it with a rope. While hanging on with one leg wrapped through the ladder, I would pull up the lighting accessories that Larry would tie to the rope and attach them to the girder. Then he would toss the light bulbs up to me and I would put them in and aim them. Believe it or not, we never dropped a single light bulb, and not one of us was ever hurt.

       His dad had owned an electrical supply house in Edwardsville, and though retired for some years, he still worked as a part-time electronics salesperson, and owned a number of rental properties in and around Edwardsville.

The summer after we graduated, the maintenance man who worked at one of his apartment complexes was going to have surgery and be off work for about two months. They asked me if I would be interested in filling in for him during that time. I still worked for our neighbor on his farm, but given the choice of walking beans for $1.25/hr. or going into town for the $2 or 3/hr. that his dad was offering, I made arrangements to take off the one day a week that I needed to do the ‘chores’ in town.

The first thing each week was to get out the old Lawn-Boy and cut the grass. (Stores were starting to sell riding mowers, some with as much as 5 hp!, but normal people still had to push.) The next thing would be to get out the buckets, mops, and rags. Each hallway/stairwell had to be cleaned top-to-bottom and waxed. Even the wooden handrails were cleaned with Pine-Sol. (One resident told me how clean everything always smelled there.) Then of course was the usual cleaning up outside, emptying trashcans, etc. One job, however, was done on an as needed basis, but had to be done as soon as it was needed.

The building was brick, and as was the usual practice then of that type of building, had a flat roof, recessed about a foot below the outside wall of bricks. Drains were installed and the whole thing was covered with tar and gravel. The problem was that over time, the roof had sagged around the drains. So, whenever it rained, I needed to go into town and drag a sump pump, extension cords, and garden hoses up onto the roof to help get the water off. I soon found that, for the deeper spots, it was faster to rig up the hoses to siphon over the edge and hope that no one was walking underneath.

Now, I can’t say that I performed all of my tasks flawlessly. After all I was fresh out of high school and was a very busy person! I maybe wasn’t there to do the mowing, etc. on the same exact day each week. But I did try to be responsible about the water on the roof.

How many apartment buildings have you been in lately? I don’t get to many, but of those I have been through in the past ten years, I can honestly say that none of them smelled of Pine-Sol, the floors were far from clean, and a general air of neglect permeated everything. It seems that the level of service has dropped considerably over the last thirty-or-forty years. Or is it rather that the attitude of responsibility to maintain that level of service has all but disappeared? How strongly do the owners or managers want it done? Do the people in charge of doing it take any pride in what they are doing?

The services that I was hired to provide were not anything above and beyond what was expected of any respectable establishment back then. And the reasons for them, be they health or just good business, haven’t changed. But people’s ideas about what their responsibilities are, whether management or employee, have. Far too often, our primary responsibility revolves around ourselves. It may be improving the ‘bottom line’, or wanting to spend more time doing something more ‘enjoyable’. But whatever the reason, you can be sure that it centers on the individual.

In Matthew 16:24-25, Jesus says, “If any of you want to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life.”  He doesn’t say, “…on Sunday mornings.” He doesn’t say, “…unless it’s perfect golfing weather.” He doesn’t say, “… as long as your team doesn’t have a game.” He doesn’t say, “…if it’s convenient.” He says to “… put aside your selfish ambition…”

If we want to follow Christ, if we want to obey God, if we truly want to live Christian lives, then our primary responsibility MUST be to God. Being a Christian is not a part-time job. It is not a matter of convenience. It is not a social function, a stepping-stone, a distraction, or a good deed. Being a Christian is a way of life, and a way of living your life. NOTHING is more important than our responsibility to God, and to doing His work. NOTHING!

Jesus quotes from Isaiah, in Mark 7:7, when He says, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far away.”  Don’t let Him be speaking of you when He adds, in verse 8, “…you ignore God’s specific laws and substitute your own traditions.”