In this simple act of service, Jesus shows his followers "the full extent of his love" (John 13:1), and then commissions them to follow his example and "do as I have done for you" (John 13:15). Serving others is the way we follow Jesus and show the full extent of our love for others. It is the core of Jesus' message and the reason we remember the gift of his life - his birth at Christmas, his death at the cross on Good Friday, and his resurrection and victory over death on Easter.
While giving our life in service of others is the call of the Christian life, veganism takes the understanding of service one step further in our next principle. For a vegan:
S is for SERVICE to humanity, nature, and creation
Vegans are committed to serving "others", but recognize that the "other" is not just a member of humanity, but includes every living creature on planet earth, our common home. Veganism embraces a reverence for all of life, and considers all life (not just the lives of "rational beings") as sacred and worthy of respect, love, service, and protection.
As a follower of Jesus, I have come to believe that this vegan principle is very much in line with the call of Christ. When Jesus taught his followers to pray "Our Father", he opened up a whole network of relationships, not just with humanity, but with all that has been created and finds its being in God.
In his 13th century Canticle of Creation, St. Francis of Assisi praises God with Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Air, Sister Water, Brother Fire, and Sister Earth. While the heavens declare God's glory, humanity is simply one member of the creation choir called to praise the Creator.
Unfortunately, in our pride and desire for control, human society has lost sight of its rightful place in the natural world as "caretakers of the garden". Only when we recognize that we are finite creatures, with temporary residence on planet earth, will humility be birthed, and service in the name of Jesus can begin. We are members of a cosmic family, created by God the Father, united in love through the Spirit, and called by Jesus the Christ to love and to serve all that God has made, everything which reflects the glory and beauty of the One who is all and is in all.
"A bond exists between all things," says Luther Standing Bear, Lakota Chief of the Oglala, "because they all drink the same water and breathe the same air." Or as Henri Nouwen writes, "For him who has become close to God, all is one. Only God counts, and in God all people and all things are embraced with love." (Show Me the Way, p. 97)
For the followers of Jesus, the act of washing feet vividly portrays the essence of what it means to serve and to love. First, we lay aside our own needs. We then kneel in humility to tend to the needs of the other.
Because we must first abstain from our own wants (the first vegan principle) and master our own desires (the fourth), serving others is never easy. Yet in our humanity, it is easier for us to recognize the needs of our human brothers and sisters than the needs of our extended cosmic family. This is where servanthood often begins - washing feet, tending to basic human needs, like feeding the poor, providing clean water, caring for the sick, tutoring a child, freeing the enslaved, providing an encouraging word, making a charity donation, lending a hand, being a friend. We are familiar with such base needs because they are also our own.
In our service of nature and creation, however, we are not as aware of needs -- or at least, not yet. Once upon a time, humanity lived in harmony with nature, but unfortunately in this new millennium, our world bears the scars of imbalance because of the human drive for control, power, and domination. Global warming, climate change, acid rain, air pollution, water pollution, deforestation, endangered species, species extinction, animal exploitation -- all are common terms today, which were unheard of a generation ago.
It does not take a degree in biology (which I do not have) to recognize that something is terribly wrong in our world. Something needs to be done! To take action to preserve the environment is, I believe, how we serve.
We serve nature and creation when we
- replace incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent,
- walk and not drive,
- conserve heat and water,
- refuse, reuse, reduce, recycle,
- make a lifestyle change to lessen our carbon footprint,
- write a letter of environmental advocacy to an elected official,
- buy local and organic,
- read and raise aware of the global devastation of climate change,
- and of course, we serve God and honor the members of our animal family best when we choose a plant-based vegan diet!
My prayer is that we would each grow in our love of God, and grow in love for your neighbors by serving, not just humanity, but the "other neighbors" as well that live in the beauty of our communities, on this home we call planet earth.
"I do not think that the measure of a civilization is how tall its buildings of concrete are, but rather how well its people have learned to relate to their environment and fellow human being." (Sun Bear, Chippewa medicine man)
Here are some suggestions of what you can do to combat global warming...
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