Christian Living

To Serve Man

by Jeff Drinnan
11/14/17
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Jesus came to serve, rescue us and to make us more like him. He commands us to serve others.

What God doesn't like is that we just serve us - just our own interests. He doesn't want us to be like the Kanamits in the Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man." In the episode, the Kanamits come down from outer space to earth, where they promise personal peace and prosperity to humanity. Under the Kanamits' plan, they will provide everything, everyone will be content, there will be no reason for a military or wars... 

The United States' authorities found a book a Kanamit dropped - "To Serve Man." It sounded good, philophantrophic. Linguists started to work to decode the book.  After some time, decoding the book seemed futile. The head decoder thought he may as well put the project down, and reasoned the Kanamit's intentions are noble. After all, the title is "To Serve Man." The decoder went on a vacation - a trip to the Kanamits' planet, provided by the Kanamits.

Meanwhile, the assistant decoder kept working on decypering the book until finally, eureka!  But it wasn't good news! The assistant ran to stop her boss from boarding the spacecraft, and as he was about to board, she frantically shouted "To Serve Man is a cookbook!" 

The Sheep and the Goats

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Matthew 25: 31-46

The homeless in Bucks County, PA is something many people wish were not there. Even when a private party proposes creating housing for the homeless, as soon as the authorities discover the project is for the homeless, they stonewall it.

After holding Stand Down, a three day event to help homeless and needy veterans, in a field behind the Levittown library, which is not used but just serves as a buffer behind the library, for a few years, Bucks County arbitrarily stopped the event from being held there. No reason was given, but the underlying mentality driving the decision is personal peace and prosperity.

Evangelist Francis Schaeffer, who coined the phrase, said that someone who subscribes to the philosophy of personal peace wants to avoid controversy and struggle at any cost and lacks moral conviction. Dr. Schaeffer elaborates:

“Personal peace means just to be left alone, not to be troubled by the troubles of other people…Personal peace means wanting to have my personal life pattern undisturbed in my lifetime, regardless of what the result will be in the lifetimes of my children and grandchildren. Affluence means an overwhelming and ever increasing prosperity — a life made up of things, things and more things — a success judged by an ever–higher level of material abundance.” This is a sin.

One thing about being homeless - and I experienced it a short time - is that it strips down your humanity to bare essentials. No facades, no surface glitter. You get to reflect on what's really important, without life's distractions. No comforts of home.

For the elites, the opinion leaders who influence public policy in Bucks County, written and unwritten, the homeless dim their surface glitter. They look at the homeless as if they are crabgrass that invades a meticulously manicured fresh mowed suburban lawn.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-41