Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Rhythm: Service with Sonja Knutson
Have you ever wondered why the most fulfilling moments in life often come when we're serving others? This powerful exploration of "The Rhythm of Service" reveals how regular acts of service transform not just those we help, but our own spiritual lives as well.
Pastor Sonia Knutson shares her family's remarkable legacy of service, revealing how her parents' commitment to volunteering shaped her understanding of faith in action. Their calendar—color-coded with various service opportunities—became a testament to finding joy not in self-focus, but in building community through sacrificial love.
The message centers on Jesus washing His disciples' feet—a profound act of love knowing betrayal awaited Him. "Service is love," Sonia emphasizes, challenging us to see interruptions not as inconveniences but as divine appointments. When we're willing to put down our garden tools to visit an elderly neighbor or sacrifice our carefully planned schedules to meet someone's unexpected need, we experience the counterintuitive blessing that comes through inconvenience.
Drawing from Romans 12, we discover how our unique gifts work together within the body of Christ. Service isn't about building personal spiritual resumes but about becoming a community whose relationships tell a different story from the individualism dominating our culture. Studies confirm what scripture has always taught—regular service leads to lower stress, healthier hearts, and protection from anxiety and depression.
Ready to make service a rhythm in your life? Start small by serving alongside others in your church community, then expand to local organizations and global missions. As you do, you'll discover what Christians throughout history have found: when we wash feet like Jesus did, we experience transformation that no self-focused pursuit could ever provide.
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I want you to pray with me this morning. Father, I thank you for this opportunity this morning to talk about rhythms in our lives and, specifically, this rhythm of service. I thank you for Richard and his serving heart and his beautiful gift of reading and acting and performing, but not for the glory of Richard, but for the glory of you, god. I pray that, as we hear this message this morning, that we will receive it in a place in our hearts and in our minds, that we are called to use our acts of service to bless you and the kingdom that you have called us to do. We love our mothers, father. Thank you for those in our lives and for those who have gone before us. We love baptism, we love children and we thank you that we can be a place that welcome children into this place. Us, we love baptism, we love children and we thank you that we can be a place that welcome children into this place and we love on them as community and we help them grow in their faith. Guide this talk this morning, jesus, and we love you. In your name, we pray, amen. Well, good morning. My name is Sonia Knutson. I'm the pastoral associate here at Central and I've had the honor and blessing to serve on this staff for 18 years, which is crazy Not in this capacity but in other capacities, and it really is a blessing to be a part of this community here at Central.
Speaker 1:We are in week three of our series called Rhythm and hopefully, so far it has prompted you to explore the rhythms that you have in your life and how they grow you, how they form you and how they move you closer to Jesus. We all have rhythms in our lives. They're things that shape us as we set rhythms, naturally, around the things that we love, their routines and ways that we do life, do life with our families, how we work, how we play. Their rhythms around hobbies and interest and even our spiritual space. In week one, ryan introduced us to rhythms with Romans 12, verse 2, which read do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will. This reading helps us to recognize that we have a choice. We can fall into the rhythms of this world or we can fall into the rhythms that God has for our lives. The first takes no effort. Amen. It doesn't take much to fall into the ways and into the rhythms of this world, but the latter is a fight and a journey and won't be easy. Ryan also shared in that first week that rhythms don't save us, but they turn our hearts to the cross when done well, and they grow us and they form us spiritually. Jesus followed rhythms that led him to have a balanced, spirit-led life. He prayed, he spent time with God, he went to the temple, he was around community, he would fast, he would rest and he lived a purpose-filled life. Last week, ryan introduced us to the first rhythm in this challenge, which was fasting, and he challenged us to fast and to feel hunger and to feel hungry. How many of you tried it? Oh, pretty good, good, how did you feel while you were doing that Hungry? Right, the practice of fasting is to awaken us, in us, the things that draw us away from Christ. If you haven't listened to that message yet, I would encourage you to go back online and follow it and challenge yourself to fast.
Speaker 1:Today we kick off week three and we're talking about the rhythm of service, and what an appropriate topic for Mother's day. Amen, moms, because isn't that what we do all day long, every day of our lives. We are here to serve you. You're welcome. Anna jarvis in 1905 originated this holiday to honor her mother who had passed away, and to honor what she had done all her life, which was service and sacrifice in the community. So you know, if you're going to Wild Wings tonight for trivia, there you go. That's a freebie for you.
Speaker 1:Some of you may be wondering why service is a rhythm. To practice it sounds more like work, right, but service can be an agent of redemption in our lives. Studies have showed that service can lead to lower stress, to reduce pain, healthier hearts, protection from anxiety, burnout and depression. And I love, as I have read or even heard, how many corporations and workplaces offer the rhythm of service in their works, whether it's weekly or monthly. My son, my older son, actually works at a company that goes out once a month to service community organizations. Last week he was at the Minnesota Zoo and his family actually met him there and I'm like how does that feel? Like, does that interrupt your work? He's like, no, I actually look forward to it because it takes some of the stress away from my work. So if we think about rhythm as redeeming our lives or growing us spiritually. It should then become a habit or a practice, even if our culture tells us otherwise.
Speaker 1:Now let's face it Western culture generally emphasizes individualism and self-expression rather than primary focus on serving others, but some collective cultures in countries such as Asia and Africa often prioritize the well-being of the group over individual desires, leading to strong traditions of helping families and communities and those who are less fortunate. Many religious cultures as well, such as Judaism for example, try to live in the concept of tikam olam, which means repairing the world, emphasizing social justice and service, and Christianity, of course, encourages the teaching of Jesus as he modeled selfless service, which changes our thinking from being self-centered to other-centered. This was the characteristics of the early church that set Christians apart from the rest of society. Often Christians would risk their own health to care for the sick and dead. Humility and compassion became more powerful virtues than strength and wealth, and this kind of humility showed itself in sacrificial service above and beyond the secular world. But even as Christ followers, those methods can be difficult to follow if we don't practice them and make them rhythms in our daily lives.
Speaker 1:A few weeks back, I preached on Maundy Thursday and I shared the scripture of John 13, and I also shared some personal stories of my family and how we served, and I shared that not serving was not an option in my family. My family was involved, to say the least. Growing up in my family, we served in 4-H and junior leadership and VFW, because my dad was a proud veteran. We served at our church and the local food shelf and in the schools and whatever my brother and my sister and I were involved in, my parents were right there alongside of us serving and volunteering. When my siblings and I moved out, we thought that maybe my parents would slow down a little bit and take advantage of the empty nest and start vacationing more. But they actually plugged themselves in even more and their colorful, coordinated calendar was like a bright rainbow that represented different volunteer opportunities that my parents did to keep them organized.
Speaker 1:Now some of you may know that my mom recently passed away and the local newspaper wrote an article on her legacy of hospitality to the community and we were asked the question why do you think that your mom and your dad served as they did? Because they were very well known in the community for their volunteer work. My first answer would be payback. When my mom moved to Owatonna. She was a single mom with the three of us kids and the community loved on her very well. She got plugged into a workplace and a church. That was very healthy and people came around her and served her and encouraged her to get plugged in so she could know more people. But I think their real reason was that they found great joy in serving and volunteering but also they felt called to do it.
Speaker 1:If I'm being honest, we didn't always love their giving hearts. As a kid or a teenager, it wasn't fun to wake up on a Saturday morning and go rake the neighbor's lawn or serve at a food shelf or serve at the food booth. And then, even as an adult, I would have to be honest and say sometimes I didn't like sharing my parents with the community. We would go down and want to spend a weekend, but we actually had to schedule ourselves into their calendar. Or on special holidays they were serving a thousand people a turkey dinner and we were sitting at our home by ourselves. But then, when we started serving more with them, we realized the joy that they found from this, not for themselves, but what they found in community and building community around them. Both my parents created rhythms of service in our lives that were authentic and life-giving and led through love. They will be remembered in their community as people with servant hearts who humbly gave themselves. But, most importantly, they modeled for me and for my family who Jesus was and that he came to serve, not to be served. And in that act he shared love. And that is what service is. Service is love.
Speaker 1:John shares this beautiful story of love when Jesus washes the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper as he's preparing to go to the cross. In John 13, we read Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God. So he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing and he wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. Jesus knew what the world had in store for not only him, but for his disciples as well, and in this act of love he was telling them to love as I have loved through service, through caring and through seeing all of them. He was saying to them it doesn't matter who you are or what you have done or what others have done towards you. Just love, as I have loved. Jesus knew he was going to be betrayed. He knew about Judas, he knew about Peter and he said love anyway. Love the one who will betray you, love the one who will betray you, love the one who will deny you. Love the one who will hurt you in any way and serve them with love.
Speaker 1:This reminds me of so many road trips as a child when my mom and dad would pack us into this 1974 Cordoba. It was a two-door and there was three of us and we sat in the back seat. We were packed in like sardines as we would take road trips to Texas and New Mexico and Arizona and Florida and, as you can imagine, we didn't always get along the best way and my mom often would turn around. Why can't you just love each other? As we were poking and prodding each other and I'd be like mom, he's touching me, mom, he's crossed the line because we put tape marks on the seat. You know for our boundaries, mom, he won't stop staring at me. I can feel him breathing on my skin my dad's best punishment when he would say don't make me turn this car around or stop, because most of you would think he's going to spank them, right? Not my dad. My dad would make us get out of the car and stand this close to each other and stare at each other until we told each other that we loved us.
Speaker 1:It was torture, but this is their way of redirecting us into love, and I think this is what Jesus is saying to his disciples Just love one another. It doesn't matter that someone hurts you or looks at you weird or crosses your line, and when you do this, then the world will know me. Now go wash some feet. He tells them. What a beautiful picture of his heart. Amen, he sees them, he knows them, he forgives them and he serves them in love. And this is why we need this rhythm in our lives, so we can see the world as Jesus does, and we can get our hands dirty with yucky tasks like washing feet or serving meals to the hungry, or cleaning homes, or bathing and caring for elderly people or our parents, or just spending time with a stranger talking.
Speaker 1:And some of you are thinking Sonia, I really don't like to get my hands dirty. I don't like mud under my fingernails, I just got a manicure. Or maybe you are thinking, sonia, I really don't like to get my hands dirty, I don't like mud under my fingernails, I just got a manicure. Or maybe you're thinking I have my own things to do. You should see my to-do list. It's going to be inconvenient and, yes, serving is inconvenient and we do not like to be inconvenienced in this world or bothered by someone else and their needs. I had a friend, pastor Larson, that used to say, well, washing feet wasn't convenient for Jesus, and yet there he was, digging into their grimy toes. It was demeaning to him, it was beneath his status, and yet he did it. And so should we, even when it doesn't fit into our schedules.
Speaker 1:Recently I've been very task-oriented and focused on a list of projects in our yard to do and I noticed that our elderly neighbor, rose, was sitting on her front porch across the street from me and I was in our front garden and one time I looked up and she was like Hi, sonia. I'm like Hi, rose, and in my head I'm like Dang it, she's going to want to talk, she's going to want me to come over and rake her leaves or something. My husband and I adore Rose and we often will snowplow for her clean up her yard because she just can't do it. And honestly, I love doing it, I love being there. But on that particular day my to-do list was this big and I did not want to be interrupted or inconvenienced. And there's Jesus in my head, or Pastor Larson or my mom saying it wasn't convenient for Jesus to wash his feet. Now get over there. So I put my shovel down and I walked across the street and I had a visit with Rose which fully blessed me. And isn't that the truth? Often, when we're inconvenienced and when the spirit of love and Jesus, we are fully blessed. And I promised her I would get back and blow the acorns out of her yard into the street and get rid of them. She was blessed. I was blessed because I was being Jesus to her.
Speaker 1:I was reminded in that, as I took my walk of shame back across the street, that if I want to be willing to serve like God, then I have to be willing to openly serve and to be interrupted. I must live in a somewhat flexible calendar to be able to openly serve and to be interrupted. I must live in a somewhat flexible calendar to be able to put others first. Serving is saying life isn't all about me, life is about others and giving back to the many gifts that we have all been blessed with, and doing it with a humble heart, not one that is boastful. It's about living in my favorite scripture, which is Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 10, that we are crafted and we are his workmanship and we have all been given gifts to build his kingdom and we have been graced to this. Not to boast about it, not to say look what I did and show the world what I did, or build a resume, as Pastor Ryan will say, my calendar can't be so full that I can't be interrupted. We must be willing to say Lord, change my heart, teach me to serve others, make it a routine, a rhythm that becomes a natural love, and teach me, jesus, to do it with a humble heart. In other words, be aware of the sin of pride. It's an easy trap to fall into. Don't serve to build a resume and be boastful, but serve simply to love and serve in community.
Speaker 1:Our reading today that Richard so eloquently read shared that we are one body, created to share responsibility and to be the power of the church. We are set apart and the world is watching. Our clothes, our homes and our cars may look like everyone else's, but how we treat one another within the church should show a way of living and loving together that the world has never experienced. Serving is a way of being transformed into Christlikeness, and we are not transformed alone. Growing deeper in faith means growing deeper in our lives together. It's about who we are becoming together. It's about becoming a community of people whose relationships are telling a different story from the story that we hear around this world. It's a story of grace, told with humility and love, using the gifts that we've been giving to build one another as we are each and together transformed by renewing our minds. This is why Peter and this church encourages you to be a part of a house church or a journey group so we can do life together and build each other up, and this is why I love this letter written by Paul that was read today. He was writing to the Christian church in Rome, encouraging them and guiding them how to live life together. As Richard said and read, for just as each of us has one body with many members and these members do not all have the same function and read, paul is saying that we all have different gifts, so use them to build each other up, to serve those in need and to show this world who Christ is.
Speaker 1:My husband and I used to belong to a house church for many years and one of my favorite things that they would do is in the summer months. Instead of doing weekly or bi-weekly studies, we would use the month to serve the stranger. So we would often look for people that we don't know and say how can we come alongside you? How can we love you? Well, one summer there was a woman who had posted on social media that she was looking for someone to come and remove a tree, cut down a tree and remove a tree and take it out of her yard. So we contacted her and we had a conversation and she's like I just moved into this yard and there's shrubs and there's garbage, and her list was huge and she lived there by herself. So we showed up as a house church. There was probably 20 of us, about 10 trucks, trailers, and we had a great attitude and we had dilly bars and we did in probably an hour and a half what it would have taken her days to do. And her number one question to us was why? Why are you doing this? We didn't charge her and we just simply said we want to love you like Jesus would love you. We were showing her who Christ was, and in community, it wasn't work, it was fun and it was a blessing and life-giving.
Speaker 1:So, central, how do you serve? What are the gifts that you have that you give back and is serving a rhythm in your life? If not, it should be. The rhythms. Of service is an act of love and, yes, it is inconvenient at times, but when we do it together in community, it paints the beautiful image of Christ and the kingdom that he planned for us to be, a world that otherwise suffers in darkness. So serve, go and wash some feet, get dirty, and make it a rhythm.
Speaker 1:How and where can you start? Well, I would say let's start here. So many of us come on a Sunday morning or even throughout the week and they serve in this place, in this community, and that's wonderful. The ushers and the greeters and the sacristy and the musicians and tech people, everybody. That's great. But so many others come for one hour and you're filled with the Word of God and that's a blessing. But how about if we just start right here, look across the pew.
Speaker 1:Maybe somebody that you're sitting with, who you're interested in getting to know a little bit better, could sign up and work in a capacity here in this building or on these grounds to care for us. You could also work for Sunday opportunities by being an usher and a greeter. You could volunteer for VBS with kids. You could volunteer with children's ministry. I want to start a landscape team because I love landscaping and so, if you've noticed, this property is huge and we have a couple people that do it for volunteer.
Speaker 1:What if we all put our hands in and once a month we came and we're picking dandelions because, my gosh, it's dandelion season and they're everywhere and it's hard to keep on top of that. But what if we started here and we got to know each other and we built community amongst one another? And then we went beyond that and we started helping out in the ministries outside of this building, the ministries that we support CARE and Timber Bay, young Life, pilot, outreach, faith in Action. What if? Wow, and what if? Then we took the next step and we went across the seas and we started mission trips together. We could be a church that is known for the service of love, because we're teaching ourselves how to love through the rhythms. Amen.
