The Servant Within the Family
The Servant Within the Family
We have previously published two lectures about individual work… and today we speak about another field of individual work, namely:
the servant within the family.
An Incorrect Situation:
It is surprising that many servants have a dual personality: they behave in one way in the sphere of service, and in a completely opposite way within the family.
In Sunday School, he is a pure angel, a gentle person, with words full of humility and tenderness, saying things like: “Pray for me, I am a sinner, I am weak and unworthy…”
But inside the family, this “sinful, unworthy” person appears in his true form: anger and violence, perhaps shouting, insults, and even beating…!! Therefore, when someone is nominated for the priesthood from among the servants, it is not enough to rely on the opinion of fellow servants about him; the opinion of his family members is also essential. He may try to be a role model outside the family, but inside his family he is something else. He may visit and serve many outside the home, yet he has no service within his own family.
Sometimes he serves within the family, but turns into a strict inspector over everyone—harsh in his supervision, a teacher and disciplinarian who commands and forbids in a way that repels people from religion.
I remember a servant in our days who saw makeup tools belonging to his sister at home. He became furious, insulted her, slapped her face, and threw the makeup tools off the balcony!!
Is this a spiritual method of service?! And is this a way that makes his sister love piety or respect church servants? Indeed, such a “servant” may even rebuke his father or mother if the behavior of either does not please him.
Thus, he either does not serve within the family at all, or he serves with pride and violence. He may withdraw into himself within the family and complain that he is stumbled by them and that he is at odds with them in all spiritual principles. It may even happen that his family prevents him from service and from church, because they see that his “religiosity” has turned him into someone arrogant, violent, lacking love and gentleness. Or they see that he has neglected his studies and duties under the pretext of service, its schedules, and its demands. In fact, it is his family that is stumbled by him and by his behavior.
Here we ask, from a positive perspective, about how to serve within the family.
How does he serve?
1. Through cooperation with the household:
There is a servant who gives a lesson about the Good Samaritan in Sunday School, yet he is not a good Samaritan in his own home. Religion is not merely information delivered to people; it is a life we live. Therefore, be helpful and cooperative at home.
You enter the house and find that your mother has not yet finished preparing the food. Do not get angry or give a lecture about schedules. Instead, go in and help her prepare it. Help also in setting the table. When you finish eating, do not leave them to clear your leftovers and wash your dishes—participate in that as well. Does this cost you more than a few minutes? It is a simple thing by which you assist your mother and sisters.
You will gain the blessing of your mother’s prayers and her love for you because you help her and do not leave her alone.
Some “servants” not only fail to cooperate in household service but also place an added burden on their families because of their service.
They wake up, go to work, and leave everything scattered in their room for someone else to arrange! Why not make your bed as soon as you wake up? Why not arrange your clothes and desk before leaving the house? Why do you consider service to be only preparing lessons and delivering them? Is service not also cooperation with the household?
Why not help your younger siblings by explaining their lessons or assisting them in what they need? Then they will love you and become attached to you, and through this love you can benefit them spiritually.
Why not learn some hobbies through which you can fix some electrical appliances at home or the like, helping them economically instead of costing them money?
2. Another point in serving the family is cheerfulness and love:
Be cheerful in your home. Spread an atmosphere of joy and happiness, and make everyone love you—especially the children—through your pleasant face, your gentle smile, and the stories and riddles you tell your siblings, with your cheerfulness and kindness.
Do not be like those who remember from the sayings of the Desert Fathers only the phrase “Enter your cell and weep for your sins,” and from the Holy Bible only the saying of the wise man: “By sadness of countenance the heart is made better” (Eccl. 7:3). Such people suffice themselves with a life of gloom, sadness, rigidity, and weeping, and they want all the household to be like them—depressed!
They claim that laughter is a sin and blame everyone who laughs. If the family laughs, they consider it moral laxity! They forget the Scripture: “There is a time to laugh” (Eccl. 3:4), and: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4), and that among the fruits of the Spirit are “love, joy, peace” (Gal. 5:22).
Saint Arsenius was famous for his tears, yet before people he was cheerful. Do not let your family think that entering religious life turns one’s life into gloom, lest they fear piety because of you. Rather, give them an image of spiritual cheerfulness and inner peace.
3. A third point in serving the family is respect for all:
Beware lest your heart grow proud because of your religiosity, leading you to despise others, judge them, or speak down to them. Many, upon entering the sphere of service, put in their minds a sign that says: “Rebuke, exhort, admonish” (2 Tim. 4:2). With such rebuking, the household becomes cautious of their harsh words and disrespectful expressions toward young and old alike, forgetting that this phrase was written by Saint Paul the Apostle to his disciple Saint Timothy the bishop, with the method specified as “with all longsuffering and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2).
Do you consider yourself a bishop over the household, or merely a servant?
Even a bishop is not always rebuking. He was told concerning elders: “Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers” (1 Tim. 5:1). It was also said of the bishop that he should be “gentle, not quarrelsome” (1 Tim. 3:2–3), and not quick-tempered (Titus 1:7).
Do not let service strip you of the virtue of good manners and respect for others.
The spiritual message you wish to convey, present it with love, gentleness, and respect, with purity of tongue and humility of heart. Even with your younger siblings, when you ask for something and say, “Please… if you don’t mind… could you…,” they will learn this gentle manner from you and use it in their speech with others. Thus, you serve them through practical example.
Try in your family service not to hurt anyone’s feelings. Do not utter a word that wounds another person. Respect everyone, and they will respect you and learn from you respect for others, gentleness in speech, proper conduct, and calm counsel.
If you have advice for your father, mother, or those of similar standing, be very careful not to speak as a teacher… Preserve reverence toward those older than you in age or position.
4. With regard to elders, you can offer indirect teaching:
Such as telling an edifying story from the sayings of the Fathers, or a reflection on a specific verse without directing it to a particular person, or recounting the experience of a wise person, or a gentle joke that serves the same purpose—removing any hurtful phrases from the story.
Beware of sitting with your father and saying: “Dad, I want to talk to you a bit for the sake of your salvation,” as if his salvation were in danger and he were perishing and in need of you to save him. Instead, you can tell a story to your younger siblings that your father may hear incidentally or intentionally.
5. In your family service, you must be characterized by humility and wisdom:
Wisdom teaches humility and courteous speech. Do not think that to correct elders you must be bold toward them, or to correct the young you must dominate them. Do not use a method—while trying to save others—that destroys yourself.
Remain small within your family environment. Do not make them feel, through your advice, that you have become broader in thought, greater in knowledge, more spiritual, or purer of heart than they are.
With such an arrogant method, you lose their friendship and lose yourself. What benefit is it if your way of serving teaches you control, accustoms you to anger and rebuke, hardens your heart, and creates a barrier between you and others’ hearts? Learn cheerfulness and gentleness before beginning any service.
Know that every soul is sensitive, and you must consider this sensitivity in your service.
6. Know that your role is persuasion, not coercion:
You are merely a witness to the truth, as the Lord commanded: “You shall be witnesses to Me” (Acts 1:8).
As for forcing your family and siblings into upright behavior, this is not your role. God Himself said to the people: “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil… I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that you may live” (Deut. 30:15, 19).
If you persuade them toward good and they do it by choice, they receive their reward. But if they do good under pressure from you and without conviction, what reward will they have?
Do not think your service is to advise, coerce, rebuke, threaten, and punish. This is not a method of service with your younger siblings or sisters, nor with elders in a milder form. Otherwise, the family will say: “If only he had not entered service; he used to be kinder, more loving, and more respectful.”
In your service, do not deprive anyone of freedom; rather, help guide that freedom toward good.
Help your family members love God. If they love Him, they will love good and do good naturally, without coercion or rebuke, and their will shall be purified.
7. In your service, beware of literalism in teaching:
Do not be Pharisaical in your teaching, whether inside or outside the home. This applies, for example, to your stance on entertainment inside or outside the family. Do not take a rigid stance that causes distress and gloom for the whole family, nor a lax stance lacking example and boundaries. Rather, act with wisdom, along a clear and sound line between good and evil, so that you are convincing, not extreme in opinion or authoritarian in thought without persuasion.
They have the right to entertainment, and they are obligated that this entertainment be pure and without fault.
Do not treat them as monks or ascetics. At the same time, point out areas of error wisely. Continually present a bright image of your piety. Do not present religion to them as a bitter medicine they must drink to be healed, but as a spiritual delight. It is acceptable for them to progress gradually, as the Apostolic Fathers did with the Gentile converts (Acts 15:28–29), and as Saint Paul the Apostle said to the Corinthians: “I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it” (1 Cor. 3:2).
8. In your service, present a model through your success in life:
Whether in your academic life through excellence that makes your family rejoice, in your social life by being loved and trusted by others, in your spiritual life by being blameless with no fault held against you, or in your practical life in general.
If they see you as such a good example, they will respect your life and consequently respect your approach and principles, taking you as a role model. Thus, you draw them practically to the way of the Lord whom they loved in your life.
Your family will love you and be proud of you, and they will accept your words when you speak about God. If you invite them to church, they will go with you. You may even hear your father say to your younger sibling: “Learn from your brother so-and-so; see how successful and beloved he is and how he does not err.”
When you are successful and excellent, and you take God’s right from yourself before taking it from others, then you will also be successful in serving your family, because you will be a person clothed with virtue, not merely a speaker about virtue.
You will be a lesson to others even if you remain silent.
9. After all this, you can proclaim the word of God:
Begin with your younger siblings. They love stories and will love you greatly if they hear from you stories from Scripture, the lives of the saints, animal stories, or historical accounts. They also love hymns—teach them hymns and melodies. Help them memorize Bible verses, offer competitions and riddles. They will form a special class for you, even if you begin with one child who then draws others from the family branches or from friends and neighbors.
There will come a time when your mother will like to hear your story—either from them or from you—and likewise your father. These stories can be told during meals or in the living room, directed to the children, while the adults hear them indirectly.
10. Worship within the family environment:
A devout family can have common worship, generally or partially. This is a subject that needs a separate article.
For now, I suffice with this, and until we meet in a coming article, if the grace of the Lord wills and we live.
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