Serving the People in Front of You
‘Honor your father and mother.’And, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Jesus links two commands together that we sometimes treat as separate categories of faith: honoring our parents and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Both point outward, away from self-interest, toward the people God has placed in our path. Neither is abstract. They call for daily, practical care shown to real people—family members, strangers, fellow servants—rather than a vague spiritual sentiment.
This is the thread running through the story of a young man who returned to Scouting's National Jamboree, this time not as a participant but as a journalist. His years in Scouting had already taught him that serving others is one of the concrete ways the Bible calls us to serve God. That lesson didn't disappear when his path shifted from Eagle Scout to reporter; it simply took a new shape, as loving our neighbor often does when God redirects our plans.
What stayed with him at the Summit Bechtel Reserve wasn't the scenery, striking as it was, but the leaders who gave nearly two weeks of their time to thousands of Scouts. That kind of sustained, unglamorous dedication is exactly what "love your neighbor as yourself" looks like when it's lived out—not a single grand gesture, but showing up day after day for people who aren't your own family, simply because they are within reach and in need.
Matthew 19:19 doesn't ask us to love humanity in the abstract. It asks us to honor the specific parents we were given and to love the specific neighbors around us—coworkers, campers, strangers on a mountain trail. It's a call renewed in small, repeated acts of attention and service, often in places we didn't expect to be standing.
To read more about how one journalist's Scouting journey became a reflection on faith, service, and God's faithfulness, check out The Christian Chronicle's full piece, "The view from the Summit."
Read the source: The Christian Chronicle →