Lovely Statements: How Can I Help?

This episode launches a new “Lovely Statements” series—short, powerful phrases that can transform the way we love the people around us.

The first statement is simple. Only four words. But when spoken sincerely, it can change the tone of a room, a relationship, or even a life.

Sometimes loving better begins with a question... and this week, it also begins with a piano.

"Remember, you are loved, so go, love better!"

Transcript

            The name Steinway, even if you aren’t a music aficionado, is synonymous with quality and luxury.   Steinway is to pianos what Stradivarius is to violins.  Founded by Henry Steinway, the company dates back to 1853.  Henry Steinway began building pianos by hand in his kitchen, but eventually built an ivory empire out of Queens, New York.  Today, Steinway & Sons piano company commandeers over 80% of the high-end grand piano market.  They have almost 140 separate patents in piano making and are known as the gold-standard for innovation and quality.  Their name has become so ubiquitous with the market that you don’t buy a piano… you buy a Steinway.

Steinway & Sons is as American as apple pie and as patriotic as the Statue of Liberty. However, Henry Steinway was born Heinrich Steinweg of Brunswick, Germany.  Henry emigrated to the United States in 1850 and started the Steinway piano company only three years later, so the German ties to Steinway & Sons were unmistakable from the inception of the company.  From the start, Steinway had a clear German connection including a major European factory based out of Hamburg, Germany, but their roots were deeply American and patriotic.

            Which made World War 1 and 2 complicated for the company and the family.  How does an American piano company started by a man who once served in the German army make its way when the world goes to war against his birthplace?  The answer: the Victory Vertical.

I'm Scott Beyer and this is the Love Better Podcast where we explore the truths and the lies about love and more importantly how to turn love into a skill, something we can get better at and hone along the way.

            This episode is the first of a series of episodes I am calling ‘Lovely Statements’ – things that we can sincerely say that will show love and help us in our ongoing efforts to love better and glorify God through our lives because God is love and the world is better when we love like Jesus does.

            So what is the lovely statement for this episode and what does it have to do with Steinway pianos?  The first part is simple: The lovely statement is a sentence of only four words, and it can be offered in almost any situation:

“How can I help?”

            I dare you to find a circumstance where the phrase, “How can I help?” isn’t welcome.  When genuinely stated and applied – “How can I help?” is the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is an imitation of Jesus who seeing mankind struggling under the burdens of sin and the consequences of our own failings decided to come down from above and offer Himself.  Jesus’ entire life is a masterclass in “How can I help?” and anything we do is a mere shadow of His grace.  In Jesus’ own words to His disciples,

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:25-28)

“How can I help?” is the rallying cry of the servant leadership Jesus calls all of His disciples to.

            Now, what does the Steinway Piano Company have to do with that?  That’s where project Victory Vertical comes in.

            When the United States entered WW2 and ramped up production for airplanes, tanks, ships, bombs, and artillery – building materials, especially metals became precious commodities.  At the start of the war, Steinway stopped production of pianos almost entirely due to US war restrictions, and by April 1942, the Queens plant stopped production entirely.  Grand pianos were simply not a priority during wartime.  That is, until the U.S War Production Board made a strange request of the Steinway family.  Can you make a piano efficient enough to not waste precious metal, high quality enough to sound good, and sturdy enough to drop out of a B-17 Flying Fortress?

            Very quickly Henry Z. Steinway, great grandson and namesake of founder Henry Steinway designed a working prototype unlike any other Steinway.  It was simple instead of regal.  Instead of a grand piano, it was a straightforward box-like vertical design.  Roughly 40” tall and a little over 450 lbs. it was portable and built with handles.  No legs that could be damaged by a parachute drop, it sat flat on the ground and contained 10% of the metal typically used in piano construction.  The entire piano was built water-resistant, insect repellent, and it came in three colors Army olive, Navy blue, and Marine Corp grey.  Dubbed the Victory Vertical, it very quickly received a different name by the troops in the field.  As it was dropped from the skies above the men would exclaim with joy, “Look men! They’ve sent us a G.I. Steinway!”

            It turns out that the thing hardest to supply in war-torn Europe wasn’t food or fuel – it was hope… and the ability to play, listen, and rally around music from home while fighting in a faraway country was just the morale boost to remind the soldiers what they were fighting for.

            What I love about the GI Steinway project is its humility.  Steinway is the Rolls Royce of pianos.  They don’t build ugly verticals and they don’t paint things in drab colors.  Their pianos are associated with luxury and precision.  But nobody needed a touch of class in World War 2, those soldiers needed the sound of home, and Steinway wasn’t too good to produce an unconventional product to make that happen.  Steinway was as proud to stamp their names on those Victory Verticals as they were to put their name in gold leaf on the finest grand pianos built for Broadway.

            “How can I help?” only works when we are ready to empty ourselves of all preconceived declarations of status.  When the CEO is just as happy to mop the floor as he is to chair a board meeting, it changes things around the company.  “How can I help?” stops worrying about how it looks or who is supposed to do something and simply decided to meet the need.

            Paul said this was the mentality he tried to have in preaching the gospel. In his first letter to the Corinthians he writes to them and says, “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.” (1 Corinthians 9:19)

            One of the reasons that Paul emphasized this need to be servant of all was because the church in Corinth had forgotten that mentality.  Divisions and factions waged war against one another inside the Corinthian congregation.  People jockeyed for positions of honor and discussed who was the most impressive… and the whole time, Paul, who bore the highly honored title of ‘apostle of Jesus Christ’ preached the gospel for free and repaired tents to cover his living expenses.

            The book of Philippians describes it as the process of emptying ourselves.  Consider Philippians 2:5-7:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:5-7)

            Nobody could afford grand pianos, so Steinway built G.I. Steinways.  They weren’t too proud to serve a different kind of customer.

            I suspect you and I could be a lot more useful in our lives and in the kingdom of Christ if we were less picky.  It is oftentimes the least savory jobs that we consider “beneath us” that most need to be done.  There are older couples in your congregation that would really benefit from someone to sit with them and listen… or maybe help scrub their floors and bathrooms now that their joints make such tasks very difficult.

            There are widows who don’t need a theological treatise… they need someone to change a lightbulb. There are young parents who don’t need another article on parenting strategies… they need someone to hold a baby so they can take a nap. There are teenagers who don’t need another lecture on how soft their generation is… they need someone to look them in the eye and say, “I’m here. Growing up is hard. Transitioning to adulthood is hard.  How can I help?”

“How can I help?” is rarely glamorous. It almost never trends on social media because social media only has room the sensational. Instead, “How can I help?” when said quietly, with full eye contact, and genuine authenticity is the language of love.

And that means it is the language of Jesus.

When Jesus fed the five thousand, He didn’t begin with a strategy session. He began with compassion. Matthew tells us, “When He went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:14). And He fed them because He saw they were hungry – and their need and His ability to fill that need was enough for our Lord.

Sometimes, we ask the person, “How can I help?”

Sometimes, we quietly ask ourselves, “How can I help?”

When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet in John 13, He did something that was culturally unthinkable for a rabbi. John writes, “He rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist” (John 13:4, ESV). That is not the posture of a celebrity. That is not the posture of a man clinging to status. That is the posture of a servant.

Afterward, Jesus asked them, “Do you understand what I have done to you?” (John 13:12, ESV). And then He said, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14, ESV).

That’s “How can I help?” with a towel wrapped around your waist.

And here is what I find so striking: Jesus did not wash their feet because they deserved it. He washed their feet knowing one would betray Him, one would deny Him, and the rest would scatter. Love that waits for worthiness is not love at all. Love that asks, “How can I help?” moves first.

It moves toward the tired.
 It moves toward the sinful.
 It moves toward the awkward.
 It moves toward the inconvenient.

It moves toward people like you and me.

The apostle Paul understood that love is not primarily a feeling but a posture of service. In Galatians 5:13 he writes, “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (ESV). Through love serve.

Love is not merely internal affection. It is external action. It is service with skin on it.

And yet, if we are honest, one of the reasons we do not ask, “How can I help?” is because we are afraid of the answer.

What if helping is inconvenient?
 What if helping costs money?
 What if helping costs time?
 What if helping costs reputation?
 What if helping costs comfort?

The Victory Vertical was inconsistent with the Steinway aesthetic. It was ugly and a perversion to their brand. They put their name on something traditionally considered beneath them, but it gained Steinway the gratitude of soldiers sitting in muddy boots around a parachute-dropped piano, playing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” under a war-torn sky.

Sometimes love requires us to build a different kind of piano.

Sometimes love requires us to lay aside what we are known for to meet the need in front of us.

Paul tells the Romans, “Let love be genuine” (Romans 12:9). Genuine love is not performative. It is not selective. It does not calculate return on investment. A few verses later he adds, “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality” (Romans 12:13, ESV).

Contribute to the needs.

Notice he does not say contribute to preferences. He does not say contribute when it aligns with your gifting or your schedule. He says contribute to the needs.

“How can I help?

In 1 John 3:17, John says, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

How indeed? How can I say God’s love abides in me when I can help and I don’t because it isn’t the kind of helping I envisioned myself doing?

The answer is found in the next verse.

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:18)

Do you know what makes “How can I help?” such a lovely statement?  The heart behind it.

Do your soul a favor and this week look someone in the eyes, ask them “How can I help?” and then don’t give up eye contact until they take you seriously.

You might just find your Steinway moment.

Learn to love better.  Learn to ask, “How can I help?”

As always, thank you for listening and hopefully we've done something to help make your life a little bit better.

If you are looking for other resources, you can visit my website BibleGrad.com where you can find tools for Bible study and video lessons to help you understand the Bible. If you are interested, you can sign up for a video series challenge through the website called the #HopeDoes challenge. Two short videos each week and a chance to grow in your hope by doing hopeful things. Just go to BibleGrad.com, scroll down and enter your email to get started.

Or if you run across a fascinating piece of history, a feel-good story, or some scientific insight that makes you think, “That would fit Love Better,” send it my way. Some of my favorite conversations start with something a listener shares. You can always email me directly at scott@biblegrad.com

And if you are ever in the Louisville, KY area, I’d like to invite you to come worship with me and my family at the Eastland congregation. We meet for worship every Sunday and have Bible classes for all ages on Wednesdays, too. If you want more information about Eastland, visit us at eastlandchristians.org. We would love to worship God with you and help you on your walk of faith.

And as always, until next time, “Remember, you are loved, so go… love better.”