MARCH 24, 2005 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
Tonight we are blessed with a wonderful image of what it means to be ministers in God’s Kingdom. The teacher takes the place of the student; the boss becomes a laborer; the master assumes the role of slave. In his actions and by his words, Jesus personifies the talk and walk of what it means to be a servant of the people.
Now, that phrase has been kicked around a lot, so I went to the Internet to check on its popularity. Any guess on how many sources Google identified as having used that phrase? Almost 3…million. Here is just a sampling.
-Huey P. Newton of the 70’s radical group Black Panthers has been
remembered by an admirer as a…Servant of the People.
-Chen Shilu, vice chairman of the People's Political Conference in
Communist China, has been called a…Servant of the People.
-Gerald Heaton, the state of Ohio’s Logan County Prosecutor, claims that his
position makes him a…Servant of the People.
-Last year, his Holiness Pope John Paul II was given a Presidential Medal of
Freedom Award for being a…Servant of the People.
-Nabila Harb, in an article entitled “The Nature of True Patriotism,” asserts
that our government is the…Servant of the People.
-And the “New Federalist Platform” reminds us that the President of the
United States is elected to be a…Servant of the People.
What a wonderful, flexible phrase. The same few words have been used to describe a panther, a party politico, a prosecutor, a pope, a patriot and a president, not to mention the plethora of pastors, premiers, prime ministers, pooh-bas and other “principals” who also have appropriated this piece as a portrayal of their persona.
So what does it
mean? If, in fact, we were truly surrounded by so many who work so hard
to be such servants of the people, shouldn’t
the people of our world be a little better served? A loose rendition of
Shakespeare’s voice from Hamlet’s mother sums it up best: methinks they doth
protest too much (actual
quote "The lady doth protest too
much, methinks." Hamlet III, ii, 239).
The truth is that our world is far from being over-run with servants of the people. Certainly, our world has plenty of people who are servants: from tuxedoed butlers, to teens at McDonalds, to sew-ers in sweat shops, to those Untouchables in India whose bathroom or garbage jobs render them permanently impure according to their caste system.
These folks, unlike our list of famous “servants of the people” are a little easier to ignore. I know this from personal experience. After being a pastor for more than six years, I went back to grad school and got a job as a janitor in a dentist’s office. I suddenly went from being often recognized to always invisible. People would ignore me unless I greeted them first. And then, often with a brusque hello, would let me know that I was reaching beyond my station even to speak to them.
Slaves have no face…they are invisible, dispensable, without standing or voice. In our Gospel lesson for tonight, Jesus joins all those faceless souls by stooping to wash his followers’ soles and insteps and ankles and toes. He gives up his status, abandons his position of honor, loses his face when he becomes a true servant of the people.
Peter sees it clearly and puts his foot down. When Jesus kneels to the floor, his friend says to this Lord-become-a-slave, You will never wash my feet! There is nothing romantic about a servant’s life with no recognition, no recourse, no rights.
Some leaders embrace this title because it sounds so humble, so earnest, so endearing. But the title is as far as they’ll go with it. It’s all about the image… it’s all about saving face.
On Sunday mornings, we’ve been reading through Philip Yancey’s book What’s So Amazing About Grace? He talks about this notion of saving face and the power it holds over various people. Citing the atrocities of W.W.II, Yancey notes that the Germans have tried to deal with their guilt publicly. The Japanese, however, have not…can not. Next we talked about the Middle East and how there every act of violence has to be answered with violence else the nation/people risk losing face.
Then our friend L.J. Jeffery asked the question, Is it possible to be a Christian and be uncomfortable with losing face? It’s a wonderful question to ask, especially when we hear of our Lord’s actions on this Holy Night. Jesus proves what it means to be a servant of the people…you get down on your knees and serve: washing feet, carrying a cross, suffering shame, putting up with pain, praying for one’s enemies, welcoming the lost, trusting in God in spite of Satan’s slurs and humanity’s incredible inhumanity.
David Carter, president of Eastern Connecticut State University, in a speech to the school’s faculty, added the role of university president to our long list of people who claim to be a Servant of the People. But he clarified his vision with a quote from Warren Bennis, professor…at U.S.C.'s Marshall School of Business. Said Bennis, The difference between leaders and managers is that managers do things right, and leaders do the right thing.
Our calling, our role, our job as Christians is not to do things right but to do the right thing. We are to re-enact Jesus’ role of servant in all that we say- and-do, so that all people might know God’s love and forgiveness for them in Jesus Christ. Amen.