Mark 10:42-45
In most Christian
bookstores you’ll find a section of books
on “evangelism and witness.” Some of these books will
offer you psychological and sociological insights into the nature of the
non-Christian. Some will include
apologetic insights to answer the objections to Christianity you may meet.
Other books simply provide you sample dialogues for the would-be witness to
memorize and use when attempting to lead a person to faith in Christ.
To my knowledge none of
these books suggests you should attempt to persuade non-Christians to place
faith in Christ by saying, “Place your faith in Christ
and you will become a servant.”
“I’m not your servant,” we protest when we feel someone has crossed a line in what their
demanding of us. Being a servant seems
to lack dignity. We may enjoy the movie
butlers like Jeeves but only because they are obviously so much more clever
than their masters. We feel sorry for
the servile scullery maid who trembles before the mistress's rebukes. No one wants to be someone else’s servant.
We watch Downton Abbey or
Upstairs/Downstairs and wonder if
this might be a sanitized version of how servants were treated in the manor
houses of Victorian or Edwardian England.
Servants were to be virtually invisible.
In some homes they were expected to hide if they heard a family member
or guest coming. Tradesmen and even the
police were expected to use the servants' entrance. "Going into
service" usually meant a lifetime of long hours and thankless drudgery.
It wasn’t much better in Biblical times.
Both the Greeks and the Jews tended to look down on servants. The Jews were a little less harsh but the
disdain was still there.
Yet, one of the most
frequently used metaphors for Christians in the New Testament is “servant.” The usual Greek word is doulos, a word that implies “one who gives himself up to
another’s will.” Paul uses the word to describe himself, his co-workers, and calls
his readers to "serve one another," just like common servants (Gal. 5:13).
The very idea of being a Christian servant may inspire
protest. After all, don't we preach the liberating power of the gospel? Certainly. Few understood that better than Martin
Luther. Yet, as he studied the Bible he
found there was a paradox. He defined it
in one of his early works, The Freedom of
the Christian Man. He put it this
way:
"A Christian man is
the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most
dutiful servant of all and subject to everyone"
So, liberated brothers and
sisters, what does it mean when we say, "We are servants?"
TO BE A SERVANT IS TO BE OBEDIENT.
Use your imagination to
picture yourself in one of those manor houses.
You are one of several servants.
Unless you are fortunate enough to work in the kitchen, you may find
yourself doing all kinds of tasks.
The master tells you to
muck out the stables in preparation for the fox hunt the following day. You obediently muck out the smelly, filthy,
fly-infested stables, the stables that may be better heated and lighted than
your own tiny room in the servants' quarter.
The mistress tells you to
empty the chamber pots in the guest rooms and polish them so they gleam. You obediently empty the chamber pots and
polish them so they gleam, all the while making sure none of the guests see
you--so they will think the pots magically clean themselves.
You muck out stables and
empty chamber pots because you were told to do these odious tasks and you are
an obedient servant.
Mucking out stables and
emptying chamber pots is hard work. But
servants do what they are told to do.
The tasks Christian
servants are asked to do are not so easy.
Let me mention just a few of the things we Christian servants are asked
to do.
We Christian servants are asked to love our
enemies. In that English manor
house, the cook could hate the footman but as long as they did their jobs the
master couldn't have cared less about one servant's feelings for another. And the master certainly didn't care what
animosity the English butler might have for the Irish, for example. This might be because the master, being a
good Englishman, doesn't particularly care for the Irish.
The Christian servant's
master has an entirely different attitude.
Our master knows that hatred is destructive. It will impact how we do our work. More
important, he loves the most unlovely and wants us to do the same.
We Christian servants are asked to forgive. Of all the things our Master Jesus asks, this
may be the most difficult. We long to
retaliate, to strike back. We relish
payback. But Jesus says,
"Forgive." Sometimes emptying
those chamber pots seems easy in comparison to forgiving our enemies.
When the wounds are
superficial, we might find the strength to forgive by remembering we all make
mistakes. But when the wounds are deep
and life-changing, it's a different matter.
How do you forgive that spouse who betrayed you? How do you forgive that uncle who stole your
innocence? How do you forgive that
faceless soldier who took your loved one's life? How do you forgive the drunk who devastated
your family?
These are hard questions
and we should keep in mind that even the best servant could not do some tasks
alone.
We Christian servants are asked to tell others
of our Master. This might be hard to
imagine but there might have been occasions when some masters were so kind,
generous, and good that servants naturally praised them wherever they
went. Servants from other households
might get tired of hearing about this wonderful master, but that wouldn't
silence the servants fortunate enough to work for him.
It seems different for
us. We know our Master is benevolence
incarnate yet fear of ridicule, criticism, and censure often keeps us
quiet.
I could list other tasks but I want to move on
to a remarkable truth we Christian servants need to keep in mind.
As we do our work as
servants we have to keep in mind that our experience differs from that of other
servants. The master of the manor house
has never mucked out the stables, emptied the chamber pots; nor, perhaps, ever
even made the tea. (On occasion he may
have said, “I’ll be mother” and poured the tea but not
because he had to.) But we Christian
servants know our master has done the most difficult of tasks before us. He loved his enemies in a way we could never
hope to emulate, he forgave those who mistreated him, he proclaimed God’s message though it meant his death.
Jesus drove home this
reality on the night before the crucifixion when he stunned the disciples by
washing their feet—a task only a lowly servant
would do. He offered this explanation:
“Do you know what I have
done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and
Lord—and you are right, for that
is what I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and
Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have
done to you. 16 Very truly, I tell you,
servants are not greater than their master[1]
Jesus modeled servanthood
for them.
This was not the first time
that Jesus had told his disciples that their demeanor was to be one of service
rather than privilege. Earlier in his
ministry Jesus had responded to James and John’s request to sit beside him
in his kingdom. His response was hardly
what they expected.
42 So Jesus
called them and said to them, “You know that among the
Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their
great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great
among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give
his life a ransom for many.” [2]
Still, it was a hard lesson
for the disciples to learn, just as it is hard for us to learn.
Gordon MacDonald reminds us
of just how hard that lesson is in his poem called “Obedience.”
I said, “Let me walk in the fields.”
He said, “No, walk in the town.”
I said, “There are no flowers there.”
He said, “No flowers, but a crown.”
I said, “But the skies are black;
There is nothing but noise and din.”
And He wept as He sent me
back;
“There is more,” He said, “there is sin.”
I said, “But the air is thick,
And fogs are veiling the sun.”
He answered, “Yet souls are sick,
And souls in the dark undone.”
I said, “I shall miss the light,
And friends will miss me, they say.”
He answered, “Choose to-night
If I am to miss you or they.”
I pleaded for time to be given.
He said, “Is it hard to decide?
It will not seem hard in
heaven
To have followed the steps of your Guide.”
I cast one look at the
fields,
Then set my face to the town;
He said, “My child, do you yield?
Will you leave the flowers for the crown?”
Then into His hand went
mine
And into my heart came He;
And I walk in a light
divine
The path I had feared to see.
With this we come to the
second mark of the Christian servant.
Christian Servants Should
Be Known for Their Commitment.
In the Sermon on the Mount,
Jesus observes that servants must be committed; there can be no divided
loyalties. The Contemporary English
Version puts it this way, “You cannot be the slave of
two masters! You will like one more than the other or be more loyal to one than
the other. You cannot serve God and
Mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)
Mammon is an interesting
word and after more than two-thousand years Bible scholars still aren’t entirely certain where it comes from. Apparently it means money or wealth. This prompted Peterson to paraphrase the
warning as, “You can’t worship God and Money both.” It certainly is important that Jesus drops
this statement into his teachings on wealth.
Many Christian servants have lost sight of their Master's agenda because
the pursuit of wealth has been so enticing.
F. F. Bruce writes:
Since the service of mammon
is presented in this saying as an alternative to the service of God, mammon
seems to be a rival to God. Service of mammon and service of God are mutually
exclusive. The servant of mammon, in other words, is an idol worshiper: mammon,
wealth, money has become an idol, the object of worship.[3]
While Jesus uses wealth
here, I think it’s appropriate to say that
anything that competes for the Christian servant’s loyalty to God is to be
avoided or controlled. Certainly wealth
is a major competitor but so are other things.
Our relationships can challenge our devotion to Christ. This is why Paul warned the Corinthians: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.”
Of course this command
doesn’t mean we should have no contact or association
with unbelievers. Unless we withdraw to
caves or monasteries, like hermits or monks, we can’t escape associating with non-Christians. Nor would we want to if we take Jesus’ evangelism mandate seriously.
I don’t think Paul is forbidding association with non-Christians. We might even enter into contracts with them
or business arrangements.
So, what does he mean? On one level, what Paul has in mind is yoking
ourselves to the non-Christian in such a way that we find our capacity to
display our commitment and loyalty to Christ at jeopardy.
Many a Christian young
person, blinded by love or false-promises, has ignored this warning and married
a non-Christian only to find that even so basic a matter as regular church
attendance becomes a battleground issue in the marriage.
On a deeper level, it may a
matter of surrendered loyalties.
Thus to be “yoked with unbelievers” is to be of one heart and
mind with them, co-opted by the values that guide them, seduced by their
commitments to various “gods and lords” (1 Cor 8:5), conformed to
a view of things which dismisses absolute truth and moral absolutes[4]
No Christian servant can
take live that way.
Being a true Christian
servant involves more than saying the right words at the right time in our
conversation. That may be nothing more
than giving homage to the prevailing civil religion. In that same Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord,
Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of
my Father who is in heaven."
Living as a Christian
servant doesn't win our place in heaven; living as a Christian servant is
evidence we have the reservation.
Conclusion
In most Christian
bookstores you’ll find a section of books
on “evangelism and witness.”
To my knowledge none of
these books suggests you should attempt to persuade non-Christians to place
faith in Christ by saying, “Place your faith in Christ
and you will become a servant.”
There are two reasons why
that is just a little ironic.
First, in the history of
Christianity, those selfless Christian servants who have devoted themselves to
others have often reached the hardened critics who would never hear a sermon or
stand still for a gospel presentation.
In the early centuries of the church, when plague struck some of the
cities, non-Christians would flee, leaving behind the sick and dying. Usually Christians would remain behind to
care for their sick and for the non-Christian sick. The offered comfort as they nursed the
stricken, comforted the dying, and buried the dead. Their service won the admiration of their
critics and led many to faith in Christ. Christian servants have sometimes been
the best evangelists.
At the same time, some of the
best-loved words in Christ's parables are addressed to servants. In the Parable of the Talents found in
Matthew 25, the master commends his servants by saying, "Well done, good
and faithful servant! Come in and share
your Master's joy." So that servant
would do what few servants could hope to do, share the table with the
master--not filling empty cups or clearing away empty dishes, but enjoying the
bounty with the master.
Certainly the parable
implies that we will be judged as Christian servants. But on what basis? Not solely on the basis of outward success,
though nothing suggests that outward success might not mark the work of a
faithful servant.
At the same time, Christian
servants might be judged by less tangible standards. Have we kept the Master's purposes in view or
have we confused them with our own agendas?
Have our hearts been filled with a desire to serve or a desire to be
served? Have we been as willing to do
the hidden work as we have been to do the work in the spotlight? Do we serve because our service brings glory
to the Master or because our service brings glory to us?
We might hope that these
questions are answered in such a way that we might hear those words. "Well
done."
[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Jn 13:12–16). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
[2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Mk 10:42–45). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
[4]
Kaiser, W. C., Jr., Davids, P. H., Bruce, F. F., & Brauch, M. T. (1996). Hard
sayings of the Bible
(626). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity.
