“…whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” Mark 10:44 // Christ the Servant

Christ’s focus on being in service to others.

Much of our theology and religious thought revolves around Christ as our Savior.  And, it’s true that His primary purpose in coming to Earth was to be just that person, our Savior.  His selfless sacrifice allowed the reconciliation of Man to God, thereby restoring the opportunity for eternal life to all.

But as important as it is for us to understand Him in that light, another key aspect of His mission and purpose receives much less attention.  That’s why I’ve titled this week’s post “Christ the Servant.”

Because just as He is our Savior who reconciles Man and God, His embodiment of Service demonstrates how we can be reconciled to one another.   Christ dedicated just as much of His teaching to how we are to live together as He did to how we are to live with our God.  And, in fact, they are one and the same.  For it is impossible to have a correct relationship with God unless we have a correct relationship with our fellow men. So, let’s look at this thought for a bit.

Rational argument for service.

In an earlier post we addressed the question, “Why did God make Man?” [Post 4, July 6, 2019] There we explored the idea that God created Man to share in His Creation and to enjoy it in continual fellowship with Him.  For, what maker does not love the thing(s) he creates and does not desire to have that/those creations with him?  It wasn’t that God needed us.  Rather that He desired to share His Creation with us.

He wanted us to enjoy it and revel in it, just as He does.  And to fully share that enjoyment, He gave us minds capable of free will.  For He did not desire a race of unthinking robots, but rather a species that could come to its own conclusions regarding Creation and our place in it.

But along with that free will came the inevitable possibility of discord and difference of opinion.  Free will gave rise to pride and all the sins that follow it.  Our free will allows us to desire to impose our will on others.  And when we give in to this tendency, discord among our fellow men is the sad result.

Pride and sin are as old as humankind (see Genesis 4:1-9) but are not faults that we must be resigned to.  We do have free will.  We can make our own choices.  And, we can choose brotherhood over domination.   We can choose service to others over service to ourselves.

Teachings on importance of service.

As I said above, Jesus talked much about the importance of our being of service to others.

• “And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But 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 slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” [Mark 10:42-45]
• “For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.” [Luke 22:27]
• “When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” [John 13:12-15]
• “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” [Matthew 5:5]
• “…Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” [Matthew 7:12]
• “…Verily I say unto you Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” [Matthew 25:40]

The Apostles carried on with Jesus’ theme.

• Not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord,…” [Ephesians 6:6-7]
• “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” [Philippians 2:4]

Service and Relationship to God.

So why all this focus on our relationships with other people?  Isn’t the most important relationship with our God?

The answer to the second question is, “yes.”  And the answer to the first is, “Because you cannot have a satisfactory relationship with God without having a good relationship with your fellow man also.”  The argument goes like this.

God created man.  Man is the most important of God’s creation because out of all creation, only man is capable of knowing that he has (or can have) a relationship with God.

Other creatures are loved by God, but they (as far as we know) cannot be aware of Him.  Therefore, their relationship with Him is one-way.

We are unique in that we are the only beings in this physical creation (that we know of) who can know about God and know God.  Only man can have a reciprocal relationship with God. (I’m leaving Angels, Demons and other ‘spirits’ that may have been created by God out because, here we’re dealing with the physical reality of the created universe.)

It then follows that if God created and loves man, then we should too.  For if God loves something, surely it is worth our love as well.  When we reject something that God loves (or refuse to love it) that refusal put us at odds with God, and therefore into sin.  And when we are in sin, we cannot be in a correct relationship with God.

Therefore, the only way we can hope to enjoy a complete and fulfilling relationship with God is when we have also a complete and fulfilling relationship with the rest of His creation – including man.

We must, “love one another as we love ourselves.” (paraphrased from John 13:34).

This was one of Jesus’ greatest commandments.  Go back and read John 13:31-35.  Here you will see just how important it was to Him that we should “love one another.”

If Christ Himself came to us not as an overlord, but as a servant, is it not appropriate for us to treat one another with the dignity and respect that He showed us?

If we refuse to honor and serve those around us, do we not dishonor His memory and His service?  And when we do that, how can we possibly be in a correct relationship with Him?

Practical Advice.

“Okay”, you say, “we get it.”  We all have an obligation to treat others as well as we’d like to be treated ourselves.  And we owe it to our Lord to honor each another with our service.  So, how do we do that?

Here are some concrete actions we can all take to better follow Jesus’ commands regarding our fellow-man:

• Pay attention. We don’t have to look far to find someone who could use our help, our attention, or our sympathy.  Stay alert.  Opportunities for service will find us.
• Be willing. When an opportunity for service (large or small) arises, take it!  Who of us has not passed someone on the side of the road who had a flat tire?  Who of us has not passed the beggar when he was standing on the side of the road asking for help?  God continually gives us the opportunity to help, but we must be willing to take Him up on the offer!  Our service doesn’t have to be “big” or ostentatious.  In fact, Jesus warned against such public displays of “charity.” [Matthew 6:2-4] Do your good works quietly and without thought for repayment (Luke 10:25-37)
• Be courageous. We’ve all heard of others who have risked their lives to save or help others.  Most of these ‘heroes’ say that they acted without thinking.  I’m not sure that’s 100% true.  I suspect that most of them did think, but the thought was that someone needed their help and they had the courage to give that help.  Their first thought was for someone else, not for themselves.
• Be prayerful. Sometimes all we can do for someone who is in need is to pray for them and their situation.  We all see these opportunities each day.  Prayer works.  It is powerful.  If we cannot do anything else, we can still pray.
• Be respectful. There is no human that God doesn’t love just as much as He loves anyone else.  God is an “equal-opportunity” lover!  As I mused above, if God loves a person, who are we not to?  That doesn’t mean we have to like them!  But each person is a child of God and deserves our respect.
• Strive for humility. As observed by C.S. Lewis, when we start to think of ourselves less often, and instead think about others first, we are on the road to the kind of relationship God wants us to have with one another (heavily paraphrased, but I don’t think he’d mind).
• Have a sense of humor. I know this may sound ‘off’ in a religious treatise, but I’m a firm believer that when we laugh with someone else, it brings us all into a closer harmony with Him.  And when we can laugh at ourselves, we’re truly on the road to spiritual health.

Our relationship with others is an excellent reflection of our relationship with Him.  Just as Jesus came to us a servant, so must we become to each other, if we’re to have the relationship with Him that He desires.

Final Thoughts.

These thoughts seem particularly pertinent given the tenor and direction of so much of the discourse we hear and experience today.  I don’t know anyone who is comfortable with the animosity and rancor that seems so prevalent in our society.  We commonly agree that things need to change, and that we’d all be better off if we could all just be a bit more caring of one another.

We all know that that real change is often hard, and that it usually starts slowly.  But, if we’ll each take the phrase “let it begin with me” to heart, we can start the change today.  And as it begins to grow, it will take on momentum.

I pray that each of us will make the resolution to adopt more of a servant’s attitude and to take more servants’ actions toward others.  For I do believe that If enough of us do this and do it often enough, things will change for the better.  And we’ll start to realize the kind of relationships with one another that God intended for us to have, and with Him as well.

God’s Blessings on You All.

Richard

May 3, 2019