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Mutual Servitude Spencer C. Lawrence, Church of the Cross, Hoffman Estates, IL, June 17, 2007 Let’s review. I have spoken to you about the importance of defining ourselves as Christians: what we believe, what we value, what we think is right and wrong. Last week I began talking to you about staying connected with others. It’s important to do that when we are defining ourselves because self-definition tends to separate us from people. We have to consciously work at staying connected with them. One way we can stay connected is by using our spiritual gifts to build up the body of Christ, the church. Another way we can stay connected is by choosing to serve. Now no one I know actually thinks that serving other people is a good thing. Having people serve us, however, is a good thing. We can fantasize about how much fun it would be to have people wait on us hand and foot. Of course, once we received that sort of treatment for a while it might grow old or become a little annoying, but right now it seems like a pretty good thing. Jesus, however, saw it quite differently. One day two of his disciples came to him with a secret request. Matthew’s version has their mother coming to Jesus with the request. It’s not important who came, just that the request was made. They were hoping that when Jesus came into power – after all, that’s what the Messiah was supposed to do, right? – that one of them could be his right hand man and one of them his left hand man. In other words, they wanted to be secretary of state and secretary of defense. This is not unusual even today. People who devote their lives to get someone elected president can usually count on a high position in that president’s administration. James and John were just being human. Jesus, however, asked them if they could drink from the same cup he would drink from or undergo the same baptism he would undergo. They thought he was asking them, “Are you up to the rigors of the campaign?” Instead he was talking to them about his death, but they didn’t get it. They, of course, said they were ready to do what was necessary. Then Jesus went on to say that the positions they were asking for were not his to give. That must have been a big surprise and an even greater disappointment. If Jesus couldn’t give them, then who could? Who should they talk to? Jesus gave them no clue. Somehow, we don’t know how, Jesus’ other disciples got wind of the request. Boy were they ticked off. The conversation would not be hard to imagine. “Who do you think you are to try to be over us?” “Do you think you’re better than we are?” Jesus overheard the argument and came over to them. He said, “You know how the Gentiles like to lord it over their subjects. Not so for you. If you wish to be great, you must become a servant. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The implication s that if Jesus himself didn’t expect to be served, but instead came to serve, then Jesus’ disciples should be ready to do the same thing. Now there is something distressing in all this – both then and now. You see, you don’t become king or queen by doing someone else’s laundry. You don’t become president by driving the White House limo. You don’t get to the top by choosing to stay at the bottom. All you get is the dubious privilege of remaining a servant. Yet Jesus told his disciples then and now to do just this. What’s in it for us, you ask? Because of his willingness to serve, Jesus gained resurrection from the dead and a place at the right hand of God the Father. Maybe we can’t expect quite as much – we’re starting at a different place, but we can expect something similar. At the very least, we can expect resurrection from the dead and life in the presence of the living God – not measly expectations if you ask me. So why am I saying all this? Well, you’re about to embark on a time of big changes. As you know, soon I will no longer be your pastor. You will have an Interim for a year or so. The future will feel uncertain because the Interim is only temporary. (Someone once referred to Interim pastors as “faster pastors” because of the relatively shortness of their stay.) Besides the uncertainty of pastoral leadership, you face a number of issues that you eventually will have to resolve. One is the future of this building – will you stay and remodel or move? Another is who will pick up the slack in the workload once I leave? Which committees and individuals will be asked to do more? And when I leave will others leave or will everyone stay or will new people come in will former members who left angry with me comes back? Another may have to do with staff configuration – when I came we had three staff people now we have six. Will they all stay? Will the new pastor prefer something different? And, of course, there is the ever-present issue of money – fearing that you won’t have enough, trying to figure out how to get more. You can’t answer all these questions right now. You will have to wait. In the meantime they will come up for discussion. Of course, some of you may be sitting there thinking, “I didn’t know there was this much to worry about. Thanks for giving me more to worry!” (What can I say? It’s a gift I have.) All this is to say that when change happens anxiety increases. Anxiety makes people feel insecure. One way they think they can feel more secure is by gaining more control, so they work really hard at winning – sometimes at almost any cost. Often, people who are most adamant about winning are also the most highly anxious. Just as James’ and John’s anxiety about their futures moved them to try to gain more control over their lives, so anxiety can move us to want to win more than anything. Anxiety can make us want to be served rather than serve. Jesus, however, commands us to serve one another. Instead of letting anxiety turn us into control freaks, he tells us to channel it into serving others. How can we do this? Instead of always demanding to have our ideas heard, we can take time to listen carefully to others’ ideas. We can say what we think, but we need to give people a chance to say what’s on their minds. Instead of calling those we disagree with names, we can speak to and of each other with respect. When we disagree, instead of clamming up or starting a shouting match, we can do our best to work toward a helpful compromise. Of course, there may be times when no compromise is possible and someone’s idea must “lose.” A servant doesn’t gloat in those situations, but rather seeks to preserve one others’ dignity. In the final analysis when we stand before Jesus Christ on the Last Day he will not ask us how many votes we won or how many of our ideas were adopted by the session or deacons or trustees. He will ask us how many feet we washed and whose they were. One of the fears we have about serving one another has to do with the possibility of becoming doormats. No one wants to have other people walk all over him. So how do we serve people who want to treat us like doormats? How do we serve people who are plainly offensive? Jesus gave guidelines for dealing with people who offend us. In Matthew 18 Jesus is recorded as saying that if someone offends you then the first thing you should do is go to that person directly to discuss the matter. We’re not to go to our friends and complain about the person who hurt us. This, of course, is the “natural” thing to do. When someone offends us we feel anxious and angry. One way we try to reduce our anxiety is to share it with someone else. We may feel better, but the other person then feels anxious and he or she then shares it with yet another person. It doesn’t take too long before several people are involved in the “conflict” we are having with the person who offended us. The anxiety spreads to infect several other people. Instead of doing that, Jesus tells us to talk directly to the person who hurt us. Whether it’s a husband or a wife or parents or a co-worker, speak to that person directly. Just as important is when someone comes to you and in a whisper says, “Do you know what Jim did to me?” Or ”I have a real problem with the way Sally’s behaving.” What’s happening here is that you are being invited to take on someone else’s anxiety. If you listen to them you are freeing them of the responsibility of dealing with their own problems. At one level it may feel like a real honor that they trust you this much. At a more basic level you are being asked to take sides in a fight. There are times, of course, when this may be appropriate – if it’s your responsibility to deal with grievances. Or it’s an instance of spousal of child abuse. But most of the time, these are intensely personal matters that neither you nor I have any business getting involved in. Instead of listening with eager ears, the best thing to do is to suggest that the one talking to you talk to the person who offended her. Jesus says that the goal of the talking is not winning. The goal is to gain the brother or sister back. In other words, we don’t go directly to the person assuming that we are in the right and they in the wrong. We go with the assumption that we may have said or done something that was hurtful to them. They may need to apologize to us; we may need to apologize to them. If our intention is to regain the brother or sister we’ve “lost” because then we won’t approach them self-righteously; we will come in humility. This is really hard to do. It’s not natural. We instinctively want to involve other people in our problems just like we’re inclined to blame others for them. When the Lord God asked Adam why he had disobeyed, Adam replied, “The woman you gave me made me eat the fruit from the tree.” We naturally want to dump our anxiety on other people. Jesus instead says, “If you have a problem with someone go directly to that person, and as calmly as you can tell her what it is. Do so humbly so that ultimately you and she can become friends again.” This the way we can serve someone who has “offended” us. Next Sunday is my last Sunday. After that I will no longer be your pastor. My work among you will be finished. I urge you to stay connected with each other. Use your gifts for service to build up the body of Christ. Above all, serve one another. Don’t worry so much about winning. Rather choose to live humbly with each other. Remember Jesus who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
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