SERIES 3 ENTHUSIASTIC SERVICE
SERMON 2 "The Ultimate Servant"
(Morna Harding) September 2, 2012
Upstairs, Downstairs
I love watching period dramas like Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility,
Mansfield Park, Upstairs, Downstairs. I love the romance, the drama, the costumes,
and the customs. You know the wonderful balls, the elegant dinner parties and the
pleasant strolls in the park. Of course I always imagine myself living upstairs,
attending the balls in the beautiful gowns, sitting in the beautifully decorated rooms
doing the handwork, engaged in friendly banter and conversation and overall just
being part of a very elegant lifestyle.
When I find myself being carried away by my imagination I realise that probably, had
I been living at the time, I most likely would not have been one of the privileged
number living upstairs enjoying all the finery but instead would probably have been
one of the lesser ones downstairs scrubbing the kitchen floors and only being able to
dream about the beautiful dresses, walking out with all the fashionable people or
relaxing and sitting among the expensive furnishings upstairs having a servant serve
me my tea, clean my house and do the grocery shopping.
It's at that point that I find it hard to reconcile the contrast between upstairs and
downstairs, the absolute inequalities of it all, the very real class distinction and the
privileges that came along with it.
Recently on TV there was the series called 'Downton Abbey'. Some of you may have
seen it. This series was set just before the outbreak of WW1. As we are introduced
to all the characters upstairs and downstairs we are made aware of the class
distinction between them.
During the series we see the beginning of the disintegration of that class culture
brought about by the affects of the war as it left its mark on everyone. No one was
unaffected. Upstairs and downstairs lost sons and both had to make sacrifices. Both
saw the corrupt take advantage of the situation. And both wanted to be able
contribute in ways that they could. Even the grand home of Downton Abbey, was
turned into a rehabilitation hospital for returning soldiers causing the Granthem
family to lose their private space.
Toward the end of the first series the war ended and the Earl of Granthem came
downstairs to inform the staff of the news. As he descended the stairs the whole staff
jumped up from the seats where they were eating their meal. They all stood up in
shock seeing the master below stairs, unannounced. As soon as they noticed his
presence they would not dare to casually continue with what they were doing. The
master's presence demanded respect.
If they entered a room upstairs no one would take any notice of them. They were just
part of the furniture. But not so the other way around. Occasionally the countess
would come below stairs to confer with the housekeeper but not the Earl. So his
sudden appearance shocked everyone and they all immediately rose to their feet to
show respect.
Jesus washed feet
It must have been something like that in our bible reading this morning when Jesus
donned the apron and began to wash the disciples feet. The disciples called him
Teacher, Rabbi, Master. All these terms were terms of respect and honour. They
recognised that He was greater, more important than they were. They followed him,
they served him, they did HIS bidding.
And they were used to Jesus giving the orders, giving them instructions. He decided
when they would cross over the lake, when to go to the next town. He sent them out
on their first missionary journey with the instructions of how to go about it.... take
nothing with you, no purse, no change of clothes (Luke 10), and told them what to
do, what to say, where to stay.
When they had tried to protect him from some of the crowds he had told them off for
not allowing the children to come to him (Mark 10). And shortly before the events of
today's Bible Reading, he had given them instructions in preparation for his last
week. 'Go and get the donkey (Mark 21). Go and get the room set up ready to share
the Passover Meal. (Mark 14)
Respect in the Jewish culture was very important, as can be seen by the 5th
commandment - honour your parents. Even rebellious children were stoned. (Deut
21:18- 21). And, like all of us have a tendency to do, they took this to the extreme
and those in positions of authority, power and responsibility abused their power. In
Matt 23:1-7,11 it says Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, "The teachers of
religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. So
practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don't follow their example. For they
don't practice what they teach. They crush people with unbearable religious
demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.
"Everything they do is for show. (On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes
with Scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels.) And they
love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues.
They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces, and to be
called 'Rabbi.' The greatest among you must be a servant. But those who exalt
themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Positions of authority were set up by God not to rule it over others but to protect and
serve them.
Jesus never lost sight of that fact.
Jesus never lost sight of where he had come from or where he was going '...for I
have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me.'(John 8:42).
And in our reading this morning it says that 'Jesus knew that the Father had put all
things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to
God;'(John 13:3)
The Bible tells us that He would often go out by himself to spend time with the
Father. (Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives to pray and his disciples
followed him.' (Luke 22:39) ) Each day Jesus was teaching at the temple, and each
evening he went out to spend the night on the hill called the Mount of Olives.' (Luke
21:37)
He constantly took time out to seek the Father's will. Jesus often withdrew to lonely
places and prayed. (Luke 5:16)
He no doubt took this time to re-centre himself.
The World's off-centring.
Have you noticed how easy it is to lose your sense of perspective, to lower your
standards, to get sucked in by the world and what it thinks is OK?
I was never a really bad person with terrible habits - praise the Lord. But my
behaviour has been far from exemplary. It's really easy to fall into bad habits, habits
that we pick up from the world. When we look at the world we can see that it's moral
standards are falling. Just compare the sorts of shows that are played on TV. When I
was a little girl the movies my parents watched would have the romantic leads gently
kiss each in a warm embrace and then cut to rolling waves or some other suggestive
image to allow the audience to imagine the next step in the relationship. In the
sitcoms the married couples even had separate beds.
The language used was not offensive. No swearing, no innuendo, no suggestive
language. I remember the discussion about the uproar at the launch of the movie
'Gone with the Wind' regarding the language of that famous line delivered by Clarke
Gable who played the part of Rhett Butler, 'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."
and how radical it was to use such offensive language at the time.
Nowadays the moviemakers don't leave anything to the imagination. We have our
senses assaulted in all areas. In fact it seems as if they have entered a competition
among themselves to see who can shock the audience the most, who can get the
most bad press and criticism for offensiveness. I just wonder how many movies and
TV shows we would happily ask Jesus to come and watch with us.
I also remember the anticipation of beginning a new relationship with a boy and the
excitement of establishing eyes contact, the casual touching of a hand, and
wondering if he would hold my hand. But today the world would try and suggest that
ending up in bed together on that first meeting is expected.
Our lives can be like the proverbial frog who
when placed in a pot of water on the stove does not think to get out before he being
oiled alive because it has not realised his circumstances have changed.
I know that when I have been away on some retreat or conference and returned
recalibrated, retuned; a bit like putting a car in for service to get it to run like it used
to when it was new, my spirit has been brought back into a more godly alignment
and I am much more sensitive to just how much my normal lifestyle has been
degraded, pulled down by the world around me. I suddenly realise that I had become
like the frog not noticing how my standards have slipped.
As the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun and I guess Jesus would
have also been aware of keeping himself pure and not being overly influenced by the
world around him. So he took time to maintain his relationship with the Father so that
the world did get him out of balance with the Father's will. One day soon afterward
Jesus went up on a mountain to pray, and he prayed to God all night. (Luke 6:12).
How Did Jesus show his servant hood? Because Jesus did this he knew who he
was, where he came from and that his purpose was to serve. For even the Son of
Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for
many."(Matt 20:28)
Who is more important, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The
one who sits at the table, of course. But not here! For I am among you as one who
serves. (Luke 22:27)
'Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had
come from God and would return to God. So he got up from the table, took off his
robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he
began to wash the disciples' feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.'
(John 13:3-5)Along with the Father and the Holy Spirit, he was creator of the
universe and everything in it, including us, and as such he deserves to be
worshipped. But as he walked the roads of this earth he did not desire our adulation,
our grovelling, our idolising.
I think He desired our love, our admiration, our respect, our desire to follow him, to
be like him. He came to model a lifestyle for us. He came to model attitude and
thinking patterns. He came to model GOOD.
In the garden, as Rod reminded us last week we/ ie mankind and Adam and Eve in
particular, initially, only knew GOOD. We lived amongst GOOD; we saw and tasted
GOOD. We had GOOD relationships. We WERE GOOD.
But then we decided, through a couple of bad choices, to investigate evil. And now
we live in a world where everyone decides what is good and what is evil. And it's not
just now. Right from very early days. In Judges it says" In those days Israel had no
king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes."(Judges 17:6).
Jesus needed to come and show us again how we were supposed to act. How to be
GOOD. - not according to world standards, but according to God's standards.
As you read the gospels and take note of Jesus life you see that he continually did
things that shocked the establishment. 'Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his
disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other
disreputable sinners. But when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples,
"Why does your teacher eat with such scum?"(Matt 9:10-11) He ate with tax
collectors, he allowed prostitutes to wash his feet, he healed on the Sabbath, he
talked with a Samaritan woman.
He didn't allow himself to get so focused on a task that he couldn't attend to another
urgent need. For example when Jairus, who was a leader of a local synagogue, an
important person, came to Jesus to ask him to come and heal his daughter, Jesus,
on his way to Jairus' house became aware of the urgent need from a woman. This
woman who would have been totally shunned by the community because of her
condition tried to quietly sneak up and touch the hem of Jesus' robe so that she
would be healed. In the middle of a crowd with hundreds of people pushing and
wanting to get close, Jesus knew that there was a great need. He stopped. He kept
the synagogue leader waiting.
I can imagine that Jairus would have been very anxious. He had come pleading to
Jesus. It may have been very hard for him to come to Jesus at all. He was a
synagogue leader and Jesus was not very popular with the authorities. It seems that
Jairus had left coming to Jesus to the very last minute as we discover that while
Jesus took time out to attend to this mysterious woman, Jairus' daughter died. Jairus
was probably very frustrated at this time. Was not his need great too? And he had
position. He had respect. But Jesus was not about to hurry for any man.
Jairus could easily walk up to Jesus and ask for help. The woman on the other could
not. She would not have been allowed to be in the crowd. She was unclean. She
would have made everyone unclean. Everyone she touched would have been made
ceremonially unclean by her presence. She touched Jesus. She would have been
made Jesus
ceremonially unclean by touching him. Was she going to get into trouble for making
'the master, the teacher' unclean? No. Jesus knew of her greater need, took time out
from his present task and ministered to her.
Jesus did not let others determine what was the right thing to do. He did not let
human
customs and rituals determine his behaviour. He only did what he saw the Father do.
I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me.(John 8:28) He knew
God's heart and acted accordingly.The world has put in place it's own set of values
and God, in Jesus, has come to show us how far we've got it wrong. Just look at the
parable of the workers in the field, the placement of sitting at the table,
7 When Jesus noticed that all who had come to the dinner were trying to sit in the
seats of honor near the head of the table, he gave them this advice: 8 "When you are
invited to a wedding feast, don't sit in the seat of honor. What if someone who is
more distinguished than you has also been invited? 9 The host will come and say,
'Give this person your seat.' Then you will be embarrassed, and you will have to take
whatever seat is left at the foot of the table!
10 "Instead, take the lowest place at the foot of the table. Then when your host sees
you, he will come and say, 'Friend, we have a better place for you!' Then you will be
honored in front of all the other guests. 11 For those who exalt themselves will be
humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
12 Then he turned to his host. "When you put on a luncheon or a banquet," he said,
"don't invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors. For they will invite
you back, and that will be your only reward. 13 Instead, invite the poor, the crippled,
the lame, and the blind.
14 Then at the resurrection of the righteous, God will reward you for inviting those
who could not repay you." (Luke 14:7-14)
And even the disciples got it wrong after being with Jesus 3yrs. Just consider James
and John wanting to sit in places of honour beside Jesus on his glorious throne.
When the ten other disciples heard what
James and John had asked, they were
indignant. So Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers in this
world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under
them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you
must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of
everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others
and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:41-45)
We have been created to serve. To serve not out of a sense of obligation but out of a
sense to please the Father, and as a response to the Father's love.
The ultimate example
While this talk is titled 'the Ultimate Servant', ultimately I don't think Jesus came to be
a servant. He did not have the heart of a servant in that he was under orders and
must obey in order to keep his job. He was not a lower class citizen with fewer rights,
fewer hopes, fewer chances of advancement. This was not his role.
However he did and does have the heart of a son who willingly and lovingly obeyed
his dad. I think Jesus came as the king to be, the rabbi, the teacher, the lord. But in
this role he did not see himself to be the one to lord it over all, to boss others around
to do his bidding, to wait on him, to serve him, to do his fancies. Instead, in this role,
he came to serve those who loved him, to watch over them, to guide them into paths
that will bring fulfilment, contentment, joy, peace, satisfaction. To give them life to the
full. He came with a hearts desire to serve. He came to serve enthusiastically.
He came as the ultimate example. Jesus says in verse 15 of our passage this
morning from John, I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you.
I also don't think Jesus was us to be servants. I no longer call you slaves, because a
master doesn't confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you
everything the Father told me (John 15:15).
I think he wants us to know that we too are SONS. Sons with all the privileges that
come with being a son - a sense of security, a sense of belonging, a sense of family,
a sense of an inheritance to come; a sense of responsibility, a sense of authority, a
sense or purpose. But as sons of the Father, as he is a son of the Father, we want to
please our dad and so we do what he wants us to do, to serve. We do what our dad
asks us to do.
We serve not out of sense of duty, a sense that this is our job, that this is a burden,
that this is our role.
But out of a sense of gratefulness and thankfulness for all that we have received.
It comes out of wanting to please our dad, to build up the strength of our family.
Our service needs to come from a bigger place than burden, a weight that lies
across our backs and makes life hard and difficult, which weighs us down with a
guilty conscience.
It needs to come from that place of freedom and blessing, where we are aware of all
that has been done for us, where we are aware of all that is to come for us.
It needs to come from largesse, generosity, liberality and not from the meagre
scrapings of duty. We need to serve enthusiastically, as Jesus served. He is our
example.
Isaiah 53:1-6
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He
had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we
should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with
pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him
in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished
by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the
punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the
LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
John 13:1-17
1 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for
him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the
world, he loved them to the end.
2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the
son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all
things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4
so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around
his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples'
feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.6 He came to Simon
Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"
7 Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will
understand."
8 "No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash
you, you have no part with me."
9 "Then, Lord," Simon Peter replied, "not just my feet but my hands and my head as
well!"
10 Jesus answered, "Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their
whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you." 11 For he
knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was
clean.
12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his
place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. 13 "You call
me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord
and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. 15 I
have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I
tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the
one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do
them.
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