The Servant of All (Part 2)

Part 1: https://steemit.com/christians/@matthew.raymer/the-servant-of-all-part-1

Jesus’ earliest recorded teaching, you may remember, is told to us like this:

‘Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee; And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum,

From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’

Yes from straight after the bothersome and weary time of his temptations by Satan in the wilderness, Jesus comes preaching forcefully and saying, (in the gospels it is expressed with some fierce vigour);

‘Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’

So there is no lack of turmoil and violence connected with the Incarnation and earthly mission of Jesus, nor with his message, his teaching, nor else with the coming of His Kingdom. It is a Kingdom which is ‘now at hand’ – or as it is expressed elsewhere in the gospels The Kingdom has ‘come near to you’ or has ‘come upon you’.

This commotion and violence comprises the motive power for our desire, and it is the engine for our need, to endure and to enjoy a personal redemptive Revolution in Christ within us; by which we see that our world is being and has been visibly and literally turned upside down.

‘Visibly and literally’ I say. not as hype or exaggeration; I say these things because indeed once turned around as persons, we see differently and we receive Jesus’ teaching differently; utterly differently, from how we saw and considered his word offered to us at that time before we came to him; and now that our outlooks have been revolved and renewed and regenerated by that same Word and Person.

And the text from St Luke which I have used to head-up this radio talk is one which goes right to the heart of our sense of having, in the course of our induction into Jesus, suffered a commotion of revolution in our lives. The text I used says clearly that, were we to want to be great persons amongst those who are entering into The Kingdom, then we are to be Servants; if we want to be the greatest then, we are to become the lowliest of the low, and so be the least esteemed and least rewarded; to become mean objects of no account in the eyes of men and women of the world; and in the consideration of persons who, as yet, are to be redeemed, and so who are enamoured still of the things of the world.

And indeed one sees in this regard this hard disbelief in worldly people who fail to understand that great power hidden in Jesus, even when it is displayed openly in the fact of the revolutionary changes it effects on persons whom he confronts in their lives. In such instances it becomes clear to view that Jesus and his hidden power becomes the great stumbling block for persons of the world. The seemingly hard recommendation by Our Lord for his people to become servants of all and so be among the least, appears to the world mere perverse folly. Our Lord says even of himself that:

“I am among you as he that serveth”

That impetuous and over-enthusiastic disciple Peter (Cephas- a rock), you will recall, insisted, when Jesus, as doing this service of a servant, offered to wash his feet, that his ‘Lord and God’ should not stoop so low as to do such a humble, and humiliating, act as wash his feet for him. Jesus points out to Peter that Peter will be expected, at a later time, to do likewise for his own disciples; that the washing of the feet of those who are yet to become Christ’s followers is to be the great example of examples which shows a humbling of oneself, of oneself not assuming, presuming, a grand high place, and so of oneself taking on the low status and duties of a servant.

Not just ‘taking on’ like a person wears a coat or a shirt or blouse, and then a few hours later takes it off and wears another item of dress; but to ‘take on’ servanthood permanently as one takes on a vocation or a profession. Jesus makes very clear that:

“No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Notice that in this saying of his, Jesus tells us again and emphatically that The Kingdom of Heaven is about the doing of service; about us doing service consistently, continuously and with a generous good will.

It is in situations like this one concerning Peter that we can see best this characterful, and most characteristic, stabilising and settling, settled, assured and considered, manner of Jesus; whenever he is encountering situations and/or persons who are out to destabilise him or to mar the events going on around, and so sometimes trying to ‘catch him in his words’, and so dishonour him; and especially trying to shame him, belittle him, when he is in front of those crowds whom he is teaching and bringing into The Kingdom. It is on these occasions that Jesus makes good-use of his sober, gentle, firm, and absolutely appropriate judgement of situations. This to recommend to his hearers, including you and me me, so forcefully, that here, is the definitive teaching, of The True Teacher Messias.

Truly to have been in the presence of The Lord Jesus during his Incarnation must have been something one might hardly understand, who was not there at the time! That he could have had such effects, as those we read of, quite frequently in the Gospels, upon those who came into contact with him, stultifies us ourselves, who are in the here and now and confronted with our own sense of wonder and astonishment at him. The marvellously faithful Centurion who took Jesus on his word alone; the woman with the discharge upwards of 18 years who touched his garment; the henchmen sent by The Sanhedrin to trap Jesus with shrewd questions, who return saying no man spoke like this man; the troop of armed men at Gethsemane who step back and fall to the ground upon them being answered by Jesus that, yes, he is the one whom they have been sent to find and so arrest; the experience of Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus whose ‘hearts burned within them’ as Christ Risen taught them, in disguise, and on the road, as they walked, and so opened to them the law and the prophets on the topic of Himself. These are just a few of the greatly astounded responses to Jesus which are recorded in the four gospels.

Let’s get back to servanthood now. Jesus then, when he tells us, when he is also telling his listeners in the crowds around him, that we are to be the servants of all; and to be so with a lowly and generous spirit; Jesus has no need for use of any formulaic wording like those which the New Testament letter writers like to use; Jesus has no need for prefacing his teachings with:

“This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly”

This is because Jesus plainly says fully assuredly in himself:

“I am the way and the truth and the life”

Jesus has no need of testimonials; nor for others’ recommendations. He is that Person for whom the crowds whom he taught at Capernaum felt wonder:

“The people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”

Let us end with a word from The prophet Isaiah, who says, of God, that ‘ a bruised reed he will not break’ and that God accepts ‘a broken and a contrite heart’. The emphasis of Jesus on lowliness and humility, of service and obedience to God, are all themes which are repeated and echoed throughout the Bible in regard to how we are called to approach and to present ourselves before God. The life of Jesus Incarnate was that epitome which sets the definitive way of life for us. St Paul tells us in Philippians:

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

And so we, as a people, are glad to place ourselves at the feet of Jesus; and when we are thereabouts to heed what he recommends to us, which is for us to be and to do the work of servants. We have no hesitation in believing and in taking to heart and so performing freely his word, by which tells us that we are not to be ‘like the Rulers’ nor like the seekers after secular power, fame, wealth, influence, reputation, ambition, advancement, and so on. We are not to be like people enamoured of the world, and who are thus captives to the world; but yet instead we shall desire to humble ourselves before The Lord, so to do his service in and for the world and for the coming of The Kingdom.

Like the Teacher of the Law in the gospels who would wish to justify himself by asking The Lord Jesus: ‘Teacher, what is the first and the greatest commandment?” we ourselves might also like to be insolent and ask: “And what is this service?”

Of course the reply to both of these impudent questions is the same: Jesus tells us:

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

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