Willing To Be A Servant

He who is the greatest among you shall be your servant.
Matthew 23:11

What do you think of when you hear the word servant? Someone who's pathetic, without will or purpose? Our false definition of the word servant is expressed in The Sarcastic Beatitudes by J.B. Phillips, who also wrote a paraphrase of the New Testament: "Blessed are the pushers, for they get their way. Blessed are the hard-boiled, for they never get hurt. Blessed are those who complain, for they get all the attention. Blessed are the blas�, for they never worry about sin. Blessed are the slave-drivers, for they get results. Blessed are the greedy, for they get what they want."

How did Jesus introduce himself? "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life" (Mark 10:45 NIV). And He practiced what He preached. Listen to the sound of water splashing in a basin as God incarnate sponges the grime from the feet of His undeserving disciples, then says, "He who is the greatest among you shall be your servant." Some of us wish we could echo His humility.

Ruth Calkin, author and poet, expressed that wish in her poem "I Wonder": "You know, Lord, how I serve you with great emotional fervour in the limelight, how eagerly I speak for you at the Women's Club, how I radiate what I promote at a fellowship group. But how would I react, I wonder, if you pointed to a basin of water and asked me to wash the calloused feet of a bent and wrinkled old woman, day after day and month after month, in a room where nobody saw and nobody knew? I wonder? Do you also wonder?!"