On Being First
The famous New England pastor, Henry Ward Beecher who lived in the early 1800s and whose sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, once received a letter from an anonymous parishioner that contained only one word. The one word letter said, “Fool!” During worship the following Sunday the Rev. Beecher shared with his congregation that he had received this one-word letter that had written on it, “Fool.” He then commented, “I have known many an instance of a man writing letters and forgetting to sign his name. But this is the only instance I’ve ever known of a man signing his name and forgetting to write the letter.”
We don’t have to read God’s Word very long to discover that God often turns to tables on us. We discover that there is a great disparity between the way of the world and the way of our God, the way of the carnal man and the way of the spiritual man.
There are also times in our walk with Christ when we think we have it all sorted out, all figured out—sort of like teenagers who think they know everything, and then--wham! we are blindsided by God. The acts of God, the sayings of Jesus, the work of the Holy Spirit blow us right out of the water because it doesn’t fit the pattern we have established. It doesn’t fit our neat, organized, packaged and controlled idea about Jesus and the Gospel. And we learn in our spiritual teenager mode how much we really don’t know and how much more there is to learn about Jesus, the Kingdom of God and how we walk in obedience to Christ.
We see this in our Scripture reading for today. We think of Jesus as a strong person. We think of Peter, James and John, of Mary and Mary Magdalene, of Paul and Stephen as strong people, as kind of trailblazers out in front of the crowd, showing the way, getting things done and like Frank Sinatra “doing it my way.” And then comes Jesus and tells the story about farm workers and says, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.”
An airline executive lamented that fact that it was very difficult to recruit people and then train them for the airline industry. He remarked, “Service is the only thing, really, we have to sell, but it is the toughest to teach. Nowadays, no one wants to be thought of as a servant.” In fact several years ago now (and I don’t remember who it was or even the situation) but I do remember somebody doing something and I remarked, “Thank you so much! You make a great servant.” That woman was highly offended. What I meant as a compliment within the Christian context was received as a derogatory remark! No one wants to be thought of as a servant, yet that is exactly what Jesus calls us to be and to do.
For those who claim the name of Jesus that presents a clear and present danger because Jesus makes it perfectly plain that He intends for each of us who, at the very least call ourselves Christians and at the very greatest claim to be born again and mature Christians, to be precisely that—a servant. The great thing about Jesus, one that I have tried to emulate is that He doesn’t expect us to be anything that he isn’t Himself.
In Isaiah we read of the “Servant of the Lord” who will mediate God’s presence to the world. This servant will be misunderstood, rejected, and killed. These are known as the “suffering servant” passages. Of all the OT images Jesus could have chosen to refer to Himself, He took the image of a suffering servant.
At first the disciples had a real hard time accepting that fact. Remember the incident in the Upper Room when Jesus washed the feet of the disciples. In the ancient world only servants did foot washing. The master of the house would never stoop to anything so low. When Jesus came to Peter, Peter protested, “You shall never wash my feet.” When Jesus replied that unless he allowed Jesus to wash his feet, Peter could have no part in Christ.” Then Peter said, “Wash all of me.”
In his letter to the Christians at Philippi, Paul described Jesus this way (2:5ff), “Your attitude must be that of Christ…though He was in the form of God, did not deem equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself and took the form of a servant…He humbled himself accepting even death of the cross. Because of this God exalted him and bestowed on Him the name above every other name so that at Jesus’ name every kneed shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!”
A mom picked up her teenage daughter at school for a doctor appointment. Sliding into the front seat the teen excitedly told her mom of the results of an English placement test she had taken. She was in the top 8% in the nation on her ability to understand sentences and give meaning to words. She was in the top 3% in her ability to understand direct statements and to perceive the motives and ideas behind them. And on and on she went. Getting out of the car they approached the door to the doctor’s office in which was a sign near the door handle that read, “Pull.” The teen daughter pushed instead only to receive a fat lip.
Aren’t we at times that this teenager. Most of us are in the top 3% in understanding this good news of Jesus and His servant hood ministry. We’ve read the Bible, heard sermon after sermon, sung the hymns and praise songs, and sat in Bible studies. Intellectually we believe it and accept it. But when we get to the doctor’s office we don’t know the difference between push and pull. The result is a spiritual fat lip and a good dose of humble pie.
The question for us is this: are you ready to move out of the top 3% of intellectual understanding to the deeper levels of the things of God and His Kingdom? Are you willing to allow God’s Spirit to warm your heart? Are you ready to move into the role of a servant?
And before all that are you ready to consider the change that is needed within you in order to effect that change on the outside of you? Things you believe
- About your self?
- About other people?
- About the church?
- About your lifestyle?
- About your priorities?
- About your actions and reactions?
- About that which has you bound by unbreakable chains?
- About your attitudes?
- About the garbage wallowing deep within your soul and
- the spiritual pus that keeps infecting you?
Often times though we think that we want this new life offered in Christ. We want the deeper things of God, but….” And that “but” puts us off. We postpone it. We relegate it to the fringes of our conscience. We ignore it. The sign says ‘push’ and we pull. “Come,” says Jesus and we go. Somehow we got this weird idea that before we can say ‘yes’ to Jesus our lives need to be in perfect order. The kids raised. The marriage straightened out. The job perfected. College paid for. If you’re waiting for the “perfect” moment to say yes to Jesus’ call on your life to be a servant, you’ll never say yes because that perfect moment will never come. Jesus became one of us so that He could identify with us right now, where we are, right at the heart of our humanity. That’s where His Holy Spirit ministers to us: in our laughing and crying, in our hurting and in our rejoicing, in our good moments and in our crises. Jesus doesn’t wait until we get things all worked out. He knows we never will. The Bible declares, “Today is the day of salvation.”
A news reporter had been assigned to do a story about a big church in the inner city doing an unusual ministry. A young doctor had been moved by the Holy Spirit to give 2 years of his life working with people in the inner city. Along with this church they established a clinic and recruited volunteer nurses to help. The reporter was in this clinic one night when a man was wheeled in on a stretcher. He was homeless and an alcoholic: dirty and his stench filled the clinic. He had suffered a leg injury, which had been untreated, and the infection contributed to the terrible smell. One of the nurses immediately knelt by the stretcher and began cleaning the man’s wound. The reporter watched the nurse work for only moments. It was all he could take. Beginning to feel sick and not wanting to barf, he turned to leave the room and said to the nurse, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.” The young nurse replied, “Neither would I.”
We love because He first loved us. We serve because He first served us. We go because He came. We live because Jesus died.
Not for a million bucks, but because we have experienced the living presence of Jesus in us, and because God has put a yearning and burning to share the love of Jesus in real and tangible ways, by being a servant.
“Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.”
“The last will be first and the first will be last.”