King Charles III said, at the beginning of the coronation service yesterday.
‘In his name and after his example, I come not to be served but to serve’.
The audio of this talk can be found here
It is the first time that those words have been put in the coronation service.
Possibly that is due to the very real way that his mother understood
her calling to leadership – as sacrificial service to God and to the peoples
for whom he had given her responsibility; and also to a movement of the Spirit
which is reminding the Church, and especially church leaders, that we are not
here to be served by people, but to serve the people.
Of course, we often use the language of serving others, especially
in the church, as a sham, a god-speak way for ruling over others.
‘I am your servant’ means ‘do what I say’.
That is not something new. That desire to Lord it over others is the way of the world in which we live.
In our reading, the disciples are arguing – again. ‘A dispute also arose’ (v24)
They have just shared the last supper with Jesus.
He has told them that one of them will betray him. And they
have already argued about who it will be. That must have made the atmosphere
quite toxic: ‘I would never betray him – but you, you are the sort of person
who would’.
And they move on from arguing about that, to arguing about
which of them was the greatest.
I guess that desire to be ‘the greatest’ is part of our desire to be significant, to have meaning, to be respected. To know that we matter.
It is one of the reasons why we crave celebrity, or want to
become social media ‘influencers’, or pursue wealth and power (because often
the two seem to come together), because then we will be someone.
And of course, in this fallen world, after the great rebellion when men and women rejected the will of God, we are driven by the desire to be ‘the greatest’. It is a consequence of the sin virus which has infected and corrupted our moral and spiritual DNA.
And so we get the Alpha male chimpanzee who defeats his opponents, gets all the females and all the goodies, and his defeated opponents are destined to skulk around the fringes of the tribe until they are strong enough to defeat him. There is not much win-win in that: that is very definitely one wins and all the others lose!
And of course, most of us quickly learn from painful experience that we are not going to be King, that we are not going to be THE alpha male or alpha female, so we give up that battle, but we do try to make sure – just as the disciples were doing here – that we are alpha male or alpha female in the groups to which we do belong.
But Jesus comes to offer something that is radically different.
He challenges his disciples: ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are benefactors’ (v25)
That reads very oddly: who are the ‘them’? Why does Jesus not
say ‘lord it over people’ or ‘others’. Why ‘them’?
We have a cartoon in our kitchen: it shows the women and
children in the kitchen tidying up a huge pile of plates, and through the door
you see Jesus at table with the disciples. It has the caption, ‘after the last
supper’.
I wonder, when he says ‘them’, whether he might be pointing to the women and children in the kitchen.
This is the last supper. Jesus is at the table with his disciples. And he continues: “For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves?” Luke 22:27
There are two answers to that question:
The answer of this world is that the person who sits at table and is served is the greater.
Rulers in this world are considered greater than those who rule. They have power and responsibility. Some have huge power and responsibility. They make decisions which will affect the lives of thousands if not millions.
They expect to be served; they expect that what they say will
be done; they expect that they will be treated like benefactors: that they are
blessing people by letting people serve them! That people should be grateful
for whatever they get.
And in this world, it is right that they will be served by their subjects.
In this world, if I am considered greater than you, especially in a more traditional society, then you are expected to serve me. You are expected to make sure that my life is as good, or as comfortable, or as convenient, as it can be.
If King Charles was here today, we really would not expect him to do the washing up after our shared meal.
The answer of the world to Jesus’ question is that the ones who sit at table are greater than the ones who serve.
The answer of the world is that they, the disciples, who sat at table and were served by the women and children, were more important, were ‘greater’ than the women and children who served them.
But this is not the correct answer. It is not the way of the Kingdom of God. It is not what the disciples are called to. It is not what the Church is called to. It is not what those who are Christian rulers are called to. It is not what you and me, as believers, are called to.
Because there is another answer to that question: the kingdom of God answer.
“For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one
who serves?”
In the Kingdom of God, the one who serves is the greater.
That is what Jesus came to do: the King of kings and Lord of
lords came to be a servant for all.
And so, Jesus says, in the Kingdom of God the greatest must become like the youngest; the leader must be one who understands what she or he does as genuine service.
When Jesus says that we need to become like the youngest, he is not saying that we need to become childish, or even necessarily child-like. We are adults.
Rather, he is saying that we need to become like children in
how we see our status.
In that society children had no status.
Perhaps if Jesus was speaking today, he might say ‘become
like an older person with dementia, like a refugee from a despised nation, like
someone who has no power – who has nothing to offer, who is not even able to
beg but can only throw themselves on the mercy of another’.
Become like them in their status.
And when Jesus says that the leader must be like the one who serves, he is not saying that we must never let others serve us.
Remember where we are: Jesus was at table and others served
him.
You cannot possibly be the servant of all at all times, and part of service is sometimes receiving the service of others.
In our next hymn we will sing
‘Brother, Sister let me serve you, let me be as Christ to
you’
But it continues: ‘Pray that I may have the grace to let you
be my servant too’.
Jesus was sitting at table being served, but he had already done the slave task, washing his disciples’ feet; and in a few hours he was about to do the greatest act of service for all of ‘them’. He was about to choose to go to the cross and to die for them, for the women and children, for the disciples and for us.
And the answer of the Kingdom of God, is that the greater is not the one who is served, but the one who is like the one who serves, who has the attitude of the one who serves.
This teaching of Jesus is radical.
Of course, we live in this world.
There will always be kings and presidents and rulers. There
will always be hierarchical relationships. There will be masters and servants, employers
and employees, parents and children. And sometimes we will be rulers and
sometimes we will be servants.
And yes, we are called to obey, to serve those who are ‘greater’
than us in this world. God help us when we start to think that there is nothing or
nobody ‘greater’ than us in the world.
But the Christian message which radically
transforms worldly leadership, is:
1. That whoever we are, whether leading
or serving, we are to see ‘them’, the other, as better than ourselves.
In God’s eyes, the greater person is not the person who is Lording it over people in this world, but the person who is serving them:
And we are called to see the other person with his eyes.
Paul writes about this in quite remarkable words in
Philippians 2: ‘in humility regard others as better than yourselves’.
If you are a king, or a president or a ruler or a bishop or a
chaplain or simply in a restaurant waiting to be served; even if you have the money or you have the
status, you are to treat the person serving you as better, more important, more
valuable than yourself.
2. True leadership, in kingdom terms, is
about service – service to God and service to those for whom they are given
responsibility by God.
It is about the ruler who sacrifices themselves, their desires, their comfort – even if it means that they are rejected, even if they are crucified – because they truly wish to bless their people.
It is about the employer who works not for just for profit,
or to get noticed by someone higher up, but for the genuine benefit of those he
or she is responsible for;
It is about the church leader who is not seeking their own
status but the eternal wellbeing of those in their care;
It is about the ruler, the leader who does not use their position to make themselves richer or more powerful or
more secure and protected, but who sacrifices him or herself for the good of
the people for whom God has given them responsibility.
So how can someone crowned king or queen, or ruler, who has immense responsibility and who will be served by so many, say in all integrity, ‘In his name and after his example, I come not to be served but to serve’?
If it is to be real, then of course they are called to lead and to make decisions that will affect many, and of course they will be served by many, but they are saying that, with God's help, they will do what God has called them to do with a particular attitude to those
who serve them, seeing them as of more value than themselves.
They are saying that, with God's help, they are willing to sacrifice themselves, their comfort, yes even their life, for the eternal wellbeing of ‘them’.
One final thing
There is a children’s game in English (I’m sure it is everywhere) called ‘I’m the king – or queen – of the castle’. It is the one who is standing highest. We play that game not only as children, but as adults. We want to be top of the heap, ‘king or queen of the castle’, to prove to others, to ourselves that we matter, that we are important.
Jesus reassures his followers that we do not need to play this game, because – whoever we are, wherever we are on the world’s status ladder - we already do matter, we are important, and we are beloved.
He says to them: You don’t need to seek greatness in this
world – even though it will hurt – because you are already part of a kingdom.
An upside-down kingdom. And in this upside-down kingdom, you will rule. You
will sit on thrones.
And you, you who have served at tables, you will eat and
drink at my table in my kingdom.
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