Reflection on ‘Servanthood’
St John Chrysostom Episcopal Church - Delafield, Wisconsin
Maundy Thursday – March 29, 2018
V. Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
“If I, then, your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” John 13: 14-15
Jesus gives the new mandate – “love one another, as I have loved you” – and then shows how it is to be carried out – through service. Jesus says that he gives us an example that we should do to each other what he has done to us. It seems straightforward, simple actually. Jesus tells us that servanthood, the act of being or becoming a servant, is following his word and his example.
In addition to the example of washing feet, I believe he gave us another example of service in the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Whether we call it that, or communion, or the Eucharist (which is my own favorite name for it because it’s not only Biblical, but descriptive of what it is – a ‘good gift’ and a ‘thanksgiving’ or remembrance of what God does for us), it is a powerful symbol of what we are to be and to do for one another. Jesus became Eucharist for us on the cross – broken and poured out in unselfish love. That, to me, is true servanthood and what we’re to become for each other is Eucharist. Further, it means that we seek to nourish one another and to build one another up. To be a follower of Jesus Christ is to become Eucharist, to be a servant, so that others might live, grow, and flourish. In this scheme of things the role of the minister is rather clear, we are ‘set apart’ to serve the servants.
I like what the contemporary English theologian Kenneth Leech wrote in his little book True Prayer: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality, “In the action of the Eucharist we can see the pattern of all spirituality: offering, blessing, breaking, and sharing. Our lives are offered to God within the redemptive offering of his Son. They are laid open to the sanctifying, consecrating power of the Spirit. They are broken and poured out in union with Christ for the life of the world. And they are, through Christ, brought into unity and communion in God with other lives which have been brought into Christ’s Body.” [p. 109] Here is the whole point of communion, it reminds us of who we are and what we are called to do. It is a graphic reminder, one that we can’t always take in with our heads, but one that speaks to us of the basic ‘stuff’ of human life and of that life in community. And, as the 17th century Puritan preacher Stephen Charnock wrote of the Lord’s Supper, “If it be a token of Divine goodness to appoint it, it is no sign of our estimation of Divine goodness to neglect it.”
As we should not neglect this gift of God for the people of God, neither should we forget or neglect our mutual servanthood. Too often we treat our life together as church as we would any other club or civic organization. When it is convenient, we’re into it. When it isn’t – well, we’ll get back to it. This isn’t what Jesus commanded or instituted on that long ago night in the Upper Room. An example has been given. A new mandate set. If we are followers of Jesus, we are to be servants as he was. It’s that simple…and that difficult.