Truth is sobering. A basic truth is we have been born, and we will die. Through contemplation and action, this truth is awakening.
What if you knew your final hour had come, that your earthly existence was numbered in mere minutes — what would you do, who would you want to see, and how would you talk to them?
Documented history shows Jesus of Nazareth rising from a supper table, pouring water into a basin, and washing his students’ feet. Not quite 24 hours later, Jesus would hang dead.
What was important in those final moments?
What was the last memory made in the hearts and minds of loved ones?
Jesus served.
“I have set you an example, so that you should do as I have done for you,” Jesus said according to John’s gospel narrative. “If you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”
James Martin, a Jesuit author, explains first-century traditions held that knowledge was acquired by serving the wise; duties included tending tables, cleaning houses, and washing feet.
“Thus, the normal expectations are once again upended by Jesus,” Martin said.
Jesus, the carpenter-turned-teacher, perfectly divine and totally human, enacted a kingdom of healing and liberation, and led by example: The spirit of service reaches out and pulls in, it empowers to break down walls and build up community in mutual concern, kindness, and love.
“Blessedness comes not only from words and thoughts, but also from deeds,” Martin said. “The washing of the feet might help us see how power is more intimately linked to service.”
Uncommon Culture
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said that Jesus re-ordered priorities with a new definition of greatness, and “it means everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.
“You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”
Jesus actively called out authoritarian behavior among society’s upper class and rebuked burdensome taskmasters who “are not willing to lift a finger.” In fact, Jesus’ model of servant leadership was so drastically uncommon that even his students did not comprehend the method of service in a kingdom culture; two specifically requested to “grant that one of us may sit at Your right hand and the other at Your left in Your glory” when Jesus’ reign was officially installed.
“You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different,” Jesus replied. “Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant.”
Dr. King describes the root of the students’ request as the “drum major instinct — a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first.” Everyone has this instinct, a need for recognition, and if unchecked, it can become maladaptive, such that we over-join to bloat self-importance, live above our means, or seed exclusivism, prejudice, and caste hierarchy.
“The great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct,” Dr. King said.
Likewise, Jesus did not teach his students to dismiss the instinct, but did implore them to better direct it. Dr. King explains that Jesus told them to “keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity.”
Precious Present
Service invites us to turn knowledge into action. We start by seeking what is upright and true, and we serve by upholding what is noble and beautiful in our decisions and deeds.
Dr. Viktor Frankl labored in four Nazi death camps from 1942-1945 and survived to author books and forge a path of clinical psychology known as logotherapy, through which Dr. Frankl asserts that humans’ primary drive is to discover what is personally meaningful. And we find this through the gracious act of living.
“It is life that asks the questions, directs the questions at us – we are the ones who are questioned,” Dr. Frankl said. “We are the ones who must answer, must give answers to the constant, hourly question of life. … Living itself means nothing other than being questioned; our whole act of being is nothing more than responding to – and being responsible toward – life.
“With this mental standpoint, nothing can scare us anymore.”
And we are awakened to realize that service carries on. It is how we last.
“What we ‘radiate’ into the world, the ‘waves’ that emanate from our being, that is what will remain of us when our being itself has long since passed away,” Dr. Frankl said.
