Experiencing God 213 What is Christian Servanthood

Anyone who wants to be great among you must be your servant
Gospel of Matthew

This theme in Matthew's gospel is one that continuously runs through all four gospels.  It's a theme that the disciples had a very hard time to understand and implement in their lives.  It is also a theme that each one of us struggle with daily because it runs counter to our normal way of thinking and behaving.  It runs counter to the naturally born impulse that exists at the base of our human experience.  That impulse is to look after "self" first, and then consider others.  This impulse is reflected in our laws, in the ethics of our work places, in our culture.  Yet, it is not the stuff on which the Kingdom of God is built.

In Philippines, we read:  "Let each of you look not to your own interest, but to the interest of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ, who, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave."

In the above gospel, Jesus first announces His ultimate act of self-emptying; dying on the cross; not a symbolic act of surrendering self like washing feet, but the real concrete action that would be impossible to turn back from or reverse.  To die for another requires a complete act of faith in God's underlying plan for humanity.

As any good mother would do, James and John's  mother steps forth with a request.  "Will you provide for my sons a special place of position in this Kingdom of yours -- one at your left and one at your right."  Would we want any less for our children?  But it shows that they do not understand.  Jesus is very kind in His response.  "What you ask for I cannot give!  Can they drink the cup that I am going to drink?  

Is He not speaking of His self-emptying?  Is He not speaking about moving beyond the flesh of the ego whose first concern is "self" and all that it implies?  

Putting oneself first is the natural response of the ego, but the Kingdom can only be discovered as we learn to pass by its demands to discover the domain that lies beyond it.  That domain is the Kingdom where God dwells.  

Jesus' response: "Anyone who wants to be the first among you, must be slave."  In other words, look not to your own interest but to the interest of others.  Empty yourself of "self".  Do that, be that, and the Kingdom of God is yours.

Perhaps another way of putting it is that this illusionary self, the ego self, that projects itself onto the world with its sense of importance and ambition blinds us to the true reality of God's Kingdom living and present among us, within us.  Deal with that and the Kingdom of God is yours.  

We can't be hard on the disciples without being hard on ourselves because we all suffer from the same inner impulse, but we can overcome this tendency by imitating Christ - "I have come, not to be served, but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many."