Scripture Introduction
As we have seen often in this book, in John 13 Jesus again acts out a parable to teach his disciples, and with them, us. Michael Card sings, The Basin and the Towel, to capture the text in music and poetry:
In an upstairs room, a parable is just about to come alive. And while they bicker about who’s best, with a painful glance, He’ll silently rise.
Their Savior Servant must show them how through the will of the water and the tenderness of the towel.
And the call is to community, the impoverished power that sets the soul free. In humility, to take the vow, that day after day we must take up the basin and the towel.
In any ordinary place, on any ordinary day, the parable can live again when one will kneel and one will yield.
Our Savior Servant must show us how through the will of the water and the tenderness of the towel.
And the space between ourselves sometimes is more than the distance between the stars. By the fragile bridge of the Servant’s bow we take up the basin and the towel.
And the call is to community, the impoverished power that sets the soul free. In humility, to take the vow, that day after day we must take up the basin and the towel.
A basin and towel—that strange image (so often the subject of the painter’s sermon) in which the Lord of glory humbles himself, and so provides the one occasion where he says, “I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” John 13 is our text, one of the most remembered actions of Messiah. [Read John 13.1-17. Pray.]
Introduction
In the doctorate program at Covenant Seminary, Dr. Bob Burns teaches a course on “power politics.” The topic did not surprise me; what I found interesting was the negative response he received from church folks. Christians like to imagine they float above the “filth” of political posturing and decision-making based on personal benefits. The reality is far more gruesome than we like to see in vivid color. (As G. K. Chesterton observed: “People cannot tolerate very much truth.”)
Every once in a while, a particular instance reveals the problems of power in the church. When Richard Dortch was hired as executive vice president of the PTL Club, he promised to recruit a strong finance director and several MBAs to establish some fiscal sanity. Within a couple of years, however, both Jim Bakker and Richard Dortch were convicted for the misuse of funds. In an interview, Dortch explained what had happened: “Success was defined by how many stations we had on our network or how big our building was. It is so easy to lose control, to compromise without recognizing it…. We were so caught up in God’s work that we forgot about God….. It is so easy to get swept away by popularity” (Quoted in Ford, Transforming Leadership, 143).
We recognize such glaring examples of succumbing to the lust for power. But examples are more widespread than we admit. In fact, their commonness led Richard Foster to write on the subject and to note: “Power can be an extremely destructive thing in any context, but in the service of religion it is downright diabolical…. When we are convinced that what we are doing is identical with the kingdom of God, anyone who opposes us must be wrong” (Money, Sex and Power, 178).
Before we study today, I would ask that you consider that everyone of you is a leader—everyone of you influences others. Every mother leads her children and husband. Every worker leads co-workers and superiors. Every student leads in the classroom and in the conversations after class. Please do not mistake office for leadership. Not all of us have an office, like elder or vice-president, yet everyone leads. If we would do so well, let us hear Jesus’ parable on power, humility, and service Romans the basin and towel.
1. Observe What Great Leadership is Not
1.1. Servant Leadership Is Not Giving Up Your Own Identity
You may fear that taking the place of a servant equals giving up who we are. Sometimes people refer to this as “being a doormat.” But that is not Jesus’ position. [Read John 13.3.]
Jesus knows exactly who he is and is completely self-confident and secure in his identity. He is not saying, “Woe is me; I am weak and worthless; I might as well wash feet.” On the contrary, he says, “I am strong and secure; I am accepted and safe. I know who I am and where I am going. Therefore, I can do what others’ fear; I serve with grace and self-denial.”
Dr. Charles Ross, The Inner Sanctuary, 27: “But what I wish you specially to notice here is that it was just as knowing all this, that Jesus proceeds to the menial service afterwards described. In the full view of the power that was now to be put into his hands, and in the full consciousness of the glorious relation in which he stood to the Father, as having come from God, and as going to God – yea, just because he knew that all this power and glory belonged to him – he rises from supper, and begins to wash the disciples’ feet.”
Servant leadership is not what those do who are too weak to lead; it is the true leadership of those who know their strength. A mother serves her children with joy and confidence because she knows she is their leader and superior. It is the parent who is afraid of not truly being the authority who must huff and puff and shout and pout. Those who are secure in God lead from their knees.
1.2. Servant Leadership is Not Abdicating Leadership
Jesus clearly leads these men: “I am your Lord and Teacher.” Similarly, God places you in positions of leadership. Whether you are in business or the home, in church or government, you help no one when false modesty leads you to refuse to provide the leadership you are called to give. When our effort to serve equals refusing to lead, we have failed to serve. When either your office or your position requires leadership, then your service to others is leading!
In an article entitled, “Dear God, Please Don’t Let Me Be a Christian Leader,” Cal Thomas writes: “In a church I once attended, there was a man of tremendous faith. His wife was an alcoholic and his daughter had psychological problems. He was often poor in health. Yet, week after week, he never complained. He always smiled and asked me how I was doing. He faithfully brought to church a young blind man who had no transportation. He always sat with the blind man, helping him sing the hymns by saying the words into his ear. That man was a ‘Christian leader’ if ever there was one.” A servant leader doesn’t refuse to lead; she or he leads from their knees.
1.3. Servant Leadership is Not an Outward Ceremony
Rowan Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the pope (as it were) of the Anglican Church. On his web site a video shows him washing the feet of 12 attendees of a pre-Easter service. The Roman church also practices footwashing, as do several fundamentalist churches and the Mormons (at least they used to). While there is (I suppose) nothing wrong in having a footwashing ceremony if you want, please note two critical facts.
First, there is absolutely no reason to think that a footwashing ceremony should be practiced in the church today, as some kind of sacrament, or ceremony with spiritual significance. Nowhere in the New Testament or in the earliest documents of the church is footwashing treated as an ordinance or official religious act. Washing feet was a practical act of hospitality where people walked in open sandals on dusty roads. A closer parallel would be an oil-changing ceremony, or a car-washing service. Note well: churches that value ceremony over substance have always practiced footwashing as a way of lessening the implications of Jesus’ teaching. It is far easier to wash feet than to humbly serve.
Second, and more importantly, Jesus’ is after a heart attitude which delights to serve, as illustrated in footwashing, not as in practiced through a outward ceremony.
Dr. Donald Carson (New Testament Professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School): “The heart of Jesus’ command is a humility and helpfulness toward brothers and sisters in Christ that may be cruelly parodied by a mere ‘rite’ of footwashing that easily masks an unbroken spirit and a haughty heart” (Commentary, 468).
J. C. Ryle: “A formal performance of bodily acts of religion is just the easiest thing that can be imposed on people, and the thing that is most worthless in the sight of God. The thing that is really hard, and yet always required, is the service of the heart.”
A servant leader is not found in outward ceremonies, but with a humble heart, leading on her knees. Enough, then of what leadership is not. How does a great leader serve?
2. Observe Christ’s Call to Be a Great Leader
2.1. A Great Leader Is Humble (Heart)
Pride is one of the only sins that the Bible specifically warns us that God is active working against. In both James 4 and 1Peter 5, we are told: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
John Stott calls pride our “greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend.” He then notes that this is because “Pride is more than the first of the seven deadly sins; it is itself the essence of all sin” (“Pride, Humility and God”).
C. J. Mahaney, in his excellent book, Humility, defines pride as: “when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse to acknowledge their dependence on him.”
That is a great definition; it reminds us that the leadership we need in the church is not the omni-competent superstar, but the Christ-dependent servant. “You ought to wash one another’s feet.” It is to be your joy and passion to serve with no thought of self-congratulation or preservation. Christ takes the lowest place and offers the most menial service. He is not absorbed in whether he will be honored and respected by men – that is safe and secure with God. He is content to bless.
2.2. A Great Leader Serves (Actions)
I hope you noticed that Jesus specifically says, “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” Even a cursory acquaintance with the Gospels, will convince one of the primacy of humble service in the teaching of Jesus. One can hardly read a chapter without hearing the Lord speak of it. But, “blessed are you if you do these things.”
Many offer a hearty, “Amen,” to the call to take up the basin and the towel. Jesus wants you to know that few actually do so. In fact, so rare is the humble service Jesus models, that is especially requires the warning of knowing but not really doing.
Matthew Henry makes two observations on Jesus reminder that the blessing is not simply in knowing but in obeying. First, he says, “(1.) This is applicable to the commands of Christ in general. Though it is a great advantage to know our duty, yet we shall come short of happiness if we do not do our duty. That knowledge is vain and fruitless which is not reduced to practice; nay, it will aggravate the sin and ruin! (2.) It is to be applied especially to this command of humility and service. Nothing is better known, nor more readily acknowledged, than that we should be humble; and therefore, though many will own themselves to be passionate and intemperate, few will own themselves to be proud, for it is an inexcusable and hated sin; and yet how little is to be seen of true humility, and that mutual subjection and condescension upon which the law of Christ so much insists! Most know these things so well as to expect that others should do accordingly to them, yield to them, and serve them, but not so well as to do so themselves.”
J. C. Ryle: “How entirely this passage overthrows the claim of mere talking, head-learned professors of sound doctrine, to be accounted true Christians, it is needless to show. Doctrinal orthodoxy, without practical love and humility, is utterly worthless before God” (24).
2.3. A Great Leader Serves His Peers
I think it is important to note that the first application Jesus makes in this passage is that the disciples should humbly serve one another. Not the weak and needy or the high and holy, but those who are most like us. There is a sense of honor that comes from serving the poor and lowly, because we can comfort ourselves with their need. Likewise, there is a sense duty associated with humble service to the great and honorable, because we recognize they deserve it. But is it not the case, beloved, that humble service to those equal to us is the hardest?
A large group of European pastors came to one of D. L. Moody’s Bible Conferences in the late 1800s. Following the European custom of the time, each guest put his shoes outside his room to be cleaned by the hall servants overnight. But of course this was America and there were no hall servants.
Moody saw the shoes and mentioned the situation to some ministerial students who were there, but met with only silence or pious excuses. So Moody gathered up the shoes, and, alone in his room, one of the world’s most famous evangelist began to clean and polish the shoes. Only the unexpected arrival of a friend in the midst of the work revealed the secret.
3. Actively Develop Humble Servant Leadership
Mahaney concludes his book with a list of suggestions for weakening pride and cultivating humility:
Always:
* Reflect on the wonder of the cross
Daily:
* Begin by acknowledging need for and dependence on God
* Express gratefulness to God
* Practice spiritual disciplines
* Seize commute time to memorize and meditate on scripture
For special focus
* Study the attributes of God
* Study the doctrines of sin and grace
* Play golf
* Laugh often, and laugh often at yourself
Throughout your days and weeks:
* Identify evidences of grace in others
* Encourage others every day
* Serve others every day
* Invite and pursue correction
* Respond humbly to trials
I’m not sure that is a perfect list, but it reminds me to remind you: there is a work to the humility which Jesus commends in this passage. Seek him and seek to serve humbly.
4. Conclusion
C. S. Lewis wrote about the danger of convincing ourselves we are doing good for others: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
During my pastoral ministry, I have had several men who have served me faithfully in that most difficult place, a peer-to-peer relationship.
Even before Jim was an elder he would regularly call me and say, “Pastor, I’m getting ready to go to Subway and pick us up a lunch and come over and pray with you for 30 minutes. You don’t have anything to do the next hour, do you?” Jim served me exactly as Jesus served his men: he gave me what I most wanted and needed – a caring heart, a compassionate friend, a praying man.
Steve did the same as he helped us plant a new church. Shortly after we met he said, “My brother is a PCA pastor; I know some of the hurt and stress of the job. Come over to my house every Friday morning, and I will bake bagels for us and we will drink coffee and read a book which will challenge our souls and I will pray with you.”
That humble servant’s heart is rare and hard to develop. But with a few years of this brother serving me in that way, the President called him and offered him the position of _________. And this summer he was approved unanimously by the U. S. Senate as the __________.
God opposes the proud; he gives grace to the humble. You should do just as Christ has done for you. God exalted him, and he will exalt all those who follow in his path.
