7: A Life of Meaning Series
February 15th, 2009
A Servants Heart
Does anyone here have a problem with feet? Do you find them disgusting? I knew a girl in my youth group growing up who was absolutely terrified of feet. If you were to take your shoes off in front of this girl she would scream as if she was about to be killed by a scary monster in a teen horror movie and run away covering her face with her hands. It was hilarious. When I was growing up I thought this was the weirdest thing in the world. Feet are a very useful part of the body. Walking would be a whole lot less comfortable without them and everyone has them. So I did not understand why anyone would have a problem with feet. I would later come to find out that this problem is not all that uncommon. My wife is a foot-a-phob. It makes me laugh. There are a lot of people who find feet dirty and gross and cannot stand the thought of them. These are the kind of people who have nightmares about churches doing foot washing services.
Now in our culture foot-washing services are symbolic more than they are significant. We are taking a cultural practice from the ancient world and using it as an illustration or an example of someone with a servants heart. In the ancient world foot washing was done by servants. We have been talking over the last few weeks about putting your faith to work by acting on your beliefs. We have been talking about service. When Jesus talked about it He washed feet but that had significant meaning to that culture. So what it does it mean to be a servant today? What does it mean to have the heart of a servant? What does a servants heart look like?
Lets look at an example of foot-washing in the New Testament to see if it answers our question. Look at Luke 7:36. There are parallels to this text in Matthew 26 Mark 14 and John 12. These are all not likely the same event being the details are different but it is possibly the same woman in all these accounts. Here is the story. Jesus is going to have diner with a man by the name of Simon who is a Pharisee. As a Pharisee he is one of the religious leaders of this time.
Lk 7:36 Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisees house and reclined at the table. Lk 7:37 When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisees house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, Lk 7:38 and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. Lk 7:39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is that she is a sinner. Lk 7:40 Jesus answered him, Simon, I have something to tell you.Tell me, teacher, he said. Lk 7:41 Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Lk 7:42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more? Lk 7:43 Simon replied, I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled. You have judged correctly, Jesus said. Lk 7:44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. Lk 7:45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. Lk 7:46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Lk 7:47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.Lk 7:48 Then Jesus said to her, Your sins are forgiven. Lk 7:49 The other guests began to say among themselves, Who is this who even forgives sins? Lk 7:50 Jesus said to the woman, Your faith has saved you; go in peace.
This story shows us what a servants heart looks like but in order to see it there are some things we must understand. Our culture is very different from the culture of the ancient world. We live in a society thats primary focus is on money and time. In the ancient world these may have been important but they were less significant than honor and respect. Honor refers to the public acknowledgment of a persons worth and its antithesis shame would be a lack of worth. At this time ones honor was relative to their ability to embody the virtues or attributes that were valued by their specific society. Children were raised from birth to seek honor and avoid disgrace. So from an early age they were conditioned to act within the confines of an honor-shame society. Insulting someone or disgracing them in any way publicly would have been far more serious than it is today. The most important thing you could get was honor and the thing you wanted to avoid the most was shame.
So here is our story. This Pharisee, Simon, invites Jesus over for diner and Jesus agrees to come. As a guest it was customary to take off your shoes when you entered the house. Since people pretty much walked everywhere their shoes would be very dirty and it would have been considered extremely rude to leave your shoes on when you came inside. It was the guests job to respect his host by removing his shoes. It was the hosts job to honor his guest by having one of his servants wash their feet. Foot washing was a gross job and so it was reserved for the lowliest most insignificant slave in the household. When Jesus comes in He takes off His shoes but no one washes His feet. Sometimes people can be rude when they do not mean to be. That is not what is happening here. Simon the host is a Pharisee and unlike any other group of people Pharisees are concerned for outward cleanliness. These people will not eat with someone who they consider unclean. They will even strain their drink to make sure they do not accidentally swallow a gnat which is the smallest of unclean animals. So it is unlikely that Simon just forgot to make sure Jesus had His feet washed. Jesus is an important and popular teacher this would be the first thing Simon would have checked had he truly wanted to honor Jesus.
In this culture if you wanted to shame someone who entered your house all you would have to do was to make sure your slave didt wash their feet. They would then be forced to sit at the table with the shame of dirty smelly feet. In some ways this would be the host saying you are worth less than even his lowliest of servants. There is no way the servant just forgot this had to be a deliberate act to shame Jesus. Simon may have wanted Jesus at his house but he did not want to honor Jesus. How often do we do the same? We want Jesus in our churches. We want His power and His blessings but we often dont want Him to have control. We want Him around so we can use Him we just dont want to honor Him by listening to what He says.
I want to paint this picture for you. Look carefully for in this picture we will see what a servants heart looks like. We have Jesus sitting down at the table, dishonored with His unwashed feet when a woman who had lived a sinful life came into the house. If we accept that the passage in John is a different account of this same event then we know that this woman is Mary Magdalene, I cant prove that it is but it is a reasonable assumption. She had heard that Jesus was in town so she came to see Him. She brought with her an alabaster jar of perfume which was worth a considerable amount of money. It would seem she intended to come anoint Jesus feet, which would have been an act of humility, as she sought forgiveness for the life she had lived at any cost. Before she is able to pour to the perfume she begins to weep at Jesus feet. As she cried she noticed how her tears left clean streaks on His feet. Mary then sees how He has been dishonored in this house and her heart breaks. As her tears washed His feet clean she had nothing to dry them with. She had no authority in Simon’s house to ask for a towel and so she used what she had her hair. Mary let down her hair and began to wash Jesus feet. This is no small act. This is not just something to read past. This is huge.
In this culture hair was not just a fashion statement it had significant meaning. One of the only times a woman would have her hair down outside of her home in this culture was if she had been accused of adultery. In this situation for her trial they would let her hair down and make it look messy so she would appear as if she had been caught in the act. A woman from the Middle East even to this day will wear her hair up and often wrapped in a turban or veil when she leaves the home and that is if you’re in the city where foreigners have impacted the culture. In rural areas and villages a woman would not dare leave the house with her head uncovered. You see in this culture they are very conscious of sexuality and the dangers that can result from it. Wearing a head covering was a sign of modesty. Wearing her hair down was something to be done in private in front of her husband alone because essentially that was something that could make men lust. In some ways a woman with an uncovered head would in their culture would be like, how to say this, a woman in our culture wearing a shirt or skirt that left little to the imagination. The theological term for a woman like this is skanky. That is essentially how she would be treated if she let her hair down. It is more than that however. Immodesty was something that would affect your standing in the community and effectively destroy her reputation forever.
A woman’s hair was her glory, her honor this is what made her special. So this woman dismantles her glory, bringing public shame on herself to take the task of a lowly servant and wipe Jesus feet. It gets worse. Open sandals were the most common footwear worn at this time. Now it was customary for guests to leave their sandals at the door when entering a house. Remember no cars at this point if you wanted to get someplace you walked. The problem is people would travel on the same major roads as caravans pulled by animals. So they shared the road with camels, horses, and donkeys, so here is the fun part. If you have ever been around animals you know they don’t wait for rest stops to do their business. So these roads would be more like mine fields of manure than anything. It would be impossible for someone on foot walking all day to avoid every land mine. Sandals would protect from some but not all of it. So all the residue, the odor, and potentially some chunks of animal dropping would be caked onto a persons feet. Hence the job of foot washing was reserved for the lowly servant.
So here is Mary taking down her glory to wipe the poop from Jesus feet. She used her righteousness and her glory as a rag. She gave it no second thought, she saw how Jesus had been disgraced and let go of her pride, her reputation, her glory, and used it to clean the feet of her Lord. Mary cared not for what others might think or say she was seeking the approval of only one man. She brought shame on herself to wipe away the shame that had been put on Jesus. For all our goodness, our gifts, service, and righteousness is nothing more than a filthy rag with which we are to wipe the dirt from the feet of our Lord. Can you imagine what this did for God? Can you imagine how His heart felt for this woman? Can you imagine what it would mean for a woman to willingly lay down her hair to wash someones feet? Mary came to the house seeking redemption and she found it when she let go of her pride and washed the feet of God. By shaming herself she honored Him.
It is not until we let our pride and our glory die that we can begin to truly worship. For often times Gods glory begins when our glory ends. Imagine what Jesus sees when He looks at this woman. The religious leaders who should have known Him treat Him as an enemy. His disciples so often miss the point and even to the end are fighting to be glorified, but this sinful woman who no one else would even let come near them understands. Finally someone gets it. Its not about your skills, your knowledge, your word craft or ability to speak. It is not about what you can do for God or how righteous you can make yourself appear, in fact it is the opposite. The greatest worship in Gods eyes sometimes looks shameful in the eyes of man. Mary let go of her pride, her image, her self worth, her honor, her very reputation she put down her glory so that Jesus could be glorified.
We have learned too well how to keep it all together and pretend that everything is ok when all we want to do is fall down at the feet of God and cry out for help. Sometimes we fail to receive the help we need because we are unwilling to let go of our pride. We need so badly for other people to view us as mature, collected, and problem free that we fail to acknowledge our failures for fear of what they will say or think and rather than experiencing the power of Godly community we train ourselves to be great actors faking normality when our world is falling apart. We fail to serve faithfully, to live honestly, and to love sincerely because we are unwilling to let go of ourselves and live with a servants heart.
You want to know what a servants heart looks like? It looks kind of like Mary.
She shows us the purity of a servants heart. For a true servant cares nothing for themselves and gives up everything for their master. Until you are willing not just to consider yourself humble or be viewed as such but to truly humiliate yourself for God you are not willing to serve and you are not willing to truly worship Him. One of the greatest acts of worship Jesus ever received was this sinful woman washing His feet with her tears and her hair. Her concern for Him and total disregard for herself sang louder than all the choirs in all the churches of men put together. This total disregard for ones self gives us an idea of what a servants heart looks like.
Yet it is not complete. For the shame and disgrace this woman took on herself to wash Jesus feet is nothing compared to the shame and disgrace Jesus took on Himself in coming to this world, to live as a man and to die on a cross. There is no greater picture of a servants heart than a cross. For Jesus out of His great love was willing to give up His deity, His awesome power, His perfect unity with God to be made like a man so that we could be saved. Jesus gave up everything to die the most shameful death a man can die so that this sinful woman who washed His feet could be forgiven, so that we could be forgiven. The heart of a servant looks like a cross.
