I Haven’t Come to Serve but BE Served
by Tom Lawson
The global pandemic has not seen a drop in new scandals from widely known Christian leaders. It is tempting to think their fame and effectiveness is to blame. I believe that apparent connection is illusory. Ravi Zacharias and Carl Lentz are simply the breed of Christian leaders that garners headlines. For every celebrity-pastor scandal, most of us know of dozens of equally tragic circumstances damaging churches and destroying families.
We can blame it on our culture’s hypersexuality. There’s certainly truth in that. But another reality is also hiding in plain sight. It is our model of servant-leadership.
We are servants who also lead, leaders who also serve. Broken people contact us when desperation outweighs hesitation. We show up at ICUs in the middle of the night. We meet the distraught parents of a son in jail. We all have our stories of experiences with addicts or mentally damaged people. We do not just sit in meetings or preach. We are also compelled by that scene of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.
OK, let’s look a little closer. Let’s also pick an analogy that works a bit better than washing feet for our culture.
How would you feel about changing someone’s bedpan? You are visiting someone in the hospital. Let’s say there’s a shortage of staff. So, someone asks you to do it.
Would you be willing to go into the room of a church member and change the bedpan? Let that scene unfold in your imagination. Opening the door to the room. Instantly, the smell hits you. You walk over. There it is. Pick it up. Take it somewhere to discharge its contents.
Wow. That’s not like a foot-washing ceremony, is it? Does the very idea make you cringe or feel that knot in your stomach at the awkwardness of it? Wonder if you’ll gag? Would you keep glancing around, hoping someone from the nursing staff would come to the rescue?
It’s time for a little self-honesty about what Jesus is showing us.
Now, I want to go back to our imagined scene again, the same setting. Bedpan needs to be changed – only this time, your place changes. Now, you’re the person in the bed, unable to walk to the toilet. It is you who defecated into the bedpan – something both very private and universally human. And here comes another leader from your church, same smell, same bedpan, same contents.
So, how about a little more self-honesty. How do you feel about this scene? The difference is startling, isn’t it?
Changing a bedpan isn’t pleasant, but that’s not what we fear. The fear of needing help is much greater than giving help. We are all into “I have come to serve.” We are the leaders-who-help, not the leaders-who-need.
In many ways helping people is a place of power. When I walk into a hospital room or a couple walks into my office, I am the one offering help. They are distraught. I am caring and calm. They share their failures and problems. We talk about their lives, not mine, their marriages, not mine, with me firmly in control of when and how I offer suggestions or feedback or insights.
They leave feeling helped. I leave feeling good about my own role. I know personal things about them. They only know about me whatever I present publicly.
This one-way pattern of leaders serving but never needing fosters a culture where our lives become more apparent than real. We are the ones who know, not the ones who reveal. I’m not advocating talking about private struggles in next week’s sermon. But who are your 2 AM friends – people you can send one text message to and they’d find a way to be at your front door? Who are the people that, if you told them your worst moment in 2020, would not be surprised?
Jesus came to serve, not to be served. He washed feet, true. But, only a few hours after that he also said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death! Stay here and keep watch with me” (Matt. 26:38, Mk. 14:34).
Peter, James and John were his 2 AM friends. He wasn’t afraid to tell them he was overwhelmed.He needed them.That is also what humility looks like. He wasn’t afraid to have them close enough to hear his cries and see his sweat-drenched face. He modeled leadership as much more than just serving.
