Basic Christianity is greatness through service

Without reservation, my most treasured identification is Christian. Until the day I die, I will be pondering the meaning of being a Christian. Some things I know. It means being a follower, a disciple of the wandering teacher from Nazareth. It means a constant study of the sayings and parables that he left us. It means attempting to translate and live a life in the 21st century that he lived 2,000 years earlier.

But it is more than being a student and follower of Jesus, my life Messiah. Jesus is a best friend, a companion, a confidant and a helper. He is a brother with ties stronger than blood. And he is more yet. There is a mythic element in being a Christian that defies logic and human understanding. The dynamics will never be explained by psychologists, psychiatrists or sociologists. The dynamics of which I write are sometimes captured in art, music, dance and poetry, but only in fleeting glimpses. Being a Christian will always be a great enigma.

I am one.

Having made my confession of faith, I am still left with the task of living a life that is consistent with my identification. In my search for direction I am driven back to the collection of writings that we call the Bible. Specifically, I am driven back to the synoptic Gospels — Matthew, Mark and Luke. Even more specifically, I am driven back to the stories that Jesus told and the aphorisms he repeated in his teaching. We have both his stories and his aphorisms in reliable form because they are literary forms that are easy to remember and pass along. Aphorisms are short sayings, usually no longer than a single sentence.

Jesus said, “If anyone aspires to be great, let him be the servant of all.” The essence of this aphorism is found in two places, once in Matthew and once in Mark. In both cases, the gospel narrative gives a context to the aphorism. In each case, his disciples were vying for positions of power.

Even the most skeptical students of the life of Jesus agree that Jesus recruited disciples. They were all Jewish. All were common folk who chaffed under the oppression of Roman rule that was facilitated by Jewish puppets. Some of the disciples were active in movements that advocated violent overthrow of those in power. Oppression was made real by unjust tax systems and by the brutalizing of dissenters. The stories that Jesus told were commonly understood as protests against the puppets of Rome. Jesus spoke repeatedly about the reign of God. The disciples thought they had joined a movement to overthrow the oppressors. As the popularity of the Jesus movement grew, the disciples started seeing themselves in line for positions of power in the new Jesus regime. Jesus had a very different understanding.

Jesus believed and taught that true greatness was achieved not through the exercise of power of any kind, but by being a servant. According to Jesus, the goal of life is not to rule, but to serve. An accompanying statement to the servant aphorism was “for the son of man did not come into the world to be served but to serve and to give his life.”

The idea of greatness defined by servitude was not new with Jesus. He was an obvious student of the Isaiah writings of the Old Testament. Portions of the Isaiah writings were produced during the 70-year interment of a small group of Israelites in Babylon in the sixth century B.C.E. Typical Israelite understanding had been that they were the chosen people of God, destined to rule the world. Israelites had had tastes of glory through military might under King David and King Solomon, and they loved it. But now the once mighty nation had been conquered. The small group of survivors realized they had lost everything. The vision of greatness through military power was gone. No longer did anyone envision restoration to greatness through the exercise of power.

The remnant was forced into rethinking the meaning of being the people of God. What if God desired the Israelites to be servants rather than rulers? 600 years later, Jesus passionately embraced the servant ideal for himself, and he urged all those around him to live out the servant ideal. He started with his disciples, and they had a difficult time “getting it.”

Not much has changed in the past 2,000 years. People who embrace the identification of “Christian” still do not seem to get it. Living out the servant ideal is what made the life of Jesus uniquely different. His followers do not seem to want to follow his lead. I strongly suspect that few churches and few clergy ever come to grips with the servant ideal that was taught and lived out by Jesus from Nazareth. Certainly there are anecdotes that can be told honestly that illustrate the servant ideal at work in everyday life. Those who practice the servant ideal make a real difference. Sadly, they are exceptional rather than ordinary.

If any among you would aspire to being great, be a servant of all. It is at the heart of what Jesus was about.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

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