Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” (Mark 9:35)
I remember a scene from an old show from the seventies: Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century. I forget the precise circumstances, but Buck and Princess Ardala board a ship, and he sends her to the cockpit to start the engines. When he joins her there a short time later, she’s just sitting there, staring. He questions her about it, and she replies, “Princesses don’t start engines.” It was funny then. It’s not quite so funny now when stuff shows up on social media telling how the generation of Disney Princesses can’t cook a chicken or sew on a button. One of the things that irritated me at my last job was managers not knowing how to run the cash registers.
There’s a story about Booker T. Washington, founder, and president of Tuskegee Institute. He was on his way somewhere when a woman, seeing an African American fellow, called to him and told him to chop some wood for her. I don’t recall whether she paid him or not, but later when they met and she found out who her woodchopper was, she was embarrassed. He brushed it off, saying that it was good for a soul to chop wood once in a while. Of course, she made a massive contribution to his institute.
I don’t know whether Mr. Irving was purposely using Jesus’ model, but he followed it, none-the-less. Jesus, God’s Son, worshipped in heaven, came to earth and not only washed His disciple’s feet, but became their sacrifice. He died a most miserable death. I’m trying to learn this lesson in a new way. The most degrading task that I could be asked to do involves the equivalent of changing my father’s diapers or giving him a suppository. We’re not there yet, but I dread that day. I don’t know which will be worse, doing that for my father, or having someone else do that to me, but the former involves me serving my father.
I recall hearing another story, about a tall woman whose name you would recognize, being offended because someone asked her to hand them something from a grocery store shelf.
There’s a story about Booker T. Washington, founder, and president of Tuskegee Institute. He was on his way somewhere when a woman, seeing an African American fellow, called to him and told him to chop some wood for her. I don’t recall whether she paid him or not, but later when they met and she found out who her woodchopper was, she was embarrassed. He brushed it off, saying that it was good for a soul to chop wood once in a while. Of course, she made a massive contribution to his institute.
I don’t know whether Mr. Irving was purposely using Jesus’ model, but he followed it, none-the-less. Jesus, God’s Son, worshipped in heaven, came to earth and not only washed His disciple’s feet, but became their sacrifice. He died a most miserable death. I’m trying to learn this lesson in a new way. The most degrading task that I could be asked to do involves the equivalent of changing my father’s diapers or giving him a suppository. We’re not there yet, but I dread that day. I don’t know which will be worse, doing that for my father, or having someone else do that to me, but the former involves me serving my father.
I recall hearing another story, about a tall woman whose name you would recognize, being offended because someone asked her to hand them something from a grocery store shelf.
Lord, help us always to be willing to do that which is “beneath” us, and to do it with love.
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