Being the Servant
Today I want to explore with you an image that recurs throughout the history of God with the people of this place called Earth – the image of the servant.
The very word itself conjures up many different images. Perhaps our minds are drawn to a person or persons we have seen on television or in movies whose whole life is focused on serving the needs of a family or individual whose wealth allows them to hire people to take care of them. Often it seems that those who hire such people and those who serve enjoy a relationship which seems to be mutually beneficial to one another.
In many cultures, it is not only acceptable to hire people as servants it is expected. Those of great means are expected to provide employment and a stable living environment for others who would be left on the fringe of society without any means of sustaining their lives. And while all servants may not become intimately connected to the family members, many do; as such, their loyalty to the family is paramount as they will become privy to many of the family’s secrets and interpersonal struggles. The family come to depend on the servant or servants to help them not only maintain the rhythm of the family but also to protect the family members. In its purest sense, a servant is not a slave but a trusted and valued member of the family.
Servanthood is a major theme throughout the pages of what we have come to know as the Bible. The word servant appears in many of the parables taught by Jesus and we have examples of the kind of loyalty expected of a servant when they are sent on behalf of a master to ask a favour of Jesus.
I have given you this brief synopsis of a servant because as followers of the path to God through Jesus, we need to be able to see servanthood not as something demeaning but as something of vital importance to our relationship to God, to one another and to our mission in the world.
Throughout the history of this world, God has ever sought out people in each generation who were prepared to offer their lives in service, to be servants of God. The task of the servant was to work in harmony with God to communicate the plan of God and to encourage the people of their generation to follow the ways of God that they might live a life that would not only bring peace and hope to them but also shed that peace and hope to the wider world around them.
The prophet Isaiah has a vision of the qualities of the one whom God will uphold as a servant; and while it appears to be overly simplistic in its vision, it is only the framework within which the servant will act in response to a will that is directed to listening and responding to the will of God.
The image of the servant presented in Isaiah 42 is just part of the picture for there are four passages in Isaiah that speak of the servant and it is only as we see them in combination that we gain a clearer vision of the kind of person the servant is to be and the great challenges and hardships that this servant will face.
In this passage, we learn that the servant will receive the Spirit of God. In other words, the servant will be given the wisdom and the strength to act on behalf of God. We also learn that the Servant will bring about justice. While no specifics are given, we can imagine that such justice will mean equal and fair treatment of all people, freedom from slavery and oppression of every form. We then discover that this move to bring justice will not be accomplished by means of war or destruction of life but by supporting even the weakest of all members so that even the faintest among the people will feel strengthened and supported. Where a life has been bruised, the Servant will not break it but support it; where a life burns dimly because it has lost most of its hope and purpose, the Servant will gently fan it back into a steady glow. Finally, the Servant will not be discouraged by any failures but continue to seek to bring justice. The Servant will not abandon the mission.
When we read the passage from Matthew that records the baptism of Jesus by John, we learn that John has a clear understanding of who Jesus is. John hesitates to baptize Jesus for he knows that he has greater need of Jesus than he can imagine Jesus has of him. But Jesus understands that for him to fulfil the role of the Servant, he must first allow John to fulfil his role. John came to prepare all people to receive the peace, justice and life that would come through the servanthood of Jesus. As such Jesus knew that for his mission to be fulfilled, he – like everyone else – would need to receive the blessing of baptism. It was a visible preparation – a sign to the people that Jesus came not as one superior to them but one like them – called from among the people to be that Servant of God spoken of by the prophet Isaiah. And so, it happens that the words of the prophet are echoed in the opening of the heavens and the Spirit of God descending like a dove, as a sign of peace and hope. And the voice from heaven declaring: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)
But while Jesus’ servanthood began long before the time of his baptism, this moment is a confirmation that he is prepared to be the Servant God who will bring about ultimate justice, peace and life for the people of this world. Next will follow a series of tests or temptations designed to discover whether Jesus has what it takes to be that Servant.
Being the Servant will take everything that Jesus has emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. His ability to stay the course and never waver from the mission he has taken on as the Servant of God will reap great benefits for the world and its people.
Perhaps the image of servant is one that bothers us and is one that we are not comfortable with. Perhaps we would prefer not to even imagine that we owe our future with God to a person who sacrificed everything to perfectly fulfil the will of God. But the reality is that we are encouraged to have faith not only in God but in the One who listened to God, who allowed God to speak through him, to act through him and to whom he ultimately surrendered his spirit.
But more than that; we too are called to be servants of God. We are called to bring justice to the nations, to not break the reed or to snuff out the dimly burning wick. We are called to listen to God, to allow God to speak through us, to act through us and to ultimately surrender our spirits to God.
We are to take on this role not to show ourselves better than others or for our own glory or praise but because we desire to be agents of change for God; we want to reveal to others the plan of God and to be active partners with God in continuing to shed God’s light, hope, peace, righteousness and justice in the world.
May you find strength, hope, encouragement and peace in your decision to be a servant of God!
AMEN