Following our Servant Lord

I did not come to be ministered unto but to minister. (Matthew 20:28)
The idea of servant leadership has become quite popular; it has been completely secularized, as Christmas and Easter are secularized. What I mean by secularized is that people use the words but deprive it of any connection to the Biblical ideas surrounding it. The concept of serving people is no longer a Christian ideal. Now even sportsmen like Tiger Woods and Manny Pacquiao, despite their marital problems are careful about their reputations in order not to diminish the quality of their service to their fans. Multimillion dollar corporations are careful so that their products provide the kind of service that would bring the highest satisfaction to their customers.
Christians and churches buy into that mentality and it colors their understanding of ministry.
Let me illustrate what I am saying. Two weeks ago I had to pass by Iloilo because I have some meetings to do there before proceeding to Boracay. Along the way it is quite instructive to see how local churches name themselves. Here is a church that defines itself as “fundamental,” another as”conservative” another as “Bible”, another as “apostolic” and of course “Roman Catholic.”
Why do churches have such titles? Who are the intended receivers of these titles? Muslims? Hindus? Atheists? These religions could hardly care whether you are fundamental or apostolic. These words are meant to measure the people in those churches against other Christians.
They are conservative because other Christians are liberal.
They are Bible because other Christians are unbiblical.
They are apostolic because other Christians are modernistic.
They are Catholic because other Christians are narrow and nationalistic.
Whether churches or individual Christians we have a tendency to look at ourselves through the lens of other churches and the implied message is, “We are better than you are.” We have more money. We have more influence. We have more power. Join us.
That reminds of two churches I saw one evening in Singapore. One had a large building capable of seating perhaps a thousand. If it has a sign I didn’t see it. But there are spotlights that highlight the design of the building. It was a building meant to convey success and wealth. Next to it was a very small chapel, I think only five meters across. I calculate maybe less than 50 can be accommodated within. But it had a large blue neon sign blazing at the top of the building. What does it say? “The True Church.” We may be small but we are true. We may be small but we have the power of God.
Indeed implied in service is strength for those who are too weak cannot serve. There is no service if we have nothing with which to serve. No capital to use for our resources. But any form of power in itself is dangerous commodity.
In the late 1980’s a born again general by the name of Efrain Rios Montt, seized power in Guatemala through a coup d’etat. Evangelical leaders in the United States rejoiced and Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell were very supportive of him and became his friends. With Rios Montt in power there was much talk about introducing reforms in Guatemala that would result not only in evangelizing the country but also in eradicating poverty.
These were false hopes. His vision of the rule of law was a military junta that subjugated the opposition, silenced freedom of the press, and created military tribunals with the power to impose the death penalty. In a short time, 600 villages in Guatemala were reduced to ashes. In 1982 alone over 10 thousand native Indians were killed and tens of thousands more were annihilated by death squads in the following months.
The regime of Rios Montt, the first born-again president of Central and South American went down in history as the most violent that the American continents have ever produced. Rather than exalting the rule of God, he diminished it. He corrupted the meaning of what it means to be born again.
There is no doubt that Jesus had power. The devil saw it. But Jesus saw what game the devil was playing and resisted it.
Since we are in quoting Scripture hope to emulate Jesus, not sportsmen or captains of industry, how do we understand what he meant by serving and not being served?
For that we have to go back to the way he understood his mission. And we find that in Luke 4 where Jesus said,
18‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
Is Jesus saying that salvation is limited to the poor alone? No. Is he even saying that the poor are to be given preferential treatment in his ministry? To some extent yes. But it goes beyond preferential option. It is looking at the world from the lenses of the world of the weak, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed.
Jesus defined his mission through the eyes of the underprivileged.
How did he do that?
First of all he identified himself with them. There is a distinctive odor to poverty. You who have served among them know that. It is the odor of the earth, of animal dung. And that is the odor with which Jesus was born into. Jesus was familiar with animals. He spoke of sheep and cattle, fish and sparrows. He was familiar with the hard life of shepherds, farmers, and fishermen. He did not shun prostitutes and publicans. He walked with them and ate with them.
But there is more to than solidarity with the oppressed rather than being a tool of oppressors. Jesus leaned towards the outcasts, the dispossessed, and the weak as the mirror whereby to understand the mission of God in the world.
The lepers, the woman with the issue of blood, the Samaritans—these were the untouchables of Jesus’ day. Jesus not only touched them but allowed them to touch him.
The woman with an issue of blood, she touched Jesus and was healed. Have you ever wondered why Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” Wasn’t that rather insensitive, to expose this woman’s uncleanness to the crowd? He could have let her have what she needed, her healing and release her. But could she go back and be restored into the life of her community? No. Why? Because how could they know she was healed? She would be healed but remain an outcast.
In exposing this woman to the crowd, Jesus was acting as the priest who pronounced healing upon the unclean so that she could return to her community not only healed but reconciled. Once again her children could touch her, and she touch them.
In the healing and restoration of the bleeding woman Jesus is saying that God is calling the outcasts to himself. Jesus presence in society is a beacon of wholeness to those who are bleeding. The bleeding woman’s healing and restoration is a sign of reconciliation between those who are out and those who are in, between those who benefit from the rewards of a corrupt society and those who are left behind, the sick and the stragglers and the lost.
If indeed the church is the body of Christ in the world, if the church is the living presence of Jesus in the world, then the church can be no less a sign of that same healing and reconciliation that happened to the bleeding woman.
Who do we want to touch us? Who do we want to surround us? That is the issue.
After our Sunday service I hurry back to our ministry center where I have a little room. It is comfortable but it is not Boracay. I have to hurry back because there are people waiting for me to open the gate of our center. These are the homeless, street dwellers of Cebu. We minister to their spirit but we also minister to their bodies. About 100 of them adults and 60 children. While crossing from Jollibee a woman approached me and crossed the street with me. She is one of them. At the gate about a dozen or them were sitting on the ground or standing. But another dozen were lying on the ground, resting. Bare ground. There is a puddle of dirty water on the street. Don’t lie on the ground, I said. Come in.
One said, don’t worry pastor, this is our life.
There was a stab of pain in my heart. How could you say we are used to this? I wanted to go back and give them a lecture on cleanliness and on the image of God. But something held me.
Why am I reacting? Because I don’t want these people with their filth and their smell to invade and foul up my antiseptic space?
And where would I rather have this people to lie down? Near a place where sex traffickers are already watching over the growing bodies of their children? Where drug pushers are already at work? Where criminal lords are recruiting children to use?
Efren Penaflorida as you probably already know was a World Vision sponsored child. Through the help of strangers he was able to finish high school, then an associate in computer technology and finally an honors degree in education. I know similar people like him who have risen up from poverty. But as soon as they find a job they forget where they come from. They surround themselves with the kind of people they would like to become, sometimes reinventing themselves with a new name and a new background.
Efren chose to go back. He chose to look at his world from the vantage point of the scavengers and street dwellers. His life is in inspiration to others who dream of becoming heroes themselves. As I look at him I feel rewarded too.
To you in the literature ministry, you too will feel rewarded…
To the extent that the Christian literature ministry continues to publish good news to the poor, deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; …
To the extent that the Christian literature ministry continues to inspire those who work among the outcasts and the bleeding of our society,
to the extent that the Christian literature ministry continues to heed the call of Jesus to deny itself, take up its cross and follows Jesus…
then to that extent you too will feel rewarded.
Message to OMFLit Staff Cebu 9 December 2009