a carefree society part 3

what would Jesus say to a nation of professional servants?

The traditional summation of Christ's reversal of the given order has been defined by Christians as the imperative to be a servant- not a lord. The highest vision of Christian purpose is to reverse the order, to fulfill a mission of service. We serve Christ by following His example in washing the feet of His disciples. We are Christians, people who have it backwards, as we serve rather than rule- act as servants rather than rulers.

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As Christians we could celebrate the institutionalization of the good servant. Ours is finally a society of caring, helping, curing servanthood. We laud the value of professional servanthood and pay for it generously.

In our society of servants, it is interesting to consider what Christ might see with all His tendency toward getting things backwards? .. Would He even reject a society of good servants?

The answer is, probably not, unless He saw good servants becoming lords. Probably not, unless He saw help becoming control, care becoming commericalized, and cure becoming immobilizing. On the other hand, if He found servants involved in commercialized, immobilizing systems of control, He would certainly insist that we still have it backwards- that our servanthood had become lordship.

The question, then, is whether we are a nation of good servants or the lords of commericalized, immobilizing systems of service that actually control.

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I wonder whether the human reality is always to make servanthood into lordship. It may be that there is no way to define service so that we will not get it backwards and make it a system of control. With all our Christian devotion to the idea of service, could service be an inadequate ideal- a value so easily corrupted that we should question its usefulness?

At the Last Supper, Christ was telling the disciples those things of greatest importance. It was His final opportunity to communicate the central values of the faith. In St. John's report of Christ's concluding instruction, Christ said, "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what the master is doing. I call you friends for all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you."

Finally, Christ said you are not servants. You know. You are friends.

Perhaps beyond the revolution of Christian service is the final revolution, the possibility of being friends. Friends are people who know, care, respect, struggle, love justice, and have a commitment to each other through time.

Friends are people who understand that it is not servants- the professors, the lawyers, doctors, and teachers- who make God's world. Rather, friends are people who understand that it is through their mutual action that they become Christians.

Christ's mandate to be friends is a revolutionary idea in our serving society. Here we are, a nation of professionalized servers, following Christ's mandate to serve. And here He is, at the final moment, getting it backwards once again. The final message is not to serve. Rather, He directs us to be friends.

Why friends rather than servants? Perhaps it is because He knew that servants could always become lords but that friends could not. Servants are people who know the mysteries that can control those to whom they give "help." Friends are people who know each other. They are free to give and receive help.

In our time, professionalized servants are people who are limited by the unknowing friendlessness of their help.

Friends, on the other hand, are people liberated by the possibilites of knowing how to help each other.

~ excerpt from The Careless Society: Community and Its Counterfeits by John McKnight
(the only chapter that actually deals with Christianity and Jesus directly)