Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Whoever would be great among you must be your
servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the
Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as
a ransom for many’ (Mark 10vv44-45).
Jesus is our role model in humble servanthood. Though he was the Son of Man,
a name that speaks of his eternal divine authority, he came into the world
to serve and to give his life as a ransom for sinners, willingly as God the
Son paying to God the Father the price of our forgiveness.
He is the ultimate servant and he calls us as the church to follow his example,
casting aside the world’s obsession with power and position and comfort and
status and instead walking in the way of the cross.
We are to cast aside the consumerist mindset and instead embrace the Christian
mindset in the way we approach our membership of the church family.
The consumerist mindset says to the church: The customer is king - you are
here to serve me.
The Christian mindset says: The Lord Jesus is King - I am here to serve you.
The consumerist mindset is essentially selfish – the self is at the centre.
Sometimes that can take the form of going on a power kick, taking on a position
in the church for the purpose of lording it over others – but even when it
doesn’t overtly take that form, it’s still present in the sense that we can
treat the church as our comfort blanket. We may not be bossing other people
around but we want the church to look after us, to pamper us, to make us feel
good.
The Christian mindset looks to look after other people and says: I will if
necessary make myself feel uncomfortable for the sake of the church. I will
risk relationships for the good of the church. In certain circumstance I will
not take the more comfortable path of conflict avoidance.
Now of course it’s true that the world is marked by conflict and the church
should be a peaceful community by contrast – we should be at peace with one
another but not at peace with sin when it has taken root in the church community.
Sin has to be tackled; it has to be fought. Sinful attitudes and behaviours
need to be tackled when they take root in the church community and even when
there isn’t some overt scandal or problem the Christian mindset will not avoid
the conflict that results from the need to change - changing what we’re doing
and how we do it for the good of the church..
As servants of the Servant King, we’ve got to be prepared to fight some battles
for the good of Christ’s church both locally and nationally and to risk upsetting
people. In our consumerist culture upsetting people seems to the ultimate sin
– is that not because to upset somebody is a sin against the customer who is
king? But as Christians you and I don’t follow king customer, we follow King
Jesus and Jesus upset people – that’s why they crucified him. As followers
of the Lord Jesus we need to be prepared to risk upsetting people not for the
sake of it but for the good of the church.
Which mindset are we going to choose? Consumerist or Christian? Consumerist
says: The church is here for my comfort. Christian says: I’m prepared to be
uncomfortable for the good of Christ’s church and Jesus is my role model in
that. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give
his life as a ransom for many.
With all Christian good wishes to you and your loved ones,
Julian Mann
Vicar