You can find today’s reading by clicking on this sentence.
It can be confusing sometimes, the way the lectionary dots about. One minute we’re in Colossians, the next in Luke, and today we find ourselves in Matthew. Can you keep up? As I opened the reading for today I was initially a little nonplussed. How does this follow? Is there a link? After a while, I think I found one. Bear with me. You might find it tenuous or non-existent, but hopefully you’ll find it helpful too.
In this often-quoted story, Jesus makes the kind of statement that, were it to be uttered by a politician today, would have us stampeding to the polling stations. The son of man, he says, came not be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Now, we’ve been talking all week, one way or another, about the ways in which it is easy for us to set up the Christian life as a constant series of measuring sticks to gauge success or failure and have, in each case instead found that the impetus for action, the power for action and the glory as the result of that action come from an belong to God. And now we, who through being welcomed into kinship with Jesus, are called to follow in his way, are now invited to seek not to be served but to serve. Perhaps, too, you might be asked by God to give your life as a ransom for many, not in the way that Jesus did, but in putting the needs of others before your own, in seeking to find ways of introducing people to the Way at every opportunity, by acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God.
As a leader, as I am growing to be, it can be particularly challenging to remember that my first call is to be a servant. It’s my role to model service to such an extent that others might serve too, and this culture of humility and service might spread far and wide. Whether a person has the tiniest particle of influence or wields huge authority and responsibility, we would all do well to remember that Jesus’s pattern for a life well lived was for it to be a life given over to the needs and interests of others, for the glory of God.