Special Look at the New Biblical Eldership: Part 2

Humble Servanthood (from the new Biblical Eldership)

At the Passover table, hours before his crucifixion, Jesus did something unthinkable. Like a menial, common slave, Jesus stooped down and washed the dirty feet of his disciples:

Jesus . . . rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. . . .When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” (John 13:3–5, 12–15)

In the most unforgettable way, Jesus dramatically illustrated everything he had been teaching his disciples about humility, love, sacrificial service, and greatness by washing the feet of his disciples.

The logic of the passage is crystal clear: If the one who is lauded Teacher and Leader humbly stoops to wash the feet of his disciples, then the disciples “ought” also to wash one another’s feet—that is, humbly care for one another’s interests and advancement, not fight with one another for power and prominence.

What Jesus did was a complete reversal of all that was culturally acceptable; it utterly shocked the disciples. How could they possibly argue anymore over who should be regarded as the greatest, when the one who was truly the greatest stooped down to wash the dirty feet of his students?

It is here we see that the symbol of our Lord is the servant’s towel, not the cleric’s robe. In the words of John Stott, “The symbol of an authentic Christian leadership is not the purple robe of an emperor, but the coarse apron of a slave; not a throne of ivory and gold, but a basin of water for the washing of feet.”[i]

Only by following the role model of our servant Lord do we have any hope of living and working together in unity. “If you know these things,” declared Jesus, “blessed are you if you do them” (John 13:17).

Do Not Be Like Worldly Rulers: Luke 22:24–27

After our Lord instituted the Lord’s Supper, and in the very presence of Christ, the disciples started to argue again over who was “to be regarded as the greatest.” If it wasn’t for knowing the sinfulness of the human heart, I might be shocked. But I am not. Luke masterfully records the account this way:

A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.” (Luke 22:24–27)

In response to the disciples’ dispute, Jesus charged them not to act like the “kings of the Gentiles” who “exercise lordship over” the people, or like those in authority who boast about being “benefactors.” Emphatically Jesus protested, “But not so with you!”

Jesus stipulates that in his kingdom the one who is the “greatest” become as “the youngest” of the group (one with no status or power). The one who is the “leader” is to be like one who “serves” tables, that is, a waiter, a lowly table attendant.

Biblical commentator James Edwards observes, “At no place do the ethics of the kingdom of God clash more vigorously with the ethics of the world than in the matter of power and service.”[ii] Greatness is defined by humble service, not by power positions or ruling from the top over people.

Jesus the Table Servant

Jesus makes this astonishing declaration concerning himself: “For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves” (Luke 22:27). Jesus is the greatest example of voluntary self–subordination. He, the supreme Teacher and Lord, voluntarily serves the diners at table (see Luke 12:37). The disciples are to emulate the servant–waiter Jesus, not “the kings of the Gentiles” or the rich “benefactors” of this world.

In his article “Leadership and Discipleship: A Study of Luke 22:24–30,” Peter Nelson gives us a true sense of “the great distance between top and bottom in the prevailing structures of authority” in Jesus’s day and how drastically different Jesus’s teaching was:

Emperors and governors and client kings, Jewish kings and judges, and the paterfamilias did not chair governing committees within participatory democracies. Far from it, they had access to far–reaching powers and could do virtually anything they wished to those subject to them. The very lives of subjects and slaves and children were in the hands of their kings and masters and fathers. Considering the extent of power held by ancient rulers also gives one a feel for the stark, concrete realities of life in the sphere of such a broad spectrum of power and impotence. When we consider the contrasts in Luke 22:25–27 and the injunction to turn from greatness to youth and leadership to service, then the background of ancient authority patterns reminds us that such a call was profoundly radical, and that such a condescending step crossed a wide and deep gulf (emphasis added).[iii]