Which would you rather be servant or friend?
Were their chests busting – outward? They probably would have been!
No longer “servants but friends”- it sounded like a promotion. A major promotion…big stuff! Pay increase! Management position. Perhaps more time off…during the summer months…maybe even a 4-day-week! 6 to 8 weeks vaca… a timeshare!
Didn’t Jesus, in that very room, on that same night, dramatically attempt to impress upon his chosen disciples the “posture and the action” of being “a servant” by “washing all their feet?”
Being a servant is good thing, right? Being a servant is everything! The world needs more servants!
Didn’t he say “plainly” that “they” were to wash one another’s feet? We are to be a “servant church” at least, that is what I was always taught!
“Servant” was the “operative word” to speak of our relation to Jesus and to “his community of faith.” We are all to become “like servants!”
Nothing strikes us as being “so unbecoming a follower of Jesus” – as “arrogance,” or the pursuit of “position of power,” and “the desire to sit and be “served” rather than to actually serve.”
We are servants and none of us, should sit around idle. There is always something that we can do or some help that we can offer.
So what is it – with all this “friend business – all of a sudden?”
Friendship implies “love and mutuality.” Being a “friend” is “way different” than being a “servant.” Friendship sounds like a step above. The next pay grade up…closer ties…
If you have been “a servant of Jesus”- to be called by Jesus “his friend” sounds like an overwhelming gift! It is a momentous occasion! It is huge! Or is it? I thought we were supposed to be “servants?” What gives?
No longer a “servant but a friend” – it even sounds strange and a little bit out of character.
Does this imply we are “more” than we were before…? Are we higher up the ladder or the chain of command?
Jesus continues: “I do not call you “servants” any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing.”
For the record: Please don’t ask me any questions about God’s business; I don’t want to know. I mind my own business…or I try to. I have enough on my plate. I do not presume to speak for God. To do so would be blasphemy.
Jesus continues: “But I have called you “friends,” because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my father.” Everything? Really? I am not sure that I am in that loop! Or want to be.
In other words, a friend of Jesus shares in the knowledge of “God’s operation” in the world, what God is “doing” and “how” God is doing it.
There are something’s that we just do not want to know! Ignorance is bliss.
We do know: that Jesus paid the full price for loving, laying down his life for those he loves. We have no reason to assume that “a friend of his” – would be exempt from the same thing.
I am beginning to wonder if the move from “servant to friend” is really a good thing. You know: The servant doesn’t take his work home with him. For him or her the day ends when he walks out the door and “attempts” to leave things behind him or her for the night. You punch out, you are done!
But the master is up all day and all night, listening, pacing, fretting, worrying and praying. If the servant becomes “the friend of the master,”- then the master’s burdens become the servant’s own.
Most of us carry within us large areas of deliberate ignorance. We already know a lot, a lot of drivel…a lot of trivia…a lot of worthless facts and figures…
We don’t want to hear about the prayers of untold numbers of millions of people. So many hurting people…so many horrendous situations that I don’t want to hear about…
If that is what it means to be “a friend of Jesus”- well then, I am not sure that friendship is for me. Being a simple “servant” is looking better all the time. In fact, there are plenty of days when being a servant has stronger appeal than being a “friend.”
Washing feet, pouring coffee, holding a hand, listening to a story, making phone calls, giving a ride, folding bulletins, sharing advice – isn’t so bad! Those things I can handle…
But being a friend sounds like it carries a lot more weight, a lot more responsibility, and a lot more baggage.
Being “a friend” sounds good and all, but can I please remain a “simple servant?”
Thanks for the promotion, I am certainly honored, but I think I will pass?
Love,
Your Servant