Homesick for Heaven

We need to test ourselves. How do we react when someone treats us like a servant" Do we resent it? Jesus didn't. He had every reason to expect others to serve him. But he reversed the conventional wisdom as he modeled the servant role at the last supper. What a picture of true humility. If Jesus himself, being who he was, could stoop down and perform the task of a slave, who are we to think we should not? At the end of the day it all comes down to whether we want to serve him or we want him to serve us. It is just as C. S. Lewis said. "Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is simply thinking of yourself less." Here is a true story told to me by my father who was a student at Harvard back in the early part of the last century. At that time the English department was headed by Lyman Kittredge, a Shakespeare scholar of world renown. He had been promoted strictly on ability and had not seen fit to acquire a Ph.D degree. One day a curious and bold student came to him and asked, "Professor Kittredge, I am puzzled about something. Many professors have their Ph.D degrees but you, the head of the English Department do not. Can you explain why?" "Certainly, young man," the professor said. "Who would examine me?" The professor was secure in knowing his subject and faithfully teaching it. It showed. No degrees were needed to prove it or announce it. In the same way, Jesus was calling his disciples to believe that faithful obedience was enough. They did not need to care about prominence and honors. Self promotion is the world's way; self denial is God's way. If we are to follow him greatness must have a different meaning, one that is counter intuitive, counter cultural to say the least. It goes against both instinct and learned behavior. In the twenty-first century our culture is still in love with greatness as it was always defined. We think of Alexander the Great, Napoleon the Great but we don't think of Jesus the Great. Jesus never made such a claim, even with all his qualifications. He had no predecessors and no peers and every reason to boast. But he never did. Instead he redefined what greatness means.