I am always struck by the use of the word ‘service’ to describe some of our institutions: there is the public service, the prison service, the teaching service and even the armed services. The hope of those who use this word must be that the people involved are providing a service to society – and of course in many cases they do. The word implies that those involved are serving the people. So when the police next stop you at the eighth road block between Harare and Bulawayo and ask for money you can remind them that they are servants. They may reply by saying, yes, but servants have to live.
To be a servant is actually a beautiful profession. To work for others is the most fulfilling activity a person can do. Jesus described himself as a servant (Mark 10:45) and he said it was the whole purpose of his mission. There are songs in Isaiah about ‘the servant’ which came to be applied to the Messiah: ‘By his sufferings shall my servant justify many, taking their faults on himself’ (53:11). The whole work that Jesus did among us was a service, symbolised by the gesture in John 13 where he goes down on his knees and washes the feet of his friends.
We, as servants, lack conviction when our service is motivated by what we get out of it – pay, perks and power – and not what we put into it. ‘There is no greater love than to give our life’ (John 15:13) and this I take to mean to give our whole heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30) to the task of serving others. To serve others may mean going to great trouble, even risking our life, as many do. It is to commit ourselves to the world and confront it as a farmer does when faced with a field of weeds.
We cannot just go along with the flow and say, ‘it is not my problem.’ Everything is my problem. We have grounds for an examination of conscience. Why should ‘the worst’ have the monopoly of ‘passionate intensity’?
Post published in: Opinions & Analysis