Jesus, the full-time foot washer?

This morning, I participated in a work day at the church I attend.   We were getting some areas ready to be demolished.

Before asthma chased me away, I spent most of my time taking off the outside covering of fluerescent light fixtures and unscrewing flueroscent light bulbs.  Wisely, I was trusted with a job that required little coordination, tool use, or individual judgement.  Rather robotically, I went through this whole process.

Somebody much better at “guy stuff” followed closely behind me.  He removed the actual fixtures from the cielings.  He had a tool belt and cool noisy tools and experience with these things.  I was glad to have him there.

Each fixture took me probably about five minutes to do.  He was moving at about the same rate. 

If I hadn’t been there, he probably could have done my part of the job in half the time it took me.  Despite this, it still made sense to have me there.   He was able to spend a smaller amount of time on the whole task of removing light fixtures and was able to move on to other tasks where he was equally needed.  In this case I wasn’t as valuable a commodity as him.  Pretty much anybody was capeable of doing what I did.   However, even though it took me twice as long as him to do my part of the job, it all ended making sense to do it this way. 

 As I was doing this, it got me to be reflecting on efficiency, and servant leadership, and that story in Acts, where the group complains to the disciples that their widows aren’t being taken care of. 

In life, there are these two extremes we fall into.

At one extreme, we rigidly categorize what we will and won’t do.  We consider ourselves above certain tasks.  If we think that there are people out there who aren’t above those same taks, we are effectively saying that we are better than certain people.

At  the other extreme, we learn the wrong things from Jesus.  When I first wrestled with what it was to lead and to follow Christ, I thought that this meant I couldn’t act in an efficient manner, that I shouldn’t have people do what I was capeable of doing.

If the other guy had said to me today “Jesus washed people’s feet, therefore you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing, I’m quite capeable of removing the fixtures and taking out the bulbs” several things would have resulted.  None of them would have been good:

#1) I would have felt more useless, not less useless.

#2) He would have taken about 8 minutes for each fixture, not five.

#3) He would have not been available to use his skills elsewhere as quickly.

Jesus demonstrated that he was willing to wash his disciples feet.  And that is the point, I guess: that he was willing to.  He didn’t go on to then do nothing but wash people’s feet.  There were other people who could do that, too.

And the disciples did not drop teaching and preaching and studying and writing to tend the widows.  This is not because the widows were unimportant.  It’s because other people could also serve the widows, but there was a limited number of people who could preach and teach, because there was a limited number of people that Jesus had poured his life into.

Servant leadership can’t mean that the leader does all the jobs of the leader and the servant.  It has to mean that the leader is willing to do all the jobs of the servant.  It’s not humble to act otherwise, it’s actually insulting to the ways in which God has gifted us.