Servants?

I have never been to a spa. Either a day spa or a resort. Which means I don’t have a clue what the appropriate tip would be for the particular member of the service staff who sponged my feet with a towel dipped in fresh water from a basin as I reclined enjoying a light meal. I think it was the image of Jesus with a towel wrapped around his waist that brought this image to mind for me. What is the appropriate tip for that sort of service?

The whole world of gratuities for service is one where I feel very uncomfortable. What is expected? What is appropriate? Do I really have a choice? Waitstaff at a restaurant I can manage relatively well. Although I still struggle with how much consideration to give to the actual quality of the service. And with beauticians does it really matter whether they just rent the booth or own the salon? I read that somewhere. And then there are bellhops and the valet parking guys and the newspaper deliver folks and the washroom attendant and the concierge and, presumably, a variety of service personnel at resorts and spas, if one patronizes resorts and spas. Not to mention personal servants or assistants, another setting that is foreign to me.

What to tip? How to compensate? Or how, even, to relate and interact with other people whose role towards us is one of a servant. We speak this evening about servants. About being servants to one another. About Christ being a servant to us. On the surface this is a simple and laudable message. It is good to serve one another. It is not always easy, but it is good to allow ourselves to be served—by Christ and one another. End of sermon.

Except, at least for me, if I just begin to scratch beneath the surface with this idea of servanthood I get into a very messy, complicated world. The cultural and historical models that shape my awareness of servants are not positive—from slavery to other abuses of power and privilege. To illustrate the messiness, the complexity: What do you call the person who is served by a servant? That role must have a name. Servee is not a word. Master? That is a loaded term. Patron? Here in Chicago we all know that offering patronage is a federal offense. Lord? Boss? If someone serves me, what does that make me? The world of servants and masters is a world of muddled relationships and unclear obligations. A world where good intentions count for little on either side; only good results are valued. Where human interaction is characterized by a lack of mutuality and governed by often unstated, but nevertheless expected, responsibilities.

So how much should I tip Jesus for washing my feet?

Is the role or metaphor of servant really one we want to focus on? Within the world of this story or metaphor, like many people, I am very uncomfortable being placed in the role of the person who is served. If some of you (on the other hand) covet the role of having servants, well… this might be a good time to give that some prayerful consideration. But I do not like being the master. Some people would argue that accepting service from Jesus or from a fellow Christian does not make me that person’s master. That I need to get over my baggage and just accept being served… that being served is a noble reality that we can seek in the abstract… that being served doesn’t mean having a servant or being a master. That may be true in theory. But not in reality. Not in my reality. Not in the world that we live in day by day. Giving and accepting service is not some abstract action. It requires a human interaction, a relationship. And that relationship automatically carries all of the complicated personal, historical and cultural baggage that is a part of who we are as human beings.

To complicated matters even more… Although I, and probably many of you, may feel uncomfortable in the role of master and cringe at being placed in that position… saying I do not want anyone as a servant… At the same time we often treat Jesus exactly that way. expecting his assistance whenever we need help. Excluding his presence from certain aspects of our lives. (There are things you don’t talk about in front of the servants. There are times we want him to take the back stairs and keep out of sight.) Measuring our relationship with him by how well it meets our own needs. Offering pretty paltry tips when, and only when, we are satisfied with the service.

The only way forward, I think, is to completely and totally abandon the word servant and even the idea of service. Despite the fact that we’re about to sing the Servant Song, let us not think tonight about being servants or being served. Let’s think about surrender. Surrender to Christ. Surrendering everything to Christ. All that we are; all that we do; all that we have. Trusting Christ with our bunions and warts; opening our hearts, our lives, our souls to him. To Christ. To God. For a lot of us allowing our feet to be washed is a pretty powerful symbol of how difficult it may be to really surrender… to give over without reservation… every nook and cranny of our lives to Christ. Think of having your foot washed not so much as accepting service, but as surrendering, allowing personal barriers to fall. All the barriers that we erect to keep Christ out of our lives.

I am not trying to push any of you to participate in the actual foot washing. That symbolic, physical action will work for some people and not for others. But I do challenge you to consider what barriers may keep you from participating. And are those same barriers ones that keep you from surrendering to Christ? This year I’m going to do the washing. Liturgical texts recommend that the Celebrant perform the foot washing… the Celebrant as representative of Christ’s ministry offered through the church. And I will not hug you (that has been sort of an informal tradition here at least in the recent past). I may not even really look at you. It’s not because I’m not a big hugger, even though that is true. This isn’t about me and you, it’s about surrendering to Christ. It’s hard. It’s hard to trust Christ with our lives. It’s hard to place our fears, our needs, our hopes, our relationships, our lives, our deaths in his hands. Today’s Gospel reminds us that God gave all things into Jesus’ hands. Our feet belong in Jesus’ hands.  Our lives belong in Jesus' hands.

And for what it’s worth, a life surrendered to Christ is a life where the human/social construct of servant and servee really has no meaning. Surrendering to Christ really does wipe away all of the baggage and the barriers that separate us from one another. To live in Christ is to share that life with others.

On Palm Sunday, we sang this hymn: