My dad paid for four sons to go to college by buying and selling used cars. Somehow, he imagined that his four sons would become good mechanics. He was right in exactly ¼ of the available workers. My brother Dan, a banking executive, was a fine mechanic. Some days he repaired a car while my dad was at work. During the summers and on most Saturdays, I was his “assistant.” He said, “I am dad’s assistant and you are my assistant. This makes you an assistant’s assistant.”
When Paul wrote his letter to the church he loved and longed for in Philippi, he introduced himself and Timothy as servants. The word he uses is not the more common diakonos, or deacon. Instead, he used the word, doulos, which means bondservant or slave. Paul and Timothy were slaves of Christ Jesus writing to God’s holy people in Philippi. In the next chapter, as Paul called for humility in community, he pointed to Jesus and said that Jesus who had been in very nature God took the form of a servant, a doulos, a slave (2:6-7). This means that Paul and Timothy were servants of the Servant, Jesus.
So are we. How then shall we live? First, we are not entitled. If Jesus surrendered his rights to become a human we have no claim to being powerful and important. Years ago at one of the churches I served, we gathered for a deacon’s meeting. As pastor, I was leading the pack and made a left turn into the wrong room. It was a preschool Sunday School room. We all sat down together before we realized how ludicrous we looked. Still the lesson was not lost. It is hard to be “high and mighty” in a preschool chair. We were all servants of the Servant, Jesus Christ. We still are.
