Devotions - Wednesday, April 16

This morning's reading is from Matthew 20:17-28. Here, the sons of Zebedee ask that they might have the choice seats, at Jesus' right and left. Jesus' response is the well known, "whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave."

This is not the response anticipated by those who ask for positions of privilege. They might have known they were risking rejection, but how could they have anticipated that Jesus would turn the whole concept of power positions on its head.

There is a song, popular among those planning worship for campus ministry events. The course goes as follows:

Will you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you?
Pray that I might have the grace to let you be my servant, too.

What I like about this song is its two edges. On the one hand, there is the prayer that I might have the strength to follow Christ and be servant. That is a role we seldom seek. Even knowing what we know about Christ's instructions, we still have a tendency to want to be in positions of honor. How powerful it is when we experience God's grace and are truly able to follow, to be servant to another.

Once in that position, we may become tempted to take pride in it. We may become preoccupied with being servant and fail to remember that everyone who follows Christ is called to that role. We may find it difficult to allow another to be our servant, too. We may be unwilling to accept the service offered us.

We are held in tension between our call to serve others and our willingness to accept the Christian service of others. Held in this tension, we are lifted up. Held in this tension, we are most likely to live the life of discipleship.

Pastor Chris