Downton Abbey

from my message on Oct 28, from PBS series, from Eph. 6:5-9 and Mark 10:41-45

(show video clip of servants bustling through the large house, cleaning, straightening, making meals)

How many of you have seen Downton Abbey?  Not as many as the other shows on PBS.  This is the last in a series of sermons that begin with a program found on PBS and the situation found there, and then we work back to the scriptures.  Cathy and I watch this show, usually on Sunday nights at 8 p.m.  The third season starts in January, 2013.  We love the subtle glances that convey so much meaning.  We love the nuances of languages.  We are Anglophiles.  We love all things British.

If you haven't watched the show, it is all about relationships.  We have the landed gentry upstairs.  We have the servant class downstairs.  It made me think about classes, about how we put people into categories.

That led me to the Ephesians text.  Let me first say that this piece of scripture has been used in hurtful ways over the centuries, especially here in the USA, to justify the existence of slavery.  It is one of those texts that we sometimes wish wasn't in the Bible.  Stay with me a few moments as I try to explain it.  The passage is part of a household code.  This was common in Greek society.  It was to promote order.  The passage talks about the relationships between spouses, between parents and children, and between masters and slaves/servants. 

Today, we may say that we don't need such codes.  We don't practice such classism.  But consider with me, don't we still divide ourselves along economic lines?   We have the middle class, or maybe you are in the upper class, or lower class.  Recently we had the Occupy Movement with its phrase, "We are the 99%."  Maybe we still find ourselves separated by class.

Maybe it is in your family.  You are a first-born, super-responsible person.  Maybe you got the family blessing.  Maybe you are the black sheep of the family.  Don't we find separation here?

Maybe you are in the top 10% academically in school.  That still may not help you get into college.  There is a Supreme Court case right now involving the University of Texas and  a student who was not admitted.  She claims reverse discrimination.

On athletic teams we have varsity, and junior varsity.  Even there, you have the starting team, the second team.  There are depth charts.  We put people into classes.

In business too, there is recognition of different strata.  You may have a corner office and a primo parking space.  You may toil away in a basement cubicle and park blocks away.

Where are you in the pecking order? 

This leads us to the Mark passage.  The 12 disciples have been going along with Jesus.  Two of them, James and John ask Jesus a question, "We want you to do for us whatever we ask."  "What do you want?"  "We want to sit at your right hand and your left hand."  It is as if they called out, "Shotgun.  I call dibs."  Jesus says that they don't know what they are asking.  They are not able to endure the cost.  The other 10 follwoers  are mad.  It is then that Jesus teaches about true discipleship.  Jesus says that the greatest among them shall be as a servant, the first as the last.  He reorders community.  He turns everything topsy-turvy.  Servanthood is not an obligation so much as it is a sign of Christian maturity.  It is a mark of our identity as a follower of Christ.

So we relook at the Ephesian passage.  It is a bit subtle, but even here the writer is saying that  a new dynamic is at work.  Masters and slaves/servants are now part of the same community.  Master are to treat servants with dignity.  Slaves are to serve not out of duty but out of love.  They both have one Master with a capital M.  They both are servants to Him.

How will we treat one another in Christian community?  John Woolman was a Quaker who lived in the 1700's.  He thought as a Christian that the institution of slavery was wrong.  He went to his fellow Quakers who had slaves individually and shared his conviction.  For 30 years, he persevered with patience and gentleness.  He asked questions like, "What does the owning of slaves do you as a moral person?  What do this teach your children?"  His leadership resulted in the fact that almost universally Quakers gave up all slaves 100 years before the Civil War in the USA. 

He was a servant.  He studied scripture.  He knew that we do not worship scripture.  We worship the God revealed in scripture.  He took the tiny wedge that was found in the Ephesians household code and widened it.  He would use passages like Galatians 3:28, where Paul talks about how we are all one in Christ Jesus and there is no longer Jew or Greek, male or female, or slave or free, for we have all been baptized into Him.  He would look at the example of Jesus who though he was the Son of God became a servant.

In Downton Abbey, there is a  storyline where the landed gentry get to practice servanthood.  World War I results in many battlefield wounds.  The soldiers return to Brittain needing places to convalesce.  The dining room and living room and study and every available space in the huge house is opened to these wounded veterans.  The priviliged class come to tend to these patients.  They become their servants.

What we find is that we all feel the same way deep inside.  We are all vulnerable.  We all get scared, get hurt, get lonely, need others.  Servanthood is the great equalizer.

We should not be surprised at this in our community.  We have a mission statement:  Following One, Serving All.  We United Methodists have our 5 vows.  We say that we practice following Christ by our prayers, presence, gifts, SERVICE, and witness. 

There was a great book written several years ago that captures this theme:  Servant Leadership by Robert Greenleaf.  His thesis is that the more powerful we become, the richer, the higher in office, then the more call to become a servant there is.  He has a great quote for this election season (I voted early on this past Tuesday).  "People freely respond only to individuals who are chosen as leaders because they are proven and trusted as servants."

In the book, he quotes a story from Herman Hesse's book Journey to the East.  There is a caravan of men who are on a quest.  Leo the servant helps them along, doing menial labor, as well as singing songs, telling stories, and mediating conflicts.  The caravan gets along fine as long as Leo is with them.  One day he leaves.  The caravan falls apart.  The men go off their separate ways.  The narrator wanders for years before Leo finds him.  He take him under his wing.  Leo is revealed as the leader of the Order that had sponsored the quest in the first place. 

Jesus is our example.  Our leader acts like a servant.

How will you serve?  With whom will you serve? 

The good news I have to share today is that the greatest one among you is the one who acts as a servant.