"If you want to be important—wonderful.
If you want to be recognized—wonderful.
If you want to be great—wonderful.
but recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant....
Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
What a powerful statement! We teach this principle of serving constantly in the church but I don't think I've heard it coupled with greatness the way Dr. King has stated it. And yet it makes complete sense...it's exactly what Jesus plainly stated.
I've always heard the verses quoted over and over from the Gospels where Jesus makes this statement, "The greatest among you must be your servant." (Matt. 23:11, Luke 22:26)...but, at least in my adult years, I've always seen it in relation to "Servant Leadership."
Note the word "leadership" included.
Over the last few years, when thinking of servanthood as Servant Leadership...there was always in my mind this implied part to serving...that there already is some greatness in the serving....that leadership goes hand in hand (and lets be honest, leadership has it's recognition).
There's been a huge push for "Servant Leadership" over the last few years (and gladly so), but I think it's come to a point now where servanthood and servant leadership are blurred together. But they shouldn't be!
Servant Leadership is simply a leadership style. A good one. But it's about the leadership. Servanthood, however, which is soley what Jesus was talking about, is simply about the heart and the way of life. Regardless of position.
A leader can, and should, choose to lead by showing servanthood in his status. A servant, however, is anyone who self-sacrificingly takes note of and meets needs around him without self regard. Servanthood is completely seperate from the duty of servant leadership. It's bigger and broader in its spectrum. It requires a heart and a lifestyle. Not simply a leadership style.
Dr. King's statement so powerfully puts the servant status back in its rightful place, how I think Jesus rather intended it to mean:
The servant is great.
Servant in its true, no strings attached, meaning.
(i.e. a servant truly defined:
"in a subordinate position;"
"one who expresses submission, recognizance, or debt to another;"
"a valet, butler or maid;"
"one working in service to another.")
That means the guy serving with no recognition, no place of prominance in any shape or form, the guy that no one sees or ever notices and never gets awards or acknowledgement in any way...HE is the one who is great!
Not the leader who serves as his leadership style. But the plain and simple servant. "Anyone can be great, because anyone can serve."
It's beautiful!! It's right. It's what Jesus truly meant. I think the people in Heaven sitting in prominent places aren't going to be the great leaders, the powerful names, the ones we see on T.V. and hear their names everywhere...rather, it's going to be the quiet church mouse who smiled and loved and cared for her neighbor without ever telling a soul of her "good." It's going to be the guy who picked up the trash when no one noticed and faithfully served when no one was looking. Not because it was somewhere in the fine print of his job description or because it was his church or organization to clean but because He just had it in his heart to serve another. HE is the one who is the greatest in Heaven!!
I think it would do us good as church leaders to recognize this. To realize it's not necessarily us, as leaders, who are great because we're in the service business. But our church members who serve and have no prominent titles but are just serving selflessly without any recognition. A leader should lead through servant leadership, but in the areas of his life where his title isn't "leader," he should be serving there too. This is what will mark a leader as a true servant, not just a servant leader.
We need to change our view of greatness to line up with Jesus' perspective:
The servant will be greatest. Not the servant leader.
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