The Walk of Servanthood - Part 2

“Dirty Jobs” is a TV series on the Discovery Channel in which host Mike Rowe does a real life strange, nasty, and messy job alongside regular employees.  Mike joins these employees and works alongside of them to complete whatever disgusting, degrading, or dangerous job they do.  Every job is even more difficult than expected and Mike often expresses admiration and respect for the workers' willingness to do a job that most of us would avoid.  According to Mike, one of the worst dirty jobs ever was sewer inspector where he trudged through human waste to repair sewer lines. Most of us avoid these types of jobs, but Jesus did one specific job much like this (not as a gimmick for a TV show), to show an important way in which we are to live our lives . . .

READ: John 13:1-17

Living life in the same way as Jesus did requires SERVING others in MENIAL ways!  MENIAL = A LOWLY or DEGRADING job.  Menial jobs are boring, dirty, unpleasant, unglamorous, unrecognized, unappreciated, and unrewarded.  Who wants to sign up to do that job?  Jesus did!  Jesus did the menial job of washing the disciples’ feet in order to help them understand just how much He was willing to sacrifice for them (John 13:7, 12).  If Jesus was willing to do the menial job of washing feet, we need to be willing to do jobs that we are way overqualified for as well!  Why is serving others in menial ways so important?  

Serving others in a menial way is a TOP-NOTCH expression of LOVE (Jn. 13:1) – We might be willing to love others through some pretty difficult things, but at some point, our love has its limits.  One of the true tests of the extent of our love for someone is if . . . we are willing to clean up the mess after they throw up!  Cleaning up vomit for someone else is a true expression of love.  Jesus “loved (His own) to the end”.  By washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus displayed that there was NO LIMIT to the love He had for His disciples.  Jesus was willing to do anything and everything for those He loved including dying on the cross. If we are going to truly love others, there must be no limits to the love that we exhibit toward others.  We must be willing to lay down our lives for others in the most lowly and degrading ways so that there is no doubt in their minds that we love them.

Serving others in a menial way is a TANGIBLE expression of LOWLINESS (Jn. 13:2-5) – When I graduated from Lincoln Christian Seminary in 2007 I was given a towel to remind me that my primary job in life is to lower myself and serve others.  Foot washing was a lowly job of hospitality done by servants when a visitor entered a home after walking the dusty, dirty streets.  Jesus, lowering Himself to the menial job of a servant, “poured water in to a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around Him”.  Although Jesus was above the disciples as their “Teacher” and “Lord”, He did the menial of washing feet in order to show them how lowly and humble He was willing be in order to serve others. Menial jobs show others that our lives are not meant to be used to serve ourselves but to serve others.

Serving others in a menial way is a TRUE expression of LEADERSHIP (Jn. 13:12-17) – Leadership today is thought of as being out front, taking charge, and exerting control over those under us. Jesus redefines leadership saying, “if I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have given you an example, that you also should do just I have done to you”.  Jesus wanted to multiply His method of servant leadership among the disciples, but rather than just tell them what they should do He showed them with His own life as an example.  If we want to lead others we must do it by example and be willing do whatever job we might expect or demand someone “beneath” us to do.

CONCLUSION
Jesus washing the disciples’ feet was symbolic of the cleansing that He would provide by dying on the cross.  1 John 1:7 says that, “the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin”.  Jesus did the menial job of dying on the cross so that we could be washed clean of our sin.  Jesus willingly did this painful, shameful, and unjust job so that we would never have to do it!  Have your sins been washed away by putting faith in Jesus Christ?