The Ministry of the Towel

"The Ministry of the Towel"
Mark 10:35-45


A highly placed executive of a major airline company was talking about how difficult it is to recruit people and then to train them for that industry.  He said, “Service is the only thing, really, that we have to sell, but it’s the toughest to teach.  Nowadays, no one wants to be thought of as a servant.”

I think that’s an interesting observation.  I’m wondering how much it can hold true for the church as well.

In our upwardly mobile society, those climbing the proverbial ladder do not have their eyes focused on the bottom.  They have their eyes glued to the top--or at least somewhere near the top.  All of our success stories are about people who have gone from the bottom to the top.

What is interesting, the same kind of bantering about moving up the ladder went on amongst the disciples as well.  In this story in Mark we are told about two disciples who want the two places of honor when Jesus sits on his throne in the heavenly kingdom.

When the other disciples hear about it, they are indignant.  Why?  Because whenever there is discussion about who’s the greatest, who is the most favored, who is the most important, that begs the question, who is the least great, least favored and least important.  Most of us know we won’t be the greatest at whatever it is we do.  Just don’t let us be the least.

Don’t we, like the disciples who heard what Jesus said next, feel at least a twinge of deflation?  Servanthood, not lordship, is the key to greatness.  The greatest one in the midst of a people is the one who is a slave to the rest.  The most important person is the one who authentically and in symbolic ways washes others’ feet.  It isn’t when you reach the top, but the bottom, that gauges your success.

A group of Korean clergymen invited a professor from Princeton seminary to South Korea to conduct a seminar on modern biblical scholarship.  The professor began by asking a series of questions about the Bible.  Among the questions he asked was, “What is the most impressive incident in the Gospels?”

The Korean pastors huddled up and talked it over.  After a few minutes they said they had a unanimous answer.  It wasn’t the Crucifixion.  It wasn’t the Resurrection.  It wasn’t the Sermon on the Mount.  It was Jesus kneeling to wash the feet of the disciples.

It must be one of the most impression-making events in Jesus’ life for us as well.  As I mentioned last week, Jesus reverses the whole way we determine who has authority.  According to Jesus our authority is one of function--that is, service to others--rather than status.  According to Jesus our authority is one of powerlessness, not the accumulation of power.

People who are servants are free.  They are content with their hiddenness, their behind-the-scenes activity.  They find their joy in building up the people around them, rather than pumping up their individual ego.

Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross is the author of several books about death and dying.  In one of those books she wrote about a middle-aged woman who worked for many years in a Chicago hospital mopping floors.  It was said of this janitorial woman that whenever she left the room of a dying patient, that patient always, without exception, was happier and more at peace.

Dr. Kubler-Ross was determined to find out why this was happening.  She learned that this poor, uneducated, cleaning woman had faced a great deal of suffering and tragedy in her life.  The woman told of the time when she had waited in a public health clinic for her three-year-old son to be treated for pneumonia.  But, before the little boy’s turn for treatment came, he died in her arms.  “You see, doctor,” the scrub woman said, “dying patients are just like old acquaintances to me, and I’m not afraid to touch them, to talk with them, or to offer them hope.”

As a result of this conversation with Dr. Kubler-Ross, hospital administration offered the scrub woman a newly-created position of “Counselor to the Dying.”  Yet she turned it down because she said that’s what she was already doing in her own singular way, while cleaning the floors in patients rooms.

This kind of service Jesus is talking about is the best way to cultivate a humble spirit.  Humility is one of those elusive rainbows that get farther away the more we chase it.  Probably the best illustration of this is one of my favorite Peanut cartoons.

Linus and Charlie Brown are sitting on the curb, talking about what they want to be when they grow up.  Linus says, "When I get big I'm going to be a humble little country doctor.  I'll live in the city, see, and every morning I'll get up, climb into my sports car and zoom into the country!  Then I'll start healing people.  I'll heal everybody for miles around!”  And he concludes this speech with,  “I'll be a world famous humble little country doctor."

For Jesus, you can’t be world famous and humble at the same time.  The hiddenness of Jesus’ style of service creates an authentic humility because our prideful side screams against hidden service.  We want someone to notice so much of what we’re doing.  But humility lets our serving get the upper hand so that recognition isn’t important.  Our heavenly Father recognizes and that’s all that’s important.

When we are all about self-recognition and self-promotion, we end up being like the arrow described in an essay by the theologian Soren Kierkegaard.  Kierkegaard suggested we think about an arrow racing on its course.  Suddenly it halts in its flight.  It began to admire how far it had flown, or how high it soared above the ground, or how fast it was flying, or with what grace it soared through the air.  At that moment when the arrow halts to look at itself, it falls to the ground.  Self-preoccupation, rather than humility is always dangerous and ultimately self-destructive.

Jesus talked about this humble hiddenness in the Sermon on the Mount:

“Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding.
“When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure—‘playactors’ I call them—treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get. When you help someone out, don’t think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.  (Matthew 6:1-4, EHP)

This kind of hidden, humble service has a ripple effect in the church.  It’s something all people of all ages can be engaged in, and it creates a level of fellowship that is unparalleled.


In conclusion, I’d like to offer a model of a prayer that is at the heart of the ministry of the towel.  Pray this prayer at the start of each day, and see what happens:

Lord Jesus, please show me someone today whom I can serve.  Amen.