“He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no skandalon in him.” 1 John 2:10<
I first noticed the mother robin as I was cutting my grass yesterday. She was hopping in large circles ahead of me, heroically trying, as I assumed, to divert the mechanical monster I was riding on. Then I came on the tragedy. A nest fallen from the tree, its clay mortar shattered. And a little baby robin helpless in the grass. I stopped the mower and gingerly approached the scene.
What to do?
I knew the facts weren’t on my side. Using gloves and gently lifting the chick into what was left of the nest, I placed the two in a nearby holly bush, hoping it would provide some protection from predators. The little thing trustingly opened its beak, pleading for food.
As I resumed my task, I couldn’t help but think of other broken things in the news. Scandals, they’ve been called. But for a moment, I think I got the Father’s perspective and saw those involved as fallen, and broken, and tragic. I saw humanity like that little bird: vulnerable, hungry, helpless, and doomed. And for the first time in too long, I felt pity, compassion almost, for the government leaders trying to pick up broken, fallen, helpless things and do something about them.
For those of us who would personally have no idea how to govern a nation, the charges come easily to our lips: ineptitude, mismanagement, if not outright evil. But presently, the number one charge is the abuse of power, especially against those who are considered foes of the present administration.
It is often assumed that the opposite of servant is master, perhaps because so many stories the Lord Jesus told feature these characters. But of course that can’t be true. After all, the One who is the greatest Servant is also the greatest Master. No, the opposite of a servant is a bully. This is especially true of a steward, a servant in charge of other servants. How easily power is misused.
Here is one of the stories Jesus told:
Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has. But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the…servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.…For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more (see Lk 12:43-48, nkjv).
The heart of the problem
It’s obvious that the heart of the problem, then and now, is the problem of the heart. In a mad grasping after power and money and pleasure—indeed for everything but the Lord—two crucial facts have been lost: “my master” and “his coming.” If we act as if we are the master, when in fact we are servants who will give account to the Master, bad things begin to happen. If we forget there is a day of reckoning when the Master comes back, tragedy follows on tragedy, scandal on scandal. Is this not the problem in the West? Men have forgotton God, have forgotten there is a Master watching, and a day of reckoning. And what about the people? Are they very different from their leaders? And what of the Church? Have they forgotten, too?
Jesus’ story, however, does not begin with the bully. “Blessed is that servant,” says the Lord, “whom his master will find so doing when he comes.” So doing what? “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master” (vv. 35-36)—eagerly serving, walking in the light, with heaven in their hearts, waiting for His return.
But how do we become such servants? Jesus gets very practical:
Do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. For…your Father knows that you need these things. But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you…Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail…For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (vv. 29-34).
That’s it, isn’t it. You won’t need to fear following your heart if your heart is already in heaven. Maranatha: the Lord is on His way.