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Serving others may cost you autonomy, but Jesus asks it

July 20, 2008
Background Scripture: John 13:1-20
Devotional Reading: Isaiah 53:4-6

Some months ago in a drawing at the monthly meeting of the Urban Renewal Book Club in Dallas, I won a book. The title was strange – Same Kind of Different As Me* – and the artwork was just as odd. So, when I got home, I put it “aside.”

I can’t recall just why I picked it up maybe a month or so later. I read a couple of pages, and then I couldn’t put it down. I read into the wee hours of the morning  several mornings – laughing, gasping and even shedding some tears.

It is the unlikely but true story of a yuppie international art dealer, Ron Hall; Denver Moore, a black man born into virtual modern-day slavery and the toughest convict at Angola Prison; and Deborah, Ron’s wife, who miraculously brought Ron and Denver together in the Union Gospel Mission of Fort Worth, Texas.

Deborah had had a dream inspired by Ecclesiastes 9:5, a passage about how an entire city was saved by the counsel of a poor but wise man. Because of that dream, she jumped at the opportunity to serve as a volunteer worker in the city’s Union Gospel Mission.
On the very first night they were serving dinner there, a man went berserk and assaulted 20 people, threatening to kill anyone who tried to stop him. His name, they learned, was Denver Moore – and Ron was undone when Deborah told him that Denver was the man she saw in her dream.

He was even more staggered when she told him she wanted Ron to become Denver’s friend!

Transformation

Impossible as it seemed to Ron – and just about anyone else – the three of them forged a friendship that transformed their lives. The rest of Same Kind of Different As Me is about that inspiring transformation and how it touched and blessed the lives of so many others.

So, by now, you may be wondering what the story of Deborah, Ron and Denver has to do with Jesus’ last night with his disciples. And the answer is “everything,” for this is a crystal-clear key to what Jesus meant, when after washing their feet, he said: “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (13:14).

Put yourself in the disciples’ places: They have been caught up in speculation as to which of them would be of highest rank in the kingdom of God (Mt. 20:20-28; Mk. 9:33-37; 10:35-45; Lk. 9:46-48). So, they were thinking of honors, not lowly service. They had come to this supper with the highest personal expectations.
The last thing they were anticipating was Jesus’ humble act and his command for them to follow suit. Serving others always raised the risk of losing one’s own autonomy.

Start serving

In an interview with Bob Gersztyn, Ron Hall said, “I was always one that was more interested in writing checks than getting my hands dirty … than volunteering to feed a bunch of homeless people. I really didn’t have that kind of heart, but Deborah had had that kind of heart for many years. She had served homeless people and other indigent people for years in various forms.”

Ron was simply being honest about something that many of us would choose to hide. One way or another, we back off from helping others if it means getting our hands “dirty,” if it means dealing with the poor, hungry and powerless.

“You know,” said Denver Moore, “sometimes I believe that it is time for us to start serving instead of judging … Why, when, where, who? What difference does it really make? Let the Christ in you be the hope of glory.”

 “When he had washed their feet, and taken his garments and resumed his place, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you?’” (13:12). Yes, first he showed them what it meant to follow him and then he told them, “For I have given you an example, that you should also do as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him” (13:15,16).
Jesus put his rank aside and so must we, if for others we are to be “the hope of glory.”

*Random House, 2006; available in hard and soft cover.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.

7/18/2008