Not To Be Served But to Serve

About a month ago, I was at a clergy retreat, and usually we have some kind of theme for these retreats like leadership or spirituality or being rooted in Christ. But this year there wasn’t exactly a theme, or perhaps better, the theme was more of a question. The Bishop wanted us all to have conversations about what it means to be ordained, what it means to be a priest and what it means to be a deacon.

As part of these conversation, the chair of the Commission on Ministry asked the large group of about 40 or so clergy people, “When someone comes to you inquiring about the ordination process, what’s the first quality you look for?” Those of you who know me already know that I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut in situations like that, and even without being called on I blurted out a single word: servanthood.

Servanthood

To my shock, someone on the other side of the room scoffed. He said, “Yeah, but that’s a church word, so we shouldn’t use it. What does that word even mean?” I was as surprised in that moment as I can recall being for quite some time. The objection was basically that people throw the word servant around, but without actual content, as in, how does someone serve, the word is meaningless.

I sat there for a while after this moment and contemplated the objection. I was still certain that servanthood or servant was still the right word to use. After all, Christians are called to be imitators of Christ and Jesus said, speaking of himself, that

Mark 10:45 ESV

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Identifying this characteristic in clergy is vitally important because when you get ordained, especially as a priest, you are generally ushered into a context in which you have things like power, privilege, and prestige, and it’s imperative for the Commission on Ministry to identify that these are not the reasons that you are pursuing ordination. Most people who pursue ordination have a certain amount of ego to them, whether they’ll admit it or not.

In contrast, my friend, Chuck Jaeger, never pursued ordination (at least so far as I know), and yet he embodied the meaning of that word: servanthood.

Servanthood

Time would fail me if I stood here and tried to list all the ways in which Chuck served others. My window into this aspect of his character, but from what I’ve heard from his family and read in his obituary, it’s very clear this wasn’t only a church-thing for Chuck. Being a servant wasn’t some kind of mask that he put on when he came to church so that people would think well of him. No. Chuck just was a servant. In family. In his military service. In his civilian life. In his church, Chuck was a servant.

And unless you happened to see him serving somewhere, unless you happened to be here when he was dropping off the groceries for the next picnic, unless you happened to over hear him coming to me and asking me what was the best way to give to whatever the latest need was in the church, unless by chance you saw it happening, you’d never know because he’d never tell you. He’d never say a word about himself. He never wanted the spot light. He never wanted to be recognized. He just wanted to serve, and I admired that about him more than I probably ever told him.

When he was in pain, he still wanted to serve. When he struggled to move, he still wanted to serve. I can’t remember him asking me for anything except a card for the church’s Sam’s Club membership so he could go buy food for the church.

I only knew Chuck in the last five years of his life, and I wish I had known him longer. I wish I could have learned from him how to be that kind of person, how to love serving without any need for recognition or earthly reward. I wish I could have learned his secret to treating everyone like they were more important than he was. I wish I could have learned the mystery of serving without expecting to be served.

I’ll close with a quick story. For the past few years I’ve had to take extended trips to Wisconsin to finish a degree, and the only people in the room who will understand this are Fr. Chuck and Fr. Dan, but when you’re a rector and you go away for an extended period of time, you really only have one major prayer during the whole trip: “Please, God, don’t let anyone die while I’m gone.” Maybe it’s a bit morbid, but it’s your biggest fear when you know you won’t be able to come back. So it’s December 2020, I’m away in Wisconsin at Nashotah House, my watch vibrates, I look down to see the alert and my heart immediately sinks. It’s a news alert from a major publication, not a message, and it says, “Chuck Yeager has died.” It took me longer than I like to admit to process what I was reading. Not only was Yeager spelled differently but, as amazing as our Chuck Yeager was, if something had happened to him, it was more likely that Pat Moore our excellent Parish Administrator would be telling me rather than the Associated Press pushing it out to my Apple Watch.

If some of you don’t know what I’m referring to, on Dec. 7, 2020, Chuck Yeager, spelled Y-e-a-g-e-r, who in 1947 became the first pilot to break the sound barrier, passed away. That is the news of which my watch was trying to make me aware. His death, apparently, was was worth of an alert on my watch. After all, by some human standards, that Chuck Yeager was a great man. He accomplished something no one had ever accomplished before. When our Chuck passed, the news did make the Associated Press, Fox News, or CNN. But that doesn’t mean that our Chuck wasn’t a great man too.

Jesus said, in the same context as that last verse,

Mark 10:43–44 ESV

But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.

That’s what I’ll always remember about our Chuck. He was a great man, because he was a servant. He was the best of all of us, because he wanted to serve all of us. And I don’t know about you, but I have a lot I could have learned from him. The world needs more people like our Chuck. Unfortunately, we’re all gathered here because it has one less. But if we can all go out from this place just a little bit more convinced to love as Chuck loved and to serve as Chuck served, not only will the world be a better place, but even in his passed, he will have served us once again.

Amen.