Serving
It happened at the end of one of the ten day trips that Kay and I lead to the Holy Land. We’d all had a wonderful time. We don’t take a ‘Moses had a cappuccino on this spot, people, so be very, very amazed’, but nevertheless there is something special about being in the place where the big story of God unfolded. When you stop by Jesus’ adopted home town, Capernaum, or pause to pray by the twisted, gnarled trees of Gethsemane, you know that you will never read the Bible in the same way again. We ended our tour exhilarated and inspired. Visiting Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem had caused our hearts to ache and pray for peace and justice for all.
And now, we were back in the sobering arrivals area of Heathrow. Somehow Kay and I passed through Immigration ahead of the group, and so we decided to go ahead and start unloading our group’s bags onto trolleys in Baggage Claim. It was then that a stern-faced lady approached me, urgency in her voice. She was not from our group.
‘You! That’s my bag, coming around now. Get it for me.’
I realised that she had mistaken me for a porter. Despite her terseness – there was no kindness in her command – I decided to comply.
‘Put it on there’, she barked, and then, ‘Here comes another one. The red one. Get that.’
I obliged, but then found myself on the receiving end of a stinging rebuke as I loaded the heavy cases on her trolley.
‘Not like that!’, she hissed. ‘Put the bags on their sides.’ And so I did, and without a further word, she grabbed the trolley and scurried off to the Customs area, presumably bent on giving the Border officials a difficult time. I’d love to say I bowed my head and gave thanks for the wondrous blessing of being able to be of assistance. Instead, I felt indignant. How dare she treat me like that? Even if I was a porter, she had no right to treat anyone like that..
Resisting the temptation to pray for an infusion of boils to inflict every part of her, (it seemed slightly extreme), I broke into a smile. During our tour, which included a trip to the alleged sites of the Upper Room in Jerusalem (there are two places that make the claim), I had spent some time teaching about how Jesus stunned his disciples when He wrapped a towel around his waist and washed their filthy, sweaty feet.
‘You know if you’re truly a servant by the way you act when people treat you like one’ I had declared. But theory is so much easier than practice.
Perhaps your loins are currently girded with a towel, to borrow the King James language that describes what Jesus did. You’ve come up with a brilliant idea at work, and someone else has the credit. Or you’re a consummate juggler with your young family, and apart from a card on Mothers or Father’s Day, you don’t feel appreciated. You show up early for church, every week, put out the chairs, welcome people, and wash up the coffee mugs afterwards.. You brave the cold on Saturday nights to wander around town as a Street Pastor, and last week you got blasted with a torrent of expletives from a drunken chap you were trying to help.
If you’re one of that vast army of largely unnoticed servant types, thank you. May you know the smile of the God who certainly does notice.