This year during this passion week season, I attended a service conducted by the Archbishop of Georgia of the Baptist Convention. They are Baptists, but because they are from Georgia, which is closer to Russia, they are heavily influenced by Eastern or Russian Orthodox form of Christianity. They even have an Archbishop! The Archbishop is my colleague and a good friend so I got an inside glimpse into the preparation of the service as well.
The preparations began about a week earlier. it was a liturgical service and so different people were reading different prayers. At rehearsals I heard Archbishop Malkhaz tell the readers, not to just read the prayers, in a sense, not to merely mouth the prayers, but embody the words and live out the words that were being read - uniting body and word, enacting the words.
On Thursday morning, when I arrived at OCMS, where the service was being held, the entire place had been rearranged beautifully. Everything used there had a meaning. There were five loaves and two fishes (really huge fishes and loaves) and grapes and pomegranates. Different kinds of Olives and figs. And lovely lamps adorning the table. We sat in a circle around four tables that were arranged as a cross. (picture attached)
Then the service began. It was completely liturgical. But the whole service was capturing a living together as a community. The Celebrants were dressed up as part of the service. They then led the service. The archbishop himself washed everyone's feet. We had the Lord's Supper or communion. Also an Agape meal, which was part of the service. The food was absolutely gorgeous and I musn't forget the wine. We learnt a couple of new liturgical songs. And overall it was a great experience - a fulfilling one, after which one is so satisfied that she wishes for nothing more for the day, but to go back home, happy, or maybe not go anywhere, as one was already at home.
When Malkhaz the Archbishop of Georgia was washing my feet, the words of Jesus came back to me more powerfully.
Two kinds of people wash other people's feet. Those who are servants and those who are masters. In our world, it is mostly the servants who do the washing. They do it because they are told to do it. They do it, because their circumstances forces them to do it. They do it because they need the money and hence the job and hence the washing of the feet of their master's guests. They do a job. They get paid for it. They are truly servants.
But when Jesus took the towel, he began with these words - You call me master and lord, and rightly so...and if I your master and lord do this...
Now, the master alone can choose to wash someone's feet, he can choose to wash, anyone'e feet. He can do it with as much flair as he wants. He is not forced to do it. He can serve with complete liberation and freedom. He has chosen to serve. He does it with care, because he has thought about it. He does it in style because he was not asked to do it, so he is able to make the experience as beautiful as he wants.
This act is very subversive of Jesus, as of most of his teaching. He turns the tables around and the meaning of servant and master on its head. Only the master can truly serve, in a sense, choose to serve, and so, by choosing to serve, all of us, irrespective of our social status, can become masters, in a true sense. It all depends how we serve, with what confidence and understanding we serve. Actually, in serving the others, we become real masters - that is the power in serving. By choosing to serve, we become masters, although, we do not lord it over those we serve, as then it would not be service. True serving is authentic and genuine serving, and this authentic and genuine serving can only be done by a master, a one who chooses to serve. This is the power of love and service.
This season, let us serve one another, not as a servant, as someone who is told to do, not for pay, not for rewards, but because we are masters and lords and like our own master, we choose to serve. And so let our serving be beautiful, let it be extravagant. Even the lowest of jobs can be done with flair, with beauty, in love. Let it be done with flair. With such flair, that we become true servants, the lowest of the lowly. When we have mastered service, we are true masters - the master who serves. It requires tremendous power to serve, to truly serve. True lordship is indeed servanthood.
Best wishes for the season
