The purpose of the disciplines is to lead us outside of ourselves – to God, and to one another. Tonight we look at the disciplines of submission and service. Their signs are the cross and the towel.

Gathered at the Passover meal, the disciples had forgotten one item in their preparation – no one had hired a servant to wash the disciples’ feet. At Passover, all Jews are supposed to recline at table as the rich would normally do. In doing so, they were to remember that God had made them wealthy – they were princes in God’s heavenly kingdom. Of course, no one wanted to leave their spot as a rich person to take up the part of the servant. No one would even talk about it that night. They were probably afraid that, if it were mentioned, that they would have to do it! Just like at church! So they sat there, with mud on their feet, pretending that they didn’t know.

Then Jesus got up, got a towel and a basin of water, and redefined greatness.

Servanthood and submission are among the most difficult of the spiritual disciplines. Most of us know we will never be number one in life. But we hope we won’t be last, either. In service however, we are banished from our hopes and desires, to take care of the ordinary, mundane, and trivial needs of others. It’s not even heroic – sometimes it’s boring and even nasty work.

One of my favorite writers is Henri Nouwen. He was a Dutch Roman Catholic theologian who taught at some of the most prestigious universities in the world. He was a celebrated author as well – a trememdously gifted man. He also spent a couple of years working as an orderly in a nursing home and, at the peak of his career, left teaching to take care of an invalid young man who had the mental capacity of a baby. He wasn’t related to him – he had no special tie to him, except a sense of calling. He felt, at the pinnacle of his career, that he needed to be a servant to another. So, for a couple of years, he changed diapers, helped him go to the bathroom, fed him, clothed him, and conforted the young man – who didn’t even know who he was.

Those who are called to be pastors and leaders of the church need to be willing to clean the toilets too. Otherwise, they aren’t fit to care for God’s people. Servanthood transforms us. It makes us humble, and capable of being used by God. It helps us to realixe that it is through the small offices of life that God transforms the world.

The sister of servanthood is submission. Submission is the discipline of laying down our need to get our own way. How many marriage quarrels – or church fights – come about not because some great issue is at stake, but simply because neither party will give in? Everyone thinks they have a right to have their own way!

Frankly, most things in life are not worth a fight. We need to pick and choose our fights wisely. Submission is the freedom we are given to let go of our need to be right, our need to win, so that we can look at all sides of a problem objectively, and also realize that people, and our relationships with them, are more important than almost any decision we may reach. It is more important to serve and love our neighbor than to have our own way.

Submission operates in another area of our spiritual life as well. Paul tells us that God has so created his church that all of his gifts are scattered among the members. No one has every gift. Placing ourselves in submission to others avails us of their gifts and perspectives. It puts us in the position of disciples – of being open to being taught, of being capable of expanding our horizons.

Some formalize this discipline with a spiritual director – someone they choos to meet with them, to help them be honest with themselves, to challenge them to grow – much as groups like AA do with their members. More than that, these two disciplines are really a matter of an inner attitude, fed and nourished by the disciplines we have already discussed: bible study, meditation, prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

The greatest fear people have of these two disciplines is that of losing ourselves – that people will walk all over us, and abuse us. That is a real possibility. Yet Jesus also tells us that, "the one who seeks to keep his life will lose it, but the one who gives up his life for my sake will keep it." It is only in giving ourselves away that we find real life.

Finally, one important note about these two disciplines. In our time, there are those who try to force these disciplines on others, without living it out themselves. Particularly in the realm of husband and wife relationships. They like to quote Ephesians 5: "Wives, obey your husbands as the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is head of the church and himself its master." Unfortunately, they don’t go on to the next verse: "Husbands, love you wife, even as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for its sake." How did Jesus show his mastery over the church? By dying for it! By giving himself totally in its behalf! To force submission and servanthood on another, without taking it up ourselves, is dishonest. And, of course, they can’t be forced on anyone anyway. It is the free response of a heart that has found itself embraced by a greater love – God’s love – and, in light of that love, is free to let itself go – to deny itself and its desires, to gain union with God and with his desires.

May God grant us such hearts. May he help us to let go of ourself, put to death the Adam and Eve within, and put on the presence of Christ, the great Servant.