As many of you know, I work for the United States Postal Service. The very name of this large organization carries within it the mandate to serve. All of us within the Postal Service are aware of the service aspect in our mission, some much more keenly than others! At the core of our mission statements and vision statements, is the charge to "serve" the American public in the provision of the timely exchange of written communications. With all this emphasis on service, you would think Postal employees would clearly understand what true service is all about. But As I am sure you have experienced, not all Postal employees exhibit that sense of service in the conduct of their daily jobs. Some however, do so in extraordinary ways.

One rainy August afternoon, letter carrier Mike Abrams was delivering mail on his route in Seattle when the minivan ahead of him blew a tire and ran down an embankment. Mike saw the van go over and disappear into the brush below. He stopped his vehicle, set the flashers and brake (as he was instructed to do by the safety folks), and proceeded down the embankment to check on the van’s occupants. Following the tire tracks through the brush, he walked all the way to the rain swollen creak with no sign of the van. To his horror, he spotted the rear hatch and bumper just above the water slightly down stream in the current. He quickly went into the water and yanked open the hatchback. With the van filling with water, he found two car seats still buckled and hanging in the back seat. Undoing the belts, he pulled two year old Christen and four year old Steven still in their car seats out the back hatch and over to dry land. He finally went back in and got the panicked and wet, but unhurt mom out of the van from the back.

Mike is a humble guy, and to Mike’s credit, no one but the family, the police, and his supervisor knew about the life-saving rescue until the following week when the mother wrote a letter the town’s newspaper. Not one to "blow his own horn," Mike just responded by saying "Anyone would have done it if they had been in that situation."

The reality is that not anyone would have done it, and Mike was in fact the only one that stopped along that busy highway. That is why he was later named a Postal hero of the year.

What makes Mike’s service so extraordinary is that he did it with complete disregard of his own safety and comfort, laying down his own life for the lives of strangers in a sudden moment of desperate need, and without any thought of what was in it for himself.

In the foot washing event during the Last Supper, Jesus gives His Disciples, and us, a clear demonstration of how to serve in love, and at the same time, an example of how to allow others to serve us in love.

Neither of these aspects of service comes naturally to us in our fallen human condition. In fact, it is all too easy for us to remain in our chair and let someone else go get the towel and basin and begin serving others. It is so much more comfortable to let the other person do it first, that is, right up until they get to us. Then we are tempted to put on our sense of pretend humility and say right along with Peter, "Oh no, not me, you will never wash my feet!"

Why do we do that?

I think our lack of response to the call of service first and then our subsequent denial of the need to be served both come out of habit patterns and thought patterns that are ingrained into us by our modern American culture of self sufficiency. We are constantly bombarded by messages that say things like "You deserve the very best," "just have it your way," and "We do it all for you." Does this "self first" message sound familiar? We can all probably identify with a favorite song, commercial, show, or book that tells us how important we are. We prize independence and that early American pioneer spirit that encourages us to "pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps."

Just look at the vast majority of heroes in American life these days and you will find those who have risen to the top using their own ambition, drive, and sheer force of will to "make it."

But how does that picture of success measure up to the model Jesus gives to us? Luke’s account of the Last Supper tells us that the Disciples were arguing among themselves about who was the greatest. I imagine the Disciples knew that things were really starting to move toward the coming of Jesus’ kingdom, and that it was time to secure their position within it. When I think about that discussion among the Disciples, I sometimes wonder if I MIGHT have gotten caught up in the middle of it, talking about how much I had done for Jesus, and how I deserved to be first in line.

You know, I was raised out on the prairie of Oklahoma where my father was an Episcopal missionary priest to the Cheyenne Indians, and I was taught a lot of that good ole Oklahoma Pioneer mentality of self sufficiency. I had a lot of that "can do" and "make it happen" attitude. Sometimes I wonder how much of that background would have kicked right in, and where I might have landed in the pecking order with the Disciples. Are you ever tempted to fall into that kind of "comparison" game?

But then Jesus unwraps one of His trademark surprises. He quietly girds himself about with a towel, and goes to get the basin.

This is the most effective and dynamic leader the world has ever known, and he goes to get the tools of the lowliest of servants - the very bottom rung of the corporate ladder.

What is that about? Jesus could have picked a much more acceptable form of service. He could have had the Disciples all go out and build a house for the homeless or cook soup in the soup kitchen. There’s nothing wrong with those kinds of service, and you don’t actually have to touch the person being served. At least he could have picked a type of service that others would have praised Him for. "Oh look at Jesus and His Disciples how they helped those people with their taxes."

But Jesus didn’t do it our way. Instead, He immediately goes to the dirtiest task, an intimate task, a task that at once strips away every drop of pride, self-sufficiency, and worth in the eyes of the world. "So here is THE MASTER, WASHING FEET?, HOW PREPOSTEROUS!" Yet that is the example Jesus sets for us. To be the leader, you must serve with humility. This is the reality of living out the parable of the first shall be last and the last shall be first. You want to be admired in the kingdom? Then pick up a towel. Even better, do it when no one else is looking.

That lesson was certainly hard enough for the Disciples, and it is hard enough for us, but then Jesus really goes to meddling in our personal sense of self importance. He then tells us more. Not only must we lay down our self preservation and ambition in order to serve, but we must allow the love of Jesus to come to us through the service of others.

How hard is that? Can you imagine the lump in your throat after you realize that it is your master and teacher that is washing your dirty feet right after you were arguing about how great you were. Just look at Peter’s reaction. "Oh no, not me. You shall never wash my feet!" I can really identify with Peter in saying that because it can be downright embarrassing to let others see my own weakness and my own failures.

It means that if I let you wash my feet, then I am not good enough. I must have dirty feet, I have something that needs to be fixed. I am not perfect, and others might just see that I am not perfect! I am quite sure Peter felt that he could wash his own feet, and we can all too easily fall into the trap of thinking "I am quite capable of washing my own feet, thank you very much." Doesn’t that sound like self sufficiency and pride all over again? It is amazing how this crafty deception can keep us from serving and also keep us from being served.

I think the real beauty of Jesus' illustration is that it goes so far beyond the mere washing of feet or even physical service. It reveals to us the servant love of the Master.

A love that we should first receive and then give away through our own service to others. A love demonstrated and made concrete and real through service done in humility.

Jesus tells Peter and He tells us, "If you do not allow me to wash your feet, then you have no part with me." I can only guess at Peter’s thoughts here, but if they were anything like mine, they might have gone like this: Uh Oh, insert foot in mouth, take foot out of mouth, rewind tape, salvage the situation, all the others are looking. So he brilliantly says, "Then not just my feet, but my hands and my head," essentially, "do everything!" I like Peter because he is not afraid to say what everyone else is thinking. I imagine he also wishes he thought about some things a little more before he spoke. Jesus’ response here is full of patience and compassion. "Peter, You don't need a whole bath if just your feet are dirty."

In this second response, Peter tries, and I think we often try, to salvage the situation in the eyes of others, and yet Jesus does not want us to salvage the situation or dictate how others must serve us or love us, rather He wants us to accept the gift of love that true service really is. Peter does learn this lesson in time and in fact later writes in his first Epistle that "you should all clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (1 Peter 5:5.) That sounds very different from what he says during the Last Supper.

So why is it so hard for us both to serve and to be served with the right mindset? It is hard because the condition of our heart must be humble and willing to serve, because self must be laid aside for the sake of another, and because ultimately I must decrease as He must increase.

So where does that leave us?

Some of us may have been caught up a little short as our self sufficiency and maybe even our pride were exposed as roadblocks to exercising the kind of servant love Jesus is calling us to put in place.

But clearly the Lord is calling you and me to a life of servanthood:

LIKE the postman who selflessly risked his life to serve and save that woman and her two children.

LIKE the people who gave their time and talent in our Passion Drama Palm Sunday, or those who give hours and hours to build up our church family.

LIKE the folks who go about their serving so quietly that we will never know their names or applaud them for their service.

We have seen the example of our Master and Teacher; serving in humility without expectation of recompense or seeking reward. How then will you respond when He tells you, "Now that I your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet?"