WHAT IS YOUR IMAGE

SCRIPTURE TEXT JOHN 13:3-5

RESPONSIVE READING PG. 579 YEARNING FOR GOD

Aristotle said that the soul never thinks without an image, that it never comprehends anything without a picture. Jesus understood that thoroughly; He taught almost entirely in parables, in little pictures which he hung on the walls of peoples imagination, sometimes the pictures were deeds--something he did Himself to put the image in the eyes of the hearers. His whole life was a picture. He was the Word made flesh, and they said, "We beheld His glory. We saw Him!"

The cross was a picture, vividly drawn --the birth in the manger, the last supper, the open sepulcher: all these were pictures deeply etched in the memory of the people. "He took a towel---poureth water into a basin, and began to wash disciples feet..." Do you suppose they could ever forget that picture? Or the lessons drawn from it--He taught them the real meaning of power. Let's try to get it in proper focus. Remember that night was dangerous, the meal secret. "Go into the city," He had said, "and there you shall meet a man carrying a pitcher of water; follow him and he will show you a large upper room furnished and prepared." By ones and twos they gathered in from the dusty road for what was to be--though they did not know it then-- the Last Supper. Remember, too, that they had been quarreling. Luke tells us how, right up to the last, they were disputing among themselves as to who would be first and greatest in the kingdom. Perhaps that is why none of them rushed to the task of washing each others feet.

Everyone in Palistine wore sandals--a bit of leather bound on the feet with leather thongs, and the first duty of the host towards his dinner guests was to provide a servant to remove their sandals and wash their feet. The disciples, having no servants, knew that they must take turns at this menial task.---The most menial service imaginable.---But nobody moved. Nobody took up the basin---nobody took up the towel. No man among them, each wanting to be first would consent to be last, give in to the rest, and wash another's feet. Nobody!

There they sat until He who was greatest, unto whom all power was given, took the towel and became their servant.

Just try to forget that picture! Infinite power with a towel on it's arm!

What I want to emphasize above all else is the spectacle of Christ taking those powerful elements of life which we so often consider evil, tyrannical forces, and putting them to good use. I want you to see power with the towel on it's arm, transforming all the powers of life into servants of the divine purpose.

Let us consider the idea of turning tyrants into servants. Consider first the tyranny of habit, social custom and established tradition, Jesus said, "You know how it is with Gentiles, how their kings and ruling classes lord it over the little people, how they build their greatness on the backs of slaves and servants. Not so shall it be among you. With you, the great shall be the servants."--think about that--- It was a challenge to the established custom of the centuries.

How often too we write false thinking into custom, what a tyrant habit can become. When people do the same thing long enough it becomes tradition, and we pass it on from father to son as an accepted rule of life. Behind us are generations in which men held certain notions and followed certain behavior patterns, and walked so long in the same crooked paths that they inspired us to walk in those crooked paths, too, until now we have not only our own sin to conquer, but the sins of our ancestors as well. Call it heredity, call it race memory, call it original sin, call it anything you like it is there. Some one has said that every man is an omnibus in which all his ancestors are riding. This is why so many of our notions are false out dated and wrong.

But Jesus challenged custom! He never regarded any custom as sacred simply because it had been handed down from father to son, or because it had been accepted because of long use. He walked up to many a custom made sacred by tradition and challenged it. Recall to mind how many times Jesus began his talks with people by saying, "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time---but I say---" It was as though he was saying, "What if men of old walked a crooked path? It need not be so with you. Suppose man has always answered violence with violence, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth it need not be so for you. Suppose man always has measured his importance by counting his servants, and sought greatness for himself by lording it over lesser men. This is false thinking handed down, and it need not be so among you."

Jesus, you see, believed in the change brought about by conversion. He refused to believe that men had to be helpless victims of heredity, or history, or fate. He believed they could change their habits, enter into new life, be born again from above. Custom was never made to be the tyrant of man. Conversion is the process---sudden---or slow that puts a towel on the arm of habit and makes it a servant instead of a tyrant. Jesus said, "the great people are the servants."

Let us look next at the tyranny of pain. Certainly the men around the table in the Upper Room were headed for pain and trouble; as they sat there they could hear the angry men outside their window. Soon they would learn in their own school of experience what the book of Job tried to tell them--that goodness is no defense against trouble. It is simply not true that if you are good you will escape trouble, or that if you are bad you will catch it. The Bible is the story of how people faced trouble. In the old testament times when man raised his prayer to heaven and still received pain and trouble he attributed this to punishment for evil and sin that he had done.

What we have in Christianity is not a new philosophy about human suffering, nor an explanation for its mystery, but rather a way of facing it to make it productive and to turn it's tyranny into a ministry. Jesus was not spared pain---neither did he avoid it, instead He spoke through His pain to tell us that God suffered too--that he enters into our lives when it is darkest. He is telling us not merely to endure pain, but to use it, to make it an instrument of redemption.

Lastly let us go on to that which our scripture most graphically illustrates: the tyranny of power.--Our scripture says--Jesus knowing that all power was given to him--took a towel and became servant to all--- Whoever dreamed at the beginning of this century that knowledge, that which we were taught to believe was power, would become, at the half century mark, a fearful tyrant before which even it's creators cringe.

Why are we so afraid of power. The danger is not in the power we hold for power itself is neutral. The same power that would destroy us could be the means to save us. It can build a bridge or blow it up, it will fertilize the soil or destroy a city.

Power itself is not an evil thing, nor is the pursuit of it in any way incompatible with God's Divine rule. Jesus in fact encouraged the will or desire to know---with His words---in John "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

I think God has been proud each time man has discovered new power. When Galileo discovered the telescope and brought the heavens closer to man. When James Watts took hold of the power of steam and made it drive his engine, when Edison first made his lamp, the day the Wright brothers took wings and flew at Kitty Hawk---and even the day man began to tinker with the power of the atom.

The danger is not in the atom, it is in us. The peril is not in the power we hold, but in the ideas we hold about it, in what we think power is given for, in what we do with power.

Back of us is a long line of sordid history of misused power. Go back as far in history as you want and you will find the struggle between two concepts of power, between tyrants and the servant.---They faced each other in the Egyptian court when Moses the servant man stood before Pharaoh the tyrant man and cried, "Let my people go." They faced each other in the Roman court when Pilate representing the kingdoms of force and domination shouted--"why don't you answer me?" Pilate got his answers from the calm depths of Jesus when he said, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it had been given thee from above." Yes there always has been two kinds of power.---that of coercion and that of persuasion, that of the tyrant and that of the servant.

They face each other still and the clash between them is being written down as history as we make it, the Pilate men are still with us today in government--in business--in all walks of life, These tyrant men would have us dominate the rest of the world by sheer strength. Oh we have the same choice today that Pilate had. But if we take the role of the tyrant and by superior power dominate the world, we shall be hated as Pilate's imperialist's were hated. And we shall destroy ourselves by the corruption that always follows the misuse of power.

Think Then

What will be your image when you face habit--- tradition and social custom. What will be your Image when confronted with pain and suffering. What kind of an Image will you portray when faced with the use of power.

Will you be the "servant man" with the towel on your arm?

You say the risk is great? Of course it is! That is what the cross was--a great risk, with the odds terribly against it. But that is why we are here today---two thousand years later---here at the feet of Jesus not Pilate.

Jesus calls us to be servant man and he says the reward is great---"the servant shall be the greatest."

Let us pray.---
Dear Lord, Instill in each of us the desire to be the servant man. Amen

Benediction:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen

Nottingham UMC July 25, 1965
Nottingham Village, Cleveland, Ohio