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Culture Check: Serving Others

CultureCheckfortheBlogServingOthers

It’s 1935. Germany is under the tyranny of Hitler and he is forming a powerful army trained to inflict cruelty and death. His tactics include fear, brainwashing, and domination. At the same time, Dietrich Bonhoeffer—a young German pastor—is training his own army of Christian leaders in a small, secret, underground seminary in Finkenwalde. His strategy is quite different. He serves his group of future pastors as they focus on prayer, confession, Bible Study, fellowship, and humble service. 

Bonhoeffer’s vision for the seminary was to match practice with belief, to foster a Gospel culture where Jesus, not Hitler, was Lord. He called it an “intentional Christian community committed to living the ethic of Jesus found in the Sermon on the Mount.” He was devoted to forming a new kind of disciple, one characterized by faithfulness to Jesus Christ, despite the cost. Life at Finkenwalde was intense and beautiful. 

In his biography, Charles Marsh recalls how one of Bonhoeffer’s friends, Wilhelm Niesel, thought life at Finkenwalde was too extreme. He grew suspicious of “so much spiritualism” and decided to pay his friend a visit at Finkenwalde. 

In the early morning hours, Bonhoeffer took Niesel on a rowing expedition across the Oder river to an elevated clearing. There, overlooking the fields where Hitler was training his troops, Bonhoeffer let his friend behold the intensity and devotion of the Third Reich army. He explained how Hitler “was making disciples for a kingdom of hardness and cruelty.” Then he said something his friend would never forget:  

“What we're doing at the seminary has to be stronger than what Hitler's doing in forming his army. We have to raise up a generation of Christians whose formation is stronger than that of the Third Reich. This (Finkenwalde) has to be more powerful than that.” 

Such a stand was in some ways laughable. The seminary was a feeble joke compared with the power of the Third Reich army. Bonhoeffer’s community was small and its training cut short. The Gestapo would close the seminary after just 2 years of opening. And half of Bonhoeffer’s ragtag group of students would cave and sign allegiance to Hitler. Others would be arrested for their resistance, and Bonhoeffer would be murdered.  

Yet today the Reich is a shameful memory, and Hitler has been exposed as evil incarnate. But the fruit of Finkenwalde—the community, the vision, and the work—has gone on to shape a vision of Christian discipleship that has inspired millions. It was there that Bonhoeffer wrote Life Together and The Cost of Discipleship. Which culture survived? Which culture transformed countless believers who read Bonhoeffer’s sermons and studied his writings? Hitler enslaved his disciples. Bonhoeffer served his. 

What Bonhoeffer said to his friend on the banks of the Ober river was timeless: “What we do in here must be more powerful than what they do out here.” We can’t capitulate to the powers of our secular world, and we can’t stop them. But as it turns out, we can surpass them. Serving is more powerful than enslaving. And it’s more beautiful. 

That’s exactly the model of leadership Jesus left his disciples before he was crucified. John chapter 13 is one of the most moving scenes in the New Testament. Taken together with Luke 22 and Mark 10, an intense theme appears. 

The 12 disciples are arguing over who is the greatest. Jesus has just revealed that one of them would betray him (Luke 22:21). They argue over who is low enough to commit such an act (verse 23). But their argument covered more ground than that. Jesus had been teaching them about the Kingdom of God he came to inaugurate. So they also argued over which of them was the greatest (verse 24). In all their bickering, they had neglected an important custom in the Ancient Near East—washing feet. 

That task fell to the lowest servant. It was more than a picture. Since meals were shared reclined on cushions, not seated at a table, dirty feet were an issue. The house slave would be the designated foot washer and ensure that each guest had clean feet. As John 13 opens, the final Passover meal is underway, but nobody was willing to wash feet. John gives us a glimpse into the heart of Jesus. He knew what awaited him on the Cross. He also knew his betrayer was at hand and that all his disciples would abandon him—and one in particular would deny him, three times. 

Jesus was filled with love and humility. His love drove him to share one final lesson with his followers. What he had called them to do in spreading the message of the Kingdom of God had to be more powerful than what the world was doing. Therefore, Jesus shocked his disciples—and us—with an unforgettable reminder of how God intends for His followers to advance His kingdom. He rose from the table and began washing their feet. Jesus washed the feet of a betrayer, a denier, and all the deserters. Only one person left the upper room with unwashed feet: Jesus.        

Jesus was leaving them with a message the church desperately needs today: If serving is beneath you, then leading is beyond you—and you put yourself at odds with the mission of Jesus, as well as His mission for you. In Mark 10, Jesus summarized the lesson when He said, “Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 

Imagine a whole community shaped by that truth: everyone putting the needs of others first. Nobody viewing any task as beneath them. How compelling would that culture become? Humble service is sorely lacking in the church. We’ve become a community marked by consumerism. Yet, humble joyful service moves us. In verse 17, Jesus called humble service a “blessed” way of life. Do we believe that? Jesus is showing us the costly, but rewarding path to human flourishing and usefulness.   

There is no instance in either Jewish or Greco-Roman sources of a superior washing the feet of an inferior. Not even peers washed one another’s feet except in rare cases, as a mark of great love. It was not beneath Jesus. And it’s not beneath His followers.

If we’re heartbroken at the ways the culture is winning the war of discipleship over the church, then we must adopt a competing strategy that includes humble service over consumerism, and strives to serve people rather than using them. Jesus was the ruler who served. He was the leader who gave his all—his life—for us. 

In verse 14, He concluded the lesson: “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

What we do in here has got to be more powerful than what is going on out there. And if we listen to Jesus, and follow his example, it will be.