A Biblical Obligation

"We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up." Romans 15:1 ESV

Selfishness is the church's enemy. It is a sinful attitude that runs contrary to the very character of Jesus himself. Where would we be if Jesus had decided that bearing our sins and becoming the complete sacrifice for them didn't fit with his own desires or plans for life? Selfish interests do not fit with Jesus' plan for his church.

The emphasis I placed in the verse above illustrates a basic principle related to the operation of the body of Christ. We're citizens of the Kingdom but we're living in a lost, sinful world. God's desire, as Peter so clearly states, is that all should reach repentance (see 2 Peter 3:9). Paul encourages us to "become all things to all people in order to reach some." The example that Jesus set, not only in going to the cross as a sin sacrifice, but in the way he conducted his entire ministry, was to become the servant of all and he illustrated it beautifully by washing the feet of his disciples.

Remember the guy who took off his shoes and showed his displeasure with President Bush by hurling them at him? It wasn't just that they were handy to throw, but he was showing his contempt by removing them because they were the lowliest part of his clothing. In the middle eastern culture in which Jesus grew up, servants did the washing of the feet because it was generally a dirty, humiliating job. When Jesus did it, he was demonstrating his humility as well as the servant attitude he wanted his followers to model. It was a necessity, no one was volunteering, so Jesus set the example. The passage of scripture never says whether Jesus' feet ever got washed at that particular event, but his attitude clearly conveyed that it didn't matter. It was more important to him that everyone else was comfortable.

And so it should be in the church.

Somehow, I don't think there are a lot of Christians who have clearly understood this part of the gospel. For a number of reasons, we are pretty much bent on having things our own way, and when we don't, we fuss, and protest, and in some cases do our best to manipulate them so that we are once again comfortable. The whole church experience has become about pleasing itself and making sure we are happy and comfortable, and we could essentially care less about a lost world. Oh, we talk about our concern for the lost, but when we encounter them, and everything that comes with living a life apart from God's grace and outside the knowledge of salvation, we don't really know what to do. They aren't like us, they make us uncomfortable and we can immediately conclude that they probably aren't going to follow Jesus anyway.

The end result is that we build bigger, more comfortable sanctuaries, family life centers that are full service health clubs, and spend fortunes on salaries for professionally trained ministers to do all of our ministry for us. The church experience, far from being the Biblical community of the New Testament, has become an hour of entertainment on Sunday morning, or at your convenience. Washing feet, or a similar kind of servant attitude, is not something you are apt to find anywhere in today's church.

We've built a church that is, sadly, a place where we can be almost certain of being sheltered from the wind of the Spirit.