Wednesday, March 11, 2009

A servant God

I had an offbeat reaction to this piece. Henri Nouwen writes about how when God reached out to us, he did it not as a conquering hero but as a servant. That fact awes and amazes me. It would be so obvious, so cliché for God to play the role of the almighty, and it’s so unexpected, so clever for Him to come the way He did. But the part of Nouwen’s piece that struck me was the one line about how a mother does not need to be rewarded for paying attention to her child, she does it for the joy of it. That reminded me of a sermon Dr. Sam once gave. He had been driving around town when another motorist motioned, asking to be let into traffic. Dr. Sam complied, then waited for the obligatory wave of thanks. It never came. The motorist cut in and drove on. Dr. Sam admitted he was annoyed, then wondered: did he do this small good deed for the joy of it – out of servanthood – or for the reward of a momentary accolade? Doing good for the pat on the back can be a disappointing experience. Doing it for the sake of doing good – out of servanthood – should never disappoint us because we are emulating, in our imperfect way, our Savior.

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