Like Jesus

 “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. - John 13:12-17

This is the passage that we looked at yesterday in church. Jesus’s approach to power is so different than our world’s. He surrenders it. He serves. And he invites us to do the same.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we don’t protest or that we don’t vote. The key is that we serve our neighbors and their needs by putting them first (and by voting with their well-being in mind). We’re in the community business because we are Christians. And it will be this attitude toward giving that will change how great we are.

Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.

-Dr. Martin Luther King, "Drum Major Instinct" sermon, given on 4 February 1968.