The Other Way

"If I therefore have washed your feet – the Lord and teacher – so too you should wash one another's feet. For I gave you a pattern, in order that as I did to you, you also shall do. Truly, truly I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master nor the messenger greater than the one that has sent him. 

If you know these things, how enviably blissful you'll be if you do them."
- John 13:14-17

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Everybody wants to rule the world, as Tears for Fears eloquently put it. Americans scoff at the idea of kings and queens, but we crave power nonetheless. Some of us seek it in the business world, where the corporate ladder promises a prosperous, respectable life. Some of us seek it through the electoral process, in which political candidates promise safety in return for your vote. Some of us seek it through social media, where Instagram likes become invaluable social capital. Some of us seek it in the church, where a pious man can find himself entrusted with sacred responsibility.

Flourishing within these power structures comes, however, at the expense of other humans. You long for a promotion in part because your current boss is inflicting misery upon his subordinates. You campaign for your candidate partly out of fear for what the other party will do if it wins. You long to influence people on social media because scrolling through your friends' attractive beach photos make you hate your body and their engagement photos make you feel so alone. You long for respect in the church because its hierarchy has been crushing you all of your life.

This is the human cost. We live in a world of profit, and margins abound in a world of profit. Haves and have-nots. Subjects and objects. Winners and losers.

There must be another way to live in this power-crazed world.

It is worthwhile to ask if Jesus has any ideas. I think he does, and I think we should at least consider them. He offers an alternative – albeit a strange and challenging alternative.

I wrote the following paragraphs for a seminary application*, and it reflects my closely held beliefs. I found the biblical witness on this topic quite striking, and I hope I will respond in faith to its challenge.

The challenge is one word: servanthood.

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It's difficult to speak about authentic Christianity without talking about servanthood. The New and Old Testaments burst with imagery of humans who renounce worldly power and authority in favor of apparent weakness. The gospel story tells us that this presumed frailty is actually the most powerful and transformative force in the world. The prophets envisioned it, Jesus taught and embodied it, and the apostles proclaimed it. The modern church now suffers for its unwillingness to embrace servanthood. Christians have ignored the virtue, or worse, foisted the virtue on others in order to consolidate power. But there remains an invitation for God’s people to re-discover their roots. We can return to the practice of servanthood by observing and following Jesus, who offered his own life and death as the foremost example.

The scriptures continually illustrate and explain what it means to be a servant, with Isaiah presenting a foundational image. The book references a servant chosen by God as his representative. This character ushers in God’s justice (Isa. 42.1) and shines light and salvation upon the nations (Isa. 49.6) doing so with such gentleness that not even a frail reed is broken (Isa. 42.3). The servant suffers on behalf of humanity (Isa. 53.4) despite facing rejection at the same group’s hands (Isa. 53.3). These passages drink from a larger narrative that pervades all of scripture. Walter Brueggemann writes that the battered yet victorious servant fulfills a longstanding Mosaic tradition, where God upends the social order in favor of the weak and downtrodden. Powerful, oppressive empires – including Egypt, Assyria and Babylon– crumble before the servant, whose exaltation comes after faithful suffering. The servant’s path is not violent insurrection but patient humiliation:

“Israel itself is to practice vulnerability and to be attentive to others who are vulnerable, ‘bruised reeds and dim wicks.’ Israel’s way of relationship is thus dramatically contrasted with the way of Babylon (or any other worldly power), which is to break such reeds and snuff out such wicks. Israel is to pursue a different way in the world – to refuse the modes of power mostly taken for granted.” (Brueggemann 42) 

It’s no surprise that Jesus fit the mold of the servant for the early church, which was immersed in the Old Testament narrative. Matthew explicitly links the two figures in his twelfth chapter, quoting the Isaiah 42 description of a servant whose patient, calm proclamation of justice will finally lead to peace:

“He won’t argue or shout, and nobody will hear his voice in the streets. He won’t break a bent stalk, and he won’t snuff out a smoldering wick, until he makes justice win. And the Gentiles will put their hope in his name.” (Matt. 12.18-21)

A chorus of New Testament authors make their own connections between Jesus and Isaiah’s servant. Peter emphasizes the servant’s patient suffering (1 Pet. 2.24-25), Paul and John emphasize his rejection (Rom. 10.16, John 12.37-38), and Luke emphasizes his unjust death (Acts 8.32-35). Jesus also made the connection to himself, declaring that “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28).

Servanthood in the New Testament does not stop with Jesus, however. The early church declared that it would follow in the steps of its teacher. Indeed, the Bible’s most quoted illustrations invariably link the servanthood of Jesus to the servanthood of his disciples. After Jesus degrades himself by removing his clothes and washing his disciples as a slave would, he declares that he has set an example – sometimes translated as a “pattern” – for them to follow (John 13.15). He declares, “If I, the Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash the feet of one another” (John 13.14). Paul’s beautiful poem about Jesus renouncing divine privileges to take “the form of a servant” came as the apostle exhorted the Philippian church to make humility their primary posture (Phil. 2.1-11). Jesus refused to “seize” power as earthly kings do (Fee 206). He told his disciples that his decision to serve and not be served paints a sharp contrast to the world:

“You know those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” (Mark 10:42-45)

His path of servanthood culminates by dying a criminal’s death on the cross, executed by those very rulers. Richard Hays describes Calvary as the ultimate refutation of the empire’s “domination and self-assertion,” and it is also an invitation:

“Those who are called into the community of Jesus’ disciples are to be servants, and the pattern for this servanthood is definitively shown by Jesus, who came to give up his own life for the sake of others. The full impact of this pattern will become apparent only in the detailed account of his passion and death, but his teaching about discipleship has now been set forth with all possible clarity: to be Jesus’ follower is to share in his vocation of suffering servanthood, renouncing the world’s lust for power.” (Hays 82)

This is not to say that faithful servants have no power, but it is power of another kind. We renounce the world’s power in order to harness a more effective, transformative force. The servant does not work as a spiritual caddy for evil – groveling alongside it and endorsing it with passivity. Those who turn the other cheek and walk the extra mile choose to discontinue a cycle of violence and in doing so absorb the injustice. Violence most thrives when it is reciprocal, but faithful servants jam a spoke in the wheel with their unwillingness to participate in a power struggle. The tyrant and the bully don’t expect this. Our defiant decision to feed and water the enemy is how we heap “burning coals of fire upon his head” and “defeat evil with good” (Rom. 12.20-21). Gregory Boyd describes this phenomenon as “power-under”:

“While we might regard this kind of power as weak by kingdom-of-the-world criteria, in truth there is no greater power on the planet than self-sacrificial love. Coming under others has a power to do what laws and bullets and bombs can never do – namely, bring about transformation in an enemy’s heart.” (Boyd 32)

The power-under posture of servanthood flips the script. The gospel of a crucified messiah does not seek to stop or restrain its opponents; it seeks to change them. The writer of the Didache, an early church manual, sums it up best: “But love those who hate you, and you shall not have an enemy” (Did. 1.3).

A healthy understanding of servanthood will fundamentally reshape the church. We will embrace new leaders as our criteria for leadership shifts from magnetic personalities and persuasive rhetoric to “good conduct… in the meekness of wisdom” (James 3.13). Men will not lord power over their mothers and sisters in Christ but turn toward mutual submission in which “each works against the impulse to take control and impose my will on a situation” (Fitch 36). Teenagers will lay aside their reputations in school in order to associate with the outcasts and misfits (Rom. 12.16). We will refuse to engage in the American culture war that increasingly celebrates tribalism and self-protection, remembering that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over one another. I will model the way of Jesus when I handle conflict with co-workers, roommates and neighbors. Jesus offers a beautiful example and an open invitation for us to walk in his way. The church can once again participate in the peaceful but subversively powerful revolution of the servant-king.

*(originally used for a Northern Seminary application)


Boyd, Gregory A. The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church. Zondervan, 2009.

Brueggemann, Walter. Isaiah 40-66. Westminster John Knox Press, 1998. Common English Bible. Common English Bible, 2011.

Fitch, David. Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines That Shape the Church for Mission. InterVarsity Press, 2016.

 Fee, Gordon D. Paul's Letter to the Philippians. Eerdmans, 1995.

“Didache.” In The Apostolic Fathers. Glimm, Francis X., et al. Christian Heritage, 1947.

Hays, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament. HarperCollins Publ., 1996.