The Season of Lent

Lent 2013

Jesus the Master-Servant: Lessons from Downton Abbey

I don’t think we who are immersed in American culture have any intrinsic idea of what we mean when we say “Jesus is Lord.” I am unconvinced that “Lord” really means anything to us, we who are fiercely democratic and proudly opposed to any real sense of monarchy (as our grade school units taught us about the American Revolution). So instead of really taking Jesus, his life and his teaching very seriously at all we have called him “Lord” and assigned him to an ineffectual place on the religious mantel where we can look at him and feel good about the honor we have assigned him and occasionally even remember to dust him off.

Brian McLaren has this to say about Jesus’ lordship in “A Generous Orthodoxy” (Zondervan): “Jesus defined his own identity not as being served, but as giving his life in service, and in this way, acknowledging Jesus as master means one voluntarily ‘takes his yoke’ and learns from Jesus how to serve God, plus one’s neighbor, plus one’s enemy, and so the whole world. Confessing Jesus as Lord means joining his revolution of love and living in this revolutionary way.”(italics are McLaren’s, p. 93) Moreover, he likens Jesus as master to a sensei in martial arts or a master plumber or carpenter. One can read all about those crafts but no amount of self-help instruction manuals can ever replace the apprenticeship in which one gives their self over to the teacher to watch and learn and live into their mentor’s expertise. If Jesus is our master it is this kind and not the kind of feudal lord or hierarchy. Again, McLaren says: “This is the kind of inwardly formed learning that Jesus, as master, teaches his apprentices; a knowledge about how to live that can’t be reduced to information, words, rule, books, or instructions, but rather that must be seen in the words-plus-example of the Master.” (p.96)

So I propose Lent to be a period of apprenticeship to the Way of Jesus as we compare and contrast to roles of masters and servant in Downton Abbey and in the Jesus presented in the gospels. The people we see in Downton Abbey live in a highly constructed world of the entitled (literally) and the lower classes who serve them.  Whereas Robert Crawley holds the title of Earl of Grantham, and enjoys the privileges attached to that position, he is oddly trapped by it too. He is responsible for his family and the entire staff of the estate but is often powerless to engage the world around him. Jesus, on the other hand, actively engages the world around him: welcoming outcasts, overturning tables, and challenging the Sabbath laws. The servants on Downton Abbey also are proscribed within their roles – they are not allowed to engage in conversation with the nobles (unless the nobles initiate it), and their lives are defined by their masters’ needs. Yet they also find meaning and satisfaction in their work. Jesus understood the dignity and world-shaping power of servanthood: he washed his disciples’ feet, he fed hungry people, and tended their wounds and diseases. Downton Abbey has captured the imagination of millions of Americans, portraying a world few of us are familiar with even as we are drawn into their struggles to cope with a time of changing values, roles, and expectations. Perhaps it can give us a glimpse of our own times and roles as well.

February 17 – Lord Grantham-Jesus as Lord        

Matthew 7:21-27

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of God in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’ “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person who built their house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish person who built their house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”

February 24 – Mr. Carson, the Butler- dignity and meaning in Jesus’ servanthood

Matthew 20:25-28

But Jesus called them over and said, “You know that those who rule the Gentiles show off their authority over them and their high-ranking officials order them around. But that’s not the way it will be with you. Whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant. Whoever wants to be first among you will be your slave— just as the Human One didn’t come to be served but rather to serve and to give his life to liberate many people.”

March 3 – Lady Mary, eldest child of Lord Grantham but a woman and unable to inherit the title- Jesus invites the participation of women as equals

Luke 10:38-42

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’

March 10 – Mrs. Hughes, a firm mother-Jesus’ care for his flock

Mark 6:30-44

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.’ But he answered them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said to him, ‘Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?’ And he said to them, ‘How many loaves have you? Go and see.’ When they had found out, they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’ Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.

March 17 – Matthew, the reluctant heir- Jesus rejects power and kingship

John 6:10-15

Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they* sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’ When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

March 24 – (Palm Sunday) Mr. Bates, the valet – Jesus’ compassion in the midst of woundedness

John 13:1-15

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’ After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.