"Would you rather be a master or a servant?" If that question were asked of a hundred people in the so-called developed Western world today, the vast majority would probably say master! The world does not generally give the role of servant very good press. And yet there are countries in the world where being a servant is still considered an honorable profession, where the attitudes inherent in being a servant are greatly valued. Are these attitudes something from which the developed world can benefit? Perhaps, even more, can the Church of Christ, Scientist, benefit from them? What does the Bible tell us about being a servant?
Moses, more than anyone else in the Bible, is called the "servant of the Lord." And yet Moses, one of the most outstanding leaders ever of the Jewish people, is rarely thought of as a servant. Is there perhaps some relationship between this servantship of Moses and the great leadership he brought to Israel? Servantship and leadership seem to be opposites, and yet with Moses they were coincidental.
Let's consider for a moment Moses' face-to-face meeting with God at the burning bush, recounted in Exodus. At this point, Moses was working in the wilderness as a shepherd for his father-in-law, after having fled in fear from Egypt. God tells Moses that He is going to send him back into Egypt to lead the children of Israel out of captivity. Immediately Moses is full of a sense of his own responsibility; he says (emphasis added): "Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? ... Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?"
God gave Moses this wonderful answer: "I AM THAT I AM." Ex. 3:11, 13, 14. In light of Moses' concerns about himself, could it be that God was saying to him: "Look, I am that I am; all those I's you've just used—actually, I AM." Could it be that the origin of both Moses' servantship and his tremendous leadership lay in the understanding that came to him at that time—that God, the one divine Mind, is the only Ego, the only "I"? Could it be that Moses saw that the only way to be an effective leader is first to be a servant—a servant to God, to the one "I"?
Perhaps one of the most important qualities exhibited by a servant is obedience. Isn't that what God was asking of Moses? It is interesting that the word obedience is derived from two Latin words meaning to "hear completely." But it's difficult to hear completely when one's own opinions and views are shouting loudly! Christ Jesus, God's ultimate servant, gave the essence of true obedience when he said: "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." John 5:30.
A few years ago, I was appointed by The Christian Science Board of Directors to a position designated in the Manual of The Mother Church by Mrs. Eddy, and I moved to Boston to take up the work. After a number of months in the job and considerable prayer, I submitted a recommendation for certain actions to the Board of Directors—actions which I thought, with some passion, were vital to the progress of a particular part of our Leader's Church. After some consideration and a number of meetings to discuss the recommendation, the Board turned it down, giving no reason for its refusal.
I was devastated. How could the Board possibly say no to something that I felt was so obviously right for the progress of our Church, something that had been developed through prayer and had such a strong spiritual basis? Many supplementary plans depended on the approval of this first step, and now the whole plan was ruined. At that point, it seemed to me that the Board was incompetent and did not have an understanding of business. I drafted a letter of resignation, convinced that there was no way I could possibly continue working under such conditions.
When reading through the Church Manual one day, I was suddenly struck by Mrs. Eddy's provision in Article I, Section 6, for conducting the business of the Church. She writes, "The business of The Mother Church shall be transacted by its Christian Science Board of Directors." Right then and there I saw that I had a choice to make. Was I going to go my own way, determined that the church business for which I was currently responsible would be much better transacted by me, according to my plans? Or was I going to trust Mrs. Eddy's God-inspired governmental system for her Church? I recognized with humility that basically it had been my own human intellect and opinions that had been ruling my thought. If any adjustment was needed in the Directors' course, it was not my role to push my own will but to realize that the government of divine wisdom was in operation.
Speaking of the Rules and By-Laws of the Church Manual, Mrs. Eddy says: "They were not arbitrary opinions nor dictatorial demands, such as one person might impose on another. They were impelled by a power not one's own, were written at different dates, and as the occasion required. They sprang from necessity, the logic of events,—from the immediate demand for them as a help that must be supplied to maintain the dignity and defense of our Cause ...." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 148. I saw that these statements applied to the By-Law that calls for the business of the Church to be transacted by the Directors. If this By-Law sprang from an "immediate demand ... to maintain the dignity and defense of our Cause," who, then, was I to question my Leader? I realized that I needed to be a servant to our Leader's system of government for her Church rather than to rebel against it.
Church preeminently needs each member to turn away from opinion to the spiritual reality of Mind's government. Being a servant to Truth is at the heart of spiritual healing.
I gained such peace from this experience that when a similar situation arose some months later and I again felt like resigning, I was able immediately to make a decision to express true servantship in support of Mrs. Eddy's governmental system for her Church. In both of these situations, the Board's decisions later proved to have accomplished more good than I anticipated. In fact, my own recommendation would have badly affected other Church operations, about which I had no personal knowledge previously. I learned a lot from this experience—about humility and about serving the Church.
A sense of servantship in working for one's branch Church of Christ, Scientist, is just as important as it is in working for The Mother Church. If your branch church decides, on a "distinctly democratic" basis (see Man., Art. XXIII, Sect. 10), to do something with which you strongly disagree, the temptation may be to go off in a huff and resign your membership. But right then, doesn't your branch church really need your humble prayers rather than your resignation? Doesn't the church need your apprehension of the spiritual fact of the situation, rather than polarized human opinions? Mrs. Eddy tells us, "If you wish to know the spiritual fact, you can discover it by reversing the material fable, be the fable pro orcon,—be it in accord with your preconceptions or utterly contrary to them." Science and Health, p. 129.
So the church preeminently needs each member to turn away from opinion to the spiritual reality of Mind's government. Whatever course we may feel led to take, our Leader tells us what we all need ultimately to resign: "Spirit teaches us to resign what we are not and to understand what we are in the unity of Spirit—in that Love which is faithful, an ever-present help in trouble, which never deserts us." The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 167.
Being a servant to Truth is at the heart of spiritual healing. It is noteworthy that the original Greek meaning of one of the words translated heal in the New Testament is "to serve." Jesus, the finest demonstrator of God's healing power that the world has ever known, indicated his status of servant when he took a towel and washed his disciples feet!
What is the relationship between serving and healing? Didn't Jesus answer this question clearly when he said, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." John 5:19.
These words show the servantlike nature of our true being as the image and likeness of God. A reflection in the mirror can't go off and do something on its own—it must do what the original does. In the same way, man, as God's reflection, serves—is obedient to—the one omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniactive God, good. Understanding and affirming this fact is prayer that supports our ability to heal through divine power.
In the Bible, Moses and, above all, our Master, Christ Jesus, are just two examples of individuals whose lives gave the servant role good press! Both of them proved that being a servant to God is the surest way to dominion and healing. Today, among members of The Mother Church, perhaps one of the deepest needs is for a greater appearing of the loving, supportive qualities of servantship in the consciousness of every individual member—a willingness prayerfully to trust our Leader's system of government for her Church as outlined in the Church Manual. As our Leader herself wrote to the Board of Trustees of First Church of Christ, Scientist, New York City, during a time of great challenge for that branch in its relations to The Mother Church: "Abide in fellowship with and obedience to The Mother Church, and in this way God will bless and prosper you. This I know, for He has proved it to me for forty years in succession." Miscellany, p. 360.
If God proved to our Leader for so many years that abiding in fellowship with and obedience to The Mother Church blessed her and prospered her, should we do otherwise?
