SERVANTHOOD IN A LOW DOWN WAY
Now that Easter is over, the candy bunnies have been consumed, the bellyaches have been medicated and all Christian preachers are taking a long rest. It's time for those of us in the pew to face low Sunday.
We know there won't be many people in church next Sunday. We understand that no preacher wants to deliver a sermon to such small crowds. And we can only guess the ushers and organists across the world wish they could stay home and rest.
I remember the first low Sunday of my ordained life. I was a young preacher, anxious to spout words at a congregation. I had been on staff for six months waiting my turn to step into the pulpit.
Easter was gone. I had the next Sunday. My chance for fame. I was at the church an hour early pacing up and down the corridor to the sanctuary.
At 10 minutes to the hour of worship, the substitute organist pulled into the parking lot. I was a nervous wreck.
Finally, just seconds before the worship hour, worshipers began to drag into the church blurry-eyed, indifferent, even crabby about the obligations that brought them to church on this insignificant Sunday.
I thought about low Sundays the other day when I stopped at the Salisbury Cathedral in Great Britain. It's a magnificent building, of course, and the history of the place is astounding.
But one of the minor movements that caught my eye was a small woman, bent over one of the burial places for priests who had served the Cathedral - a line of piety going back a thousand years. She was carrying a plastic bucket with a small brush, rags and cleaning solution.
You may know that these burial places are like elevated coffins with the likeness of the deceased person gracing the top of each grave. The likenesses are quite detailed with all the creases and wrinkles that people acquire over time.
This woman was rubbing the top of each casket with a soft cloth, very lightly pressing down on the granite. I watched her for a moment. When I approached her she stood up straight and greeted me. I asked her how often she cleaned the burial places.
She said each coffin was rubbed clean of dust once a week. She came in every day and worked on five or six, continually moving around the edges of the massive cathedral. Every week or ten days she completed a round of graves.
She said, "I can't rub too hard because that could wear down the surface. And yet they have to be kept clean."
I think of the millions of people who have served religion in that humble way; doing their unpretentious jobs; listening to the aristocrats complain, the bishops fight and the wealthy brag about God's generosity.
In our day, servanthood somehow gets turned upside down. The complainers get the attention, those with a vacant piety get elevated and the people with money get the front row.
What happens to the woman who dusts the graves, who lowers herself so others may be given the lofty places? Where does the gift of salvation ultimately rest?
Our answer to that question may establish the truest picture of servanthood for our time.
Clark D. Morphew
Posted For 4-2-02