“You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am.
If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.” – John 13:13-16
It should be clear from our earlier meditations that a father is a servant.
He lays down his life for others.
Today’s passage from John’s Gospel tells us something important about what that means.
Jesus takes the place of a slave here; he stoops to the humblest kind of service.
What is noteworthy is that he is specifically serving those who are his spiritual children.
He is their father, and yet more, he is their Lord and Teacher.
He is not backward or embarrassed about this role. He doesn’t present that he really isn’t their Lord even while he washes their feet.
Rather, he shows them the heart of what it means to be in authority, to be a father to others, and how to exercise authority with God’s strength and effectiveness.
Our world has become confused about the nature of authority.
Many people equate authority with power. They believe that oppressive power is the center of every authoritative relationship, whether personal, political, or ecclesial.
Because they mistake authority for coercive power, they stand against any and all authority.
But this is a serious mistake.
The truth is that authority and coercive power are almost opposites.
Raw power emerges only when genuine authority has been lost.
Totalitarianism is the rule of brute power that has lost all authority.
When true authority is present and exercised, coercive power recedes.
The word “authority” comes from the Latin word “augere,” which means “to grow.”
The one in authority takes responsibility so that whatever is in his care grows into its proper being.
We might think of a landscape architect bringing order and beauty to a garden or the conductor of an orchestra guiding his musicians to an excellent performance or a chef who orders a feast with the perfect combination of food and drink at the right time or a good coach who cares for his players, individually and collectively, and helps them bring home a championship.
Each is exercising authority, encouraging growth by being attentive to the potentialities and the proper form of his charges.
In each case, raw power will never get the job done.
Authority is most itself when it is recognized and followed because of its evident truth and goodness, not because of the threat of coercion.
God is the ultimate authority; he cares for all things and makes everything grow into its right form.
Christ, the perfect image of the Father, spoke and acted with authority and showed us what the exercise of true authority looks like.
We are called to the same fatherly task according to our measure.
As we exercise Christ’s authority, we will be helping others and aiding their growth.
If we abandon our position of authority, nothing will grow around us.
Just as “the Son of Man … came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45), so the Christian father exercises his authority by forgetting himself and doing all he can to serve those he cares for.
Let us then throw off the burdensome weight of self, the egocentric drive for self-acknowledgment—whether in our careers, our families, our social networks, or among our friends—and step more strongly into our fatherly character as a servant.
“For whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (Mark 10:43-4).
