Tag Archives: Servant Hearted

Chapter-a-Day

The Reckoning

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“Again, [the kingdom of heaven in the end times] will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them.”
Matthew 25:14 (NIV)

In yesterday’s post/podcast I talked about it being the beginning of my 60th lap around the sun and being mindful of wanting to finish this earthly journey well. I continued to think about that yesterday and it was still rattling around in my heart and mind as I entered the quiet to read today’s chapter.

This week I’ve been looking at these final chapters of Matthew’s version of the Jesus Story with a wide-angle lens. Each chapter connects to the events around them, and I found it profitable again this morning to be aware of the context of today’s chapter.

Jesus is on the Mount of Olives in the final week of his earthly journey. During the day He taught in the Temple to the crowds during the week of the Passover festival. The Temple leaders were humiliated by Jesus’ criticism of them and their resounding defeat in every attempt to debate and refute Jesus. Now He is having an intimate evening conversation with His closest followers.

This intimate evening conversation began in yesterday’s chapter, when the disciples asked Jesus about the end times and His return. I found it important this morning as I read to consider that the three parables Jesus tells in today’s chapter (and there’s that number three again) are all told in reference to Jesus return and to what is referred to as Judgement Day.

The first parable is about young women who are bridesmaids for a member of their household. As bridesmaids, one of their tasks is to be ready to welcome the Bridegroom when he arrives to take his bride. Because they don’t know when he will arrive they have to constantly keep watch and have oil lamps ready as his arrival could be in the middle of the night. This illustrates Jesus’ command to His disciples in yesterday’s chapter to “keep watch” for His return. It’s about living this day mindful of the end versus living daily being mindless of it.

The second parable is like it. Once again the important figure, this time it’s a boss, is away and those in the parable don’t know the day or time of his return. His servants have been entrusted with their boss’ gold. Two invested it and earned interest. The third hid it in a mattress. This parable is about diligence versus complacency, once again in light of being mindful of what will happen in the end.

The third and final parable is about Judgement Day events. It relates back to another parable Jesus told regarding weeds and crops growing together in a field. At harvest time the farmer had to harvest the crop and separate the weeds at the same time. The harvest was put into the barn and the weeds burned. It also hearkens back to Jesus telling His followers that true disciples are those who do the things He taught and put them into practice.

In this final parable, a King separates people like sheep and goats. He rewards the sheep and punishes the goats. What’s fascinating in this parable is that there are sheep who do the right thing and had no idea that they were doing it while there are goats who thought they were doing the right thing but completely missed the point. Those whose lives were marked by tangibly loving the down-and-out, the poor-and-needy versus those who went through religious motions but didn’t bear the fruit of God’s Spirit in how they treated others each day.

In each of the three parables of today’s chapter, there is a final reckoning. Those who do well in this reckoning are:

Mindful
Diligent
Loving servants of others

In the quiet this morning, I find that the lesson is pretty clear. As a disciple of Jesus, I am to be mindful of this day that lies before me in light of another Day that I know is eventually coming.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

Jesus & Customer Research

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Jesus & Customer Research (CaD Lk 17) – Wayfarer

“So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
Luke 17:10 (NIV)

In my daily vocation, I have spent my career in the research and assessment of customer service and satisfaction. It’s been a fascinating journey in many ways. In particular, I love that there are so many spiritual parallels.

For example, our research team often tests different dimensions of customer service to discover their impact on customers’ overall satisfaction. Some dimensions of service are revealed to be penalty variables while other dimensions of service are reward variables.

A penalty variable is something that won’t increase customer satisfaction if it’s demonstrated, but it will definitely diminish customer satisfaction if it’s not. For example, if a customer has a problem and calls Customer Service, the simple act of resolving the problem is typically a penalty variable. It’s very much like when our daughters were young and had household chores they were expected to do, such as cleaning their rooms. If I saw that the room was clean, I didn’t seek them out to embrace them, celebrate the completed task, and shower them with praise. Why? Because it’s a routine household task I simply expected to be accomplished. If, however, they didn’t clean their room I definitely sought them out to complain and threaten them with penalties or punishment if they didn’t meet the expectation.

A reward variable, on the other hand, is a dimension of service that increases satisfaction the more often and more consistently it is demonstrated. Soft skills such as empathy, courtesy, and friendliness are typically reward variables. Let’s go back to the example of our daughters doing their chores. As our daughter is cleaning her room and doing her chores, she steps into my home office to empty the trash. She sees my phone on the desk and stops to write “I Love Dad” on a sticky note and takes a selfie with it for me to find when I open my phone later that day. It’s unexpected. It’s considerate. It makes my day and fills my love tank and she is rewarded with my appreciation for her.

In today’s chapter, both penalty variables and reward variables are pointed out by Jesus.

The chapter begins with Jesus teaching His followers. He speaks of the attitude He expects His followers to have as they dutifully obey His teaching. Jesus uses the metaphor of a household employee who prepares his employer’s meal and waits until after the employer has eaten and things are picked up to take his own dinner break. In short, Jesus expects me to approach my acts of service as penalty variables. I don’t do them for praise or reward. I do them out of gratitude and a servant’s heart.

The chapter continues with Jesus telling ten lepers to go to show themselves to the priests. Because skin diseases were a cause for quarantine, a person healed of the disease had to show themselves to the priest to be declared “clean” so they could return to society. As the lepers are making their way to the priests, they realize that they have all been healed of their disease. Only one of the ten turned and returned to Jesus to thank Him. Jesus was impressed with the gratitude that he alone showed.

In the quiet this morning, I’m reminded of another of Jesus’ core teachings: “Whoever wants to be first must be last and the servant of all.” Along the journey, I’ve learned that this requirement is not only of my deeds but most importantly in the attitude of my heart.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

A “New” Command

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A "New" Command (CaD John 13) – Wayfarer

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34-35 (NIV)

The other day I was in a video conference with my business colleagues. We were meeting a new vendor for the first time. At the end of the meeting our vendor made a statement that struck me.

“It’s obvious you guys have a really good synergy.” he said. “I do a lot of these meetings and it’s amazing how often people don’t talk to one another or don’t seem to like each other. You clearly have a good thing going. I like it.”

It made my day.

Todays chapter marks a way-point. We are two-thirds of the way through John’s biography of Jesus, which means that over one-third of his biography focus on roughly 43 days of Jesus earthly journey. The night before His crucifixion. The day of His crucifixion. His resurrection, and His appearances over 40 days.

As today’s chapter begins, it is Thursday night. Jesus and The Twelve have a private Passover meal. Even in the telling, John carefully chooses the elements of the events that he wants to share. As I’ve noticed throughout the book thus far, the elements John chooses are connected. The thread that connects them is Jesus’ foreknowledge of what will happen, and His driving of the events. He is not a helpless victim of circumstance. Jesus is a man on a mission.

The first event described is that of Jesus washing the feet of The Twelve. In dusty, hot Judea at a time when everyone wore sandals or went barefoot, one was bound to have dirty feet. Washing the feet was an act of hospitality and it was performed by lowly servants, which is why Peter balked at having the “Master” washing their feet. Jesus then tells the boys that He had done this as an example of what He expected them to do for each other.

Jesus knows He’s leaving them. He also knows that even that week they were having incessant arguments about which of them is the greatest and who was top dog in the pecking order. He provides them a word picture to remember: “If you want to lead, you have to serve those you’re leading.”

At the end of the chapter, after Judas’ departure, Jesus tells The Twelve Eleven, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

What’s “new” about it?” Jesus has been talking about love His entire ministry. He’s talked about loving others, loving your enemies, blessing those who persecute you, loving outcasts, loving the sick and poor…love has been central to all of Jesus’ teaching. So what’s “new” about this command?

He’s talking about them directly. Peter the brash one. James and John the angry “Sons of Thunder” whose mother tried to arrange places of honor in Jesus’ administration. Simon the right-wing, militia member. Matthew, the left-wing Roman collaborator. Thomas the cynic. This rag-tag team of largely uneducated men, who have always been more-or-less at one another’s throats, who have constantly been playing “king of the mountain” with their egos, are going to be left to carry out Jesus’ mission. If it’s going to work, they must love one another and serve one another.

Along my life journey, I’ve observed that there is a spiritual contrast between good and evil. Good is willing to humbly sacrifice self for others and the good of the whole. Evil demands its way until it eats its own.

I’m reminded of a client who became a follower of Jesus during the stretch of life’s journey when our company worked for his. He later told my colleague that it was the way our team members treated each other that led him to seek out what motivated us to treat one another with such love, respect, and service towards each other. “It was obvious to everyone,” he said. “People at work would talk about it.”

I think that’s what Jesus was getting at with the “new” command He gave The Twelve Eleven. If they were to succeed at their mission, they had to stop devouring one another, and start serving one another with humility.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Spiritually Slimed Over a Cup of Dark Roast

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“But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.”
1 Corinthians 8:1b (NIV)

Many years ago I ran into a pastor in a coffee shop in Des Moines. He was a charismatic and persuasive teacher and had been on the staff of a large church in the area until he and a small faction of his followers led a coup against the senior pastor and elder board. The church broke asunder.

This young pastor led a small group to form their own church that was predicated on his own brand of arcane, intellectualism that split people into a spiritual version of Dr. Seuss’ Sneetches. If you agreed to his personal list of spiritual criteria then you were part of the small few who “get” the “truth.” In his eyes you then had an acceptable star on your heart and were among the chosen few. If you disagreed with him then you were pitied, ignorant, and his version of the spiritual star on your heart was woefully missing.

I make it my intention to love everyone and treat everyone with deference. So, when he recognized me and offered to sit down for a chat over coffee I invited him to join me. Over the next half hour I listened as my friend gave me the most subtle and insidious dressing down I’ve ever received in my life.

With a smile on his face and in the most gentle, patronizing tone my friend proceeded to inform me of all the ways I did not measure up to deserving his version of the Sneetches spiritual star. My education was woefully inadequate and poorly sourced. My belief system and theology did not include his requisite knowledge and acceptance of various teachings and “isms” that were necessary to elevate me to the minimum state of knowledge that he, and therefore God, clearly required.

I listened quietly as he waxed his own profundity over our cups of dark roast (at least the coffee was good). I said very little, as I’d quickly learned that any thing I said only earned me a new line of insult cloaked in arrogant, spiritual intellectualism. By the time we shook hands and he departed to his booth with his backpack of books, my soul felt coated in thick, sludgy, spiritual slime.

I thought about this experience as I read Paul’s words today. I have no idea where this gentleman is today. His own church seemed to fall apart over a short period of time and he seemed to fall off the map. For all of his own impressive knowledge, his brand of belief appeared to me not to be structured on foundation of love that builds others up, but rather on a foundation of knowledge that separated and diminished all but the few who followed him blindly and, therefore, he deemed acceptable.

This morning I’m  getting ready to train and coach some wonderful people on the principles of customer service, principles rooted in the teachings of Jesus (who understood and exemplified humility and servant-heartedness better than anyone). I have a lot of knowledge built on a quarter century of experience in my industry, but my knowledge is nothing if I use it simply to prove to my clients how much I know and how little they know. I will only be successful if I build on a foundation of love and use my knowledge as a tool for building them up to be better at serving others.