Fr. M. K. Grorge S. J.
The VUCA world (Voltaile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous ) we live in craves for domination, for crude power.
The Unites States of America wants to be ‘Great Again’ ( Trump’s MAGA). China builds ports, roads and markets all around the world competing to be the first . India wants to be the ‘World Guru’. Russia wants to regain the glory of the USSR. The list is endless. And, in the process humans are used and lorded over. Slavery is a prevalent reality in the contemporary world. According to the latest Global Estimates of Modern Slavery (2022) 49.6 million people live in modern slavery and roughly a quarter of them are children.
Jesus says, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.” (John 13, 14) ‘But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant’ (Mathew 20, 26).
Christian Values are counter witnessing
Jesus lived and witnessed to a set of values absolutely counter to the prevalent ones. Instead of power, weakness; instead of domination, service; instead of hungering after money, giving away in charity and so on. The most dramatic and crucial of his overturning values is the Sermon on the Mount: He said, ‘Blessed are the poor, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, merciful, pure of heart, peacemakers and those who are persecuted because of righteousness’ (Mathew, 5.3-12).
Modes and locations of Christian Service
The question ‘who is my neighbour’ and the good Samaritan story in the Bible (Luke 10,25-37) specify which the modes and locations of service are. You are called to serve where you are placed. Hence, it could be in the family, in the workplace, on the road, in the church, in the restaurant….wherever you find a human being in need.
To serve means to be available for the neediest, sharing your time, attention and resources. We should always begin with the family. The neighbourhood, the village or town we live in, the workplace, the larger civil society , the political world and the world of poor anywhere await the call for genuine service.
In India, where hate speeches abound, especially against the minorities, the biggest service we Christians can do is to create a narrative of love and service. As Ram Puniyani said, ‘ there is a need to inculcate among the people the alternative narrative, which was the base of India’s freedom movement, the narrative which talks of the syncretic traditions of India, the narrative which led to the unity of people of all religions to participate in freedom movement, the values of which are enshrined in our Constitution’. For us Christians, a narrative of love and tolerance after the model of Jesus.
The call for servant leaders
In recent times servant leadership has received much attention. While servant leadership is a timeless concept, the phrase “servant leadership” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in ‘The Servant as Leader’, an essay that he first published in 1970. He said: “The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…”
‘They also serve who stand and wait’
In his sonnet ‘On his blindness’, Milton says, ‘they also serve who only stand and wait’. This poem was written late in his life, when he was getting blind. Milton had fears whether his talents would become useless. But in a sublime act of faith, Milton ‘submits to God’s will for him, aligning himself with the submission of the angels to the will of God’.
To everyone of us who are called to serve, here is a fitting question:
Do I submit myself to the will of God and serve in the most appropriate way?
(Fr. M. K. George S.J, a former Provincial Superior of Kerala Jesuit Province, now at the Jesuit headquarters in Rome as one of the General Assistants)