It's Maundy Thursday today, the day when if at no other time, we think of the role of servants, and the imperative to serve in our faith. This is brought to mind not only because of the gospel reading for today- Jesus taking a towel and a basin of water, and washing his disciples' feet- but because twenty years ago today I set of with five others from our then church, to deliver two wagon loads of aid to a children's hospice in eastern Romania, in those desperate days after the revolution when the horror pictures were still so fresh in the memory. (The hospice had been founded by an English priest, and staffed by English nurses, so conditions there were mercifully good, but it depended on donations from the UK).
And this memory sparked others, of instances of mercy and servanthood I have known in churches I have been involved with. Nothing grand, but all worthwhile. Nothing which hit the headlines, but which made some appreciable difference to those who were served. Hosting Chinese families who were studying in the UK, so they had a week's holiday by the sea; promoting 'Operation Christmas Child'- shoeboxes of goodies for kids who would not otherwise have presents; endless coffee mornings for good causes; building an orphanage in western Kenya; sponsoring a child's education in Ethiopia; the list goes on.
The essence of being a servants is that one is not noticed. None of these instances- and they are replicated in countless numbers in churches and other centres of goodwill throughout the land- will be remembered in ten or twenty years' time, except possibly by the recipients, but that is not the point. In as much as we did it for the least of our brethren, we did it for God. Not in hope of reward, but mimicking the Servant Lord we follow on Maundy Thursday.
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