Alright, we have been going through the Gospel according to John, and we got a handful of
weeks here left throughout the summer.
I've really enjoyed this.
I've enjoyed getting to the couple of Sundays that I've been gone.
I've enjoyed being able to watch online and join in and see what other people have had
to say.
And I just thought that today we would just jump right into our passage.
It's going to be John 13, starting in verse 1.
If you don't have a Bible, there's Bibles on the table.
John 13, it goes Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans.
If you see any of those, you know you're in the right neighborhood.
Or you can download a Bible from any of the digital app stores.
If you don't have a Bible of your own, feel free to take one of those home as well.
And then we have a tradition of giving the Scriptures our full attention during the sermon.
And so if you would like to, you can join me in standing, or if you'd like to remain
sitting, let's just give the Scriptures our full attention.
John 13, starting with verse 1, it says this.
Now, before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart
from this world and go to the Father.
Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
The devil had already decided that Judas, son of Simon, Ascariot, would betray Jesus.
And during supper, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands
and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from supper, took off his outer
robe and tied a towel around himself.
Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them
with the towel that was tied around them.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Lord, you are going to wash my feet?
Jesus answered, you do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.
Peter said to him, you will never wash my feet.
Jesus answered, unless I wash you, you have no share with me.
Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
Jesus said to him, one who is bathed does not need to wash except for the feet, but
is entirely clean.
And you are clean, though not all of you.
Verse 11, for he knew who was to betray him.
For this reason he said, not all of you are clean.
Verse 12, after he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had reclined again,
he said to them, do you know what I have done to you?
You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am.
So if I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's
feet.
For I have set you an example that you also should do as I have done.
Let's pray.
God of every tribe, every tongue, every color, every nation, we thank you that you have brought
us all together in this room.
We thank you that we have the scriptures that they have persisted throughout the millennia,
and I pray that whatever you have for us to learn today, that it would stick, that it
would become a part of the framework of our faith, that our faith would grow and become
stronger as we become more like your son Jesus.
Amen.
You all can have a seat.
Thanks.
So today I want to talk about three things.
When we find it difficult to serve, when we find it difficult being served, and when we
feel unsure what serving means.
In the summer of 1996, 97, 98, and 99, I worked at a Christian camp in Allegan, Michigan called
Camp Beach Point.
I had no idea why.
I'm not sure that there are actually that many beach trees there, but for whatever reason,
it's called Camp Beach Point.
And this summer, 25 years later, my oldest, Brennan and Eric Rowell's son, Jude, they are
both serving at that camp.
They are the, well yeah, Brennan is the child of an alum, and so I get automatic brownie
points in heaven.
That's great.
But I decided, oh, let me go up and see what it's like now.
Because it's been 25 years since I worked there.
I wanted to see them in action, see what they were doing.
And so I decided I would go up and do a bit of volunteering and see how I could help.
Because when I worked there, many, many, many years ago, back at the turn of the last century,
my dad also came up and he served.
And so I thought, okay, this is kind of a cool little tradition that we can keep going.
So working at camp has its way of shaping you.
Raise your hand if you've ever worked at a camp.
I know I got some guys over here.
Working at a camp has its way of shaping you.
Sometimes revealing your character, sometimes working at a camp can also be humbling.
A few weeks ago, the staff of Camp Beach Point, they emailed me and said, hey, what are you
good at?
You're coming, you're going to be doing some volunteering.
What are you good at?
And so I said, well, I can speak, I can preach, I can mentor young staff.
I've been leading worship for nearly 30 years.
And so when I got there, they said, here's a weed whacker.
I was happy to help, right?
Because there's always been a saying at camp.
The camp is for the campers.
That might not be unique to just Camp Beach Point.
The camp is for the campers.
And if you're a cabin leader, you have to learn to put the campers first really fast.
Because this camp in particular has archery, swimming, it's on a lake, it's bike riding,
low ropes courses, there's a zip line, there's fishing, there's boating, there's crafts,
there's rock walls, there's a gymnasium that rivals most YMCAs, there's horseback riding.
Yep, my daughter just went, huh?
There's go-karts.
Cabin leaders like to do those things too, you know.
But camp is for who?
The campers.
Back in 96 when I worked there the first time, the place that I was really learning the camp
is for the campers, wasn't at the go-karts, wasn't at archery, it was at mealtime.
Because that happened three times a day and Greg Hampton likes to eat.
Back then we ate family style, which means that if it was lunch that day and lunch for
that day was sandwiches, you'd get one tray of sandwiches and you'd get one bowl of chips
and you'd get one plate of desserts and the cabin leader ate last.
Which meant that sometimes there wasn't very much left for the cabin leader.
Or if there was plenty of left there was probably a reason for that.
Going back even further when I was a little kid, one meal that I did not like at home,
my dad can probably attest to this, was tuna helper, any tuna helper fans?
When I was a kid I did not like tuna.
My mom had to trick me into eating tuna helper and I'm not kidding.
I would see her making tuna helper, I would see the tuna helper box and I would kind of,
as much as I was allowed to throw a fit about what we ate in my house, I would start like
hemming and hawing and she'd go, it's fine, I'm going to make it with chicken tonight
and she would get the can that said chicken of the sea and she would show her beloved
only son, look I'm making it with chicken, it's chicken of the sea.
And being the young beloved boy that I was, I believed her.
So here I am, I'm an 18 year old cabin leader at a camp up in Michigan passing around a
tray of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and tuna fish sandwiches.
And I am praying to the good Lord Jesus that there is just at least one peanut butter and
jelly sandwich left by the time that tray gets back around to me.
And that my friends is how I learn that tuna fish sandwiches are pretty good.
I didn't know.
See my mom had been training me my whole life to like tuna fish without me even knowing
it.
Now that may seem like a small thing, but it communicates something.
It communicates something really important to those kids because for some of those campers
that was the first time in a long time that they were getting three square meals a day.
Maybe it was the first time ever that someone else wasn't using, taking or eating what
they needed.
80% of campers at Camp Beach Point are there on scholarship, they don't pay a penny.
Sometimes we find it difficult to serve because we don't always understand just how something
small to us can be something big to someone else.
We don't see how clearing weeds or eating tuna fish sandwiches is going to be life changing.
But then it is.
There can be great meaning in the menial.
Serving in the way of Jesus is often just about doing something that either doesn't
make sense or something that doesn't come naturally to us.
In John 13, Jesus is doing something that doesn't make sense because washing feet was
normally something that was done by a servant or a slave.
Here Jesus says he's the leader.
Some rabbis actually taught that foot washing was so low that it was unacceptable for a
Jew to wash feet even if that Jewish person was a slave.
It was too low for them to do it.
But here's Jesus washing feet that have been walking around the dirt roads of Jerusalem
during the biggest festival of the year.
They've all been walking around in sandals.
Their feet are disgusting.
But he's on his hands and knees washing their feet.
And then there's the times when we find it difficult being served.
Just last week I had the chance, I might even call it the honor, I just loved them so much
to spend about five hours with Mark and Betsy Davidheiser.
They were the camp directors at Camp Beach Point for 32 years.
They were about a decade in when I was there, eight years in when I started and 12 years
after my last summer.
And they retired back in 2018 after 32 years at camp.
We talked about everything.
We spent five hours talking about everything.
I got to tell them about you.
I got to tell them about the church.
And I was telling them that we're going through the book of John right now and that this Sunday
was going to be John 13, the story of Jesus washing his disciples' feet.
And Betsy was kind enough to be transparent and tell me a story that happened recently.
She said that just last year she was visiting with one of her daughters and her granddaughter.
And for whatever reason, Betsy is a very strong personality.
She and I butted heads a bit back in the day, but we get along wonderfully now.
But she said that when she talks about something, when she feels confident about something or
strongly about something, she's just talking and she's just letting it out.
She's talking to her daughter about how gross foot washing is, about how she doesn't see
the point of it.
It's more like if you want to do something like foot washing now, change the oil in someone's
car.
Do something that's practical that actually means something now.
It's kind of disgusting.
I don't want people touching my feet.
And she's saying this to her daughter in the presence of her granddaughter.
And her granddaughter says to her, Grandma, I'll wash your feet.
Unprompted.
She just goes and gets a bowl, fills it with water, brings back a towel.
And here, a person that has just spent the last number of minutes complaining about foot
washing is now not able to say no.
Suddenly something that was weird and gross and unnecessary became beautiful.
She said, here I am in my 60s and I'm still learning how much pride I still hold on to.
Maybe Peter said no to Jesus because he thought it was too low for Jesus.
Or maybe Peter said no because it was too embarrassing for him.
Sometimes we struggle to serve because we're still finding our own sense of humility and
sometimes we struggle to be served because we're still holding on to our own pride.
Either way, I think that we find some kind of answer or response to this in the rest
of John 13.
Because Jesus tells them, you may not understand what this is now, but you will.
When you see it and when you understand it, I want you to follow my example.
When we find it difficult to serve, when we find it difficult to be served, when we are
unsure what serving even means, just do what Jesus has done.
For a lot of years now I've been teaching that God gives us rest, that out of God giving
us rest, that we experience life in Jesus Christ, His Son.
And then part of our work is to offer the rest in the life that we have received to
others.
It can be as simple as that when we're thinking, how is it that I serve?
What is serving anyway?
One of the things is to say, well, I've received rest and I've received life.
Let me just start by offering that rest in life to somebody else.
We see what He's done and so we follow suit.
But hear me, I might be breaking some paradigms for some people now, okay?
Really tune your ear to what I'm about to say.
Serving often has nothing to do with what you are good at.
Say it again.
Serving often has nothing to do with what you are good at and everything to do with
what you have seen God do.
It's the most obvious thing or the easiest answer to say, well, you should just do something
that you're good at.
Sometimes God needs less of us to ask, are we capable?
And more of us to say, I am willing.
I'm willing to let Jesus wash my feet.
I am willing to wash the feet of the people next to me.
I might not be good at washing feet, but I saw Jesus do it.
So I'll do what I've seen Him do.
I may not be good at serving food at a meal site, but I see Jesus doing it, so I will.
I may feel a little weird or embarrassed about going to a food pantry, but I see Jesus doing
it, so I will.
I feel a little intimidated about giving a whole week of my life to a camp, but I see
Jesus doing it, so I will.
Sometimes we find it difficult to serve.
Sometimes we find it difficult to be served.
Sometimes we're just not sure what to do.
And I could stand here and I could give you a long list of things to do.
But as I was praying about it this morning, I felt like it would probably be more meaningful
for us to spend a few moments in prayer and asking God to remind you what you've seen.
Sometimes we're tempted, I'm tempted, to give you a list of things, whether it's like,
oh, I've mentioned the pantry and the meal site twice now, right?
I can give you a list of things that are like, okay, I want this.
I need this.
This is what I see.
This is what I think more people should do.
The reality is that though I may play the role of the Holy Spirit in your life sometimes,
I'm not the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit may have something that the Holy Spirit has been trying to remind you
of for a great while.
So let's just take a few moments.
If you want, you can close your eyes.
You can stare off into the void.
But ask to see.
What have you seen God doing?
If it's something you have no interest in doing, do not reject it out of hand.
If it's something you think you have no ability to do, do not reject it out of hand.
If it's something that you didn't even realize till now that you saw God do, you don't even
know what it really is, don't reject it out of hand.
Holy Spirit, I pray that you would continue to work in us today, that you would continue
to open our eyes to see all the ways that you are working around us and that we would
feel drawn by your spirit to offer rest and life in those spaces.
That we would spend less time asking ourselves if we are capable and start moving into a
sense of willingness, saying I'll give it a try because I see Jesus doing it.
Amen.