1989 July/August issue Part 3

But i have a graduate degree

A woman was asked to speak to the women students of a seminary about job opportunities for those with seminary degrees. She writes, "I talked to them first principally about being, doing and going as God wills (not who i am but whose am i). Then i listed both traditional and creative ways to fulfill needs in the Kingdom of God. Three feminists were offended especially that i should mention a nanny among the 70+ jobs. But Aristolte was a 'nanny' to Alexander the Great! These women had bought into the values of the world and were ready to figth for their ten years of executive computer programming. They said my talk had 'put the down more than any man's.'"

   Theology means the study of God, but if an earned degree in that field confers a position in life which makes servanthood "beneath us" (three women felt "put down"), something is badly amiss. "The servant is not greater than his master," Jesus said. "Once you have realised these things, you will find your happiness in doing them" (John 13:16, 17; JBP).

   Happiness- never mind the "status" of the job. The disciples had been occupied with petty rivalries and questions about greatness. Jesus, "with full knoweledge that the Father had put everything in His hands" (John 13:3, JBP), took into those hands the dusty, calloused feet of each of the twelve, washed them, and dried them with a towel. It was His happiness to do the will of His Father, but it was a shock to those rugged men. the washing of feet hadn't occured to them as coming under that heading, i suppose, even though they had heard the principle before. I can imagine the bewliderment of their faces. Can't you just hear Peter's tone as he says, "You, Lord, washing my feet?" (John 13:6)

   Values get skewed so easily nowadays, don't they? Time (Nov. 7, 1988) carried the testimony of one man who, according to the world's measurement of success, had hit the top. He was playwright Eugene O'Neill and if it's success that makes people happy he should have been the happiest of men. He sounds like the most miserable: "I'm fed to the teeth with the damned theatre...The game isn't worth the candle. If i got any real spiritual satisfaction out of success in the theatre it might compensate. But i don't. Success is as flat, spiritually speaking, as failure. After the unprecedented critical acclaim to Mourning becomes Electra i was in bed nearly a week, overcome by the profoundest gloom and nervous exhaustion."

   Lay O'Neills words alongside Jesus'. Once you have realized these things you will find your happiness in doing them. It's easy to be beguiled by temporal rewards, short-lived promises of fulfilment. The brighter the prosepects the world offers , the more obscure become the principles of the Kingdom in which, as Janet Erksine Stuart said, "humility and service are the only expression and measure of greatness."