Joshua – II

Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of Yahweh, that Yahweh spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying, Moses my servant is dead… Joshua 1:1-2a

Joshua will soon lead the people of Israel into the land of their inheritance. He will walk through a river, defeat enemies, suffer defeat, experience more victory, and bear the responsibility of leading a people who do not always care to cooperate. But first he has an apprenticeship; a forty-year apprenticeship.

In the above text Moses is the servant of God but Joshua is the servant of Moses. Yes, Joshua will be a leader, he will be the leader, but first he must learn to be a servant. Joshua must not only learn to be a servant to a people in general, he must learn to be a servant to one man in particular; there is a difference.

If I say, “I love the world” but cannot love one individual I do not know what it means to love the world. If I say, “I am a servant of God and His people” but cannot serve one individual I do not know what it means to be a servant. It is in the particular that we know the general; it is in the individual that we learn to serve and love God and humanity.

This is why the Scriptures tell us that if we see our brother hungry and needing clothing but do not respond with action but only with words that we don’t know the love of God – in spite of of our words. My actions toward the individual are the measure of the validation of my words toward God, the church, and humanity.

Joshua first had to learn to be the servant of Moses before he could become the servant of God. A nation’s leader may say, “I am here to serve my country”, but if that leader does not know what it is to serve an individual, to actually lay aside his own wants and needs and desires for another person, for a distinct individual, then has that leader been to the school of servanthood? Ego and self-will are enemies of servant-leadership, they can only be dealt with in relationship with individuals; not in a relationship with a faceless and nameless mass of people.

It is my experience that most people misread the centurion of Matthew Chapter Eight, thinking that he recognized that Jesus was a man in authority. Not so. The centurion recognized that Jesus was under authority, and being under authority himself the centurion knew that Jesus therefore had authority to heal his servant with a word.

What individuals are we serving? Or are we deluding ourselves that we are the servants of God when there is no one who we serve?