For some of us, summer is a season when we do some traveling. We live in an age when the challenges of travel are quite different from those of earlier generations. I read something that described travel in the Western part of our country during the 18th century. Even when people were traveling by stagecoach, there were different classes based on how much one spent on a ticket. In contrast to airline travel today, the classes of tickets on the stagecoach did not have to do with the size of the seat or the kind of food that was served, but rather with what was expected of the ticket holder in case the stagecoach got into a difficult situation. There were occasional deep mud holes, steep inclines, or other difficulties to be negotiated at one time or another along the way.
There were three types of tickets sold. The first class, which, of course, was the most expensive, entitled the ticket owner to remain in the stagecoach no matter what conditions might be faced. When you got the most expensive ticket, this meant that you were exempt from having to put forth any kind of effort during the trip. A second-class ticket meant that if difficulty arose, you had to get out to lighten the coach, walking alongside it until the difficulty could be resolved. The cheapest ticket - the third-class one - called on the holder to take responsibility for difficulties. This meant they not only had to get out of the coach when there was a problem, but they also had to, alongside the driver, get down in the mud and do whatever had to be done so that the vehicle could either get unstuck or get up the hill.1 You would not be surprised to know that those who had this category of ticket held the least prestige.
We live in a society that values appearance, status, fame, wealth, power, individualism, materialism, and consumerism. But what Jesus calls upon us to value is counter-cultural when it comes to what is first class, second class, and third class in terms of behavior. The willingness to serve, doing so in a loving fashion, is the greatest of all the values in the Christian hierarchy of understanding. According to Jesus, the true first-class status is not one of exemption or privilege, where we pay the most so we’ll have to do the least. It is, rather, the eager willingness to do whatever a problem situation requires, no matter how menial or seemingly disagreeable, so that we might continue our journey together, assuming, of course, that we are moving in a direction under God’s guidance. This servant willingness represents the highest of all values. One is free to live in this way by the realization that our worth as human beings comes from an act of God and not from our own competitive achievements. Our worth is given to us as a gift, and realizing this in the depths of our being is the great freeing reality which allows us to lovingly serve. Once that gracious truth takes root in the depths of our being, then each one of us, in whatever role we play in the life of this church, can begin to act out what is truly first-class in God’s eyes.
1 From content shared by John Claypool
