The Intimacy Of Entrustment
“What did your last slave die of?” That’s what my older sister would say if I asked her to bring me a drink, or some other inconsequential object. We joked about it, laughed about it, spoke down about anyone who would (though we didn’t know anyone who actually did), but secretly wished our family was wealthy enough to have ‘household help’. A house-maid would have been great—someone to pick up my lego so dad wouldn’t chase me about the house after stepping on a stray piece in the dark, or put away my clothes so that mum didn’t have to ask me 16 times to do it. Even now as an adult, the idea of someone to follow us about and clean up our mess appeals to the flesh at the end of a tiring day raising 5 kids! I mean, that Downton Abbey life doesn’t seem too bad on some days (read, ‘most days!’).
The problem with ‘household help’ (at least, in the way I’ve seen it portrayed in Downton Abbey, or more significantly, the way in reality 1000’s of slaves actually live, even today), is that they are little more than useful furniture. A servant isn’t a friend. A servant isn’t someone you turn to and share the inner thoughts of your heart, or aspirations for the future, or even just a passing humorous thought. A servant exists simply to do your bidding.
But a friend? Well, that’s all together different! A friend may serve you, care for you, even do your bidding, but they hold a privileged position in your heart—they are your friend. You share something of yourself with them, some shared experience or understanding. A friend is ‘part’ of you, brought into a room in your life that few others are invited to enter. The hidden places of your life are welcome-mats for a friend, and they may enter without knocking, often even letting themselves in for a quick catchup.
A servant never holds that honour. Which is why it is absolutely mind-blowing that the ‘Word from the beginning’, the ‘King above all kings’, the ‘Beloved of the Father’, looks at we who are so pitiful and says:
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. - John 15:15
Grace upon grace! In Christ, you are a friend of God!
