The Servant of All

The Savior taught, “He that is greatest among you shall be your servant”               (Matt. 23:11).  He emphasized this when He washed the disciples feet at the Last Supper, telling them, “Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.  If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.  Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord” (John 13:13-16).  Contrary to how the world would have us view society and our relationship to others, in the gospel of Christ greatness is defined by service and humility.  And He of course was the perfect example of this.  The “condescension of God” that Nephi observed was that Christ would leave His exalted station and go “forth ministering unto the people,” serving the sick, the afflicted, the diseased, and those with unclean spirits—in short He was willing to be with the classes of people normally rejected.  Unlike the typical worldly ruler or leader who sees others as subjects meant to serve himself or herself, leadership in the kingdom of God means being the chief servant.  As Isaiah put it, “The Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him” (Isaiah 49:5).  Simply put, we were born to serve.

                I’m impressed by the example of several of the Nephite rulers who showed that they understood this principle.  Nephi, the first Nephite king who accepted the position only because his people wished it, did himself, “teach [his] people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores.”  He did not sit back and direct others to do the grunt work of society; he himself “did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords” and also labored himself to “build a temple” (2 Nephi 5:14-16).  Similarly we see that King Benjamin worked himself to serve his people. He told them, “I, myself, have labored with mine own hands that I might serve you, and that ye should not be laden with taxes” (Mosiah 2:14).  If only we could have that kind of attitude in all of our governments officials today!  Mormon described the work ethic of King Benjamin this way: “King Benjamin, by laboring with all the might of his body and the faculty of his whole soul, and also the prophets, did once more establish peace in the land” (Words of Mormon 1:18).  His son Mosiah appears to have had the same leadership-servant mentality.  We read this brief description of his own labors: “And king Mosiah did cause his people that they should till the earth. And he also, himself, did till the earth, that thereby he might not become burdensome to his people, that he might do according to that which his father had done in all things” (Mosiah 6:7).  It would have been easy for him to say, “My time is too valuable—I better leave the manual labor for others to do while I sit and judge the kingdom.”  But he didn’t; the king of the people spent time raising his own food to make sure he wasn’t a burden on the people.  That is real leadership.  We see the same kind of attitude in the righteous military leaders of the Nephites; for example, Alma led his people against the Amlicites and fought “face to face” with Amlici and was even injured from the battle (Alma 2:29).  When Teancum decided that they had the opportunity to slay Amalickiah in the middle of the night, he didn’t send someone else but risked his own life to do it.  And then he did the same thing for Ammoron and gave his life in the effort.  Teancum could have easily justified sending someone else by rationalizing that he was too valuable to lose, but he saw himself as the servant of the people.

                These examples and so many others in the scriptures encourage us to reject the pride of the world and seek to serve in the manner of the Savior.  The philosophies of men tell us to keep climbing the social ladder above those around us; the Savior tells us to forget our own position and just worry about lifting others up.  As the Lord put it in our dispensation, to be great in His eyes we must see ourselves as “the least and the servant of all” (D&C 50:26).