Title: The Scepter of Service: When Downward Mobility Becomes Your Greatest Upgrade
By Harold Mawela, Akasia, Pretoria
From my veranda here in Akasia, the winter morning light cuts across the veld like a polished spear. I sit with my coffee, watching the minibus taxis hoot and hustle on the R101, their conductors hanging out the windows with that famous South African urgency. "Kasi to town! Kasi to town!" They're fighting for passengers, fighting for fares, fighting for the front.
And isn't that the story of our lives? We are all fighting for the front.
We see it in the boardrooms of Sandton, where executives sharpen elbows for the corner office. We see it in the queues at Home Affairs, where patience is a forgotten virtue. We see it in the crumbling coalition politics of our metros—where the scramble for the speaker's chair often drowns out the cries of the shack dweller. We mistake the throne for the goal.
But Jesus—our paradoxical, upside-down King—looks at this frantic scramble and whispers a revolutionary truth: "The greatest among you shall be your servant" (Matthew 23:11).
I. The Akasia Afternoon That Redefined Greatness
Let me take you to a Tuesday I won't forget.
A young man from Soshanguve, let's call him Tebogo, arrived at my gate. He was sharp—designer sneakers, the latest smartphone, a vocabulary laced with the jargon of the "hustle culture." He came for mentorship, but really, he came for a formula. "Pastor," he said, leaning against my bakkie, "I need the strategy. The blueprint. How do I get to the top quickly? How do I make my name known?"
I didn't answer immediately. I led him inside, where my wife was on her knees. Not in prayer—though that would have been fitting—but with a bucket of soapy water and a cloth. She was scrubbing the bathroom floor. A pipe had burst the night before, and the previous day's storm had left a muddy film across the tiles.
Tebogo stopped. He looked uncomfortable. Here was the "First Lady" of the church, a woman of influence and respect, on her hands and knees, washing away the muck of Akasia.
I said, "Tebogo, you want to know greatness? There it is. On her knees."
He shifted his weight. "But Pastor, that's... that's women's work. I'm asking about destiny."
And in that moment, the Holy Spirit dropped a plumb line into his heart. I replied, "Son, the destiny you seek is hidden in the duty you despise. The sceptre you want to wield is shaped like a broom."
II. The Paradox of the Towel: A Philosophical Inversion
Let us define our terms, because confusion here is fatal.
· Greatness (World's Definition): Accumulation. Visibility. Hierarchy. The number of people serving you. It is the pyramid—wide at the bottom, narrow at the top, and you fight to be the apex predator.
· Greatness (Kingdom Definition): Diffusion. Hiddenness. Inversion. The number of people you are serving. It is the cross—vertical in its devotion to God, horizontal in its embrace of humanity.
Is it not true that we have baptized ambition and called it "destiny"? We attend prayer meetings asking God to promote us, when He is trying to deploy us. We want a platform; He offers a basin. We want a crown; He hands us a towel.
Philosophically, this is scandalous. Aristotle spoke of "magnanimity"—the greatness of soul that deserves honor. But Jesus, the Magnanimous God, emptied Himself (Philippians 2:7). He did not grasp at equality with God as something to be exploited. He knelt.
Jesus Christ, the King of Glory, traded His crown for a towel. The hands that flung stars into space washed the grime off fishermen's feet. Why? Because sovereignty is found in service. Authority, in the Kingdom, is not the right to command, but the capacity to carry.
III. The Logic of the Towel: An Unbreakable Syllogism
Let us build this case with the precision of a Carletonville engineer designing a mine shaft—because lives depend on it.
1. Premise One: God is the sovereign Creator and Sustainer of all things. He lacks nothing. His glory is not increased by our performance nor diminished by our failure (Acts 17:24-25).
2. Premise Two: Humanity, made in God's image, finds its ultimate purpose and joy not in accumulation, but in reflection—mirroring the character of our Servant-King (Genesis 1:26; Mark 10:45).
3. Premise Three: Sin has twisted this design, convincing us that joy is found in being served, not in serving; in ruling, not in washing (Romans 1:21-23).
4. Conclusion: Therefore, the most rational, spiritually aligned, and psychologically healthy path is the path of redemptive service. To serve is not to descend; it is to return—to the original design of our humanity. You are never more like God than when you are giving yourself away.
A common objection arises: "But Pastor, if I serve, won't I be exploited? In this economy, with unemployment at staggering rates, with the legacy of apartheid's cheap labour still fresh, isn't 'service' just a religious tool to keep the poor in their place?"
This objection is piercing, and we must feel its weight. Our nation's wounds are deep. For generations, black and brown bodies were forced into servitude, their labour stolen, their dignity denied. The word "service" rightly tastes like ash in the mouths of those whose ancestors were servants by force.
But here is the liberating distinction: The world forces service to steal from you; the Kingdom invites service to free you.
Forced servitude dehumanizes; it takes your labour and gives you nothing but chains. But chosen service, offered to Christ and for others, is the highest exercise of human freedom. It declares: "I am not a victim of my circumstances; I am a vessel of divine grace. I have something to give. I am needed in God's economy." It is the difference between a slave with a chain and a son with a towel.
IV. The News from Mzansi: Where the Towel Meets the Trench
Look around our beautiful, broken land. We are drowning in the politics of the platform. Every election cycle, we see the scramble for seats, the coalitions built on sand, the promises that evaporate like morning mist over the Magaliesberg. We see "tenderpreneurs" who serve themselves from the national purse while the tap in the township runs dry.
But where is the towel?
· I think of the nurses in the public hospitals of Gauteng, working double shifts with crumbling equipment, not for the praise, but because the sick keep coming. That is the towel.
· I think of the teachers in Mamelodi who bring sandwiches from their own homes for children who come to school hungry. That is the towel.
· I think of the Community Policing Forums in Akasia, volunteers patrolling the dark streets during load-shedding, not because they are paid, but because they love their neighbour. That is the towel.
Just last month, we read of the floods in KZN—whole communities wiped out. And who were the first responders? Not the politicians posing for cameras, but the neighbours with ropes and bread, pulling strangers from the mud. In the moment of crisis, the pyramid of power collapses, and the cross of service rises.
This is the African philosophy of Ubuntu—"I am because we are"—baptized into the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is the profound truth that my humanity is caught up in yours. I cannot be well if you are sick. I cannot rise if you are crushed. Service is not charity; it is completion.
V. Confronting the Counterfeit: The Heresy of Self-Serving Spirituality
We must sound the alarm against a particularly toxic false gospel spreading through our land: the prosperity doctrine that equates spirituality with material wealth and positions of influence. It tells the young pastor, "If you serve God, you will drive a Mercedes." It tells the domestic worker, "Sow a seed of R1,000 and God will make you the boss."
This is not merely a mistake; it is a blasphemous inversion of the towel.
Jesus did not grasp. He gave. He did not accumulate; He bled. If our faith does not produce servants, it produces monsters. If our prayers only ask for promotion and never for the strength to wash feet, we are praying to a mirror, not to the Cross.
True liberation is found in submitting to the order of the towel. It is the freedom to say, "I don't need the title to have significance. I don't need the corner office to have identity. I am a child of God, and I carry His basin."
VI. The Towel Test: A Call to Action
So, let me leave you with a practical, uncomfortable question. It is the question Jesus posed to Peter after the resurrection, the question that haunts all who claim to love Him: "Do you love me? Feed my sheep" (John 21:17).
Your love for Jesus is measured not by the volume of your worship songs, but by the tenderness of your service.
· Who in your life needs you to kneel?
· What "grubby" task have you been avoiding because you think it's beneath your status?
· Where is God calling you to pick up the towel instead of reaching for the sceptre?
Here in Akasia, the sun is now fully up. The taxis are still hooting. The scramble continues. But I pray for a different people. I pray for a people who understand that the way up is down. I pray for a church so marked by the towel that the world looks at us and says, "See how they love—not with words, but with knees."
Your setback—the broken pipe, the messy relationship, the chaotic community—is merely the setup for a spiritual step-up. It is the opportunity to kneel, to serve, to wash, and in doing so, to reign.
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, You wrapped Yourself in a towel to wrap us in salvation. Forgive us for scrambling for the throne while ignoring the basin. Turn our ambition into availability. Turn our striving into stooping. Let our service be our sacrifice, and our love be our legacy. In the name of the King who knelt, Amen.
https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/the-scepter-of-service/id1506692775?i=1000755905513
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