Kingdom reality turns earthly reality inside out and backwards. “To be first, you must be last and serve everyone,” Jesus told his disciples as they argued about who was best (Mark 9:33-35).
Humility.
Humility is the key to the kingdom.
So what’s the key to humility? I can tell you, it isn’t powerlessness, as I often find myself thinking. Neither is it enslavement - doing good deeds or good work while receiving nothing of value in return. Those who follow Jesus are heirs to his kingdom. We’re world changers; the most powerful, free people on the planet. Humility doesn’t negate this truth, humility makes this truth reality.
I was working a morning shift at the coffee shack a couple weeks ago. Mornings are busy enough to require a two man team, so I worked with a co-worker named Ray. Mid-way through our shift, some friends of mine came in.
A mother (Sue) and daughter (TJ) duo, I’ve never seen my friends together sans laughter. They told me a story about a time they laid hands on Sue’s back with a group of friends. They prayer warriors gathered around Sue in the hot seat, made declarations and spoke in tongues and all was very lovely, though not particularly healing. Until TJ started laughing. Before they knew it, the laughter had spread out of control.
As the giggle fits subsided, without further ado, Sue stood, said thanks, and walked away healed.
This day at the coffee shack they were particularly bubbly. They’d been listening to a song from Dispicable Me 2 called “Happy,” they told me. As they walked in, they were still singing raucously. Ray tried without success to focus them on their drink order, shrugged and resigned them to me.
I barged into their happy parade, took their orders, and they waited in the window across from the espresso machine chatting and giggling merrily. Perhaps 20 minutes after they left, a woman in plaid came in and stood in the same window, waiting to be helped.
“How are you doing today?” Ray asked, while I busily pulled shots and steamed milk.
The woman in plaid paused, scrunched up her face in confusion for a moment, then answered, “Literally two seconds ago, until you asked me that, I was feeling really irritated like I was having a terrible day. But suddenly I feel really, really good. Thanks!”
I want to utilize this post to speak to a specific group of people: Customer Servants. Those of us in the customer service industry often feel abused, demeaned, and pretty pissed off about it. Those of us who makes tips can easily find ourselves measuring our worth by the amount of money people are willing to put in our jars. Some days, despite our best efforts, we feel utterly worthless.
I’ve written about customer service in the past. It’s a common topic for me to share on The Daily Heretic because I believe in Jesus’s commission to “go out” (Matthew 10:8). So strongly, I’ve shaped my life around it and chosen to make my everyday a mission. Most days, I find myself at work. To recap, I am a barista and my husband works at Trader Joe’s. And so, customer service.
A day of customer service can leave me feeling a sense of hopelessness unlike any other work I’ve ever done. It’s so easy to notice the flaws in the people I interact with - ingratitude, pride, narcissism, ignorance. By the end of the day, I feel completely justified being fed up and miserable. After all, I’ve spent hours laboring to cater to the whims of wealthy people who don’t deserve it. I could be in Africa, or India, or Haiti serving people starving and dying. They’d be grateful, right?
My friends Sue and TJ brought a cloud of kingdom joy into my coffee bungalow so thick it stuck around after they left. The woman in plaid stood within it totally unable to access it, until Ray unlocked the door with humility. That very simple “How are you doing today?” - a question we in customer service ask thousands of time in a week - was all it took to unlock the kingdom at hand and instantly change the course of the plaid woman’s day.
A few months ago I had a dream about a sushi feast being served to demons (if I find the dream, I'll link it here). Since that dream, I’ve started to notice that the negative feelings I occasionally have toward customers were feeding the demons they were carrying in with them. Whenever I noticed myself slipping into anger (or annoyance or impatience) I started to simply say “I don’t feed demons,” and that was enough to re-engage my spirit with the Kingdom and end the feast.
The trick isn’t ending the feast. That’s easy. The moment I engage with Jesus, the feast is over. The trick is recognizing that a feast is happening.
Following the dream, I realized my mood toward a person often shifted the moment they stepped out of their car. I’d watch them walk in, and a steady stream of reasons justifying my bitterness about serving them coursed through my mind. By the time they came in, I’d force myself to smile knowing full-well they didn’t deserve even common courtesy.
Until I recognized this, my job was very difficult to enjoy for the entirety of a day. It was thanks to the customers who took care to beam their light and love my direction that I’ve kept my job as long as I have.
After a period of weeks doing my best to diligently declare “I don’t feed demons,” the practice became second nature. Now when I notice a shift as someone steps out of their car, I begin asking Jesus what he likes about them. Sometimes, asking that question feels like pulling teeth. I seriously don’t want to hear it.
But even if I want to ignore Him, I declare “I don’t feed demons” and make myself ask them “How are you doing today?” By the time this person I deigned to smile at minutes ago leaves, we’ve had a meaningful and worthwhile interaction and I feel good. Like, joy of Jesus good. It wasn’t until I watched Ray unlock the joy of the kingdom with that same question, that I began to recognize the power I wield as a humble servant.
If you’re not relating to this, please at least don’t think I’m a rotten person you never want to get your coffee from. I should clarify, I don’t go through this with every person I serve. Gracious that would be tedious. Though I serve about 70 people per shift, it takes only few badly handled or unrecognized demonic encounters to really ruin my day. I’m describing those select few, not the vast majority.
The problem with an unrecognized demon encounter when you’re serving people, is they’re simultaneously unrecognized Jesus encounters. Jesus said “When you serve the least of these, you serve me” (Matthew 25:31-46).
