Sermon preached by Elder Lorie Tudor
Hanover Presbyterian Church
18th Street and Baynard Boulevard
Wilmington, Delaware
October 22, 2006
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Servant Leadership
Scripture: Mark 10: 35 - 45
(New International Version)
35Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask."
36"What do you want me to do for you?" he asked.
37They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory."
38"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?"
39"We can," they answered. Jesus said to them, "You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, 40but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared."
41When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
The Story
So here we have James & John making a power play, asking for top positions in the coming "kingdom;"
they think Jesus will return and take over the world, and they want in on the ground floor, to be his first lieutenants.
From our perspective years hence,
we know this is not how Jesus will return.
He's not going to come and take over the world,
Like a king or dictator.
We know that temporal power was not his intent
nor was it the result of his ministry.
But, you say, the disciples had lived with him.
They heard his words, saw his actions in the flesh.
They there when Jesus told the rich man he had to give his possessions to the poor.
And when he said - let the children through -
and blessed are the poor -
and love your neighbor as yourself.
But the urge for worldly power is strong,
and however well they had learned Jesus' lessons,
they've returned to thinking about getting power
buying into what Walter Wink calls the "domination system"
So we take some distance from them and their request.
Surely, we would not ask such a question.
Surely, I would not ask it.
Would I?
Of course, there are the obviously selfish motives:
- money, influence, power for its own sake
- the desire to be rich and influential,
- to have the money for a second home in the mountains, or a new car.
But while greed, power, and personal gain are obvious temptations,
its my perception that a more insidious temptation for those of us in the Hanover family is the desire for power in order to make the world right.
We want other people do the right thing, we want them to live ethical and moral lives, to do right by the rest of the world.
We wish we had been in positions of power when the decision was made to invade Iraq.
We "knew" it would end up in a morass, a quagmire that would be extraordinarily difficult to leave. We knew the damage that a war would cause.
We (at some of us!) had lived through Vietnam.
And we were not a bit surprised to hear the intelligence report that this war is creating a climate that feeds terrorism.
Oh, that WE had been in power! Oh that WE could be the ones making those decisions, for surely, we'd have made the right ones.
Perhaps some of the worst damage is done when our motives are "pure" and we are off-guard.
You've heard the quote: "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Here's another from Daniel Webster:
Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority . . men in all ages . . mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.
The desire for power because we want to make the world right is intense. Many wrongs have been committed in the name of "doing the right thing" - the Crusades, colonization, and yes, wars. On a personal level, we may have tried to force someone do something we "knew" was right, only to have it damage our relationship.
But back to our story: what does Jesus tell these disciples who want to claim their position in the coming kingdom? He says,
"You have no idea what you're asking for. Can you really stay with me all the way on this?"
And they answer:
"yes, we can."
And Jesus' response is relatively gentle:
"Yes, you will drink the cup.
And yes, the power structure will baptize you with its wrath.
It doesn't want to hear this message.
But you are not going to have that kind of power, not as the world knows it.
That is not what I came to give."
When the other disciples hear that James and John have tried to cut them out, they complain. And Jesus uses this incident as what we would call a teachable moment:
"You've seen that among the godless the rulers lord it over others.
They throw their weight around; they are tyrants.
You've seen how quickly a little power goes to people's heads."
And then He gives this memorable instruction, contradicting the disciples' power games:
"If you choose to follow my way, it is not to be like that with you.
If you want to be great, you must become a servant.
If you want to be first you have to be the slave of all."
This is one of those wonderful paradoxes of which Jesus is a master.
He sets us up so we have to THINK, to draw our own conclusions, to puzzle out his meaning in the context of our own issues, our own culture, our own history.
- To be great, we have to be a servant?
- To be first, we have to take the place of the slave?
This passage appeals to me
but because historically it was used to encourage subservience
it also troubles me.
I don't believe that Jesus' intended anyone to interpret these words to mean that they are always to be subservient.
It's just not consistent with his other teachings.
The Golden Rule doesn't say
"Let others do whatever they want to you"
Nor does it say,
"Do for others anything they ask of you."
It says:
"Do as you would have them do to you."
And
"Love your neighbor as yourself,"
Not instead of yourself.
Jesus is constantly inviting people on the margin to full participation:
The Samaritan woman at the well, the poor, the children
He doesn't tell them to stay in their place.
In this passage, it helps me to remember who Jesus' audience is.
He's talking to his inner circle, people who have been out preaching and teaching and healing in Jesus' name.
These are not the down trodden, at least not anymore; these are people with ambition and self-confidence who are already leaders.
The problem Jesus is addressing here is that they are lusting for more power, for worldly power.
So if he is not saying to be subservient,
and he's speaking to people who are already leaders,
what does this teaching mean?
Perhaps he is telling us to be leaders as much as he is saying that we must be servants.
He's not saying simply, be a servant or a slave.
He's saying, "If you want to lead, you must also serve."
We must do both.
So how, in practical terms, do we do that?
Living faithfully
How can we live so we are faithful to the command to be servants and to lead?
Immediately, I think people at Hanover.
The ones who stock the Food Pantry,
mentor children,
lug clothes up to the Clothing Closet,
copy bulletins, answer phones.
Deacons, elders, Sunday school teachers,
choir members, ushers.
People fixing sound systems and web pages, planting mums, visiting the sick, making breakfast, coming to committees, fixing broken faucets.
Sometimes seeing a need and stepping forward;
Sometimes answering a call for help,
But all serving and all leading,
even when they lead quietly.
And parents sacrificing to give their children the best chance in life. People in traditional service professions: teachers, nurses, pastors, childcare workers, and social workers.
But service and servant-hood are not confined to church or family or certain jobs.
Some years ago a man named Robert Greenleaf developed the idea of servant leadership as it is lived out in organizations, and it has become a national movement adopted by many large successful corporations.
He says servant leaders help those they serve become healthier, wiser, freer, more likely to become servants themselves.
They persuade rather than coerce; they stand against the culture on two critical issues: power and competition.
They share power with colleagues, and are most interested, not in winning,
but in working toward a vision, toward goals, toward doing the right thing at the right time.
They want to lead in order to serve better, not in order to have more power.
And in every one of these cases, those who serve, lead.
The servant leader doing justice, as Prophet
But I think there is more.
Jesus was the ultimate servant leader.
And Jesus is not about sentiment or sweetness or a passive kind of "goodness."
Some theologians think that Jesus is targeted for death because he throws the moneychangers out of the temple.
He has been preaching a spiritually and economically egalitarian message.
He comes to the Temple, and what he finds there is diametrically opposed to the message of love and justice that he has been preaching.
The temple system, through the moneychangers, is getting rich on the backs of the poor:
peasants, villagers, urban artisans
- ripping them off, as we might say.
So Jesus overturns their tables and drives them out,
And commits an act that is unforgivable to the power structure.
Sometimes the Kingdom of God is costly, and in this case the cost, as Jesus anticipated, is death.
Jesus teaches and offers love to all, but he does not give up the quest for justice.
He does not fail to speak truth to those in power; he doesn't hesitate to condemn injustice when he sees it.
His death is the result of the conflict that the kingdom of God creates in the world; his suffering is the inevitable consequence of living out his truth.
As the scripture says, Jesus' gives his life as a "ransom for many" when he refuses to back down, when he insists on acting for justice.
It is a ransom for many because the power of the kingdom of God is thereby unleashed in the world and, as we know, it will transform history.
Jesus confronts us with a powerful truth.
Sometimes, as servant leaders, we are called to name injustice, to act against it.
So going back to the injunction against seeking power in the way of the world at the beginning of the story, here is another paradox.
Sometimes the impulse for power,
when we see wrong paths taken, when we see injustice
is rooted in the gospel, in the words of Jesus,
in our understanding of what worshipping a God of love requires of us.
Sometimes we are called to do justice in ways that are risky, and sometimes we must speak with a prophetic voice.
But the crucial thing I find in these verses about acting or speaking boldly for justice is this:
Justice is not served by dominating, coercing or forcing others -
Jesus tells his disciples they are not to be tyrants in the way of the world.
The voice with which we must speak is a voice of persuasion, a voice filled with the love of God,
even though it speaks with passion and strength.
It is a voice that leads, a voice that serves.
It is, as Rabbi Michael Lerner says, a voice that seeks to build a world based on
compassion,
kindness,
generosity,
cooperation,
awareness of interdependence,
and responsibility to care for God's creation.
We each have our own calling in how we do justice. Some of us may not be called to stand before the powerful and demand justice, as did the First Testament prophets.
But we can all act to influence the decisions of the powerful.
We can vote our conscience; we can evaluate our leaders against the message of God.
We can petition our representatives to consider the poor, the weak and the powerless as they vote on issues like immigration or the minimum wage.
We can speak to our responsibility to care for God's creation.
We can talk to our friends and our neighbors about these issues.
We can speak openly and with love and humility to others about how our faith motivates and empowers us and leads us to work for justice.
So where is your servant leadership?
Is it writing letters, making phone calls, organizing a candidate forum?
Maybe it's feeding the hungry. Or visiting the sick.
Or empowering the people you work with to become stronger, more whole.
Or raising money to meet human needs.
Or going to committee meetings.
Or tending God's creation.
Probably its more than one of these.
Wherever you find yourself in this continuum, you are part of a community that is working for peace, for justice, for forgiveness, for love.
And in all of this -
In finding the strength for our large and small acts of love and justice
In our struggles to find the right balance,
To know when to speak and when to listen,
In discerning when we are called to serve by leading and when we should follow,
and when by following we are leading
In knowing how to do justice
and in understanding the prophetic voice with which we are called to speak and act
In all we are fed and nurtured by the spirit of the one we came to call Christ,
whose powerful spirit reaches across the millennia to us.
Praise be to God.
