September 24, 2006

30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; ³¹for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ ³²But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ ³⁴But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. ³⁵He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ ³⁶Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

Most of you don’t know this, but for the last ten months, I have participated in a leadership group that I organized. It’s over now, but it consisted of seven friends and colleagues from different paths in my life. There was a law school classmate, a lawyer I used to work with, several priests, a therapist, and a woman I didn’t know well but knew I wanted in the group (and that turned out to be a good call.) We met once a month and did all sorts of strange and wonderful exercises.

The purpose of the group was for us to help one another become the most "conspicuously excellent" leaders we could be. Why "conspicuously excellent," they asked? "That is one of my issues," I said. "I need to work on not being afraid to be conspicuous as a leader." I expected them to ask me about that.

But I quickly discovered something I didn’t expect. Several participants had issues with leadership itself. The very idea of being a leader, they said, was distasteful to them, a bad word. When we discussed it, it turned out that their image of leadership was a vision of the abuse of power and use of coercion. It often involved crushing people to accomplish the leader’s objectives. They thought of tyrannical bosses; corrupt or self-serving politicians; belligerent coaches; autocratic, dictatorial clergy or administrators, or whatever.

Leaders, for them, were people who made others serve them. These friends had showed up to the meeting because of their loyalty to me, but they were pretty sure they didn’t want to become a leader, and especially not a "conspicuous" enforcer of servitude.

This response surprised me. It should not have. After all, weren’t those folks in my meeting articulating the kind of leadership that we so often see around us, the kind of leadership that dominates our society and the world? No wonder they didn’t want any part of it; they don’t want to force people to serve them.

Three times Jesus tried to tell them. This is the second time. They never get it. They have made the pivotal turn in Mark’s travelogue of a gospel. They have stopped moving away from Jerusalem, and now they are now heading toward it — and toward, Jesus knows, torture and death. Jesus is trying to pass through the region of Galilee without being spotted. He cannot be mobbed. He knows he has little time left, and he needs to focus in teaching his disciples.

What he is teaching them is Servant Leadership. He is telling them that the way he will be their leader, our leader, is to serve, to be vulnerable, even to the point of being killed. Do not miss how radical, how revolutionary, this vision of leadership is. In his wonderful book Servanthood: Leadership for the Third Millennium, Bishop Bennett Sims, the former Bishop of Atlanta who died in July, wrote"The emergence of servanthood as a way of leading… coincides with the leading edges of a vast turning point in human history, a sea-change of greater magnitude than any since the agricultural revolution ten thousand years ago that inaugurated the use of human power to manipulate and exploit the earth." In a world dominated by domination, this paradox of being a leader by being a servant was new, and fresh, and — didn’t make much sense, and — wasn’t what they were hoping for, and — was scary, and —they didn’t get it.

When they get finally to the house after their long walk, Jesus asks, "What were you arguing about on the way?" You know that really bad feeling you get when you’re absolutely busted for something really embarrassing? Like if somebody overheard you make an unkind comment about them and they asked you what you were talking about? And you know that they know what you were talking about or they wouldn’t be asking? That’s how they felt. There was a long silence. They all suddenly became very interested in their feet, which apparently required immediate and intense study. The awkwardness was palpable, and the only time anyone looked up was to glance quickly at one another, not at Jesus — no eye contact with Jesus.

They were embarrassed. They hadn’t really gotten this servant leadership stuff, but they knew what they had been arguing about wasn’t even close. They had been arguing about who was the greatest. And, like the lady who overheard the unkind remark, Jesus knew that.

And he immediately demonstrated servant leadership — by not just screaming at them! By not yelling: You blocks of wood are the most hopeless bunch of imbeciles that anyone could imagine having to teach, never mind that the fate of the world depends on you getting this! Never mind that I just finished telling you that I have to die serving you! And what do you do? What do you do? Argue about who is the greatest! It’s unbelievable! How can I be expected to work when I’m surrounded by incompetent idiots like you?!" That sounds like some autocratic, dictatorial, disrespectful, coercive, dominating leaders I’ve known (maybe even, on a really bad day I’d rather not remember, I’ve been), but it doesn’t sound like the Servant Leader Jesus.

Bishop Sims defines the work of the servant leader as being "to honor the personal dignity and worth of all who are led, and to evoke as much as possible their own innate creative power for leadership." Jesus does not act on what would be a very understandable impulse to chew these guys out and belittle them. He focuses on teaching them, respecting them, helping them to become servant leaders. He tries words one more time: "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all," he says. But this time, the words aren’t abstractions, they are the title to a parable that he is going to act out. He takes a child, probably a kid who lives in the house where they are staying, and takes him in his arms.

Rabbis didn’t do that, by the way. Children were to behave until they grew up, but they were not accorded respect until then. He holds someone who is not supposed to be respected, and respects him. Thus begins the lesson.

Then he says, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me." "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." Why a child?

Wednesday night we began our children’s choir, and I started meeting with the parents. We discussed John Rosemond’s Bill of Rights for Children. John Rosemond is a sort of parenting guru whom you might have seen on Public TV. He believes in no-nonsense parenting, and his philosophy is that children are harmed if they are raised in a home centered around them.

But John Rosemond and Jesus would be crystal clear about this: caring for children involves serving them. Not giving them what they want, not making them think they are the center of the universe, but definitely serving them. They are weak. They have no power. They are totally dependant. What better example for Jesus to use to demonstrate Servant Leadership than serving, and respecting, a child?

In his day, in a world dominated by domination, this was a new, radical, revolutionary kind of leadership. In our day, I’m sorry to say, in a world still dominated by domination, this is a new, radical, revolutionary kind of leadership. I’m reminded of one of my favorite sayings by G.K. Chesterton: "It’s not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting; it’s that it has been found difficult and left untried."

Think about how you can exercise this kind of radical, revolutionary servant leadership in your life. And if you need an example or an inspiration, remember this quotation by Albert Nolan: "We have seen what Jesus was like. If we wish now to treat him as our God, we would have to conclude that our God does not want to be served by us, he wants to serve." I think that practicing servant leadership is hard. We, like the disciples, so often don’t get it, so often are studying our feet when God calls us to account. But if we can remember that our God wants to lead us by serving us, wants to respect, embrace, the unrespectable, untouchable parts of our world, parts of ourselves, then maybe we can be inspired to try to live this earth-shattering paradox and lead by respecting, loving.

The Rev. James H. Pritchett, Jr. St. John’s Episcopal Church, College Park, GA. If you would like to comment on this sermon or receive these sermons by email, contact me at rector@stjohnscollegepark.com.