Leadership Through Service — Is It Possible?
Sermon
When I was a student physiotherapist, those students who were considered to be the best in their year were always invited to stay on after qualification to serve their first term of office at the hospital that had trained them. Those of us who were still students immediately noticed a change in these people who had until recently been fellow students. One day they were students, good fun, approachable and only a little older than we ourselves, the next they were staff, whereupon they suddenly distanced themselves from those of us who had been their friends. And they tended to pull rank at every opportunity. It was a very uncomfortable situation for all concerned.
This sort of thing happens all the time in the Services, and in many organisations. Some large organisations move their staff around, in order that those who have been newly promoted may start afresh in new surroundings, but others don't possess that sort of sensitivity.
The jump from equality to being in authority over friends is not an easy one, and there are people who are never able to cope with it. Perhaps few are able to cope with it satisfactorily. Some treat yesterday's friends as dirt beneath their feet, whilst others are unable to maintain any authority at all in their anxiety to retain friendships.
In our society there is such a clear demarcation between leadership and servanthood, that there are very few people who are able to cross those boundaries whilst retaining both humanity and self-respect.
The problem seems to be that leaders must have a certain degree of authority over those whom they lead. And those who are "servants", i.e. are of lower status for whatever reason, submit themselves to that authority. How then, can anyone be both servant and leader at the same time?
For human beings, the authority of leadership is promoted and enhanced by all sorts of trappings, like special clothing worn by leaders, separation of facilities - such as the executive washroom - adulation by lesser mortals and increased spending power. All these things encourage the use of power in the way in which most people in our society would understand power.
It seems that Jesus both practised and encouraged a very different sort of leadership and authority and power. He spoke about and practised leadership through service, and power through weakness. And he expected the same from his followers. But these concepts seem to be paradoxes, and the Church has been wrestling ever since with the problems and difficulties of putting this model of leadership into practice.
The Church does try. The higher the official, the further back he appears in an ecclesiastical procession, so that deacons and readers are at the front of a long procession but the Archbishop would be at the back. This is designed to illustrate that the first shall be last, but somehow or other with all the pomp and ceremony that is added, the Archbishop never appears as a servant!
The Church also insists that every priest spend at least the first year after ordination as a deacon, a serving role. And deacons are forever being reassured that they are deacons for life, since every priest is also a deacon and therefore a servant. Thus priests who are elevated are known as "archdeacons", to emphasise their serving role. But again, it doesn't really work, for archdeacons possess considerable power in the worldly sense.
Those priests who take seriously the idea of servanthood tend to be workaholics, unable to say no and very quickly wearing themselves out in the service of God and mankind by being at everyone's beck and call. At the other extreme are priests who are pompous and overbearing, and who are control freaks, unable to delegate or to allow anyone else any access to their field.
Did Jesus really succeed in his role as both servant and leader? Or was he one or the other? When he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey that first Palm Sunday, he seemed very much like a leader, but a leader who was almost aping the trappings of leadership.
Kings don't ride on donkeys, they ride in carriages or on chargers. They are cheered and feted by the onlookers, but usually the onlookers come prepared and don't simply pick up palm branches from the wayside. The king's mount isn't usually covered by somebody's old cloak, but with soft, royal cushions and expensive, regal coverings.
It may be that Jesus didn't choose to enter Jerusalem in this way, but rather had the choice thrust upon him by the crowds. Yet it was Jesus who ordered the donkey, so it would seem he had some idea of what might happen and perhaps even initiated it.
Perhaps it was an ironic ride, designed to point up and to ridicule the power and pomp and ceremony of the religious authorities. Whatever the reason for the ride, there wasn't too much of the servant about it. Certainly the trappings were all those of a poor person, but the whole notion of riding into the major city in triumph looks very much like the power and authority known by the world, even if it was only a parody.
So perhaps it's not possible for servanthood and leadership to be practised at exactly the same time. At one time Jesus was clearly in the role of servant, at another he was in the role of leader, and perhaps those two roles were kept fairly separate.
But Jesus exercised his leadership and authority in a particular way, so maybe that's the key issue. Perhaps the way we practise leadership and authority is more important than trying to model two opposing roles at the same time.
Some authority is given simply by status. But the authority of Jesus was earned authority, which people instantly recognised and to which they instantly responded. And his authority was strong on humility, which leads to a sensitive and loving leadership.
Jesus was so much in touch with himself and with God that he was able to receive and to accept humiliation. Humility is a gift from God which is seldom seen because the route to humility is through humiliation. In his rivetting book, The Gospel According to Jesus, Stephen Mitchell comments on the phrase "forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us" from the Lord's Prayer. He says this: "When you feel offended, allow yourself to feel offended, then let go. As you keep letting go of yourself, you will also let go of the capacity to be offended, and eventually you come to experience the whole universe as grace." (Page 180). A leader who has reached that point can't help but be gentle and sensitive and caring in the exercise of authority, and is able to switch to a servant role in genuine humility.
The use of power and authority is very much a Christian issue in today's world. The boundaries between the use and abuse of power are quite blurred, so that many people don't realise they are abusing power for they assume that once they're in positions of leadership anything goes.
But for Christians, the other person no matter what their status, must always be treated with respect. Employers who treat their employees with respect earn their authority. Parents who treat their children with respect deserve their love. And Christians who treat all other people with respect introduce them to the Kingdom of God.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey that first Palm Sunday, the people cheered and rejoiced for they sensed that Jesus was special and that they had glimpsed the Kingdom of God. But when they discovered the route to the Kingdom was through humility and suffering and danger, they mostly fell by the wayside.
Those who continue along this tough road will discover the Kingdom in all its glory. And en route, they'll also discover how to exercise Christian authority and how to be a leader through service. These are the sorts of leaders who respect themselves as well as others, who serve because they wish to do so and not because they are unable to say no, and who possess an innate, spiritual authority which is instantly recognised. They're the sorts of leaders who delegate and who expect and encourage those with whom they work to share the leadership. And they're the sorts of leaders who unconsciously show Christ to the world.
