Organizational Leadership

Don: In the early Christian church, harmony reigned—as long as there was no diversity. Its members were all Jews, who shared the same racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds. It was a pseudo community, as can be deduced from the fact that as soon as diversity was added (as soon as uncircumcised Gentiles were admitted) it erupted in chaos, the first step in the journey to true community. The second step is emptiness, the setting aside of preconceived ideas and prejudices, and adopting the penitent position of a sinner, listening in silence:

All the people kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. (Acts 15:11-12)

In the kingdom of heaven, diversity is not just tolerated: It is embraced. What is the form of organization that supports this unity in that diverse community of faith? When Jesus tried to tell the disciples what his kingdom looked like, the disciples really did not understand him:

As Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside by themselves, and on the way He said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up.”

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, bowing down and making a request of Him. And He said to her, “What do you wish?” She said to Him, “Command that in Your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit one on Your right and one on Your left.” But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They said to Him, “We are able.” He said to them, “My cup you shall drink; but to sit on My right and on My left, this is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by My Father.”

And hearing this, the ten became indignant with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:17-28)

Mark tells the same story, except that he has James and John asking Jesus the question, not their mother, Zebedee’s wife. But, taking Matthew at his word, let’s take a closer scriptural look at the mother, in order to put her seemingly audacious request into perspective.

Her name was Salome. She was the sister of Jesus’s mother, Mary; therefore, she was Jesus’s aunt, and her sons John and James were thus Jesus’s first cousins. She is mentioned in three gospels as being present at the Crucifixion:

Many women were there looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee while ministering to Him. Among them was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. (Matthew 27:55-56)

There were also some women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome. (Mark 15:40)

…But standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. (John 19:25)

Salome’s request seems less preposterous given that she was Jesus’s aunt. In her eyes, her nephew was setting up an important organization—a kingdom, no less—and it would not have seemed unreasonable in those days to expect such power to be kept in the family and handed down. In Salome’s eyes, Jesus was unmarried and had no offspring to succeed him on the throne of the kingdom.

The speed with which animosity developed in the other disciples following Salome’s request also illustrates the superficiality of the understanding all of them had about the kingdom of heaven. For those seeking to earn some special distinction, Jesus offered the Way of the Cross. That Way means suffering, not glory; to serve rather than to be served. Jesus countered Salome’s request by describing the hierarchy of organization within his kingdom, contrasting it against the power structure we see in human organizations. In the kingdom, everyone is freely given equal status through the grace of God regardless of their origin, lineage, relationship, or request.

But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)

Human social law does not apply in the kingdom of heaven. Those seeking to get ahead are sent to the back of the line. Enemies are loved, not hated. Instead of quid pro quo, no matter how much someone is worth or how much effort they put into deserving preferment in the kingdom, they are treated exactly the same as everybody else—there is no preferment.

Is the organization chart of the kingdom of heaven a workable blueprint for our faith communities on earth? Could a church be run on a servant leadership model? Could an ecclesiology be built on the basis of the last being first? Could service to others be the criterion for selection to leadership? Could a governing board and officers be formed on the principle of selflessness? Did Jesus give us an ideal possible only in the next world, or a set of practical principles possible to work from in the here and now? If it were possible, what would it imply for the division and polarization and conflict we have been discussing in recent weeks?

Donald: Does the sense of being in the “right”—which tends to be prevalent in a church—affect its organization and its running? Does it boil down to decisions about who is most right? Is not the pastor deemed to be the most right? We may not expect the stranger in our church to be right, but do we not hold our fellow members to a certain rightness?

Dave: The kind of leadership is important, and perhaps that was what Jesus was addressing. It’s hard to envision our world running without leaders, even though they are often noticeably narcissistic, self-centered, and autocratic. Jesus was looking for leaders with more empathy and with an attitude of being servant to others.

Beverly: The value that Christ places on us is very difficult for us, in our sinful nature, to grasp. We think of leadership in terms of title or position, but really it is behavioral. We follow someone because we want to emulate their behavior, not because they have a title. It’s true that, in our world, we have to follow people with titles of authority over us, but it makes us uncomfortable. When we think of someone we really want to follow, it is because that person displays behavior that we admire and would like to emulate. When we find such individuals, we want to be like them. That’s what Christ said: People will know that you know me and that you are mine because of your behavior, and they will be drawn to me through you. People are not drawn by titles or by being told what do do. Leadership is important, but the way we tend to look at it in our world is very different from how Jesus looks at it and wants us to look at it. It requires a paradigm shift in our thinking.

David: Motivation is a factor in leadership/followership. We follow because we get something out of it. I wonder to what extent the disciples, knowing that Jesus was the Messiah, were following him for that reason alone. As the Messiah, he was by far the most powerful entity they could hope ever to meet. Salome certainly saw something in it for her sons.

I agree with Beverly that Jesus wanted people to follow his Way, but were even his disciples able to do that? Are we? It seems to me unlikely, now that we know his Way ends in torture and crucifixion and is the very antithesis of a luxurious life of bliss and freedom from pain and worry. Jesus faced suffering and sadness and risk every day of his life in ministering to the needs of the dregs of society. Not exactly a fun-filled life.

Doctors perhaps get some sense for what this means in having to deal with people’s pain and suffering daily, but most of us would rather cross the street to avoid someone in need. We are terrible followers of his Way because we lack his selfless motivation. We are more or less utterly selfish and will follow any leader we think can satisfy our wants.

Don: Are there any modern examples of people who do follow his Way?

Dave: Mother Theresa is one. Helen Keller is a similar kind of leader. She is deaf and blind yet founded a college, received the presidential Medal of Honor, and has done extreme amounts of work in promoting the needs of people with disabilities in the US. I think this is the kind of leadership model Jesus wants us to follow.

Donald: So few names comes to mind! We follow best when we follow a person out of respect for the person’s accomplishment rather than his or her title or position. But is even this not a little selfish?

David: Nelson Mandela would be an example. He emerged from a period of crisis and emptiness—a life filled with suffering—to become a reluctant leader. His historical impact on South Africa can surely already be seen to have been simply staggering. He was a beacon of light that lit the way to reconciliation and peace. I think his example shows that Way of Jesus can work in this world.

Jay: One cannot go through a course on leadership in college today without encountering the concept of servant leadership. It’s part of the curriculum and has a great deal of traction. But its motivation seems dubious, since it is about becoming a successful leader through meeting the needs of people below one in the organizational structure. It is similar to the Way of Jesus in that it serves others, but I question whether the motives of would-be servant leaders can be equated to the motives of Jesus. Salome had motives that had nothing to do with service and were contradictory to the principles of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus is trying to establish in the here and now. No matter how perfect the servant leader, mortal followers will tend to follow for selfish reasons. So in a sense, the issue is not with leadership but with followership. We follow Jesus because we want to get in to the kingdom of heaven to have eternal life, not to serve others.

Beverly: We want to be in the kingdom of God because we want to be like Jesus. There’s a psalm that says heaven was never promised but the psalmist would still follow Christ for making such a big difference in his life. Having been raised as a follower of Christ, I feel my life is so much better than those of many of my former school friends, even though they may be doing much better in socio-economic terms. Lacking exposure to the values of Christ, other aspects of their lives are less desirable. Values define everything.

Jay: The way this world is organized contributes to that problem. We define values when we establish hierarchies of organization, title, and position. The world pays no attention to the bottom of the pyramid, only to the higher levels to which we report or to the level below that reports to us. There is no value in the pyramid, unless we turn it upside down. There is value only in service to one’s fellow wo/man.

Beverly: But there can be people at the bottom who are just as narcissistic, selfish, and eager to climb the ladder as people above them, but who for one reason or another have not yet succeeded in getting off the bottom rung. Christ’s way of looking is at who we are, not what we are. We wear masks, but God sees behind the mask. His call to us is to be like him—to stop fooling others and ourselves, to take off our masks.

Jay: In the ideal org chart that is the kingdom of heaven, the very worst of the sinners are at the very top and God is at the very bottom, working for them.

Donald: Wanting eternal life is selfish, I suppose, but it’s not unreasonable to want it in order to be with my Maker. My earthly maker—my mother—is not at the top of any chart. She is simply my mother. Wanting to be with one’s maker has nothing to do with organization and everything to to with relationship.

Michael: There is another motive for following: It’s easier than leading. We may not like to admit it, but often we’re glad when someone else takes on the burden of making decisions for us.

Donald: Without respect, leadership is somewhat hollow. Titles are easier to earn than respect.

Paul: Do we know the true motives of our servant leaders? We may attribute motives to them without really knowing if they are true. Mother Theresa, for example. Do we know what really motivated her? Perhaps we try too hard to impute value in our leaders.

David: Part of the problem is deciding who to follow, if we decide to be followers. The original true community consisted of God and Adam. That community still exists, because we exist and because God dwells inside us as the inner light, the eternity set in our hearts. We can always turn to that inner spirit for leadership when we most desperately need it and there is no other leadership in sight. It is manifested in God’s grace. No human leader—not Mother Theresa, not Nelson Mandela, not any of the other handful of great leaders—is or was perfect. So when the chips are down and we need someone (as Michael suggests) to take the burden of decisions from us, God is there inside us.

This is one reason why I have a problem with the concept of church. Churches are self-appointed mortal leaders of a spiritual relationship that already exists between me and God. They are intermediaries and as such they may damage the relationship rather than enhance it. They do that damage to the extent they steer people away from following their inner light and toward instead following charismatic catechisms that may well be inimical to what Jesus wanted—to his Way. We know the Way. It is inside us. We tend to ignore it and will often only turn to it in a crisis. But it is there when we need it, and it is the real, unadulterated by mediation, thing.

Dave: Only God can speak to our true motives, but we are not without some pointers in the direction of truth. First of all, the people we consider good servant leaders—MLK Jr., Mandela, and the others—all had human failings and disabilities at some point in their lives. But we can see clearly that what motivated their leadership was the goal of lifting the burdens of others. I believe God called such people to altruism and that they responded. They want to help others in their journey through life, as God helped them.

Robin: Servant leaders often go unnoticed, but most would-be leaders promote themselves loudly.

Don: Is it possible to choose to be a servant leader? Or is it a calling that comes unbidden? Is there a volitional aspect to it?

Beverly: Once we decide to give our lives to Christ then we are agreeing to serve and we are called to serve. We don’t choose to be a servant leader; we choose to follow Jesus.

Anonymous: There is to me a clear dichotomy between leadership and servitude. They just don’t go together. My leader is God. It would be futile to look for some other leader who had God’s character. There can be no such person. Any human leader in whom I place my trust is just as much a sinner as I am. Jesus himself told us we have only one master, one Father—God. He never called himself a leader. A teacher, yes; but not a leader. He also told us we cannot serve two masters. So we must choose between God and a human leader.

Beverly: I don’t think we need to think of good human leadership as an alternative to God’s leadership, but as his aide, his representative. We all need such help, from time to time. They are flawed, sinful human beings like us, but they represent the closest thing to God we can see or feel, in the flesh. And we need them. We need them to wrap their arms around us and comfort us. The Bible tells us that God will fold us to his bosom, and I believe he does so through such representatives—real, flawed, people, doing their best at that time to follow the Way of Christ. They may not be leaders in the traditional sense, but they are people we tend to want to be like.

Anonymous: Jesus commanded Peter to lead his sheep, but all a shepherd does is lead his sheep to pasture and back. He does not lead them, he does not try to get them to do things, while they are at rest or at pasture. We all have people we need to lead to pasture or to shelter.

Michael: A true servant-leader is a person who empowers us to make choices, not who makes us follow orders. To follow our own choices is to exercise our free will. If we want to follow God, if we want to give up our free will to him, it has to be voluntary—it can’t be because some leader told us to do it.

David: The true mark of a servant leader is a person who does not want to be a leader at all. Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Mandela, MLK Jr., fit the mold. All they wanted to do was serve, and what we most admire in them (I think) is the strength of their commitment to serving their fellow wo/man.

But by the way, the first thing Jesus said to his disciples as he walked around Galilee recruiting them was: “Follow me.” Those are the words of a leader!

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