Hierarchy, On Earth and In Heaven

Don: Jesus told the disciples that in his kingdom, the great are those willing to be servants,…

“…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 20:28)

He had made a similar point earlier:

They came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house, He began to question them, “What were you discussing on the way?” But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest. Sitting down, He called the twelve and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” Taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, “Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me.” (Mark 9:33-37; Matthew 18:1-6 and Luke 9:46-48 are essentially similar)

Hierarchy, organization, stratification, and caste are very important—perhaps necessary—in human society. We have a station in life, a social place based on family, birth, wealth, education, election, and sometimes on creativity. What forces or factors lie behind social stratification, which exists even in the church? It seems no-one wants to live in a society or belong to a church where there is no rank. It’s as though we are hardwired to seek social structure, organization, stratification; and to accept our rank and the ranks of others.

So the disciples’ concern about the issue of organization in the kingdom of heaven was not necessarily petty. It could be seen as responsible planning for a future in which the kingdom of Jesus, which he had told them was imminent, would have defeated the Roman oppressor, leaving an organizational and governance vacuum. At the same time, their apparent embarrassment (they were quiet when he asked them what they were talking about) suggests that they had some inkling about what Jesus really wanted for his kingdom. In Matthew’s version of the passage from Mark quoted above, Jesus had told them:

“Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  (Matthew 18:3-4)

and:

So the last shall be first, and the first last.” (Matthew 20:16)

The Greek word for “child” used in the preceding passage means a child who has not yet reached puberty. At that time, children were not the central focus of a family as they are today. They were expected to be seen but not heard. They were vulnerable, uneducated, and insecure—not surprising, given that society treated them as being of little significance. Perhaps the chief reason for this was the infant mortality rate, which has been estimated at 30 percent before age 1 and 40-45 percent before prepubescence (up to about ages 10–13).* With such high odds against survival, it’s little wonder that people tended not to invest much in their children. Jesus viewed children in exactly the opposite way. They are the model for salvation.

In any event: Can a state exist without a king or a president or a prime minister? A town without a mayor? Can servants of children be a model for church government? Is that really what Jesus was trying to teach? Is hierarchy—social and organizational stratification—a condition of our fallen nature or part of God’s plan from the beginning? Is child leadership/service leadership conceivable in our world, or only in a sinless, selfless environment? Should we seek a new structure in society, including in our churches, as a gateway to the kingdom of heaven?

David: The earth and the kingdom of heaven are two different things. The former is by nature socially stratified, and that requires organization. In the latter, everyone is equal—there are no strata. But the kingdom of heaven exists on earth as something internal to all of us. In order to reach it, Jesus said, we have to be like a child. To me, what that means is that we need to give up our will—totally. We must be totally dependent on God and rely exclusively on his leadership. Each of us, individually, has to do this one-on-one with God.

But organization and layers seem inescapable in the mortal life that co-exists with the kingdom of heaven but is outside it. Various attempts have been made to build communes and utopias where everyone is equal, but they all break down. As closed systems, they are subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics—to entropy, breakdown, disintegration, dissolution.

So it seems to me that Jesus was not asking us to apply kingdom organizational principles in the external, earthly world. But he was asking us to apply them in the internal kingdom of heaven, in our one-on-one relationship with God.

Michael: How would one know God’s will, in order to follow it?

David: Does a child know the will of its parent? We are told quite unambiguously that we sure cannot know what is going on in God’s mind. We follow God’s leadership, as a child follows its father’s leadership, simply by recognizing and accepting the F/father.

Robin: We know God’s will through study and prayer. He will find ways to communicate with us about how we should behave.

Don: Michael’s question bears upon one asked by Donald last week: How important is it to know, or to feel, that we are right in our understanding of God’s will?

Jay: We think we can apply the human intellect, through study, to know God’s will, to know that we are right. But that is the pitfall of the kingdom of heaven. In my opinion, it’s not the way to establish a relationship with God. The way is through what we do, not through what we know, what we understand, of scripture or God. The ministry of Jesus was all about what we should do, how we should act; and that’s what matters in the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom may be about the one-on-one relationship with God but the way to it is through our relationships with—how we treat—other people.

Kiran: Servant leadership has been applied in the corporate world thanks largely to the work of Robert K. Greenleaf. Studies have found that companies that offer workshops in servant leadership retain executives longer than those that don’t. So it seems that the kingdom principle of organization can be applied to worldly society also.

Jay: One of the major tenets of servant leadership is the leaders ability to empower other members of the organization to meet the needs of the other members. So the success of the leader is measured by the success of the others. It is a complex and difficult model to adopt. Before the Fall, it was the only model; after the Fall, the model was turned on its head.

Robin: One instance where there is no place for a human leader is in our one-on-one relationship with God. We may first make his acquaintance through our parents or teachers, but sooner or later we have to develop the relationship on our own. On the other hand, God is such a God of strict order that when building the tabernacle or temple, when the population got so large, judges had to be appointed. So we can see leadership there. I think God allows for the necessity of organization in human affairs and even in heaven, but there is no need for human leadership in spiritual affairs.

Kiran: Mother Theresa is a servant-leader who served and inspired others to serve. It is not easy to put others’ needs before one’s own. It requires a huge commitment, and is not something to enjoy. One only does it out of an understanding that in serving others, one is serving God. One does not do it expecting a reward, but reward may come in the form of a servant-leader changed for the better.

Robin: The Bible says there will be 24 elders in heaven. It suggests a hierarchy. What will be their role?

David: The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that 144,000 “spirit-appointed” people in heaven will help God rule over the masses on earth at the end of time.** Personally, I discount the scriptural accounts about 24 elders and 144,000 viceroys, and much prefer the other scriptural notion of an organization of infants, where the very notion of leadership is laughable. I think Jesus wants us to practice for the kingdom of heaven by applying kingdom principles on earth, and when he says our reward for so doing will come in heaven, he does not mean at the end of time: He means here and now, in the kingdom of heaven that exists in us all. The principle he most wants us to apply is to serve other people and to do so without expectation of reward, as Kiran noted. But I agree with Kiran that reward will come nevertheless, unbidden, in the form of a certainty that one is doing the Right thing—a Truth revealed.

Don: Was there a hierarchy between Adam and Eve and the animals?

Jay: I don’t think hierarchy is necessarily a bad thing. It may be the natural order on earth. The question is how well it functions, how it acts. It may also exist in the kingdom of heaven as a service-motivated structure, as opposed to a worldly power-driven structure. The difficulty we have is in finding examples of a worldly service-motivated structure—at least, one that lasts for any length of time. Hierarchy established to serve the needs of all would be a good thing. This applies to evangelism, too, though too often evangelism seems more power-driven.

Michael: Jesus separated that which is Caesar’s from that which is God’s. So, too, with leadership. I am happy to have the law exercise leadership authority, because it helps keep me—and others—safe. But Jesus himself certainly practiced servant-leadership. I see the practice of servant-leadership as driven by our own will after recognizing that it is ultimately in our own interests to serve others, in the sense that it is fulfilling. It is not a matter of sacrifice.

David: The church does not need an hierarchy to practice the servant evangelism Jay talked about. The evangelism itself is one-on-one: There are no middlemen between the evangelist and the target and there should be no human superiors telling the evangelist how to do it. In the Judgment passage, Jesus made it crystal clear that when we serve another person we serve God. In other words, in serving others, we establish a direct relationship with God. Hierarchy is nowhere to be found in this relationship.

Kiran: Monks joyfully “sacrifice” their comfort and freedoms. A mother joyfully “sacrifices” time and comfort for the pains of child-bearing and -rearing. Their joy renders their sacrifice not a sacrifice at all. When serving others becomes joyful—even if they don’t appreciate it—then one has one’s reward.

Chris: Elevation naturally follows selfless service. One can be uplifted by the gratitude of the served. Even though one may not be looking for recognition, it tends to follow naturally. It happened to Jesus. Though they could see he was serving them, people did not put him below them. On the contrary. This explains the kingdom of heaven conundrum of the last being first. In contrast, Satan selfishly tried to establish a leadership position and ended up being demoted: The first became last.

Don: We will not hold class on the next two Sabbaths. When we do get together again, we will discuss spiritual blindness, using the parables Jesus told of the blind men.

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* As a surgeon, I wondered how much the practice of circumcision, which would certainly expose the child to bleeding and infection, contributed to the mortality rate. Even today in the US, the procedure results in 200 deaths a year and there are complications in two out of three cases, though most are minor. But it seems that the ancients did not remove the entire foreskin, as happens in modern circumcision, but merely nicked it sufficient to cause a few drops of blood to fall, thus satisfying the ritual. It would not have carried as much risk of bleeding and infection as the cutting of the whole foreskin.

** For more information, see the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ own explanation here.

Postscript: Here is an example of selfless service: