Our readings for this week present us with some very stark contrasts. In today’s gospel, Matthew 23: 1-12, we hear Jesus criticizing the religious leaders of Israel for their pretentious and hypocritical behavior. They “preach but they do not practice.” Their good deeds “are performed to be seen.” They seek places of honor at banquets and in the synagogues. They are corrupt, overbearing, religious bullies. And their example is not to be followed by those of us who seek to live in the kingdom of heaven. St. Paul gives us a very different picture of leadership in 1 Thessalonians 2:7b-9. The leadership Paul, Silvanus and Timothy practiced among the Thessalonians was “gentle,” shared, humble, self-sacrificing and not a burden to anyone. They followed the directive Jesus gave to his disciples and that he gives to us in Mark 9:35, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
The practice of servant leadership is something we hear a lot about these days. Back in 1970 Robert K Greenleaf wrote an essay entitled, “The Servant as Leader.” In this essay he wrote, “The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.” It took off from there.
I first heard about Greenleaf’s theories on servant leadership from a friend who was writing her Ph. D. dissertation on the topic. She called me to bounce a few ideas off me as she was writing. I listened carefully and then I laughed. She was excited about this “new” practice of leadership and was shocked when I said the concept of servant leadership was at least two thousand years old. Jesus Christ, I informed her, was the first person to talk about servant leadership and many of the great saints implemented the practice. Greenleaf may have introduced a secular version of servant leadership to the modern world, but it has been around a long time.
For me the greatest example of servant leadership occurs in St John’s Gospel, Chapter 13:1-20, when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. Jesus said to his disciples, “You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
Sovereign God,
we have no father but you,
no teacher but Christ.
Conform our lives to the faith we profess,
preserve us from arrogance and pride,
and teach us the greatness of humility and service.
We make our prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.
AMEN.
