Journey's Weekly Homilies

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
October 19, 2003
Homily by Laurie

Isaiah 53:10-11
Hebrews 4:14-16
Mark 10:42-45

Tonight’s readings are about the servant leadership of our brother Jesus.  We hear the Isaiah reading, in its entirety at Good Friday. Mark gives us an example of servant leadership and Hebrews provides comfort for those who dare to follow after this servant leader.

The words servant leaders are not new for us, but the struggle to define them for ourselves and this community is only just begun.  Those who have emerged as leaders within our fellowship strive to be servant leaders, and we who know them to be equals, we, all of us, strive for that balance of inclusion, power and effectiveness, that will be the background for this community of believers to move forward.

We can easily say that servant leadership doesn’t fit the corporate model of manager and worker bees.  We have rejected that model; it is in part why we find ourselves here and not in the pews of our local parishes. That model of trickle down power did not feed us, did not encourage us to act as informed and outspoken adult Christians,.  We did not often find ourselves brought to a place of conversion and action.  When we did, our leaders often were not prepared or able to support our fledgling efforts to be effective Christians.

We can also say that servant leadership may have been well modeled by our parents, but still there is and must be some hierarchy in family units for that family to be safe and to thrive.  As children we need someone who is an authority.  Denied a parental authority figure, children act out, until some authority is found

What then is servant leadership?  We hold Jesus up as our example, as one who leads from within, not from above.  Our most powerful story of his servant hood is our Holy Thursday service, the washing of feet and the sharing of meal. For me, the washing of feet has lost some of its meaning.  As childish as this may sound, I trace it back to the year that despite the fact that I was washing feet, no one asked to wash my feet. I identified myself as a leader within the community, and tried to be a servant leader. Why then was my ego whining to be heard?  Jesus, said, if I do not wash you, then you have no part in me.

Some of my reaction was ego bound, I serve them, I make sacrifices to be with them and they choose to ignore me?  Also, though I think there is and was a longing to be a part of the one who would wash my feet, who would be promise, in the world we are not alone on our path to follow after. To be a servant leader is to be promise that we are not alone on our way to follow after Jesus. That sounds simple and sugar coated. If we all just wore pins that said “you are not alone”, that would surely bring the reign of God to pass.  If only this servant leadership thing were that easy.  Struggling to learn what it means, striving to live as servant to those around us is part of our Christian longing, and our outward sign of lives transformed by the love of God.

Jesus, as perfect as he was, must have wanted to give James and John a dope slap, HELLO.  Instead he goes on to warn them, and then gently lets them down, saying these places are already assigned and their request is not his to grant. The rest of the disciples were not so benign in their treatment of James and John. Jesus has to call them all together for a little teaching. I imagine it was not easy for the disciples to grasp what Jesus was saying. 

I do not think it is easy for us to grasp what Jesus is saying. “Whoever would be great among you must be you servant, whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” What a stupid thing to say. To be great is to be a servant and to be first is to be a slave.  To live like that would cost me my life. Isn’t that our prayer though, to be delivered to new life, to life in relationship with God and other people, to nurture those who struggle with this paradox of giving up life to have life.

We are a community of equals, we share in the responsibility of being community.  In order to be effective we need leaders who have risen up from among us to call us to order, to be the ground that the rest of us can move around, refining our lives as followers of Jesus.  We need leaders who help us to form relationship who help us to be what it is to wash one another feet. We require leaders to call us in the way of social justice, we need leaders who tie us to other communities and groups who share similar values.  Finally we need leaders who can break open the word for us, who can lead us in our prayer, who can draw us together as sacrament.  No one of us possess all that we as a community need. To pretend otherwise is to deny that servant leadership can exist. 

Our job as servant leaders and I mean all of us, not just those we have chosen to formally recognize, is like unto our tasks as Christians.  Our job is to evoke, to recognize to nurture to celebrate and to help unify the gifts of spirit here in our community, just as it is our job in our families and even in the world, which knows servant leadership as alien. 

Leonardo Boff has written that: …in a certain sense it is unrealistic to struggle for a ‘classless society’  ~ a society that would be simply and totally a community of bothers and sisters, without any conflict at all.  Realistically one can only struggle for a type of sociability in which love will be less difficult, and where power and participation will have better distribution.  Community must be understood as a spirit to be created, as an inspiration to bend one’s constant efforts to overcome barriers between persons and to generate a relationship of solidarity and reciprocity.

AMEN, so be it