Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

November 5, 2017

Scripture: Micah 3:5-12; Matthew 23:1-12

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

It’s a phrase we hear over and over again in the ministry business. “Servant Leadership.” It’s what we’re taught in seminary, or at least in any seminary worth its salt. We ordained folk are all supposed to be “servant leaders.” When you think about it, though, the phrase doesn’t make much sense. The two words seem to contradict each other. The first word of the phrase, servant, refers to someone who is at the beck and call of another. The servant does only what the master directs the servant to do. A servant is an employee who simply performs the duties specified in her job description. She performs those duties only as her employer directs, otherwise she gets fired. A servant is a follower not a leader. Clever servants may be able to manipulate their employer at times, but that’s not their job. Their job is to receive directions and follow them.

A leader is something quite different, isn’t she. A leader leads. A leader doesn’t follow orders. A leader may in fact give orders. One extreme example of leadership is military leadership. An officer in charge of a group of soldiers, be it a platoon or a division, gives orders. Those who receive the orders obey them, or at least they’re supposed to. Even in a less tightly structured environment than the military a leader directs. She sets a course. She points the way. She gets others to follower her lead, probably not so much by giving orders as by encouragement and example. In any event, as we commonly understand the term a leader is not the servant of those whom she leads. She is precisely their leader.

So what can “servant leadership” possibly mean? Isn’t that phrase a hopeless contradiction in terms? It sure sounds like one, but actually it isn’t. At least it isn’t necessarily a hopeless contradiction in terms. We can get started toward an understanding of how it isn’t a contradiction in terms by considering a few lines from the two scripture passages we just heard. I’ll start with Micah. The eighth century BCE prophet Micah is vociferously condemning the leaders of the Hebrew people for doing leadership all wrong. He thunders: “Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money.” I’ve told some of you before that Micah’s line “her priests teach for a price” slaps me in the face every time I read or hear it. That’s because there is a built in tension in the work of a church pastor. We all depend on the compensation package we receive from the church we serve. Most of the time at least we don’t want to get fired (although sometimes we may be willing to be fired, or at least to risk being fired, in order to speak the truth as we know it). So we teach for a price. We preach for a price. I know that some of you don’t think I’ve pulled my punches anywhere near enough here; but believe me, I’ve pulled them plenty. I’ve never given you a sermon expressly on what we call the Open and Affirming movement, though you badly need to hear one. I told you my convictions about Donald Trump as President, but since I did that I don’t think I’ve mentioned him by name even once in a sermon. I have preached a little bit on Christian nonviolence, but I’ve never preached it as strongly as I feel called to preach it. So yes, I teach for a price. I preach for a price. And Micah condemns the leaders of ancient Israel, and me, for doing it.

Then there’s our passage from Matthew. In that passage Jesus condemns people whom the text calls “the teachers of the law and the Pharisees” for not practicing what they preach. They exercise their positions of leadership, he says, only to puff themselves up and to get people at least to pretend to respect them. They place burdens on the people that they themselves will not bear. They make a show of the artifacts of piety—that’s what the line about phylacteries and fringes is about. They revel in being called by the honorable title Rabbi. For these people their leadership is all about themselves, not about they people they are called to lead.

The people that both our Micah and our Matthew passages condemn are leaders, but they certainly are not “servant leaders.” They exercise leadership, but they do it all wrong. They do it to enrich themselves. They do it for the prestige of their office, and both the ancient prophet Micah and the more recent prophet Jesus blast them for it. Clearly both of these passages demand a different kind of leadership than the leadership these passages condemn.

But what kind of leadership do they have in mind that’s better than the leadership they condemn? Jesus gives us the answer to that question right at the end of the passage we heard. He says: “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Elsewhere in Matthew he says “The last will be first, and the first will be last.” Matthew 20:30 In both passages Jesus is teaching servant leadership, and in those passages we get a good picture of what the “servant” part of that phrase actually means.

It means that true Christian leadership is never done primarily for the benefit of the leader. Yes, the people being led may pay the leader a salary and other compensation; but the leader must always understand that he leads not to benefit himself but to benefit the people he leads. He may be in a position of leadership, but he must always lead only for the benefit of those whose leader he supposedly is. I was taught in seminary, and I strongly believe, that if you’re going into pastoral ministry because you need an ego boost, or because you need people to build you up, or because your ego demands that it be propped up by being the one up front the people are looking at and listening to, get out. Get out now. Don’t even think about taking a call to a church. Why? Because you don’t get what pastoral leadership is really about. You’re going into church leadership for all the wrong reasons, and that way lies only trouble.

None of you were at my ordination service back in 2002, but at that service the Rev. Phyllis Anderson gave the sermon. She was Associate Dean of the Seattle University School of Theology and Ministry at the time. I remember her saying over and over again to me in her sermon: “It’s not about you.” Pastoral leadership is servant leadership. No one should exercise it primarily for their own benefit. We pastors aren’t supposed to be doing it for our benefit. We’re supposed to be doing it for the benefit of the people we pastor and to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not the Gospel of Pastor So and So.

Most every kind of leadership should be servant leadership. The people are always more important than the leader. Some of you are in positions of leadership of one kind or another. Audry leads 4H groups. John, Jesse, Tom, Dick, and Elsie make up the Admin Board of this church. They are leaders here. The principles of servant leadership apply to them as much as they apply to me. Anyone in any position of leadership needs constantly to remind themselves of what Phyllis said to me in that ordination service: “It’s not about you.” The teachers of the law and the Pharisees in our passage from Matthew thought it was about them. They were wrong. The leaders Micah had condemned more than 700 years earlier thought it was about them too. They too were wrong.

True leadership is servant leadership. It is leadership for the benefit of the led. That’s how Jesus led. None of us will ever do it as well as he did, but he can be our model and our guide. Jesus led the people of his day, especially the poor and oppressed people (and that was nearly everyone) to an understanding that they are God’s beloved. That they deserve better. That God wants them freed from poverty and oppression. Jesus’ leadership got him crucified. Servant leadership often has opponents, sometimes vigorous and even violent opponents. That is does doesn’t change the leader’s call. Serve your people not yourself. That’s the servant part of servant leadership.

Now, of course there’s another word in the phrase servant leadership, namely of course the word leadership. See, a servant leader is not just a servant. She is also a leader. That’s why servant leaders often get sideways with some of the people they are leading. I’ll have more to say about that aspect of servant leadership next week. Stay tuned. Amen.