To lead is to serve.
Posted on August 15, 2013 | By Chris Gale | 0 responses
I put an extra post up yesterday driven by the idea (via JB and Karen S.) that rights are given to meet needs or duties. But from that comes what are the duties, what is it that leadership involves.
What is at the top of the pole. And the answer is service. I’m, not going to quote all the OT reading for today (these posts are long enough) but it is the great rebellion, and in it you see how people will iie for power.
2 Samuel 15:1-6
1After this Absalom got himself a chariot and horses, and fifty men to run ahead of him. 2Absalom used to rise early and stand beside the road into the gate; and when anyone brought a suit before the king for judgment, Absalom would call out and say, “From what city are you?” When the person said, “Your servant is of such and such a tribe in Israel,” 3Absalom would say, “See, your claims are good and right; but there is no one deputed by the king to hear you.” 4Absalom said moreover, “If only I were judge in the land! Then all who had a suit or cause might come to me, and I would give them justice.” 5Whenever people came near to do obeisance to him, he would put out his hand and take hold of them, and kiss them. 6Thus Absalom did to every Israelite who came to the king for judgment; so Absalom stole the hearts of the people of Israel.
Absolam was beautiful. But he was vengeful and lusted for power. He wanted to be king, he wanted to become the heir and be over his (many) brothers. And he was lying. The government has never been able to promise every person, on every side of every dispute, that they are right.
Instead, paraphrasing Clarence Thomas, the court is a place where people get hurt.
Compare this with the equally vengeful sons of Zebedee. They were prepared to pay the cost to be great in the kingdom, but they did not know what greatness was. For it is to serve, not to be served. It is to freely give your klout, your mana away. TO use the goodwill you have accumulated for others.
It is not the title, it is the service, the way you change things, that gives power. And that service, that influencing, is painful. You end up on your knees, not because you want to be there, but because you are so bloody exhausted that you cannot stand, but with the power of another.
32They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, 33saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; 34they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.”
35James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 36And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” 37And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 38But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” 39They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
41When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
The leadership of this world is broken, and has always been broken. It was broken in David’s time, it was broken during the early Church, where Pagan leaders accepted deification, and That same idolatry lives on today in the cult of personality that many propagandists place around leaders.
But in the church it should not be that way. Those who serve == those who lead. Those who accept service =/= those who lead. And, it is the duty of all men to provide for their families and relatives. We should be more like the family in Chris Muir’s very good cartoon, than their scarecrow.
