Not that we need it but today’s story from Mark provides additional proof that Jesus was the Messiah. The mere fact that he kept his wits in the face of the disciples’ utter buffoonary and treated them as capable of a higher calling is a tribute to Jesus’ devotion to his own high calling and God’s ability to transform people. But then, this story is about servant leadership and Jesus at his core was a servant leader.

Consider the circumstances. On their trek to Jerusalem from Galilee, Jesus teaches his disciples along the way.  Only recently he stood before them with his hands on the shoulders of a child and said, “this is how God wants you to trust, like this child.” But in today’s episode, less than a day’s journey from the village where they had that conversation, James and John act not like trusting children but spoiled brats: “we want you to do for us whatever we ask,” they demand. Like a prudent parent, maybe even forcing a smile over his gritted teeth, Jesus asks them respectfully just what it is they might want. Places of honor, they shoot back without pride or hesitation. Places at his right and left. Places, the implication is, where they would be noticed after Jesus wins the election and is ushered into power.

Children often make such statements. When you ask them what they want to be they’ll tell you a professional athlete or movie star or even President. But until they reach a certain age they don’t know the sacrifice and hard work required to get there. So Jesus asks James and John, “Do you know what you ask? Can you drink from the cup that I drink? Be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And when they tell him with bravado they can, Jesus must have wondered what impression, if any, he had made – particularly this late in their ministry. Despite his rebuke of Peter; despite his regular conversations with them about being last if you wanted to be first, servant of all if your aim was greatness, taking up your cross if your goal was to follow him; despite his constant coaching, and telling them three times including today that he would suffer and die when they reached Jerusalem; despite all this James and John set their sights no higher than power brokering.

And not just James and John. When the other ten catch wind of their request they feign righteous indignation but their anger is a masquerade for their own ambition. The ten have their eyes too on cabinet assignments and the perks of power.  So Jesus reminds them who they are. “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them. Let it not be so among you, whoever wishes to be first must be slave of all, for the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to be a ransom for many.”

The title of the sermon today is “how do servants lead?” It is an important question because it gets at the heart of Jesus’ mission and the church’s role in the world. It addresses too our daily interactions with one another at home and work and school. The first point this morning is that leadership above all else is a spiritual issue. As Jesus repaints the picture, the universe is the creation and dominion of the Servant God. This God is a quantum moral advance from the old eye for an eye God. Leadership is political and economic and sociological. But leadership is also a reflection of our understanding of who God and our neighbor is, and who we are. The way we lead should be based on what we think human life was designed to do and how it was designed to do it. When leadership takes such things into account it becomes a natural extension of God’s purpose for life. But if our leadership style pays no heed to the order of creation – no matter how many leadership gurus or books or tapes are pushing it – it is little more than a strategy to accomplish our ends alone. A crude, impulsive “lording it over” others with no redeeming purpose at all.

The second point today is that leadership is one of the great issues of our time and we as individuals are called to use servant leadership to change the world. Much leadership does not reflect any understanding of God or neighbor, or a healthy understanding of self. I am talking about leadership as any activity that sets an example. Parenting, practicing the professions, teaching, working for a company or non-profit agency, the business of making the church run, learning, competing in athletics. These are the opportunities and occasions of leadership. I am not talking about leadership as having great ideas – that is one dimension of leading. What I am focusing on today is how we lead when we interact. What messages we send. The impact our behavior has on others. This is the kind of leadership that happens when people mentor or tutor or advise a youth group or teach a Sunday School class or coach soccer.  This is the kind of leadership that changes lives and can shape the entire culture of human organizations from congregations to corporations.

If leadership is one of the great issues of our time and we are called as individuals to exercise servant leadership in our daily living, then the third point today is that you and I, together, are called to be a servant leader church. John Buchanan, pastor of Fourth Church, Chicago makes this point talking about mission. So often we regard mission as the extra work of charity and compassion, he says, the work we do after all the other things have been tended to. But as logical and widespread as this thinking is, Buchanan says,  it is one of the things that is wrong with the church. We are not called simply to exist, or just survive, or even to be successful. We are called to be faithful to Jesus Christ and to serve the world as he served it. To love the world as he loved it. To give our lives away as he gave his life away. The resources to live, to exist, to survive are given to us by God, not so much as we become more efficient, or economical, or astute at raising funds and conserving resources. Those are important. But precisely as we discover that the essence of the church’s being is to give itself away.

How does the church lead by serving? This is not rocket science. It is simple like the Gospel. First, churches are servant leaders by their mere presence, by being there, by reminding the whole community of our human responsibility to care for one another. There are lots of ways this happens big and small. But it is terribly important work. Ian and I just visited some colleges and universities in Florida including Barry University – a Catholic school whose president Sister Jeanne O’Laughlin hosted Elian Gonzalez’s grandmothers in the midst of that crisis. There were not any great solutions being proposed. Sister Jeanne was just saying we have to sit down and talk about this face to face. We can’t afford to forget that human lives are involved here. Not unlike our own community dialogue about the issue of moving Children’s Hospital. Having representatives of both sides and members of the community helped humanize the process. When I think what Buffalo faces from jobs to race to the schools Westminster could be doing a more ministry of presence. Churches are servant leaders when they remind the community of our human responsibility to care for one another.

Churches are servant leaders by providing community. Providing the space, the opportunity, the reason for otherwise busy and preoccupied people to be together. Churches are reminders that life can be lived together more gently, kindly, peaceably. A Harvard sociologist in a new best-seller entitled, Bowling Alone, says that community is an endangered species in our society. While there used to be bowling leagues, today they are like sociological dinosaurs. People choose to bowl alone. Bowling alone is a metaphor for society. We are increasingly isolated and separated from one another. The church leads by serving when it provides opportunities to build and experience community. Groups of any kind: parenting, faith exploration, divorce, substance abuse, Bible study, Habitat. Churches through the groups they foster and support serve by reminding busy and preoccupied people that life can be lived gently, kindly together.

Finally, the church is a servant leader by opening its doors and reaching out to those who are most fragile and vulnerable. The importance of this kind of servant leadership cannot be overestimated. We live in an age of high risk children, high risk families, high risk marriages. We live during a time when educated and affluent members of society enjoy the abundance of the land while those who don’t are increasingly marginalized and pushed away from the table. The church is a servant leader when it performs the boundary shattering work of inclusion whether the boundary is race, class, gender or sexual orientation. When the church raises its banner and opens its doors for those who are oppressed and beaten down it reminds the larger community and society that God is on the side of the poor and the oppressed.

How does a servant lead? Jesus did it by honoring the dignity and worth of each human being. Like the time he washed his disciples’ feet.  He did it by hanging in there with James and John and the other disciples when their sights were set on being leaders in the old order, in a world that did not honor human dignity and worth. What he challenged them to do and what he challenges us to measure our lives and ministry by is the extent to which we give ourselves away and help to usher in the kingdom he proclaimed.

Amen.