Heroes and Villains.

The true form of servant leadership doesn’t lie in Nouwen’s downwardly

mobile Christ. Because there is still the assumption that the top-down
model is implanted within the very psyche of leadership. If you can allow me to be simplistic for a
moment, maybe our ideas of leadership, however informed they are by scripture, might not be informed enough.

Let us venture through some of the more axiomatic verses typically used within Christianity.

One of the most used verses to speak of what is known as servant-leadership comes from the scene where Jesus takes a towel and washes the feet of his friends. For most, this might be easily defined
as a service-oriented/customer-service philosophy of leadership wherein the ‘leader’ remains the leader but takes a position of no-leadership to better serve those s/he is ‘called’ to lead.

What if that wasn’t it though?

What if our notion of leadership in the Church isn’t radical enough?
Jesus was a rabbi. Just by being a Rabbi meant you already came with socially recognized status.
Status in this culture, much like our culture, also signified some sort of power and
influence. I think what is also important to remember that in thisancient Jewish culture, to be a servant meant you had no-name.

Now a name in this culture wasn’t just a label of some sort but it was
who you were/could be/shouldn’t be at the core of who you were. Your
name was intrinsically tied up with identity. To be a servant meant
you were quite literally a no-body. Jesus would have been aware of
this. In this one act, Jesus negated himself. In doing so he allows
space for others to establish themselves in their own identity.

As part of our human condition it seems that more often than not we
look to others to define our ethics and/or how we define reality. Take
for example the reverse-deification of historical people. Notice that
not every person is included in our history, but rather only those who
either contributed for the well-being of humanity or those who have
really messed it up for us. And it seems the pedestals on which these
heroes and villains sit is chosen by those who help write history. It
seems by Jesus choosing the status of servant he eradicates pedestals.
To be a leader doesn’t mean we look for pedestals to stand upon,
rather, it means we look for pedestals to eradicate.

If we continue to frame our definition of servant leadership on the
life and acts of Jesus then it means we must be in continual revision
of how we define both servant and leader. In another place Jesus
challenges his listeners with the notion of death coupled with
following. In fact, he goes so far as to say that for some this way of
following might be too radical for them. I think this is what happens
in a top-down-model, because not only are there pedestals but it
includes the death/subordination of everyone else around.

Jesus tells his audience that they must take up their cross to follow
him. This is a radical idea. Because it illicits a full negation of
self. Both literally & figuratively. Jesus seems to define the
journey through death. Through self-eradication. Leadership is not
what you do on a Sunday or in a workshop, it seems to be defined as a
way of life.

You are not anymore a leader standing in a pulpit then when you are
cleaning a toilet after camp. It’s visceral. So is death. This is why
mega-churches are ultimately a failure because they promote the
top-down model. They have to have a traditional leader to sustain
their behemoth existence.

But be rest assured this macabre leadership style is and will never be
popular. It’s too Tim Burton for most in the Church. To take up an
object like a cross means to also know what its going to mean in the
end. That to claim to be a servant leader means one must eventually
come to a point of pedestal-burning and self-negation. This is not a
easy option, but neither is following Jesus.