Servant Leadership
Servant Leadership by Rev. L. John Gable
July 5, 2020
In 1970 Robert Greenleaf who, interestingly enough was from Terre Haute, Indiana, presented an essay in a business journal titled, “The Servant as Leader” which challenged the authoritarian style of leadership prevalent in most businesses of the day. In it he argued that the most effective leaders are “servants of their people” who get results for their organization through whole-hearted attention to their followers and their follower’s needs. The premise of his new-fangled style of leadership was that the leader should be a servant first, leading from a desire to better serve the needs of others rather than trying to control or attain more power for themselves.
His theory of “servant leadership”, radical though it was for his day, took hold, particularly among Christian leaders, and it is little wonder why. The concept of “servant leadership” is modeled best by Jesus Himself, whose service on behalf of His followers led Him to the cross, which was then put in to practice as the early church grew and needed to add some structure to their enthusiasm. Bear in mind, when we talk about “the early church” in our study of Acts we are not talking about “church” as we know “church” today with boards and structures and programs and ministries, but “church” as a loosely organized company of believers whose lives were changed by their new found faith in Jesus. Very quickly though that “organic” little company of believers came to the realization that they needed to get organized if they were going to carry out the Great Commission Jesus had given them as well as meet the very practical demands they were being faced with on a daily basis, such as we read in Acts chapter 6.
Let me set the stage. This body of believers is growing, exponentially. The few have become the many and with the many come, not only greater opportunities, but also greater needs and new challenges. One of the practices carried over from their Jewish roots was the custom of making a collection of both money and goods every Friday to help the needy, the poor, the widows, the orphans and outcast which was then distributed that same day. Those with temporary needs received enough for them to carry on and those who were more permanently in need received enough food for fourteen meals, two meals a day until the next collection and distribution. In addition to this weekly collection there was also a daily collection made house to house for those with the most pressing needs. Clearly the synagogue taught the practice of caring for the poor, and the early church was committed to do the same.
Unlike the synagogue, however, the church at this point was made up of two kinds of Jews: those from Jerusalem, from Palestine, who spoke Aramaic, a derivative of Hebrew, the more conservative who prided themselves for having no foreign mixture in their lineage, and the Jews from other far-away places who had come to faith in Jesus through the events of Pentecost. This second group were Hellenists, who spoke Greek, not Hebrew, and they were seen as being foreigners, outsiders, “second class citizens”. Apparently there was some first century “racism” or “classism”, and it evidenced itself in the daily distribution of food as the widows of Hebrew descent were being better attended to than the widows of Greek descent and complaints about this unequal service made it to the apostles.
So, how did the early church leaders deal with this dilemma? They addressed it head on. They recognized the inequity of the system and set about to do something about it.
Christian history from its founding is replete with examples of how the church has seen a need and made efforts to address it, sometimes successfully and at other times mistakenly or short-sightedly; often with fits and starts; sometimes taking the lead and at other times lagging behind, but there is good evidence that the church has always had a desire and commitment to address the needs of the community in which it resides, spiritual, physical and social. Children were thought of and treated differently because of Jesus, as were women. The church through the ages has seen the value of learning, the love of God with the mind, so committed themselves to preserving the Scriptures, embracing the classics and eventually developing systems of education through guilds of learning and the founding of colleges and universities. We have put a value on human life so have worked diligently to improve social conditions and established hospitals and relief efforts of all kinds in every age and place, and the list goes on.
In a similar way, Tab has a parallel history of seeing a need and working to address it. We saw the need for quality education so in our early days founded the Tudor Hall School which later merged and became Park Tudor. Decades later we partnered in founding of the Oaks Academy and internally Tab Tutoring. In the mid-80’s we heard the cry for improvements to our neighborhood and community so helped to organize the Mapleton-Fall Creek CDC and numerous other efforts since. In the mid-90’s we established the Raphael Health Center to address the health care needs of our neighbors and the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic to address their legal needs, many involving issues of injustice and inequality. We continue to work to address the food insecurity needs of our neighbors through the Open Door and more recently the Fresh Stop ministry, and there are many other examples of how we have and do attempt to see the needs around us and address them.
Out of this deep and long history, we now recognize with new awareness that the time is right and ripe to join in addressing still other social and racial inequities of our time, to recognizing the needs of our neighbors and advocating for changes that are long overdue. This is not the church playing politics, but the church being the church, by addressing the needs of the people in the communities in which we live and work and worship.
So, recognizing this first century need the apostles were faced with a dilemma. They knew that they, the twelve, could not take on this additional responsibility and continue to do the ministries they were already doing, as they clearly stated, “It is not right that we should neglect the word of God – preaching, teaching, evangelizing – in order to wait on tables”. That is an accurate translation of the Greek word used here, diakonia, from which we get our word “deacon”. Deacons are one of the three ordained offices in our church structure today
(pastors, elders and deacons), and these are the ones who are so gifted and called to ministries of service, sympathy and compassion, to “waiting on tables”. They are called and gifted to be our “servant leaders”, not asked to preach and teach but to act, and we have some great ones here at Tab. Women and men who really love to love and serve and we are grateful for them.
But there is something so interesting about this particular calling – and I do call it a “gifting and a calling”. Like the other ministries of the church, those who are called to be deacons, and who do it well, understand that they have been gifted by God with skills and abilities and a desire to love and serve, so when asked to serve in this way they embrace the opportunity willingly and enthusiastically, as the “God calling” it is. You’ve seen it in them, as have I, they have a natural inclination toward caregiving and they do it well. I love the story of the reporter who was walking through a field hospital during WWII and saw a nurse caring for the wounds of an injured soldier. Under his breath he muttered, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars”, to which the nurse responded under her breath, “Neither would I.” What some would do only for money, others do only out of love, so it is with our deacons.
Now that being said, this calling to be a “servant”, a “caregiver responding to the needs of others”, is not given to only a few of us, but to each and every one of us as we are called to follow in the way of Jesus. I have seen it play itself out here at Tab and in every other church I have served. As the nominating committee does its work of discerning who among us has which gifts for ministry and service, invariably they see a certain reluctance coming from some who are asked to fill this office of deacon. Typically those asked to be Elders or Endowment Fund Trustees, offices charged with making decisions and giving direction, say “yes” far more readily, than those who are asked to fill the “servant leader” role of deacon. Why is that? I know it is not that we don’t care about the needs of our neighbors or the needs of our fellow church members, then why is it that we resist assuming this care-giving responsibility when asked to do so? We each would do well to address this spiritual condition if we find ourselves resisting a willingness to actively serve one another. We suffer a spiritual malady if we agree to being served, but resist ever doing the serving. We need to check ourselves if we find ourselves saying, “I am content right where I am. My needs are being well taken care of and, quite candidly, I don’t really think God has given me the “gift” of caring for the needs of others.” That, my friends, would be a misuse of the understanding of how God “gifts” His people. Believe me when I say God “HAS” gifted you for acts of caring and concern and compassion. Being a “servant leader”, assuming the servant role either in a formal office or in an informal practice, is part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus as we align ourselves with the One who says, “I came not to be served but to serve.”
Seven men were chosen that day, curiously all with Greek sounding names, including one, Nicolaus, who was a Gentile convert. They were chosen from the ranks of those who were being dis-advantaged and overlooked: one being Philip, whose story we will talk about in a couple of weeks, another being Stephen who became the first Christian martyr. His service in the name of Jesus caught the attention of the leaders of the synagogue who asked “why” he was serving in this way to which Stephen responded, “Because of Jesus”, and he then gave what we might call the second Christian sermon recorded in the book of Acts. He recounted the history of the faith which led to the coming of Jesus, then accused those who should have welcomed and received Him of denying Him and putting Him to death. His message so offended the religious leaders of the day that they took him out and stoned him, even as a young Pharisee named Saul stood by and watched. Stephen’s death left an indelible mark on young Saul, particularly as he heard him cry out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” It is no coincidence that the Greek word for “witness” is the same as that for “martyr”. There is truth to the saying that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”
To what is Christ calling us today as His followers? For some in fact it may be the ultimate act of martyrdom, a willingness to die for the faith; but for the vast majority of us, the likes of you and me, it is the willingness to “wait on tables”, to serve our neighbors and those in need, in the name of the “Servant Leader” who came to serve and save us.