October 21, 2012 | 8:00 a.m.

Upside-Down Greatness

Victoria G. Curtiss
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 104
Mark 10:35–45

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.

Mother Teresa

An influential psychologist named Donald Meichenbaum tells of the time that his car was struck by lightning while he was driving. Once he was safely home, he began to share with his teenage son about his ordeal. He had hoped for at least a modicum of sympathy. Instead, his son interrupted him saying, “Dad, let’s go buy a lottery ticket. They say the chances of being hit by lightning are like the chances of winning the lottery.”

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are just as self-absorbed as Donald’s son when they approach Jesus to say, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “And what would that be?” Jesus asks. They respond, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in glory.”

This comes right after Jesus has described to his disciples—for the third time—that he would soon be condemned, then handed over to the Gentiles to be humiliated and killed. Had they not been listening? Was it just beyond their comprehension? Or are they so caught up in their own dreams of power and position? None of the disciples were anticipating his crucifixion, when those who would be at his right and left sides would be criminals, also hanging on crosses. James and John want to be seated next to Jesus in his coming glory. The other disciples seem to be upset with what the two brothers asked of Jesus, perhaps because they, too, had been dreaming of power and position and resented the brothers’ getting to Jesus ahead of them to make such a bold request.

Perhaps you can identify with the disciples. Don’t we all yearn to be admired and given a seat of honor? When I was in fifth grade and was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I said, “Famous.” It’s not so much that I liked attention. In fact, I think I would find it oppressive to be recognized wherever I go. But as a youngster I wasn’t thinking about being hounded by autograph seekers or paparazzi. I was thinking about great people that I had read about in books. I equated being famous with being someone great. Being someone great meant that I had done something outstanding in the world, I would be admired, and I would be remembered after I died.

Then I became a Christian and learned that seeking to be great in the world’s eyes was not what we are called to do. We are called to be servants. So my role model became Mother Teresa. She seemed the epitome of being a servant, caring for the outcasts in India, doing the most mundane tasks for the poorest of the poor abandoned on the streets to die. She founded the religious order called the Sisters of Charity, who show compassion day in and day out for the poor all over the world. But when I was honest with myself, I knew I was also drawn to her because she was famous. She was famous as a great Christian. I was still seeking admiration and wanting to make a big impact.

John Calvin wrote that this gospel encounter between Jesus and James and John contains a “bright mirror of human vanity” because “it shows that proper and holy zeal is often accompanied by ambition, or some other vice of the flesh, so that they who follow Christ have a different object in view from what they ought to have.” This problem is not unique to those who seek to be followers of Christ. Our daily news is filled with leaders who seek their own benefit and glory rather than the benefit of others.

We can so easily deceive ourselves that what we do supposedly for others is truly for their benefit rather than to meet our own needs. Quaker author Richard Foster distinguishes self-righteous service from true service. Self-righteous service comes through human effort. True service comes through relationship with the Divine. Self-righteous service is impressed with the “big deal” and is highly concerned with results. True service finds it hard to distinguish the small from the large. It is not concerned with results but delights in the service itself. Self-righteous service is temporary, affected by moods and whims. True service is a lifestyle, ministering because there is a need. Self-righteous service requires external rewards. True service rests contented in hiddenness. Self-righteous service demands the opportunity to help, insisting on meeting a need even when to do so is destructive. True service can withhold service as freely as performing it. True servants are able to listen patiently before acting and to wait patiently in silence. Self-righteous service picks and chooses whom to serve, fractures community, and puts others into debt or obligation. True service is indiscriminate in its ministry and builds community, healing and drawing people together (Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, pp. 132–133).

Somewhere along my Christian journey I got the twisted idea that if you aren’t suffering you must not really be serving God. But that’s not what Jesus taught. We may suffer as disciples of Christ because his path goes against the grain. But suffering per se is neither the goal nor the measure of our faithfulness. Following the way of the cross doesn’t call us simply to bear the burdens of life or to practice ascetic self-denial or passively accept violence or abuse. For too many centuries, the Bible was used to justify slavery, and women who were being beaten by their husbands were told by their pastors (if they dared to reveal their situation) to accept that abuse, being submissive to the one deemed the “head of the household.” When prayers of confession name the sin of dominating others, it applies most to those who have power and wield authority in our society. Women, people of color, persons with lower incomes—anyone treated as if they have lower status—more likely need to confess the sin of withholding their full selves than of domination.

Serving others is not the same as being a doormat, disavowing one’s own authority, or allowing oneself to be manipulated. Serving means being obedient to what God is calling you to be and do and making yourself available to be used as God’s instrument. As Mother Teresa said, “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.”

Jesus turned our frameworks upside down when he taught that those who wish to be great must be the servant of all; those who wish to be first must be the slave of all. This is countercultural. What happens in the world is what biblical scholar Walter Wink called the Domination System. The Domination System is characterized by power exercised over others, by control of others, by ranking as the primary principle of social organizations, by hierarchies of dominant and subordinate, winners and losers, insiders and outsiders, honored and shamed. This is a far cry from using power with and for others. The way of the cross resists this Domination System. Jesus turns things topsy-turvy from the way the world operates.

This topsy-turvy reframing was promoted by Robert Greenleaf, who coined the phrase “servant leadership.” Greenleaf was inspired to think of the leader as servant from reading the short novel by Hermann Hesse Journey to the East. In this story, a band of men go on a pilgrimage to the East in search of the ultimate Truth. They travel through time and space, across geography imaginary and real. A servant named Leo accompanies the party, doing their menial chores and also sustaining them with his spirit and his song. Leo is described as happy, pleasant, handsome, beloved by everyone, having a rapport with animals. To a discerning reader, he seems a great deal more than a simple servant, but nobody in the pilgrimage seems to understand this. All goes well on the journey until Leo disappears. Then the group falls into anxiety and argument. They accuse Leo of taking with him various objects that they seem to be missing (which turn up later) and which they regard as very important (which turn out later not to be). The group disintegrates and the journey comes to an end. They blame Leo for the failure of their pilgrimage, not recognizing that it was Leo’s extraordinary presence that held them together. They could not make it without the servant Leo. The narrator, one of the party, after some years of wandering, finds Leo and is taken into the Order that had sponsored the journey. There he discovers that Leo, whom he had known first as servant, was in fact the titular head of the Order, its guiding spirit, a great and noble leader.

Robert Greenleaf wrote,

The servant-leader is servant first. . . . Becoming a servant-leader begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first. . . . The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and the most difficult to administer, is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?. . . And what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived? (R. K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness, p. 27).

Jesus came to earth not to be served, but to serve. He spent his life and gave his life for others. He taught us to sacrifice ourselves in service as well. There may be nothing wrong in wishing to be great, in God’s eyes. But true greatness is not measured by how much others notice and admire us, nor through power, position, and fame. To be great in God’s eyes is to be a servant. May God reshape and strengthen us to live in this upside-down way.