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Stephen Ministry

The topic of leadership, which Paul raises in our Scripture passage for today, is certainly a relevant one for today. First of all, in case you missed it, our nation is in the process of selecting a new leader. So there’s been much in the news about that process. Included in that news has been the issue of some of the leaders in the lives of the candidates. For example, to what extent has the pastoral leadership of a Jeremiah Wright influenced and shaped the political mind of a Barak Obama? Perhaps you’ve heard something about that discussion. Which reminds me, are there any candidates for political office worshiping with us today? Just wondering what I might do today to make your life miserable! Anyway, the topic of leadership has certainly been before us over the past few months.

Leadership was also very much before me this past week as I participated in a reunion mission trip involving our former church in Hastings, Nebraska. For one thing, when I served as an associate pastor there I was always the leader for these trips—called Go and Serve. It felt a bit strange to not carry any of that responsibility for this particular trip. On the other hand, a consistent issue of leadership—on those previous trips as well as this trip…and most mission trips I’ve been on—is that when it comes to the work to be done, particularly work like this mission trip which involved building a house in Greensburg, Kansas, I’m not a good leader. I’m a good worker bee, but I am not the leader for such a project. That’s because—basically, I don’t know what I’m doing. The work scheduled to be done on this particular house involved roofing and putting on the siding—two tasks I’ve never done and know little about. You would not want me to organize and lead the work for roofing and siding a house. The result would not be pretty. Fortunately, we were assigned a general foreman from the group overseeing the rebuilding of houses in Greensburg. Even more fortunately, several of the participants in our group have experience with this kind of work and are good at it. I learned a long time ago with such projects to be the worker bee following someone else’s lead. So, it was an interesting trip regarding this topic of leadership.

There is a delicate balance to being a leader. On the one hand, there is the matter of competency and being confident in our abilities to lead. That’s my problem in leading a building project. I don’t have much competency in that area and little confidence. Leaders must have both—competency and confidence in their abilities that leads to saying "follow me!" The apostle Paul had both. Certainly he had lived his faith, was very competent in being a follower of Jesus Christ. And he had confidence. In fact, it sets us back a bit to read it—follow my example, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. But like a good leader, Paul is competent and confident in his abilities and says to others, "Follow me." It’s also the kind of leadership often seen in the military. Are you familiar with the book Band of Brothers and the subsequent TV series made of it? It is an incredible story of leadership within Easy Company of the 101^st Airborne Division. One character in particular stands out, Dick Winters. Band of Brothers is as much a story about his leadership as anything else—although he would dispute that statement. He would say Band of Brothers is about the courage of the men of Easy Company—and it is certainly about that as well. But his leadership is key. Which leads to the "other hand" delicate balance of leadership—and that is humility. The truly great leaders of the world walk that fine balance between confidence in their abilities and humility over their call to leadership. Paul also walked that line—along with saying "follow my example," he understood himself to be "chief among sinners." Good leaders are both competent and confident in their abilities, and yet humble in the role of leader. Find a leader who is lacking in confidence in their abilities and trouble quickly arises. The counterpoint to Dick Winters is Henry Sobel, the man who first led Easy Company during basic training. Sobel pushed his men hard in training and, consequently, played a critical role in the development of the men of Easy Company into as fine a group of soldiers as has ever been. But Sobel couldn’t lead them in the field. During training exercises he repeatedly got lost and led his men into bad situations. It would be like me trying to lead a group of workers in putting siding on a house. His lack of ability in that area, and the resultant lack of confidence that came with it, made him a bad leader for Easy Company and a change was made. Command of Easy Company went to Dick Winters and his confidence in his abilities along with his humility in carrying out his task made him an excellent and well respected leader for Easy Company. To the same degree, leaders lacking in humility quickly leads to trouble. Personal agendas get pushed, view of the big picture gets lost. I suspect that’s been part of the problem in these pastor outbursts. Whatever the motive for their comments, the line of humility has been crossed and the role of effective leader has been lost. Fred Craddock says of leadership, "To accept a leadership role is to accept responsibility beyond private preferences." Good leaders must be highly competent, have confidence in their abilities, yet also have a quiet humility about them. It is a fine line to walk.

The author, Jim Collins, in his book, Good to Great, and the researchers for the book were surprised to discover the quality of humility in great leaders. Competency and confidence in great leaders was a no-brainer. However, they also expected great leaders to be "bigger-than-life" individuals, their confidence leading to a kind of cockiness. Instead, they found humble leaders. It became an attribute they called "the window and the mirror." Great leaders, when addressing success and positive factors within their company point out the window to all the great people they work with. When addressing failures, great leaders point in the mirror and do not blame others. Collins and his researchers found poor leadership did the exact opposite. Therein lies the paradox of great leadership—competent and confident, yet also humble.

For our part, in following someone’s leadership, we are responsible for choices we make in whose leadership we’re going to follow. Let’s be honest—there are some people whose persuasive leadership can lead us to do the wrong thing. And there are some people whose leadership can lead us to do the right thing. This is Paul’s concern in his letter to the Philippians. In his encouragement for the Philippians to live out what they proclaim in faith—a frequent topic for Paul—he encourages them to follow the example Paul has set, and the example of others who live a life of faith. We have choices in the kind of leadership we will follow. Paul says to seek out the leadership of those living out mature faith.

I think the litmus test Paul would encourage us to use in choosing the leadership we will follow is this, do they point us to Christ? Does this person’s leadership bring us closer to Christ? Or does it lead us away from Christ? There are such people in our lives, people who can lead us away from Christ. Whether it is in activities they encourage us to be involved in, or conversations they lead us to participate in, their influence can lead us away from Christ. And Paul wants us to be wise about the leaders we choose to follow.

Let me add a word of caution here against separating our lives into two categories—church and faith matters…and all the rest. It is the first and, therefore, oldest mistake in the history of Christianity. In Paul’s time—and it is an issue Paul is frequently addressing in his letters, including today’s passage from Philippians—it was called Gnosticism. Basically, adherents to Gnosticism divided life into body and spirit and fell into two camps. One group dismissed the body as insignificant and ignored it, often resorting to a kind of abuse by denying basic care for the body. The other group took it to a new level—taking the view of the body as insignificant to the point where indulging the physical was encouraged. Their particular distortion of the truth of grace was this: Grace was needed because of sin. Therefore, the more sin the more grace, so…go and sin because the physical didn’t matter! That is likely who Paul is writing about when he speaks of enemies of the cross, whose "destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame." The modern version of this error is to separate our lives into two categories, faith and church here and other areas of life—career, recreation, etc., over here. Get a dose of religion over here and we’re set for the week…and faith never intersects with the other areas of life. Consequently, our leaders are separated also. Church and faith leaders here…and leaders in the other areas of life over there. But that is not the type of leadership Paul calls us to follow. The truth is, of course, that God is very much concerned with all areas of our life. The leaders we choose to follow should point us to Christ…in all our areas of life. Their leadership will not always be in a "religious" context, but would also not place us in opposition to Christian principles. Do they lead us in ways that are ethical, honest? Does their leadership take us to places that serve a greater good rather than self? Because what we do in life matters. Rather than the physical being insignificant, what happens in the physical matters. Our God is a very physical God. This sacrament we share today is a very physical thing. This is a sacrament of body and blood…of basic elements of life…of bread and grapes…a very physical sacrament. Because what we do in life matters. I honestly believe that some day, as people whose "citizenship is in heaven," we will stand before Jesus Christ and give an account of what we did with our lives—all areas of life, because what we do in this life matters. And we won’t be able to point out the window at others, blaming them for the choices and decisions we made, including choices we made about the leaders we chose to follow. We will, in that moment, have to look in the mirror and account for the life we led. So, it is a very important thing, this matter of leadership—who we chose to follow and how we led others in the opportunities we had to lead. Paul’s encouragement for us today on how we are to live is to seek leaders, and expect of our leaders, to lead us in ways that honor and glorify Jesus Christ.