Leaders in an upside down world
To watch the talk this post is based on, go here.
To say that our current lives have been ‘impacted’ is probably the understatement of the year. Our lives have been turned upside down, maybe permanently. But the changes and the frustrations aren’t from COVID-19, they’re from our leaders.
Let me explain.
Whatever your thoughts on COVID-19, it’s not the biggest problem in our society right now - our leaders are. As a leader myself this is both easy to see and heartbreaking to watch. I join leaders every day in obtaining the best information that we can find, to make the wisest decisions that we can, in order to accomplish the greatest good that we can manage. There’s no pandemic manual, so I feel like I’ve failed a lot even with lots of good things happening at our church and a great team of people to borrow brains from.
Leadership is crucial right now, and the mixed, discombobulated, self-serving decisions that some leaders are making isn’t helping a society that is frustrated, scared, appalled and angry at the people who supposedly represent them.
Just in the last few months we’ve waded through a rather tumultuous election that is apparently still ongoing, with the succession or relinquishment of power continuing to drive a wedge between families and friends. We’ve had high profile church leaders make headlines by taking their governor’s to court and forcing other Pastors to pick a side, or throwing fuel on the ‘Christians are hypocrites’ fire by getting fired for committing adultery. Thanksgiving seems to be next on the chopping block with some leaders recommending canceling Thanksgiving, limiting the number of people, or mandating masks. Our own Governor in Nevada issued new gathering reductions just last night, one of which being the mandate to wear masks in our own homes during thanksgiving. I guess I could think of the mask as a beard bib?
Leadership is difficult right now, but being led may be harder. Our trust is low, our patience is thin and our expectations are high.
I think most leaders want to do the right thing, but I don’t think most leaders have the right perspective that would lead to doing the right thing.
In order to get the right perspective I think we must turn to arguably the greatest leader ever - Jesus of Nazareth. His followers were untrained, unschooled, ordinary men with no land, status and positions of power, and yet Jesus’ movement lived on despite murderous opposition and hostile environments, eventually becoming the greatest movement in human history. Jesus’ new movement now comprises the largest, most comprehensively diverse people groups in the world, while being unified under one person - Jesus Himself - regardless of people’s background, socioeconomic status, birthplace, status or prior lifestyles. Jesus and his followers forever changed Western culture, paved the way for the rights of children, women, the oppressed and cast aside; as well as capturing the imaginations and hearts of the most influential people in history.
Jesus is, unquestionably the most influential leader ever. Period. It’s not close.
Now whether or not you believe that He was (and is) God himself is another matter, but let’s talk about Jesus’ teaching on having the right perspective when it comes to leadership.
One day as Jesus was traveling around the countryside teaching, gathering crowds along the way, part of his inner circle approached him with a request:
Mark 10:35-44 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
A rather bold statement by pretty much anyone’s standards. Whatever you ask? No limit? No questions asked?
Jesus responds in a surprising way. In fact Jesus responds in the way that all of us, right now, if we were to ask God this bold question, would hope for. Jesus says:
“What do you want me to do for you?”
Now if Jesus is really the person that the witnesses in the Bible say He is - the Son of God, the one that the OT prophets told everyone to be on the lookout for, the one for which John the Baptist was preparing the way for, the one that the good news is centered around, then really...they’re asking this question to God.
I imagine you’ve probably done this recently if you pray. In fact you would love to get this question from God himself directed towards you. How would you finish this sentence if you were given this offer?
God will you:________________?
God will you keep my family safe?
God will you help me find the provisions I need for my family?
God will you be with me and comfort me in my fear?
God will you give me peace in these uncertain times?
God will you help them get home safely?
The request of the two men is decidedly less noble - if Jesus really is God and He really is bringing a new kind of kingdom and order to the world, then they want positions of prominence and power. They want life to be good for them, after all they’re on the inside, shouldn’t they get it?
This is the problem that most of us have with leaders: we believe they will use their prominence and power for themselves.
It’s why we roll our eyes when we see it happen on the news - not in shocking dismay but as an expected let down. We had hoped that this leader, the one we voted for, prayed for, petitioned for would be better, but often it’s just more of the same.
Jesus wanted to break this trend, here’s what He said:
Mark 10:42-44 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.
This may be the pivotal reason that Jesus’ movement survived, thrived and continues to attract so many devoted followers - the leaders would think of themselves as servants first. If they had any prominence or power it would be used for the benefit of others, who in turn would use it for others and on and on it went.
This is the perspective today that leaders should have in order to represent and lead their people well - leadership is first and foremost a position of serving others with everything we’ve got.
But, crucially Jesus would model it first:
Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
This is the theme for Mark’s Gospel. Here Jesus his uses his preferred title for Himself - ‘The Son of Man’, it was a title that communicated kinship and relatability to the people that He had come to see - that God knew His people, their circumstances and everything that was wrong with the world. While at the same time the title communicated Divinity, that Jesus was the paradox of God in the flesh, who was here to make the world right.
But what is more perplexing, what was more shocking to His disciples, what breaks the hearts of people still to this day is the fact that Jesus would give His life and pay to give us a relationship with God.
Jesus had all the prominence and power in the world, He could have used it for His own benefit but as Paul writes in Philippians “He was like God in every way, but he did not think that his being equal with God was something to use for his own benefit”
Jesus entered the world misunderstood by those that chose to follow Him, rejected by the religious leaders who were looking for Him in their scriptures, and mocked and slandered by the people who disagreed with him.
Just a few chapters later, Jesus would ultimately be captured, illegally tried at night, tortured, humiliated and die alone up on a hill. The very world He came to save, the very people he came to serve and give his life as a ransom for, would put him to death. And He walked into all of it, knowing and teaching that it all would happen - all to make your world and my world, your life and my life right.
It is this Gospel truth that, when our world is upside down, we can lean on so can have trust and confidence that it will not stay that way:
Gospel Truth: Everything wrong in the world, will ultimately be made right, by the one who was WRONGED, to make it RIGHT.
If you’d like to give your life to Christ you can do so through the following prayer.
Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn away from my sin and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior for the rest of my life to the best of my abilities. Amen