07.07.2015
Leadership is About Service, Courage and Compassion – Archbishop’s Sermon in St Patrick’s Cathedral
Archbishop Michael Jackson was in Residence in St Patrick’s Cathedral on Sunday (June 5). In his sermon, the Archbishop focused on the concept of leadership.
Drawing from the day’s readings [2 Corinthians 12.2–10; St Mark 6.1–13], he said that leadership was something which was much debated in church life and there were various definitions and expectations of what leadership should be.
The Archbishop said that the Gospel and Epistle introduced indisputable Christian leaders. He pointed to the example of Jesus and St Paul.
“The examples of Jesus and St Paul ought to give us a clue to what leadership in a religious and in a Christian context are. First, leadership is about service of God and neighbour. Too often are we attracted to a picture of a shepherd striding out in front of sheep as if the following sheep know where they are following; it simply does not go like that. The model is simpler; as with most small animals they need to be around your feet, you need to be careful of them and you need to talk with them AND you need to lead from within. Secondly, leadership is about courage and compassion combined. I would go so far as to say that each on its own runs the danger of going into the sand and getting badly hurt. And it is for this reason that I put together: weakness and steeliness. In Jesus and St Paul we can see that there is nothing abject about vulnerability or about service,” he stated.
The full text of Archbishop Jackson’s sermon is below:
The Fifth Sunday after Trinity July 5.2015 Sung Eucharist, St Patrick’s Cathedral
Reading: 2 Corinthians 12.2–10; St Mark 6.1–13
a sermon preached by Michael Jackson, archbishop of Dublin
St Mark 6.3: … and they took offence at him …
INTRODUCTION
It all sounds alarmingly predictable, alarmingly parochial and indeed alarmingly like most churches known to us and loved by us: Don’t irritate us please … Don’t ask us to do anything different … What on earth do you think you are doing and, by the way, who on earth do you think you are? Just leave us alone pleeeeeeease …
The depth of cynicism and the crystallization of begrudgery in most church communities – both of these are plain for all to see, if only we can get in behind the well–laundered net curtains of exclusion and self–righteousness. And yet it cannot possibly be all of the story that is to be told; because the story is the story of salvation. The trusting among us tend to think that church life is about openness and invitation. It certainly should be. Often, instead, we quickly find out that it beckons in the opposite direction. Those who knew us in earlier stages of our life tend to remember us as ‘the carpenter,’ and they can reel off the names of all our brothers and sisters, the modern equivalent of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, whom they knew and with whom they fell out in the school playground. It is their crowning argument: They knew us when we were nobody and that is enough to cut us down when God is at work in us, when God is transforming us – or anyone else who perturbs their cosy nest.
LEADERSHIP
Leadership is something of which we hear much today in church life – often maybe too much. It is not so much that it is incorrect to expect leadership from and by those who are invested and infused with power from on high by the Holy Spirit – in fact quite the opposite! The difficulty, in my experience, is that the definitions and the expectations of leadership differ across a variety of sectors, as we say, and very quickly we are in a position where we are not comparing like with like. Governance and Protocols are, actually, somewhat the same. People find that the very entities they are comparing and trading in are not simply, as they imagined, practicalities but, rather, philosophies. They are about ideas and not simply about things. People want strong leadership without understanding strong in any way other than dominant or dominating – and then, mysteriously, they don’t want it at all.
Perhaps we are now getting closer to the heart of our problem. Maybe in the church today we simply have insufficient philosophical agreement or, more realistically, insufficient respect for theological difference or insufficient urgency to close the gaps of un–charity and in–comprehension. These qualities would enable us to understand and appreciate the sortS of leadershipS that are lived out in the Bible and in the person of Jesus Christ and in his followers. Perhaps we need to look a little more closely at what both the Epistle and Gospel for today tell us about leadership if we are to cluster the components of a theology of leadership as service of those whom God has given us to us as a gift and as fellow–disciples, whether we are numbered among the ordained or not.
VULNERABILITY AND WOUNDEDNESS
Today’s Epistle and Gospel introduce us to indisputable leaders in the life of Christianity. One was its founder, so to speak, Jesus Christ. The other is its earliest and most exhausting missionary, St Paul. The first thing we should note is that they came out of another tradition, that of Judaism; and they retained both a continuing respect for it and a healthy and combative attitude towards it. Their concern was to respond to the new revelation and expression of God in them and in others, as God had given them fresh discernment and humility. The second thing we should note is that they knew when they were being kicked around and they actually did something about it. Vulnerability and woundedness are very uncomfortable places to be. They seem everlasting when you are in them. But the relationship of death and resurrection, combined with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, shows us that vulnerability and woundedness are not the same as powerlessness. This is a convenient misunderstanding and misreading of Holy Scripture.
EXAMPLE OF JESUS
Under pressure, what Jesus did was to expand rather than contract. Jesus left Nazareth, his home town, to its own small–mindedness. He himself went about the villages: teaching. He commissioned The Twelve to go out in pairs and he gave them authority over unclean spirits. He was very clear that this was more than human begrudgery; he taught them that this was spiritual warfare. But he learned from those who diminished him in his home town: he instructed his disciples to travel simply and, wherever they went, not to move around from house to house becoming either celebrities or carriers of gossip. He also learned from his own experience by giving them the further and final clear instruction: If they refuse to hear you, then shake the dust from off your feet as you leave – not as an insult but – and the language is quite careful – as a testimony against them. Their inhospitable response is their testimony, their legacy to themselves. It is also the personal liberation into the primary requirement of leadership: self–care.
EXAMPLE OF PAUL
Paul has clearly been on the receiving end of sustained criticism for his claim to spiritual authority. What is interesting about his style of leadership is that he succeeds in conveying to the readers of his Letter that he is hurt by this accusation but, as is the mark of true leadership and prominence, it is in fact not about him it is about them. This is what I call: caritative altruism, care of oneself in the service of others and care of others in the service of one’s self. Never forget the oxygen mask in the plane and the instruction on priorities in emergencies! St Paul explains that the revelations are true: that he can stand over them in the face of anyone who takes issue with them or with him. He explains that, for himself, he is no more than a vessel of God’s grace and indeed a vessel wounded to remind him of the need for humility at all times. And, again, humility is not the same as worthlessness. Humility is the essential rein–check on those who are given power and authority combined, to enable them to cope and to flourish. We are, and I suggest quite rightly, left in suspended ignorance about what this thorn in the flesh in fact is. What we learn and what we need to remember is that the weakness, whatever it may be, has the function of pointing St Paul to the givingness, the graciousness, of God that will not fail him. These are vital perspectives on leadership and service, on weakness and steeliness.
PROSPECT
The examples of Jesus and St Paul ought to give us a clue to what leadership in a religious and in a Christian context are. First, leadership is about service of God and neighbour. Too often are we attracted to a picture of a shepherd striding out in front of sheep as if the following sheep know where they are following; it simply does not go like that. The model is simpler; as with most small animals they need to be around your feet, you need to be careful of them and you need to talk with them AND you need to lead from within. Secondly, leadership is about courage and compassion combined. I would go so far as to say that each on its own runs the danger of going into the sand and getting badly hurt. And it is for this reason that I put together: weakness and steeliness. In Jesus and St Paul we can see that there is nothing abject about vulnerability or about service.
I conclude with a very simple story of two people going to work in a State in Northern Nigeria. Both were Christian and one was a vet and the other was a nurse. They consulted with the Emir of the region to negotiate their entry, they were granted entry and they stayed for five years; they served the needs of the people and their animals and were loved by all and left. Some years later a self–styled Christian Missionary sought entry to the State. Like the vet and the nurse, the missionary had to make his case before the Emir. After hearing him out, the Emir said: We are very touched that you want to come to work among us, but we actually don’t need you. Some years back we had Jesus Christ and his wife working among us and they did a very good job.
2 Corinthians 12.9: My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.