Spiritual Hiccups - Servants

A phrase that gets bandied around in church circles is "servant leadership." I assume that it comes from biblical passages such as the gospel reading for today where Jesus says that "whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant." It sounds good, but let's get real. I want influence and power. I want people to respect me and listen to me when I speak. And when I look around at my pastor colleagues who get called great or successful, the basis for such designations is often the same measures the world uses. Their congregations are big. They have lots of members and staff, and they get things done. Some of them are probably great servants too, but that rarely gets mentioned.

And I want the same things for myself. I want my congregation to be bigger and do important, impressive things that get us noticed. Ideally such things would involve service, but...

Unless I'm way off when I read my Bible, Jesus comes to bring the Kingdom of God, a term that speaks of a world where God's will is done, and many of the world's values get turned upside down. Just look at the Beatitudes in Matthew to see what I'm talking about. It's the poor in spirit (the poor in Luke's version), those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger for the world to be set right, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted who will be called blessed in this Kingdom, not those who are powerful or "successful." And yet I and many others in the Church often seem to be shaped more by the values of the world than by those of the Kingdom.

I wonder sometimes if the struggles of the Church in our day are because the culture around us is becoming more secular and pluralistic, or because the Church so often fails to point to or demonstrate a better way of life than the one promoted by the world.

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