2024.07.07 | Leading with Humility
Leading with Humility | Mark 6:1-13 | Marcos 6:1-13
This summer, we’re exploring the role of leadership in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and learning more about the variety of leadership styles that have been exhibited in our tradition. We’re also reflecting on our own leadership styles, and striving to learn and diversify our repertoire of styles in order to meet the leadership challenges in our time.
So far, we’ve studied four ancient Hebrew leaders and their respective leadership styles including two judges, Eli and Samuel, two kings, Saul and David, and a fifth leader, who resided in Israel, but who practiced magic and who purportedly was able to speak with the dead.
Today, we continue this exploration of biblical leadership and leadership styles by examining Jesus’ role as a leader, and the style of leadership to which he called his first followers.
II
Jesus showed up quite differently in Mark 6:1-13 compared with the Hebrew leaders that we’ve studied. Eli and Samuel, for example, provided direction to the Ancient Israelite leaders before the monarchy was established. (For context, think “Wild West” before the plains and mountainous states were settled.) The judges were the only earthly law and order in Cana. The judges lived at ancient pilgrimage sites where those who needed things to be sorted out came and asked for their advice.
Saul and David, who followed Eli and Samuel, represented progression toward national order. They were both military leaders who became kings. They obtained and held power primarily because they had the capacity to organize and maintain an army, unify the nation, and protect the Hebrew people from external enemies.
Samuel did not recommend military or monarchical leaders for Israel, but that’s the type of leaders Israel prayed for. So that’s what they got.
The witch of Endor, by contrast, was an unconventional leader who Saul consulted for military advice after Samuel’s death. The Philistines were a tough bunch. They had the most seasoned army in the ancient world, and used the most advanced technology--iron--in developing their weaponry. So Saul needed more than a little advice from the witch of Endor about how to defeat the Philistines.
Interestingly, the witch of Endor didn’t offer Saul a potion, magic words, or a secret weapon to Philistines. Instead, she offered hospitality in the forms of a place to rest and a good meal. She was the very model of Israelite hospitality and in a way, she prefigured the type of desert hospitality that Jesus hoped his disciples would experience when he sent them out two by two.
III
Each of the five ancient leaders who we have studied this summer garnered their authority from different means. The judges were revered for their adherence to Jewish law and their ability to provide moral guidance to tribal leaders between the time that the Hebrew people entered Cana and the Israelite monarchy was established.
The kings, by contrast, garnered their authority through military power and claim to divine appointment. Unlike the judges who were paragons of virtue, the kings were a bit of a mess. Saul was successful in battle and David was able to unite the nations, but Saul was quick to feign loyalty to foreign gods, and David was guilty of taking Bathsheba as a concubine, and sending her husband, Uriah, into battle and ordering his comrades to retreat and leave him to die at the hands of their enemies.
Jesus of Nazareth, by contrast, was cut from a whole different cloth. Israel’s tribal elders did not sit at Jesus’ feet and hang on his every word, like they did with the judges. Jesus was not a military leader or an earthly monarch, who wielded power with weapons or wealth. Instead, Jesus was an itinerant preacher and faith healer, who’s strength as a leader was grounded in trust--the trust that others extended to him.
Jesus was anything but an earthly powerhouse. He wasn’t even respected in his hometown. Jesus came from humble beginnings, and called his followers to a humble way of life. In Mark 6:8b-10, Jesus sent the twelve disciples out two by two saying:
...take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money…wear sandals and [do] not…put on two tunics…‘Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place.
Considering Jesus’ humble beginning and the life of humility to which he called his followers, it’s troubling to realize how far off track that Christians have gotten at times from this posture of humility. Prominent examples include the European Crusades in the Middle Ages, and the comingling of European exploration with Christian missions that fueled cultural imperialization and colonization.
We can’t change the past, but we can choose a new now and a different future, But how?
IV
To begin, we must understand and embody the meaning of humility. Psychologist and wellness commentator, Tiara Blain, offers a helpful definition of humility in her April 30, 2024 post on this topic:
Humility is the ability to accurately view your talents and flaws while being void of arrogance. Some believe that being humble means having low self-esteem and a lack of confidence, but it's the opposite. Humility is having the self-esteem to understand that even though you are doing well, you do not have to brag or gloat about it.
Humility, in general, and cultural humility in particular, are ways that we as individuals and Christian communities can fulfill our individual vocations and our Christian calling in the world.
The concept of cultural humility is grounded in the work of some early missionaries and the mother of modern anthropology, Margaret Mead, who respected the local cultures of the communities that they encountered, and didn’t try to change or critique the ways of others.
This approach was later embraced by health care educators, such as Melanie Tervalon and Jann Murray-Garcia, who in their 1998 article about medical education argued that healthcare students and professionals must demonstrate cultural humility in order to be effective healthcare providers in our increasingly multicultural society.
Tervalon and Murray-Garcia juxtaposed cultural humility with “cultural competence,” and explained that the latter assumes that there is a finite body of knowledge that can be mastered and applied to patient care. Such ideas, they argue, can paradoxically foster cultural arrogance and stereotyping, whereas cultural humility assumes that there is an organic and evolving body of knowledge that requires a lifelong process of critical self-reflection about how we interact with and respond to others.
In addition, Tervalon and Murray-Garcia, argue that cultural humility encourages health-care providers to challenge institutional power imbalances between themselves and their patients and to develop “mutually beneficial and non paternalistic… partnerships with communities.”
V
The concept of cultural humility is instructive for us as individual Christians, clergy, missionaries, local congregations, associations and conferences, denominations, and our faith tradition at large.
When we approach our mission from a place of cultural humility, we wait for an invitation to engage rather than assume that somebody is having a problem and that we should jump to rescue them. We assume that we have something to learn rather than something to bring. And we bring an attitude of curiosity as we approach the unfamiliar, rather than a posture of criticism because something is new or different to us. In so doing, we help create a culture of trust where healthy bonds can be formed and the healing of bodies, minds, spirits--even whole communities--become possible--and where the mission of Christ can be fulfilled.