2024.10.20 | The GOAT
“The G.O.A.T.”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
October 19, 2024
Mark 10:35-45 | Español
Some years ago I enrolled in and completed a certificate program in organizational development at DePaul University’s business school in Chicago.
The program was helpful for my work at the UCC national offices where my primary job was to recruit and develop executives to lead our denomination’s 475 health and human service agencies. Many of the lessons that I learned then have been helpful to me in serving here in Eden.
One lesson I learned and brought into this setting was the importance of understanding the role of an organization's rewards system in the development and retention of successful leaders.
Not surprisingly, most leaders are encouraged and sustained by robust employee benefits packages, which include competitive salaries and benefits packages, and opportunities for growth and increasing responsibility in order to advance professionally.
Most HR professionals would describe these types of employee compensation packages as “quantitative incentives,” because a dollar value can easily be assigned to them and businesses can create budget scenarios and financial forecasts for inclusion in their strategic plans and evaluation processes.
The primary question organizational leaders consider with quantitative employee incentive programs is--“How do we come up with the cash to finance our employee rewards program, while simultaneously producing a strong bottom line to promote long-term sustainability of our organization?”
The challenge of finding the balance between rewarding employees--especially top leaders--and maintaining organizational sustainability is no small challenge for organizations today--and perhaps even more so in the nonprofit sector, where organizations that provide top compensation may be suspected of being poor stewards of organizational resources by potential donors and contractors.
And, yet, the need to provide competitive compensation is real in every sector of society today, especially in large metropolitan areas, where very few colleges and universities are giving free rides, and most graduates leave school with academic debt.
This challenge is compounded for employers as the cost of living continues to grow and the value of entry-level compensation is a setting such as the Bay Area starts with a salary of $70,000, plus health insurance and other employee benefits.
And, we know that capable professionals are hoping to not only meet rent and utilities, and pay off their academic debt, but they are also hoping to become homeowners, contribute to their children’s higher education, and save for retirement.
Added to this challenge, for employers, now and the years to come, is a labor shortage brought on by the rising proportion of our population transitioning into retirement and the number of younger people entering the workforce continues to degrees.
One might think that the challenges of recruiting and retaining high performing leaders are primarily found in modern economies, such as the US and Northern Europe, but as we learn from reading Mark 10:35-45, the challenge is as old or older than Christianity itself, and the challenge cuts across many cultures.
II
Consider the scene in today’s gospel reading and note the tension that grows in the conversation between James and John and Jesus as they discover that they don't all have the same type of rewards system in mind.
James and John assume a “quid pro quo rewards system,” while Jesus is working with a “servant leader system.”
In addition, the disciples clearly believe that “hardship pay” is due them as the risks of discipleship were becoming greater while the rewards of discipleship were becoming less tangible.
Given these circumstances--the difference in rewards systems that each party aspired to and the disciples’ expectation of hardship pay--it is no surprise that James and John approached Jesus and put their cards on the table saying, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”
Euphemistically the disciples agree that Jesus is the “G.O.A.Ts, i.e., the Greatest Of All Times,” and that he should get the a corner office in the new Kindom; but James and John are also asking for assurance that one of them will be in the C-Suite office to Jesus’ right, and the other will be in the office to his left.
Jesus neither explicitly affirms or denies the disciples’ assumption. Instead, he simply states that anyone who would be great in God’s Kindom must become a servant of others.
James and John’s rewards system was based on a “quid pro quo” business model. In Latin “quid pro quo” means something is done for someone else in exchange for something of equal value being done for them.
In their minds, the way this model works is that they get “C Suite” offices, keys to company cars, memberships in exclusive clubs, sizable Christmas bonuses, and lots of frequent flier miles.
But in Jesus’ mind, the discipleships need to align themselves with the least, the last, and the lost, and serve others rather than being served themselves.
Imagine the disciples’ surprise! They had bet their lives on the quid-pro-quo rewards system, and now Jesus presents them with the antithesis of the program that they wanted and expected.
Imagine the disciples' reaction to Jesus’ executive recruitment speech. No wonder there are no Bible stories about people raising their hands and shouting, “Sign me up, Jesus!”
Yet, ironically, some did.
Some did sign up with Jesus. Some did align themselves with the poor, with widows and orphans, with the sick and dying, the outcast, the imprisoned and all the other riffraff that the world thought was expendable.
If they had not done so, we would not be here today reading and reflecting on Jesus’ seemingly meager rewards system.
That’s amazing.
And, perhaps what’s even more amazing is that even though most of the Western world has been seduced into some iteration of modern capitalism, some people actually continue to align themselves with the least, the last, and the lost, and live their lives in service to and with others. How and why is that possible?
III
I don’t know for sure. But I have a theory.
My theory is that there have been--and still are--people in the world who know that there are greater rewards to be found in this life and the life to come than the rewards that can be gotten from quid pro quo transactions, and the material things that moth and rust can destroy.
Some of them are famous religious leaders such as Mahatma Ghandi, Mother Theressa, and Desmund Tutu; and some are great humanitarians like Marian Wright Edelman, Dr. Paul Farmer, and Malala Yousafzai.
But others are lesser known, but no less important to creating the type of rewards system--and more importantly--the type of society that Jesus envisioned and lived and died for.
Take for example, a couple of basketball coaches who have been featured in a commercial promoting “gap insurance” to protect people and families from catastrophic losses.
Maybe you’ve seen the commercials, or you recognize the coaches’ names. They are two of the “G.O.A.T.s” (Greatest Of All Times) in the sport of basketball: Coach Mike Krzyzewski, longtime men’s basketball coach at Duke University, and the winningest coach in the history of men’s collegiate basketball.
The other is Coach Dawn Staley. Currently she is head coach of the University of South Carolina’s women's basketball team (who won the NCAA championship last year), and she is a former NCAA and WNBA All-Star and a four-time Olympic Gold Medalist.
Both coaches have amassed staggering winning records in their careers, but what truly impresses me is how they have applied their values in recruiting, coaching, and developing their athletes as individuals and as teams.
Coach K, for example, is famous for determining who makes the final cut on his teams based on how each athlete relates to his parents. Krzyzewski is quick to explain that if an athlete doesn’t treat their parents with respect, they will be difficult to coach. And if an athlete is difficult to coach, it doesn’t really matter how talented they are, because a coachable athlete will be much easier to develop in a Division 1 team than one who is not.
In a similar vein, Coach Staley, repeatedly explains in interviews about her leadership style that she focuses on two things: discipline and meeting people where they are.
She frequently talks about her mother’s parenting style which undergirds her coaching style. She says that her mother was all about discipline and love. She taught behaviors that instilled healthy habits, and she was generous in expressing her love.
In addition, Staley walks that talk demonstrating personal discipline in her own life, meeting each athlete where they are--in a nonjudgmental way, and coaching each person and team in a manner that helps them achieve the goals that they set for themselves.
It’s noteworthy that Coach K and Coach Staley were great athletes, and that they were mentored by great coaches. They are also fortunate to have coached in university settings with state-of-the art resources at their fingertips--just like so many of their peers. So it’s not necessarily athletic talent, training, or techniques that sets them apart from others.
What sets them apart is their awareness of the intangibles, their valuing of the intangibles, and their ability to affirm and develop these intangibles in others.
This is what great religious and humanitarian leaders have always done--they focus on the intangibles, like Jesus did, and they inspire others to do the same.
There are only so many years that even the best athletes can be at the top of their game. There is only so much pleasure that can be garnered from taking home the hardware as a student athlete and acquiring material rewards as a professional.
And, as all of us eventually discover if we did not know already--there is nothing of a physical nature that we can take with us from this life to the next. The sooner we learn these truths, the earlier we can develop the contentment that comes from setting our sites on the rewards that the world can’t give or take away. Amen.