2021.02.07 | Servant Leadership
“Servant Leadership”
The Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, CA
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
February 7, 2021
Today’s scripture passage illustrates Mark’s unique emphasis on secrecy. Unlike the other three gospels, Mark’s Jesus instructs the disciples to “tell no one” about his teachings and miracles. This is such an odd command given that we Christians have been repeatedly admonished to “go and tell” others about what Jesus has said and done.
Mark’s emphasis on secrecy seems odd when considered in the broad history of Christianity, but it makes complete sense when we consider the particular context in which Mark gospel emerged, in that his community suffered tremendous persecution at the hands of Jewish and Roman authorities on account of their adherence to Jesus’ teachings.
As a result, the Markian community became a kind of secret society—a Christian underground if you will—that was extremely tight knit and that took significant risks in naming and claiming the Christian identity.
Beyond the general code of silence that permeated the Markian community, Mark’s theme about silence is extended to the nature of Jesus’ ministry. Notice, for example, how Jesus’ healings include “silencing the demons.”
II
Ponder for a moment what kind of healings Jesus performed that resulted in silence.
Perhaps Jesus silenced the cries of people in physical pain: teething babies, a child with a stomach ache, an adult with a dying tooth, or a senior experiencing orthopedic pain.
Perhaps Jesus silenced the moans of a grieving parent who had lost a child to disease or battle, or he comforted a widow who had lost her spouse and her livelihood.
Or perhaps Jesus silenced the voices of persons with mental illness, people who talked to themselves or who heard disturbing voices inside their heads--voices that no one else could hear but them and Jesus.
We’ll never know exactly what kind of demons Jesus silenced, because our modern interests in disease and our current terminology for maladies were unknown to the ancient Mediterranean world.
Still these things we can know for sure: we know that Jesus healed individuals in body, mind, and spirit; and, we know that Jesus’ healing resulted in the reunification of the sick with their loved ones and their community.
Jesus’ day, they didn’t have modern medicine, so an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure. If a person were sick with a communicable disease or their malady troubled others, the sick and infirm were literally pushed out of the community. They had to quarantine and isolate outside their city’s walls or beyond the edges of their tribe’s encampment.
So when Jesus came a long and healed people of their physical, emotional, and spiritual ills, the sick and suffering not only felt better, they got their lives back. They were able to return to their homes and families. They could go back to work, and they were allowed to worship in the Temple again. They no longer had to hover at the edge of the city and beg for help from passersby.
No wonder Jesus was so popular! He was the first-century equivalent of a public health worker. He released the sick from isolation, and literally restored their lives. Imagine what joy and relief they experienced!
III
My Lord, we need Jesus’ healing, right here, right now! Amen?
The good news is that we can experience Jesus’ healing in our time. But how?
I venture that the healing has already begun. Perhaps you’ve noticed that since January 21, Americans have been able to turn on the news and read social media messages from the Whitehouse without being traumatized by mad rants, outright lies, or bullying behavior.
President Biden's inaugural promise to reunite the nation combined with his unvarnished acknowledgment of the challenges before us are a breath of fresh air. So, too, is his calm presence and direct style of speech.
I find it a blessing to turn on the news and no longer feel a need to guard myself from whatever nonsense or vitral will come next. Maybe you feel the same way.
One wonders what “Saturday Night Live” and late night talk show hosts are going to do for material now that Joe Biden is President, but I don’t really care. I’m just so relieved that the Body Snatchers, who took over the Executive Branch four years ago, have been replaced with competent adults.
None of us will likely support every proposal that the Biden Administration puts forth, but at least we won’t have to debate what is real, before we debate the merits of President Biden’s proposals.
IV
This new year and new administration offer some promise for healing in our nation, but promise is not enough. We need concrete steps and specific behaviors that contribute to the uniting of our nation and the healing of our global village. Since today is Super Bowl Sunday, I’m going to share a sports illustration.
The late great Vince Lombardi, coach and general manager of the Green Bay Packers when the Super Bowl was founded 55 years ago, is remembered by Cheeseheads everywhere for leading his team to three NFL championships and two Super Bowl wins in 1967 and 1968.
Coach Lombardi was passionate about winning. He was a talented coach and a class act. He not only wracked up a lot of wins, Lombardi also taught his players how to be winners on and off the field by teaching good sportsmanship. Consider this quote that Lombardi is most remembered for: “When you get to the endzone, act like you’ve been there before.”
Lombardi taught his players how to handle success in a manner that fostered respect, rather than garnered resentment. Sadly this teaching has been kicked to the curb by many professionals these days, and I’m not just talking about sports.
Athletics at its bests is an arena in which individuals can develop fitness, build skills, learn strategies, and most importantly develop social habits and behaviors that contribute to the success of their families and communities, our democracy, and the healing of the nations.
In some ways, talking about the value and importance of sportsmanship seems like expressing a platitude, and yet, I assure it is not. Professional sports today are often bereft of examples of good sportsmanship. And, Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021 reminds us what happens when our leaders either don’t develop or don’t practice good sportsmanship. We end up with national leaders who can’t acknowledge defeat, or look a fellow citizen in the eyes and congratulate him on his win. Why? Because their sore losers, and bad sportsmen.
V
Compare the worst of human examples today with the example of Christ portrayed in Mark’s gospel. Jesus was at the height of his popularity as a faith healer and prophet. The disciples approached him and explained that he was now a celebrity.
If Jesus had been really full of himself, like some modern politicians or professional athletes that we could name, he might have hung around Simon and Andrew’s home for a long time reveling in his new found celebrity, but he didn’t. Instead, Jesus insisted that he and his disciples press on through Galilee and continue his mission.
Jesus' servant leadership style is just one of the many reasons why we set our sites on him instead of earthly leaders. Jesus was about something much bigger than himself. He was about teaching and healing, and casting out demons and silencing the Devil. He was healing the nations--one person, one household, one city at a time.
If we wish to live in a united nation under God, we Christians must follow the example of Christ. We must subordinate our respective agendas to his mission, and busy ourselves by healing the nations--one person, one household, one city at a time. Amen.