Heres my little sermon from today for those who prefer reading: Sunday 14th December 2014, Advent 3 St Barnabas, E17. Theme: John, Jesus, and House of Cards & the Green Report One of the advantages of the internet is getting to see what other clergy post on Facebook while they are musing on writing their sermons. This week a friend of mind posted an amazing letter written in the United States by someone called David Lose. The letter addresses preachers and is written in a context where the writer is very aware that they are only two months shy of the nearest presidential primaries. Now we all know there is nothing to which more media time is devoted, even here in the UK, than the question of who will be the next president of the United States. To me it represents not just a fascination with the States but a fascination with the question of leadership. The author of that letter writes of being reminded of the presidential race a few years back when Al Gore was advised to portray himself more as an alpha male. This is a term which originated from studying the behaviour of wolves in their natural habitat. The researcher noticed that among the wolf pack there was always one male who dominated all the other males and therefore had mating-rights to all the females. He designated this wolf the alpha male and David Lose writes how this term alpha male has come to describe our ideal of leaders. ‘Whatever else we want from our leaders,’ he says, ‘we seem to crave from them strength, direction, assertiveness, and confidence’. I don’t watch much TV but it was my birthday about a month ago and I was keen to get the box set of a TV show that I’d heard so many people talking about, even overheard many talking about on the tube. So it is that we have now finished watching my birthday present: the whole first and second series of House of Cards. Those who’ve seen it will know that it portrays someone, Frank Underwood, who will stop at nothing in his pursuit of power. Here is a ruthless individual, who is quite prepared to destroy others in his relentless climb to the top. Here is indeed an “alpha male”! And unless we are tempted to project all our negative stereotypes on the United States, it is worth remembering that the US House of Cards is based on a UK series from a few years ago of the same name, and that Frank Underwood is merely the US version of the British alpha male, Francis Urquhart. This week the Church of England issued a high profile document known as The Green Report. It was a report chaired by one Lord Green on the topic of senior leadership in the Church of England. In short, it proposes a new programme of leadership development for before those clergy take up senior positions as archdeacons, deans and bishops, and the creation of a national pool of 150 or so clergy from which senior appointments would be made. Much in the report is, in my view, to be welcomed, not least the desire to see senior leaders better trained in the competencies required to run large organisations and oversee personnel in ways that meet the proper expectations of a good leader. We should not pretend that the Church is examplary in this field nor that we do not have much to learn from wider society. But I think it is fare to say that the report has caused a bit of a storm online, not least on the Church Times twitter feed, and my guess its because aspects of it have touched on a raw nerve about how the church currently appoints its senior leaders. For the recommendation that the talent pool be created by diocesan bishops nominating clergy regarded as standing-out among their peers is not very far from the system we currently have. There is no clear grading in the CofE as, say, in the Civil Service or teaching, so for those wishing to make their way to the top, the only thing for it is to get noticed. And some clergy will go to extraordinary lengths to get noticed: publicity of their church, and of themselves, becoming Area Dean, becoming a Canon, even getting elected to General Synod. Yes, the report touches a raw nerve, in my humble opinion, because it exposes something uncomfortable for some clergy and perhaps for some of you, that the alpha male model of leadership is the way of the world and even of the church. We may not like, but it’s how it is, many of us collude with it and some of us even seem to work it for our personal advantage. Into the world of House of Cards, of real-life politics, of the Church of England, of our work environments, of our school environments, of the survival of the fittest culture of Bake Off, The Apprentice and even of X Factor (even though we Walthamstow people are all rooting for Fleur East this evening), into this world where the alpha male model secures the best route for climbing to the top, comes today the challenge of the third Sunday of Advent, the message of John the Baptist: I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness…this is John’s response to those asking who he is. They have been sent to find out what he is doing, preaching out in the desert, gathering people, baptising them and declaring a message of repentance. ‘Who are you?’ they ask. What kind of leader is this, they wonder. Is he the messiah, perhaps, the chosen one, the one predicted to lead the people of Israel into freedom? He denies he is the messiah, and so, they ask, What then? Are you Elijah? He says, I am not. Are you the prophet? He answers, No. Then they ask him, Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? And John, says I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, Make straight the way of the Lord, He is not there to lead them but to follow another, he is there to prepare the way for someone else, to make straight the path for one to come. I baptize with water”, says John, “Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal. John is there to prepare the way for Jesus. Our gospel reading today should have stopped at verse 28, but I added a bit more of John’s account of John and Jesus, for it seems to me that the next section presents a key challenge for us when it comes to thinking about leadership. Is it the alpha male to whom John points? I love the way, returning to David Lose’s letter, how he engages with this issue. He says, ‘Jesus … teaches and preaches with authority. Further, he feeds the hungry, heals the sick, stills the raging storm, even raises the dead. By almost any standard Jesus presents himself as the alpha male of all alpha males. But hold on. He also eats with outcasts, parties with the socially undesirable, and refuses to acquire status or possessions, certainly not the qualities we associate with leaders. He was frequently seen in the company of women -- some of ill-repute ... to honour, affirm, and esteem them. And finally, he dies the death of a criminal, executed for a capital offense, hung on a cross on a garbage heap outside of Jerusalem. On this account alone, he is certainly no alpha, no leader, hardly worthy of sympathy, let alone loyalty. This doesnt seem like the same Jesus that John points to, does it?’ He goes on ‘But maybe we shouldnt be so surprised by these contradictions. For at the end of the Bible, in the closing verses of Revelation, Jesus himself gives us a clue to his identity when he declares, I am the alpha ... and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Here, then, is a different kind of leadership, that of the suffering servant, and a different type of power, one that manifests itself in vulnerability. And, if you look hard, youll find that this type of leadership, this kind of power, radically calls into question and even judges so many of the ideals prized by our culture.’ David Lose’s letter points to Jesus as the alpha and the omega, the first and the last. I have added the extra section from John’s gospel to show how John the Baptist points to Jesus as the lamb. We are all familiar with the image of the shepherd in the Bible. Jesus refers to himself as the good shepherd, the one who lays down his life for his sheep. The image of shepherd is applied to bishops too, with a strong expectation that they should care, support, uphold, walk with, even carry, those who are the most vulnerable…and I hope this aspect will be strong in any training programmes designed for future senior leaders. But Jesus is not only presented as a shepherd but presented too as the sheep, as the lamb, as the one exercising vulnerability. That is the message of the Christmas story: the messiah does not come in a show of strength, but comes born into the brokenness of our world, born in the vulnerability of a stable, born into a people suffering under the brutal tyranny of an occupying power. Jesus is not just the shepherd but the lamb, certainly not the cunning wolf or the alpha male who ruthlessly climbs to the top of pile, but the one who offers his life for us, who comes alongside us in our weakness and offers us a new model for being in community with others. That is the vision of leadership the gospel offers us today, that is the challenge of the one we worship as the first and the last, the lamb upon the throne. Steven Saxby, December 2014.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 21:18:39 +0000
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