True Greatness
What does it mean to be great?
In August of this year, advocate for the disabled and follower of Jesus Christ, Joni Eareckson Tada, addressed the Global Leadership Summit and answered that question. The Summit, sponsored by Chicago-area megachurch Willow Creek Community Church, has in the past featured movers and shakers in the religious and business world. Leaders who are successful in the eyes of the world. Winners, not losers.
How ironic that they would allow Tada to speak, a quadriplegic as the result of a diving accident as a teenager. And speak from her wheelchair. In a world that values leaders that exude power, status, privilege, who display their strengths and hide their weaknesses, Tada (known as Joni) said this:
“The most effective leaders do not rise to power in spite of their weakness; they lead with power because of their weakness.”
In a post-Summit presentation interview, Joni went even further:
“My speech was mainly about how God delights in recruiting people who don’t naturally shine with their giftedness. He delights in using their weakness to get things done. The whole point was to talk about how God loves to leverage weakness and minimize power. That’s not the way the kingdoms of this world work, but it is the way of what many call the upside-down kingdom of the Bible. You have to be poor in order to be rich. You have to be weak in order to be strong. You have to be humble in order to be exalted. Those kinds of things.
Most gifted leaders tend to rely on their own strengths without relying on the strengths of others—and especially the strength of God. I think leadership is a spiritual gift. So if leadership is a gift from God, then he is the source of the strength, the ingenuity, the passion, and the vision that leaders have.”
Whoa. Did I miss something in my pastoral training? Was I guilty of hiding my weaknesses and showcasing my strengths?
If Joni is right biblically (and I believe she is), what does Jesus have to say about greatness? And how does Jesus’s view of greatness translate to leadership? Given that our country has already voted on its next president, the answers to these questions are more important than ever.
Fortunately, there’s a story recorded in Matthew 20 and Mark 10 (Luke has a similar story but on a different occasion) in which two brothers aspire to greatness. They long, almost naïvely, for privilege and status from Jesus himself. In response, Jesus tells us what true greatness is.
Like the disciples James and John, we can unknowingly (or not so unknowingly) succumb to the temptation to power. Matthew 20:20-21
First off, Matthew records the mother of James and John asking Jesus. Mark has it where the two brothers ask Jesus directly. But there can be no doubt that the request came from James and John as the reaction of the ten in Mt.20:24 records.
Who of us hasn’t asked the same, to be close to power? To somehow bolster our ego by being in the presence of someone of privilege?
Honestly, I could list some well-known people that I’d like to meet. And I bet you could too. We’re all guilty of name dropping. We think being with someone “great”, that somehow that greatness will rub off on us.
James and John are asking to share in the reign of the Messiah in the age to come. Jesus hints at this earlier in Matt.19:28:
Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
But the two brothers ask amiss to the exclusion of the other ten. And Jesus picks up on this in vv.22-23.
Jesus says that the answer to their request comes with a cost and the privilege is not his to give. Matthew 20:22-23
Let’s be clear here. It’s not wrong to ask for greater influence and responsibility. But we often ask out of ignorance without understanding the cost and consequences. We want success without sacrifice.
There’s a cost, Jesus says. The image of a cup being poured out pictures how Jesus will absorb God’s wrath for our sin. He, the innocent one, will suffer for the guilty. Jesus has predicted this for himself in the previous verses of Matthew 20. To be sure, the brothers will never undergo the same suffering for sin that Jesus will soon experience. But James dies a martyr’s death in Acts 12. And John is exiled for his faith.
That’s the cost of greatness. And Jesus defers to the Father, as it is his privilege to grant.
Jesus defines greatness in God’s kingdom. Matthew 20:24-28
As previously mentioned, the other ten disciples are justifiably indignant. But Jesus proceeds to define real greatness.
First, what it’s not. It’s not like the abuse of power and position so common today.
Even in the church. Didn’t Peter warn church elders not to lord it over the flock of God in 1 Peter 5? To not use their positions of power for personal gain?
There’s a new term called “clergy sexual abuse”. It’s when a pastor (usually a man) takes advantage of a woman because of the difference in power. This is an abomination for those who are in positions of spiritual leadership.
Don’t be fooled by public persona. Find out what this ‘leader’ is like in their private life before deciding on their so-called greatness. And be wary of shameless self-promotion. It’s antithetical to God’s kingdom.
Jesus therefore emphatically states in v.26, “It shall not be so among you.”
To be great in his kingdom is to be a servant, Jesus says.
It’s the same word used in Acts 6 of the first deacons in the church. They waited tables, hardly a position of greatness in our minds. I remember a story about former Oregon senator Mark Hatfield. Maybe not popular for some of you but he tried to live out his faith in Jesus in public life. I remember someone telling a group of us that they saw him help setting up chairs for a church meeting in Washington, DC. Now US Senators have people to do that kind of stuff. But here was Sen. Mark Hatfield setting up chairs. This person said it was for him a visual lesson in greatness.
How about those of you who’ve been waitstaff or dishwashers or baristas in a former life? Paradoxically, those positions are God’s training ground for greatness.
There’s an enormous difference between exercising power for personal gain and delegating authority for the good of others.
Secondly, Jesus says leadership is exercised by the giving up of rights, acknowledging weakness, being powerless as a first century slave.
Their fate was entirely at the whim of a master. How revolutionary and countercultural to picture a slave in a position of leadership!
But it’s just like Jesus. He willingly and joyfully came to serve when he rightfully could be served. His death on the cross is the supreme example. It’s God’s self-sacrifice in Jesus for us. And Jesus didn’t retaliate for the way he was treated.
To use a trite but true statement: We owed a debt we couldn’t pay; He paid a debt He didn’t owe.
Finally, here are some takeaways from what Jesus said in this passage:
A person can be in a prominent position of leadership but still accomplish great good when coupled with genuine humility
A great person sincerely deflects the credit to others while expressing gratitude when complimented
A true servant leader desires respect not worship
I think it was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor martyred by the Nazis at the end of WWII, who said in one of his letters from prison that Jesus was a “Man for others”.
We should all aspire to be great like him.