Illustration by Jessamyn Rubio

November 3, 2009 | Editor’s note: Faith & Leadership offers sermons that shed light on issues of Christian leadership. This sermon was preached Oct. 22, 2009, in Duke University Chapel.

Click here to hear a recorded version of Samuel Wells’ conversation about leadership in difficult times, part of Duke’s “Office Hours” series.

Mark 10:35-45

When I was growing up, America was a faraway place made up of four states -- California, Texas, Florida, and New York. I knew the word Watergate and I knew it meant something very sad that my American godfather didn’t want to talk about. I knew the word Vietnam and I knew he didn’t much want to talk about that either. I remember a man with a very big smile was elected president. No one was sure if that might mean some kind of new start for America, although I got the impression it was certainly a big day for peanuts. But one very vivid memory is of President Carter late in his presidency going for a jog with his aides and being overcome by some kind of heat exhaustion. From 3,000 miles away it felt like America could cope with crooked politicians and a war that ran into the sand but it couldn’t somehow deal with a weak leader.

Very little has changed in 30 years. We can’t agree on what’s wrong, and we aren’t at all sure where we should be going, but we all know we need a great leader. If there’s one thing every high school senior knows they must put on their application to Duke, it’s their astonishing record of leadership. “While still in the womb I spearheaded the movement for my twin and me to enter the birth canal.” “While still in nursery I organized the toddlers to campaign for recyclable diapers.” “While in first grade I represented my class at the school board showdown on whether to move to 2 percent milk at snack time.” “When I was in fourth grade I went on a Girl Scout expedition to the planet Jupiter, and devised a system by which children could share oxygen on the return journey to save on baggage weight.” “When I was in eighth grade I scythed deep into the Amazonian jungle, and found a previously unknown tribe. I learned their language, taught them how to play golf, and helped them find a sustainable water supply.”

If we believe our own publicity, Duke is a factory for manufacturing leaders. We don’t ask too much about what other institutions do, but presumably someone out there must be manufacturing followers: otherwise things are going to get a little unbalanced, to say the least. The trouble is, while we assume leadership is the answer to everything, we are extremely skeptical about leaders themselves. We’re always alert to ways in which leaders may simply be using the people or organization they lead to gain some nefarious benefit for themselves -- a bloated salary, some kind of gravy-train vacation perk, an opportunity to foster some possibly illegal business venture, or (and now I speak in hushed tones) the most highly-prized commodities in corporate life: an office with windows and a convenient parking space. We train our young people to be extremely ambitious, but we point them towards roles in which we know they will inevitably attract suspicion, cynicism and outright hostility.

Jesus is well aware of the problem. His close friends James and John have more than half an eye on the perks and the public acclaim. They’ve already selected their heavenly parking spots and tenured offices. Jesus tells them they’ve lost the plot. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” So where does that put our obsession with leadership? How can you be a ruler and a slave at the same time? That’s the question I want to examine today.

It’s worth setting out what being a leader involves in a bit of detail, to get a sense of what Jesus is challenging and what he’s affirming. To be a leader is to be expected to do four things. I’d like you to imagine four points of a square.

At the top left of the square is the role of spokesperson. This is someone who’s good with words. They are a figurehead who can talk with people outside an organization to explain what it is and inspire interest and trust in what it does. At the same time they use words to motivate and instruct those within the organization about where they are going and how they may best get there. When outsiders think of the organization it’s the spokesperson who gives it an immediately identifiable human face. When you think of civil rights you think of Martin Luther King Jr., when you think of charitable work among the poor you think of Mother Teresa, when you think of the anti-apartheid struggle you think of Nelson Mandela, because these are the people who give outsiders a human face through which to comprehend complex and diverse movements.