Servant Leadership
Matthew 20:20-28
Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
Introduction: Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s, who died a few years, became a familiar sight to millions in his company’s television commercials. I used to refer to him as Uncle Dave. He wasn’t my uncle, but I hoped that if he ever heard about my referring to him that way he might remember me in his will. He didn’t. I guess I can just call him plain old Dave Thomas now.
Dave also appeared in a lot of in store training films. In those, as in many of the more familiar commercials, he would dress as his workers. One year he appeared on the cover of one of the company’s annual reports dressed in a knee-length work apron holding a mop and a plastic bucket. For many years, a framed copy of that picture graced the back rooms and manager’s office of most Wendy’s. That picture was built on the fact Dave was a self-made millionaire. He didn’t finish high school. He worked his way up through the ranks of Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken chain long before he went off on his own and started Wendy’s. Here’s how Dave explained that picture: “I got my M.B.A. long before my G.E.D. At Wendy’s M.B.A. does not mean Master of Business Administration. It means Mop Bucket Attitude.” Dave Thomas taught all of his employees that service comes before success. The Wendy’s owner could have learned that lesson from Jesus.
You are leaders. You have been selected by the fellow members of this church to lead and make decisions. What you do will affect the life and future of this congregation. You have agreed to accept that challenge. For that you are respected and honored by your brothers and sisters in this church. Your leadership is important.
But as followers of Jesus you are a different kind of leader. You are what Jesus describes as a servant leader. On the surface that might seem like an oxymoron—a contradiction in terms. Words like jumbo shrimp, baby grand, adult children, male lady bug, government organization, cafeteria food, or painless dentistry. Servant leadership—how can it be?
Jesus knew he was teaching something that seems out of place. He acknowledged that most people think differently. For the pagans, he said, leadership is all about who gets to call the shots. His disciples thought that way. This discussion started when James’ and John’s mother asked that Jesus name her sons his right hand men. The others protested. Only a few days earlier Jesus had caught them arguing over who was most important. That’s when he called a child to his side and warned his men that unless they became like little children they could have no part in his kingdom.
A servant leader is a leader that first serves. He leads by serving. This role is not limited to our elders and deacons but it certainly applies to those responsibilities. Consider the servant side of servant leadership.
A Servant Leader is first a servant of Jesus. To be a leader in a New Testament church means recognizing that we are not our own masters. One of the best biblical images of this single-minded resolve is found in Psalm 123:2: “As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God.” We want to be a church that Jesus builds. He is the owner and master. We are stewards. All authority belongs to him. His words not ours matter most. When we make important decisions, ultimately there is only one vote that counts. A servant leader’s task is to know Christ well enough that we know his will.
The Old Testament call still stands. “ Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
A Servant Leader is also a servant to his fellow workers and leaders. Jesus’ men would always have trouble with this. On the night before the cross, the Lord gathered his little family together for the Passover. It was a critical night. He knew it. He wanted them to know it. Jesus surprised the room full of future apostles by taking off his coat, picking up a towel and basin and washing their feet. They protested that this was beneath his position. That was a common servant or even a slave’s task. But none of them offered to take over. He told them. “I am leaving you an example. Do as I have done.”
It might be a good idea to literally do that from time to time. I have been in a few foot washing services through the years. Some churches practice it as a part of their Maundy Thursday or Good Friday services. It can be a meaningful experience. But Jesus’ point is more about a way of life than it is about a ritual. He calls his followers to never be too proud to do whatever is needed to serve one another. That’s still a tough pill for some of us to swallow—especially would be leaders. It requires humility. It leaves no room for arrogance or jealousy over position and authority.
One application of servant one another as fellow leaders is what I call the “team decision making.” Every July I go over this principle with our church board. It is not a new concept at all. But like a lot of ideas, it is so old and so forgotten that it strikes many as new, even radical. I suppose in some ways it is. Here’s what I tell the board.
When we make decisions, we must do it as a team. Ultimately it is our decisions and wishes that matter not mine or ours individually. When we make a decision, everyone needs to speak up about their perspectives. Every voice counts, even the newest or the youngest. We are all responsible to listen with our ears on. But when decision time comes, it will be a collective decision. When a decision is made by voting or coming to a consensus, it becomes all of our decision. Even if I am on the “losing” side of a vote, I accept and support the decision because it is the team’s decision. Once the meeting is over and someone asks me about the decision, I should simply say, “This is what we decided. I wasn’t sure about it at first. But this is what we decided. It is our decision.” I don’t go around criticizing or undermining the decision. It is my decision because my team made it.
Of course, this principle applies only to matters that don’t involve moral or doctrinal compromise. Most matters don’t. In all other matters, I accept the possibility that I don’t know everything. I must be humble enough to trust the collective wisdom of others and support that wisdom. If I happen to be right and the team decision turns out to be a bad one, I can always say, “I told you so” behind closed doors. We can all learn from the decision and endeavor to do better the next time. We remain a team. Right or wrong, a servant leader remains a servant of his fellow leaders.
I think Paul’s words apply here. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! “(Phil 2:3-8).
A Servant Leader is first a servant of Christ, then a servant of his fellow leaders. He is also a servant of the church. A servant respects and honors those he leads. He wants the best for them. He regards it as an honor to be in a position of leadership. He looks up to, not down on those in the church he serves.
C. S. Lewis, the late great British writer has an interesting application of this principle. Lewis was converted late in life after he was already an internationally acclaimed scholar. His specialty was literature. Few were as sophisticated and learned as he in his areas of expertise. As a young educated unbeliever, Lewis had good reason to be a proud man. Once he was overwhelmed by the grace of God and the message of Christ made so much sense that he could no longer resist it, he confessed Christ, became a Christian, and began attending church. He said that when he first started going to church, he disliked the music. As a very refined and highly educated Englishmen, he considered the hymns to be 5th rate poems set to 6th rate music. [You have to understand that it wasn’t what we consider “contemporary music” that Lewis was having a problem with. I assure that what we consider traditional hymns wouldn’t even have registered on Lewis’ scale.] He said that his attitude changed, not necessarily toward the music, when he began to notice the people with whom he was worshipping. He writes, “When you realize that the hymns (which were still 6th rate music in his opinion) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots, it gets you out of your solitary conceit.”
Elders, deacons, other servant leaders—if we are ever tempted to feel full of ourselves and become upset when we don’t always get our way or think some folk are just being stubborn and hard to get along with, maybe we should do what Lewis did. Just look around at some of the folk we are privileged to serve. Watch some of the folk you hand the communion tray to on a Sunday morning. Some of those folk have gone through things you’ve never come close to. Some of them have worked, prayed, and lived faithfully more years than you have been alive. Some have more faith in their little finger than some of the rest of us have in our entire souls. We probably aren’t fit to clean their boots. When the truth is told, we are blessed to serve these people.
Conclusion: A popular fable known as "The Last Wish of Horville Sash” (original author unknown) offers a good conclusion to our study of servant leadership. Horville Sash had a very humble job in the offices of the largest corporation in the world. He worked as a mail clerk in the lowest reaches of the building doing what he could do to help other people with their jobs. Often he wondered what went on the floor just above his, but he did not dwell on it too long.
Then came a day when Horville found a bug scurrying across the floor. As the mailroom clerk, Horville had only bugs to command. He raised his foot to flatten the bug when it spoke: "Please don’t kill me," it said. "If you let me live, I’ll give you three wishes."
Horville figured that even if he didn’t get the wishes, a talking bug could make him a lot of money. So he let the bug live, and the bug asked him what he wanted for his first wish. "To be promoted to the second floor," said Horville. The next day Horville’s boss came in and told him he would move up to the second floor that very day.
Horville walked into the second floor like a conquering general, but soon he heard footsteps on the floor above him. He said to the bug, my second wish is to be promoted floor by floor until I reach the very top; until I am in charge of the company.
"Done," said the bug, and floor by floor he moved his way through the ranks: 10th floor, 20th floor, 50th floor, 90th floor, and finally to the very top floor. He was as high as he could go: Chairman of the Board; CEO; corner office on the top floor of the building.
Then one day he heard footsteps above him. He saw a sign that said: STAIRS. He went up and found a rooftop and there he found one of his clerks near the edge of the building with his eyes closed. "What are you doing?" Horville asked. "Praying," came the answer. "To whom?" Pointing a finger toward the sky the boy answered, "God."
Panic gripped Horville. There was a floor above him? He couldn’t see it. All he saw was clouds. He couldn’t hear the shuffling of feet. "Do you mean there is an authority over me?"
Horville summoned the bug. It was time for his third and final wish. "Make me God," he said. "Make me the highest. Put me in the kind of position only God would hold if he were here on earth."
The very next day Horville Sash awakened to find himself in the basement, sorting the mail, and doing what he could to help others be the best that they could possibly be. That’s how Horville Sash learned what Jesus taught, “Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant.”
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College of the Bible, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
