Abstract
This study
challenges the claim that Jesus is the archetypical servant leader as described
in contemporary leadership literature. Based on a theological reading of the
Fourth Gospel, the paper suggests that, as a servant, Jesus cannot be understood
apart from his mission and obedience to God. Consequently, Jesus was not
primarily a servant leader but rather the Son who was sent to the world to
enact the Fa- other’s will. In this regard, the Fourth Gospel provides a unique
perspective that is barely noted in the current discourse on servant leadership
modelled on the example of Christ. Although certain aspects of servant
leadership theory correspond to John’s portrayal of Jesus, the study concludes
that other de- ascriptions of him as a servant leader suffer from a one-sided
and reductionist Christology. Implications of this view for Christian ministry
are briefly sketched out.
Introduction
Jesus’
statement “I am among you as the one who serves” (Luke 22:27) has made scholars
and practitioners point to Jesus Christ as the forefather of servant
leadership. Although this article confirms Jesus as a prime example of both
serving and leading, it evaluates and criticizes the belief that Jesus was a
servant leader in the meaning of the term found in much con- temporary
literature. In this regard, the Fourth Gospel provides a unique perspective
that is 2 barely noted in the current debate on servant leadership modelled on
the example of Christ. A tentative thesis
at the outset of the study is that, as a servant, Jesus cannot be understood
apart from his mission and obedience to God. Jesus was not first and foremost a
servant leader but rather the Son who was sent to the world to do the Father’s
will. If this thesis is true, then it has implications for the portrayal of
Jesus as the prototypical servant leader. To explore this thesis more fully,
two questions guide a theological reading of the Gospel of John. First, is
Jesus described as a servant leader in the Fourth Gospel? Second, in what ways
does the Johannine portrayal of Jesus align with and/or differ from perceptions
of Jesus as the prototypical servant leader in contemporary leadership
theories? To answer these questions, I briefly review the claims suggesting
that Jesus is a servant leader before I evaluate them from a Johannine
perspective. Finally, I sketch out some implications of the study for the
Christian community.
Jesus as servant leader
The
contemporary interest in servant leadership can be traced back to the writings
of Robert Greenleaf (2002), who coined the phrase in 1970s. With Greenleaf’s
ideas as a starting point, a myriad of concepts and constructs have emerged.
Despite – or perhaps because of – this variety, there remains no consensus on
what constitutes servant leadership (Dierendonck, 2011). Nonetheless, servant
leadership has been widely accepted and applied, and it is per- haps the most
influential leadership model within the Christian community (Wong & Davey,
2007). This influence is evident from the numerous publications on Christian
leadership that focus on servant leadership (e.g., Ebener, 2010; Ford, 1991;
Marshall, 2003), even to the point that this approach has come to mean to “lead
like Jesus” (Blanchard & Hodges, 2005). Alt- hough also practiced and embraced
in the secular world of the corporation, Greenleaf’s phi- losophy is
“unabashedly spiritual” (Lee & Zemke, 1993, p. 22) and should be understood
as part of the wider turn to spirituality in current leadership research
(Bekker, 2010). Greenleaf himself has made references to Christ as a leader in
his writings, and it is acknowledged that 3 his Quaker affiliation has affected
his orientation (Banks & Ledbetter, 2004; Frick, 2004). Thus, his ideas are best described as a
marginal counter-spirituality that offers an alternative vision for individual
and organizational identity (Bekker, 2010). The scholarly literature on servant
leadership also points to Christ as the conceptual ancestor of the current
discourse (Hannay, 2009). In an article exploring the philosophical basis of
servant leadership, Sendjayaand Sarros (2002) even suggest that it was Jesus,
not Greenleaf, who first introduced the con- cept of servant leadership.
Although not entirely without its critics (Bradley, 1999; Maciariel- lo, 2003;
Niewold, 2007), many Christian leadership scholars argue that Greenleaf’s
princi- ples of servant leadership correspond to biblical concepts (Flaniken,
2006) and that Jesus em- bodies the true and perfect example of servant
leadership (Chung, 2011). I believe that the Fourth Gospel provides a more
nuanced portrait of Jesus’ leadership than those prevalent to- day, and I
discuss Jesus as servant in light of two central motifs in John, specifically
Jesus as Son (of the Father) and Jesus as sent (from the Father). Although
these motifs are intertwined in the Gospel of John, I discuss them separately
before I synthetize the findings in a comment on servant leadership from a
Johannine perspective.
Son,
sent, and servant in the fourth gospel
Son
Even
a surface reading of the Fourth Gospel reveals the frequency of references to
the Fa- ther/Son relationship. Thompson (1999) notes that “Father” is the most
common designation of God in John’s Gospel and that the term is used
approximately 120 times, more than in all the other gospels combined. Some
commentators understand this kinship language to ascribe divinity to Jesus,
with the portrayal of the Father and Son as having the same essence and nature
(Cowan, 2006). John repeatedly refers to Jesus being with the Father (3:2;
8:28, 38; 16:32), a position he had before creation (17:5). Thus, although the
Son is distinguished from the Father, the Gospel affirms Jesus’ divinity (1:1,
18; 8:58; 20:28). The uniqueness of
Christ is also evident in the relationship between the Father and Jesus’
disciples: Although they are included in the Father-language (20:17), the
evangelist maintains the distinction between their relationship and Jesus’
relationship to God because Jesus is the one and only (monogenēs) Son of God
(1:14; 3:16-17, cf. 3:35-36; 5:19-26; 6:40; 8:35-36).
However,
there are instances in which the evangelist clearly distinguishes the Son from
the Father (e.g., 14:28), and this fact has been used as an argument against
the deity of Jesus (Keener, 2003). However, a more convincing claim is that the
difference between the Father and the Son – in addition to the seemingly
asymmetrical relationship between them in John – should be understood in light
of Jesus’ mission and the modes in which it is fulfilled. Köstenberger (1998)
advocates a number of interrelated but distinct sub-portrayals of Jesus in
John, each with certain terms that denote the modes of movement in Jesus’
mission combined with certain characterizations of Jesus as: (a) the sent Son;
(b) the One who comes into the world and returns to the Father, including the
descent-ascent motif; and (c) the eschatological shepherd-teacher. Further, he
notes that the different terminologies concerning Jesus that are used are
related to the different roles that he has in the Johaninne corpus. For
instance, the term “sent” is used only in connection with “Son” and never
directly when Jesus’ incarnation or divinity is at stake. Köstenberger
concludes that the sending-language belongs to the “hu- man” side of Jesus’
mission, that is, the aspects that rest on obedience and dependence on the
sender. Similarly, Cowan (2006) makes a case for the subordination of the Son
to the Father in the Fourth Gospel. He offers three arguments for his thesis:
(a) the Father’s sending of the Son; (b) the Son’s obedience to and dependence
on the Father; and (c) and the very use of Father-Son language to describe the
relationship between them.
Rather
than reducing Jesus to fit one Christological model in John, then, it is better
to allow for the tension and interplay between Jesus in intimate unity with the
Father and Jesus as sent from the Father. What, for us, seems to be a riddle to
be solved is, for John’s Jesus, a paradox to be embraced. He who states, “I and
the Father are one” (10:30), also proclaims, “the Father is greater than I”
(14:28). Thus, the different descriptions of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel vary in
function rather than in essence. The emphasis on the divinity, pre-existence,
and sovereignty of Jesus must be maintained while not denying that the same
Jesus is functionally subordinate to God – “one need not, indeed must not choose
between the two, if evidence for both exists within the text” (Köstenberger,
1998, p. 135). Notably, the Gospel that most highlights Jesus’ deity also
emphasizes the subordination of Jesus to the Father more than the other
evangelists. Although John’s Christology is incarnational, it is also a
“sending” Christology. It is the latter perspective that emphasizes the subordinationism
aspects of the Fourth Gospel and to this perspective we now turn.
Sent
Numerous
authors depict the Jewish concept of agency (shaliach) as a probable background
for the sending-language in John (Köstenberger, 1998). Central to this
institution is the authority to perform the work or the business of another,
even to the point that “a man’s agent is as himself” (Friend, 1990, p. 20). It
follows that the agent is not to promote his own agenda but rather to act
according to the will of the sender.
This idea is apparent in Jesus’ under- 4 standing of his mission,
explaining why “the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He
sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also
does in like manner” (5:19). The notion of agency corresponds well to several
statements in the Fourth Gospel that describe the relationship between the
Father and the Son (5:23; 12:44- 45; 13:20; 14:9; 15:23). However, the
Johannine Jesus is not only an agent but also the only begotten Son. Thus, the
sent Son acts on behalf of the sender (the Father) while also sharing his
nature and being: “If the agent is as the one who sent him, how much more would
the son of the household be as the father who sent him” (Friend, p. 21, cf.
10:30, 38; 14:10; 17:21). It is
noteworthy that, of the 41 times the expression “to send” is used in the Fourth
Gospel, the majority are associated with Jesus as Son or with his relationship
to the (sending) Father (Friend, 1990). Thus, Thompson (1999) is correct to
note that references to Jesus as “sent” mainly belong to the Father terminology
in the Fourth Gospel. This proximity between the Father/Son-language and the
sending motif leads Anderson (1999) to ask whether the Father in John does
anything in addition to sending the Son. His answer is no. According to Ander-
son, the best description of God in the Fourth Gospel is thus “the having-sent-me-Father”
be- cause the totality of the Gospel is encapsulated in the notion that the
Father sends the Son because he loves the world (3:16-17,34; 4:34;
5:23-24,30,36-38; 6:29,37-40,44,57; 7:16-18,28-29,33; 8:16-18,26,28-29,42; 9:4;
10:36; 11:42; 12:44-45,49-50; 13:20; 14:24; 15:21; 16:5; 17:3,8,18,21-25;
20:21). It follows that the notion of sending is important not only for a
proper understanding of the Johannine Jesus but also for the presentation of
God as Father: “No fewer than twenty-five times in John, God is defined not in
terms of ontic aspects of be- ing but by active aspects of doing, the most
important of which is launching the mission of the Son” (Anderson, 1999, p.
35). As such, the sending motif is crucial to Johannine theology and to the
evangelist’s Christology, and the most important attribute of the Father in
John is argu- ably his sending of the Son. Similarly, Jesus’ awareness of being
sent is the most central as- pect of his mission. Thus, the Christocentric
revelation of the Father and the theocentric mis- sion of the Son intervene in
the Father/Son relationship in John (Anderson, 1999), emphasiz- ing the
interdependence of the Father/Son terminology and the sending/agency motif in
the Fourth Gospel.
Witherington
(1995) advocates the prominence of the language of agency in Johannine
Christology and contends that the fourth evangelist uses such language to
explain how Jesus can be simultaneously both equal to the Father in power and
authority and subordinate in un- destalking his mission and ministry. The
paradoxical relationship of equality and subordination between Jesus and the
Father here finds a state of equilibrium because the agent is similar to the
one who sends him. To respond to the agent is to respond to the sender (5:23;
12:44-45; 13:20; 14:9; 15:23). To summarize the argument thus far, Jesus’
mission in the Fourth Gospel can only be appreciated within the greater context
of the Father’s sending of the Son to do his will. The question remains as to
whether Jesus as a servant leader fits within this framework. To address this
issue, we turn to John 13, a periscope frequently approached as a prime example
of Jesus’s status as the prototypical servant leader (Kanagaraj, 2004; Sendjaya
& Sarros, 2002).
Servant
Although
the Fatherhood of God and the sending of the Son are central and interconnected
motifs in the Gospel of John, Coloe (2004) is correct to assert that the Fourth
Gospel does not 5 present Jesus as the Servant of God in the same manner as the
Synoptics do. With only a few direct
references to serving in the Gospel, one might be tempted to say that one
should confer with the other evangelists when serving is the topic under study.
The implication is not that the Johannine corpus is silent on the matter. On the
contrary, the foot washing scene in the Fourth Gospel (13:1-20) arguably
provides the strongest example of service in the gospel ac- counts. Briefly
paraphrased, Jesus rises from the last supper and begins to wash his disciples’
feet. This controversial act initiates a discussion between Jesus and Peter on
the need for cleansing and culminates in Jesus instructing his disciples to
follow his example:
Do you know what
I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I
am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to
wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I
did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master,
nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these
things, you are blessed if you do them. (13:12-17)
For
Greenleaf, this foot washing scene is one source of the idea of servant
leadership (Frick, 2004). Similarly, Sendjaya and Sarros (2002) contend that
this story represents the ultimate example of what servant leadership means in
praxis: “The unusual twist of Jesus’ leadership through the feet washing
example has redefined the meaning and purpose of leadership power from ‘power
over’ to ‘power to’, that is power as an enabling factor to choose to serve
others” (p. 59). Although this conclusion undoubtedly has its merits, the
position that John 13 de- scribes Jesus as a servant leader is not without
opposition. To several theologians, it is not at 6 all evident that service is
the main topic of the periscope.
Instead, foot washing is perceived as an invitation into the household
of God (Coloe, 2004) or as an initiation rite to which the disciples must be
submitted to enter into a new religious condition (Destro & Pesce-Bologna,
2010). A more widely held position suggests a sacramental interpretation of the
pericope, 7 viewing the foot washing in terms of a baptism and/or the Lord’s
Supper. As is increasingly recognized by
contemporary commentators, however, a sacramental understanding of the foot
washing must be rejected and replaced by a Christological and soteriological
reading of this passage (Beasley-Murray, 1999; Carson, 1991; Witherington,
1995). In this line of thought, the foot washing is understood as a symbolic
action that points to the meaning of Jesus’ death (Beasley-Murray, 1999;
Culpepper, 1991; Witherington, 1995). Thus, to follow Jesus’ exam- ple
(hypodeigma, v. 15) is to embrace his death as a model for the persecuted
Johannine community facing the threat of death (Culpepper, 1991).
However,
this is not the only ramification of Jesus’ example because the symbol itself
has implications for Christian living and leadership. The washing of an
inferior’s feet by a superior was unheard of and nowhere attested to in other
Jewish or Greco-Roman sources (Köstenberger, 2004; Thomas, 1990). Regardless of
any deeper meaning of 13:7-10, then, the fact remains that Jesus displays the
attitude and behaviors of a servant, and it feels somewhat contrived that his
imperative to follow his example (vv. 15-17) should not refer to servant- hood
at all. As Thomas states, “whatever else may be in view in John 13:1-20,
Jesus’s identi- fication with the servant’s role is prominent”(p. 70). A closer
examination of the evangelist’s stunning description of the actual foot washing
(vv. 4-5) seems to support such a claim. Keen- er (2003) notes that Jesus’
posture is significant in this regard, given that the couches in first- century
homes were arranged in such a way that people’s feet pointed away from the
center of the banquet. Thus, the spatial dimension underlines the humble
attitude of Jesus when he be- gins to wash his follower’s feet at the periphery
rather than at the center. The reference to the towel Jesus ties around his
waist (v. 4) carries the same connotation because it positions Jesus in the
role of a slave (Beasley-Murray, 1999; Destro & Pesce-Bologna, 2010).
Because the washing of another’s feet symbolized the subjugation of one person
to another in the first century, those who received foot washing were the
social superiors of those who performed the task (Thomas, 1990). It was
commonplace in first-century Palestine for followers to be the servants of the
rabbi (Keener, 2003), and Jesus’ disciples are portrayed as servants of him
(15:20) and of God (12:26). However, when Jesus takes on the role of a slave,
he radically inverts the conventional roles of masters and disciples in his
society. Given this background, we may
appreciate Peter’s question, “Do you wash my feet?” (v. 6). De Silva (2004)
suggests that Peter’s refusal stems from a misunderstanding of Jesus’
leadership model because foot washing was considered too low even for Jewish
slaves (Beasley-Murray, 1999). In a commentary on 13:16, however, Morris (1995)
views Jesus’ humble actions as programmatic for his disciples: “If their Master
and Sender does lowly actions, then they, the slaves and the sent ones, should
not consider menial tasks beneath their dignity” (p. 552). Thus, the “example”
(v. 15) that Jesus’ disciples should follow is an invitation to mutual service
(Kanagaraj, 2004). Carson (1991) contends that Jesus’ act of humility is at
once a demonstration of love (v. 1), a symbol of salvific cleansing (vv. 6-9),
and a model of Christian conduct (vv. 12-17). Rather than viewing the foot
washing as either a symbol of Jesus’ death or an example of servant- hood, the
better approach is to avoid the dichotomy and accept that the section explains
both the salvific necessity of being washed by Jesus (vv. 6-11) and how the
foot washing works as a model for his disciples to serve each other (vv.
12-20). Bruner (2012) suggests that the foot washing scene reveals both what
God has done for us in Christ and how his followers can live blessed lives (v.
17) in mutual service, forgiveness, and patience. As such, the periscope represents
a demonstration of both theology (our relationship with God) and ethics (our
relation- ship with each other).
It
is significant for the present argument that, in the introductory clauses of
the perico- pe (13:1-3), the evangelist connects humble service with the two
major motifs discussed above, that is, agency and the Father/Son relationship.
It was with the assurance “that the Fa- ther had given all things into His
hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God” (v. 3)
that he “got up from supper, and laid aside His garments” (v. 4) and per-
formed his unthinkable act of humility and service. The scene is bound up with
an allusion to the sending theme (v. 20), thus concluding the introduction by
placing the foot washing firmly within the mission of Jesus. Because the one
who is sent is subordinate to the one who sends him (v. 16), the role of the
servant, which is intrinsic to Jesus’ mission, cannot be regarded as foreign to
the mission of his followers (Michaels, 2011). This leads us to sketch out some
consequences of the present study for servant leadership theory.
Towards a Johannine understanding
of servant leadership
With
regard to the first question guiding this study, asking whether the fourth
evangelist por- trays Jesus as a servant leader, the previous section has
clarified that Jesus is indeed depicted as a servant in the Johannine corpus. A
master taking the role of a slave is a radical redefini- tion of all
relationships that involve power and influence, and therefore, the findings
above have implications for leadership. Consequently, it is appropriate to
conclude from the discus- sion and the context of the Johannine community that
Jesus’ words and deeds promote a cer- tain type of leadership (Kanagaraj,
2004). His emphasis on humility and servanthood marks a break from the
traditional hierarchy of his day and completely inverts the understanding of
what it means to be in charge (Wheatley, 2011). DeSilva (2004) argues that John
ties each aspect of the communal ethos to Jesus’ example, especially as it
relates to servanthood. When Jesus takes on the role of a domestic slave in
John 13, he is thus providing an example of how his disciples are to serve each
other. In this respect, servant leadership theorists who trace the construct
back to Christ are certainly correct in their assertion that Jesus modelled a
way of leading that ran contrary to the conventional leadership of his own
time. This notion corre- sponds to the inversion of power and the paradoxical
turn in status that is central to Green- leaf’s (2002) conceptualization of
servant leadership:
The Servant
leader is servant first. (. . .) It begins with the natural feeling that one
wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to
lead. (. . .) The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant
– first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being
served. (p. 27)
In
line with Greenleaf and many writers on servant leadership, Sendjaya and Sarros
(2002) hold that altruism and the motivation to serve first are what
distinguish servant leaders from other people in charge. Thus, servant
leadership is not only about performing acts of service but about being a
servant, about giving up control rather than seeking it (Northouse, 2013). Sendjaya
and Sarros underline that such a posture is not a result of low self-esteem but
rather a deliberate choice to put others first, based on a secure self-concept.
Patterson (2003) argues in a similar vein and suggests that the primary focus
of servant leadership theory is that the leader serves the followers
individually. Because service to others is the prime goal and the essence of
such leadership, the construct differs from many other theories in that it
places the benefit to the followers over the interests of the organization
(Yukl, 2013). As such, Sendjaya and Sarros highlight Jesus as an example of
such a leader, with reference to his self-emptying in making himself a servant
(Phil 2:3-8).
Although
it is clear that Jesus acted as a servant as part of his mission in obeying the
Father, it is too early to conclude that he may easily fit the descriptions of
the archetypical leader provided by contemporary servant leadership constructs.
The thesis proposed in the present work suggests that the notion of serving
cannot be separated from the more important motifs of agency and the Father/Son
relationship. These aspects come into prominence when addressing the second
question asked in this study – in what ways does the Johannine portray- al of
Jesus align with and/or differ from perceptions of Jesus as the prototypical
servant leader in contemporary leadership theories? To answer the question, the
remainder of this section summarizes the arguments presented thus far in some
points that show how a Johannine understanding of service and leadership may
contribute to a richer and sometimes contrasting understanding of servant
leadership.
The
first point addresses the motivation for service. Greenleaf (2002) assumes that
servant leadership “begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to
serve first” (p. 27). As good as it sounds, this assumption arguably builds on an
overly optimistic anthropology that largely neglects the biblical notion of
sin. The devastating effects of lust, pride, and selfishness evident in the
world call into question the notion that a feeling to serve is natural. On the
contrary, Russell (2003) admits that servant leadership contradicts the
selfishness of human nature and is neither easy nor natural. In the Gospel of
John, Jesus’ motivation to serve cannot be understood apart from his
relationship to the Father and the interconnected theme of being sent: “For I
did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has
given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak” (12:49, cf. 5: 30;
10:18; 8 14:10). Thus, whereas Greenleaf
finds the calling to serve in the longing of the human spirit (Ferch, 2011), the
Johannine account clearly ties Jesus’ service to the divine initiative.
In
an attempt to portray Nehemiah as a servant leader, Maciariello (2003) claims
that the abundant servant leadership literature that developed following
Greenleaf has stripped “the biblical model of leadership” (author’s term) from
its Scriptural roots and the larger narrative in which it belongs, thus
ignoring important aspects such as the cross, God’s glory, and redemption.
Although I am not completely convinced by Maciariello’s broader analysis, this
point is a valid observation indeed. From a Johannine perspective, it is
impossible to draw some general leadership principles from the life of Christ
unless one is willing to observe all he says and does in relation to his
self-understanding as God’s sent son. The critique raised against servant
leadership as a general application of the servant leadership sayings of Jesus
thus holds true: it is not possible for people to model themselves after
Christ’s humility with- out being called by him and transformed by the Holy Spirit
(Maciariello, 2003; Wong &Davey, 2007). It is precisely in this regard that
the Johannine corpus clarifies that the motivation to serve does not evolve out
of thin air but rather comes from a sense of being called and 9 commissioned to
serve – not only something but – someone beyond oneself. It is the love of the Father that drives God
to send the Son (3:16), and this motivation manifests itself in servanthood. In
John, it begins with the Father, not a natural feeling to serve.
A
second and related point is that Jesus does not merely – or even primarily –
act as a servant in the Gospel of John. The highlighting of Jesus as a humble
and meek servant is cer- tainly correct, but it is one-sided and arguably
reflects cultural attitudes just as much as it does justice to the Gospel
narratives. More than 60 years ago, Niebuhr (1951) wrote a prediction that
seems to play out in the present discourse on Christ as the archetypical
servant leader:
It would not be
surprising if a new school of interpreters arose in the wake of existentialists
with an attempt to understand him [Jesus] as the man of radical humility. But
the humility of Jesus is humility before God, and can only be understood as the
humility of the Son. He neither exhibited nor commended and communicated the
humility of inferiority-feeling before other men. Before Pharisees, high
priests, Pilate, and “that fox” Herod he showed a confidence that had no trace
of self-abnegation. Whatever may be true of his Messianic self-consciousness,
he spoke with author- ity and acted with confidence of power. (p. 26)
We
should also note that the humility and service that Jesus displays in the
Fourth Gospel are directed to the Father for the benefit of the believing
community. From a Johannine perspec- tive, the notion that “a servant leader
puts himself in the place of a servant and
puts the peo- ple
in the seat
of the master and thinks
about how to serve them” (Chung, 2011, p. 162) is not
entirely true. The evangelist makes it evidently clear that the Father is in
the seat of the master and that service to others is a result thereof. To view
the foot washing scene as an ex- ample of servant leadership is in some ways to
miss the point because Jesus acts as the one who comes from and returns to the
Father, not as the one who is the servant of men. Jesus the servant is also
Jesus the sent Son – the prophet, the temple-cleanser, the miracle-worker – and
10 people who seek to emulate his example must take all these aspects into
consideration. The problem with an
excessive focus on servant leadership is not that it is wrong but rather that
this aspect of Jesus’ mission is easily elevated at the expense of other
important perspectives, thus ignoring the need for alternative models of
Christian leadership.
Although
the author does not address servant leadership theory specifically, Kessler
(2013) warns that any attempt to construct pure Biblical leadership models
typically ignores the influence of their cultural context and consequently end
up baptizing secular leadership theories. This outcome is not a problem
provided that the proponents of certain leadership paradigms acknowledge their
cultural and historical underpinnings. When we ignore the con- textual
influence, however, temporal constructs are easily perceived as timeless
truths, and the Bible is read through the lens of contemporary leadership
theories. This phenomenon is what Kessler describes as the reconstruction
pitfall in the development of Christian leadership theo- ry, and the bold
proclamation of servant leadership as the Christian leadership model per ex-
cellence seems to fit this pattern. Niewold (2007) argues that the embrace of
servant leader- ship in evangelical circles is the result of influence from
secular ideology and sentiment, even in their most Christianized forms:
Much of servant
leadership theory seems to be based on circular reasoning: since Christian
lead- ership according to the common argument must of necessity be servantlike,
and since Christian leadership is based on what Christ was like, Christ must
have been above all else a servant. (p. 122)
For
Niewold, such reasoning is based on an understanding of Jesus that is
well-suited for the- orizing about leadership in the present cultural climate
but that is tainted by a distorted and heterodox Christology. Niewold’s
critique is probably too harsh, given that the question at hand is not whether
Christ was a servant leader; there is abundant evidence for the claim that
Jesus promoted leadership principles counter to those that were common in his
day. Instead, the question is whether the Christ of contemporary servant
leadership theory is the Christ of the Bible, and in this regard, Niewold has a
valid point. Whether Christ is a servant to the world thus depends on how one
defines servanthood. Dulles (2002) notes that the term con- notes three things:
work done under obligation, not freely; work related to the benefits of oth-
ers, not oneself; and work that is humble and demeaning. In the first meaning,
Christ is not a servant of men because Jesus’ allegiance belongs to the Father,
not the world. However, the second and third understandings apply to Christ
because he works out of love and provides an example of humility in service for
others. There are consequences here for his followers, and the subsequent section
of the paper briefly addresses the implications of the study for Chris- tian
ministry.
The sending son and the serving
community
As
the Fourth Gospel proceeds beyond chapter 13, the agency motif previously used
to de- scribe the relationship between Father and Son continues in another
sending: the sending of the disciples in the power of the Holy Spirit
(20:21-22, cf. 17:18). Just as Jesus was an agent of the Father, the disciples
are now commissioned as agents of him (Witherington, 1995). “Whereas the sending
of the Son is the heart of the Fourth Gospel’s plot, its conclusion is
open-ended, spilling into the story of the disciples” (Keener, 2003, p. 1204).
It is no accident that the first allusion to the commissioning of the disciples
is placed in the context of the foot washing. In this very atmosphere of
humility and servanthood, Jesus summarizes his ownsending and links it to the
sending of the disciples: “a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one
who is sent (apostolos) greater than the one who sent him” (13:16). Jesus’
authori- zation of the disciples as his agents is here encompassed by the
imperative to follow his ex- 11
Consequently, Jesus’ followers are sent into the world to replicate both
his message and his method – to offer cleansing from ample (v. 15) and the
sending of them as his agents (v. 20). sin through Christ by being servants who
perform self-sacrificing deeds modelled on the ex- ample of their master. Thus,
servanthood must be viewed in relation to public witness and central
missiological concepts (Niewold, 2007). To heed Jesus’ example is to apprehend
that “if he who, they acknowledge as ‘Teacher’ and ‘Master’ (revered terms)
stooped to perform a slave’s task for them, how much more readily should the
disciples do the like for each other!” (Beasley-Murray, 1999, pp. 235–236). As
servants and agents, the disciples have no choice but to follow their master’s
leading. As the mission of the master includes service and humili- ty, the
disciples have no choice but to be humble servants – even as leaders.
Conclusion
The
discussion above has revealed that, although John portrays Jesus as a servant
leader, ser- vice is not a leitmotif in the Fourth Gospel. Rather, servanthood
should be viewed in light of the more dominant themes of sending and sonship.
The implication is not that servant leader- ship is a futile construct. The
point made here is that the sayings and examples of Jesus as a servant leader
cannot be isolated from his broader mission. Christ was indeed a servant, and
servant leadership, as such, is a valid expression of Christian leadership.
However, Jesus was not a servant above all, and therefore, one should be
cautious in advocating servant leadership as the ultimate manifestation of
leadership modelled on Christ.
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