Maundy Thursday and a Leaders Debate

There is a General Election in five weeks’ time. You might have noticed. I am bombarded already with leaflets and e-mails. David Cameron has written to me personally, that was very kind of him. The BBC news channel offers me an “election tonight” programme, highlights of the squabbling of the day. We are asked to think about leadership and what sort of leadership we want to run our country. I have caught some of the Leaders Debate tonight. Is it wrong to ask if I can vote for Nicola Sturgeon?! She, for me, came across as the most genuine of the leaders. So much blame on the others or set answers from so many of them. 

“Five more years of him, we are heading for disaster.”

“Trust him with the economy, you will be sorry.”

“The NHS will be in threat if you trust what he says”

“He only has one policy!”

What sort of leader do we need?

A group of church stewards met. Their leader, their minister, banging her head against a wall with them, was told “we want leadership”! So, she went to their meeting to suggest what they might do to progress as a team and build their church. “But we don’t want a minister who tells us what to do!” they cried, wanting only to keep things as they are, unthreatened, unchallenged, a nice club for them.

What sort of leader do we need?

Remember at Passover, Jerusalem was full of expectation about leadership. The Messiah of God would come and lead the people, with power and strength and restore the fortunes of the chosen of God. We want a leader who will do what we want. Fulfil our expectations, and er, not challenge us too much.

Or, we want a leader we will agree with and support when they are appointed or voted for but then we will soon moan about everything they try and do, and hope the next one will be more to our liking.

What sort of leader do we need?

Jesus, on this holy night, invites us to reconsider what Christian leadership is all about, and we might not like what he says. This Holy Week is a week of challenge for us if we do it properly, we are invited to have an overhaul of our attitude. It isn’t about what we want or want we like, it isn’t about being comfortable and unchallenged, it is about a new way of being: servant leadership, literally kneeling upon the ground and actually getting dirty.

What sort of leader do we need? A dirty one? Really?

The greatest among you must be your servant.

What? To lead we must serve. Surely not?

Someone said to me the other day they like it when I bring ordinary stuff into sermons – people I meet, or things I watch on television or at the cinema. Well, here’s first my Downton Abbey illustration. The servants at Downton know their place, indeed, now some of them are discovering there is life beyond service, Mr Carson, the head servant doesn’t like it. Servanthood for him is a call. It is a privilege to serve in the big house. Several generations ago, our relatives might have been “in service” -  but maybe today we wouldn’t want to spend our whole life at the beck and call of others, dressing them, feeding them, being summoned by a bell to them.

I went to see the new Disney version of Cinderella at the cinema on Monday. It is really good. Cate Blanchett as the wicked stepmother is brilliant. She had to have a dialect coach so stepmother didn’t have an Australian accent I guess. You know the story – Cinderella is confined to the attic, dehumanised and made to serve. Not allowed to sit at her step family’s table. Not noticed even.

I don’t want to be a servant leader, Jesus, because it involves smelly feet – yuk!

Remember in the dust of Jerusalem hosts provided water for the feet of their travelling guests and sometimes even provided a slave to do the washing.  It was all the more important in an age when the guests at table reclined, displaying their dirty feet for all to see – and smell.

Imagine you were one of the disciples in the Upper Room when Jesus himself acts the part of the household slave doing the washing. 

What sort of leader can I be?

The gospels recount tales of the disciples’ squabbles for power and their arguments as to who was the greatest among them. On one occasion Jesus placed a child before these disciples and told them that the least among them was the greatest, and yet even then they still did not stop squabbling. James and John attempted to use their mother to reserve them places of honour at the right and left sides of Christ, and yet, when Christ eventually entered the city of Jerusalem for his coronation his crown was made of thorns and the places to his right and left went to two condemned men, the dregs of society. James did not attend the event, running away with most of the rest of the disciples. No wonder Jesus got exasperated with them so often!

Perhaps the heart of Christian ministry, Christian discipleship, if disciple means one who learns, therefore learning from Jesus, is this – we must if we are going to show Christianity to people today, take our towel, tie it round us, take a jug and a basin of water, pour water into the basin, and stoop down and wash feet. We are to be the servants of the servant king, who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. 

I will vote for a politician who washes feet.

I would be attracted to a church which put feet washing in community and in fellowship over comfortable unthreatening safety.

I want to follow a leader who knows what is it like to be dirty, messy, smelly, understands real life and pain and leads from the bottom up, not dominating from the top down. That’s the sort of leader we need. And his name is Jesus.

So great an impression did this sort of leadership make on the early Church remember – theologians trying to work out the significance of the person of Christ, the earliest writings suggest Jesus was someone very different from anything that had come before. Philippians 2, that beautiful hymn: Jesus as though by nature God, did not count equality with God as something to be grasped at, held onto, but he emptied himself, and took the form of a servant.

And we are to follow him tonight. Follow him to a cross, to sacrifice, to substitution, to love beyond words and understanding. The servant king.

And we need to radically rethink our churches as we do this night, living this new commandment, loving one another as he has loved us. We have to be prepared to let Jesus serve us, and then we have to be prepared to serve ourselves.

Stephen Cherry wrote a lovely book a few years ago called “Barefoot Disciple” – it was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book in 2011. He says we have to be prepared to have our feet washed. Remember Peter could not get his head around that. “Having your feet washed is all about receiving. What makes it difficult is that we cannot receive this gift without adjusting in a profound and deep way.” Let this leader lead you like this tonight, minister to you, come to your deepest need, wash away your crud and dirt and make you clean. Let this leader help you start again, believing in you. The one who serves has come to serve… you. “Unless you let me wash you, you can have no share with me.”

But be aware, he then invites you, if you take his leadership seriously then to do the same. Not just in our town here supporting the Food Bank, or working in it. Not just supporting Street Pastors or offering to be one or a prayer pastor. But through pastoral sensitivity, standing up for injustice, showing Jesus’ love where it is needed most, not wanting your own way, or to feel important. Making a difference by being a servant where you are called to be.

What sort of leader do we need? And if we need a servant leader, will we be radical enough to get dirty and make a difference?

Let me end with some words of a hymn I find powerful:

Lord, you call us to your service, each in our own way. Some to caring, loving, healing; some to preach, or pray; some to work with quiet learning, truth discerning, day by day.

Life for us is always changing in the work we share. Christian love adds new dimensions to the way we care. For we know that you could lead us, as you need us, anywhere.

Seeing life from your perspective makes your challenge plain, as your heart is grieving over those who live in pain. Teach us how, by our compassion, you may fashion hope again.

Lord, we set out human limits on the work we do. Send us your directing Spirit, pour your power through, that we may be free in living  and in giving all for you.

What sort of leader do we need? And if we get that sort, what will it mean for us? “Then Jesus poured water in to the basin, and began to wash the disciples feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was wearing… then Jesus said to them, “You call me teacher and Lord; rightfully so, for so I am.  If then, the Lord and 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 for you.”