Reading: Part III – From Leading to Being Led (p 73 to p 90)
Once again, heartfelt thanks to each of you joining with us on our Lenten journey. We are blessed by your presence whether you have posted comments or are traveling quietly.
This week we Henri guides us into the third stage of our exploration of Christian leadership in the 21st century. He presents Jesus as a servant-leader—one who eschews power and becomes powerless out of love and leads others by humbly being led (to do the will of his Father). Henri emphasizes that Jesus’ approach is so at odds with the ways of the secular world that leaders need to be trained to think with the mind of Christ if we are to lead as Jesus led.
You are encouraged to prayerfully reflect on the temptation posed by power, the challenge to be taken where you would rather not go, and the discipline of theological reflection and how they are related to your life and ministry, either now or in the past. I’ve included three questions for your consideration.
1. In introducing the temptation Henri writes: “The temptation to consider power an apt instrument for the proclamation of the Gospel is the greatest of all.” Then he points to the common rationalization that power used in the service of God is a good thing—and that this rationalization led to many injustices done in the name of God.
a) How do you respond to Henri’s view of power and the proclamation of the Gospel? Have you experienced this on your spiritual journey? What was the result?
2. Henri describes a leadership of powerless and humility this way: “I am speaking of a leadership in which power is constantly abandoned in favor of love. It is a true spiritual leadership.” Henri goes on to say that this refers to people who love Jesus so deeply they are ready to trust him and follow him wherever he leads.
a) Have you seen true spiritual leadership practiced and what was the impact on those that were affected? What steps can you take to move toward spiritual leadership in your own life and ministry?
3. Henri sets a near impossible standard for Christian leadership writing: “…the Christian leader thinks, speaks, and acts in the name of Jesus… (must) discern…how God acts in human history… identify and announce the ways in which Jesus is leading God’s people out of slavery…” He continues saying leaders must respond to life’s challenges with “an articulate faith in God’s real presence.”
a) Have you seen evidence that Henri’s vision of theological leadership is beginning to be realized in the 30 years since this book was published? What steps could you take to move closer to theological leadership in your life?
There is a great deal to ponder this week. As always, you are encouraged so share your reflections, either on the questions or anything that touched you or you were drawn to in the reading. We look forward to hearing from you.
May the Lord give you peace as you continue your Lenten journey.
Ray
Friends
This was a particularly difficult section for me. Based on my experience, and confirmed by taking a spiritual gifts inventory, among the gifts or charisms I have received from God are knowledge, teaching, wisdom, writing, administration, service, and to a lesser extent, leadership. Consequently I have found myself in leadership position in my professional and parish life and, most intimately, in my family life as a husband and father. And I want to believe that I practice servant leadership where I collaborate with the group to achieve the common good. Yet, I know that is certainly not always the case, and my gift of knowledge can overwhelm my lack of humility, resulting in a leadership of power and control.
Henri could be describing me when he writes: “people… made me aware of the extent to which my leadership was still a desire to control complex situations, confused emotions, and anxious minds (p 74)… It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people (p 77)… leadership is exercised by people who do not know how to develop healthy, intimate relationships and have opted for power and control instead.”
I am a NY-born Irish Catholic, the oldest of five sons, and I grew up in a very dysfunctional family (mother mentally ill, father an alcoholic and often absent). I learned at a very early age to protect myself by turning inward. I was ashamed of my family and also learned to keep that to myself since I didn’t want to let others to know and to think less of me because of my family. I learned that I needed to make my way in the world, largely by myself. Yet at the same time I was drawn to my Catholic parish and it became my “family” – but a family without the intimacy that is often learned in a healthy family. I attended an all-male high school with 6,000 students and then the U.S. Naval Academy—neither of which is the best place to learn intimacy and vulnerability, but great places to learn to strive, excel, and to lead. Married at age 21 immediately after graduating from Navy and a father by age 24, I now realize that for most of my life I was living in a way that allowed me, to the extent possible, “to control complex situations, my confused emotions, and my anxious mind. “ And God works in strange ways. I now realize that it was through the end of my first marriage 15 years ago (a very difficult experience to which I directly and regrettably contributed) that I am beginning, just beginning, to understand how to open myself to trust other people in intimate relationships and to let the love of God guide me and my actions. I have been blessed to have met a wonderful and spiritual counselor to walk with me during that difficult time, to have discovered Henri Nouwen as an important spiritual guide, to have met and married my the love of my life my wife Dawn in 2008, to have Dawn and I become members of a Catholic charismatic community, and for Dawn and I to continue being active in our parish. Yet, with all this, I still realize the many times that I choose to lead rather than being led. I pray that this Lenten journey with each of you will allow me to continue to grow so that I may truly be willing to be led to where Jesus is calling me, even if it is a place to which I would rather not go.
Ray
Ray,
I resonnate with just about everything you’ve said. This section has also been challenging to me. I too was raised in a deeply dysfunctional family. In retrospect I never had a childhood because I spent it trying to cover up my father’s alcoholism and his physical abuse of my mother and brother. The shame of it all set me on a course of preformance and wanting personal power to compensate for my powerlessness. Though respected by colleagues and cared about by friends, I’ve kept my distance with the consequence of a chronic loneliness.
But somehow, God set his love upon me at an early age. Called me in some sense that I and others saw. Though from a poor and uneducated family, I was placed in a privileged school and then given scholarships to go to college. But I could never achieve enough, do enough or be enough. After a failed marriage this dynamic recycled with even greater ferocity. I doubled my efforts to get even more degrees and accolades to compensate for what felt like personal failure.
Through it all, God has been with me bringing people and mentors in my life to bring me back to as Henri puts it m “first love.” After a year’s period of deep discernment I decided to move back home after being away for amost a decade. On the surface it made no sense at all as I had a successful practice and speaking engagements around the country. But reflection, prayer and conversations with trusted companions made me believe that this was the right thing.
When I arrived home, I was diagnosed with pneumonia which went unnoticed for four months.It laid me low and like Henri’s experience at L’Arche, it was full of surprises I was unprepared for. My tight control and goal oriented life slipped away and I had to live with the ‘suddenlies’ rather than the sureities. I’ve definitely been led to where I’d “rather not go.”
Paradoxically, I feel both bottomless fear (because I’ve not been able to work) and a never-known-before faith. It’s paper thin but a different paradigm than the performace orientation I’ve led with in the past. I can’t express how timely this devotional has been for me and… how transformative it seems to be becoming.
Beverly
Beverly,
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I can certainly empathize with the chronic loneliness as consequence of keeping distance (or avoiding intimacy) due to a painful upbringing. I will keep you in my prayers as you continue your journey and I hope you will return for future discussions. I will say that they have been an important part of my spiritual growth over the past 6-7 years.
Peace and all good.
Ray
Henri asks the question, “What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? And his following thought, “Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love.” (p. 77) How often do I take the easy road by distancing myself, rejecting the vulnerable intimacy with God, with others, even with myself?
Tomorrow I lead children’s time….all week it has been on my mind, all kind of ideas coming. Yet, I have had to wait for a clear lead as to what to share and how….after reading the scriptures for the morning worship service, letting the scriptures point the way, behold…as of 1:35 a.m., I thank God that He is patient with me…….I’m glad God closes my own created distancing gap, moment by moment, and “in quietness and in trust, will be my strength!” Is. 30:15b
I believe that the inability to become vulnerable, “to be God than to love God”, “to control people than to love people” is a result of deep embedded wounds of the heart. An artificial shield is used to avoid suffering and become naked to our own selves and the world. For example, sometimes I am incapable of having an intimate moment (open discussion) with my love ones, and instead disguise it, by artificially projecting my “perfect” Christianity and doing the right things of prayer, piety and study. It is probably the fear that someone will take me where I would rather not go.
I have seen true spiritual leadership on my spiritual director- a Dominican priest. He completely immerses in the suffering of his brethren to a point that people identified with him and trust his guidance and advice. The steps that I can take is to try to seek not my own will, but the will of God. Acceptance that I can not do everything on my own, and reminding myself that without love my good works come to nothing.
I have seen signs of theological leadership for example by looking at the actions of bishop Vera in Mexico, defending the human rights of immigrants, and seeking justice for the poor, “announcing the ways in which Jesus is leading”. He personally responds to personal struggles and national calamities. It is simply the “theology of liberation” in action.
I was snagged again with Henri’s penetrating observation that “The temptation of power is greatest when intimacy is a threat.” If the Christian faith is anything it is a journey toward intimacy – with God, and with people we meet along the way. But intimacy requires vulnerability, an authentic willingness to own my imperfections and show patience with the imperfections of others. It is my observation after many years in ministry that we have been so deeply sabotaged by secular approaches to power that the biblical approach is diminished, if not dismissed. This leaves us with a church leadership structure that conspires to use the language of servant leadership while practicing power. When I look to Jesus I see a person who paid attention to His own journey, practiced intimacy with the Father, received the Father’s instruction, lived on-purpose, embraced the pain of isolation and brokenness, and sought to draw people into the intimacy of the Father’s love. The drive to upward mobility avoids the long and painful shaping process that leads to authenticity. I know many powerful leaders who are charming and nice, yet ruthless in the way their words and actions intimidate and coerce. My seminary principal was a brilliant teacher and passionate Christ-follower. Highly respected, not as an administrator, but as a teacher, preacher, mentor and friend, he practiced the art of being a ‘resident theologian’. His life illustrated his teaching. Throughout his life, during his battle with cancer, and to the point of his departure, he reached out to pastors, associates, friends, and especially new disciples. From my ordination to his departure, I would receive hand-written letters from him, affirming my value to the Kingdom, commenting on current trends and inviting my thoughts on questions he was processing. Everywhere I go, in North America, Britain and Brazil, I still meet people who have received the same attention from this Christ-follower. Without a doubt, the influence of his leadership lay in his capacity for intimacy, authenticity, humility and soul friendship, even while occupying seats of power. In his final year on earth, he would often sit and have a burger and coke with young adults, seeking to awaken in them a passion for God and goodness. He reached high office in the denomination and, like Pope Francis, triggered much discomfort within circles of ecclesiastical power. He remains a guiding light to me. His influence, and a small company of holy mentors, has helped me navigate the crisis points of my life and ministry, enabling me to shift my focus from simply leading to learning. Forgive me for the length of this post. Our focus has unleashed a flood of memories and essential reminders of my deepest desire to be like Jesus in the way I live and lead.
Ray notes that while Henri “…presents Jesus as a servant-leader—one who eschews power and becomes powerless out of love and leads others by humbly being led (to do the will of his Father). Henri emphasizes that Jesus’ approach is so at odds with the ways of the secular world that leaders need to be trained to think with the mind of Christ if we are to lead as Jesus led.”
It’s been my experience as a business consultant that when I have presented leaders of an organization with the idea of ‘servant leadership’ as a new way of thinking about being leaders, I have often been met with blank stares or with objections like “…we can’t operate that way and still make a profit.’ And remarkably, even some church and nonprofit leaders have not been able to connect Jesus’ words to what they are doing at ‘work’.
I shouldn’t be surprised – I had the same sorts of objections at first, until I started to see real results for myself. Now as a college teacher of business students at a Christian college, I also get similar types of objections, often with the rationalizations like “…maybe that worked 2000 years ago in the cultural context, but now?” It’s a challenge to fight the secular way of doing things, as Ray said, but worth the effort.
In the same way, as I have been continually challenged in my way of thinking by Jesus’ words in so many other ways, my pattern of response usually is:
What?? I don’t understand —> But this can’t work for me because—>Ok, well let me see if this can really work—> What do you know, it does make sense and it does work —>Acceptance
So during the Lenten season, when I and so many of you have noted our failures, let’s be reminded of His patience with us while we struggle to grow. For me, that patience also means He waits for me…period.
I too have been on the receiving end of a Church leader, a Parish Priest, who wielded his power “in the name of Jesus” hurting many people on the way. My experience happened over 4 years ago when a new PP took over. Before he came I was very much in the centre of the parish ( I was secretary, treasurer, coordinator of Catechesis, sacristan, formator of the altar servers ect ect). The new PP decided he wanted to run things differently. Within a few months I found the work I had done devalued, my responsibilities taken away one by one and I was “sent” to work on the fringes of the parish. I was led to a place I hadn’t chosen to go. It was certainly a case of “downward mobility” fast track.
I have to confess that I had my angry moments and it took me a little while to forgive him. But now I can truly say that I am happy and at peace working on a more low key level with people on the fringes of the parish, the elderly and visiting the sick. I am able to be more “present” to people than before and have lots of opportunities to practice humility and being a servant, even though I fail the test many times. But the knowledge that I have a merciful Father who keeps picking me up all the time gives me the courage to keep on trying!
I have experienced a Christian leader who had a pension for welding power and it ended with a mass exodus from the Prayer Community. Not to mention the Church, all the “must dos” ended up with people “not doing at all” and leaving the Church. Henri says that “…the mystery of leadership, for a large part, is being led”. I’ve experienced this in my teaching. My joy is in the classroom with my students. They do lead me in the sense that they express their likes, dislikes, fears, doubts etc most freely and this causes me to pause and reflect on my practice, saying “I’m sorry”, seeking answers, comfort and guidance from God. They keep me listening.
In writing about “a leadership in which power is constantly abandoned in favor of love” I too think of Pope Francis. He is a model for us all. I have a colleague who left the Church and was very bitter, but when Pope Francis visited the USA she said she looked at every broadcast on cable TV and even wept when he hugged the prisoners. She was deeply touched. This is truly the kind of leadership needed in the world today. I have a long, long way to go.
In terms of theological reflection, Henri says that ” real theological thinking is …thinking with the mind of Christ”. I see this happening in the new ecclesial movements and new communities springing up all over the world (and also in my country). These are well springs for lay people to share their lives, live their faith, grow more and more deeply in love with the Lord and have “an articulate faith in God’s presence.”
Thank you again for insights.a) What steps could you take to move closer to theological leadership in your life?
Pg. 79 “One thing is clear to me: The temptation of power is greatest when intimacy is a threat.”
I am in awe with this Sunday’s reading during Mass, the Return of the Prodigal Son, I remembered Henri Nouwen and my first step was to attend “Reconciliation,” this is one sacrament that has always been very difficult to practice. And I, like the older sibling who has been given much, whine and complain about the things I do not have or have not been give.
But, to return to God and wanting a deeper relationship and intimacy is what I desire most of all. Again, can not give what I do not have.
It’s very difficult to give my right to be right, and to have all the answers, to encourage others by what I think I know…humility is needed. I am struggling, but not lost hope.
I am most taken by the idea of the kind of pastoral “leadership in which power is constantly abandoned in favor of love.” First of all, I find it fascinating that a book written by Henri Nouwen in 1989 has anticipated the servant leadership style of Pope Francis. It is sad that some of the Catholic Church leaders of Father Nouwen’s time were in denial about priests who used their power to abuse children although there was much evidence to the contrary. At the very least, most of us have known priests who used church dogma more as an instrument for fearful compliance than as an encouraging road map for journeying closer to a God who is more about mercy than about power and justice.
Most likely, I have alluded to my spiritual advisor more than once in previous book discussions on this blog, but I must offer him again as the quintessential personal example of abandonment to loving service. A man who said he entered the priesthood in order to bring the consolation of the confessional to his flock, he proved true to his word as penitents were willing to stand patiently in long lines to receive his counsel and God’s absolution. Even when he was in ill health, he heard confessions for two or three hours as a time and offered additional counseling in his office during the work week. His funeral drew a crowd who filled every seat in the church and spilled into the aisles, the lobby, and the courtyard in front of the church in order to express their love and appreciation. He would have been humbled by the attention but perhaps consoled by eulogies which attested to the powerful influence of his loving service.
Your Spiritual advisor seemed like a lovely, humble, compassionate priest – and well loved judging by the number that attended his requiem. He reminds me of two other gentle priests, Saint Cure de Ars ( Jean Vianney) and more recently the Capuchin,Padre Pio, both of whom spent many hours listening to people’s confession. For me, that is a great act of love. How many of us long to be truly listened to and to hear genuine words of foregiveness? Hopefully, many more priests will respond to the invitation of Pope Francis to be “Missionaries of Mercy” and hear many confessions in this Year of Jubilee.
Elaine thank you for sharing the experience about the powerful influence of
loving service which you & many others were blessed with !
Henri states “It is not a leadership of power and control, but a leadership of powerlessness and humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ is made manifest”….He also states “power is constantly abandoned in favor of love. Here is Henri talking about Christian leadership in the future.
I agree if we struggle for control in our leadership it is not about humility, or suffering for the poor and the lost – it is about ourselves. Now if we lead with love we care for those who have not heard about our Lord, who own nothing and live on the streets. We see the new immigrants and help, but if it is power over others we are seeking we do not gain anything. I see Jesus in scripture He did not seek power, yet He was the Son of God and had the power, rather he walked and healed others, when food was gone he prayed and there was enough for all to eat. Leaders that seek power are not caring – Jesus cared about the poor, the sick and healed. In our world today what do we see….those who want power. Now in the church is power sought – perhaps at times, but usually love is given, and people who have nothing are given food, housing and clothes. Power is exempted from true Christianity. Then we have those who would like us to believe that if they get in power they will help the poor but it does not come to pass. They the leaders claim to help – but we do not see the down trodden being lifted up and given help. Now these are my thoughts ….but what I would like to see those that are truly of the Christian faith reach out and help the downtrodden. Yes, tell the gospel story – but sometimes the story is a gift of food and love, a home to live in. That would be the story of Jesus who helped the down trodden, the blind, the lame and the helpless. Let us all reach out and be Christ in the way we live, helping and caring. My thoughts for world saddened by sin and violence….Pray.
Several comments for last week were posted late on Saturday. You can find them at this link http://wp.henrinouwen.org/?p=1161#comments
Ray