The servants' season
McCarthy, Abigail
Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy SERVANT'S SEASON A CONCEPT NOT CONGENIAL TO AMERICAN MINDS "TO TAKE a servant's form he came . . ." So sings the church in the hymn for Lauds on Christmas...
...Senator Mark Hatfield, a Republican liberal, one of the few to speak of his public service as a Christian vocation, has been vocal on the subject...
...Still, because it is grounded on the teaching of the Servant who spoke of the mustard seed and the leaven, we can hope that it is more than that—that the analysis is as sound as the idea is inspiring...
...Howard Blake, director of the conference, said that Christians had learned to go to the ghetto, "hat in hand" to learn the costly lesson of identification, but that this attitude was markedly lacking in our dealings with those in power...
...Undoubtedly there are businessmen who fe.el the same way about the prophets, at least...
...The story, Greenleaf says, tells us that the true leader is seen as servant first...
...When he disappears they cannot finish the journey...
...Perhaps because wave after wave of immigrants, forced by necessity to accept conditions of servitude, did not want even the word "servant" to apply to their descendants...
...Abigail McCarthy 5 December 1980, 670...
...Then one aspires to lead in order to serve...
...Ideally, in a servant society, an Ernest Fitzgerald would be sustained and supported rather than harassed for a decade after revealing a massive cost overrun in the Defense Department...
...We have heard a lot of late of Jesus, the Suffering Servant, foretold by Isaias...
...on the other are the "prophets"—those concerned with specific issues such as civil rights, the plight of the poor, world hunger, Vietnam...
...But to a generation instructed in the idea of institutional oppression and violence, a generation which has seen change brought about by confrontation, the idea is bound to seem palliative and simplistic...
...There wouldn't have been a cost overrun in the first place...
...I read their bulletins and letters half-agreeing, halfquestioning...
...First of all, it seems clear, by affirming the concept of servanthood...
...And he said of himself, "I am here among you as your servant...
...Greenleaf says that the course of his life was determined by a college professor who told his class that a new problem in our times was that the large institutions which dominate our society—church, business, government, labor, the universities—are not serving us well...
...On the one hand, he pointed out in a speech at Princeton Seminary some years ago, there are the pastors concerned exclusively with the state of a leader's soul...
...These latter, who emerged in numbers during the sixties, have reclaimed for the church the voice of prophecy...
...Perhaps...
...Since that time some of the leaders of that conference have formed a group called The Servant Society...
...Is this realistic...
...An auto designer who thought of himself as a responsible servant would hardly have been capable of designing a car like the Pinto apt to burst into flame on impact...
...Throughout the discussions there, I noted, ran' 'a thread of acknowledgment that a new kind of manipulation of the laity has developed in this day of 'strategies' and coalitions...
...As people felt more and more helpless to change the world, the church—because it did not do or say otherwise—has lent support to the pessimistic view that although God changes people he does not change institutions___We of The Servant Society believe that systems can be changed— that they will be changed by responsible* leaders who themselves are changed by the Spirit of God...
...Perhaps because the word applied to self smacks of nineteenth century unctuousness and hypocrisy—"I am, sir, your humble and obedient servant...
...How is The Servant Society to minister to them...
...The Servant Society leans heavily on the thought of Robert Greenleaf, a retired executive, who wrote Servant Leadership (Paulist Press...
...The basic thought of The Servant Society is explained in its folder: "Christian thinking and theology has barely changed over the centuries even though the individual came to be dwarfed by larger and larger systems...
...The concept of servanthood is not very congenial to American minds...
...That is different from the person who is leader first because of the drive for power or wealth...
...And yet it is a concept we must come to terms with if we take the Word at all seriously...
...We see so clearly what other people should do: we go to tell them so in our lobbies and pressure groups, to admonish the business people and the politicians without thought that they also may be lay Christians who should be asked to help find solutions...
...But nothing of substance will happen unless there are people inside these institutions who are able to (and want to) lead them into better performance for the public good...
...Servant leadership begins with the feeling that one wants to serve...
...What of all the struggles to define a just society, stewardship, etc...
...All of this may do some good...
...Greenleaf decided to work from the inside...
...Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy SERVANT'S SEASON A CONCEPT NOT CONGENIAL TO AMERICAN MINDS "TO TAKE a servant's form he came . . ." So sings the church in the hymn for Lauds on Christmas Day...
...Four years ago I wrote in this space about a conference at the University of Dallas in Texas optimistically entitled "The Laity—A New Direction...
...If a better society is to be built, it is Greenleaf s contention that the best way is to "raise both the capacity to serve and every performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them...
...The time has come for pastor-prophets, because the prophets have regarded legislators from whom they demanded courageous stands more as instruments than as persons—and have given little sympathy or personal support to those for whom a costly vote might end a career...
...An auto industry bent on serving well might have given us smaller, energy-efficient cars long ago...
...This year Senator Hatfield, a born-again Baptist, made a similar statement about the Moral MajorCommonweal: 678 ity and the New Right...
...The idea that the church has not dealt with institutions over the centuries is, at best, unhistorical...
...Caring today is mediated through large institutions...
...But it is certainly true that in recent history there has been little effort to define the terms of Christian leadership in government and business from the point of view of those who must exercise it or to minister to them...
...He says that his idea of the servant as leader came from a story of Herman Hesse's, Journey to the East, an allegory about a band of men on a mythical journey who are sustained by the spirit of their servant Leo...
...You can do as I do, stand outside and criticize, bring pressure if you can, write and argue about it...
Vol. 107 • December 1980 • No. 22
