HOW HUMILITY MAKES STRONG LEADERS

 

Political strongmen are fashionable practically everywhere today. And they are men, on the whole. But they are nothing new. The last century was dominated and ruined by men with big egos and no empathy. And St Peter, writing his first letter, would have been familiar with the strongmen of Rome and its regions; men exercising arbitrary, often vicious power just because they could. Jesus himself was a victim of Rome’s indifferent cruelty. Pilate made a half-hearted attempt at saving his life but fundamentally didn’t care when he ordered Jesus to be crucified.

 

Today the mantra of strongman leadership is expressed in a different way. Those who would make a difference in the world are told to move fast and break things. It’s said with an almost childlike disinhibition. The other label people glory in is being a disruptor. Disruption is an inevitable part of a culture that is always inventing stuff or finding new ways to do things. It can also be a profoundly spiritual thing. Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the gift of his Spirit point to a fundamental disruption in this world: the emergence of a new creation. But disruption today is often celebrated without any bigger plan than to mess up what exists, sit back and see what happens. It is not a virtue in itself, and without responsible planning, leads to people being hurt and disadvantaged.

 

And across the world people are being distracted by the politics of disruption while those who do the disrupting quietly use it to their advantage, as a corrupt means of wealth accumulation. Like a skilled magician, they draw our eyes away from what’s really happening to the distraction so they can pull a fast one on us.

 

We may hope this is a far cry from the Church, but it’s fascinating that St Peter makes a point of telling those who exercise leadership in the Church that they should do so ‘not for sordid gain’. So, corruption was a risk from the start of the Church. St Peter had seen corrupt leadership and strongman politics up close and personal. The brutal public execution of Jesus as a slave and the unholy alliance of religious and political leaders that made it possible; the crushing guilt Peter felt that he had in some way been complicit in his friend’s death, made a lasting impression on him.

 

I wonder how much we would have understood about the cross without the deep and bitter learning of those who witnessed the suffering of Jesus. Time and again, Peter returns to the theme of Jesus’ suffering when talking about the resurrection and the new creation. We see it here:

 

As an elder myself and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as one who shares in the glory to be revealed, I exhort the elder among you, he says.

 

Peter saw the inseparability of death and resurrection, suffering and joy. And it was his model for leadership. Elders were not to lord it over those in their charge, like the average strongman leader of that era. Jesus inverted all understanding of status but people largely carry on as if he didn’t. It remains a driving force in human culture. We need to have status relative to others and will do everything we can to preserve it for ourselves and our children. We like the promise that the first will be last and the last first, but don’t stop to think through its implications.

 

St Peter says we are to clothe ourselves in humility. But there is a problem with humility. Anyone who says they have it probably don’t. Chasing humility is like trying to catch a balloon on a windy day; it always feels elusive - which suggests we should approach it obliquely. Two ways, among many, in which we might clothe ourselves with humility without being too pleased at how we look in your new outfit are:

Listen carefully to others in the belief we will learn something and don’t have all the answers.

 

I am convinced we are becoming worse at listening to one another. The design of social media is part of the problem. It encourages us to put our thoughts out there and does almost nothing to help us be active listeners to others. We treat people one-dimensionally online, but people are deep and complex and cannot easily be summed up. Accepting that is the first step to seeing God in them and learning from them. Research shows, apparently, that on meeting a new person, we tend to think we will be cleverer than they are. This is not humility. Too many people still act like they are some kind of Alexa, where people only have to ask the question of them to get a definitive answer. We are called to spiritual curiosity, not inflexible certainty.

 

We should not look through the other person in front of us.

 

I know how hard that can be, especially when someone else is trying to get our attention, to get in our eyeline, but we dignify the person when we devote attention to them. It is status that makes us lose interest in the person in front of us. We don’t admit it, but we make lots of unconscious judgments. You’ll be familiar with the unwieldy term high net worth individual, which uses eight syllables where the word ‘wealthy’ would do. In chasing humility, we should get out of our minds any distinction between high social worth individuals and low social worth individuals. We are all made in the image of God, Jesus died for each one of us and the Holy Spirit can make a home in everyone. In fact, God seems to take a special interest in the people our culture rejects.

 

It's fascinating how St Peter moves seamlessly in his first letter from talking about humility to dealing with anxiety. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Might this be because when we push ourselves forward and position ourselves to get the most benefit, we succumb to a wider culture that celebrates those who get ahead and ignores those who don’t? We are called to the race that is set before us, for sure, but this is not the rat race. With humility, I suspect, comes greater personal peace, as we find our true identity in Christ.