“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” — Genesis 3:6
“Part of Eve’s Discussion”by Marie Howe
It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand, and flies, just before it flies, the moment the rivers seem to still and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop, very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say, it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only all the time.
from New American Poets, ed. Myers & Weingarten. Boston: David R. Godine Publisher, 1991
“Eve in the Garden” by Anna Lea Merritt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian ponies Darken with kindness. They have come gladly out of the willows To welcome my friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture Where they have been grazing all day, alone. They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness That we have come. They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. There is no loneliness like theirs. At home once more, They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness. I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms, For she has walked over to me And nuzzled my left hand. She is black and white, Her mane falls wild on her forehead, And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist. Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom.
from James Wright, The Branch Will Not Break, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1963.
He toddled after me. Bare feet kicked pebbles and stirred small storms of dust. He was practicing his words. “Deshe,” he said, handing over a tuft of dry grass, brittle with drought. I added the grass to my basket.
“Giza etz?” he said tentatively, holding up a stick, just the right size for kindling. Into the basket it went.
“Perach.” He smiled shyly, extending a tiny wilted bouquet of chamomile, clenched in his small fist.
Such a good boy! So generous! I tucked the flowers behind my ear and scooped him up, holding him next to my heart. I could feel his little ribs beneath his robe and see the delicate throb of a vein, pulsing at his temple.
It hadn’t always been like this. My husband, like his father and his father’s father, had gone to sea. We Phoenicians are a seafaring people, weaving a vast web of trade that spans the Great Sea from Sidon to Cyrene, Rome, Malta, and beyond. We pluck fish from the ocean depths, harvest rare pearls from the Gulf of Arabia, and hew great ships from the cedars of Lebanon. For men, it is an adventurous but dangerous life, always at the mercy of wind and wave. For women, it brings loneliness. Always the siren call of the water pulls our men back. Always, there is the waiting.
They said my husband was killed by a lightning strike. First the rigging caught, then the weathered decking. When the fire reached the amphorae of olive oil in the hull, it launched a ball of fire into the sky, worthy of the Great Lighthouse of Alexandria. I don’t know if he drowned or if he burned, but I do know the tight cage of fear that had held my heart ever since.
Our son was weeks old. There was no patriarch to take us in, no kindly kinsman to offer protection. In Zarephath, my neighbors made the sign of the evil eye behind my back, worried that my misfortune would rub off on them. The large amphorae of flour, oil, and salt fish that my husband had left behind slowly emptied, despite every economy. I had grown slight with hunger and my milk had eventually failed.
I was collecting wood for a final fire, a last loaf to be baked, a little oil to be poured out. My child, perched on my hip, looked at me with enormous eyes set in wan cheeks that had once been chubby. As my eyes filled with tears, he demanded to be put down, little arms pushing and legs kicking. With both feet on the ground, he stretched up a hand for me to hold.
“Ezra, Ama!” (Help, Mama!) he said. He tugged on my hand, pulling me homeward. Help? Whose help?
We saw him outside the city gate. He looked like he had been sleeping rough for a long time. His tunic was rumpled, the armpits stained with rings of sweat. His beard was enormous and wild. Bits of straw clung to his shaggy hair. He held a long, sturdy, wooden staff, the sign of a patriarch or a . . .
“Navi!” (prophet), my little boy said. His hands clapped with delight and chuckles swelled his small, empty belly.
Hearing my child, the prophet turned with a sharp look, taking in our skinny forms. “Shalom!” he greeted us, “Please, could I trouble you for some water?”
All the wadis had gone dry with drought, but within the walls of Zarephath, our deep well remained true. It was a simple thing to fulfill his request, but as I nodded and turned to do so, he stopped me.
“And please, a little bread with that? Surely, you have a little something to share with Yahweh’s messenger.”
I thought of the handful of flour and trickle of oil at the bottom of my jars, and the fear that clenched my heart held even tighter. Of all the people in Zarephath to ask for help, why choose us? Our poverty was obvious.
“Lechem?” (bread), my son said, pointing to the prophet.
I sighed. “You do not know what you ask, my friend. My cupboard is bare. We are headed home to eat our final few morsels and call it quits.”
But the prophet wouldn’t take my no for an answer. “Please!” he insisted, sounding both compassionate and authoritative, “Don’t be afraid. Make me a small loaf, bring it here; then, bake for yourself and the boy. Yahweh will bless you!”
It made no sense. Why would I ever consider such a thing at the expense of my child? Yet, my son seemed to have reached a different conclusion.
“Lechem, Ama! Lechem!” (Bread, Mama! Bread!). He stomped his feet, pointed at the prophet, and pulled me toward home.
It was against my better judgment. I stirred the coals from last night’s fire. I fed it with tufts of grass, which caught with a soft chuff. I carefully added our sticks and watched as tongues of flame leapt up. I scooped out most of the last of our meal, mixed it with water, and kneaded it into a smooth cake. I stretched it thin, rubbed it with the last of the oil and slapped it onto the baking stone, now so hot that it sizzled beneath the oiled dough. The fragrance of baking bread made our stomachs roar as the little loaf puffed and turned golden. With skilled fingers, I plucked an edge and flipped it over, revealing a well-browned bottom.
“What am I doing?” I asked my son. His cheeks had pinked with the fire’s warmth.
“Lechem, Ama! Lechem!” he repeated, pointing back to the city gate.
I wrapped the loaf in a cloth and slipped it into my basket. I filled a cup with water and stood swaying in the doorway, basket in one hand, cup in the other. “Stay or go?” I wondered. My son made the decision for me, stomping off on his short legs to the city gate where the prophet waited. I followed, questioning my every step.
I don’t know what I was expecting. A choir of angels? The peal of thunder? A heavenly affirmation? What I got when we found the prophet, waiting outside the gate, was a thank you. “Now, go and do the same thing for yourself,” the prophet instructed. He dismissed us with a nod, said his blessing, and began to devour his loaf with grimy hands.
I picked up my boy, balancing him on my hip as I walked slowly home. I had heard that Yahweh, the great God of Israel, is a generous god with unfailing love for the lost and the poor. Yet here we were, the widow, the orphan, and a stranger, clinging to life by our fingernails, preparing to eat our last bread before returning to our ancestors. Maybe my neighbors were right. Maybe the gods Baal and Asherah had cursed me. Maybe I deserved what was surely coming in the days ahead.
By now, we were home. I set my child down and pushed the door open. He walked over to the great flour jar, taller than he was, and patted it with both hands. “Lechem, Ama? Lechem?” He sounded hopeful.
“Yes, my love, bread.” I answered. I tied an apron on and pushed back my sleeves. I crossed the floor and pried the heavy clay top off the amphora.
Below, my son was stamping his feet. “Lechem, lechem, lechem!”
I was so shocked by what I saw within that I dropped the clay top. It hit the hard earthen floor with a dull thud and split in two. There, within the amphora, finely milled flour rose all the way to the top. I plunged my hands in, and felt the silky dryness slipping through my fingers.
My son had moved to the oil jar. Again, he placed his palms on the rounded sides. He patted with his small hands and sang in a tattoo rhythm, “Shemen zayit! Shemen zayit!” (Olive oil! Olive oil!).
I pried off the top and gasped. The oil jar was filled to the brim, the first pressing, fragrant, clear, and golden green. A few bubbles rose to the top and rested on the surface, as if freshly filled. My boy was laughing now, spinning with childish delight until he plopped down onto his bottom with a breathless thud.
I sat down next to my son, dizzy with hunger and mystery. Perhaps Baal and Asherah had cursed me. But Yahweh, the holy and almighty One of Israel, had blessed me. In an instant, the certainty of our death had changed to the promise of life. My heart felt funny, felt wild and free, felt like the cage that had bound it since the death of my husband had been sprung. I put my hands to my head to stop the world from spinning. As my son crawled into my lap, I laughed and cried until I felt empty and filled with a peace that I had not known since my husband’s death.
Perhaps it was the generosity of Yahweh that made me do it. When God is so good, how can you keep it to yourself? I picked up my son and went back to the city gate where we found the prophet dozing in the sun. Crumbs from my little loaf dotted his beard. A smear of oil had been wiped on the front of his tunic.
I put down my boy and he nudged the prophet’s sandal with his little bare foot. “Navi?” I asked.
He opened an expectant eye. “Call me Elijah.”
“Elijah, my son and I would like you to stay with us. Will you come?” The boy smiled. He reached out one hand to the prophet and with the other pointed home.
The prophet rose and brushed the crumbs from his beard. He balanced his staff against the city wall then reached down to pick up my son, who settled comfortably into his arms. The Prophet Elijah smiled, “We thought you would never ask.”
My church has a tradition of sharing testimonies on Reformation Sunday. It’s always a memorable and inspiring service. I don’t have a sermon to share with you today, but it seems only fitting on this day to ponder the privilege of reading scripture and invite us to a new way of engaging the Word.
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
– Psalm 119:105
Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
– Matthew 4:4
“Taste (V & VI)”
– Christopher Smart, 1770
“O take the book from off the shelf,
And con it meekly on thy knees;
Best panegyric on itself,
And self-avouch’d to teach and please.
Respect, adore it heart and mind,
How greatly sweet, how sweetly grand,
Who reads the most, is most refin’d,
And polish’d by the Master’s hand.”
When was the last time you read your Bible? As Presbyterians, we believe the Bible is an important part of knowing God, but few of us have a regular practice of scripture reading.
We probably have some reasons for that. We may remember the antiquated language of the old King James translation, so we have a hard time finding meaning in all the Thees and Thous. We may feel that we don’t have time. Bible reading is on our “To Do” list, but it seems to always get bumped to the next day. For many of us, the cultural world of the Ancient Near East, as depicted in scripture, seems alien and confusing. We feel we need a Bible scholar to unravel the meaning for us. A few of us just want a Bible buddy, a fellow reader to keep us motivated. Does any of this ring true for you?
A great irony of our reluctance to engage scripture is that it is vital to our faith tradition. Churches born in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century fought for the ability to translate the Bible into the common language of the people. Armies waged war to read and interpret scripture in worship. People gave their lives so that we might even have home Bibles for family reading. Some of you, who were raised in Reformed or Presbyterian homes, may have childhood memories of family Bible reading on the Sabbath day. Many of us have inherited family Bibles that are well worn because they were well read. So how, in the words of the Hank Williams, Sr. country music standard, do we “get the dust off the Bible”?
I’d like to get us started by introducing a simple, reflective approach to Bible reading that taps into our natural gifts for imagination. Begin with a Psalm or Bible story. You could use one of the weekly lections that we print in the bulletin. A good starter reading could be the parable of the “Lost Sheep,” Luke 15:3-7:
“3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
Allow about twenty minutes for your reflection. Take a moment to quiet your mind and set aside distractions.
Begin by reading the scripture slowly to yourself. Notice the cast of characters (the shepherd, the sheep, the flock, and the neighbors). Which character calls for your attention?
Read the passage again slowly. Now, imagine yourself as that character; put yourself in the story. What do you see (smell, taste, hear, touch)? How do you feel? How do you relate to the other characters? Allow the story to unfold in your imagination.
Next, slowly read the passage a third time. Consider, “How does this reading speak to me? What does it tell me about myself and about God?” You may want to capture your new awareness by keeping a journal to record your thoughts. You could even get creative and draw a picture or write a poem.
To complete your Bible reading, take a moment to thank God in prayer for your new awareness.
Like most things, developing a habit of scripture reading takes commitment, practice, and support. Make a daily date with your Bible and put it on your calendar. Try setting a goal of reading each day for a month. You’ll soon find that you are looking forward to those quiet moments with the “Holy Word.” And just in case you need some moral support, reach out to your resident Bible scholar – that’s me!
“Dust on the Bible”
— Written by Johnny and Walter Bailes
I went into a home one day just to see some friends of mine Of all their books and magazines, not a Bible could I find I asked them for the Bible when they brought it, what a shame For the dust was covered o’er it, not a fingerprint was plain
Dust on the Bible, dust on the Holy Word The words of all the prophets and the sayings of our Lord Of all the other books you’ll find, there’s none salvation holds Get the dust off the Bible and redeem your poor soul
Oh, you can read your magazines of love and tragic things But not one word of Bible verse, not a scripture do you know When it is the very truth and it’s contents good for you But it’s dust is covered o’er it And it’s sure to doom your poor soul
Oh, if you have a friend you’d like to help along life’s way Just tell him that the Good Book shows a mortal how to pray The best advice to give him that will make his burdens light Is to dust the family bible, trade the wrong way for the right
Why did she cross the road? She should have stayed in her little cage, shat upon by her sisters above her, shitting on her sisters below her.
God knows how she got out. God sees everything. God has his eye on the chicken, making her break like the convict headed for the river,
sloshing his way through the water to throw off the dogs, raising his arms to starlight to praise whatever isn’t locked in a cell.
He’ll make it to a farmhouse where kind people will feed him. They’ll bring green beans and bread, home-brewed hops. They’ll bring
the chicken the farmer found by the side of the road, dazed from being clipped by a pickup, whose delicate brain stem
he snapped with a twist, whose asshole his wife stuffed with rosemary and a lemon wedge. Everything has its fate,
but only God knows what that is. The spirit of the chicken will enter the convict. Sometimes, in his boxy apartment, listening to his neighbors above him,
annoying his neighbors below him, he’ll feel a terrible hunger and an overwhelming urge to jab his head at the television over and over.
In 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, ed. Billy Collins. New York: Random House, 2005.
The girl was so wild that they kept her in a cage. She bit and scratched, screamed and spit. They didn’t know what was wrong with her, but the Tewksbury State Poorhouse was the end of the line for the orphaned and the indigent. There was no place else to send her. She was eight-years-old. Her mother had died of tuberculosis. Her father, overwhelmed and unable to cope, had surrendered her and younger brother Jimmie to the state. Jimmie had died within months of their arrival at Tewksbury.
If it hadn’t been for the kindness of an elderly maid, Annie might have stayed in the cage. Seeing the little girl so cruelly confined, the older woman felt compassion. It didn’t seem right that a child should live like that, even if she was disturbed. The maid baked a little cake. She left it outside the cage, just within Annie’s reach. The suspicious child devoured the cake and a bond was forged between the little girl and the old woman.
With the calming influence of the maid, doctors examined Annie. They learned that she suffered from trachoma, an eye disease that had left her almost totally blind. All at once, Annie’s behavior made sense. She was a terrified, grieving eight-year-old, unable to cope with the death of her mother, the abandonment of her father, and the loss of her brother. The doctors treated Annie’s trachoma and operated on her eyes, restoring some of her vision.
We don’t know how Bartimaeus lost his vision. Perhaps it was gradual, the world dissolving bit by bit into shadows and darkness. Perhaps it was all at once – a blow to the head or a workplace accident that robbed him instantly of his sight. We don’t know how long Bartimaeus had sat roadside, earning his living in the only way left to a first century blind man: wrapped in his cloak and begging, depending upon the kindness of neighbors who might share a few alms.
We do know that Bartimaeus had heard of Jesus. Maybe, one day a leper had come through the Jericho gates, boasting of the healing he had known at the hands of the Lord. Perhaps disciples, who had once followed John the Baptist, had hurried past Bartimaeus on their way to Galilee, whispering that the Messiah had come at last. One day, news had come to Bartimaeus that Jesus had healed a blind man in Bethsaida. Jesus had spat into his hands, rubbed the blind man’s eyes, prayed powerfully, and the man had then seen everything clearly.
As the Passover drew near, a rumor came to Bartimaeus from pilgrims traveling down the Jordan Valley. Jesus was coming to Jericho. Jesus and his followers were going up to Jerusalem for the Passover. From his seat on the Jericho Road, Bartimaeus, who had long ago given up hope, began to imagine that his life could change if only Jesus would pass by.
We tend not to see them until they trouble us. Dressed all in black with big boots and a leather jacket, she shouts obscenities into her phone non-stop while her dog poops on our front lawn.
In Kinney Drug—or was that Stewarts, he stands in front of us in his grimy jeans with a mask pulled down below his nose. We look at our watch while he buys about a billion lottery tickets and some smokes.
She hasn’t left her house in years. Her son brings her the essentials and Meals-on-Wheels makes weekday deliveries. I hear she has cats—lots. Sometimes you see her scowling from the porch, turning away when you say, “Hi.”
He squats in a doorway with unkempt hair and a wild beard. He’s always having an argument in a garbled voice with someone who isn’t there. They’re everywhere.
She might have been legally blind, but Annie could see that the Tewksbury State Poorhouse was a one-way ticket to a life of poverty and misery. Occasionally, children left. Those who showed promising intelligence were sent away to school, but Annie was legally blind. Where was the promise in that? When the State Board of Charities sent a commission to investigate the awful conditions of the poorhouse, Annie saw her chance. She told the commission that she wanted to go to school.
As an illiterate fourteen-year-old, Annie was sent to the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston. There Annie found that her struggles would be greater than her visual impairment. Institutionalized from the age of eight, Annie lacked social skills, table manners, and appropriate hygiene. She alienated her fellow students, and her quick temper put her at odds with her teachers. Despite her difficulties, Annie was tremendously bright and hard working. She put her prodigious gifts to work and excelled. Six years later in 1887, Annie took top honors as valedictorian upon graduation from the Perkins Institute.
When Jesus and his friends passed Bartimaeus on the Jericho Road, the blind man knew that this was his big shot. Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, and odds were good that he wasn’t coming back. If healing was going to happen, it had to be now. So, Bartimaeus began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! Hey, you! Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Bartimaeus made the biggest scene imaginable. It was embarrassing. The neighbors told him to pipe down, but the more they told him to stop, the more he yelled. Folks began to look away. They turned to one another and shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders as if to say, “Can you believe this, guy?” If the neighbors had had their way, Jesus wouldn’t have stopped. Instead, the good people of Jericho would have cheered Jesus on and sent him up to the Holy City where meaningful and important things were surely waiting.
We don’t know if it was the “Hey, you!” or the “Son of David” or the “Have mercy on me,” but I’m sure everyone was surprised when Jesus stopped. As Jesus called Bartimaeus over, the neighbors, who had been so anxious to silence Bartimaeus, had a change of heart. Suddenly, they were all help and smiles. “He’s calling you! ‘Atta boy! Get up there!” For his part, the blind man was so confident of his impending healing that he leapt up and left behind the tools of his trade. His cloak and begging bowl were forgotten on the roadside.
One day, we suddenly knew we were blind. We were volunteering at the Food Pantry when she came in with her dog in a stroller. We cried when we heard that her folks had put her out and her dog was sick and she couldn’t afford the vet bills.
One day, we had a flat tire and he pulled over to help us. He got out of his rusted-out pick-up, followed by the miasma of cigarette smoke and unwashed hair. While he helped change the tire, he told us how his grandparents raised him after his Dad ran out, and he never really learned to read, and he does odd jobs to make ends meet, and that’s ok.
One day, we saw the police and paramedics go in after the ambulance arrived without any siren. Later, we saw the stretcher come out with its quiet, shrouded contents. The EMTs talked to the cops while the cats cried piteously. Last spring, the house sold, but they say it was a nightmare to clean out.
One day, we read an article in the paper about mental illness. and we realized how impossible it is to find decent care for big-time disorders in the North Country. Folks just flail until they become a danger to themselves and others and the police get involved, which may get them off the streets for a couple of weeks, but healing never happens.
One day, we opened our eyes. One day, we knew that we had been blind to the hidden world of need all around us.
The head of the Perkins School helped Annie find a job after graduation. The Keller family of Tuscumbia, Alabama had written, looking for a governess who could help with their daughter Helen. A high fever at the age of eighteen months had robbed Helen of both vision and hearing. Helen was every bit as wild as Annie herself had once been. No one knew how reach the child, how to help her communicate with the outside world. Annie Sullivan went to Tuscumbia. With patience and persistence, she taught Helen Keller. Most of us may remember the powerful scene in the award-winning play and film The Miracle Worker when Annie signed “water” into Helen’s left hand while holding Helen’s right hand beneath the bright, wet flow gushing from a hand pump. Suddenly, a light turned on and Helen Keller, who would never see, finally saw what Annie was doing, and the world opened up for her.
We don’t know how Bartimaeus’ eyesight returned. It could have taken a few minutes, like a darkened theatre that slowly brightens as the audience rises to leave. It could have come back all at once—a bright, mind-blowing flash of sun and sky, landscape and people. It could have started with a bright point of light that grew until the whole world was illuminated like a kaleidoscope shining all about. Afterward, Bartimaeus, who was no longer blind, saw everything clearly. So clearly in fact, that when Jesus told him to “go,” he knew he had to come. He knew he had to follow Jesus, even if suffering and death awaited them in Jerusalem.
Maybe someday we’ll see what Jesus saw all those years ago on the Jericho Road. Maybe someday we’ll know what Annie Sullivan knew when she walked into the Keller home in Tuscumbia, Alabama. A hidden world of need is all around us—all the time. We can be blind, or we can choose to make a healing difference. Can we see? Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us. Amen.
Resources
Jarvis, Cynthia. “Pastoral Perspective on Mark 10:46-52” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 4. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
Galloway, Lincoln E. “Homiletical Perspective on Mark 10:46-52” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 4. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
For the graceful handle I found in a field attached to nothing pray it is universally applicable
For our tracks which disappear the moment we leave them
For the face peering through the cafe window as we sip our soup
For cheerful American classrooms sparkling with crisp colored alphabets happy cat posters the cage of the guinea pig the dog with division flying out of his tail and the classrooms of our cousins on the other side of the earth how solemn they are how gray or green or plain how there is nothing dangling nothing striped or polka-dotted or cheery no self-portraits or visions of cupids and in these rooms the students raise their hands and learn the stories of the world
For library books in alphabetical order and family businesses that failed and the house with the boarded windows and the gap in the middle of a sentence and the envelope we keep mailing ourselves
For every hopeful morning given and given and every future rough edge and every afternoon turning over in its sleep
Published in 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, ed. Billy Collins. New York: Random House, 2005.
When the economy cratered in 2008, the St. Louis-based manufacturing and consulting company Barry-Wehmiller took a big financial hit. For CEO Bob Chapman it was clear that employee cuts were inevitable, but instead of sending out pink slips, Chapman made a surprising announcement. He implemented alternating furloughs of four-weeks unpaid leave for all. Chapman told his workers, “We must all suffer a little instead of letting people go.” Chapman participated in the rolling furloughs, foregoing wages alongside his employees until the crisis was averted.
When Cheryl Bachelder became CEO of Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen in 2007, the fast-food franchise was struggling. Popeye’s, which had started 45 years before as a grab-and-go fried chicken joint in the suburbs of New Orleans, had dwindling franchises and falling revenues. Instead of cutting the bottom line, Bachelder implemented a new leadership model. Bacheleder cast the vision for what Popeye’s could do: serve excellent chicken to families on the go for a reasonable price in more locations. Then she set out to help her workers succeed with better pay, benefits, and training. Bachelder transformed Popeye’s from just another fast-food mill to a business culture where everybody won.
In March 2020 as the world ground to a halt amid the exploding COVID-19 pandemic, the airline industry was in big trouble. Governments issued lock-down orders, travel plans were cancelled, and we all sheltered in place. The CEO of Delta Airlines Ed Bastian took drastic steps. Bastian led his company through the crisis by announcing that he would take a 100% pay cut, going without his $900,000 salary for the next six months.
Bob Chapman, Cheryl Bachelder, and Ed Bastian are advocates of servant leadership, a model for business management first theorized by Robert Greenleaf in 1970. Greenleaf cast the vision for management that shares power and puts the needs of workers first, so that they can reach their greatest potential. According to Greenleaf, servant leadership creates businesses where employees are growing as people. They feel healthier, wiser, freer, and more autonomous. Those workers are also more likely to become servant leaders themselves. Beyond the walls of the corporation, these companies make a difference for good, benefitting the least privileged and most at-risk people of the community. Greenleaf dreamed of a world where servant leaders would create businesses that showed the way for others to follow while making a helping, healing difference for communities.
Our gospel lesson reminds us that, long before Robert Greenleaf cast his vision, Jesus was a servant leader. He hoped that his disciples would follow him on that path. Jesus’s words, “whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all,” were spoken as he neared the end of his journey from Galilee to Jerusalem for that final Passover. Just before today’s reading begins, Jesus had warned his friends. For the third time, he told them that he would soon be betrayed, arrested, condemned, and executed.
Even though they had heard this message three times, the disciples didn’t understand. James and John had figured out that glory would not await them in the holy city, so they hatched a new plan. They would convince Jesus to honor them in the Kingdom to come with places of greatest honor at his left and right. The fact that the other disciples got so angry at the Sons of Zebedee tells us that they probably had their own visions of grandeur. How dare James and John assert their right to be elevated above the rest of them!
In stark contrast to those visions of glory, Jesus called his friends to be servants and slaves. A servant, diakonos, waited on others, whether serving food or completing helpful tasks. A slave, doulos, simply did whatever he or she was told, acting at the direction of their master. This was not what the disciples wanted to hear.
Jesus’s model of servant leadership was an extraordinary departure from business-as-usual in the Ancient Near East. Think about it. Caesar was a self-proclaimed God. Petty rulers like King Herod lived in luxury at the expense of the people whom they were appointed to rule. In stark contrast to Caesar and Herod, Jesus was the prime example of servant leadership. Jesus allowed his core value of agape, self-giving love, to guide him. That love called him to a life of service—helping, healing, caring, speaking truth to power, and ultimately giving his life for the salvation of us all. Long before Robert Greenleaf tried to sell the business world on servant leadership, Jesus was blazing the trail and hoping that his followers would go and do likewise.
Back in 1970 when Greenleaf published his first essay on his new model of leadership, he had plenty of critics. Those naysayers insisted that leaders would only be respected if they were firmly authoritative—that often translated to white men with graduate degrees from prestigious schools and years of experience at the helm of Fortune 500 companies. Greenleaf’s critics also said that if you make your workers your priority, then they will walk over you. They would indulge themselves with those opportunities, perks, and benefits, but they wouldn’t put their shoulder to the wheel. The skeptics proclaimed that companies who embraced this radical theory of leader-as-servant would never make money.
Yet time has told a different story. When Bob Chapman became CEO of Barry-Wehmiller in 1975 at the age of thirty, the ninety-year-old company had $20 million in revenue. Their technology was outdated. Their financial position was weak. Today Barry-Wehmiller has survived that 2008 recession and continued to grow. They now have 12,000 employees and a net worth of $3 billion. Beyond that impressive bottom line, the company sees its unique measure of success as the way they touch the lives of others. In addition to his work as CEO, Bob Chapman and his wife operate a foundation which teaches the principles of servant leadership for free to communities in need.
At Popeye’s, Cheryl Bachelder found that when she began to focus on changing the company’s culture to a servant-based model, things began to change for the better. As franchise owners and employees benefitted, the chain began to grow. Sales increased by 45%. Stock price climbed from $13-a-share to $61-a-share. Better yet, when surveyed, franchise owners, employees, and customers all said that they were happier. In 2017 when Tim Horton’s acquired Popeye’s, that grab-and-go chicken joint had grown to 2,600 locations worth $1.8 billion.
Although COVID-19 remains an ongoing concern, thanks to the delta-variant, things are looking up at Delta Airlines. Unlike their competitors, Delta has weathered the COVID crisis without resorting to furloughs. In an interview last month, CEO Ed Bastian said that flights are full and Delta is hopeful and optimistic. After losing $9 billion in 2020, Delta turned a profit last quarter and is on track to do the same this quarter. Delta was the first airline to volunteer to help with the evacuation of Afghanistan. With more than two dozen flights out of Kabul, they airlifted 3,000 refugees from the crumbling nation. When praised for his leadership, Bastian brushes aside the compliments, saying, “It’s all about the people.”
Of course, after Jesus, the best example of the power of servant leadership is found in the disciples, the ones who really didn’t get it when Jesus told them three times that whoever wishes to be greatest of all must be servant of all. Ten of the disciples would follow Jesus in losing their lives for the sake of the gospel. As they reached out to the world with the good news of God’s amazing love, the disciples died untimely deaths in pursuit of Jesus’ mission and in service to God’s Kingdom. They were crucified, put to the sword, stabbed, clubbed, stoned, and burned. Even John, the only disciple to live to old age, suffered—driven out of Israel and forced to live in exile on the other side of the Mediterranean. Despite the high cost of servanthood, by the time John died, the gospel had spread exponentially. House churches spanned the Roman Empire, from North Africa to Syria to Spain. Everywhere people were affirming that God is love and Jesus is Lord.
Those servant churches would grow. Within four centuries, Christianity, which began as a persecuted sect of Judaism, was granted status as an official religion on the Roman Empire. Today there are 2.5 billion Christians worldwide, about a third of the world’s population. Nowadays, the fastest growing churches in the world are in places like Iran, China, and North Korea, where servants of the gospel take great risks to share the good news that Jesus, who was slave of all, loved us so much that he died for our sins.
I suspect that there would be more thriving churches if we worried less about number of members and the size of endowments and we thought more about servant leadership. It is in putting love into action, it is in choosing to serve others, it is in saying “yes” to Jesus’s humble purpose, that greatness is found and growth comes. May it be just as true for us as it is for those titans of industry. May it be just as true for us as it was for Jesus and the early church. Amen.
Black, C. Clifton. “Exegetical Perspective on Mark 10:35-45” in Feasting on the Word, year B, vol. 4. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
Tait, Brian. “Traditional Leadership vs. Servant Leadership” in Forbes Magazine, March 11, 2020. Accessed online at forbes.com.
Liden, Wayne, Menser, and Hu. “Servant Leadership: Validation of a Short Form of the SL-28,” in The Leadership Quarterly, 26(2), January 2015. Accessed online at researchgate.net.
Greenelaf, Robert K. “What Is Servant Leadership?” in The Center for Servant Leadership. Accessed online at Greenleaf.org.
–. “Leaders Eat Last” an interview with Simon Sinek on CBS Mornings, January 7, 2014. Accessed online at cbsnews,org.
Gibbons, Mike. “Servant Leadership Examples & Characteristics” in People Managing People Magazine, 2020. Accessed online at peoplemanagingpeople.com.
Joann White 