you will not always have me...

I wonder what it would be like to have a job or career where you weren't being compared to the last guy, the one we liked better than you.  As a pastor in the ELCA, smaller congregations tend to be very pastor-centric or oriented.  The ministry and the faith are largely understood and articulated in relation to the pastors.  A flawed way of thinking about church, given the democratic nature of ecclesial leadership in its earliest forms.  But humans in community need a head of household, a king, a leader-in-charge; one in whom the rest might turn for inspiration and direction.  One whom the others might reject or hold liable when things get ugly. Praise the leader or pin them to the wall.  No leader is going to fulfill everyone's expectations, hopes, and imagination.  Because leaders are people.  But in the church we allow pastors to be emotionally crucified by unloving and ungracious members.  The biblical narrative is full of flawed leadership; Moses, Saul, David, and every king thereafter.  God warns the people in 1 Samuel 7 the appointing a king is not a good idea for them. But they want to be like the nations and tribes around them.  God provides them leaders who misuse power, who make impulsive, self-protecting decisions, and who fail to accomplish the leadership task given to them, largely by failing to remain faithful to God and to their duty as earthly rulers under the rule of a God-King.   Despite the failures of leaders, however, people are inspired to faithfulness.  And God's love and grace are made known.  Leadership is not for the weak. I've learned that the hard way...after the jump!

 Leadership in the church is challenging because you're always following others.  Following others into leadership requires that you either demand loyalty through power over others or you receive loyalty by assent of the followers. The people must concede that the new leader is indeed their leader, whom they will follow.  They must change allegiances.  In the mix comes a community's grief for having lost their leader.  And then they must learn to follow a new leader, who may not incarnate the same characteristics and qualities as the previous leader.  Some people are lost in the transition.  They cannot abide by the new leader's story or the new leader's vision or direction.  They may feel threatened by a new leader who does not recognize the power dynamics of the system as it had operated.  In fact the new leader may question the status quo, thereby   raising the ire of those who benefited or enjoyed life under the previous leadership.  When teams get new coaches, the team changes.  The coach might bring a new game plan that requires a different sort of team dynamic or a different skill set.  Some players will leave, feeling unwanted or rejected.  As a leader, making space for previous players to keep playing the game is important.  but it is not the most important thing.  A true leader, after all, is driven by an ideology or a way of being.  He or she is driven by a desire to see something happen that has not happened before, to make or establish a new thing within and for a community.  Christian leaders are driven by theology of the cross and resurrection--that God has been revealed to the world in the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, and that to live by His word is a sign and a foretaste of the new age or new creation promised of God.  Eternal life is the hope in an age in which all things might be fully restored to God.  Christian Leaders speak and demonstrate this faith in Jesus as Lord of life.      
  Pastors and priests are successors in a long line of leaders who have succeeded their predecessors.  This in contrast to the missionary making a new, innovative, first start in a new territory or frontier.  Even so, he or she succeeds others in an apostolic tradition that begins with Jesus.  Succession is a spiritual reality as much as a physical one.  One does not merely inhabit the office space, the ecclesial furniture of a predecessor.  You take on a role.  And the role of a parish pastor is changing.  And the role of the parish pastor does not fit some leaders like a glove.  I, for one, do not embody the characteristics of a parish pastor in the estimation of some people--who have expectations about how a pastor looks, acts, dresses,  speaks,etc...Your a persona, often persona non grata.  You are a person with a story and a life and a family and a personality and things you love and things you don't.  And then you are the you others want you to be or expect you to be or require you to be.  If you don't tell them, others will tell you who you are.  Because people want you to be the way they want you to be.  Be more like him. There is often a running list of expectations at work in people; everything from footwear to food/beverage preferences.  You are not ever just you.  You are always being compared to this version of the minister that someone has developed.  And that version is developed out of the other's experiences, personality, and theological understanding of church.  
Jesus builds a movement or a church that inherits his ministry.  He will literally inspire a small group of student followers to take on the tasks of living his way.   Then he will go away, promising to return.  He leaves others to continue what he has started.    We find ourselves in the middle of this story.
So what is the kind of leadership in the church that Jesus wants us to imitate?  A leadership willing to die, a people willing to be poured out for the sake of others, and a lavish and generous use of the earth's resources as a fragrant offering to the earth's poor.  Jesus wants his followers to be replaceable. He wants a people willing to accept the mantle of responsibility given them in baptism. He calls faithful leaders and followers who will live together in the hope and love of Christ, called together to share one table and one mission.  Leaders know when to get out of the way and know when to step in and intervene.  Leaders know when others are not willing to follow and how to invite them to get in line.  Jesus requires Peter to get behind him when Peter seeks to obstruct Jesus' mission to go and die in Jerusalem.  The missio dei drives Jesus to live and die.  It is more powerful than his will to survive or his love for his friends.
John 12 reminds us that Jesus had to leave, so that his people could be the fellowship of believers inspired to live according to his ways.  "You will always have the poor with you," reminds us of Jesus' mission and ours to proclaim good news to the poor in word and deed, to lift up the weak and lowly, to serve the needy in the name of Jesus.  We do so whenever we join them in their suffering and give them bread to eat.
Jesus' absence is felt most palpably in the world when the needs of the poor are forgotten.
Leadership in the church entails picking up where our predecessors left off in the work of Jesus to show merciful justice to the earth's poor.  Those who are doing that labor of love belong to Jesus.
Those who obstruct this work in the church, those who seek to disrupt and distract the church from its mission, are to be confronted.  Leaders are called to be advocates.  Pastors are called to be spiritual advocates and stewards of the mysteries of God.  We do so because God says we will do it.  And sometimes, on good days, that's the best reason on earth to do anything at all.