Who would chose to accept Jesus’ description of a new kind of leader – servant leader and follow that pattern for their life? Can we give up control and practice authority? Are we willing to stop putting “women in binders,” and share authority? God appears to Job in a whirlwind and speaks with authority. The Psalmist uses similar a similar image in Psalm 104:4 declaring: * “You make the winds your messengers and flames of fire your servants.” The collect for Sunday offers a pattern for servant leadership as well, praying that we …may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name…
Theologian Frederick Buechner offers a 21st century version of today’s calls to servant leadership: “The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” That shifts our thinking and begs this question, can our faith inform not so much what we do, but who we are.
What a good time of the year to listen to Jesus remind his disciples that they need to rest a while from their comings and goings to a “deserted place by themselves.” Not a place without conflict, but a place where they can hear something beating inside their hearts. For renewal. The poet Wendell Berry understands the same need:
