I suppose it’s time for the pastor to come clean; time for the pastor to ‘fess up regarding some somewhat secret activities that he’s been involved in.
On two weekends this fall—weekends, in this case, being Thursday, Friday, and Saturday—I joined 30 other men and women for some intense leadership training. It’s the type of training that businesses and corporations will send their executives and managers to. The training covered a variety of topics, from establishing a vision, setting goals, dealing with change, conflict management, and so on.
I signed up for this training because I knew that the skills it would help me acquire and improve would be skills that are helpful and useful in ministry and in life.
In the business world, it often costs thousands of dollars to attend a training like this. I do not have thousands of dollars. Fortunately for me, this particular training was put on by the Boy Scouts of America, and the cost was considerably less.
The training is known as Wood Badge. Wood Badge training takes place in one form or another all over the world, and is based on the original Wood Badge training that was organized 100 years ago at a place called Gilwell.
Since the boy scouts use what they call the patrol method to organize and develop leadership within the boys who participate, those of us at the training were likewise organized into patrols.
Before I knew it, I was a member of the Beaver patrol. Go Beavers!
The training is promoted as “Wood Badge for the 21st Century.” It has been updated quite a bit over the past century, but even so, there is still a lot of tradition involved. One of those traditions is that things are done in “Gilwell order.” And in Gilwell order, the Beavers are always first. Whenever we sing the Gilwell song, the Beavers’ verse is first. Whenever we go for a hike, the Beavers lead the way. When it’s time for each patrol to make a presentation, the patrol that goes first is the Beavers.
I don’t know why the Beavers are always first. I suppose somebody has to be first, somebody gets to be first. If things were done alphabetically, the Antelopes would have been first, followed by the Bears, and then the Beavers; but for whatever reason, tradition dictates that the Beavers always go first.
It’s kind of nice to be first. Remember in grade school, how much you wanted to always be first in line, and how special you felt when it was your day to be “line leader?” Remember how good it felt to have that special distinction of being at the head of the class?
Each day at Wood Badge, we selected someone within our patrol to be that day’s patrol leader. The patrol leader would lead the patrol when we’d take a break from training sessions to participate in an activity or competition. Even as adults, it felt good to be the patrol leader, the one out in front.
There was indeed some friendly competition as the patrols worked to create the best patrol yell, or the best presentation, or the best soda-bottle rocket. We launched those rockets so high into the air at Will J. Reid, where the first weekend training took place, that a Long Beach Police helicopter circled the park, announcing over the speaker that we were not authorized to use that airspace. I kid you not!
Then the helicopter landed on the field, but when the pilot got out and was greeted with a kiss from one of the female Wood Badge staffers, we realized that the whole thing was a set-up.
In the end, every patrol was recognized for their achievements in the rocket launch. And even though there was recognition for everyone, with no overall winner announced, it still felt good to be recognized.
Don’t you like to get recognition? Maybe at some point in your life, perhaps when you were young, you got your picture in the paper. Remember how good that felt? Maybe you got a special recognition at work or in the community. Perhaps you blushed with embarrassment when you were recognized, but that night when you went to bed, you crawled under the covers with a special warm tingle in your heart, because deep down, it felt really good to be recognized.
It would be disingenuous to read the story of James and John asking for places of honor without admitting our own desire to feel important. It would be disingenuous to read this story without admitting that we do like to receive recognition and honor.
Is that a bad thing? If left unchecked, it certainly can be. But if we can control that desire, keep it in check and guide it toward what is good, then that desire can actually be beneficial. It can spur us on to do good things, to live a good life.
Unfortunately, a lot of people let that desire for honor and recognition take control of them. They seek recognition, honor and greatness in a variety of ways that are not healthful.
It seems to me that the current economic crisis—and the housing crisis in particular—was caused by people whose desire to feel important got out of control; people who figured that, to be important, they needed a big house, one that cost more than they could really afford.
This seems to me to be a distinctly American problem. The average house in the United States is more than twice the size of the average house in western Europe. Do we really need such big houses? It seems that we Americans have to have a bigger house than the one our parents had. We have to have a bigger house than our neighbors have. We have to constantly prove that we are, in fact, better and more important than the Joneses down the street.
Every so often I hear someone say “I wish I could give more to the church, but times are tough; I have my mortgage payments, and I’m on a fixed income.” And I’ve been to their houses, the houses of the people who say this, and while their house is certainly not a mansion, it does have two or three rooms that they hardly ever use. One room is full of nice furniture that they never sit on. Another room is empty. And a third room is used to store all the stuff they bought but never use.
And I think, “Why are you paying a mortgage and insurance and maintenance and utilities for half a house that you never use?” But they struggle with the payments, because there is a certain prestige that comes with having a house of a certain size. And sooner or later, that desire to be important, that desire to be at the front of the line, to have that prestige and honor, gets them into trouble, as it has so many others over these recent months.
They don’t want to be stuck back in the pack with a home that is just average, a home that is mediocre in scale; they want to be out front. They want to be at the top. But then they fall, and what a terrible fall that is. Like Icarus, they tried to fly too high, and in trying to exalt themselves, they find that instead, they are humbled.
Two months before he was killed, Martin Luther King, Jr. preached a sermon about this. He called this desire to be important, to be out front, the “drum major instinct.” Everyone wants to be at the front of the parade.
King said that, unchecked, the drum major instinct leads some folks to racial prejudice: people thinking that they are better than others, putting others down because of their race or some other imagined deficiency.
King said that, unchecked, this drum major instinct leads nations into thinking that they are better than other nations, going to war against one another in what he called a “bitter, colossal contest for supremacy.” He said this even as the Vietnam War was raging, a war King said was senseless and unjust. He said it was a result of a perversion of the drum major instinct.
King said that James and John, like all of us, had that drum major instinct, and when they asked Jesus about sitting in the places of honor, “one would have thought Jesus would have said, ‘You are out of your place. You are selfish. Why would you raise such a question?’”
But, as King pointed out, that isn’t what Jesus did. Instead, Jesus tapped in to this drum major instinct. He said, in essence, “Oh, I see you want to be first. I see you want to be great. I see you want to be important. Very well. That’s what I want, too. I want you to be first. I want you to be great. I want you to be important. In fact, if you are my disciples, you must be these things.
“And—listen closely now—this is how it can happen. If you want to be first, then be first in love. If you want to be important and significant, then strive for moral excellence. If you want to be great, then serve others. Because that’s how it is in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever wishes to be great must be your servant. Whoever wishes to be first must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom to humanity.”
In baptism, we are united with Christ in giving our lives. We give our lives through service. We give our lives through generosity. We give our lives by loving our neighbor.
Christ’s vision of a new kingdom becomes our vision. We live out that vision and present that vision to the world. Through us, Christ’s kingdom is made present on earth.
And it is a kingdom marked by selfless giving. It is a kingdom marked by generosity. It is a kingdom marked by love and service to others.
Some people don’t like calling it a kingdom. Too archaic a term, they say; too patriarchal. Fine. Call it a new world or a new age or a new life. Just remember that in that new kingdom, that new world, that new age, that greatness is defined by serving others. Those who are first are those who humble themselves before others.
It’s good for Christians to be out in front: the drum major, leading the parade. Just make sure it’s the right parade: the parade of justice. Yes, be first in justice. The parade of peace: yes, be first in making peace. The parade of love: yes, most definitely, be first in showing love to your neighbor.
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