Servant leadership and the absence of religious leaders in Ferguson

Personal Reflection: Ethnography and Enneagram
In reflecting on myself as a religious leader, I have had a few theological insights that help to give me perspective. For example, I see myself and all religious leaders as playing an important role in the world. It shocks and offends me when I see preachers missing on the front lines of the fight—because the fight is where it is at. It is out there in the world, and, yes, it starts inside within us, but it cannot stay there. That fight has to be demonstrated in action. Christ washed the feet of His disciples at the Last Supper and instructed them: “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you…. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (John 13:15-17). A minister who is not out there doing God’s will in the lives of the people of his community is a minister who will not be blessed. Christ has charged ministers with this job of serving and He demonstrated it Himself so many times and in so many ways. That is why I see myself as a servant leader—one who sees the community’s needs before my own. I have my needs and the Lord knows what they are. I trust in the Lord to see me through my darkest days and I believe that His light is the only light in this world that matters. It is His light that shines through everyone’s eyes—their light is a spark from His, a reflection of His. That is why I strive all my days to see Christ in everyone. When I look into the eyes of another, I believe I am looking into the eyes of Christ. Who can offend another when he considers this important theological point?—that Christ is living now right beside us, to our left, to our right: “Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me.”[footnoteRef:2] This is the essence of St. Patrick’s breastplate prayer. It is the spiritual breastplate I myself aim to wear, the spiritual breastplate I believe every preacher and minister and servant of God must wear. [2: St. Patrick’s Breastplate, Joyful Heart Renewal Ministries, http://www.joyfulheart.com/stpatrick/breastplate.htm]

Where were the leaders in Ferguson? I am not the only one to ask this: Leah Gunning Francis wrote a whole book entitled Ferguson and Faith. The question is straight-forward and the answer, sadly, is obvious: to many of them were hiding. Fear is a powerful disincentive. It keeps leaders from getting out in front of those they are meant to lead. It keeps them in the rear, protected, free from receiving the same kind of treatment that Our Lord received when He risked all by going out into the world to minister to the sick, the dying, the sinful, teaching them all in the ways and truth that only God Himself could teach. His reward? Persecution. Crucifixion. A fearful sentence indeed—but the fact that this was not the end, not at all, should be enough for those of us with faith to realize that Christ overcame the world and overcame death and shows us the way to reach out and grab hold of eternity—through Him. Through total trust in Him. That is the way.
And when I look at a place like Ferguson, where violence and hatred erupted in the wake of the death of Michael Brown, I wonder why is it like this? Yet, I do not want to judge my fellow religious leaders, for everyone must walk in his own shoes and take up his own burden and it is enough for me to look to my own sheep, my own flock here in Broward. We have our troubles, too.
But as Francis notes: “Caring for people who are oppressed and disenfranchised is a core tenet of many religious faiths.”[footnoteRef:3] It is certainly a core tenet of my faith—and the reason for that is it was one of the core teachings of Christ. He ministered to the poor, the downtrodden, the needy. He ate with sinners to the chagrin of the Pharisees. He saw with eyes of love and affection where others saw with eyes of hate and division. He sought to unite all in Himself under God. This country, though its people stand as one under God every time they make the Pledge, is hardly united and hardly filled with the love of God. [3: Leah Gunning Francis, Ferguson and Faith (Chalice Press, 2015), chapter 6.]

This love has to come through in the way people talk to one another, in the way they accept one another—with love and respect. You walk the streets of a community: what does your walk say? Your face? Your body language? This is all a reflection of you. And if you are not reflecting God in everything you do, why should anyone look at you or look to receive you? You are not special in and of yourself. That is what I say to myself, what I remind myself of every time I go out. That is my self-understanding. I am nothing compared to God. So unless my actions are a reflection of God’s actions, I am just like sounding brass: “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1). To be like God, I need to act as He acted—look out for the poor, the needy, the community of my people. I serve a congregation made up primarily of Caribbean immigrants, many of whom have not had any formal education. They have, however, suffered and overcome much. Understanding them and their needs is what I as a religious leader must do.
The practices that might enable me to build on the strengths I have discovered are to put my understanding into action. It is not enough merely to understand. God calls us to action. That is simple and apparent in the Scriptures. Some people want to say that faith is what matters—but I say we have work to do because works matter, too. That is James 2:18: “But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” The strengths I have discovered are these: I will speak truth to power. Mary Clark Moschella tells it like it is: we have to hear the voices of our community; we have to hear their stories and know that they long for God.[footnoteRef:4] Everyone hurts below the surface—there is a never ending pain, dulled at times and piercing at others—and through it all there are intersections of joy and laughter, comfort and ease. Christ did not ignore any of these when he visited the people around Him. We cannot either. My strength is that I want to walk that same way, take part in that mission, be like Christ in that manner. [4: Mary Clark Moschella, Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice (Pilgrim Press, 2008), 3.]

The methods of self-understanding that I find to be most helpful are meditation and reflexivity. I look at how my research and entrance into a subject influences the subject itself. I look at how my actions also influence and impact myself. I look at what has happened in my life and I mourn and accept and grieve and struggle to make sense of why I have this broken heart when I have aimed to serve God. I have to pray and meditate and reflect. There is no other way than this. I read and think on that divine wisdom that exists and that gives its light, and yet there is a gulf I feel now between myself and that world that was once so full of light and promise to me. Was I ever in it? Are we ever in it? I can understand myself only in relation to my understanding of God. My self, without that relation, has no meaning. Where am I in relation to God? One on a voyage knows where he is based on his proximity to his destination. “The sailor cannot see the north but knows the needle can”—as Dickinson put it.[footnoteRef:5] That is all I can say of my self-understanding. I trust in the Lord to enlighten me, and I suffer what I must, hoping and praying and trusting and weeping. I do not limit myself to my Enneagram number. Rohr and Ebert themselves advise against this. They say: “When we are stuck in the pitfall of our ‘number’ and our energy, we aren’t free. That’s obvious. Then we let external events and other people determine our energy. They decide whether to reward or punish us for our behavior. We don’t really live from within ourselves.”[footnoteRef:6] But how do you live from within yourself? Simple—God. “The unconditional love o God frees us to experience ourselves as ‘authentically strong.’”[footnoteRef:7] We are strong because He is strong, and He lives in us so long as we live in Him. I learn to understand myself by understanding Him. By understanding Him, I see myself and where I am and know what I must do to be more like Him. [5: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “Emily Dickinson’s Letters,” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1891/10/emily-dickinsons-letters/306524/] [6: Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert, The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective (NY: Crossroad Publishing, 2016), 31.] [7: Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert, The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective (NY: Crossroad Publishing, 2016), 31.]

These observations affect how I approach research for ministry by setting my mind and mood at ease. They give my heart a moment to rest and breathe. I then empty myself of self and try to see the world as God sees it. I listen as I imagine God listens. I hear the voices of the people and see their needs as I imagine God sees them. Then I engage in my research with a view to ministering to those needs and communicating to those voices, as God would do and as God wants His ministers to do.