A couple of weeks ago, a friend in our congregation

and a leader in our community shared with me the

link to a piece from Harvard Business Review. Though

the essay was written nearly fifteen years ago, in

his message, my friend suggested that it might be

a timely read at the beginning of 2024. The title of

the piece: Leadership in a [Permanent] Crisis. I’ll

confess that I didn’t have the energy or the fortitude

to read it. Instead, I printed the fifteen pages, and I

set them aside. Then last Sunday evening, stuck on

an airplane idling on the runway, I concluded the

message was: now was the time to read the piece.

The authors are three professors who study adaptive

leadership. They suggested that the current crisis—the

Great Recession of 2008—was only the beginning

of a sustained or permanent string of serious and

unfamiliar challenges. I think this insight qualifies

them as fortune tellers or prophets.

To lead well in permanent crisis, the authors argue,

requires leaders to balance the urgency of much

needed change with the amount of stress the system

can handle. One author in another piece writes, “The

art of leadership is disappointing people at a rate

they can tolerate.” This seems right to me, but the

specific tasks they outline are much easier to preach

than they are to practice. For example? “Embrace

Disequilibrium.” Now, that’s a stretch.

Next Sunday morning, as part of our church’s annual

meeting, you will elect new classes of elders and

deacons to lead our church in the years ahead. As

they prepare for these important new roles, we will

honor the gifts of experience and hard-won expertise

that they possess. As we train them for those roles,

we will study the theology of our ancestors and the

structure of our polity shaped by generations of past

leaders. And then, we will ask them to embrace the

disequilibrium that comes with permanent crisis. We

will seek change that is both faithful and adaptive. We

will pray for vision and ask God for the gift of courage

as we lead in the years to come.

Now, the insights of civic, business, and academic

sectors can help us here, but there are also some

peculiarities to leadership in the Church. For starters,

the benchmarks and goals are different. At its most

faithful, the Church does not seek to accumulate

power but to distribute compassion. At its best,

the Church does not fixate on the bottom line but

on the ones left behind or forgotten. Perhaps most

importantly, at its core, our message is not one of

self-promotion but of selfless service. We point

not to ourselves but to Christ. As the Apostle Paul

eloquently wrote, we do not proclaim ourselves; we

preach Christ and him crucified. Our standard for

leadership and discipleship is Jesus Christ. Jesus,

who resisted leadership by tyranny, built on coercive

power. Jesus, neither tyrant nor emperor. Neither

general nor dictator. Neither CEO nor president. But

Good Shepherd.

By the time we reach the tenth chapter of John’s

Gospel, Jesus is a leader. He has attracted a large

following. He’s been all over the region of Galilee. He’s

teaching growing crowds. He’s feeding the hungry

multitudes. He’s welcoming the outcast. He is healing.

He is blessing. He is proclaiming in word and in action

the Kingdom of God and its arrival in our midst. By

this time, Jesus has also experienced the sting of

cynicism and the rise of opposition. He has his critics.

In fact, just before this morning’s chapter, a group

of well-respected religious leaders criticize Jesus for

healing a man without first condemning him for the

sins they assume caused his condition. “Jesus, how

can you freely offer grace and healing to one who

stands condemned? What kind of leader are you?”

Jesus seizes the moment to compare leadership

models. In her book on leadership, the former

President of Duke University, Nan Keohane, writes

about the life of Nelson Mandela. She describes how,

“as a young boy, (Mandela) observed the regent chief

of his people presiding at meetings of members of

his tribe. Mandela writes, ‘I always remember the

regent’s axiom. A leader, he said, is like a shepherd.

He stays behind the flock. He lets the most nimble go

out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing

that all along they are being directed from behind.’”i

Sounds a lot like adaptive leadership to me.

From beginning to end, scripture’s image of faithful

leadership is the shepherd. In the Psalms, in the

Prophets, in the Gospels, God—Jesus—is our

shepherd, gently guiding an unruly collection of

directionally challenged beasts toward a destination

they cannot see. And from beginning to end, it is a

picture not of force but of tenderness.

By what means does the shepherd lead us? Jesus says

the shepherd leads by the sound of a trusted voice.

It is this calming, reassuring, nurturing, protecting

voice to which the sheep respond. Jesus will repeat

the observation several times later in the chapter. My

sheep know my voice.

And so, the takeaway seems straightforward. As

disciples of Jesus, who is our Good Shepherd, we

simply must listen to his voice and follow him in the

way we live our lives. Listen. Respond. Couldn’t be

easier, right?

Well…kind of like wearing a What Would Jesus Do

bracelet, the challenge comes not in abstract phrase

but in concrete decision. Jesus is clear. The voice of

the shepherd is not the only one, not the only voice

the sheep hear. There are thieves. There are bandits.

There are strange voices who aim to divide and

destroy. So, the better question for disciples is, “How

do we distinguish? How can we know the voice we

follow belongs to Jesus when a constant cacophony

confronts us?”

You know the cacophony. Some of those voices are

whispering in your head. Some are shouting through

screens. Some justify our worst impulses (“It’s ok”).

Others make promises they never intend to keep.

Some stir up antipathy toward others. Still others

drown out the quiet nudge of conscience. If there is

any truism of our time, it is that we are surrounded by

voices. The task of source discernment (that is, where

is the voice coming from?) is always before us. It is

true when we are faced with life-defining decisions.

It is true when we are collectively confronted with

choices that will shape the future of our congregation,

our city, our state, our nation. And the challenge is just

as pressing in our daily lives as we face one decision

after another, while those voices swirl in our heads,

pushing us in every direction. Disequilibrium. We can

feel it. And so, we too are like sheep with no shepherd.

We must confess that the church has been complicit

in the chaos. I hear church leaders lament the

decreased participation in our congregations

and the declining faithfulness of members. I hear

disappointment that many have lost their way and

abandoned the Church. And I share their desire that

more folks would discover that purpose can be found

in following the way of Jesus.

But I also believe that we must repent of the ways we

in the Church have abandoned faithful souls. When

we have resisted needed adaptation and dug in our

heels. When we have adopted the tactics of coercion

or self-righteousness, the ones that Jesus explicitly

rejects. We must confess. We must ask ourselves hard

questions. Have we silenced the voice of Jesus? Have

we drowned out the whispers of the Spirit? Have we

replaced His voice with our own agendas, anxieties,

or attacks?

To lead in the church is to help each other listen and

recognize the voice of Jesus. How can we do that? The

answer comes from the Good Shepherd himself. “The

thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come that

they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Friends, the best evidence that the voice we are

following belongs to Jesus Christ is the abundant life

to which it leads us. Despite all the guarantees of

the voices that clamor for our devotion—guarantees

of more power, more money, more influence,

more security, more success, more of just about

everything—these voices will never be able to offer

what you most deeply need. Life that is abundant, life

that is worth living, life filled with purpose, life full of

passion. Abundance of life is the promise the Good

Shepherd offers. It’s what we have to give to each

other and to the world in his name.

And so, my friends, we must resist the siren song of

those who seek power for a few at the expense of the

many. We must resist divisive voices who propose only

to partition us, whose words demean and demonize

the very children of God who belong to the Good

Shepherd just like you do.

Afterall, where has following these voices gotten us?

We’ve been warned. The thief comes to destroy. So, if

the movement that claims to follow Christ takes this

bleak path, we will betray our mission. We will sacrifice

our future on the altar of fear or false hope. Friends,

this much I know. We will become reflections of the

voices we follow. That is true whether we intend to or

not. When we follow the voice of division, distrust, and

deceit, those same forces will emerge and eventually

reign in our lives, in our communities, in our country.

In a time of permanent crisis, the witness of the church

must be clear. God intends abundant life for all. Jesus

laid down his life so that we could be freed from fear,

freed to live in faith. And so, this is no time to lose our

way, no time to abandon our call, no time to divide the

flock, chasing tempting illusions.

Rather, let us embrace disequilibrium. Or at least

accept it. It’s inevitable. And then let us fix our eyes,

and our ears, on Jesus. What he offers is what every

human creature yearns to find, the pastures in which

we long to graze. Life abundant.

The Lord is my shepherd. We know his voice. For

God’s sake, let us follow it without fear.