In our Hebrew scripture and Gospel reading today there is a theme of authority and submission as against our culture of egos, discrimination and competition. In the Gospel, Jesus articulates for us the model of spirituality and politics of ministry, leadership, and greatness in service. Shaped by harsh ideological discrimination and servitude, the Gentile’s cultural frameworks resonates with our secular ideology. The notion of cultural frameworks of rule, greatness, mastery, and pre-eminence over others within Mark 10 also resonates with the prevailing global ideas of building borders and calling for making a particular nation ‘Great Again.’ Leadership framework is charged with representing God’s own rule and authority to the people for their well being. The Gospel reading provides a helpful reflection for church leaders to be counter-cultural to the model of the spirituality and politics of this age. When authority and rule becomes a matter of private privilege and prerogative, the quest for faithful ministration of gifts for a common good becomes a long dream hence, famine and decline in the church.

In Mark 10, Jesus contrasts the pattern of rule that holds and prevails among the Gentile nations to that which must be among his disciples. The mode and article of greatness and leadership among the Gentile nations was that the first and greatest among them are masters and controllers. Whereas, the spirituality and politics of ministry, leadership and service in Jesus’ context is that the first or greatest among the disciples must be the servants of all. The question is where is the place of authority and submission among Christians and in our churches today? Jesus is not teaching or rendering both authority and submission to authority inoperative among Christians. Jesus is pointing us to effective practice of power.

Jesus’ ideology of power is beyond ‘a new coat of paint upon old models of social politics, an act of re-branding that delivers on little of its promise and often even exacerbates existing problems through its affordance of new rationalisations.’ Jesus is not flattening or levelling out distinctions of rule but explaining the requirement in a response to James and John’s presumptuous request. Indeed, we are in the age of James and John’s where friendship and respect comes with a reward and where many do not know what they are asking for.

Jesus did not deny the places of greatest honour in his kingdom for his disciples (Luke 22:24-30). The truth is that every place of honour goes with a cup and a drink. What you drink determine what you do and how you lead. However, when no one exercises authority, like in those days when ‘there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes’ (Judges 21:25). Today, we are in a culture where everyone want to make rules that suits them, thereby ‘evacuating both (spiritual) terms of any meaning’ like sin, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, Christian marriage, leadership, and ministry.

The church is in serious danger today as we resort to a spirituality and politics of ministry and leadership that leaves underlying injustices and inequities unaddressed and often even discourages action. The truth is that ‘an impotent yet palliating transvaluation that neither effects nor entails’ spirituality and transformation can take the place of meaningful change. People cannot be saved by redescription or repackaging, but by resurrection in relation to Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins.

Just as the sinner beyond the ‘feel good,’ fine-sounding affirmations that they are free or rich in Jesus Christ needs to be told that the wages of sin is death, the poor are seldom embodied either in behaviour that treats them ‘as enjoying any spiritual advantage nor in the concern for their material needs that should accompany such recognition.’ Spirituality and politics of ministry, leadership and service that leaves underlying injustices, bad practices, discrimination, and inequities unaddressed ‘can dull us to injustice, substituting for, rather than spurring on, concerted efforts towards overcoming it,’ especially in expectation of Jesus’ Second Coming.

Jesus Christ, as the paradigm of true spirituality and politics of ministry and leadership through servanthood, shepherding, and fatherhood that provides us ‘a reversal of the prevalent practice of power … culturally prevalent themes of subjugation, tyranny, dominance, and self-advancement,’ and discrimination. Let us pray for good stewards in contrasted to the wicked stewards who, rather than provides for their fellow servants, employs the resources and authority committed to their ‘charge for personal pleasure, mistreats those under them, and fails to keep watch over the house.’

Beloved, God is calling us to downward mobility ‘from a personalistic, safe approach to discipleship and toward a daring, self-giving approach to discipleship.