Pecking Order?

“When the ten other disciples discovered what James and John had asked, they were indignant.  So Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that in this world kings are tyrants, and officials lord it over the people beneath them.  But among you it should be quite different.  Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all.  For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served but to serve others, and to give my life as a ransom for many’” – Mark 10:41-45 (NLT).

The Army has what is called a “chain of command.”  In the civilian world we call it the pecking order.  It’s all about who has the highest rank and who has the right to bark orders and expect them to be obeyed.  In business the CEO sits at the top of the heap.  His word is law.  He can hire or fire at will, and when he gives directives people all the way down the pecking order jump and ask “How high?” on the way up.  Our world lauds such leaders for being “top dog.”

Additionally, within the pecking order of any business are smaller “top dogs” who are Presidents, Vice Presidents, Managers, Supervisors, Foremen, etc.  To make an organization run, this pecking order must be strictly followed.  The small peckers jump for the big peckers and everything must be authorized through proper channels for service to be rendered, money to be spent, or benefits to be received.

The goal of most in our world is to climb the pecking order to become the leader of leaders, and pecker of peckers!  As you go higher in the pecking order, more and more people must “work for you.”  Your responsibility is greater, but so is your authority.  You can move people to jubilation by giving them a job or a raise by the stroke of your pen or word of your mouth.  You can also move people to utter despair by firing or punishing them with such finality that their worlds crash down around them.  They may lose their house, car, and all their possessions because of the authority you possess in the pecking order.

Consequently, everyone wants to be at the top of the pecking order, not on the bottom.  To be at the top is to find security – or so we think.  It is to have authority, power, and others hopping to your orders.  Most everyone wants to be in such an illustrious position at the top as King Pecker!

The disciples of Jesus were no exception to this.  They pictured the kingdom in much the same way as our pecking order, and they wanted to be at the top.  As a result, two of them (James and John) requested seats of honor sitting on either side of Jesus in his Kingdom.  When the others found out that James and John were trying to outpeck them, they became indignant.  That’s a nice way of saying they were mad enough to spit!  They wanted the highest positions in the pecking order, and let everyone, including Jesus, know it.

So Jesus gives them the lesson of their lives about leadership.  He sends the order of pecking packing!  He lets his disciples know that in his Kingdom there are no superiors, only servants.  He lets them know that he views the pecking order of the world’s leaders as abomination.

You see, in the Kingdom of God, all are sinners.  All deserve death.  All deserve condemnation.  All deserve hell for all eternity.  It doesn’t matter what the sin is, they are all vile and disgusting to God.  Remember that Adam and Eve were condemned to death for what would be considered today as a misdemeanor – petty theft.  All they did was take a piece of fruit they weren’t supposed to touch.  In today’s legal system this wouldn’t even qualify for jail time.  But to God it was enough to condemn them to a triple death: spiritual death by separation from God; physical death by dying of old age or at the hands of someone else; and eternal death by suffering in hell forever (See Romans 6:23)..

Remember, all of this came by the simple sin of consuming a forbidden fruit.  This should give us some idea of just how much God hates sin – all sin.  And every one of us in this world are sinners (See Romans 3:23).  We have done far worse than eat a piece of someone else’s fruit.  We have lied, cheated, stolen, betrayed, committed all manner of sexual sins, lusted, gossiped, divorced for unbiblical reasons, disobeyed, gotten drunk or high, raped, murdered, extorted, deceived, acted unloving or unkind, lost our temper, been selfish or arrogant or impatient, broken the law, taken revenge, made something in our lives more important than God, condoned evil, failed to do something we should have, misjudged someone - - on and on the list of our sins goes.

Each and every one of them is enough to condemn us to hell for all eternity for God hates sin that much.  But the sad thing is that we haven’t sinned only once, but many times.  If thinking about this does not humble you, nothing will.

But even more humbling is the thought that only by God’s mercy and grace can we ever enter the Kingdom of God in the first place.  If Jesus had not died on a cross to pay the penalty of death that we owe for our sins, we could never set one foot in his Kingdom or ever hope for heaven.    

When we remember this, we begin to see the utter folly of a pecking order in God’s Kingdom.  We don’t deserve to peck others, for we are just the same as them.  We are in no position to command or dictate, for we, like everyone else in this kingdom, are alive only by God’s mercy and saved from hell only by his grace.  We rejoice in this salvation and our hearts embrace a different way of life compelled by gratitude.

The power of gratitude is an awesome thing.  As we consider just how sinful we are and how good God is, a deep thankfulness grips our souls.  The love and mercy of God compels us to live differently than the rest of the world.

We are no longer interested in pecking others.  Instead, we only desire to serve them in order to live out our gratefulness to God for his tender mercy to a sinner like us.  And if we want to lead, we realize we must become the biggest servant of all.

Leaders don’t bark orders, they wash feet.  They don’t command, they serve.  They don’t dictate, they die – to themselves, their egos, and their boasting.  After all, leaders should realize their own sin more than anyone else, as well as their need for God’s grace to ever make it to heaven.

True greatness in God’s Kingdom isn’t about rising to the top, but falling to the bottom.  It isn’t about standing on your own two feet, but kneeling on your own two knees.  This was how Jesus was.  He did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.  True leaders do the same.

They give.  They give when it hurts to give.  They give when they're tired and bleeding.  They continue to give even when everything inside them screams "Quit!"  They know that their authority over their followers is not defined by how much power they wield, but by how much help they can offer.  Consequently, they give their heart, soul, and very lives in order to lead by helping others succeed. They lead by serving, and others follow them, not because they will be fired or ostracized or punished or killed if they don’t, but because they wish to become like the leader – a person pouring out gratitude to God in acts of service to others.

A leader in the Kingdom is a slave, and a slave lives to do the will of his Master.  And the Master says, “Serve.”  So he serves.  And he crucifies the sinful impulses in him that would have others serve or cater to him.  He castrates pride and crucifies arrogance to put on servant’s clothes.  Mentally, he sends the pecking order packing as Jesus did.  He does not make himself look big by making others look small.  He is a servant.