more to Gethsemane

A few weeks ago I sat in a room filled with other pastors.

The guest speaker begins with an anecdote about a leadership coach observing how so many clients weep in their sessions - more than ever before.

I’m hooked. The landscape for leaders is shifting, and when you’re a part of the landscape rather than viewing it from a distance, it can be hard to know why it’s shifting. 

Harder still is knowing how to respond.

But rather than exegeting the landscape, our speaker turns our attention toward the inner life.

So important.

Operating from a place of being beloved. Living out of my full self. Understanding that God often does his best work in the dark.

Then a second session inviting participation in the kingdom of God, and observing how that work often emerges in the most mundane, unexpected and even exhaustive moments of leadership.

A vital reminder.

A question emerges from the floor seeking insight whether there’s a distinction between exhaustion and complete burnout.

The speaker responds with a reference to Gethsemane and the observation of how Jesus completely poured out his life for the sake of the work of the kingdom.

And I feel simultaneous conviction to emulate the sacrifice of Jesus,  yet also deep concern for the fragile headspace of some of the leaders in the room.

There’s more to Gethsemane than Jesus coming to the end of himself.

I can’t help but think the Gethsemane reference is problematic.  Are we really ok with this message to Christian leaders?

Are we ok with the sentiment: “Jesus experienced complete burnout. If it was ok for him, then it’s ok for me.”?

Referencing Gethsemane for the leader who is burned out on religion has a familiar ring.

The system which perpetrated the injustice of Gethsemane, then Golgotha, carried the same logic: ‘these are the kinds of sacrifices that need to be made if we’re going to keep this system in tact.’ (see John 11:50)

Therapists might call it ‘spiritual bypassing’.

(John Welwood defined spiritual bypassing as using “spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep personal, emotional ‘unfinished business,’ to shore up a shaky sense of self, or to belittle basic needs, feelings, and developmental tasks.”)

And spiritual bypassing tends to lead to other less ‘palatable’ sounding actions. 

Betrayal. Abandonment.  False testimony. Abuse. Scapegoating. Murder.

This was the action of the system of Jesus’ time.

Surely Gethsemane stands as a cautionary tale rather than a model for ministry.

Of course, we know that the resurrection of Jesus completely up-ends the injustice of Gethsemane - perhaps helping us conclude that the experience of Jesus is an invitation for us to not have to experience the same.

A message at a pastor’s conference drawing us to the deeper spiritual life is just so important. 

When we stand at the crossroads of exhaustion, this message indeed heralds an ancient call to follow the way of Jesus - but I can’t help but wonder if it also carries a whiff of systemic desperation that can so easily descend to the dead-of-night-olive-garden-path.

Leading in a local church setting is leading in a system riddled with relational and theological complexity.  If the only response to that complexity from those stewarding the system is to call leaders into an expansion of their perspective regarding the inner life, then local leaders are being shortchanged.

For leaders to thrive in kingdom work, the system itself must also be called to a deeper formation.

The moment of Gethsemane is more than a moment of sacrificial servant leadership, it is an exposure of the hidden corruption in the system of the day.

As Jesus emerges from his ‘not my will but yours’ prayer, the system enters the garden - torches in hand - expressing its true nature through the Judas kiss.

‘Empire’ is revealed in the religious wrangling of a system seeking to protect itself.

Healthy leadership not only requires deeper personal discipleship, it requires spaces where our environments - the landscape for leadership - can be intentionally and lovingly interrogated.