There was a church across town that was electing a new elder and they didn’t have enough other elders to form a committee of sorts, so they asked me and another pastor in town, who was in his early sixties, if we’d sit on the panel, asking the candidate questions to ensure his qualification.
The candidate was young—if I remember right, he was 24. I was maybe 36 or 37 at the time, so I wasn’t ancient, but his youthfulness did catch me off guard. But there are many churches in NYC where leaders are in such need that sometimes exceptions need to be made. I mean, wasn’t Timothy young in the New Testament? How young is too young? Isn’t this subjective?
We all asked our questions and he answered them well. Someone asked if there was any hesitations on appointing the candidate and we all said, no, except the older gentleman. He said, my one hesitation is that the power in a position of leadership, especially if that power is spiritual authority, is very dangerous to give someone who isn’t humble and once you have power, it’s extremely difficult to form humility if you do not have it already. Power is not the place to form virtue, but to display it.
The church ended up appointing him to be an elder but that last comment seemed wise to me. I don’t want to argue about whether young men in their 20’s should be pastors, but I’m more concerned about power.
In the 6th Century, St. Gregory gave a warning to those wanting power, whether in the church or in public office: “For one can by no means learn humility in a high place who has not ceased to be proud while occupying a low one; one knows not how to fly from praise when it abounds, who has learnt to pant for it when it was wanting.”
St. Gregory isn’t saying that humility can’t be learned while occupying positions of power. In fact, in other places, he argues that very thing. But he seems to be saying that if you didn’t learn humility (at least in some measure) while occupying lowly positions, higher places will be dangerous for you and for those who are under your authority.
One danger when seeking power, according to St. Gregory, is if we “pant for praise” when we are not in the position to receive it yet. We seek out power because of the benefits of seeming great in the eyes of others. One thing is for sure, that craving will not cease when given the place of power and authority. It will grow and gain control.
I think this is worth our consideration when appointing leaders, both in the church and in the world. If we are to say anything about the dangers of appointing young men and women to place of power and authority it is that potentially there has been little time to form humility. As Henri Nouwen often said, it takes a lot of humiliation for just a little bit of humility. But even more deeply, some level of “learned-humility” is a necessity. We shouldn’t put people who have kindergarten level humility into graduate level power and authority. We, ourselves, should be cautious to step into leadership capacities that have outpaced our virtue. The dangers out-weigh the benefits almost every time.
Jena and I just finished watching Pretend It’s a City last night. It’s 7 episodes of Martin Scorsese and Fran Lebowitz talk about the nature of living in New York City. It’s so fun to watch. We loved it. The last episode on a reading life and bookstores was my favorite but the episode on “wellness” culture was perfect.
Money, of course, often comes up when living in NYC. Here’s a perfect quote:
"There's only two kinds of people in the world: the kind of people who think there's such a thing as enough money and the kind of people who have money."
John, how would you disentangle a proper humility (thinking of yourself less) from an improper humility (thinking less of yourself)? For you, do you think having a share of improper humility alongside proper humility is a cause for concern just like not having much humility in the first place?