Activist, Pastor, and Global Leader Evan Mawarire reflects on the role of Christian faith in democratic leadership, specifically looking at three significant Gospel passages that reveal not just Jesus’s approach to leadership, but how he teaches his disciples to lead with peace, humility, compassion, and faith. In Mark 4, we find Jesus leading from peace, rest, control, and trust, peacefully sleeping in the midst of a storm, while the disciples prematurely conclude: “Don’t you care that we are going to die?” In Mark 10, when two of the disciples play political games for their own glory, Jesus responds with a teaching of humility and a subversive glory—that the greatest will in fact be the servant of all. And in John 13, Jesus displays this humility and compassion by washing the gross and grungy feet of his friends, and teaching Peter that a leader is first a student, and the student isn’t greater than their teacher. This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.
Activist, Pastor, and Global Leader Evan Mawarire reflects on the role of Christian faith in democratic leadership, specifically looking at three significant Gospel passages that reveal not just Jesus’s approach to leadership, but how he teaches his disciples to lead with peace, humility, compassion, and faith.
In Mark 4, we find Jesus leading from peace, rest, control, and trust, peacefully sleeping in the midst of a storm, while the disciples prematurely conclude: “Don’t you care that we are going to die?” In Mark 10, when two of the disciples play political games for their own glory, Jesus responds with a teaching of humility and a subversive glory—that the greatest will in fact be the servant of all. And in John 13, Jesus displays this humility and compassion by washing the gross and grungy feet of his friends, and teaching Peter that a leader is first a student, and the student isn’t greater than their teacher.
This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.
Show Notes
About Evan Mawarire
Evan Mawarire is a Zimbabwean clergyman who founded #ThisFlag Citizen’s Movement to challenge corruption, injustice, and poverty in Zimbabwe. The movement empowers citizens to hold government to account. Through viral videos, the movement has organized multiple successful non-violent protests in response to unjust government policy. Evan was imprisoned in 2016, 2017, and 2019 for charges of treason, facing 80 years in prison. His message of inspiring positive social change and national pride has resonated with diverse groups of citizens and attracted international attention.
Evan has addressed audiences around the world, and Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the 100 global thinkers of 2016. The Daily Maverick Newspaper of South Africa named him 2016 African person of the year. Evan is a 2018 Stanford University Fellow of the Centre for Democracy Development and the Rule of Law. He is a nominee of the 2017 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression awards and the 2018 Swedish government’s Per Anger Prize for democracy actors. He was a 2023 World Fellow at Yale University’s Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Program.
Visit his website or follow him on X.
Production Notes
Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Visit us online at faith.yale.edu. This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.
Evan Mawarire: And the thing about seeds is that if you're handed a seed and told it's a tree, it must communicate to you that there's going to be a period of growth. There's going to be a period of that tree being tended, being looked after, being watered, being pruned until it becomes what it needs to become. How can we either find seeds that have been planted, or how can we start planting seeds intentionally and then nurture them and look after them the same way Jesus did?
Planted seeds in the men and women around him, nurtured and looked after them until they began to produce a fruit and they had an impact. And I think for me, that's part of where the question is. What's our next step? How do we do this? And how do we faithfully look after these sproutings of servant leadership? These sproutings of people that understand that leadership is about serving more than it is about being served.
Evan Rosa: This is For the Life of the World, a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. I'm Evan Rosa with the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Where are the leaders?
The most fitting and virtuous and impactful servants of democracy; public influencers; beacons of light. Have they been voted out of the House? Have they even made it to the debate stage? Are they living high while others die? Are they making promises that they don't intend to keep? Or do we find leaders wrongfully imprisoned and tortured for protesting against tyranny?
Maybe we find them lovingly, patiently showing up every morning to teach our children math and science. Maybe we find them listening to the stories of the homeless on a Sunday morning at the soup kitchen. It's yet another turbulent time. But I think we've learned that we humans, as a species, we do a pretty good job making the storms we're so terrified of.
So I ask again, where are the leaders? Well, I've met one. Pastor Evan Mawarire is a Pentecostal minister and democratic activist from Zimbabwe. He's founder of This Flag citizens movement and has been instrumental in standing up to corruption, injustice, and poverty in Zimbabwe. Miroslav Volf interviewed him in episode 42 of this podcast in 2021 about his story of faith that leads to activism, the transformation he experienced while being unjustly arrested and detained and tortured in a maximum security prison.
I'd urge you to listen to that episode if you haven't already, entitled "Ignore These Walls." But I brought Pastor Evan back on the show to discuss the role of Christian faith in democratic leadership, specifically looking at three significant passages from the Gospels that reveal not just Jesus's approach to leadership, but how he teaches his disciples about the most important aspects of that leadership.
In Mark 4, we find Jesus leading from peace. Rest, control, and trust, peacefully sleeping in the midst of a storm, while the disciples prematurely conclude, "don't you care that we're going to die?" And in Mark 10, when two of the disciples play political games for their own glory, Jesus responds with a teaching of humility and a subversive glory that the greatest will in fact be the servant of all.
And in John 13, Jesus displays this humility and compassion by washing the gross and grungy feet of his friends and teaching Peter that a leader is first a student and the student isn't greater than their teacher. Thanks for listening today.
Pastor Evan, it is so, so wonderful to have you back on For the Life of the World.
Evan Mawarire: It's a huge pleasure to be back after so much has happened in our world in so many different hues and fashions. It almost feels like we're living in this fast-forwarded world, if you know what I mean.
Evan Rosa: Yeah, there's that external pressure by the media and by just how fast paced everything feels.
Evan Mawarire: Oh, yeah.
Evan Rosa: Makes you feel so sped up.
Evan Mawarire: Oh, no, it does. It definitely does. And there are times where I really feel rushed. And I'm not just talking about this rush to get things done, but just... I feel like everyone feels like there is an urgency of something. Sometimes we're not sure what the urgency is, and we just seem to be caught up in this urge to just run along with everyone else who's running, and they cannot really show what they're running from.
Evan Rosa: Isn't that amazing?
Evan Mawarire: It is. It's incredible, you know.
Evan Rosa: Because the nature of urgency like that- I think something about the Christian tradition, or really a lot of meditative and spiritual traditions, most notable to me, is: let today be enough. Let the worries of today be enough.
And it's amazing how urgency ends up being vacuous. There's no substance to it. Sometimes all it is, is that frenetic anxiety that pushes us along. And there's that urge to do something, but it's vacuous of any real content.
Evan Mawarire: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It is. You know what I think this urgency robs us of, which for me makes me think about, yes, there are things that are urgent, but urgency doesn't mean that we lose our peace. Urgency doesn't mean that we lose our sense of being anchored or our sense of safety. Because I think in a lot of what our world is going through right now, the urgency has almost led to just one exit door, which is the exit door of fear.
So we're being urgent because we're afraid, and yet I think that there's a place of being able to be at peace. Like, for example, there was a time a couple of months ago when I would go to bed and wake up tired and feel like even in my sleep, I was still being urgent. I felt like I was trying to get through my sleep real quick so I can wake up and do whatever it is that we are all doing.
Evan Rosa: I've felt that too. The shallow sleep of anxiety.
Evan Mawarire: Exactly, exactly. And it's just such a blessing to be able to have the power to slow that down and to stop and to just take a breath and to consider what really is important, what really needs our attention.
Evan Rosa: It's just such an apt instance of this with Jesus asleep in the middle of a storm. And I have long reflected on the example that that sets for feeling one, an emotional storm that just follows from the nature of human existence, but what can certainly feel like waves or the passing storms of life and being able to be anchored in that peace, like you say, that even though the ship like - right, to carry through this metaphor of like the ship tossed by a storm - it was purely unanchored of course, and yet the way that Jesus was anchored was in rest, and...
Evan Mawarire: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And you know what amazes me about that scripture is how when the disciples went and they woke Jesus up, they woke him up in a panic. They woke a man who was peacefully asleep.
Yeah, they were in a panic. But this is what's even more amazing for me whenever I have considered that story and sometimes mirrored it with my own life, because I do the same thing, is that when they wake Jesus up, they actually conclude, as they wake him up, what their fate is going to be, even before that fate comes to be.
And they say to him, "don't you care that we are going to die?" This is what this kind of urgency, which is led by fear, leads us to do, is to irrationally conclude what our fate is going to be, even before we have considered that we have an anchor with us in the boat. And to start living out of that conclusion or that concluded end of, "we're going to die, we're going to die"; they were so certain about it. And I think I find that that's probably one of the biggest, if I can use the word, robberies of our time is just the robbery of peace, the robbery of being anchored, that word that you use, being able to be anchored, even in the midst of trouble. One of Jesus's greatest codes that I love, he says to his disciples, he says, "in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, because I have overcome the world." And I think for me, that's just it, that he doesn't promise us a world without turbulence, but he does promise us that we have an opportunity to remain anchored, to remain in control, to remain at peace, even as the turbulence continues.
Evan Rosa: You came on for us to talk about the role of Christian faith in preparing better leaders for democracy, and honestly, I feel like we've started with a good expression of that distinction that you make: that this is an urgent matter when you consider the external threat to democracy in the world, and yet, I'm sure that an important facet of what it means for Christian faith to prepare better leaders for the future of democracy is going to really, really depend on just the kind of anchoring and peace that you're describing. Because the storm, I mean, it's not even- we haven't seen the fullness of it I worry at all times, and if we have- the storms are going to continue to cycle, and I think what's so significant about hearing from you on the ways in which the Christian faith bears out in public and has a political life is the fact that we need to find ways to anticipate and stay at peace and stay stable through these storms.
Evan Mawarire: It's- I think it's- and you say it so, so well when you say that, because when you look across the world, no matter what region of the world you are in, the one thing that you see people lacking is what we've just talked about: this sense of peace, this sense of, "Am I going to be okay in the society that I live in? Am I going to be okay in the community that I live in?" And democracy is a concept that, or should I say it's a concept of governance that attempts to have people live with each other, serve each other, respect each other, and build a community in which everybody can have a say, in which everybody can feel safe to be a part of.
And I find that the Christian faith is probably the most well positioned as a faith in terms of religion; I feel it is very well positioned to speak into how a society can be a better democratic society, and more pointedly, how we can prepare people to lead in this democratic society.
Part of Christianity, when I look at the life of Jesus and in my mind, I am a young man who has only been studying this for a couple of years, but when I look at the life of Jesus, I see a man whose first passionate goal, as he lived his very short adult life on earth, I see his passionate goal being one of leadership development: growing men and women who could impact the world in ways that the world did not understand even before he came.
And I think for me, that's the exciting thing about what Christianity and those that are Christians have to offer this world. We're not just here to prepare for the afterlife, but we're here to prepare for the here and now. You know, a pastor friend of mine used to say, "we're not just preparing for the sweet by and by, but we're also preparing for the rotten here and now."
And I think that this is the beauty of it is that Christianity and Christendom has tools within the Word of God. Jesus came with tools to say, "let me prepare you to be better leaders. Let me prepare you to be better influencers of your community as you live your life." And that's what excites me about Christianity and the opportunity we have to shape this world.
Evan Rosa: I think what's so interesting is: one, the, the, the suggestion of, of leadership often in our contemporary society is immediately interpreted as influence and power and fame for the sake of, it might even be principled, but, but I think what is marked is, is the, the difference with which Jesus approaches the question of leadership.
And you suggested a particular passage that I wanted to start with, Mark 10.
Evan Mawarire: That's it, yes.
Evan Rosa: And in the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 10, James and John, these are the sons of Zebedee, they come to Jesus and they say, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." And he says, "what do you want me to do?"
They say to him, "Let us sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory."
Evan Mawarire: And that's such human nature, isn't it, though? Before you even carry on, it's such human nature to when, when a request of that nature has been made by somebody who is in authority, what do you want me to do for you? Human nature almost wants to benefit itself first.
Evan Rosa: Well, I do want to pause here because I want to just point out that this is, this is the kind of leadership that they're after that, that seems to be, again, vacuous of much content. They want to bask in, in his glory, and to some extent that is sufficient; that alone would be fine. But as Jesus follows up, he says, you don't really know what you're asking.
First of all. You don't even know what you're asking me.
Evan Mawarire: You don't understand, yeah.
Evan Rosa: And when I look at the leadership and here- I'm coming from the position of an American citizen, I was born in America, I'm an American citizen. You are coming from the perspective of growing up in Zimbabwe and, and really taking on a pivotal role that was part of a community vying for freedom for Zimbabwe.
And I don't know about you. But when I look around at least the American scene right now, for me in my generation, and I think for many people, I'm dissatisfied with the leadership. I, I don't feel like I'm well represented in these cases. I'm also grateful that many people are stepping up to try, and yet I, I feel often I feel frustrated with the leadership options and the approaches to leadership that have become in vogue and that social media in particular, and that really in general, a, a culture that is bent on vacuous holding of power. They don't, they don't know what they're asking. They don't really-
Evan Mawarire: They don't know what they're asking.
Evan Rosa: They don't even have a vision. They haven't envisioned what flourishing would look like if they were in power. They haven't thought it through that far. And I really want to know what you think about this kind of starting point of really looking for leadership, very much wanting to collaborate with leaders that can bring us into flourishing in our democracies and yet throwing up our hands like who, who is, who is there?
Evan Mawarire: I mean, these, these thoughts are just racing through my mind. I can just, I can hear him like, wow, he just said that. And, and I want to, I want to turn that not so much on its head, but turn it around a little bit and come back to even where I started from. You know, Evan, when, when we started the movement in Zimbabwe that eventually grew to becoming a national movement that at any given point could mobilize over 9 million people to act and eventually contributed to the removal of the dictator Robert Mugabe, who had held the country for almost 40 years, even, even that.
Seeing what that work was going to be before we started was something that was not even within the purview of my understanding. I've told the story of how when we started the citizens movement and we were clamoring for change in Zimbabwe, we were asking our leaders to be accountable and we were speaking up against the injustices.
Before all of that began, three, three men, myself included, we would get together in my house on a Friday night, and we would pray for our nation. And we didn't know where this would lead. And let me, and I'm saying this because it's both a confession and a learning point for me, because I, I, I definitely was in the shoes of these two brothers, these sons of Zebedee, as well.
When we prayed, we asked God, boldly we would ask God, use us, we would say. Use us to change this nation. Use us to impact our nation, to influence our nation. And as I read the Scripture even today, the sense is I didn't know what I was asking. I mean, I remember this is, this is an exact prayer point is written in my journal.
We pray this prayer point that said, "Lord, give us a seat at the table that decides the future of this nation." Now, I didn't understand what that would mean because when the seat began to be delivered, the seat was delivered to me in the form of prison doors and courtrooms and handcuffs and all sorts of abuses.
And I sat in the jail cell ready for trial on one of the days, head between my legs, crying out, God, I... I'm sorry, I made a mistake, or in fact, the one time I was angry and said, Lord, how could you allow this to happen to me? And he said to me, remember the prayer, remember the prayer. This is, this is it. This is what the table looks like.
So I think there should be an understanding of what sometimes- the things we ask for, the vision we have of what these things are and what they actually are. I remember teaching this some years ago, that when we pray and we ask God for certain things, we are harvest minded. But when God answers prayer, He's seed minded.
That when we pray, we pray with the complete picture in our mind, what we want to see in its fullness. But when God answers that prayer, he often delivers a seed into our hands and says, that thing you prayed for, here it is. But he doesn't look like what we thought it looked like. But I want to come back to this idea of leadership.
When we are frustrated with leaders, and we want new leaders, we often want them there and then. We want them now. We, we often are looking for the kind of leader we want at election time. When it's time for the midterms when it's time for the presidential election. Only then are we starting to look around and scurry around. Who is it? But I think for me, the context of, of all of this in terms of how Christianity can impact our democracy is in how good we can become as a faith in intentionally preparing people who will lead in our communities. And I think this is what, when I look at Jesus, this is what he did: intentionally preparing, intentionally pouring into the lives of men and women who were around him or the ones he met, or challenging the ones who were already in authority with certain principles and certain perspectives and saying, you can change or we can change it this way. And I think that's probably the greatest challenge that we have. I don't think it's a completely bad thing to ask, like the sons of Zebedee asked Jesus, can we sit at your right hand, but how do we prepare them to understand what they're asking for, to understand the task that they, that they think they're actually taking?
Evan Rosa: Well, and I think- from what I know of your story and, and really what's present here, what seems to be an important aspect of the Christian teaching on leadership that's coming from Christ, not only in this passage in Mark, but also in Luke 6, the student is not above the teacher and immediately following this, this passage in Mark, you don't know what you're asking.
And then the follow up question is. Are you able to drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I'm baptized with? And they say they're able. And, and that's, that's really sounding to me like the kind of prayer that you and your friends uttered when you're asking for the chance to make an impact in Zimbabwe.
And, and, and I just want to draw out the fact that that came with so much suffering. And just admit, admit the kind of trauma and the kind of storm that you faced in asking that question. And it's really pointing out to me the, the, the kind of upside down nature of leadership from Jesus perspective.
Evan Mawarire: Absolutely. You know, you're absolutely right. We live in a world where we, we have reversed the idea of what leadership looks like or what leadership should be like. Uh, you know, it's very positional and it's, it's also, you know, very much about being served rather than serving. So, I think what then happens in this scripture is that, the perspective Jesus begins to give to these two is one that was already beginning to challenge their thought and understanding of leadership: that number one, leadership is not designed by nature, leadership is not designed to be a comfortable position. It really isn't. And I think this is one of the big things that the leadership types and models that we see on television, that we see in the business world, that we see even in the church world, by the way, I have to say.
Evan Rosa: I'm sad to say; I'm sad to say this.
Evan Mawarire: Oh, yes. Sadly, sadly, sadly, it's, it's about this big superstar who's on the stage, this very flamboyant individual, the one who decides who gets what and who doesn't, the one who wields all the power. True leadership, the kind of leadership that this world needs for us to be able to bring solutions to the most pressing needs that we have, whether they are the issues of climate, the issues of human rights and, and the issues of poverty, the issues of food production, vaccine production, there's been- I know when you watch what our world leaders have done with just the COVID situation, it beggars belief that these are governments that actually run the world, the level of selfishness, the level of strong arming each other and elbowing out each other and taking advantage, business leaders, people are at their worst when we are in crisis, and yet this is where we are supposed to see leaders at their best when we are in crisis, and so we- in this scripture, Jesus obviously says to, like you've said, he says to them, I don't know whether you can drink, you can, whether, whether, whether you can drink the cup that I drink or whether you can be baptized with the baptism that I'm baptized with.
Because he's revealing to them that if you want to serve at the level that I am serving as a sacrificial lamb, there is a giving of yourself that requires self preservation to not be part of your agenda. And this is a tough one for many of us, that leadership, influencing people so that they become the best, so that they get the best, giving your life for the betterment of other people, that's what leadership is.
This is what Jesus is explaining. Of course, the other disciples then hear about it, and the Bible actually says that they were angry about that issue, that these two, uh, brothers had asked Jesus for these positions. And in my mind, I can only wonder that the anger was really about, well, wait a second, I don't think you should be asking for this thing, I think these things should be, should be distributed fairly, should be given fairly, so there could have been a sense also in them of, of, of wanting those positions secretly and then finding out that someone else has asked for them makes them a little bit more angry. Jesus then says this, he says, you know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them.
And then verse 43 says, not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you, must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave to all, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. If there is, if there is a mic drop moment concerning what leadership really is, Evan, it is right there. Right there.
Evan Rosa: That's right. And I mean, to bring that back to the beginning of the passage and use it as an opportunity to teach his future leaders, right, about what that is, that's a sobering moment. It's a sobering moment where the reality of the fact that the disciple is not greater than the teacher.
And I think that the gift that your story has been to both, I mean, of course, the people of Zimbabwe, and the struggle for democracy there, but I think also the kind of inspiration that you can offer to young leaders who want to make a difference, but currently feel like the environment that we're in is an environment of low trust.
It's an environment of wandering. When you see the poll numbers around the way people skew left and then right, and the percentages that go up and down, and there's booms and busts for both parties, the sense that I get is: sheep without a shepherd. And, uh, really, and I think this is empirically driven, I mean, like there, there was a global study that was recently performed that found, and they called it a global trust barometer. And there were, there were thousands and thousands of respondents over 28 countries. And the majority, like a super majority over two thirds of of people have lost their trust in journalists, government leaders, business leaders, and media in general. That it looks like it's really all for sensation, for commercial, financial gain, and exploiting all of our, basically exploiting everyone else for the sake of political gain, pitting each other against each other.
I really want to follow up with this and ask you, in this environment, low trust. wondering how does this principle end up being a solution? Where does this come in to reorient ourselves around a different kind of value?
Evan Mawarire: Wow. I love the way that you have put that into context, the sense of, I think people's becoming tired or just becoming, coming to a place of just realizing that, okay, this is, this whole thing is a big show and we are just part of that show where we are almost being choreographed to respond in certain ways so that we can aid a particular outcome.
And I think this is probably, for me, in my mind, one of the reasons where the leadership type of servant leadership becomes extremely key or becomes extremely important. I think that is where we, as a generation, where we need to return to a place of understanding that, first of all, if we are not doing what we do to serve each other, then we're eventually going to do what we do to take advantage of each other.
One of the things that is important is to understand that leadership is not just about the right skill set, but that is, it's importantly about the right heartset. We focus a lot on the skills and those are important. I don't want to downplay the skills, but we have a lot of skilled leaders who do not have the heart for leadership.
We have a lot of people that know how to position themselves and how to have a picture of success, but fail to succeed everyone in the process. And I think for me, that's where it begins. Servant leadership is about the right heartset. It's about being able to serve people, not for the votes or for the, for the popularity, but to serve people because they need someone to serve them at that very point.
And this is why I think you often find that some of the best leaders are found in the lower levels of our communities because they are really operating out of a need and out of wanting something to work rather than out of needing to be elected or needing to be known.
Evan Rosa: Another one of the passages that we were going to talk about is John 13.
And of course, this is in the context of Passover. Jesus knows that the hour has come for him to depart this world, go to the Father. Of course, the disciples don't know, this is during the Last Supper. Now, what I want to draw out here is the fact that when it comes to Jesus approaching Peter and says He's going to wash his feet.
And immediately Peter says, Lord, you're going to wash my feet. Jesus answers, you don't know what I'm doing, but later you will understand. And of course he evinces that immediately you'll never wash my feet. And he explains, of course, it goes on, but really the point of what I'm talking about here is exactly what you were just talking about, which is a starting point of knowledge and skill, a starting point of knowing all the tips and tricks to be most persuasive, to be knowing all the avenues and network to power. None of that seems to come first, because Jesus is perfectly fine approaching the ignorant. They don't know what they're asking, they don't know what he's doing.
But later they understand because it has everything to do with the kind of deep set character and ability to position one's intentions for the sake of the other.
Evan Mawarire: A hundred percent, one hundred percent. And I think a lot of that starts off in these character sets or character modes that we often find that people are elevated into positions of leadership that demand of them certain standards of morality that they don't have or that they have never had or the standards that they choose to knowingly just ignore because they don't believe they're important. Um, I'll give you one of those traits that is so missing in our global leaders today is humility. And this is what Jesus is beginning to exemplify in this passage of scripture as he washes his disciples' feet.
And he's saying, yes, I am the Lord, and you know it, but this is the heart of the Lord is to serve you. The heart of the Lord is to make sure that he washes their feet. They're shocked. I mean, rightfully so, everyone who's watching cannot believe what they're seeing because it went against what the norms of leadership is, and, and we live in that kind of world where our leaders do not possess these qualities, the quality of humility, the simple quality of compassion. Is it possible that we can be compassionate enough to cause the policies that we put in place to serve the weakest amongst us or to serve the most vulnerable amongst us. There are certain problems that we have in this world that are, it's strange to believe that with the amount of wealth that we have in our world, that our leaders fail to coordinate themselves simply based on compassion, simply based on compassion.
They fail to coalesce and say, let's make sure that we don't lose another person to COVID. Let's make sure that we don't lose another person to cholera. We have people that we have, we, we have resources within our governments that, that are enough to solve these problems. But when we lack these values, and I know I may be speaking from a very simplistic perspective, but I think that's, this is part of the truth of what we are lacking.
Evan Rosa: Well, we're really talking about like the first principles of leadership here. These are the kind of ground level principles that don't that don't waver from context to context. And of course, there's going to be factors and extenuating circumstances. And in fact, it is precisely what you're talking about, humility and compassion, that are required for being able to read context, to know what to do in those circumstances.
And if you're coming from a perspective that is not humble, that is not compassionate, then it's not going to instill trust in the people that you're trying to lead, that you will know how to react in any specific situation where we all have to improvise.
Evan Mawarire: True. Absolutely. It's, I think it's, it's also important for, for me to recognize that it's, it's not, it is not easy to lead in this way in the kind of world that we are in, and it's not, and I think the few that lead in this way are not as known or are not as recognized for leading in this way, but again, we don't do it for the recognition. This is a story I heard from years ago of a young boy or a young girl, it could have been, who was walking along the beach and comes across starfish that had been washed ashore, and faithfully picks one up and throws it back into the sea and then goes on to the next one and picks it up and throws it back and continues to go. And a man comes and says to him, you know, you're wasting your time because they're just going to get washed ashore. And so you're not making a difference. And then this little kid throws the one starfish back and says to that one, it made a difference.
And I think this is, again, for me, the heart of leadership that though we may not get the recognition, though the most humble and the most compassionate and the most genuine leaders may not get reelected or may not become known because they are not playing the game the way that others are playing the game, it has made a difference to the people that that individual served, and for me, the hope in this sense is that if I washed someone's feet here, that that would impact them to be able to wash someone else's feet themselves. And I think that is probably the crux or one of the great influences of leadership from a Christian perspective is that it influences the served to serve others.
It creates more leaders as it is perpetuated. It creates more servant leaders as, as people are served. They take it upon to go and serve in their different communities or in their different situations.
Evan Rosa: Yeah, that's what's amazing is in this passage, unless I wash you, you have no share with me. And, and of course he says, not, Peter, not only my feet, but my hands and my head, everything, right? And, and the spirit there being that, and what I hear from you is that someone who knows how to lead knows how they have been served themselves.
Evan Mawarire: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it is absolutely profound to understand the way in which Jesus taught the growth of the kingdom of God. In many circumstances he likened it to a seed and he would say the kingdom of God is like a seed, which when it was planted, it grew into a tree, you know, into a large tree and it housed the birds of the air. And there are many examples where he likens the kingdom of God to a seed or the values or for me, at least, I then translate it into the values and the principles and the results of living a life where you are inspired by the Word of God and by Jesus is that it grows, it flourishes, and sometimes it is unseen, but it grows. In my mind, one of the efforts that I am starting now is to begin to find places where either these seeds are growing or where we can plant seeds, these kinds of seeds of different trees.
Is there a place we can intentionally plant these different seeds that will grow? And the thing about seeds is that if you're handed a seed and told it's a tree, it must communicate to you that there's going to be a period of growth. There's going to be a period of that tree being tended, being looked after, being watered, being pruned until it becomes what it needs to become.
How, and this is part of what I'm trying to commit my life to in this next phase of what I believe God called me to, even when we started with the movement in Zimbabwe, how can we either find seeds that have been planted, or how can we start planting seeds intentionally and, and then nurture them and look after them the same way Jesus did? Planted seeds in the men and women around him nurtured and looked after them until they began to produce a fruit. And they had an impact. And of course, today Christianity has had an impact globally. And yet it began with these 12 people that Jesus impacted. And I think for me, that's part of where the question is, what's our next step? How do we do this? And how do we faithfully look after these sproutings of servant leadership, these sproutings of, of, of people that, that understand that leadership is about serving more than it is about being served.
Evan Rosa: I love that we have come to this point because we began our conversation talking about urgency and the feeling of urgency that it leads off into a very anxious, frenetic approach.
But when I hear you describe the life of leadership in the form of planting seeds, the only way that that seed will grow and and come to fruition is if we plant now and just simply putting the seed in the ground wherever we can, looking for those seedlings that have already sprouted, and seeing how they weather the storms of life.
I love this patient approach to leadership that is grounded in servanthood and humility and compassion and the recognition of the individuality of the person that we serve.
Evan Mawarire: Well, the excitement is is discovering what it is that we have to do. It really is actually a moment where purpose comes alive. I remember a late preacher who used to say this years ago, where purpose is not known, abuse is inevitable.
And I remember another preacher saying that the two most important days in your life is the day you were born and the day you discover why. And the reason I say this is that for me, I think the realization that we can't order the leaders we need off Amazon Prime and have a fast delivery of them. These have to be fashioned and crafted over time, but someone has to put in the time.
And the question is, who are these people that will put in the time, because sometimes, if not all the times, crafting leaders that are going to impact the world through this way that we've spoken about, sometimes it just, it takes time to do it. And sometimes some of the greatest leaders that we know, in fact, some of the greatest leaders that we've known in our world who have served with their lives and sacrificed, given themselves, we don't know who it is that impacted them, but someone did. Even people who are handling young kids in preschool or kindergarten or in, in high schools or in colleges, what a lot of us don't understand is that there are people in those institutions, in those places, that are going to be leading our nations in 20 years, 30 years, 50 years time when we're not here.
And it's how we handle them, how we influence them, how we impact them, that's going to make the difference between having good leaders and not having good leaders when our world needs them the most, our crisis today is a result of not investing in developing good leaders 20 years ago.
Evan Rosa: I think that this is so important for us to be hearing is, and what I love about this is it breaks down a crisis of leadership in our democracies into something that is manageable into something that is, that we can see a way forward. There is a path. There is guidance and there's a map for finding our way back to trust and finding our, well, finding our way back to each other, honestly.
Evan Mawarire: Absolutely, you're right. You couldn't be more right, my friend.
Evan Rosa: Thank you so much for your time, Pastor Ivan.
Evan Mawarire: Thank you very much, Evan. It's been awesome and, uh, always love talking with you and finding our way through issues as we discuss. Thanks again.
Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured pastor and activist Evan Mawarire. Production assistance by Macy Bridge and Kaylen Yun. I'm Evan Rosa, and I edit and produce the show. For more information, visit us online at faith.yale.edu, where you can find past episodes, articles, books, and other educational resources to help people envision and pursue lives worthy of our humanity.
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