This homily is based this morning not on the strange gospel story we just heard, but on the passage from Paul's letter to the Galatians which we heard Carol/Mary read so beautifully. "For freedom Christ has set us free -- through love become slaves (other translations read servants) to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Become servants to one another. Paul is, of course, reminding us of Jesus' words and actions at the Last Supper, the night in which he embodied servant love by washing his disciples' feet, gave them the new commandment to love one another as he loved them, and then left them with the symbols of his servant leadership: his own body and blood, broken, poured out, given, that his new community, the church, might have life.

The whole concept of what we now popularly call "servant leadership" has been explored and taught by Robert Greenleaf, a business executive who, working from his own religious understanding, put forward a model of leadership for businesses, universities, foundations and churches grounded in the insight that great leaders must first and foremost be servants, and exemplify qualities of listening, empathy, foresight, building community, healing, and so forth. His work now informs such popular business gurus as Stephen Covey and others, whose names may be familiar to you, and guides the practices of several of Fortune Magazine's list of the "Top 100 Places to Work." 

But today I want to explore servant leadership not in business, though it has much to teach us for our work in the church, but in our nation, to help us reflect on the state of our union and the quality of our life together. Today, as we approach our national holiday and celebrate again what we call the birth of our nation, I want to lift up for our consideration and inspiration the servant leadership of three men who, towards the end of the Civil War, in the manner of true servant leadership, set the stage for reconciliation, healing and peace, helped move us from a federation of states into true nationhood, and helped define true greatness in terms of servant leadership.

I commend to you, young and old, a new book by the writer and historian, Jay Winik, entitled April 1865: The Month that Saved America. That one month, Winik contends, which saw the fall of Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, the surrender of General Lee to General Grant at Appomattox, the assassination of President Lincoln and the chaos which ensued -- and so much more that determined the direction and duration of the war and the character of its resolution -- holds within it the keys to understanding how we moved from a horrific, bloody civil war into the first real experiences as these UNITED States of America.

Three servant leaders. First, as I suppose you would anticipate, Abraham Lincoln. That awkward, shy, melancholic, Presbyterian, country-bumpkin of a lawyer who was motivated by his abhorrence of slavery. Deeply grieved by this war, he was nevertheless determined to prevail. It is reported that his faith deepened as the war progressed, and that he sensed God's hand in his leadership. He said to a friend, "I am satisfied that when the Almighty wants me to do or not do a particular thing, he finds a way of letting me know it." Exhausted by the war, not sleeping for days, mired in remorse and depression, he nevertheless felt a sense of Destiny in striving to end slavery and to preserve the Union.

It is his second inaugural address, four long years into this devastating civil war, delivered just weeks before his assassination, that reveals this resolve. With astonishing charity, rather than vilifying his foes, he lists all that the two sides share in common. Neither party had wanted war, he reminded his listeners. "Neither party expected for the war the magnitude nor the duration which it has already attained. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other . . . let us judge not that we be not judged. With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

President Lincoln set a standard for dignity and respect which would later let reconciliation begin to be possible.

Second servant leader to lift up today: General Ulysses S. Grant. Forty-three years old. Rumpled, blunt, something of a failure in many of his earlier endeavors, plagued by migraines, hardly someone apparently destined for greatness. But he was fueled by a fierce determination to fight and win, and that grit and military savvy eventually propelled him into leadership. It was this general, known for his fierceness in battle, as well as for his remorse at the loss of so many lives on both sides, who shaped the terms and conditions of Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

History is replete with stories of wars that have ended badly, of concessions extracted and com-promises crafted that humiliate the vanquished and set the stage for ongoing hatred and enmity. The unlikely character, Ulysses S. Grant, saw his way clear to do it differently. From the moment Lee first wrote him proposing surrender, Grant afforded Lee dignity, allowing him to set the time and place. The terms of surrender which he proposed to Lee were the most generous Lee could have anticipated. They prohibited the Confederate troops from being treated as prisoners of war, nor would they be prosecuted for treason. Further, during their meeting, in response to a request from Lee, Grant made provision normally afforded only to officers: that any soldier who owned a horse would be permitted to keep it for use in farming upon their return home. As Lee said at the time, "[this] will be gratifying and will do much toward conciliating our people." When the two parted, each silently lifted his hat to the other and the Federal soldiers guarding the house and grounds did the same.

Perhaps we now take all this for granted, or perhaps these small gestures seem insignificant to us. But I suggest that this generosity of spirit, this servant leadership, set the stage for the healing of our nation and the preservation of the union.

And finally for this morning, let me close with a follow-up story, as the modern press might put it, about a third servant leader. I find it astonishingly powerful and evocative, and it closes Winik's book.

The setting is late that Spring in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederate States, much of it burned following Lee's surrender of the city. St. Paul's Episcopal Church was still standing, the church of Richmond's elite, its leading families. There were separate sections for blacks and whites. In the white section, Pew 63 had belonged to Jefferson Davis, the Confederate President, and nearby was the Lee family pew.

This was a warm Sunday, Communion Sunday, and just as the minister began to administer the sacrament, something totally unprecedented occurred, something unthinkable. A tall, black man rose and advanced to the front of the church, going directly to the communion table first, before the others, and knelt to receive. The congregation was stunned, paralyzed. Never had they all communed together as equals. Never. The minister was clearly embarrassed and stepped back. Taking their cue from him, the rest of the congregation sat immobile. After some time, as the black man knelt there at the rail, an older, dignified white man rose from his family pew and walked quietly up the aisle to the communion rail. He knelt, as well, along the same rail and waited. It was Robert E. Lee, leading by example now, pointing the way into a new future. Dear brothers and sisters, few, if any of us, will ever be called to leadership on the world stage, yet in many circumstances of our lives we, too, lead and we serve. We can also choose to lead as servant leaders and, no doubt, the quality of our choices will help shape the world in which we live. Lincoln, Grant and Lee called forth from within themselves and from their faith qualities of leadership that shaped this nation -- qualities of dignity and grace, of strength and charity, of compassion and high resolve -- qualities that will always serve us well. May their examples of servant leadership inspire us all to lead and serve in ways worthy of our highest calling.

Notes:
Winik, Jay. April 1865: The Month that Saved America. New York: HarperCollins. 2001.

© Patricia E. Farris, 2001. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.