A young friend returning from the World Youth Day in Madrid this week asked me if servant leadership was breeding an Esau-style or Jacob-style leader. My immediate response was to quote St. Augustine, “What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.” Love looks like a servant leader.
She quickly recounted to me her experience in one of the group sessions where the sharing veered toward the story of the young Esau and the young Jacob, waiting for the blessing from their father Isaac, who was progressively getting weaker and losing his sight. The discussion was about the “over empowerment” of the young—how social networking has become a great equalizer among the young and across generations, making it easier for them to speak their mind, and make their own life choices.
She said, “It bothered me, Fr. Anton, that Rebecca, their mom, helped homebody Jacob to obtain the blessing while Esau was out hunting. Wasn’t that deceitful on the part of Rebecca and Jacob?” She recounted how a young Italian peer said that St. Augustine had said that the transference of blessing to Jacob, the youngest son and homebody, was not a lie but a mystery. That Rebecca had to do what she did so that Isaac in his blindness would see the truth—that Jacob, while younger, is the more deserving and trustworthy of the blessing.
Then, other young people shared that they really didn’t like how Esau was behaving—that he was carrying his weight around. He sold his birthright for lentils—such a glutton he was—and relied on his own strength in every hunt, was hardly home, barely respectful of his parents. He seemed to be a model for other young hunters, because he was able to serve the needs of his family and he delighted in that. But Jacob, in his own way, responded to the needs of his family: he was humble and loving and obedient. She was touched that they saw that the assertiveness of the young to engage the world can turn to aggression, to pride—to an Esau-style of servant leadership.
She had begun to answer her own question. Servant “Because when we say we serve first, before we lead, aren’t we mimicking Esau—just trying to serve his father’s need for game, in the same way we try to identify the needs of communities for food and clothing and shelter—but without love or humility in the opportunity of serving?”
St. Louis Marie de Montfort, the favorite saint of Blessed Pope John Paul II would remind us: “Like Cain, Esau was extremely jealous of his brother and persecuted him relentlessly. He never went out of his way to please his mother and did little or nothing for her. He was strong, robust, clever, skillful, successful…worked outdoors. This is the usual conduct of sinners.”
And what are signs? First, they rely on their own strength and skill in temporal affairs. They are very energetic and well-informed about things of the world but very dull about things of heaven. Second, they are seldom “home,” or spend time in their interior life, and have no liking for solitude. Third, they care little or nothing for their Mother Mary. Fourth, “for a passing moment of pleasure, for a fleeting wisp of honor, they barter away their baptismal grace.” And fifth, they “continually hate and persecute the elect, openly and secretly…getting good positions for themselves, enriching themselves, rising to power and living in comfort.”
She smiled: every servant leader, serves out of love, and she gave me a copy of the beautiful homily of Pope Benedict XVI in one of the Prayer Vigils. “I understand now what the Pope tried to tell us.” Let me conclude where that homily began:
“How can a young person be true to the faith and yet continue to aspire to high ideals in today’s society? In the Gospel we have just heard, Jesus gives us an answer to this urgent question: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love” (John 15:9).
Yes, dear friends, God loves us. This is the great truth of our life; it is what makes everything else meaningful. We are not the product of blind chance or absurdity; instead our life originates as part of a loving plan of God. To abide in His love, then, means living a life rooted in faith, since faith is more than the mere acceptance of certain abstract truths: It is an intimate relationship with Christ, who enables us to open our hearts to this mystery of love and to live as men and women conscious of being loved by God.”
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