Nain’s Gate: Leadership in Crisis

There is a death, cold and final.

In the town of Nain, there was a dead man (Luke 7:11-17).  A son of a father long since passed and a mother newly grieving. 

We don’t know much other than the fact that he is dead.  Dead in the sense that he required being carried by others. They could not leave a dead man in the house overnight.  Therefore, the mourning mother and the crowd proceeded toward Nain’s town gate.  It was a torn and painful scene as death moved out.

While death went out from that place, Jesus moved toward that place. 

We read that two large crowds converge, one grieving and one searching.  One crowd followed Jesus, eager for hope and healing.  The other crowd walked with the family all too familiar with loss.  And they come face to face at Nain’s gate.

At Nain’s gate, the miraculous stemmed from the collision of death and life.  

First, there was compassion.  “The Lord saw her.” Jesus, far from a mechanical deity, does more than reverse the curse.  He displays a compassion born from seeing and feeling. It's heretical to divorce compassion from healing. Like Haggar before her; this broken woman comes in contact with the God who sees.   

Second, His seeing progresses to touch as he causes the funeral bier to pause. Again, it's heretical to touch the dead and yet Jesus extends His hand.  The power of life confronting death brings about a pause.  They “stood still” as the story goes.This is critical. Life cannot meet a death in motion.  Life is present.  Life overcomes darkness in a paused moment that is long enough to acknowledge the realness of death and the power of life. 

At this point in the narrative imagine the swirling mosaic of emotions.  Experience the awkwardness and pain of the grieving mother interrupted.  Embrace the spark in the eye of the disciples who know something is about to happen and they will never be the same.

“Young man, I say to you, arise.”

“The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.” 

Out of seeing, compassion.  Out of compassion, resurrection.  Life up from death.  Not only does this unveil God's work but also God's posture.  He sees and feels the pain.  He heals and hands back what was broken.  He brings life from death.  This is good news to more than just a broken-hearted mother.  It is great news to you and me who might look more like the dead than the living in our leadership. 

There is a second type of death, alive and deceptive. 

Like a person physically moving, breathing, and smiling yet dead with bitterness or rage or jealousy on the inside.

This second death actually precedes the first one.  This deceptive death runs like an electrical current undetected until circumstances arc: unmet expectations, harsh criticism, failed programs, and threatening power struggles.  We have all experienced teams, leaders, and institutions walking about wreaking of this type of death.  A sort of walking dead. A space where maintaining the organization trumps the ‘why’ behind the organization.  A culture where doubts are hairy monsters better left caged. A team environment resembling cogs and wheels more than love and humility. 

Twice in the past year I’ve come across this passage and been filled with rich analogies. One comes to mind, as I take in the news stories describing burnt-out pastors and unhealthy leadership environments.

Lets go back to Nain

The dead young man in the story is me and other solo isolated leaders in the American Church. The CEO style platform reliant leadership for churches is dead or dying.  One small, but telling, data point comes from Barna in 2022-  42% of pastors have thought about quitting, and the top reasons leaders feel this way are “the immense stress” and “ feeling lonely and isolated.” 

Most have no idea this is the case or struggle to put words to the angst they feel.  They keep themselves incredibly busy in order to avoid the haunting doubts and implications.  These leaders (and I’ve been there) are not entirely like the dead young man.  They have not come through the second death yet.  Instead, they are back in town operating with zombie-like lethargy– plugging away at programs, vision launches, and staff management.  They are the living dead trying desperately to employ yesterday’s tools for today’s issues.  

Others have progressed further toward Nain’s gate. They are honest and brave enough to sense death and name it.  They got to the point where they finally laid down on the funeral bier where they can be carried to the gate.  I admire these leaders because I know what it requires to get to that point. It feels like death when you have operated in a system of insatiable growth where the pressure to incorporate cutting-edge content increases with time. It is incredibly disorientating to let go of the chaotic reality where you receive incredible affirmation and critical attacks.  These dead ones are tired of the walking death. 

But little do these dead ones know life is coming at Nain’s Gate.  It's those who continue as walking dead who never get carried to the gate where real life is waiting to break in. 

The analogy continues: the mourning widow/mother in the story is The Church. She is left incredibly vulnerable without leadership.  As a matter of fact, so vulnerable that churches seek a “lead pastor” at all costs often regardless of quality.   She doesn’t yet know that she needs the encounter at Nain’s Gate. She is starving for resurrected leadership.  A leadership that has the bumps and bruises and joy that come with dying and hearing “Young man, I say to you, arise.” 

Thankfully, Jesus is Jesus and He sees The Church.  He has compassion on The Church with leadership that is frightened to let go yet burning out because they are bearing a misplaced weight. In the story He gave a command to the mother: “Do not weep.”  Death is frightening but new life is needed: have hope. 

He is saying “What I return to you will be better. Yes, it had to die.  Yes, it had to be carried outside the city. You needed to stop living as though death and life could co-mingle.”

The crux of the narrative is the interaction with Jesus.  The hope for our broken leadership culture is contact with Jesus.  But how?

Notice in the story the significant moment of stillness when the pallbearers pause.  We cannot orchestrate life from death.  We cannot snap our fingers to fix leadership.  What we can do is pause.  We can be still enough to allow Jesus to do His work.  Remember, life cannot meet a death in motion.  The walking dead need moments of stillness. A stillness where we acknowledge our ragged grasping posture.  As leaders, are we in such constant motion (accomplishment, winning, growing, maintaining, etc.) that we impede the interruption of life?  Life is Jesus: concerned, reaching out, touching our unclean death, and resurrecting. 

The funeral bier with the dead son had to be completely still for new life to break in.  At the town of Nain two thousand years ago they thought they were headed in one direction to accomplish one sort of task, but they were interrupted.  

Where are you headed and what are you so focused on accomplishing?

Are you at Nain’s Gate?   

Are you the walking dead trying to make it all work?

Are you on the funeral bier- by choice or by chaos?

May we The Church, like the united crowd at the end of the story, proclaim:
“God has come to help his people.”

And may we receive a resurrected leadership.  Recalibrated in definition, culture, job description, and most importantly in life-giving power.