Monday, July 16, 2018
Leadership
Stories
2 Samuel 6:12-19; Mark 6:14-29
July 18, 2018
As George H.W. Bush never actually said, “leaders lead; that’s what
they do.”
That is what leaders do, and it follows that followers, well, follow.
The lectionary this morning places before us two strange tales of
leaders and followers. These stories offer some compelling guidance for a time
when we seem bereft of wise leaders, and when we’ve also, perhaps not
coincidentally, forgotten how to follow wisely and well.
One of my favorite quotes about leadership is the observation that a
leader’s task is to climb the tallest tree in the woods, take a good look
around, and holler back to the people on the ground, “hey, we’re in the wrong
forest.”
I have thought of that line a couple of time over the past several
weeks watching twin stories of trapped children unfold.
We watched a mass media transfixed by skilled and courageous divers
rescuing the Thai youth soccer team from a cave, but that same media has
increasingly turned away from efforts of skilled and courageous attorneys and
activists trying to rescue migrant children trapped in American cages.
We’re in the wrong forest. It takes nothing away from the remarkable
underwater rescue efforts of divers willing to risk their own lives to rescue
kids to observe that we are in the wrong forest. It was good, and right, and
appropriate to cheer on those divers and lift prayers for the kids and their
families. But we are in the wrong forest.
If we are not giving more time, attention, energy, and activism to the
plight of kids separated from their parents right here at home by our
government then we are in the wrong forest. If our leaders cannot see this from
their perches, then they are failing to lead wisely and well. If we continue to
follow them, we do so out our own peril. We will not emerge from the deep
woods; indeed, we’re more likely to find ourselves trapped in some dark cavern.
Following a leader into the wrong forest can be deadly. Indeed, merely
confronting a leader who is in the wrong forest can be deadly.
In Mark’s gospel, Herod is in the wrong forest and John the Baptist
winds up dead. That’s the story Mark tells of the Baptist, and he tells it
specifically in a manner that foreshadows what is to come for Jesus. Confront a
leader who is in the wrong forest, and you may well wind up in trouble.
Confront a power structure that holds that leader in place, and you may well
wind up in even more trouble.
In both of the passages we just read, we see the corrupting influence
that power structures have on all they touch. King David dances in celebration
of what God has done, yet Michal, the daughter of King Saul disapproves –
“despised David in her heart,” the text tells us.
To be fair, Michal has legitimate reasons to despise David. Michal is
married to David, and she has been used and abused by her family in its ongoing
power struggle. To wit, in this verse, she is identified verse as “daughter of
King Saul.” It is as if her identity with an older power structure, and her
righteous anger with it, blind her to the new thing that God is doing through
David.
Similarly, in the story of the death of John, the daughter of the king
is being used, and is blinded by the power structure that frames her life such
that she cannot see the new thing that God is doing through John.
Power corrupts vision. It corrupts the vision of those abused by
structures of power and, not least of all, power corrupts the vision of
powerful leaders.
That’s why good followers are crucial. One of the most important things
a leader can do is to turn around regularly and see if there’s still anyone
back there. If nobody is following you, you are not a leader, you’re just going
for a walk.
Indeed, if you are not empowering others to share in leadership then
you’re not leading, you’re just climbing trees to look around.
That gets us to the heart of the matter in the story of John the
Baptist. It’s pretty clear, not only from the gospels accounts but from
contemporaneous histories, that Herod had John put to death because John was a
threat to Herod’s power. Further, it’s clear that the strategy worked. Herod
had John killed, and John’s movement died with him.
John had disciples, followers, folks who believed in what he was doing.
But when he died his movement died, too.
When Jesus died, on the other hand, his followers rose up to continue
the work. They experienced something profound in and through Jesus, and that
experience clearly extended beyond his death. He lived on in their midst. He
lived on through their ministry.
The gospels are consistent in recounting the ways that Jesus prepared
his followers for continuing the work after he was gone. The text last week –
the sending of the disciples into the Galilean countryside – underscores this.
Jesus was engaged in leadership development from early on, preparing a movement
that would transcend one life and survive beyond one lifetime.
What has this to do with the stories of children separated from their
families by rising tides? Simply this, if what you want to rescue is one small
group of children trapped by a rising stream of water, then you train for a
single emergency. Good leadership is certainly important, but long-term vision,
deep and shared wisdom, and discerning disciples sharing power are not that
important.
But if what you want to rescue is a generation of children trapped by a
rising tide of xenophobia, racism, and corporatism in failed immigration,
education, and health systems, then you need long-term vision, deep and shared
wisdom, and discerning disciples sharing power for the work will not be done in
a day, or a year, or a lifetime.
What we need, and what we are trying to build here, is a community of
shared values, that cultivates multiple leaders to live out those values in
various ways through the work of many hands, the vision of many eyes, the
wisdom of many hearts.
As the Talmud reminds, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the
world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not
obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
We are not free to abandon the work, and the only way out of the mess
we are in is through it, together. Sharing one another’s burdens, recognizing
each one’s gifts, following a singular call: do justice, love kindness, walk humbly
with our God through the deep woods we are in. Amen.
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Travelling Mercies
Mark 6:1-13
July 8, 2018
I am not a
good packer. You know the folks who can pack for a week in a Altoids tin? Yeah,
I’m not one of them. Going away for a couple of days? I might need my guitar. I
might need my flute. I might need my disc golf bag. I might need my laptop. I
will surely need both of the books I’m reading. I mean, of course, all three of
the books I’m reading. I probably need running things … and a couple of hats.
And, sure, Mr. Bounce wants to come, too. So we’ll need some of his toys. It’s
a good thing we’re not flying.
Yeah, I am not
a good packer. Take nothing but a staff, a pair of sandals, and a single tunic?
On a journey of unknown length and you don’t even know where you’re staying the
night? That’s not me.
So it’s a good
thing that, unlike Jesus, I have a place to go home to.
Consider that
for a moment: if we say we follow Jesus then we are proclaiming something
deeply at odds with our own culture and, if we are honest, with the way that
most of us live our own lives most of the time. We say we are trying to follow
Jesus, yet this one we say we’re trying to follow was, by all accounts, poor,
unemployed, and, it seems, frequently un-housed.
He probably
really could pack his stuff in an Altoids tin when he headed out; and he did
head out.
Hitting the
road is what happens when you are less than welcome in your hometown. Jesus was
less than welcome.
The first time
he spoke up in his home faith community in Nazareth the crowd tried to throw
him off of nearby cliff, according to Luke’s account. They did so because his
interpretation of familiar texts challenged their comfortable status quo.
Jesus had a
choice in that moment: he could hang around and argue the finer points of the
text or he could move on. If this had happened today, his choice might have
been, “do I have that argument on Facebook, or do I head out into the world to
change what I can change, knowing that the number of minds changed in on-line
arguments is about that same as the number of changes of clothes that I can
pack in an Altoids tin?”
In other
words, Jesus became a political refugee just as he had been as a child fleeing
Herod. If he was not precisely an asylum seeker it was only because he knew
early on that the kingdom he sought was not going to be readily available in
his time and place. If, as he put it later on, “my kingdom is not of this
world,” that means everyone is an immigrant in the kingdom of God.
So he sent his
followers out into this world knowing that they, too, would wander as refugees
– rarely, if ever, finding a place to
call home. He instructed them to travel light, and to be ready to pick up and
leave at a moment’s notice.
“If folks
don’t want to listen, then shake the dust off of your sandals and move on.”
While that gesture may be, as the text puts it, a “testimony against them,” it
is also a healthy practice. “Let go. Don’t hold on to a grudge just because
they didn’t hear what you had to say. Don’t get stuck. Move on,” Jesus
instructs.
“Pack light.
Don’t carry that grudge with you. Pack light. Anger is too heavy a burden for
your journey. Pack light. Leave your fear at home.”
Well, OK,
Jesus, if I leave all of that familiar stuff at home, what am I supposed to
bring along?
Like I said,
Jesus could pretty much pack in an Altoid tin.
Here’s what he
took with him: joy; gentleness; kindness; generosity; goodness; patience;
faith; peace; and love.
Whatever road
you are on, you can pack these. Whomever else you meet along the road, you can
share these – they are inexhaustible gifts. And, as we consider all those folks
out on the road, along the border, detained, hoping, struggling, dreaming – we
have these gifts to share. They are our traveling mercies.
When we head
out carrying these in our bags – in our hearts – we can cast out demons – even
the ones we have been carrying ourselves. When we head out carrying these
gifts, healing will happen. When we head out carrying these gifts, we’ll find
ourselves walking every step a step closer to the beloved community, the kindom
of heaven, the reign of God. May we find ourselves on that road this summer.
Amen.