The United States is currently in the midst of a primary season that
has been one of the most closely contested in recent memory. The
Democratic primary in particular has been hard fought, and it is still
not over, as both Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama
continue to battle it out for convention delegates. One of the issues
that always arises in presidential campaigns is leadership. Which
candidate will make a more effective leader for our country? What
leadership style does the candidate employ? How has the candidate shown
good leadership in the past? What shortcomings, tendencies, or
personality traits has the candidate demonstrated in the past that raise
questions about his or her effectiveness as a leader? These are all
important questions to raise, but another important factor in leadership
is harder to observe directly or measure quantitatively. It has to do
with the inner commitment and motivation that drives the leader. In
today's reading from 1 Samuel, God sends the prophet Samuel to Jesse's
house to anoint one of his sons as the next king of Israel. When Samuel
sees Jesse's oldest son Eliab, he notes that Eliab has all the external
traits that would appear to make him a good leader. However, Eliab is
not the person God has chosen. Nor has God chosen Abinadab or any of
the other seven sons present at the meal. Instead, God has chosen the
youngest son, David. On the outside David is a pleasant enough young
man, but he does not have the outward trappings of one destined to lead
his nation. He is young and inexperienced, yet God identifies him as
the chosen one. "The Lord does not see as mortals see," God explains.
"They look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."
People can certainly learn to be good leaders, but some are born with an
innate, God-given ability to be great leaders. It is one thing to lead;
it is entirely another to inspire people to follow. Furthermore, it is
not enough to claim a special relationship with God as proof of
leadership aptitude. If anything, such a claim--whether made by the
erstwhile leader or by the leader's supporters--ought to be viewed with
the utmost suspicion. If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,
piety must be the next to the last. One need look no further than the
current administration to see an example of a leader who claims divine
insight for his decisions, many of which have turned out to be
spectacular disasters. The problem is not that some leaders rely too
much on God. The problem is that some leaders lack the humility to
realize that their perception of God's voice might just be wrong.
Having God's man or woman as leader is a good thing, as long as no one
relies on public claims about having the ability to hear God's voice
rather than judgment based on observation of the leader's actual, not
purported, leadership abilities. Human beings do not see as God sees,
so this lessened discernment makes it that much more important to use
wisdom and critical judgment rather than credulity when evaluating a
person's leadership ability. There are great leaders out there, perhaps
even among the current presidential candidates. It is our duty as
Christians to use our God-given discernment to find them.
Psalm 23 (first
published 6 March 2005)
About 1880, when Robert Dick Wilson was 25 years old, he made up his
mind to prove the veracity of the Old Testament scriptures. Based on the
lifespans of his immediate ancestors, he estimated that he would probably
live to be about 70 years old, so he calculated that he had about 45 years
left. He decided to divide the remainder of his life into three
fifteen-year segments. During the first he would study every language
that had a bearing on the text or background of the Old Testament. He
would spend the next fifteen years investigating the Old Testament itself.
Finally, he would devote the next fifteen years to publishing his
conclusions. Indeed he did publish voluminously, and conservative Bible
students to this day appreciate much of his work. His life was a prime
example of one that was well planned out and executed. Most people don't
have their lives planned out to nearly the same degree as Wilson, or if
they do, they find that somewhere along the way they deviate rather
seriously from their plan. "Midway on our life's journey, I found myself
in dark woods, the right road lost." I suspect that most people can
relate to these opening words from Dante's Inferno better than they
can relate to Wilson's example. Like the character in his narrative,
Dante himself felt lost in the middle of his life, having been expelled
from his native Florence and sentenced to roam the land as an exile.
Dante's protagonist wanders from the right path, and to escape the attacks
of fierce beasts--leopard, lion, and wolf--he enters the gates of Hell.
Fortunately, he is not abandoned there, for providence has supplied him
with a guide, the poet Virgil, and he successfully navigates the circles
of Hell and emerges in Purgatory, eventually to enter Heaven. The
psalmist similarly describes a journey which humans must take, and like
Dante, he knows that we need a guide to make it successfully to the end.
If the psalm is read as a picture of life's journey, one can see
interesting parallels between the beginning of that journey and its end.
The good shepherd at the beginning of life leads us to lie down in green
pastures where there is plenty of food, while at the end of life he
prepares a table for us. For drink, the shepherd leads us beside still
waters at the beginning, and at the end he fills our cup to overflowing.
For personal comfort, the psalmist says that the shepherd restores his
soul at the beginning of the journey, whereas at the end he anoints the
psalmist's head with oil. At the beginning, the psalmist says, "He leads
me in right paths," and at the end, "I shall dwell in the house of the
Lord forever"; in both cases, God is right there with the psalmist. When
I was a young seminary student, like Robert Dick Wilson I had my life
pretty much planned out. I was going to get my Ph.D. and teach in
seminary for the rest of my life. As it turns out, my life didn't work
out that way. Now halfway through my life's journey, I look back and see
that life has led in directions I never would have imagined. In some ways
life has been better than I imagined, and in other ways it has been more
difficult, but it has certainly been different. Now I work at a job that
didn't even exist twenty years ago when I was in seminary, and I teach in
an institution that is quite different than I envisioned back then, but I
wouldn't trade the life I've had for the one I imagined, not in a million
years. The reason I wouldn't is that all along the way God has been
leading me, sometimes in ways that were blindingly obvious, sometimes in
ways that were apparent only in retrospect. God was there in the
beginning, God was with me during times when I sometimes felt like an
exile, and God is with me now. That's the message of the twenty-third
psalm to me as I contemplate where I've been and where I'm going. At the
beginning of the journey, at its end, and everywhere in between, God is
with us.
Ephesians 5:8-14 (first
published 6 March 2005)
Mani was born about the year 216 in Mesopotamia. He was raised as a
member of the Elkesaite sect, a group descended from followers of John the
Baptist but heavily influenced by Gnosticism. Mani was only 12 years old
when he received his first revelation from the Holy Spirit. Twelve years
later he had another vision, calling him to preach a gospel of extreme
dualism. Mani proclaimed that there were two worlds, one of light and
another of darkness. As the apostle of light, Mani urged his followers to
forsake the darkness and seek the light. He was enormously successful in
his evangelistic efforts, and he eventually suffered martyrdom at the
hands of the Magi, Zoroastrian priests jealous of the influence the
Manicheans were gaining in the Parthian Empire. Mani was familiar with
the teachings of Jesus, and it is likely that he knew of the letter to the
Ephesians, which contains a passage that Mani's followers would have found
consistent with their own beliefs. "Once you were darkness, but now in
the Lord you are light. Live as children of light." Where Mani differed
from most early Christians was in his idea of what it meant to live as
children of light. Mani advocated a strict asceticism, including many
dietary restrictions, as a means to purify the soul (the light) from the
evils of the body (the darkness). Most Christians had a more holistic
view of human life, believing that the body was not bad, because it was
created by God, but it must be disciplined to avoid sin. Light and
darkness are useful metaphors for good and evil, but Christianity and
Manicheism are quite different in their respective approaches to these
contrasting concepts. For Manicheans, light needs to be separated from
darkness in order to purify the light. For Christians, light needs to be
shined on the darkness to illuminate it. Whereas Manichean leaders urged
their followers to separate themselves completely from the things of
darkness, Christians are called on to mingle with the world in order to
shine the light of Christ there. Yes, Christians must avoid unnecessary
entanglements with the sin that is everpresent in the world, but they must
not simultaneously avoid those who are trapped in the sins of the world,
for they are the very people who are most in need of the light that Christ
offers.
John 9:1-41 (first
published 6 March 2005)
You don't really believe that "all men are created equal" when you allow the institution of slavery to exist. You don't understand the expression "in Christ there is no male or female" when you discriminate against women in the church or in the workplace. You don't alleviate the problem of terrorism by dropping bombs on civilian neighborhoods where terrorists might or might not be hiding. You don't solve the problem of poverty by cutting taxes for the rich. Some things are just blindingly obvious to many people, yet at the same time there are some who just can't see what should be obvious to them as well. What obstructs our vision? Sometimes tradition keeps us from seeing the reality of life. If tradition teaches you that blacks are inferior to whites, and you are white, you will struggle to overcome that prejudice, even if intellectually you know better. Sometimes extreme nationalism keeps us from a true perspective on the situation in the world. Those who think the U.S. armed forces are invincible, despite evidence to the contrary in Vietnam, will continue to support unwarranted U.S. intervention in countries around the word. Sometimes selfishness can blind us to the effect of our decisions on other people. When wealthy Representatives and Senators pass massive tax cuts for the rich, and when the bill is signed by a wealthy president, they and their wealthy constituents may be unable to appreciate fully the financial burden that they are shifting to the poor and middle class, and they seem to have no awareness of the burden that future generations must bear as well because of burgeoning budget deficits. When Jesus confronts the blind man on the side of the road, Jesus can see right away what his main problem is: he can't see! After he heals the man, religious leaders come and question the one who was healed. "Who healed you?" they ask. "Someone named Jesus," he replies. "How?" "By applying mud to my eyes." "He must be a sinner, because he doesn't keep the sabbath," they respond. "Give glory to God, for we know that this man is a sinner." The formerly blind man's answer to this charge is the crux of the story: "I do not know whether he is a sinner, but one thing I do know: once I was blind, and now I see." Whether it was tradition, jealousy, or legalism, something blinded the religious leaders and prevented them from seeing the obvious. Standing in front of them was a man who had been blind from birth, but now he could see. How could they miss God at work in this man's life? What blinds us to the truths that we should be seeing? Regardless of what it is, Jesus offers to remove the blindness and show us the light.