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The Incarnation is the Creator's concrete demonstration
that the current reality is not absolute, that both the way
things have been and the way things are now, are fundamentally
pliable and can be transformed in ways that can only be called
"new," "good," "miracle" and the Kingdom of God. The Incarnation
is the Creator's concrete demonstration that the impossible
can be done, that the abyss between the Divine and the human
can be bridged.
Jesus is the bridge. The Gospel according to
John (14:6) records Jesus' self-description: "I am the way,
the truth, and the life…." It is not enough to simply believe
in Jesus, whatever that may mean to each of us. We cannot
indulge in the all too convenient modern dichotomy between
both what we think and what we say with what we do. It is
for us to live as much like Jesus as we can, to somehow be
the body of Christ in this world, and thus become a bridge
between the Divine and the human. That means we cannot remain
either withdrawn or aloof. That means we need to somehow re-enter
the world we left to come to ESR.
To paraphrase John 3:17: We are to re-enter
the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through
our re-entry might be saved. And, again paraphrasing John
3:21 We re-enter to do truth that we may come to the light,
that our deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought
in God.
The following are ethical questions, based
on the work of M. Scott Peck (A World Waiting to be Born (pg.
60) to repeatedly ask as we leave the relative security of
this community and re-enter the larger world:
- Is this organization/congregation/church/meeting in which
I participate a godly one?
- Is it an astute organization (conscious of the consequences
upon people of what it does) that genuinely serves people
well, thus serving God?
- If not, what role can I play to make it more astute,
more godly?
- And if there is nothing creative I can do in this regard,
does God desire me to remain in such an uncreative role:
Or might God be calling me elsewhere, to an organization/congregation/church/meeting
more civil and a role more creative?
Leadership
We re-enter the world to lead others to the Light. It is
an audacious mission and one that traverses a narrow way.
The experience of many has been that it can be all too easy
to slip from humility and charity (self-transcending love)
into narcissism, self-righteousness and arrogance, not to
mention moral turpitude. The list of those who have fallen
is a long one (many on that list are named, Jim or Jimmy).
A big part of the problem with leading to the Light is our
failure to understand that leadership mostly has nothing to
do with those things that we think it does. Leadership has
little to do with personality, style, role or status. The
witness of Jesus, particularly in Mark 9:33-37, and Mark 10:35-45
(with parallels in Matthew and Luke), flips the whole of leadership
up-side down, all of it …personality, style, role and status,
everything commonly associated with leadership. Not only does
Jesus flip leadership up-side down, he shakes it until it
falls apart.
And, nobody likes what Jesus did with leadership. The proof
is that so terribly few have ever even tried to be the kind
of leader Jesus described. The Jesus pattern for leadership
isn't efficient, doesn't give predictable results, and often
ends in disaster (like the Crucifixion thing) because someone
like Judas (especially as described in Mark's Gospel), who
really doesn't understand what's going on (but think they
do), decides to take the situation in hand and make it work
the way s/he presumes it's supposed to work. It is so easy
for us to forget that God will be, who God will be, that the
Holy Spirit moves where it will, and that it is the province
of each of us to listen and obey.
In Mark 9 and 10, Jesus fundamentally abolishes leadership
and any notion of hierarchical organization among those who
follow him, period! Leadership, in Jesus' view, as reflected
especially in Mark, appears to be God's and only God's prerogative.
In these two Markan pericopes, Jesus dashes all prevalent
models of leadership, both secular or religious. He speaks
of universal "diakonos", with everyone somehow serving/attending
to everyone else. In Mark 9, he offers the paradigm of the
child in relation to leadership. He illustrates leadership
not with someone adult, not with someone parental, and not
with someone with vested authority, but with a child who is
none of those things. The primary values of childhood in Jesus'
day were: listen, obey, love and be loved. Children were the
runners with messages, the extra hands for a task, or the
legs which could move steadier or faster. Children "attended"
… they served wherever needed.
In paraphrase of Mark 10:42-45, Jesus' views about leadership
can be put like this: "Jesus called his students to himself
and told them, friends, you know they who are given power
to rule among those who are not of the Kingdom of God exercise
power and direction over them. But it shall not be that way
among you; but whosoever will be the most important among
you will be the one who will do whatever it takes to equip
and enable everyone else to work together to do, under the
leadership of the Holy Spirit, what has to be done for the
Kingdom of God. For the Son of Man did not come to be equipped
and enabled by others, but to equip and enable, and to give
his life to free many from captivity of every kind, from violence,
from danger, and from evil so they can turn and see the eternal
light of God's blessed Presence and Kingdom.
In Jesus' leadership manual, leadership is fundamentally
counter-intuitive, totally unself-conscious and completely
humble. That leaves zero room for attachment to or claim of
any role or status in any hierarchy other than at the bottom.
A person who uses any referent to what they do as any form
of leadership or who they are as any form of being leader,
flunks Jesus' leadership 101. It is safe to say that people
who identify themselves as servant leaders, generally are
not; simply because they have made themselves primary referent.
Historically, Friends have had less problems understanding
who is greatest in the Kingdom of God than other Christian
traditions. Rejection of the "hireling" ministry, the steeple
house, the altar and pulpit, as well as the sacraments are
all a radical embrace of the priesthood of all believers and
homogeneousness of all who are born of the Holy Spirit. There's
much more that can and probably should be said about Friend's
contributions to the notions of being called out and together
and of being led together by the Holy Spirit; however, time
prohibits that exploration.
Thank You
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