Leaders sin and fall short like the rest of us. Sometimes it is their undoing. Sometimes it is part of their making. By the time we get to this chapter of 2 Samuel, it is clear David sins and not in a small way. His sin is personal, adultery, and public, misusing the army to bring about his own desired end, again adultery and planned murder. Yet as a monarch he gets away with it. Well on the public level he does. On the private and spiritual level he pays a price indirectly. The child born of his adultery falls ill and none of David’s fasting and abasement before God will this time change the prophesied outcome. The child dies. Oddly to his servants he then rises from dramatic prostrations before God, washes, changes wardrobe, worships before a just God, eats, takes time to console his wife in intimacy and goes to the next leadership task. He models that even a leader, one who has boldly sinned, must face the cost of the sin and go on to his/her duty. There is a war at hand and a people who are to be lead and governed. It is not insignificant that there is the pause to worship and thus seek his place before God as a supplicant as opposed to angry self righteousness.
I cannot help but think of Bill Clinton and his domestic and staff sin with Monica. I cannot help but think of Anthony Weiner. Both were caught in their sin. I do see a difference. One is more repentant as I see it. One has not yet learned the tragic path of his choice. That is a critical difference if one is to lead.
In the Gospel we also have a lesson on leadership. It is an odd juxtaposition that Jesus has just described the cost of his vocation and his leadership. As a leader he shares his vision of what is to come, the betrayal, the death, the wait, the resurrection. There is no sign the disciples make sense of this and neither would we.
While this description is going on the disciples are diverted by their own concerns or reaction. They are discussing who among them is greatest. We do not have the content of that discussion only Jesus' next leadership task. It is not frustration or anger expressed but a noticing that a deeper lesson is now needed.
“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” Mark 9:35-37
This vulnerable member of society is placed before them, a child. Subject to adult authority, childhood diseases which can kill and where Jesus has frequently offered healing, this is the sign of a leader, to notice and care. Notice the Child is not his own but belongs to another. Notice the welcome is in Jesus' name, not their own. The welcome becomes a welcome of God in their midst. Jesus will go on to say as small a thing as going to your well and offering a cup of water in light of Jesus' coming and character will produce a gracious reward in the reign of God.
We all lead somewhere, in the playground of our youth, the gatherings we call family, the offices where we have some authority however small, in the arena of our neighborliness, somewhere we all have authority however great or small. The question is where do we lift another who has less or show concern for one who has more. Where do we see what is vulnerable and go to the well of our heart/mind and find a Christ-like action and bring it about…even just a wee act of awareness and kindness. By these we lead.
No comments:
Post a Comment