Tag: Presence of Christ

Leading For Good, For All

Your influence is your leadership.

For a community and organization to forsee and flourish, people must use their influence for the common good or what our founders referred to as the Commonwealth.

That means character and integrity must be evidenced every day, along with accountability and friendship, since no one can be successful alone.

There must be a spiritual center to the common good- we are not just thoughts and actions, we need a power greater than ourselves to guide, convict, and compel us to do what is good, true, beautiful and just for all.

The following Psalm was part of the Scripture for the lectionary reading this morning:

“But they flattered the LORD with their mouths;
they lied to him with their tongues.
Their heart was not steadfast towards him;
they were not true to his covenant.
Yet God, being compassionate,
forgave their iniquity,
and did not destroy them;
often he restrained his anger,
and did not stir up all his wrath.
He remembered that they were but flesh,
a wind that passes and does not come again.”
[Psalm 78.36-39, NRSV]

Psalm 78 is a poetic summary of the turbulent relationship between God and the leaders of Israel. It highlights God’s faithfulness to them and their inconsistent loyalty. It’s a vulnerable song, laying open the reality of being God’s people.

God has to put up with leaders who don’t trust him, who profoundly wrong one another, and bring shame on his name – and yet God has bound himself to his people and must find ways to care for and correct them, to reprimand and transform them.

People follow leaders. God works through leaders.  I look up to leaders who help me look up to God. It’s so painful when the leaders I looked up to who helped me look up to God were also at the same time looking down on other people and taking advantage of them in despicable ways.

The psalm puts in perspective the stories that continue to emerge of abuse by Christian leaders towards women, children, other men, the church, and the world.

While this news is “old news” in that abuse and sin has always been part of humanity, America and the Christian religion, it also highlights the need for “good news” – the leadership of Christ Jesus the Lord.

Through his example and Spirit, Christ convicts a society and people of sin, humbles us to repentance and fosters transformation towards loving kindness in all things.

It’s disillusioning to hear of Christian leaders who hurt those they serve.

Especially when it is influential American Evangelical Church pastors. It’s not just “those Christians” who do terrible things, it’s now my tribe, my role models, the pastor that deeply shaped how I think about and do ministry with the church.

This renews my resolve to treat everyone with dignity, to not abuse anyone, and faithfully follow the Lord. But it also makes me question myself and to be brutally honest about “but for the grace of God, it could have been me.”

Like the psalmist recalls, it is easy to flatter God and others while ruminating and planning dark things. No one is righteous, everyone has sinned, which is why lament and repentance are essential to the Christian community.

We lie to God and ourselves when we insist on how good we are while glossing over what is wrong with our culture, our thoughts, and actions. Sometimes it takes death and brokenness to open our eyes to the sins we’ve committed and been blind to. 

It’s not just a matter of will-power to resist the temptation to lust, greed, gluttony, pride, and envy. It’s not just a mind and body struggle, but also a spiritual struggle with power.

The more influence one accumulates, the more checks and balances, the more accountability and friendship is needed to support spiritual practices so that you and those you influence become more humble and kind, wise and just in your dealings with everyone.

Staying attuned to the presence of Christ in all places and times is central to it. The sacrificial, generous, wise, courageous, patient and compassionate leadership of Jesus can be real within us, and through us.

Lead for good, for all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surviving Storms

When I was in high school, my best friend and I took our small speed boat out onto the lake with some friends, even though we knew a storm was coming. We were hoping to have some fun skiing and tubing before the rain came.

As it started to drizzle, we decided it was a good time to head into shore. But it was too late! The winds became vicious, the waves big, we made it back to the dock – soaked and scared.

Storms are part of our life on Earth. It’s nothing personal, just part of how the ecosystem works. With some accumulated wisdom, preparation, and cooperation, we can survive most storms.

But as we know, there are storms that swamp us unexpected. And not just windstorms, but also soul-storms, hearts breaking open with tears of sorrow, hopes battered by rains of disappointment. What then?

 

This was the kind of stormy political and personal place the disciples of Jesus were in as they crossed the furious Sea of Galilee with him one evening. As people of Israel, their souls ached for God to return the nation to their former days of glory when a son of David reigned as king, ruling with justice, mercy, and humility.

Instead, they struggled to survive under the violent thumb of the Roman Empire – prior to that it was enduring the turbulent rule of the Greek Empire, and before that putting up with the powerful Persian Empire, which had inherited Israel from the Babylonian Empire. Imagine trying to survive amidst those political terrors.

The gospel that Jesus was preaching centered on the announcement that God had indeed returned to Israel to reestablish the throne of David – the kingdom of God was coming, so be prepared. It was difficult for the people of Israel to believe that Jesus was the king come to save them. Slowly Jesus would reveal who he really was, usually in decisive moments, often times in the midst of personal, political, and powerful storms.

For the disciples in the boat with him, they were terrified that they were going to die. The furious squall stirred up fear, and it swamped their faith. That’s what storms can do. Interestingly, even with Jesus in the boat, they still had no faith in him.

Sometimes we think that if we could only see Jesus, it’d be easier to believe in him. But that wasn’t the case with the disciples or the people of Israel. Seeing is not always believing.

Jesus asks his disciples, “Why are you so afraid?” Why are you so afraid of death? Why are you so afraid of chaos? Why are you so afraid…? To his disciples who had been with him, he spoke straight: “Do you still have no faith?”

Storms not only reveal our fears, and our lack of faith, but also the faithfulness of Jesus to us. Some storms he will calm. But he can’t and won’t still all the storms of our life. Storms are part of life, and through them we can see our fears and become open to the faithfulness and presence of Jesus.

Jesus is present to people in this stormy world by his Spirit and by his people who are faithful to him. When we have storms, we must receive the people God sends to be with us.

But when others are swamped by their storms, will we let God send us to be with them, to bring the presence of Christ to them amidst their fears and drowning faith?

Whether the storms are personal, political, or powerful natural phenomena – may Jesus’s faithfulness calm our fears when we barely believe, may our surviving make us braver, that we may extend the presence of Christ together in bigger storms to come.