Kings, Shepherds, Leaders

Nov. 21, 2010 (Christ the King)

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Luke 1:67-79

How do you rate your leaders?  How is Obama doing?  Should Charlie Rangel keep his Senate seat?  Should Cathie Black have been appointed schools chancellor when neither she nor her children have ever attended public school?  What about Timothy Geithner on the stimulus and Mike Bloomberg on the well-being of the city?  And the guy who runs the meat department at Fairway?  We want and expect good leadership.  

Most of the time, we have a rather forgiving regard for those who lead.  Even if they cut a corner now and then.  Even if they make a little more money than common sense would recommend.  Even if they appear a little inhuman at times in their pursuit of their mission.  Even if they come off grumpy or self-absorbed.  For all that we can forgive them.  What we really want to know is whether our leaders lead in a way that brings life and health to others..  We want to know whether their leadership is also a form of service.  

Not everyone agrees that the essence of leadership is service.  Michael Korda - long time editor-in-chief with Simon and Schuster - wrote a book in 1975 entitled, Power! How to Get It, How to Use It.  It begins this way: “The purpose of this book is to show you how to use, recognize and live with power, and to convince you that the world you live in is a challenge and a game, and that a sense of power - your power - is at the core of it.  All life is a game of power.  The object of the game is simple enough: to know what you want and get it.  The moves of the game . . . involve the manipulation of people and situations to your advantage.”

He recommends strategies for how to wield and increase your power.  If you speak in hushed tones, others will have to lean in, thus seeming to bow before you.  If you are negotiating at a business lunch, move your glassware and the salt and pepper further towards their side, creating a visible sign that you are enlarging and they are ceding territory.  Get to meetings early so you can select a power seat.  Always buy expensive shoes (There’s a whole chapter on that).  Walk into other people’s offices unannounced and catch them by surprise - you’re already in the power position.  Do this for a lifetime, and you will accumulate power and all that power brings - money, sex, and prestige.  You might also be lonely.  

Today we’re asking what kind of leader Jesus is for us, and what kind of community that creates.  So we have in mind questions of huge importance in our culture - questions about power, authority, influence, and service.  Sometimes, you will hear Christians say that Jesus Christ abandoned power.  That’s not true.  He rejected selfish power.  And violent power.  But power is simply energy, the ability to get things done.  As such, it’s a gift from God.  One of our tasks as a new community is to learn to bend our powers in new directions.

Benedictus:

With Michael Korda’s advice in mind, turn now to a different account of power and how to use it.  Luke’s gospel story of Jesus’ life is prefaced by a song sung by an older Jewish man named Zechariah.  His song is widely known as the Benedictus, the latin word that begins the song, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.”  He is singing because God’s promises are finally coming true.  

Zechariah’s song appears in Luke’s story right before the report of Jesus’ birth.  But what Zechariah sings is the gladness of the early Christians as they began to come to grips with what had happened in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. 

According to Zechariah, the significance of Jesus’ life is that in him God has come among us to save.  The reason for Zechariah’s rejoicing, and ours, is that in this particular human life, God is actively working to bring about the renewal of the world God loves.  

Zechariah’s prophecy pictures God in action - notice all the verbs: God looks favorably, redeems, saves, speaks, shows mercy, remembers, rescues - all just like God promised.  In the arrival of Jesus, we are dealing with the emphatic YES of the one who fulfills God’s promises.  Jeremiah records God’s frustration with unfaithful emissaries and representatives.  And God declares, one day “I myself” will act to rescue my people.  

So what was it about Jesus’ life that convinced Zechariah, and the earliest followers of Jesus that in him God was actively present to save?  I suppose this is a good question for any of us who have committed ourselves to Jesus’ way of life, and for those who are considering doing so.  

Christians confess that there is more going on in Jesus’ life than you can see at first glance.  Yes, he lives a fully human life.  And most lives have just one story.  But his life has two.  His human life - all he does and suffers - is also the story of God.  That’s easy to say, but it takes a lifetime to come to grips with.  

One way into this high regard for Jesus’ life is to notice the connections drawn between Jesus and David.  Now those of you who have been around this Fall have heard a few sermons on the Life of David, Israel’s first and greatest King.  You might remember that David wanted to build a temple for God.  But God said, no thanks.  I don’t need you to build me a house.  In fact, I’m going to build you a house.  The house of your descendants will always serve me as king.

In Jeremiah, God says “I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (23:5).  And Zecharaiah sings: “God has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David” (v. 69).  

Jesus’ story unfolds for us as a working out of David’s story.  Maybe it would be better to say that Jesus’ story is the fulfillment of David’s story.  Like David, Jesus is a King.  That is to say, God’s reign among God’s people becomes manifest in Jesus’ life and leadership.  But this is where the comparison with David becomes delightfully complex.  Both Zechariah and Jeremiah offer us clues that unsettle and renew the idea of kingship.

Zechariah is a good Jew, of course he knows David is a king.  But he doesn’t call David a king.  He refers to him as “God’s servant David.”  So we have the strange juxtaposition of servant and king, king and servant.  Jeremiah pairs the role of king with that of shepherd.  Of course anyone who’s read David’s story knows that he was a shepherd before becoming king.  So what kind of king do we have in this Jesus?  A servant king.  A shepherd king.  These texts are inviting us to re-imagine kingship so that we can come to grips with reality and presence of Jesus in our lives.

Of course, efforts to stoke our imaginations with metaphors of kings and shepherds may strike us as less than convincing.  Yes, the world used to have kings and shepherds, just like it once required cobblers and blacksmiths.  The only royal families we’re aware of are either irrelevant, like Queen Elizabeth, or spoiled tyrants like the Sultan of Brunei (who, I recently read, has a collection of 7,000 exotic cars).  But we’re trying to decide if we can entrust our lives to the Jesus story.  Whether it makes sense for us to give up everything, so that we can “center” ourselves around him.

Let’s be honest.  When we think of sheep and shepherds, the image is not positive.  To call someone “sheepish” is not a compliment.  Sheep don’t think for themselves.  They just do what they’re told.  In our minds, the relationship between shepherd and sheep is one of control.  We don’t want to be sheep because we value non-sheep qualities like agency and creativity and self-expression and self-determination.

The relationship between shepherds and sheep in the biblical stories has nothing to do with control.  It’s all about care.  A good shepherd cares for the sheep.  Guides and guards the sheep.  Leads the sheep to grassy meadows and fresh water.  Protects the vulnerable sheep from harm.  The shepherd’s job is to make sure the sheep flourish.

Jesus’ kingly governance is the work of a servant, the work of a shepherd.  His way of bringing God’s reign to bear on our lives has nothing to do with domination or coercion or control.  He is the shepherd who willingly, freely, and gladly gives up his life for the sake of his sheep.  In Jesus, we have a king who chooses the path of ruin for himself so that we can flourish.

In Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Enchantress of Florence, the Mughal kingdom’s lush and extravagant capitol city of Sikri loses it’s water supply.  The Mughal Emperor Akbar makes the decision to leave the old capitol and set out to found a new city by a reliable water supply.  The emperor’s caravan involves thousands of officials and skilled craftsmen, and their wives and children.  But they do not take the poor.  They leave them behind.  The novel ends with the doomed and thirsty poor roaming the abandoned city, knowing they have been discarded.  This king only had promises to the elite.  

That is, of course, how most kings rule.  It’s how most people with power operate.  It’s how many leaders lead.  But it’s not how God reigns in and through Jesus.  God makes and keeps promises to the poorest and weakest and neediest.  At the end of the gospel story we find not betrayal of the poor, but fidelity to them.  Of course, we are invited to see ourselves as the poorest and neediest of all.  And God’s way of leading us in Jesus Christ shocks and surprises us.  It makes us the kind of people who want to embody that goodness in our own lives.

The Importance of Leadership

In the last two or three decades, “leadership” has become a huge concern in almost every sphere of life.  Bookstore shelves are loaded with advice on leadership.  Our educational institutions and business schools talk incessantly about leadership and management.  This might mean that we are experiencing a renaissance of good leadership.  It might also mean that we are anxious and confused about leadership. 

Is it about the way people are wired up psychologically?

Is it about education and credentials?  

Is it about your title and occupational role?

Is it about ambition - how hard you work and how much you’re willing to sacrifice?

Is it about influence?  About networks and connections?

Is it primarily about control - how much control you have over others?  

Is is about prestige and status?

Our culture hasn’t fully sorted out these questions.  But we all know that every community needs good leaders.  New communities like Incarnation are no exception.  A large part of life is leading and being led.  Leading and following aren’t roles assigned to different people.  They are both part of everyone’s life.  Schools and businesses pay so much  attention to how to identify, train, and hire “leaders.”  This can make us think that leadership is a rare gift embodied in a few particular people who have very particular kinds of skill sets and careers.  Not true.  We all exercise leadership in some capacity.  The dynamic of leading and following is part of life, and part of the life of faith.

Most of us want to follow a leader who is as interested in our development and well-being as we are.  You want someone who is not going to use you for their own gain.  You want someone who is capable of a kind of forgetfulness about themselves so that they can have your best interests in mind.  That is what a shepherd king does.  That is God’s way of dealing with us in Jesus Christ.  And that is how we’re learning to live together as a community of God’s people.

Conclusion

We are not a community where a few lead and the rest follow.  We are a community of persons who all lead and follow at different times and in different ways.  And in all of this, we are reflecting the goodness of God in all the places we live, play, and work.  The ending of Zecharaiah’s song imagines the arrival of dawn after a long night.  Light breaks on those who are sitting in darkness, those living in the “shadow of death.”  And this light comes to guide our feet into the way of peace.  A new day means we’re up and walking again.  No longer are we stuck, trapped, and scared.  The light breaks, and we can see the path laid out before us.  This is the way towards gladness.