John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your
name,
and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”
But Jesus said, “Do not stop him;…whoever is not against us is for us. (Mark
9:38–40)
Whoever is not against us is for us!
This morning, and this past week, I am reminded of one of
the great stories of our Bible, from the Book of Numbers – a powerful story,
which has much to teach us about leadership in any generation. In short, it is
a story about Moses, and two of his more obscure followers, Eldad and Medad.
At Numbers,
chapter 11, the story occurs in the desert of Sinai, after Moses has led
the Hebrews to freedom from the oppression of the ancient Egyptians. It is an
unfortunate feature of life, in any generation, that the newly freed people
soon begin to complain about their leader.
“Why have you brought us out to the desert?” they complain. “We
would rather be back where the food was delicious. We remember the fish and the
melons and the onions and garlic and leeks of Egypt!” Yes, the Hebrews, in
their anxiety and distress, are so upset that they are longing to return to the
conditions of slavery. Such is the human condition!
Moses, in turn, great leader that he was, turns to deliver
the same sort of complaint to his Lord! Moses asks God, “ Why have you treated
me so badly? Why have you laid the burden of all these weeping people on me?”
“I am not able to carry the burden of this people alone,” Moses says. He is
exasperated.
So, according to the story, Yahweh commands Moses to specify
seventy people, seventy elders, and take them to the Tent of Meeting. There,
Yahweh will take some of the spirit that Moses has and place it upon the heads
of the seventy elders. Thus, the leadership assigned to Moses will be
distributed and delegated. Moses’ burden will be mitigated, and the people will
actually be cared for in a better way, with distributed leadership. It’s a
great story about distributed authority, again a story with much to teach us in
our own time, and in any time. Authority that rests in only one individual,
even if that person is wonderful, is not as effective and healthy as
distributed authority!
But something crazy happens! When these newly ordained
seventy elders have received the spirit and they are prophesying healthily,
why, they hear about two other people. Apparently, Eldad and Medad, way outside
the tent, are not with the seventy properly ordained elders; and, yet, some of
the spirit has come upon them, too, and they are prophesying! Joshua comes
running up to Moses and says, “Moses! Stop them! They are not with us!”
Moses, in his expansive wisdom, recognizes immediately what
has occurred. “Are you jealous for my sake?” he asks, “Would that al the Lord’s
people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” That is,
the Lord’s spirit is larger than any one set of people, or any one system, or
any one authority. There is enough of the Lord’s spirit to rest upon all of
God’s people, not just those properly delegated and ordained, not just upon the
chosen few, not just upon the ideologically pure.
Ideological purity. In many of our strongest institutions
today, there exists a self-destructive illness which has been inside humanity
for our entire existence. I call it an illness, but it is really a
psychological predilection marked by twin viruses: the virus of purity insistence,
and the virus of empire arrogance. In politics, in church, in society, purity
insistence and empire arrogance clamor for “all or nothing” strategies: “my way
or the highway,” they say. “If you are not exactly for me and like me, then I
am against you.”
There is a startling similarity between purity insistence
and empire arrogance. The church is at its worst when it is tempted towards
empire, when it wants to anoint emperors instead of servants, when its leaders think
leadership is simply making sweeping and absolutist pronouncements. Even when
those pronouncements seem good, and even when we might agree with them, if the
nature of those pronouncements is imperial, then a dangerous disease is
imminent.
The church is also at its worst when it insists on purity,
when it demands that every member follow every jot and tittle of whatever the
contemporary standard of law is. And remember: every party, every religious
system, contains some sort of law. Democrats have their liberal markers, and
republicans have their conservative ones. So do churches. We have little
markers, indicators, litmus tests, of whether someone is with us or against us.
Those litmus tests are our purity indicators.
Purity indicators in our time might be such issues as
abortion, same-sex marriage, for sure. But they are also such issues as
opposition to the death penalty and gun control laws. Our temptation is to
simply destroy those who are against us.
Whatever your politics, you had to admire the rather sacrificial
act of Congressman John Boehner this past week, who found himself running afoul
of the purity insisters. In resigning his office, he simply refused to play the
game of fruitless polarization.
John Boehner admitted enormous pride and consolation from
his association with Pope Francis. The Roman Catholic pope, of course, might be
the one leader in this world who would be most prone to purity insistence and
empire pride. Christian churches, of whatever denomination, are continually tempted
to those illnesses; and the Roman Catholic Church can sure seem like an empire,
a power accustomed to demanding and receiving its own way.
But Francis, of course, has brought a different attitude to
his leadership, one that is worth emulating, truly trying to mirror the
leadership of Christ. In Washington this past week, Pope Francis told his
fellow bishops that “the path ahead,
then, is dialogue among yourselves, dialogue in your presbyterates, dialogue
with lay persons, dialogue with families, dialogue with society. …Harsh and
divisive language does not befit the tongue of a pastor, it has no place in his
heart; although it may momentarily seem to win the day, only the enduring
allure of goodness and love remains truly convincing.” (Pope
Francis to other bishops at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle,
Washington, DC, September 23, 2015)
And to the United States Congress, Pope Francis urged our
country to avoid polarization. He said that “there
is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic
reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and
sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of
our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization
which would divide it into these two camps.” (Pope
Francis addresses the United States Congress on Thursday, September 24, 2015)
So, this week, I have been reminded that the way of Jesus is
not the way of “All or Nothing.” Great governments include strong voices who
honor and respect those across the aisle. Great churches recognize that the
Spirit of God is larger than any one party or doctrine. While seventy leaders
are being ordained in the main tent, let Eldad and Medad prophesy
enthusiastically in another place. Our energy and good will need not be diminished
because someone else, not with us, is doing something equally good!
The way of Jesus lets other disciples, not only his own,
also cast out demons and heal the sick. You don’t have to agree with my
politics for me to appreciate the good that you are doing in the world. You
don’t have to be a member of my church, or of my religion, or of my group of
disciples, for the Spirit of God to be at work in you.
AMEN.
(This was also the
sermon preached by the Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler, at the Cathedral of St.
Philip, on Sunday, September 27, 2015.)
