Built upon Believers

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/062316.cfm

2 Kings 24:8-17
Matthew 7:21-29

When Jesus finished these words,
the crowds were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority,
and not as their scribes. (Matthew 7:28-29)

Jesus had authority and power that astonished those he encountered. Why were the crowds astonished by him? Perhaps, like us, their experiences of authority did not reflect a person like Jesus. Life under the civil and religious authorities of Jesus’ time were difficult. They were continually stung by two extremes in authority — arrogance and incompetence. Upon meeting and listening to Jesus, we too would be stunned by Jesus’ presentation of authority in the face of what we know from today’s leaders.

Are there any leaders who astonish us like Jesus? Are we intent on being leaders who do as Jesus did? Or are we arrogant, and worse, incompetent?

Arrogant and haughty authority identifies its followers as underlings rather than those assigned to its care and protection. The pompous overlord operates as if its charges have no other choice but to obey. This presumptive form of rule distracts our attention away from teamwork. Plus, personal achievement is a duty rather than a joy. Recognition and appreciation from puffed up authority is limited to trophies and awards that honor more the graciousness and importance of the authority than the recipient. Loyalty to these authorities is torturous. The teaching style of the haughty lacks inspiration and engenders no creativity, because we are only cogs in their machine, limited to following a prescribed set of steps from a detailed manual.

The boisterous and self-centered leader, in fact, is often successful in the direction and implementation of their leadership, due to a well-trained and highly controlled populace. The relationship between us and such leaders, though, seldom develops into friendship. Tempers will fly when we butt heads with the arrogant, and we, as minions, are easily compromised and ultimately ruined. Still, we can love the arrogant due to their end game focus, but interaction with them must be limited to short intervals.

Some people imagine God the Father as this kind of authority. They feel the urgency to carefully follow rules provided by a touchy, potentially violent authority.

The opposite of this type of haughty, highly successful authority is actually no better. Consider the incompetent and deceitful authority figure. Their wrong-headed and ultimately divisive rule can drive the population to drink. Unable to escape the effects of constant chaos wrought by a faulty mindset a stressed out population resorts to drugs. The courageous in the population fare no better than the meek and worn out. Following continual failure in their battles against wicked and depraved officials, rebels who survive retaliation are forced to retreat into hiding. Immoral and inadequate leaders hold tightly to the reigns of power, resorting to nefarious and even criminal behavior to maintain their exercise of authority. Can we love the inept and cruel leader? No. How do we avoid them without becoming cowards? We cannot. The courageous retreat only to rest for the next attack. The coward runs away forever.

The teaching style from a deceitful premise relies upon propaganda. Not only does the end justify the means, but students who think differently than the established authority are shunned and considered dangerous.

Some people blame the world’s brokenness on an incompetent and probably surly god — one who continues to allow evil to move through the world like a contagion, incapable of bringing down the Hitlers and Stalins until millions of people have been slaughtered. This god appears to be so disappointed in his failed creation that he has abandoned them, leaving them to their own devices.

These are extremes, of course. Our lived relationships with authority, nonetheless, are often just a hair’s width from the descriptions above. Much of the world’s population inhabits spaces perilously close to these extremes. Everyone can find moments, if not lifetimes, where existence in our own homes and citizenship in our nations waxes and wanes between the haughty arrogant and nefarious incompetent authorities.

What does Jesus’ leadership offer? A relationship with guidance that follows both the natural order of things and the graces and mercy of divine love. Jesus teaches, lives inside us, and offers a perfect balance of power that cares for and protects everyone with the love of an eternal friend on one hand, and then on the other hand encourages and welcomes everyone to be courageous and do great things. Jesus is relationship, both as a friend and as the creator. Jesus’ love for us encourages our love for him.

Sounds great, but what can we do with that in the face of today’s tyrannical and mislead leaders? The same as the Jews who followed Jesus.

We struggle to envision an image of a God who acts in perfect balance, because our experiences of human authority rarely exemplify divine behavior. We naturally tend to concoct a picture of God from our life experiences of authority. Some of us were lucky to have parents, teachers, and civil authorities who understand what a perfect balance should look like. That’s probably because they didn’t concoct God, but allowed God to reveal who he was. The “good” authorities have an image of God formed by God. The “bad” leaders usually operate from concocted images of godly rule.

The middle class Jew of Jesus’ time struggled with the same problems we do in our leaders. The Romans may have run an efficient machine, but they were uncompromising and driven, and expected both allegiance and fealty. The Sanhedrin that ruled the Jewish culture and the class structure foisted complicated and corrupt burdens upon the population. Challenging either group’s authority was met with violence or banishment.

Then along came Jesus. Jesus wasn’t like the established authorities. The scriptures of the Jews had described who Jesus would be, but their experiences of how authority worked could not have presented whom Jesus would actually be. Their desires for God are very much like our own. We want a God who runs things efficiently, with care, protects everyone, not just the wealthy or the healthy, and who shares his power in such a way that we are integrally involved in the very creation that enfolds us.

Unfortunately, we find the implementation of God’s rule difficult to accept. We, like the Jews, expect a forceful leader to whack evil with the sword, to lift up only the worthy, and finally, remove the riffraff and the trash. In essence, we want Jesus (the Messiah) to take charge and replace rulers with folks like himself.

What does it mean to take charge, though? What does God show us when he is in charge? It’s nothing like we expect.

Jesus presents authority that astounds us with its clarity and sheer force of truth by calling us to be intimately connected to God. He changes nothing in the ruling powers and the powerful elite. He only desires to change hearts.

That’s not familiar to us. We don’t unconditionally hook our wagons to something that seems so powerless. Even if changing just ourselves is the goal, we are not just skeptical, but we are jaded. We have found that a weakness will eventually arise from even the best of our champions. In the back of our minds we know too, that the best of us will move on to some other venture, retire from office, or die. So, even if the consistency of a good man or woman heartens us, their reign is temporary. We want the efficient, accomplished, loving, inspiring and long-lasting leaders, but we can’t believe they are real. Especially when the leaders are asked to be us!

If Jesus is who he said he was, then his perfect delivery of love and leadership was no balancing act. Jesus properly, forcefully, and lovingly reigns, even today in what looks like a world run by bluster and results in chaos.

Further, if the reports of his resurrection are true then the temporary problem of a human, limited, and earthly reign has been solved. Jesus lives and operates with each of us, all at the same time, continually establishing the message we should follow and teach, the way we should walk on our path, and the expectations we should have for eternal life.

To be astonished by Jesus is to have our earthly image of a vengeful and top-down God flung aside. But, our secret hopes and dreams for a relational God are met in spades by Jesus.

What leaders should be coming out of such an awakening? That would be us, the believers who preach the message, walk with the Spirit, and yearn for heaven. What better example than us reflecting Jesus can there be? We are the example that Jesus wants made to the world. We are to be fully tuned in with the Father through the Spirit that guides our walk.

Do we believe it? Do we believe that’s what he wants us to do?