Paul told the Thessalonians that those who don’t work shouldn’t eat. But who didn’t work in the first century? Leaders.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the third chapter of Paul Second Letter to the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 3:6-13). It’s an odd section. Paul raised an issue that he raised very rarely in his other surviving letters: that is the question of people who didn’t want to work.
Now, how many people actually do want to work? I don’t particularly want to work. I have to for a couple of reasons. One, of course, is that I like to fulfill other people’s expectations. Another is that I enjoy having a place to live and things to eat, and those come to me through work. And it must be said that if I didn’t work in this vocation to which God has called me, I’d be hearing about it from God.
And I do like to sleep through the night.
Most people in the first century had to work. They had no other option. They were poor. If they went very long without working, then there wasn’t anything that was going to come in. A fair number of the people in the Thessalonian church were probably slaves. They didn’t have any choice about whether to work or not.
So one of the questions that I bring to this particular passage is: who was Paul talking about? Who was in that church that had the ability to not work?
The answer I come up with is: leadership. Leaders within the church.
There were people in the first century who didn’t work (at least, compared to the vast majority of the poor people of the time). Those would have been the wealthy landowners, the nobility, the members of the imperial family. That’s a very small number of people indeed. So why would there have been people in this struggling Christian congregation in Thessalonica who were able to not work? Were they entirely relying upon the charity of the other members of the church? Quite possibly, but why would they think they could do that at all?
And I think they were emulating Roman custom, or at least Roman style. If you were a leader, you didn’t work. If you were in charge, you didn’t work. If you had the right of command, you didn’t work.
Paul made clear in a couple of his letters that one of his practices was to avoid burdening the churches that he was working with as they were born and initially developed. He maintained a vocation, a profession, and funded his work that way. He also says in this section that he had a right to be supported by the people in the church. So I think the ones who are asserting a right to be cared for by the people of the church are not the elderly who worked as much as they can. It’s not the sick who can no longer make the efforts without collapsing. And it’s certainly not the poorest of the poor who’ve worked all their lives.
It’s the leaders. It’s the ones in charge. They — we — are the ones most likely to take advantage of others’ resources and rely on them, and not take care of ourselves.
So as you think what about people who work, as you think about the people who lead, remember that leadership and work are supposed to be united. Leadership and work are supposed to go hand in hand. Leadership and leisure, at least in Paul’s eyes, not so much.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
Some of you have heard me say that I’m second-generation clergy, but that I was ordained first. It’s true. My father, the Rev. Lynn W. Anderson, was ordained in 1996 after retiring from a long and well-respected career as a public school educator. I went straight from college to seminary and into ministry, so I was ordained in 1988.
It would also be true to say that I’m second-generation clergy twice, because my dad met a wonderful woman while studying at Andover Newton Theological School. She became the Rev. Shirley P. Anderson, stepmother to me and my brother, and grandmother to my children. She served churches in Connecticut and Massachusetts with a smiling spirit that comforted and encouraged a fainting heart. She loved the presence of other people, whether they were family, congregation members, or former-strangers-now-friends.
She always asked the names of servers in restaurants and she always remembered them. And as my dad said any number of times, she closed every place she ever visited, staying engaged in talking story until it was somewhat past time to go home.
Sadly, Shirley Anderson died on August 13 at her home in Watertown, New York. She leaves two children and their spouses, two stepchildren and one spouse, and seven grandchildren.
She also leaves a witness to God’s grace and love that will live on in the hearts of so many who worked with her, listened to her, poured out their hearts to her, or just listened to the pure merriment of her laughter. Like few I have known, she revealed what is great about Christians, the Christian faith, and Christ himself: a compassionate heart.
Mahalo nui loa, ke Akua, for Shirley Anderson.
In peace,
Pastor Eric
The photo is of the Rev. Shirley Anderson at her retirement service in 2009. Photo by Eric Anderson.
Jesus promised his disciples that the Holy Spirit would lead them into all truth. May we be wise enough to follow!
Here’s a transcript:
As we come to Trinity Sunday, I’m thinking about the sixteenth chapter of John’s Gospel (John 16:12-15), yet another portion of Jesus’ “Farewell Address to his Disciples.” In this section, Jesus promised them the gift of the Holy Spirit once again.
This time Jesus described it as the Spirit of Truth that would lead them into all truth. I hate to say it, but in the twenty-first century we have not valued all truth, have we? We live surrounded by half-truths. We live surrounded by outright deceptions.
Many of them take place in our entertainment. I’m not talking about, you know, fictional stories: I’m talking about the advertising that accompanies them. Their claims to make our lives better are, at best, exaggerated. At worst, they’re outright falsehoods. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve purchased over the years that simply have not lived up to the claims. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve purchased over the years that I’ve come to regret, for the waste of my time and effort and, yes, money, trying to make them work in the way they were claimed to work.
Sadly, we in the United states have come to believe that the leaders we elect lie to us and do so routinely. Sometimes we believe it’s only the opponents of our selected political party that lie to us, but in general we tend to say something like, “Well, politicians will lie.”
Jesus told his disciples that that was not an acceptable state of affairs. Jesus said that the wisdom of God, the work of the Holy Spirit, was the work of truth, is the work of truth. You and I do not need to accept lies. We need to insist upon truth. It is what we are due. It is what the Holy Spirit has come to bring us, or to lead us to.
So as you watch the advertisements, as you listen to the leaders, insist upon truth. And if you don’t get it, insist further upon truth. And if you still don’t get it, insist further upon truth.
It is, truth is, what the Holy Spirit will lead us to if we follow the Spirit’s guidance and take our steps along the way.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
The authors and editors of Second Samuel have labeled this poem “The Last Words of David.” Ralph W. Klein has noted that this is the first of ten passages one might call “the last words of David.” There’s a part of me wondering if David kept talking in the hope that so many last words meant he’d never die… Well, no.
Among David’s talents in life was poet and songwriter. Seventy-three of the 150 psalms are credited to him, and the Books of Samuel contain other songs remembered as his work. If I were a monarch and a songwriter – I guess I claim one, but not both, of those titles – if I were both, I would be very pleased to write a song like these words in 2 Samuel to summarize the nature of my life as a king.
The God of Israel has spoken; the Rock of Israel has said to me: “One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy land.”
Is not my house like this with God? For he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.
If I were David, that’s how I’d like to be remembered.
As Kathryn M. Schifferdecker writes at Working Preacher, “The light of morning, especially after a good rain — that’s what a God-fearing king is like. In the semi-arid land that is Israel, rain is a very precious resource. A good, soaking rain during the night, and then the sun rising to bring forth grass and grain and fruit from the earth — these are priceless gifts of God. And so is a good, just king, one who rules in the fear of the Lord. Both enable life to flourish.”
If you’re struggling to imagine this, think of what rain brings in Kona rather than Hilo, and it will make more sense.
“Is not my house like this with God?” David asked, rhetorically, I’m sure. But it’s a question that has a complicated answer. David lived for many years as an armed rebel opposed to the established government. In order to support himself and his army he became a mercenary, and contracted with the nation’s enemies. After the death of King Saul and most of his heirs, David used military force to subdue other claimants and gain the crown. David committed rape against Bathsheba and murder against her husband Uriah. David’s apparent failure to hear the complaints of the citizens primed the rebellion of his son Absalom. In their next book, 1 Kings, the authors of 2 Samuel described yet another attempt by one of David’s sons to usurp the throne.
In writing these “Last Words of David,” he was wearing rose-colored glasses that I’d describe as more rose than glass. Valerie Bridgman writes at Working Preacher, “As a former hospice chaplain, I know that when people come to the end of life, their memories often soften to ‘clean up’ the messiness of their lives.”
In this poem, he cleaned up the past, for sure. As he “cleaned up,” he managed to tell the truth. The characteristics of a good ruler, a proper leader, are as he described. They seek to bring justice to their people. They start with what we would think as structures to define liberties and responsibilities, that seek to prevent people from being injured by others, or being so heavily burdened that they lapse into poverty. The laws you’ll find in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy provided that framework. Among the obligations you’ll find there is to make sure that widows, orphans, and foreigners had access to food, and that they were not denied shelter.
Beyond structural justice comes the resolution of disputes, both those we call crimes and those we call civil complaints. Some of those – probably most of those – would have been resolved within the villages or the family groups without ever coming to the King. Respected adults in the clan or a council of elders would have resolved the questions of disputed property lines, who owned the stray goat that turned up in somebody’s herd, and what should be done about the fight between those two guys. It was the more difficult cases that went to the monarch, who had to discern truth that others were not able to.
Ah, truth. Another essential characteristic of just leadership. One mentioned by none other than Jesus himself. Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org, “Jesus prioritizes truth to such a degree that he frames his life’s ministry, from incarnation to this moment and beyond, to his act of testifying to the truth. Truth is so important to Jesus that he told the Samaritan woman at the well that the test of worship is the measure of spirit and truth. Above all, therefore, the good news is centered, anchored, and rooted in truth. This is our test; let it be our testimony. Testify to the truth.”
We might, with Pontius Pilate, mutter, “What is truth?” at this point and leave the room. Jesus didn’t answer Pilate’s questions at any point thereafter.
I think we can do better than Pontius Pilate.
In the Last Words of David, we have the truth about leadership, power, and authority. It is founded in justice. Further, it stands upon accountability. That’s what it means to rule “in the fear of God.” David the King, when he was doing well, realized that he needed the support of his officials and his people. He took care to listen to their concerns. Several of the stories about David are not about how resolute he was, but how willing he was to change his mind when someone brought him new information. If you’re going to be rigid as a leader, then you’d better be right every time, and who does that? If you won’t learn as a leader, frankly, what good are you?
David’s capacity to change his mind was one of his best qualities.
David described himself in this poem as “the oracle of God,” that is, one empowered to speak on God’s behalf. That doesn’t sound particularly humble, and it wasn’t. He called himself the man God exalted – again, not humble. He called himself the anointed of the God of Jacob, and if you were wondering if he’d found humility yet, no.
All these titles, however exalted, did reveal another truth. It was God who spoke. It was God who exalted. It was God who anointed. David might have been king, but God made him so.
He was accountable to the people and to those around him. Most of all, he was accountable to God.
His greatest successes took place when he remembered God’s authority over his. His greatest failures took place when he believed he had more authority than God.
Rulers who acknowledge no accountability to others are not like the light of the morning shining upon grassy meadows drinking in the night’s rain. No, they are like the weeds and thorns that nobody wants to touch because they injure you. They are like the things cut and gathered and burned because there’s nothing more to be done with them.
Good leadership brings light. Poor leadership brings thorns.
Those are the standards for us to use in evaluating our leaders. Do their stated policies promise light, or do they promise thorns? What experience do we have of them? Did their leadership shine, or did it cut and pierce? Did they strengthen structures of justice or did they dismantle them? Did they make decisions based on fact and fairness? Did they tell the truth? Did they acknowledge accountability to others? Did they claim to be more than they were?
Light? Or thorns?
These are also the standards to use in evaluating our own leadership. Have we illuminated? Have we encouraged? Have we assisted the people on the margins? Have we been humble before God? Have we told the truth? Have we diligently worked to understand the truth?
Light? Or thorns?
Pilate never learned the truth from Jesus. He crowned him with thorns, not light. Three or four years after sending Jesus to the cross Pontius Pilate was ordered back to Rome to explain why he had executed a group of Samaritans. We don’t know what happened with that. The Emperor died before Pilate reached Rome, and no record survives.
Thorns. Not light.
Jesus went to the cross wearing thorns, and rose from the grave to enlighten the world. Jesus did not reach for the temporal power of a Pilate or a David or an Emperor Tiberius. He simply told the truth.
Let this be our leadership, and let this be our leaders: Tellers of truth. Builders of justice. Wise and discerning souls. Open to learn. Accountable to those they lead and to God.
Light. Not thorns.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric sometimes improvises while preaching. “Sometimes” means “every week, at least a little.”
What distinguishes great leadership from poor? Great leadership brings light. Poor leadership brings thorns.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the twenty-third chapter of Second Samuel (2 Samuel 23:1-7), which opens by saying that these are the last words of David.
The short poem makes 2 points. The first: that those who rule in the fear of God are like the light of the morning. Second: that the godless are like thorns that are cast away.
The later writers who assembled these words (and many other histories and documents and stories) into that great series of books from Joshua and Judges all the way to First and Second Kings: they made this difference between light and thorns into a great evaluative theme. They considered each of the leaders and rulers and asked, “Did they bring light or did they bring thorns?”
The Deuteronomic History is not a dispassionate and even-handed kind of review of history. It is, instead, a theological work, looking for the signs of those who ruled in the fear of God — and frequently finding the signs of those who did not.
To be honest, I can’t be certain in advance what any ruler will do, and I find it difficult often to discern just from someone’s words whether they fear God or not, whether they respect God or not, whether they endeavor to bring the righteousness of God to their lives and to their leadership. It’s hard to tell.
It’s easier to tell from what they’ve done. Thorns, you see: they harm. They scratch. They bite. Thorns, remember, were placed upon the head of Jesus Christ.
And light? Light enables us to see. Where there… where there are things that are hidden, where there are lies, where there is something that is not mystery but menace, well: that is not light, now is it? Light reveals. Light defines. Light warms and comforts.
Centuries after this poem was written, Jesus stood before Pilate. Pilate asked him if he was a king. Jesus said, my realm is of truth, and Pilate asked, “What is truth?” Well, truth is what happens when we bring light. Light reveals truth. And one of the things that revealed Pilate for who he was, was his inability to (or refusal to) go into not just the nature of truth, but the reality of truth, and discover there what it means to honor God.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
Jesus warned about greed among religious leaders – and then observed the consequences.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the twelfth chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 12:38-44). At the end of the chapter, as Jesus and his disciples were sitting in the Temple, and none of the officials were any longer willing to ask him any questions or engage him in conversation, Jesus looked around at them all and told his disciples to beware of the scribes. That is, to beware of those who had high position in the official religion of the day.
He criticized them for their appearance, criticized them for their affection for power and respect. He warned that they devour widows’ homes.
And in the next story, Mark describes Jesus as he observed a woman putting two small coins into the giving box for the Temple treasury. “She has given more than any of the rest,” he told his followers, “because she has given everything she had, everything she had to live on.”
It is, on the one hand, an example of extraordinary generosity, of faithful giving, of giving with faith that something will come from God tomorrow — because there is nothing left from today. On the other hand, it is also an example of what Jesus had warned about in the preceding paragraph, in what he taught about religious leaders. “They devour widows’ houses.” And that is exactly what happened when that woman put in the last two coins, all that she had to live on.
I am a religious leader and I am familiar with all the anxieties of maintaining a budget for a church. It is no easier in the twenty-first century than it was in the first century and I am sure that the priests and the scribes and all the rest of them wondered how it was that they were going to maintain that magnificent Temple there in Jerusalem. I wonder how we are going to maintain our structure, how we are going to maintain our programs, how we’re going to maintain our ministries, how we’re going to maintain our faith without significant gifts from our worshippers and our friends.
But do not let me do not let us devour the houses of the most vulnerable, of the most needy in the world.
Do not give us your last two coins.
Give us that — not so much which you can do without — give us that which will enable you to feel good about your giving, to know that you have extended yourself, and are still able to maintain yourself in a life that is rich and full (not wealthy, necessarily, but rich and full).
I would not devour any widows’ home, any poor person’s home, any person that is struggling: I would not devour their home. Give what is right, but also give with an eye to tomorrow, that you may have something to live on.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
Sometimes I feel like Jesus and I have something in common. I felt like this as the parent of young children, and as the technical support person for people confused about computers, and as a preacher. The thing I think we have in common is:
We repeat ourselves.
If you missed that: Jesus and I repeat ourselves. Repeatedly.
Jesus dealt with this question of “who is the greatest” twice in Mark’s Gospel. In Matthew, it rises to four times if you include the time Jesus told his disciples that those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. In Luke, the count rises to five.
So it seems likely that Jesus tried to get this message across, and it also seems likely that it was a rough message for folks in the early decades of the church, because the Gospel writers emphasized it and re-emphasized it. Uniquely, Luke sets this debate about who is the greatest, and Jesus’ counter to it, at the Last Supper. The Last Supper. Talk about giving this message pride of place!
I haven’t mentioned this message’s appearance in the Gospel of John, because, well, John chose fewer stories for his Gospel and he didn’t tell the one about the disciples arguing about greatness. At the Last Supper, however, John did describe Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. It’s the same theme as what we hear from Luke, isn’t it?
Jesus said, “The kings of the gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather, the greatest among you must become like the youngest and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”
It’s… kind of a tricky message in this world of ours, though. For several centuries, the powerful have successfully appealed to it to discourage the powerless, the poor, and the oppressed from protesting their condition. Speaking this message as a kahu, I run the risk of telling my hearers that they should accept injustice. Plenty of people have told them precisely this: your condition is the will of God, and Jesus says, “Accept it, and oh by the way, give thanks that you’re poor and the person telling you this is rich.”
Jesus, however, didn’t say that. Jesus quoted Isaiah about the rich being sent away empty. Jesus told that story about the reversal of fortunes experienced by a poor man and a rich man after their deaths. It was the rich and the powerful who made sure Jesus died upon a cross.
Jesus wasn’t one of the rich and the powerful. His disciples gave him respect as a teacher and guide, but he didn’t move in the circles of the priesthood or the nobility and certainly not the monarchy. When he spoke of servants, he spoke of people not that much different from himself.
I think Jesus envisioned a world of compassion and care. If all are servants to one another, nobody oppresses anyone else. If all are servants to one another, all benefit from one another’s service. If all are servants to one another, all needs can be satisfied.
We’re a long way from that.
The question is, how do we get there?
We get there by focusing on that goal: a world of compassion and care. We get there by taking steps that are consistent with the goal – deeds of compassion and care – and by naming the deeds that are compassionless and uncaring. We get there by refusing to resort to the means of the oppressors, violence and force. We get there by describing the vision in such a way that others adopt it for their own.
We get there by feeding one another on the life and spirit of Jesus, who meets us at this table, the table at which he repeated himself, saying: “For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
There was no audio or video recording of this sermon, which was offered to the ‘Aha Mokupuni of the Hawai’i Island Association on October 19, 2024.
I do not share a lot of character traits with Moses, sad to say. I do not have a relationship with God such that I’m likely to receive stone tablets inscribed with commandments. I’m not likely to so impress a tyrant to free a substantial population of oppressed people – more’s the pity. I will probably not lead a group of people into a place of scarce resources. You might feel somewhat relieved about that last one. Frankly, so am I.
There is one characteristic that we share, however. Moses and I can both… whine.
Moses had reason to be upset, at least more reason than I usually do. As David G. Garber, Jr., writes at Working Preacher, “The lectionary verses return our focus to the character of Moses, caught between a weeping people and an angry God. Moses turns to the lament tradition and asks God why God set the burden of leadership upon him. Like Elijah, Jonah, and Job, Moses resorts to the extreme language of a death wish at the conclusion of his protest: ‘If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once—if I have found favor in your sight—and do not let me see my misery’ (verse 15).”
“If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once.” That’s quite a whine.
As Terence E. Fretheim writes at Working Preacher, “The people have been taken out of Egypt, but it proves difficult to take Egypt out of the people. The familiar orderliness of Egypt seems preferable to the insecurities of life lived from one oasis to the next.”
I understand Moses’ whining. I also understand the people’s concerns. Earlier in the Book of Exodus, God generally responded to their complaints with swift compassion. They were thirsty – there was water. They were hungry – there was manna. They were chaotic – there was Law.
Here in Numbers, however, as they moved away from Sinai toward their destination, God’s responses changed. As Margaret Odell writes at Working Preacher, “In Exodus, the same complaint sounded like vulnerability; here it smacks of rebellion. By the end of the chapter (and outside of this lectionary selection), God will respond to the complaint by sending so much quail it will come out of the Israelites’ nostrils. God judges complaining Israel with a blessing — or blesses them with judgment; it’s hard to tell.”
Before sending the quail, however, God did something else. God dealt with the whining leader before dealing with the weeping people. God gave Moses some help.
“Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel,” God said. These were already leaders within their families and their extended clans. They would have arbitrated disputes and comforted disappointments and given good advice. They were not, however, regarded as part of the overall leadership of the travelling nation of Israel. People would bring some questions to an elder, but if it was about something more serious like, oh, we’re tired of manna, that would go to Moses.
But not any longer. The seventy elders would take up new roles of leadership within the nation. They would be able to answer questions that previously had gone only to Moses. They would reduce the burden, and also have the opportunity to proffer their own advice to the once-solo prophet.
Margaret Odell continues, “At the heart of Moses’ complaint, then, is a complaint about the divine character. What does divine favor mean, after all, if only Moses receives it? At the beginning of the long trek through the wilderness, Moses legitimately asks what is in store for him as the sole bearer of this people who were supposedly the apple of God’s eye.
“Fortunately, God does not respond to Moses’ actual request — ‘let me die!’ but to the substance of his complaint — that he is all alone with this burden.”
It’s a funny thing about singular leadership. It so seldom actually works. People who “go it alone” generally experience failure. They miss opportunities that others might have spotted. They choose out of ego or prejudice with poor results. Or like Moses, they simply lose connection with the people they’re trying to lead.
And they get whiney. Really whiney.
When leaders assemble a group of other leaders, there is a far greater likelihood that good ideas will get the attention they deserve. One sad example is the history of electrical transmission in the United States. Thomas Alva Edison was the great electrical genius whose work guided initial electrification efforts, but he made a significant mistaken calculation. He decided that direct current – DC, as most of us know it – would be the most efficient form in which to supply homes and businesses. Nikola Tesla, another genius, advocated for alternating current – AC. Edison assumed that they could overcome the transmission limits of DC, and it turned out he was wrong. That’s why we use AC in the power grid today.
Edison had, of course, plenty of people working with him. If any told him he was wrong, they didn’t have the influence they needed to.
In 1900, public health authorities in San Francisco, California, diagnosed cases of bubonic plague. In response, the Governor of California, Henry Gage, did precisely nothing. He denied that there was a problem for two solid years, during which the disease spread among the rat population and increasingly spread to people. It took a new governor and two more years of solid effort to end the epidemic.
Which returned, unfortunately, in the wake of thee 1906 earthquake, when conditions in the camps set up for survivors facilitated the spread of disease. Eventually it came under control once more.
I first learned about the San Francisco plague in 2020. All I could think was, “How little we’ve learned” about public health, contagious disease, and the ego of human leaders.
Arguably, one of the causes of the Protestant Reformation was the gap between the senior religious leaders of the Church and the people – or at least between senior and junior leaders. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk, but not senior among them, when he composed his 99 Theses. John Calvin developed some of his Reformed theological ideas while still a student in France, before he moved to Geneva. Senior Church leaders first ignored, then tried to harshly punish these new ideas. And so the Church of the 1500s divided.
With a lot of whining on, I must admit, all sides.
I have mentioned, I think, that the Nominating Committee for our church is at work? We don’t need seventy elders, mercifully, but we do need some people of wisdom and discernment to take a place in our ministry together. Frankly, some of our long-time Moseses are tired. They need to take some time to, at the very least, catch their breath. It’s also true that fresh minds may have fresh ideas, and if you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Why doesn’t Church of the Holy Cross do…?” well, this is an opportunity to ask that question where decisions get made.
It must also be said that without the lay leadership of this church, I would be completely at a loss. Despite my carefully crafted reputation for complete knowledge of everything, the simple truth is that I don’t know everything. I sometimes think that the role of aging is to demonstrate, year by year, how little I know. It’s a reliable source of humility, for me at least.
And without the leaders of this congregation, one particular possibility raises its very ugly head. As I said, I’m not much like Moses. Except in our ability to whine.
Do you really want me whining? It’s not pretty.
I didn’t think so.
Joining church leadership to keep the pastor from whining is not, I admit, the best reason to do so. If that’s what you’ve got, I’ll take it. I really hope, however, that you join the leadership because you’ve got ideas, or because you’ve got wisdom, or because you’re feeling that inspiration of the Spirit that had Eldad and Medad – who couldn’t follow directions – prophesying in the camp.
As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “What can it mean if the divine spirit is suddenly showing up in the camp? Away from the tent? Away from Moses? Among men who don’t follow the rules? Won’t such lapses in propriety and etiquette end in chaos? What if the spirit keeps showing up in odd, unexpected places? What will happen then?”
Well, at minimum, it means your pastor will be smiling and praising God, not whining.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric tends to make changes while he is preaching, so the recorded video does not precisely match the prepared text.
During the Exodus, God intervened to help Moses solve his leadership problem: by adding additional leaders.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the eleventh chapter of Numbers (Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29). This is a part of the Exodus story, where so many of the events seem to follow this general pattern:
The people of Israel out there in the wild come to Moses with a problem.
Moses panics and prays to God that horrible things are happening and why on earth did you ever do this to me?
And then God fixes it.
And that’s pretty much what we have here. The people were hungry. They came to Moses. They said, “We are tired of manna” (miraculous food… I guess you’d get tired of it). Moses went to God and said, Why did you do this to me? Did I give birth to this people that you expect me to take care of them?”
Now, usually at this point in the story, I’d be telling you about what God did in order to relieve the initial problem. But this time, God did something different (later, God did fix the initial problem). Before that, however, God said, Moses, you’re absolutely right. You cannot carry this people all by yourself as if they were a child and you were their mother. You need help.
And so seventy elders were appointed to become a leadership team with Moses. Sixty-eight of them reported for the initial time in which God and Moses would commission them to their work. Two of them, however, were missing: yet even they responded to the presence of the Spirit of God by declaring God’s grace and mercy in the other places in the camp where they were. When people told Moses that they were doing it, Moses replied, finally seeing the wisdom of additional leadership, “Would that everyone would prophesy.”
We tend to think of leadership as being the acts of a single person. There isn’t much substitute, actually, for somebody to step out, to have a vision, to encourage people to participate in it, join it, and support it. There also isn’t a substitute for other leadership. A single person cannot do it all, and particularly not as the group of people they’re leading gets larger. We all have our roles to play as we gather with other people in order to accomplish significant things, whether that be in a family, whether that be in a social group, whether that be in a workplace, whether that be in the Church.
Find your place and role for that particular activity. Because at one moment you might be the senior leader in one group, you might find yourself a junior leader at the same time in another group. And later on you might find yourself being the one who carries on with the work and supports the other leaders to make God’s grace and love and mercy known.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
If you search Biblegateway.com for the word “shepherd” in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, you get 109 uses. I’m afraid that some of those appear in the occasional subheadings that modern-day editors have helpfully added, so the original numbers are somewhat lower. Still. 87 uses in the Old Testament, 22 in the New Testament. “Shepherd” is an important word.
One of the reasons for that was the cultural self-image of the Hebrew people. They saw themselves as shepherd people, those who followed the flocks of sheep and goats and therefore spent relatively little time in a fixed abode. Somewhat like the rivalry between the farmer and the cowhand in the Rogers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma. Do you remember the song “The Farmer and the Cowhand Should Be Friends,” which basically feeds the bad feeling between them? Well, the shepherds were the ancient equivalent of cowhands, and the farmers and city dwellers of the eastern Mediterranean had a similar rivalry.
A fair number of those “shepherd” references in the Old Testament are variants on, “We’re shepherd people, and that’s the best thing to be.”
The Israelites also liked the image of “shepherd” for their national leaders. It might refer to priests or senior civic officials, but the favorite reference was to the king. David, of course, made the metaphor obvious, since as Psalm 78 says,
“He chose his servant David and took him from the sheepfolds; from tending the nursing ewes he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob, of Israel, his inheritance. With upright heart he tended them and guided them with skillful hand.”
– Psalm 78
The one who really liked to compare kings to shepherds was Jeremiah. He used “shepherd” nineteen times, more than any other book of the Bible. And nearly always, he used it as we’ve heard it this morning. “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD.”
Jeremiah really didn’t have a high opinion of the kings of his day. Or a mediocre opinion. Low opinion is… getting close. He thought they were awful.
He did, however, provide us with an admirable summary of what a monarch, or a leader, should do and be: “he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” As we come up to our primary election, with the likelihood that a number of our state and county races will be decided by this ballot, I humbly suggest that you vote for the candidates who display the attributes of wisdom and have the capacity and desire to execute justice and righteousness in the land. If they don’t… vote for somebody else.
I do know that every four years, (with a tear-drop more anxiety this time around) I want to believe verse four –
“I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall no longer fear or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says God.”
even knowing that the Holy One, is looking right at me to be less of a hand-wringer, and take responsibility for the raising-up.
But if you want a real shepherd, the place to look is the sixth chapter of Mark.
Earlier in the chapter, Jesus commissioned his disciples to widen his work, dispatching them about the villages and towns to teach and to heal. As they did so, word came to Jesus, and to the people of Galilee, that John the Baptist had been executed by King Herod. When the disciples returned, still excited about their success, Jesus took them off to go on retreat. They needed a break. They needed to tell their stories. They needed to do some grieving for John the Baptist, whose ministry still influenced them all.
Instead, they found a crowd had anticipated them and arrived before they did.
As Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org, “Mark seems the least concerned with character development. We find out who Jesus and his disciples are by what they do and what they teach. Yet, even in this account, Jesus does a remarkable thing by prioritizing rest in the midst of impactful ministry and gathering crowds. This time, it is not his own rest, which he has already modeled as a spiritual practice. Jesus is as concerned with his disciples adopting a routine of rest within the rhythm of their coming and going.”
Jesus “had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things.”
It has always impressed me that Jesus, despite his need and his disciples’ need of time to themselves, gave that up in order to serve the people who needed more. As we’ve been reading Mark’s Gospel this year, I’ve been struck by the number of times this happened to Jesus, that he tried to take time away and couldn’t. It’s a minor theme of the gospel, but it’s there. Jesus didn’t have a lot of luck taking time off.
I’m also struck by the appearance of that word, “shepherd.” As Matt Skinner writes at Working Preacher, “‘The system’ has failed the people who flock to Jesus, as evidenced in Herod Antipas’s lethal fecklessness (6:14–29).2 They are vulnerable in a predatory world. No one, it seems, guards their human dignity. They have to fend for themselves. What kind of society places people in that kind of condition?”
I hate to say it, but a lot of human societies do precisely that, and explain it away as… the way things are.
Jesus, however, seeing people in need of leadership, stepped in to provide it. That’s what you’d expect of a Messiah, come to think of it. A Messiah is a leader, a general, a king. “Let’s get together, people! Form up in ranks. To Herod’s palace, march!”
Only… he didn’t do that. At all.
He taught them. Remember what Jeremiah said a shepherd does? Deal wisely? Jesus is a shepherd who teaches wisdom.
I have to assume that some of the people on the beach came seeking healing, because that’s nearly always the case in Mark. Later in the chapter, when Jesus and his disciples, probably still looking for that private retreat, landed near Gennesaret, it was abundantly clear. They brought the sick out to the marketplace. They reached out to touch the fringe of his cloak, just like that woman with the hemorrhage. They were healed.
I say this a lot. People are impressed with power, with glamor, with fame. We tend to defer to people with those things whether their ideas are good, indifferent, bad, or downright horrid. Why, I wonder, don’t we value leadership like that displayed by Jesus? Why do we vote for the self-aggrandizing and power hungry, rather than the wise and the compassionate?
Jesus stepped onto the shore from the boat and saw the vacuum of power, the dearth of governmental concern, the absence of good shepherding. He saw a need. Then he filled it.
But he didn’t fill it with glitz. He didn’t fill it with glamor. He didn’t fill it with the coercive power which is a government’s most treasured privilege. He filled it with wisdom, with compassion, and with healing. Oh, and bread. That first beach they landed on, the one where Jesus saw them without a shepherd? At the end of the day Jesus fed all five thousand of them with five loaves and two fish.
Now that’s a shepherd. There’s one who really cares for the sheep.
Not all of us will take positions of leadership in society. There’s not room for everyone to be mayor, or governor, or president. There’s not even room for everyone to be pastor, or moderator, or a member of one of our governing boards of this church – though I will say that there is definitely room, and the nominating committee is hard at work to find those shepherds of our congregation for the next year.
Jesus didn’t commission his disciples to become mayors or governors or presidents or monarchs, or to be their supporters. He didn’t commission them to become generals or courtiers. He commissioned them to be apostles, teachers and healers. He commissioned them to be the same kind of shepherd that he was.
That is our summons, too. To follow Jesus as people who value and share wisdom, who do our level best to provide healing, who refrain from the acts that divide people and scatter them so that they are no longer cared for.
Because we are cared for by the one who is a true shepherd, guiding us in wisdom, justice, and righteousness, all the days of our lives. That’s a shepherd.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
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Pastor Eric sometimes ventures away from his prepared text. He hopes he’s improving things.
