August Magazine letter
We have a new government in the United Kingdom and thoughts turn as to what the nature of leadership is.
The inadequacy of the disciples is a constant theme in Mark’s Gospel, their weakness of faith, their propensity to get the wrong end of the stick, their hope for power and eventually glory, their depressing similarity to the rest of us. And yet Jesus’ never gives up on them, even at the end when they have run away and left him to his fate, his resurrection message sent through the young man in white is addressed to them. “I am going ahead of you into Galilee, you will see me there” – business as usual, back to work, the daily work of living and proclaiming the gospel.
It was through the disciples that Jesus chose to act, for all their faults and failings, their every day humanity, Jesus chose them to teach his words and speak his mind. But it was through them as a body, not as individuals, that he instructed them and propelled them into the world. Their strength was their togetherness, for all its fragility it was their unity that Jesus decided to trust to bear his message. So not only was Jesus encouraging a bit of rest and recuperation he was doing a bit of old fashioned team building as well.
Mark describes the crowds that seek Jesus – they won’t let him rest, they hunger for … what? What was their need? Jesus said that they were like sheep without a shepherd. But what part of the shepherd’s function did they need… protection, leadership, someone to help them find their way? We know Jesus had no intention of leading a political revolution, so what shepherding did he think they needed? Mark tells us that his response was to teach them many things. But Mark rather frustratingly doesn’t tell us what things, Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount type things perhaps, or the parables that we know from St Luke – the prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan – a way to live, and a way of looking at life that is liberating. Jesus doesn’t offer them political leadership, rather he offers them a way to share and a way to forgive, a way to repent and a way to give – and in the end he offers them food from their own resources and hope through their own faith. He teaches them not to look for a new shepherd but how not to be sheep.
We crave leadership – someone to tell us what to do, or what we should do. Decisions are difficult, taking responsibility for an action, or an opinion is worrying and stressful; better to fall in behind someone who sounds as if they know what to do. But I don’t think that that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Take our village church for example, as a community of faith its effectiveness is down to us all, each with their part to play – each of us taking a share in our common responsibility to bear the life of Christ to this place, to worship God and demonstrate his love to the world. If our mission relied on any one us it would fail – but so far it hasn’t, just as the disciples before us we share the burden, and the joy, and so make the impossible possible. Our greatest tool for our mission in the world is ourselves, our only asset, each other.
William Prescott