Ordinary Time Week 21

Psalm: Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37 or Psalm 43 

Old Testament: Joshua 3:7-17 or Micah 3:5-12 

Gospel: Matthew 23:1-12 

Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13

The last few weeks I haven’t seen much of a theme emerge in our readings, but this week the clear theme is leadership. We see examples of both good leaders and poor ones. In the Old Testament readings, we first see Joshua continuing the godly leadership of Moses and essentially repeat the parting and crossing of the Red Sea from 40 years earlier. The scene is when Israel stands on the east side of Jordan River preparing to cross over and take possession of the Promised Land. This scene sets the stage of all that is to come during the conquest but, for a people plagued with disobedience and complaining, stands as an example of faithfulness. Joshua takes the commands from the Lord and executes them perfectly. God stops the waters from the river and is symbolically present in the Ark of the Covenant. Through this act, God not only brings his people into the Land, he also shows the Canaanites that he has power over the waters (a symbol of chaos) and is claiming ownership of Canaan.

The next good example of leadership comes from 1 Thes. where Paul basically toots his own horn. Despite the issues of Paul bragging about himself, he declares that he and his companions were good examples and teachers while they were there for several reasons.  First, they weren’t a financial burden; second, they lived holy lives in their midst; and finally, they cared and encouraged the Thessalonians like a father does his own children. I think the main take away from this, which we will see is the opposite of bad leaders, is that they served and were humble. They didn’t demand money and prestige. They took care of themselves and earned respect through their holy lifestyles.

In our other two passages, we see examples of poor leadership. In Micah 3, the prophet decried the false prophets who only had “peace” to say to the people of God in the midst of terrible sin and disobedience. Micah, on the other hand, delivered a message of judgment and impending doom, countered with a desire for God to see repentance and restoration. He didn’t just deliver the message the people wanted to hear, but he told them what they needed to hear. But Micah also condemned all the leaders of Israel. He wrote:

Her leaders judge for a bribe,
  her priests teach for a price,
  and her prophets tell fortunes for money. Yet they look for the Lord’s support and say,
  “Is not the Lord among us?
  No disaster will come upon us.” Therefore because of you,
  Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble,

  the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.

The whole leadership in Israel was corrupt and because of that all the people would suffer. That is kind of a scary message because the leaders’ sin and corruption led to the ruin of the whole nation. We know that the people themselves were just as bad, but maybe they could have taken the better route of demanding more from their leaders and saved the nation.

Our final reading this week comes Matt. 23 and is a continuation of last week’s account. The last few weeks, Jesus was debating with the religious leaders and took them to task for their misunderstanding of the Scriptures. This week, he basically calls them out not just for their lack of knowledge, but also for their pride and hypocrisy. Jesus takes on the prime moral and political leaders in his time. Based on this episode alone what happens next during his trial and execution makes a little more sense. Just like what Micah said before, these leaders were egotistical and only cared to gain wealth and power for themselves. Jesus declared that the greatest one among us should be the servant who humbled himself. I think this is actually an important point because it is a self-humbling. It is not imposed by others, but is a willful laying aside of ones rights and privileges. I hope you can see the parallels between what Jesus calls us to and what he himself did his whole life and death.

Being a leader was not easy when Joshua led the people across the Jordan, nor when Paul was ministering in Thessalonica, nor is it easy today. We should be gracious and thankful to those who lead us in our churches and denominations. At the same time, Christian leaders are held to the high standard set by Scripture. Christian leaders are marked by humility and holiness, which is quite different than secular leaders. But we know that even in the Bible, the leaders weren’t perfect and often let God and their followers down. In these moments, we are to provide the grace of Christ and hope for repentance. Like in the days of Micah, we can’t just sit around and let our leaders lead us down the path to ruin.

Where does this leave us? Well, all of us are at different places in our lives. Some of us are leaders of many and others of none. Some of us have church leadership roles or teach Sunday School. This is perhaps a sobering message of what God expects. It is definitely the opposite of our human nature and something that does not happen naturally. The truth is that we are all called to humility and self-sacrifice, weather we are leaders or not. (Phil 2:5-11) That is something we must remember because I don’t mean this an indictment or standard we can hold up to our leaders so that the moment they fail we can bash them down and find new leaders. There may come a time when churches and denominations need to find new leaders because of sin. But we know that leaders aren’t perfect and the call to humility is to us all. To paraphrase the words of Jesus, we must make sure we don’t ignore the plank in our own eyes while pointing out the speck in our brother’s eye. This week, let us seek to be godly leaders and also encourage our leaders in their own walks with Christ.

Grace and Peace.