Stephen
Terry, Director
Leaders
in Israel
Commentary
for the December 28, 2019 Sabbath School Lesson
Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father
Solomon during his lifetime. "How would you advise me to answer these people?"
he asked. They replied, "If today you will be a servant to these people and
serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your
servants." I Kings 12:6-7, NIV
Two thousand years ago, in an upper
room of a residence in Jerusalem prior to an event that eventually became known
as the Last Supper, a young man in his thirties sat at table with a dozen of
his followers. As conversation buzzed around him, he noticed that although a
basin and water were provided, the servant who customarily would wash
travelers' feet to prepare them for supper was not present. Rising from the table,
Jesus wrapped a towel around himself and taking the water and the basin, he
began to perform the duties of that missing servant for each of his disciples
until all had been cleansed. After completing the task, he told them that as he
had done, they should do for one another. Some feel that this established an
ordinance or ritual of the church. For that reason, the Seventh-day Adventist
Church practices this voluntary ordinance once per quarter. But that practice
has evolved over time. A half century ago, when I first began to participate,
women and men both performed the foot washing but did so in separate rooms.
Because this tended to disrupt the family unit, foot washing was frequently
done between friends or strangers who may not have normally been well-known to
one another. I cannot speak for what went on in the women's gathering, but in
the men's, brother would pair off with brother, making sure that even the casual
visitor had someone willing to serve him. This tended to break down walls of
class and ethnicity for those few, brief moments during the ordinance. I assume
the women did something similar.
In time, the practice changed. Initially,
husbands and wives would wash one another's feet in a separate, third room. Eventually
that evolved into nuclear families washing one another's feet together. In
theory, this promoted the idea of servanthood within the family but it also
tended to create a distinction between those with families and those who
attended alone. No longer was the elderly widow, who perhaps attended church
alone each week, participating as though she were just a member of a loving
extended family. Some of these single individuals, both elderly as well as
younger, may go the entire week between services without feeling the touch of
another human being. How difficult it must be to feel excluded from that
familial touch even at this ordinance that is all about physically touching one
another in loving service. But this may be only symptomatic of a far greater
issue, an issue that goes to the very heart of what leadership means in the
Christian church.
Jesus' example at the Last Supper was
not an isolated incident. He often spoke to his disciples about the attributes
they must possess, and how those attributes differed from those of the leaders
they saw around them. He stated, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord
it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so
with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your
servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave--just as the Son of
Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom
for many. (Matthew 20:25-28, NIV) Jesus appears to have known that this would
be a point of struggle for his nascent kingdom and sought to guide each
follower into a more accurate reflection of the character of God. Many saw God
as a vengeful being who would rightfully curse and even slay the disobedient.
For centuries, Israel had struggled with the results of bad decisions and
divided loyalties, but rather than see the resulting suffering as a natural
result of their desire to oppress and rule over one another, they projected their
own failings onto God and saw him as one like themselves, cruel and
controlling. But Jesus presented something new. He wanted his kingdom to
demonstrate God's true character of compassion, mercy and love for others, even
others who were God's enemies.[i] Prior to
this, even those whom we would be tempted to call righteous saw God as someone
who needed to whack the wicked and set things right again.[ii] Jesus
disciples had grown up in this culture and felt the same desire for vengeance
against those who offended them, assuming in the process that an offense
against them was an offense against God, since they were "God's chosen
people," and he therefore felt the same about it as they did. At times
this came out into the open and Jesus rebuked it. On one occasion when he was
traveling to Jerusalem, he wished to stay the night in a Samaritan village but
was refused. His disciples, highly offended and feigning that it was Jesus'
honor they were concerned for, asked Jesus for permission to rain down fire on
the village,[iii]
perhaps remembering the fire brought down on Sodom, and Ezekiel's reference to
that example and the punishment he proclaimed.[iv] But
Jesus would have none of it and rebuked them. His example and teaching
demonstrated that love of God and service to him was synonymous with service to
others, a service founded in compassion and love, even for those who do not
love in return. As Jesus demonstrated on a rude wooden cross, love is not without
price, without pain, without suffering. Those who have suffered harm from
others, those who suffer from chronic illness and pain, and those who suffer
the heart pain of rejected love for others know full well the price of love in
this world. Every bit of that pain was also felt by Jesus, not one iota of our
pain was excluded from what he felt while he hung and slowly died outside the
gates of Jerusalem. He died for every wound inflicted, every curse cast, and
every failure to love. That ability to suffer so much more than any one of us
have suffered on our own validates the level of God's love and compassion for
us.
By our understanding of God's character
he should have wiped out evil from the moment it raised its head. But if that
truly represents the character of God, it is inexplicable that he could simply
suffer Golgotha without thundering down fire and retribution upon mankind or at
least upon Jerusalem and perhaps Rome, for surely the insult offered by Sodom
was not greater than what took place that dark day. But he didn't, and where
we, like Jesus' errant disciples, would have God pour out fire upon the earth,
Jesus instead uttered words of forgiveness and mercy.[v] How radical
this was compared to the normative understanding of God continues to
reverberate two millenia later. That character walked the streets of Selma,
Alabama to the Edmund Pettus Bridge where blood flowed as freely as the blood
that ran down the cross. It rode the bus with the Freedom Riders who suffered
devastating injuries and humiliation as they sought to be of service to the
oppressed by calling others to recognize oppression for what it was.
Unfortunately, as the centuries passed
after Christ's ascension, many began to trade service to others for power. That
process only accelerated when, in the fourth century, the Roman Imperial
Government offered its backing to some Christian leaders and their followers to
enable them to oppress dissenters. Instead of waiting for God to guide his
people, here was now a more immediate path to power for God's people. Wooed by
that heady, new brew, they became intoxicated with power, and began to strive
with one another for supremacy. With armies offered for such service by the
government, blood has freely flowed for centuries, persuing and dispatching
heretics or crusading against Muslims and other faiths. No torture was too severe,
no child too young to murder in the cause of advancing the kingdom of God
according to these perverse "Christians." This Old Testament
narrative of a political theocracy enforcing God's will at the point of a
sword, has become so woven into the warp and woof of our civilization that even
when disgusted by the God it portrays, too many acquiesce in its abuses. To
this very moment, some continue to strive to establish the political dominion
of God's kingdom on earth. The ugliness of character of those who would lead us
in that direction is an echo of the ugliness of those who sought to do the same
with Rome's aid. They are the very image of that beast. But they have managed
to deceive much of the world into believing that it is God's will that things
are thus, so that righteousness is popularly defined as anything that furthers
the power of the church in the secular arena. No denomination is untainted by
such aspirations. Many have formed within their ecclesiastical, hierarchical
structure pathways to facilitate such an agenda and attempt to force their
members into a cohesive uniformity of belief and action that may be more
readily wielded in the ongoing battle for political supremacy.
This is a very dark picture of modern
Christian leadership, but it is no darker than the scenes on Mount Carmel when
the prophet Elijah felt he was alone in standing before the powerful religio-political
machine of King Ahab and his queen, Jezebel. Although God worked mightily to
reveal the reality of his existence with Elijah's help, the prophet sank into
depression at the magnitude of the opposition he faced. But God revealed that
he still had seven thousand faithful in Israel. Like Elijah, we are never really
alone with God, and God works in ways and means that, while perhaps not readily
apparent to us, nonetheless maintain the presence of the true character of God
in a world gone awry. As the denominations and their leaders increase their oppression
of the servants of God, who continue
like faithful Obadiah[vi] to compassionately
serve others, in order to achieve nefarious political agendas, we may take
comfort in knowing, like Elijah, we are not alone.
