Reflections by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
John 1:29-42
First Congregational UCC of Manahttan, KS
January 15, 2017
This time last week I was in sunny Arizona, wrapping up a week with the UCC's Next Generation Leadership Initiative, a program that seeks to mold young UCC clergy into transformational leaders. We spent the week with Sharon Daloz Parks, who worked with us on the topic of adaptive leadership. One of our core texts was Heifetz's Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading.
Let me just say it again "staying alive through the dangers of leading."
One of the activities we had to do was lining up based on "how comfortable we are with authority." Some in our group were very comfortable and seemed to enjoy being in authority positions. Others....not so much. They were willing to lead when called upon, but rarely comfortable in that position.
Dr. Parks talked with us a lot about one of her favorite images for adaptive leadership....the swamp. The idea is that during normal times, technical fixes are enough. As a leader, all you have to do is have the right skills and apply them and everything will be fine. Dr. Parks spoke of it as running a horse along high-hard ground. There is skill required, sure, but as long as you are competent, you can lead people across the high-hard ground and onto the next destination.
But during what she calls "hinge times" - when the whole world seems to be just kind of swinging on a hinge like a flimsy door in a big gust of wind - well, things are different. Leadership is more like trying to get a big group of people across a swamp.
No matter how good your skills are, it's going to be a challenge. Hinge times require adaptation. Even if we've been through this exact swamp before, it will be different now. We have to use our skills, sure, but we also have to be open to new possibilities, strange obstacles, unwelcome changes. It's not enough to just "know your stuff" as a leader, you also have to be willing to learn totally new skill sets. Sometimes again and again and again.
Now I don't know if you think of yourself as a leader. Maybe you're like some of the people in my class who love this stuff. Or maybe you feel uncomfortable even pondering the idea. Comfortable or not, it seems we are all called upon at various points in our lives to take up the mantle of leadership. It might be in a boardroom or among friends, in the classroom or at home with our closest family. At some point, others will look to us for leadership.
That's what's happening in today’s passage. It seems that folks in Jesus’s time were also living in a hinge time - they were also wandering through the swamp and trying to figure out how to get body and soul to the other side. And they were looking for leaders. We’re still in the first chapter of John, here. So we’ve had that beautiful prologue “in the beginning was the Word, and the word was God…” Then John the Baptizer comes onto the stage. And people are wanting him to be a leader.
But John passes the mantle of leadership like a hot potato. Can you blame him? Remember that book I had to read for class? “Staying alive through the dangers of leading”? Who wants that? John is quick to explain that HE is not the Messiah - the Anointed One. Instead, his job is to point to the “one to come.”
Soon enough, we meet Jesus. And he is willing to claim the mantle of leadership. Thank GOD for good leaders, right? For people who are willing to stand up and put their own bodies and souls on the line in order to try to get the rest of us across the swamps of life. Jesus was one of those. And like Dr. King, who we celebrate this weekend, Jesus was even willing to hold on to that mantle of leadership unto death and beyond. It’s mind-boggling to me, really, that willingness to make that kind of sacrifice.
When the people who were to become the first disciples met Jesus, they called him “teacher.” They seem to know, right away, that he had come to show them how to live. How to cross the swamp. How to adapt in the midst of the hinge time and make their way through to newness on the other side. They asked him a simple enough question, “where are you staying?” And Jesus didn’t give them a simple answer. Instead, he gave an invitation. “Come and see,” he said.
Come and see. An invitation.
The Messiah’s first act of leadership was to surround himself with others. Because it seems Jesus was wise enough to know that he couldn’t do what he had come to do alone. And he was infused with God enough to know that getting across the swamp only matters if we all get across it together. Jesus embodied what has come to be known as the Beloved Community. That place where people from all walks of life - even those that we’ve tried mightily to leave out - are welcomed, affirmed, and valued.
In our class last week, we also learned about what Dr. Parks calls “the Commons.” Those places in our world where we come together across all the lines we’ve created...people of all genders, gender identities, sexual orientations, socio-economic groups, races, ethnicities, ages, abilities. Democrats and Republicans. Christians and Muslims. Those who love cold brew coffee in Mason jars and those who find it pretentious.
The Commons is a place where all these various types of people come together for the good of the whole. Where they can be humans together, learn together, laugh together, love together, and try to do what’s best for everyone.
The Commons seems to be endangered in our current world. How else can we explain our Congress entertaining the idea of repealing the Affordable Care Act without a replacement ready? A former colleague of mine had a tweet go viral earlier this week on this topic. She said something like, “I look at these people who want to repeal the ACA and the thing is, I just don’t know how I’m supposed to explain to people that they are supposed to care about one another.”
When we have to remind our elected officials that they are supposed to care about the good of the whole, something is seriously wrong. We are living in swamp times. The old technical fixes won’t work. Bold leadership is required….leadership that is grounded, measured, compassionate, experimental, and concerned with the good of the whole.
That’s the kind of leader Dr. King was. He was only 26 years old when he found himself in charge of what would become the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I think it’s safe to say he really had no idea what he was getting into. And he was chosen because of the hot potato of leadership. No one else wanted to be in charge. So they nominated the new young guy. And he was willing to take on the mantle. He was willing to try and lead the people across the swamp.
Like Jesus, King knew better than to try and do it alone. He surrounded himself with friends, advisors, strategists. He didn’t try to lead alone. That’s never wise. And as he led, he rooted himself deeply in his identity as a disciple of Jesus. He never faltered from trying to do what Jesus called on him to do...even when it made him unpopular, even when it put him in danger.
I watched a video of Coretta Scott King yesterday. It was filmed just eight months after her husband’s assassination. She was asked what she thought would happen to the movement since her husband had died - whether it was now leader-less, rudder-less. She replied that she did not believe that was so. She said, “If you’re looking for another Martin, I think he only comes along every hundred or maybe every thousand years.” But Coretta said there were other leaders who were capable and would continue to lead.
We can’t all be Martin. We certainly can’t be Jesus. We can seek to be their students, to learn from them. More than anything, I think we can be brave. We can remember that just because we’re not Martin, not Jesus, that doesn’t mean we get a free pass to sit back and keep passing the leadership hot potato.
No, we are all called to put on the mantle of leadership from time to time. Whether we like it or not.
We are all called to surround ourselves with others and work together, doing our part to bring about the Beloved Community. We must all get ourselves to The Commons - that place where people from all walks of life come together for the mutual benefit of all - and if we can’t find The Commons in this messed up world, well, then, we have to start building it from scratch.
And when that seems totally overwhelming (as it often does) remember this: we do not do this work alone. Remember how Jesus said, “Come and see?” He says that to us still. Come and see what God is dreaming. Come and see a new vision. Come and see how we can get through the swamp together. Come and see what the Beloved Community can be.
For the next four weeks in worship we’re going to be listening to that call to “come and see” as we explore what Dr. King called “the most durable power”: Love.
It seems to be in short supply right now in our world. Hate crimes. The threat of walls being built, arsenals being stocked, basic human rights being taken away.
But I believe Dr. King was right. I believe Jesus was right. Love still matters. Love is still the answer. And I believe that if we are to be leaders through the swamp, we have to surround ourselves with people here in flesh and blood...but we also have to surround ourselves with spiritual practices that nurture, words and ideas that inspire, teachers that guide and lead.
A little later today I’ll start a thread here on the Facebook page with books and art I’ve been absorbing lately that feel like a community of support and challenge lifting my weary soul these days. I hope you can also add recommendations so we can all sit at the feet of teachers and artists and be sustained. Thanks be to God for teachers, for leaders. And God help us all when we are looked to for leadership. May we rise to the occasion and do our part to bring about your realm of justice and peace. Amen.
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