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CHAPTER 1
JESUS
A Little Child Shall Lead Them
Even though the words may feel familiar because we've heard them so many times, what could be more curious, and less promising, than Isaiah's prophecy, "And a little child shall lead them" (Isa 11:6)? When God came to save God's people, to lead them from their lonely exile into the promised salvation, God came as a child. Any Christian who would lead, at work, at home, in the community, at church, wherever, has to sort out this puzzle that our leader is (or was) a child.
We could say Jesus was a child, in the same way that we consider childhood to be just a temporary stage along the way to adulthood. We might envision Jesus as some kind of wonder-child, a phenom, a one-in-a-zillion prodigy. Some of those early apocryphal Gospels depicted Jesus in his playpen, molding clay into birds before miraculously causing them to fly, or striking dead some boys who bullied him on the playground. Byzantine art depicted the infant Jesus as a miniature potentate, dressed in regal attire, with the stern gaze of a ruler, while sitting on his mother's lap.
But the point of the incarnation is that Jesus was a child like other children. Jesus, our leader, was led by his mother. When she told him Let's go to the market or It's time for bed or Let's recite Psalm 8 together he followed. He was entirely and wonderfully dependent upon her. She nursed him, and rocked him when he cried out from a fever. She prepared all his food. She made and mended all his clothes. She taught him how to talk and how to pray. She delighted in his first steps and comforted him when he fell and scraped his knee. Every leader begins in such humility, for which we can be grateful. I'm not self-made. Someone loved me and was tender toward me. I've been totally dependent, and will be again someday — and am now, if I'm attentive to things.
We could invert what we just said, though, and say Jesus led his mother. As a weak, helpless, fledgling child, he led her precisely by being weak. His immobility was her cue to carry him. His hunger invited her to feed him. His cries were the kinds of commands every mother obeys — by holding, weeping, whispering soothing words. We know that at the cross, and after the church was born, Mary continued in her life vocation as the first and best follower of her child.
Recall the last time you saw a small child brought into a room of people. Everything changed. The weak one has the power to elicit tenderness and cooing or to make folks upset and ask for the child to be removed. As his hysterical, violent reaction demonstrated, King Herod intuitively understood that his royal standing was indeed threatened by the birth of a vulnerable child.
Our only glimpses of Jesus's childhood are provided by Luke. First there is the happy summary in 2:52: "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man" (KJV). The infant, the child, the teenage Jesus was not omniscient; he was a learner, and he grew wiser over the years. We pray that wisdom and favor continue to grow, always, for all of us, well past the time we grow physically taller.
The other is that harrowing moment when Mary and Joseph realized their twelve-year-old boy was missing — and it took three days to find him! Of course (or so he assumed they'd know), he was in the temple. We overrate the scene if we visualize him as a boy genius, a prodigy teaching the teachers. Rather wonderfully, but not at all abnormally, Jesus was "sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions" (Luke 2:46). Jesus exhibited that lovely weakness we call curiosity: the weakness that doesn't have all that much figured out just yet, the weakness of asking instead of assuming or telling, the weakness of stammering awe before mystery and wonder. The child Jesus, as our leader, has shown us the way in corporate church and communal life by being weak enough to be puzzled and ask lots of questions. The art of all leadership begins and ends with the asking of good questions.
Becoming Like Children
Isaiah's idea that "a little child shall lead them" had to have resonated deeply with Jesus after he was grown up. When his disciples shushed children and tried to usher them away, Jesus welcomed them: "Let the little children come to me" (Matt 19:14). How kind of Jesus! But then he added, "It is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs" (v. 14). Children aren't just part of the kingdom. It belongs to them.
Earlier, in a startling moment, Jesus had said to the grownups, "Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt 18:3). We can't be sure what all he had in mind. Children are innocent. Their jaws drop in awe over little things. They don't hide their treasures; they share their toys. They don't fret over tomorrow. Children toddle and fall down a lot. They require much mercy. They know how to play, and waste time. Children are under no illusion that they are independent. They are entirely dependent and seem happy about it. God yearns for all these naïve, holy dispositions to be restored in us.
The core of childlikeness is that children are small and weak. In a world that demands that we be strong, Jesus oddly but hopefully invites us into weakness. Hans Urs von Balthasar pointed out that "only the Christian religion, which in its essence is communicated by the eternal child of God, keeps alive in its believers the lifelong awareness of their being children, and therefore of having to ask and give thanks for things." But we shouldn't idealize childhood as we reflect on Jesus asking us to become like children. Children are demanding. Children argue and whine. Martin Luther, stressed by his rambunctious household of six children aged four to twelve, puzzled over this idea of becoming like children: "What was Jesus thinking? This is too much: must we become such idiots?"
Jesus's Leadership Principles
If we think at all carefully about Jesus as our model for leadership, we will wonder what kinds of idiots Jesus might want us to be. Although some have spoken of "Jesus's leadership principles," or imagined Jesus as a CEO or even the president, putting Jesus in charge of an institution would be like asking a four-year-old to run the place or an eight-year-old to fly a plane or a six-year-old to hold the keys to the bank. Imagine corporate policies like "Turn the other cheek," "Do not store up treasure on earth," "Take no gold or bag on your journey," or "Sell all you have and give to the poor." Jesus approached fairly successful businessmen, fishermen, and tax collectors, and talked them into leaving it all behind to wander around the countryside and risk life and limb. Jesus's best story was of a father who threw a big party for the son who had squandered half the family business in riotous living.
We might wonder what kind of review Jesus would write of Jim Collins's best-selling leadership book, From Good to Great. One of Collins's cardinal principles is getting the right people on the bus and getting the wrong people off the bus. He's absolutely right — and yet Jesus seemed determined to keep everybody, especially the wrong people, on the bus. We who are church leaders struggle so agonizingly when we need to fire someone — and if Jesus is our leader, then actually we should struggle, since his life-and-death mission was to prove that every person is redeemable.
Jesus, of all people, knew God's rules in scripture. But he would defy one of God's own rules in a heartbeat in order to help someone who was hurting. He healed on the Sabbath, touched untouchables, and intervened to prevent a lawbreaker from being stoned. Danny Meyer, the renowned restaurateur in New York, has explained that his business is all about hospitality. Yes, there are policies. But "policies are nothing more than guidelines to be broken for the benefit of our guests."
His employees are instructed to be "agents," not "gatekeepers." If asked, "Can I make a reservation for two at seven?" a gatekeeper responds, "No, we're full." The agent says, "Let me check" or "Let me see if I can shift someone around" or "Let me contact the restaurant next door for you." It's hospitality when people feel something is done for them not when things happen to them. Jesus, who figured out how to feed everybody (strangers, the uninvited, and even his enemies), would be the greatest restaurant manager in history.
Most business leaders understand that leadership is about hospitality. Followers of Jesus are prepared to take this to any extreme. He taught us to love our enemies, to welcome strangers, to touch those who seem disgusting. When it comes to the outsider, or the one who is different, Jesus would concur with the intriguing idea that hospitality is curiosity. I want to welcome the other because I'm interested. Or maybe hospitality is courageous: Jesus's model for hospitality would be the Germans who hid Jews in their homes during World War II or foster parents who happily adopt the most challenging of children.
Payday in Jesus's Vineyard
Jesus made up a shocking story about a vineyard owner who hired laborers in the morning, hired some more later in the day, hired still more in the afternoon, and finally hired a few with only an hour left in the day. When the laborers lined up for their pay, he gave every last one of them a denarius. Quite fair — for a full day's work. Not surprisingly, the guys who put in more time were furious. We are tempted to put some clever spin on the story, as if it is about late-in-life conversion, or even the magnificent bounty of God's saving grace.
But Amy-Jill Levine, rightly pointing out that "Jesus was more interested in how we love our neighbor than how we get into heaven," asks an intriguing question: "Might we rather see the parable as about real workers in a real marketplace and real landowners who hire those workers?" Our gut reaction is No way! But wasn't Jesus the kind of guy who wanted everyone to have enough? If the guys who were hired late, through no fault of their own, only got one-twelfth of a day's wage, their families would starve. This is the same Jesus who told a rich man to sell everything, who directed party hosts to invite those who couldn't invite them in return, who spoke of lenders forgiving massive financial debts, who included despised and untouchable people in his close circle, who visited Zaccheus and left him so staggered he gave his hard-earned money back with interest to those he'd earned it from.
Shares of stock in a company run by Jesus would plummet in value. But he is our leader, the childlike one who never tired of asking hard questions. Could we, his followers, lead in very different ways, in weaker ways? Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farms and creator of the Cotton Patch Gospel, was a bold, no-holds-barred Christian, one of those once-in-a-generation believers radical enough to dare to do what's in the Bible. One Sunday he preached at a gilded, high steeple church in Atlanta. After the service, the pastor asked him for some advice. The church custodian had eight children and earned a mere eighty dollars per week. The concerned minister claimed he tried to get the man a raise but with no success. Jordan considered this for a minute, and then said, "Why don't you just swap salaries with the janitor? That wouldn't require any extra money in the budget."
Jesus was like the child who can't stop asking questions, like the child who sees a homeless person by the road and asks Mommy, can't he live at our house? Maybe a leader can't pull off the vineyard wage maneuver or even the salary swap. But is there a way to lean in that direction, to engage in something dramatic, to veer a bit more toward Jesus than business as usual? Jesus asks leaders not merely to obey the law or even to be kind, but to be different.
After all, Jesus started his first sermon by saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit. ... Blessed are the meek. ... Blessed are the merciful. ... [And] blessed are the pure in heart" (Matt 5:3-8). We can be sure Jesus didn't mean This applies out here on this mountain or at church or in your private life but not in the real world. What if we honored meekness and mercy when we are leading? What if we looked for and celebrated business leaders and even politicians who are meek, and pure in heart? Instead of rallying around tough, cynical, pragmatic, get-it-done-at-all-costs leaders, we might seek out those who know their weaknesses, who are humble and holy. Of course there is a steep price to pay for being like Jesus. It cost Jesus, our leader, his life. Clarence Jordan was firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan. Francis of Assisi, who led thousands of friars by simply acting like Jesus, giving away possessions and embracing the untouchables, was sued and imprisoned by his own father.
Binding the Strong Man
But we must always remember what is at stake: not this business or that church or a single family. There is a cosmic battle going on. Jesus had shown from the moment he walked onto the stage of history that his real foe wasn't hunger or sickness or a lack of faith but the devil, evil itself. Jesus spoke not of himself but someone else — Satan! — as "the strong man" (Mark 3:27); Jesus's mission was to bind him. Jesus's strategy to bind this strong man? Not muscle or miracles. The devil pounced on Jesus in the wilderness, finding him in a much-weakened state after six weeks of not eating. He taunted Jesus, reminding him that Jesus had the strength to turn stones into bread and to leap safely from the pinnacle of the temple. Jesus even had the very real opportunity to rule all the kingdoms on earth. But Jesus chose to be weak, to forego the food and fanfare. He let the kingdoms rule themselves, fully realizing one of them would kill him in the end.
We may think Jesus was play-acting: the super strong one barely restraining himself, trying weakness on for a little while to make a point before resuming his titanic power. But maybe, in his deepest self, Jesus really was weak, not in the sense of being flawed but in the sense of not being mighty. Jesus was the first to understand fully the problem with power. The powerful can achieve a great many things. But power cannot be loved. Power stirs fear. Jesus told us not to be afraid; he would settle for nothing less than tender love.
Jesus certainly had his moments when he exhibited downright superhuman strength. He stilled a storm. He fed thousands. He cured lepers. But then he turned around and hushed those who wanted to tell everybody how strong he was: "He sternly ordered them not to make him known" (Mark 3:12). Was he afraid they would misunderstand his true mission, fawn over his wonderworking and demand constant displays of power?
There was a dramatic shift in the plot of Jesus's life midstream. After a season of strength, where he spoke powerfully and dazzled with miracles, he turned toward Jerusalem. In the second half of each Gospel, there are virtually no miracles. Jesus increasingly became passive — someone acted upon. He was "handed over" to the Roman authorities and the Sadducees by Judas. He said nothing when tried by Pontius Pilate, who scoffed over the foolish notion that one so weak could be a king.
Without lifting a finger in his own defense, Jesus passively and dependently let himself be nailed up on a shaft of wood. Humiliated, mocked, so weak he lost his followers, he hung there helplessly. His mother, Mary, who had given him his lifeblood, who had held him when he was helpless as an infant, looked on her child, shattered. Children learn to sing, "Little ones to him belong; they are weak, but he is strong." But if we ponder the climax of Jesus's story, we might change the lyrics to "They are weak, and he is too."
Where Jesus Leads
Jesus our leader leads us to one place: the cross. This is the truth about Jesus. This is his glory — not the miracles or the wise teachings. It is the completely weak, dead Jesus that prompts the centurion to confess, "Truly this man was God's Son!" (Mark 15:39). We hurry past Good Friday, preferring the pretty colors and sunny victory of Easter. But even the way the resurrection story is told underlines a kind of weakness: Jesus didn't vigorously shove the rock aside and stride boldly out of the tomb, knocking the soldiers aside. The verbs are all passive: Jesus was raised.
Our most eloquent theologians have wrestled with this paradox, this dark, puzzling truth that is the shining, clarifying truth in God's own heart. Hans Urs von Balthasar asked who was responsible for Jesus's crucifixion: Was it the Romans or the Jews? Pilate? Herod? Caiaphas? Judas? The crowd? "He rolls like a ball between the competitors, thrown from one to another, held by none, undesired by all. ... No one wishes to be responsible. That is why they are all guilty." If leadership is taking responsibility, then Jesus in his seeming passivity is the one taking responsibility for all the others — and for us.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Weak Enough to Lead"
by .
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