The best theology is found in some of the most improbable places – for example, one of the best books of theology that I have read is published by Harvard Business Review Press.  It’s titled Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Change, by Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky.  The publisher’s pitch starts, “The dangerous work of leading change – somebody has to do it.  Will you put yourself on the line?  To lead is to live dangerously.  It’s romantic and exciting to think of leadership as all inspiration, decisive action, and rich rewards, but leading requires taking risks.  It requires putting yourself on the line, disrupting the status quo, and surfacing hidden questions.  And when people resist and push back, those who choose to lead plunge in, take the risks, and sometimes get burned.  But it doesn’t have to be that way…”

Theology?  Yes.  I don’t recall if the word God or something like it ever appears in the book, but leadership – kings, and prophets, and messiahs, and apostles – are everywhere in the Bible.  Leadership to this day stirs deep feelings, and sometimes even passion in people, because leadership engages our values.

The term “leadership” itself is value laden.  People say that we yearn for real leadership, but what do we mean?  Does that involve swaying a group of people to follow a leader’s vision?  Or does it mean mobilizing and equipping people to tackle difficult issues that matter to them?   Do we seek heroes, or people who leave us feeling like we came up with all the brilliant ideas that finally found a way through, that brought us forward?

What is clear is that people rarely turn to someone in authority to mess with their jobs, challenge their roles, or disrupt their lives. They expect people with authority to use it to provide them with the right answers, the necessary tools, not to confront them with disturbing questions and difficult choices.  We don’t authorize someone to make us face what we do not want to face.  We hire, elect, or appoint people to provide protection, and ensure stability – someone with solutions, and the expertise to lead the way and solve the problem.

So, thank God for Mark.  Mark never let’s us be too comfortable.  Mark demands a constant state of questioning, evaluating, wondering.  We are, always and immediately, thrust into the next gospel moment that asks us what is at the heart of faith.  What’s good news?

Mark is Jesus’ story – condensed.  It’s breathless.  No time for extraneous information.  No extra details.  So, we notice when Mark dedicates 15 verses to the story of John’s execution.  The only part of Mark where Jesus is absent.  So, what’s going on?

Well, Jesus’ ministry, like John’s, will have significant impact on how we engage in the political in life – not politics, but rather how we see the common good, make decisions, set priorities, and wield authority among ourselves.  In organizations, on office teams, among neighbours.  When what we bring to that involvement runs counter to deeply rooted interests, there will be pushback.  Those who advocate an alternative to the status quo can expect that those who benefit from the status quo will hit back. Mark is, if nothing else, a realist.

But more than that, in Jesus and John’s time people expected religious leaders to tell them what to do to placate God in the Temple, not invite them into relationship with God right where they are in their daily life.   It was freeing. But it also required something of them.  It was empowering.  Jesus’ whole Way was about equipping people to live fuller, more whole lives in community with one another and with a loving God who comes to them. This was deeply threatening to religious, and also social and political powers – it also expected more of everyday people… like us.

The story of John’s execution comes on the heels of Jesus having sent his own followers out, empowering them to preach, heal, and cast out demons. Word of Jesus’ movement reaches Herod, including rumours that Jesus is John the Baptist resurrected – like a spectre hunting him down.

The description of the banquet that becomes the setting of John’s killing exposes the sordidness of the Herodian court by showing us what happens when the power structure gets together for a dinner party.  Herod’s birthday celebration issues in death, which is in sharp contrast to the party about to be thrown by Jesus in the two upcoming “feeding stories” – the feeding of 5,000 that follows immediately in Mark, and the feeding of 4,000 shortly afterward.

Herod’s meal is about corruption and violence.  The meals of Jesus reconcile both Jews and gentiles.  The meal of Herod is for the powerful elite.  The meal of Jesus is for the crowds.  The highlight of Herod’s party is the gruesome delivery of the head of John.  The highlight of Jesus’ meal is the provision of food for everyone, in abundance.

We’re both drawn to and repulsed by leadership and authority.  We wonder about power.  We want it, we misjudge it.  We’ve benefited from it and been victims of it.  At times, perhaps, we’ve considered our own power.  How we use it.  How we think about it.  Because, we have power. And we’ve wrestled with alternative ways of sharing power, relinquishing power, and so on.

___________________

There’s this point when you’re about to step into a room for a job interview when you still have one foot outside the door, in your current life.  Your existing job.  You got there early to be sure you were on time… you’ve worked to prepare because you’re desperately hoping you get this job.  You step through the doorway into a room you’ve never been in before, sit down with people you’ve never met before, and their first question is “What was the last gift you gave someone?”  It was nothing you’ve prepared for, or ever imagined being asked…

You’re already anxious.  You’ve decided to leave your old job, but you don’t yet know what’s next.  And now this – it’s disorienting.  You sense that you’re being invited to think in new ways, but you’re still working with ways of thinking about how things work formed by your old experiences.  You can’t seem to get outside of that box to answer this question.

You feel overwhelmed – and your anxiety ramps up further.  The temptation is to power through with your prepared answers to the interview questions you had expected as if nothing has changed, though you now know those answers no longer serve you well.  You look around the room desperately seeking out a sympathetic face – maybe someone on this team thinks the usual interview questions are still perfectly fine, the way you do… You flounder, badly.

Abruptly, the dynamic in the interview room changes – one of the people recognizes that you are taken aback by the question and indicates that it’s not surprising.  That they are looking for a different kind of candidate for the job, someone who is intuitive, collaborative, and isn’t thrown by the unexpected.  You feel encouraged and improvise a different response to their question.  To your surprise it almost comes across as open and creative – even to your own ears.  The interview becomes more of a conversation, and two hours into the 45-minute interview there is almost a familiarity as everyone’s ideas interact and flow.  It’s like a collective wisdom emerging and what has become clear is that the reason for this is rooted in a few core values that you discover you hold in common.  There’s a tangible sense of excitement and discovery.  You’ve crossed fully into the room now.  You figured this out.  You got the job!

It’s something God’s Spirit does in encounters with people again and again in the Bible.  A group of men working on their nets and Jesus says follow me.  Abram and Sarah are old and some people travelling through tell them they’re going to have a baby.  Jesus’ friends, having seen his brutal, painful execution, are told by a woman that in Jesus’ death there is a new kind of life.  Nothing prepares you for these things.

As the Franciscan author Richard Rohr says, Liminal space – on a threshold, in-between – is that space that human beings hate to occupy… where the biblical God is continually taking us.

We face wicked challenges as churches in our day, and equally inspiring opportunities.  The real leadership we need in this time has to have the courage to take risks, and to be misunderstood, because we’re expected to ease anxiety, not increase it.  We’re expected to save the day, when what we need to do is to mobilize our faith communities around asking hard questions about who we are, and why we’re here, and who is our neighbour.

Church Councils, and Boards, and in Bloor Street’s case, Transition Teams, are being called upon not to solve problems, not to fix things, but to be transformed for such a time as this.  We do not yet know where we’re going, but we’re becoming clear about, and being guided by, our purpose. We’re listening intently.  We’re letting go of things that no longer serve our raison d’être.  And we’re opening ourselves anew to what God’s Spirit is doing in our midst and in the world so that we’ll be ready – to join in the dance with joy, with hope, and without fear!

Leadership is dangerous, but at the moment, it’s also exhilarating.  Let’s enjoy the ride.  God is with us.  May it be so.