Jesus provokes the religious leaders of his time in a
number of contexts. He disturbs the status quo by threatening individual power
bases, including religious ones. He outrages the authorities by openly
challenging them in his teaching and through subversive behaviour, such as
driving out the money lenders from the temple. But most significantly, he
threatens their authority by winning people’s trust. He connects with people.
In other words, he connects with the truth which they inherently sense but
seldom hear spoken, or witness in the lives of the powerful. In Jesus they
experience truth as something understood at a primary level of human
consciousness. They experience truth, rather than just hear it discussed. This is
what makes the authority of Jesus recognisably authentic.
Authority comes with trust. True authority is always
given, or entrusted, but it does not always come with power. In fact, Jesus refused
to be seduced by power. As a result, his authority challenged and disturbed the
powerful. The authority of Jesus was not the same as political power. Through the
authority given him by the Father, he inspired and changed lives and convinced
people of the love of God, but he did not get rid of the Roman occupying forces.
Instead, with the authority given him, he radically changed the destiny of the
world. He set it on a different course.
It is authority and not power that is needed today with
regard to the conflicts raging in the Middle East. We need an authority which
is vested in God’s love for all of humanity, and so capable of changing the
world, but which at the same time has been entrusted to our leaders by us,
through the democratic process. Trust has to have been earned if authority is to be freely
given. It is probably fair to say that political authority is rarely earned in
the way God would have it earned, with the exception of one or two rare
individuals – Myanmar’s President Aung San Suu Kyi being one which springs to
mind.
Entrusting authority to world leaders does not exempt the
rest of us from taking responsibility for what they do with it. So they should
know that we expect and demand that the wisest, most truthful and most
judicious course of action be taken in our name. For us at present, this
involves taking responsibility for our country’s active engagement in a
conflict which has been brought about by violent extremism borrowed from
religion, and from the lust for power. There are issues of genocide, our own security
and that of other countries at stake, all of which return us to the question of
authority rightfully earned and exercised in the interest of the freedom and
safety of all. ISIS has no such authority. This is also true for those who facilitate or support its actions.
People of faith, as well as those who do not think of
themselves as religious, should give religious and secular leaders who are
engaged in the urgent business of defeating this particular evil their full and
heartfelt attention. Giving such attention is a business which concerns us all.
Attentiveness means being alongside the world’s leaders in heart and mind,– in other
words, in that part of the heart which also thinks. This does not mean agreeing
with them. In fact attentiveness will inevitably face us with some
uncomfortable truths regarding other conflicts that we have caused, been
involved with, or simply stood by and allowed to happen, Gaza and Israel being
one of the most recent examples.
Nevertheless, where there is a heart and head attentiveness,
there is also hope. We have had brief and surprising glimpses of what this kind
of attentiveness could lead to. Who, for example, could have imagined that a
group of leaders whose countries have long distrusted one another and, in some
cases, declared themselves to be in a state of mutual enmity, would sit around
a table in order to plan how they might best work together to overcome the evil
being manifested through the murderous activities of ISIS? The scenario is of
course far more complicated, but something of wisdom and common sense is at
work here. Something of true authority is being exercised. It shows that an
evil which is everyone’s problem requires a concerted and judicious response. If,
either as individual nations or collectively, we do nothing, we shall all be
responsible for a growing violent anarchy which is capable of doing immense
harm to those its perpetrators hate most. This is true both in its own sphere
of influence and in the wider global context.
But we are also implicated when we act. This is why trust
is so badly needed in politics today. Exercising authority in a judicious way means
doing the right thing for the right reason. But this can only be done with the
support and trust of a majority who want the same just and peaceful outcome,
including those of us who may not be 100% sure that a particular course of
action is the right one tactically or as part of a broader strategy, but do know
that we need to act.
Exercising authority in the way God would like us to
exercise it begins with humility. It means that the authority given comes with
an awareness that our human and often short term thinking does not always
turn out for the best for the greatest number of people. Such authority
involves us all, so let’s try to be more deeply attentive to those who are
accountable to us for the decisions they make in our name.
No comments:
Post a Comment