Jesus was (and is) a leader to look to

About a year ago, I read “The Art of the Turnaround” by Michael Kaiser. Kaiser heads the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He became the head of the Kennedy Center at a time when it was struggling and needed big help. Kaiser was the right person at the right time. Kaiser has become famous in the world of arts organizations, having made a career of taking troubled arts organizations and returning them to health and vitality.

In his book, Kaiser gives 10 rules for a healthy arts organization.

Rule 1: Someone must lead.

Rule 2: The leader must have a plan.

My reaction to Kaiser’s first two rules was that he had stated the obvious. Yet many do not want to hear his message. We live in a society in which leadership is looked upon with suspicion. When someone steps forward and offers leadership, they are hit with an onslaught of questions about their motives.

We constantly lose leadership in American communities because good people do not want to be subjected to the criticism that is certain to arise.

Decisive leadership among Americans is not valued. This becomes obvious in the life of Christian churches. Churches of all kinds are victims of weak leadership. The desired profile for a pastor or priest in a local church includes the following:

He/she should be well-liked in the community. The reputation of the church is at stake. That means membership in Rotary or at least the Lions or Kiwanis. The good pastor does great baptisms, beautiful weddings and sensitive funerals. It is especially important that she/he says all the right words at the celebration of communion. The list of qualities concludes with sermons nicely delivered that offend no one, regular visits to the sick and prayers at public events that say nothing. And, oh yes, it helps if the good pastor sings acceptably well.

In the process of choosing our ministers, we seem to forget that we need a leader. Jesus is our model and he was a leader. Jesus recruited disciples by challenging people to follow him. The gospel accounts of the life of Jesus always place him in the leadership role. There is no account of him deferring to anyone. A week before Jesus was murdered, he rode into Jerusalem on a humble donkey, but he was in the lead position.

At the beginning of his teaching ministry, Jesus appeared before a synagogue gathering and took hold of the mantle of leadership. He declared that he had assumed the role of leadership for the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. It was no small task. He never relinquished that role. I suspect he appeared to many as arrogant. At best, they considered him misguided.

Kaiser is dead right. Arts organizations need leaders. So also do other types of organizations, especially churches.

Kaiser’s second rule is also on target. The leader must have a plan.

The leader is no better than the plan put forth. In the case of Kaiser, his last eight rules are the outline of the plan he advocates for arts organizations.

Jesus surely had a plan. It was not a plan for getting people to heaven following death. It was a plan to transform the way people lived and related to one another. He called it the good news. He declared that it was good news for poor people, for people enslaved or in prison and for people who were in any way oppressed. He advocated lavish generosity, cancellation of debts and putting down of arms. He insisted that enemies were to be loved even as family members are loved.

Christian churches have become obsessed with getting people to heaven. Jesus from Nazareth has become known almost totally as the Christ of God who died for the sins of the world. The two central ceremonies of Christian worship, baptism and communion, are designed to assure the faithful of forgiveness of sins and a purity that qualifies them for eternal life in heaven. The gospel records bear witness to the fact that Jesus had a very different agenda.

Where is the call for recognition of Jesus as the great leader for life? I suspect those who accept the identification of Christian are very uneasy with the leadership of Jesus because of the program that he laid out in his parables, aphorisms and other teachings.

In our faith language, “leader” must be placed along side of “Savior” and “Son of God.” Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

We can only get there when we recognize a leader with a plan and commit ourselves to the doing of the plan.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer. His e-mail address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.