Among my favorite passages from the Hebrew Bible is Joshua 3: 1-5. The NRSV version reads like this:
3 Early in the morning Joshua rose and set out from Shittim with all the Israelites, and they came to the Jordan. They camped there before crossing over. 2 At the end of three days the officers went through the camp 3 and commanded the people, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place. Follow it, 4 so that you may know the way you should go, for you have not passed this way before. Then Joshua said to the people, “Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”
In this reading from Joshua, we find people in transition and a leader, in Moses, also in transition or, perhaps in a process of transformation. In our liturgical year we are moving through Epiphany toward Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday on March 5th. We are also in a transitional season after a polarizing and difficult election season. Many are anxious and at times, the truth seems elusive. And of course, we are in transition as we seek our next rector in this season of profound changes in the Episcopal Church and in mainline Protestantism, hence, our “Lay led, clergy supported” mantra. In our “Walk in Love” class at Holy Family (40+ souls last Sunday…thank you!) we are making our way through disciplines and practices found in the Book of Common Prayer. We have learned the Latin phrase “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi” which, loosely translates as “how we pray shapes our beliefs and actions.” We began a discussion of our Baptismal Covenant, a portion of which reads like this:
Celebrant: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
People: I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant: Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
People: I will, with God’s help
How might our disciplines and practices, including our covenants, prayers, liturgy and life together as the Body of Christ assist us in this time of change, and polarization, and anxiety? How might these guide us on a journey in many ways unlike any other…when like Joshua at the Jordan, we “have not passed this way before”?
Walter Brueggemann, my erstwhile colleague from Columbia Seminary, teaches about three kinds of Psalms and, as such, three kinds of journeys: Psalms of Orientation, Disorientation, and New Orientation. And we know this pattern well as Christians and Episcopalians in the form of our journey during Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter…
This familiar pattern is one about which Richard Rohr and other authors have written as part of our spiritual journey. It is also about our “salvation,” because we are indeed “saved” by knowing and surrendering to this universal journey of reality. Knowing the full pattern allows us to let go of the first order, accept the disorder, and, sometimes hardest of all—to grieve our losses and trust the new reorder.
In some ways during this season of transition, we are living out our own version of that Exodus journey. Ignatius, one of our spiritual forefathers and mothers, wisely said that we must learn to practice what he called “Holy Indifference” when we encounter those limit places where we must let go of our illusion that we can order and control the world through whatever means we seek to do so. Release of control to God will show itself as compassion and generosity, respecting the dignity of every human being, and less attention to rules and regulations. This will normally be experienced, Rohr says, as a move toward humility and real community. It may also mean that we can discover leadership abilities in ourselves, and new ways of being in community, perhaps in ways that are surprising.
“Leadership” is a broad topic, and we may be tempted to think it does not apply to us. I want to challenge that notion, and invite us to think together about leadership, and about how we might lead ourselves and others on this Exodus journey during this season of our lives. The origin of the word “leader” means, simply, to guide. So, let’s imagine how we might guide one another in this season of disorientation. We will have our vestry retreat this coming Saturday with a new team of leaders. Moreover, we are exploring together new and exciting ways to recruit more lay leaders at Holy Family. This is hopeful. And hope is a good thing…it may be the best of things.
You may see yourself as a leader, you may not…. But Quaker Educator Parker Palmer says that “Leadership” is a concept we often resist. It seems immodest, even self-aggrandizing, to think of ourselves as leaders. But if it is true that we are made for community, then leadership is everyone’s vocation, and it can be an evasion to insist that it is not. When we live in the close-knit ecosystem called community, everyone follows and everyone leads.” No matter who or where we are, we may be called to lead in this threshold season, and to practice resurrection in ways that may surprise us. Leadership is not an identity; rather, it is a role; leading is not who we are; leading is what we do – at least some of the time.
And I don’t believe that leaders are born any more than great violinists or runners or surgeons or football players are born. I believe that leadership can be learned – primarily through practice and experience—and that it can take an infinite variety of forms. Indeed, it may be that when we bump up against our own limitations, and those things in relation to which we are afraid, we can discover in ourselves the capacity to lead in ways that may surprise us. And we have, in our Exodus text from this morning, an excellent example. So, I want to invite us to think through some of the key elements of leadership. I’m going to invoke someone we all know: Moses, whose story we know well.
Moses was both flawed and called: Moses reminds us we do not have to be heroic or have special charisma. He did not seek the job – there was no ad on Linked in saying “prophet needed to lead exodus – forever reshape relationship with YHWH”; Moses was attuned to the problem (they were slaves) and attuned to the sacred (he saw a burning bush); he was present and awake; he responded to the need and the opportunity; he did the job that had to be done, despite being flawed and called…Moses Articulated a vision : he was clear about current reality – slavery in a foreign land; he was clear about future promise – a promised land and new relationship to YHWH. Like Moses, Naomi was a strong, resilient, faithful leader who guided her daughter-in-law Ruth to a new life. Naomi’s story is a powerful example of how faith, loyalty, and love can help people through difficult times.
Friends, this is creative tension—imagination and resilience emerge out of liminal, transitional times and spaces. Moses mobilized the people, and persevered to realize/achieve that vision. I believe that Moses’ leadership and ours too, has a pastoral quality. Leading helps others claim their own leadership. Likewise, Naomi guided Ruth to a new life of imagination and creativity.
We lead by calling forth and supporting the leadership of others; Jesus always helps grow people up…he does not infantilize others. The psychiatrist Donald Winnicott, among my heroes, once said that he knew his patients were getting better not so much when their symptoms abated—a good thing to be sure—but rather when they recovered or discovered their gifts for imagination, and creativity, and being fully alive. I agree!
Together, metaphorically speaking, we are preparing to cross the Jordan to a new chapter of our parish. Let’s covenant, shall we, to respect the dignity of every human being, to lead together, and to cultivate our collective imagination and remain hopeful as we pray…
Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon these your servants the forgiveness of sin, and have raised them to the new life of grace. Sustain them, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen.
I’ll catch you later on down the trail, and I hope to see you in church!
Blessings, Bill+