ONSLAUGHT LEADERSHIP

ONSLAUGHT LEADERSHIP

Someone, I forget who, was so disappointed with the tragic ending of George Eliot’s novel The Mill on the Floss that she read it again hoping the ending would be different! In wasn’t and she threw the book away in disgust. I felt a bit like that today as I tuned into the news several times on the British decision to leave the European Union, subconsciously hoping perhaps that there was some mistake and the decision would be reversed!

I’m no expert in these matters but I have a feeling there was a breakdown in leadership. No one seemed able to put the case clearly for sticking with the EU, faulty as it may be, and improving it. It was an amazing achievement to set up the EU, step by step, after the war. Now Britain wants to be an island again and could scupper the union if others follow her example. To my mind it is a retreat into isolation. A disaster!

Why is leadership so difficult? Many want to be leaders but few succeed in being great leaders. We all have our models. For me, Abraham Lincoln stands out. My brother once asked a librarian to recommend a life of Lincoln. “There are 450,” was the reply, “which one do you want?” Lincoln did not seek to be president. He just wanted to be a senator. But others recognised his qualities and manoeuvred him into it.

He faced a horrific scene. The south wanted to leave the union and retain slavery. The north wanted to retain the union and abolish slavery. Lincoln led the north and it wasn’t a vote he faced but a war. For four years he struggled to get his generals to engage the south and end the secession and slavery. It was extremely complex and emotions ran high. He succeeded in both aims but he knew there would be a backlash and there was. He was assassinated.

To be a leader is to be clear about goals and courageous in pursuing them. Luke tells us that there came a time when Jesus “resolutely took the road for Jerusalem.” He knew the risks and he accepted them and he too was killed. It is the height of what it is to be human: to face all the difficulties and risks of being a leader and setting out.

There is a story about how Elijah “threw his cloak” over Elisha. We are told in a footnote that the cloak represents the person and his powers. So now Elisha was to take up the leadership; a tough assignment. But he burns his plough and follows Elijah and becomes the prophet in his place. A prophet’s “life and soul are at stake in what he says” and does … He “does not offer “reflections”. His words are onslaughts, scuttling illusions and false security, challenging evasions …” (A.J. Heschell, The Prophets).  There is fire and urgency in this form of leadership. They speak “with authority.”

26 June 2016                                       Sunday 13 C

1 Kings 19:16, 19-21                          Galatians 5:1, 13-18                           Luke 9:51-62