July 30,
2006
Text: John 6:1-21
Fleeing the Throne
Stephen Seleny, founder of Trinity
Valley School in Fort Worth, TX, was a child in Germany as Adolf Hitler was
rising to prominence. He recalls
attending with his father one of Hitler’s mass rallies in Nuremburg. His father was not an enthusiast. In fact, he was appalled by what he saw going
on around him, and wanted to learn first hand how a person that he viewed to be
an uneducated criminal could capture the minds and hearts of some of the most
educated people of Europe. The field was
filled with hundreds of thousands people, tall and streaming banners with
swastikas, and energy. Soon, Hitler
started yelling his speech, and soon the crowd was caught up in the
moment. Seleny recalls that initially
his father was simply observing, but before long he, too, was shouting along in
the call and response, “Zieg” – “Heil”, “Zieg” – “Heil”, “Zieg” – “Heil” that
was intoxicating the masses like a drug.
Eventually,
the speech ended and the crowd began to dissipate. But Seleny’s father didn’t move. Looking up, the little boy recalls it to be
the first time he had seen his father cry like a baby. “Tears were streaming down his face,” Seleny
recalls, “and then my father got down on his knees and sat there. And when my father calmed down, he turned
toward me, looked at me with eyes I will never forget, and said: ‘Learn it well. Don’t ever go into a crowd. Because if you do, you cease to become an
individual. You become a machine that
can be manipulated by whoever manipulates the crowd.’”
Depending
on our age and attention span, many of us have seen that lesson dramatized
closer to home. During the 1960’s,
anti-war fervor often galvanized protestors into seething crowds that washed
over neighborhoods and cities like tidal waves of discontent. A few decades later, when the verdicts were
read pronouncing the police officers accused of beating Rodney King “not
guilty,” the streets of Los Angeles erupted in a fury of mass violence and
frustration that were fueled by crowd mentality which buoyed it.
And it isn’t just the issues made for
the television news. I remember in high
school going forward during the closing intensity of a youth revival because
everyone around me was doing it, and before I knew what I was doing, I had
joined them at the altar as though it was the first time this preacher’s kid
had ever heard about Jesus. My guess is
that a lot of us have done things or said things and tried things in the
company of a crowd that we never would have considered on our own.
Fred
Craddock, voicing his own distrust of “critical mass,” once observed that “Good
attendance does not say in itself anything about the intrinsic value of a
gathering.” [1]
It
is an insight that too few churches seem to understand, and one that certainly
characterizes the story at hand.
Whatever else it may be, the story this morning from John’s gospel is a
crowd story, although we aren’t accustomed to reading it that way. In fact, the reading includes two stories so
large in their amazement and so familiar that one particular sentence can get
overlooked if we aren’t watching carefully.
Ø
Here is John’s
account of the miraculous feeding of the 5000 using only 5 loaves and two
fishes, and we never tire of imagining such a miracle and positing various
explanations – both rational and supernatural – for how Jesus could have pulled
it off.
Ø
Here also is
the quieter but no less puzzling story of Jesus walking across the evening
water to join his disciples who were relying on more common transport to get
across the lake.
Ø
Here are
miracle and mystery, triumph and wonder.
Here are compassion and care and demonstration of power.
We can be forgiven for overlooking the odd and
disconcerting footnote that “When Jesus realized that they were about to
come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain
by himself.”
As
Stephen Seleny’s father experienced that day in Nuremburg, and as Jesus
discovered this day on the hill beside the Sea of Galilee, crowds can be
dangerous – for those swept up in their enthusiasm, to be sure, but also for
those on whose their attention is focused.
If on this day, this crowd was willing to follow Jesus anywhere, Jesus,
for his part, was not willing to lead them.
The
move represents an odd inversion of sorts – and a confusion. The confusion is the same as the one Jesus
faced at the bookends of his life.
According to Matthew, King Herod went into a murderous panic when the
magi asked him about the birth of a new king.
Years later, after he was arrested as both a theological and political
subversive, Jesus was grilled by Pilate about the idea of kingship – “Are you
the King of the Jews?”
Jesus
responded, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
“Oh,
so you are a king,” Pilate responded.
“We
are using the same words,” Jesus seems to respond, “but we aren’t saying the
same thing.”
And now here, in the midst of his ministry, more royal confusion. Jesus has been pacing around the countryside
and beyond, inviting people to follow. In
a sense, people have done just that – literally, if not always spiritually. So many had been tagging along behind him
everywhere he went, that Jesus had no rest from them. But their motivation is suspect, albeit understandable. Jesus has been gaining quite a reputation for
curing the sick and the lame; who can be surprised that he would be hounded by
people needing help. See what happens to
you on a busy street corner in virtually any third-world country in the world
if you give away a single dollar to a begging child. Within a matter of steps you’ll no longer be
able to move because of the crowd that has swelled in every direction. Itches quite naturally lean into a
scratch.
A
cursory glance might give the impression that Jesus has turned fickle – that
getting, all of a sudden, that which he has been soliciting, he decides, in the
end, that he doesn’t want it after all.
A closer look, however, recognizes the truth: the people are not so much interested in following Jesus as shoving him in the direction they want him to go. It is, as one scholar summarizes it, “the
usual ugly scene of enthroning those who do things for us, putting a chicken in
every pot and a car in every garage. ” [2]
Jesus,
the genie we can rub in the service of our three wishes; Jesus, the means to
our immediate ends. I can almost hear
Jesus responding, “Thanks, but as fun as that sounds, I’m really here for
something more.”
I
would love to know what really went on in Jesus’ mind, beyond the curt, fait accompli described by the evangelist. Perhaps his conviction and focus were so
clear that he brooked no distraction.
But most of us feel some measure of conflict between what we want and
what we are offered. Is this close
enough? Is this possibility good enough,
or should I hold out for something different?
A
few months ago I heard an author discussing his new book on one of the morning
talk shows. His argument is that “pretty
good” is usually “good enough” – that many people waste perfectly adequate and
accessible opportunities by holding out for “the perfect” job or investment or
trip or … fill in the blank. My mind immediately
flashed back a few years earlier to a presentation in Sheslow Auditorium given
by Jim Collins, the best-selling author of books such as Built to Last and Good to
Great. His laser-beam assertion is
that “good is the enemy of great” – that too many people sacrifice real
excellence by settling for what is simply “good.” Both writers make a good point. Unfortunately, those points are in direct
conflict. When, then, do you settle for
what you have, and when do you resist; holding out for what your heart and soul
and mind and strength insist could be?
Isn’t there some old saying about “better to reach for the stars and end
up with the street light than never to leave the ground”?
Actually,
the real quote is, “It’s better to reach for the stars and miss, than to aim
for a pile of manure and hit” by a guy named Dan Clark, but the other version
better makes the point. The argument
between good and great can be a strenuous one, without clear and compelling
guides for making the choice.
Last
weekend, seven from our congregation participated in a LOGOS Leadership
experience in support of our own thriving midweek program for children and
youth held during the school year. A
major emphasis of that training is the idea of “call” – of not simply asking
people indiscriminately to do one or another LOGOS-related tasks, but to
consider personal gifts, and the particular ways that God might be calling them to exercise those gifts
in meaningful and relevant ways through this ministry. And I believe with strong conviction that
their counsel is wise. And with great
humility I recognize that nominating committees and search committees and even
LOGOS Leadership Teams can sometimes get it wrong – asking people to serve in a
particular way for which they are absolutely wrong. For people who like to help – who want to be
of service – who have probably been on the asking end of similar calls
themselves – it’s hard to say “no”, even when no is the right answer to give.
Jesus
fled the throne, anticipating the legendary LBJ’s assertion regarding candidacy
for another presidential term: “If
nominated I will not accept; if elected I will not serve.” A draft – election by acclamation – is not
the same thing as a call. Jesus said no
– as sometimes should we, when the appetite of the earth speaks louder than the
aspiration of heaven. Jesus was clear
about who he was, and the confusion of others would not distract him. Who is God calling us to be; what is God
calling us to do; and what glittering attractions are finally seducing
distractions?
There
is more to say about taking the positive risk of saying “yes,” and in the weeks
to come I’ll do what I can to say it.
But in the meantime let us learn something of the discrimination of
Jesus, and pray that God make us stewards of both our “yeses” and our “no’s”
that each might clear the space in which God’s will is done.