Lenten Musings - 25

Got my car back today. It was in the body shop, as someone had rear ended me just before Christmas. The guy had tried to weasel out of being responsible for the damage. I had gotten his DL number, but not the plate on the vehicle. He avoided my calls, and wasn't very cooperative. Except when the nice policeman called him and told him what the consequences of not reporting the incident would be. Now I'm not normally one to stick up for my rights. My wife is much better at that. But it was a good learning experience for me. I didn't let it go. There wasn't that much damage, but it was the injustice of the situation that bothered me. Here someone had caused damage to my vehicle, for which they were responsible to fix, and yet at points I felt quite helpless to do anything about it. Fortunately, because I kept at it, and with some help from my friends and family, it all turned out in the end. I think God had some things for me to learn through the ordeal, and I hope I learned them. I hope I see that standing up for myself is actually not a bad idea. I hope that I realized I don't have to get so worked up about little inconveniences (or even harsh ones), when in general my life is pretty good. Hopefully, I realize that I can trust God to come through for me in these situations, realizing however, that I'm not off the hook and have to work at it with Him.

John 9
How easily we write people off because we think we are better than they. The pharisees were at the top of the spiritual food chain, and therefore assumed they knew better than anyone else. I think this was a part of their problem with Jesus. He did things that didn't compute, and so they wrote Him off, without trying to understand, or even looking at the evidence of what was going on. I like John 9:25. The pharisees come at the formerly blind man by saying, "We know this man [Jesus] is a sinner". The man responds, "well, I don't know about that, but what I do know is that He made me see!" The blind man could see, and that's all the evidence he needed. I don't think Jesus really had any chance of approval from the jewish leaders (not that he was looking for it). They wrote him off because He didn't meet their expectations. It didn't matter what He did, how miraculous His deeds and marvellous His words, they were never going to see past those unmet expectations.
I've felt this first hand. I used to work for a church a few years ago. I'm not your type A, go- getter, politician type. I think people that know me would probably say I'm a little reserved and slightly unmotivated. Or perhaps they wouldn't be that generous. I may not shake everyone's hand at a party, but the few new people I meet I will find out about and learn about and from them. Anyway, it seems that pastors are expected to be, well, not like me. In some cases it is explicitly stated (some of those job descriptions are pretty specific), but most of the time, it is this latent expectation that people have. Even I think that way in some respects. I met with a tragic end at that church, fired shortly after Christmas and shortly before our second child was born. It took a long time to finally figure out what went wrong. Eventually I pieced together the hints and rumours and came to a conclusion. I was in a situation in which I could not succeed. Certain people had certain expectations of what I should have been like (and as an extension, what I should have been doing), and I could never meet those expectations because I was not like that. Don't get me wrong, I know I could have done a better job in some respects, and I'm big enough to take what responsibility is mine, but in the end, I couldn't have done a good enough job because I wasn't the type of person who could fulfill those expectations. Interestingly, nearly the exact same thing had happened just over a year previously to the senior pastor that had hired me at that church.
So I look at Jesus, and the situation He was in. Sometimes I've wondered how God knew that people would have Him crucified (other than the fact that He knows these things). But really, it's not that difficult of a situation to predict. Jesus wasn't the type of person that the leaders expected Him to be. He didn't do the things they expected Him to do. Did He do a bad job? No. I didn't matter what He did, because the leaders couldn't get past those unmet expectations. So in some respects, the end that occurred was the only way it could have ended. It is by far easier to get rid of someone than to re-evaluate your expectations.
They other part of this story that I really like is John 9:34. Because the pharisees saw themselves as superior, they would not listen to this formerly blind man. It's difficult to hear people whom you have already written off. I've been on both sides of this, as a leader not listening to those I was leading, and as a follower, not having my ideas or suggestions considered. My leadership style has changed a bit over the years. I try very hard to listen those I'm in charge of. You'd be amazed at how often their ideas are better than mine! I think my "followership" style has changed, too. I'm hopefully not as quick to get upset when I'm corrected or when I'm dismissed out of hand. But it's difficult. It's always a choice, and not usually an easy one. Things would have been so much different if the pharisees had decided to listen to others, and especially to Jesus, and consider the things that were being said to them. Oh, that we in the church could learn not to live by their example.