September 2015 – Proper 21

The story in Numbers 11:4-6,10-16,24-29 reflects the tension and the complementarity between institutional and charismatic leadership, between the kind of authority that comes from position in a structure and the kind of authority that comes from personal gifts and authenticity. Moses complains to God that he is overwhelmed by the demands of leading both the “rabble” among the Israelites and the Israelites themselves, especially with their continual “craving” and “weeping” for things they don’t have anymore – a feeling many parish clergy and community leaders might recognize. Moses is so frustrated with his leadership challenges that he begs God “put me to death at once – if I have found favor in your sight – and do not let me see my misery” – surely one of the stranger collocations of “favor” and “death” in any recorded example of prayer! God responds by directing Moses to gather seventy elders, whom Moses knows to be “elders of the people and officers over them” – that is, seventy people who are already recognized as leaders within both kinship and operational structures. These are not junior members or first-time leadership trainees, but people who have some experience of the challenges of leadership and, perhaps more importantly, the acknowledgement and respect of the people they are to lead. But the crisis of “craving” and “weeping” and wanting to go back to Egypt has revealed that this kind of structural, institutional leadership is not enough. The people need leadership that is not only formal but also personal, leadership that can engage and inspire and reveal to the people the transcendent aims their actions can embody, the transcendent aims their leaders can envision and can help them to envision too. That is the quality of leadership God empowered in Moses in the encounter with the burning bush, with the revelation of the Divine Name, and through all the miracle/magical contests with Pharaoh’s sorcerers. But such leadership vested in one man alone is not enough to inspire and empower the entire people; the charism of that leadership must also be revealed in a network of leaders that can be distributed among, and raised up from, the people at large. That is the role of the seventy elders. Already structural leaders, they are now to share in the charismatic leadership as well, when God “took some of the spirit that was on Moses and put it on the seventy elders.” The mysterious, more-than-institutional, personal power made manifest in Moses’ directions and judgments will be manifested in the work of the seventy as well, fusing their structural leadership with inspirational authority. But such fusion is not complete – and it probably cannot ever be complete, since the power of transcendent aims often cuts across the habits of institutionalized procedures. That tension is illustrated in the curious case of Eldad and Medad, two of the seventy who, in contravention of their orders as officers, do not go out to the tent of meeting for the distribution of the spirit. Yet even though they are not physically present, the spirit rests on them as well, and they begin to “prophesy,” which in this case probably indicates an ecstatic mode of vision or utterance, rather than predicting the future. When Joshua is informed of Eldad and Medad’s ecstasy, he offers to go and stop them: because they are not there at the tent of meeting with Moses, it is clear they have abandoned their posts in the institutional authority structure, and Joshua takes that as a form of rebellion against Moses that makes their charismatic authority now unpredictable, uncontrollable, and dangerous to Moses. That is always the danger with charismatic authority. But Moses rightly recognizes that the charism comes from God; it is the same spirit that God first gave to Moses that is now resting on Eldad and Medad; and even if they are not in their place in the structure, they still cannot prophesy against the spirit that rests on them, and must therefore also accomplish the will of God who gives that spirit. “Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them,” is the kind of generous response a truly gifted leader can make. The tension between charismatic and institutional leadership can never be fully resolved; but that tension can be moderated from a contradiction to a contrast, with the result that the entire leadership process is made more vivid, more responsive to actual need, and more inspired with transcendent aims. Whitehead observes that both novelty and continuity are required for creative transformation; both the novelty of charismatic leadership and the continuity of structural leadership are required for creative spiritual communities. Congregations, chaplaincies, study groups, intentional communities, meditation circles – all sorts of spiritual and religious gatherings could benefit from asking themselves about the contrasted roles of structural and personal leadership in their work.

The latter half of Psalm 19, verses 7-14, is a poem in celebration of the Torah. But, paired with the Numbers reading, this poem is particularly notable for the way it celebrates the structural and institutional reality of laws, testimonies, statutes, commandments, and so on, precisely as the source of very personal and charismatic revival, wisdom, rejoicing, and light. The Psalmist’s praise is not so much of the Torah as an instrument of social and civic cohesion as it is for the righteousness and wholeness and “great reward” that comes to the individual devotee of Torah practice. The Torah here is portrayed as almost a mystical program, a course of inner practice, for achieving enlightenment and union with the purposes of God. This is not without its social and communal aspect, since the Torah is of course the mark of a covenant between God and the entire people; but that social and institutional aspect nearly disappears behind the personal and charismatic, almost ecstatic, devotion to actualizing Torah in all “the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart.” The poem might even be taken as an evocation of the kind of inner life required of Moses and the seventy elders – even Eldad and Medad! – in order to fulfill their calling as institutional leaders who are also sharing charismatic spiritual gifts.

The advice on prayer given in James 5:13-20 also flirts with the contrast between charismatic and structural leadership, and also with the importance of the inner devotional life as seen in the psalm. James advises the suffering to pray and the cheerful to praise; but those who are sick are told not only to pray themselves, but to call for “the elders of the church” to come pray for them and anoint them; James adds the further comment that “the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven,” implying that the faith that can accomplish these works is to be found particularly in those “elders” called upon to pray. At the time we suppose James was written, “elder” was an ambiguous term in the church: it could refer to a senior member of the community, a person whose years of experience and personal prayer had earned them respect and recognition for personal gifts of prayer and faithfulness; but the term was also evolving into a title for a particular role in the church, what would become an order of institutional ministry, as seen in the transformation of the Greek word for elder, presbyteros, into the word priest. When James calls for “the elders of the church,” he could mean charismatic or structural leaders, or, more likely, leaders who had some combination of both qualifications. What is important to James is that these “elders” are “righteous,” because “The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” and will benefit the people. Given the emphasis James places on righteousness as being rooted in both faith and works – “I by my works will show you my faith” (2:18) – it is likely that “the righteous” whose prayers are effective are those who are recognized by the community for their personal spiritual charisms, and are also in a structural position within the community to exercise those charisms regularly and openly. Here again institutional and charismatic leadership are set in creatively productive tension.

The first episode in the day’s gospel passage, Mark 9:38-50, echoes the theme of institutional and personal ministry one more time. John, son of Zebedee, one of the hotheads nicknamed by Jesus “sons of thunder,” reports of an unknown exorcist who has been using Jesus’ name even though he is not a follower of Jesus; John says they tried to stop him because he is invoking an authority he is not in proper relation with the true disciples to invoke. The unknown exorcist is, in effect, exercising a charismatic ministry without going through the proper structural channels, and John wants none of that going on. But Jesus counters that “whoever is not against us is for us,” and points out that using his name to do good cannot soon be followed by maligning that same name. Just as Moses did not need to protect his prophetic privilege from Eldad and Medad, Jesus tells John that he does not need to protect the power of good done in his name from those who are not under his immediate direction. What matters is that the power of God to inspire and heal is made manifest in the world; whether that power is channeled through personal or structural representatives is of far less importance. This leads to the further teaching that those with authority in the faith community, whether institutional or charismatic, bear great responsibility for “these little ones who believe in me”: the leader or teacher or any member of the community who causes a community member to stumble is subject to the greater punishment, and for such unfaithful leadership “it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.” Likewise, community members, and especially leaders, who are causes of stumbling should be “cut off” from the community before they can destroy the whole body. While Jesus’ teaching on cutting off hands and feet and tearing out eyes is often interpreted in individual terms, as persons needing to excise from their lives destructive habits and damning sins, and sometimes even to self-mutilation because of temptation (as most famously in the case of Origen), in the context the teaching seems to lend itself best to a community interpretation. Leaders who use the name of Jesus to do harm and cause stumbling are like the opposite of the unknown exorcist: they present the appearance being for Jesus but are really against him, and they should be stopped. The body of the faithful must guard itself against such false leaders. Perhaps this is the meaning of the rather obscure saying about being “salted with fire”: the “fire” that smelts ore, burning away the dross and purifying the metal, is like “salt” that preserves food and enhances flavor: the “fire” of testing and trying the faithfulness of leaders will “salt” and preserve the community. Those who “have salt in themselves” are those who speak the name of Jesus and exercise the Spirit to preserve and enhance the ethical and spiritual practice of the whole community, both in personal action and in structural leadership. They are the ones who empower all to “be at peace with one another.”