Imagine the House of Commons during the daily Question Period—a cauldron of mistrust, ambition, and self-aggrandizement if there ever was one. The members of Parliament, egged on by the media, are hurling loaded questions, clever retorts, and assorted insults across the floor as usual, all striving to make the evening news and secure the greatest possible attention and recognition for themselves and their parties.
But what if we were also to imagine that the space between the government and opposition benches was occupied not by the mace and the tables of the house officers but by scores of young children representing more truly than any member of Parliament the future hopes of our country?
How would politicians act in the face of the child in the midst? Would it be the presence and actions of the children that would be incongruous and out of place in the Commons, or would it be the words and actions of the members that would now appear inappropriate and misdirected?
If only we would listen, Jesus of Nazareth has much to teach us—by word, by example, and through the tempering influence of the child in the midst—on the management of ambition.
72 See Matthew 20:20–28; Mark 10:35–45.
73 Mark 9:33–34; Luke 9:46.
74 Luke 22:24.
75 Luke 22:24–29. See also Matthew 20:20–28; Mark 10:35–45.
76 Matthew 20:27 (KJV).
77 No one modelled this “downward route to the top” for us better than Jesus. As the apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians, “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5–11).
78 Luke 22:27.
79 John 13:12–15.
80 See Matthew 18:1–5; Mark 9:33–37; Luke 9:46–48.
81 Matthew 18:3–4.
1.7 TRAINING: MANAGING CHANGE
The Leadership of Change
The leadership of change can be one of the most difficult and thankless tasks a leader undertakes—in particular when it involves the reform of entrenched practices or institutions that need to be changed because they have become outdated, deformed, counterproductive, or obsolete but to which those engaged in them are still deeply committed because of tradition, habit, familiarity, and resistance to innovation.
In the case of Jesus, he first focused his ministry of change not on the general public but on his small band of initial followers. As A. B. Bruce pointed out, it was an onerous undertaking:
At the time of their call they were exceedingly ignorant, narrow-minded, superstitious, full of … prejudices, misconceptions, and animosities. They had much to unlearn of what was bad, as well as much to learn of what was good, and they were slow both to learn and unlearn. Old beliefs already in possession of their minds made the communication of new religious ideas a difficult task.82
The three well-established religious conventions of his day that Jesus particularly addressed were the practices and institutions of fasting, ceremonial washing, and Sabbath observance. Jesus specifically addressed the reform of religious practices and institutions—those most resistant to change because they are rooted in deeply held beliefs that their adherents believe to be immutable and divinely sanctioned. But the principles and techniques Jesus utilized to induce change under such circumstances are relevant to the reform of any deeply entrenched practice or institution.
The Critique of Current Practices
In Jesus’ day, the most rigorous teachers and practitioners of fasting, ceremonial washing, and Sabbath observance were the Pharisees. As the primary teachers of the law of Moses, their instruction and example with respect to these practices were highly influential with the general public, including the members of Jesus’ initial band of followers.83 So to change the conduct of the latter in relation to these practices, Jesus first had to critique the teaching and practices of the former. His focus was on criticizing not the essence of these practices but the extremes to which the Pharisees carried them.
For example, with respect to ceremonial washing,
The aim of the rabbinical prescriptions respecting washings was not physical cleanliness, but something thought to be far higher and more sacred. Their object was to secure, not physical, but ceremonial purity; that is, to cleanse the person from such impurity as might be contracted by contact with a Gentile, or with a Jew in a ceremonially unclean state, or with an unclean animal, or with a dead body or any part thereof … Not content with purifications prescribed in the law for uncleanness actually contracted, they made provision for merely possible cases. If a man did not remain at home all day, but went out to market, he must wash his hands on his return, because it was possible that he might have touched some person or thing ceremonially unclean. Great care, it appears, had also to be taken that the water used in the process of ablution was itself perfectly pure; and it was necessary even to apply the water in a particular manner to the hands, in order to secure the desired results.84
With respect to Sabbath observance, adherence to the fourth commandment,85 Bruce again described in considerable detail the extremes to which the Pharisaic interpretation and practice of this institution had been taken.
Their habit, in all things, was to degrade God’s law by framing innumerable petty rules for its better observance, which, instead of securing that end, only made the law appear base and contemptible. In no case was this miserable micrology carried to greater lengths than in connection with the fourth commandment. With a most perverse ingenuity, the most insignificant actions were brought within the scope of the prohibition against labour. Even in the case put by our Lord, that of an animal fallen into a pit, it was deemed lawful to lift it out—so at least those learned in rabbinical lore tell us—only when to leave it there till Sabbath was past would involve risk to life. When delay was not dangerous, the rule was to give the beast food sufficient for the day; and if there was water in the bottom of the pit, to place straw and bolsters below it, that it might not be drowned.86
Jesus’ Critique of Religious Extremism
In critiquing the Pharisaic approach