The Burden of Leadership

Day 62: 2 Samuel 21–24; Jeremiah 48–52; Philippians 3–4

I served a church that had a big high backed wooden chair with a fat cushion for the preacher to sit upon during worship.  It resembled a throne or the seat of a big wig at a Masonic Temple meeting.  I hated it. My feet did not touch the floor for the seat was just too big for me.  Then one day I realized, "that's the point."  The task of speaking on God's behalf and leading His people is too big for me. The burden is too heavy.

2nd Samuel ends with bizarre tales of justice.  The land of Israel is under famine for three years.  Their prayers go unanswered.  Finally David learns from God why.  King Saul tried to exterminate the Gibeonites during his reign.  You may remember these Amorite people tricked the Israelites under Joshua to make a treaty of peace with them by wearing ragged clothing and carrying moldy bread.  They posed as people from a far away land who had heard of all Yahweh had done for them.  Joshua made the treaty of peace (Josh 9:3-27) .  Saul ignored the longstanding promise to do the Gibeonites no harm. 

This violation brings a drought and famine.  Saul's sin has a communal consequence.  His decision to persecute the Gibeonites brought about God's pursuit of Israel to correct this injustice.  David asks how he can make it right. The Gibeonites ask for seven of Saul's relatives to execute as justice.  Remember Cain's mark communicated a sevenfold penalty for taking his life (Gen. 4:15)?  We see this kind of balancing the scales in human lives carried out.  Saul's concubine, Rizpah, loses her two sons and five of Saul's grandsons through his daughter Merab. The Gibeonites hang these men and David gathers Saul's bones and Jonathan's his son from Jabesh-Gilead and buries them along with the rest of his family in Benjamin with Saul's father, Kish.  Then the famine ends and the rain returns.

The last chapter of 2 Samuel covers a census that David takes to count all the number of men who are of fighting age much like Moses did in the wilderness.  According to the writer of 2 Samuel 24, God in His anger against Israel told David to take this census.  After doing so, however, David felt that he had sinned against God.  God asked David to pick his punishment.  3 years of famine, 3 months of war running from enemies (like his days running from Saul), or 3 days of plague.  David had done the famine before. He'd run from enemies.  In both of these cases he felt he would be in the hands of men.  A famine would mean three years of his subjects complaining against him.  It would mean he would spend the country's wealth on buying grain and becoming perhaps enslaved as nations became enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt just to buy his grain during a 7 year famine.  So David chose 3 days of plague saying, "I have great anxiety. Please, let us fall into the LORD's hands because His mercies are great, but don't let me fall into human hands (2 Sam. 24:14)."

Do you suppose Harry S. Truman had great anxiety when he was faced with losing American and Allied troops to invade Japan in a land battle or drop atomic bombs on the island nation?  Do you think President Obama suffered anxiety making the call to attack the compound where they believed Osama bin Laden to be hiding?  What if the intelligence was incorrect?  It could create an international crisis discrediting America for invading a sovereign nation to carry out a failed mission.  The success of the mission has lightened the level of criticism from our fellow nations, but think what would be said if the mission failed? 

The burden of leadership at national and global levels is to make decisions that place lives in the balance... the balance scales of justice...of loss or gain...of right and wrong.  Perhaps these stories give us some level of understanding as to the weight our national leaders carry.  Have you noticed how quickly American presidents hair turns gray?  They enter office young and vital with dark hair, but within the first term they are moving toward white hair.  Great anxiety, indeed!   I cannot imagine the decisions our president must make each year that involve placing soldiers in harm's way or citizen's under strain with economic policies that affect their livelihoods.  The burden of leadership is great.

That is why it takes humility, cooperation, wisdom, listening to many advisers, and above all prayer, leaning on God and looking for guidance. 

David may have sinned by trusting in military might rather than in God's promise to provide and protect His covenant keeping people.  Babylon gloried in her gods, trembled at desert demons who they called upon for fighting power, and wallowed in the wealth of the nations she had subdued.  A leader who uses position to glory in arrogance and ego will surely fall hard.  God humbles those who exalt themselves.  But a man who humbles himself before God will be exalted by God.

Jeremiah prophesies against many nations, but the bulk of the oracles are against Babylon.  God used the nation to punish Israel. Now God will punish Babylon.  Babylon thought they were invincible, but they were simply a tool in God's hand.  When the tool is no longer useful, it gets pitched into the trash.  Babylon is ready for the dung heap (Jer. 51:37).  For they trusted in their might, their wealth, their false gods made of wood and stone and precious metals, but they did not acknowledge the Living God of Israel.  The burden of Leadership is to realize whom you serve.  Do you serve yourself?  Or do you serve God and care for His people?

But when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon is succeeded by King Evil-Merodach, he sets things back in balance.  Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim, was released form prison and given a place of privilege at the King of Babylon's table. This is reminiscent of King David's kind treatment of Mephibosheth, son of his friend Jonathan.  Even though Mephibosheth was of the house of Saul, and conventional wisdom would call for his death as a potential enemy, David treated him like a prince.  The burden of leadership is to discern when to show mercy and when to withhold mercy and crush the enemy. 

Jesus told His disciples that they had the authority to forgive sins in His name or to not forgive them.  The disciple who abides in Christ carries the authority of Christ to pronounce freedom from guilt and sin or to condemn (John 20:23).  When a city would reject the gospel, Jesus instructed his disciples to shake the dust of the town off their feet as a testimony against them.  It will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah at the judgement than for the towns that heard the good news and rejected it (Mat. 10:14-15).  The writer of Hebrews infers that those in positions of spiritual leadership "watch over your souls as those who will give an account (Heb. 13:17)."  In other words church pastors, elders and deacons, preachers and teachers carry the heavy burden of responsibility for other men and women's souls.

Paul is the master of setting the example of a diligent shepherd who feeds when he needs to feed and nurture his flock and who strikes with the "rod and staff" to correct the course of the flock heading for trouble or to dry beds and dirt fields that do not nourish.

Watch out for "dogs," watch out for evil workers...boast in Christ, not the flesh. (Phil. 3:2, 3b)
"...live up to whatever [truth] we have attained (Phil. 3:16)."
"...our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior...(Phil. 3:20)."

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!"
"Let your graciousness be known to everyone."
"Don't worry about anything"
"let your requests be made known to God."
"whatever is true,whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is any praise—dwell on these things." (Phil 4:4-8)

The burden of leadership includes setting the example.  Paul shares how he considers all his past achievements to mean nothing compared to knowing Jesus Christ.  He urges the Philippians to follow his example and choose his attitude.

And Paul supplies blessing.  It is the burden of leadership to encourage the people you lead.

"my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen."
And finally we must trust, especially those in leadership, that we are not the only ones on the job.  God is at work in ways we can't even know.  He is at work in the midst of our decisions, the good and the poor ones.  David took a census and sinned while doing so.  His sin brought a plague that killed 70,000 of his people.  As the angel of death approached Jerusalem David cried out for mercy on the city, He asked God to take him and his household, but spare Jerusalem (2 Sam 24:15-17).  The prophet Gad relays a message telling David to build an altar on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 

Remember that the Jebusites used to control Jerusalem and that the priest Melchizedek once ruled there as king and priest of God Most High.  Melchizedek blessed Abram after his victory over the five kings who attacked Sodom and kidnapped his nephew Lot (Gen 14:17-20).

David buys this threshing floor from the Jebusite which is on a high hill above Jerusalem and he builds an altar and offers sacrifices to Yahweh there.  The plague stops. Jerusalem is spared.  David has no idea this is the future site of the temple his son Solomon will build.
O Lord, I am not worthy to say either good or bad to anyone for I am a flawed man just like my neighbor. Yet you have chosen me to shepherd and lead.  I know I do not carry the burden alone. It is impossible for me.  But with God all things are possible.  Help me be a wise, loving, encouraging and courageous leader for Your people.  And keep me ever in remembrance that You are working way ahead of me and at my side and watching my back. Amen.