Spiritual Leadership
I
started my own personal reflection with the following thought: “The greatest
sin is the corruption of the highest good.”
Here’s where it led me.
There
is a profound truth in that statement.
On Facebook, a youth of a former congregation quoted Luke 6:39 and we’ve
been having a good conversation about it.
It says: “Jesus told them a parable.
‘Can a blind man lead a blind man?
Will they not both fall into a pit?’”
The conversation this youth and I have been having is all about the
importance of the spiritual leaders to be spiritually sighted. For when the spiritual leadership falls, it
doesn’t take long for the whole system to fall with it.
This
morning – before even reading Leviticus 21 – I got into a discussion with my
mother-in-law at how much concern we put forth into our property and how little
concern we put into the proclamation of the Gospel. Most churches – mine included – easily spends
far more money on maintaining one’s property and paying for the “bills”
(heating, electricity, insurance, etc) than for things like ministry, helping
the poor, and caring for the downtrodden.
That led me to a very controversial thought:
I’m not sure that organized religion is really
all that good for Christianity. Think
about when the Catholic Church had sole control of Western Christianity. It didn’t take long for Christianity to
devolve into berating the people into giving every last cent so that the money
could build a better church – or worse yet – go back to Rome to stuff their
coffers! So along came Luther, and
Zwingli, and Wesley, and Knox, and a whole bunch more reformers. And for a while the church got back to its
mission. But look at us now! We have some of the best manicured places of
worship out there! But how much actual
ministry do we do?
When
we corrupt the leadership of the church, it fails. When the pastors are more interested in job
security than doing God’s work, it fails.
When the church leaders are more concerned about maintaining the
building (or the status quo) than doing ministry, it fails. It doesn’t matter if it is Roman Catholic,
Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist,
Fundamentalist, or Pentecostal. If
anything takes a higher priority than doing the work of God, it fails.
Leviticus
So
what does this all have to do with Leviticus 21? This whole chapter is talking about how the
number one attribute for every priest – the high priest especially – is
holiness. The number one attribute for
one of God’s priests is an understanding that they are separate from this
world. Let’s look at a few examples of
how the priest is to be different than what the world expects:
·
The
priests are not to be made unclean for the dead. At first, this doesn’t sound like a big
deal. But let’s remember Leviticus
10:1-7. When two of Aaron’s sons die,
Aaron and his remaining sons are told that they are not to mourn; but rather
they need to continue doing God’s work.
The world expects us to mourn and think our world is ending when family
dies. But what does Jesus say in Luke 9:60? “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom
of God.” How many funerals have you been
to where God is not worshipped; rather the dead person is the one being
worshipped? We are to be separate! The world wants us to worship our dead when
they die; God wants us to worship Him and proclaim the kingdom always!
·
The
priests are to marry virtuous people. I
use the word virtuous there with a variety of meanings. Why virtuous people? Well, we all know how much temptation there
is in the world. As a husband, I know
that my wife has the most access to leading me astray because of my blind love
for her. Thank the Lord that I did marry
a virtuous woman who doesn’t lead me astray all that often and certainly
doesn’t ever show a desire to do so! The
world tells us to marry whoever makes us happy in the moment. God tells us to be separate and marry those
who will walk with us for a lifetime.
These
are just a few examples. But they
illustrate a fundamental point. God expects
His priests to be separate from the world.
They are to have a different agenda than the world. They are to have a different set of
priorities than the world. They are to
value different things than the world.
To me there is nothing more poignant about this line of thinking than
the passage from Luke 9:60 that I quoted earlier. What does Jesus say takes priority over
burying one’s family? We are to be about
proclaiming the kingdom of God. God
expects His priests to be about that proclamation more than anything else in
this world.
Now,
I’m not saying funerals are a bad thing – so long as they worship God and not
man. I’m not saying that other stuff in
this world is wrong, either. What I am
saying is that when priorities get out of whack our leadership becomes
corrupted. When the leadership becomes
corrupted, they become spiritually blind.
When they become spiritually blind, then they are of no use to anyone.
We are All Priests
Oh,
and the real kicker to this whole argument is found in Revelation 1:5-6 and
Revelation 5:9-10. Look them up and read
them. What you will find is the basis
for the priesthood of all believers. You
want to follow Christ? Then you are His
priest. If you are His priest, then you
are to be separate from the world. If
you cannot be separate for Christ’s sake, then you have a decision to make.
God
holds His priests to a pretty high standard.
If nothing else is true, that much is true. Leviticus 21 is not a chapter that is very
easy on the priests. They are either
about serving God, or following the ways of the world. The same question is true for us as God’s
priests through Jesus Christ. How
important is it for me to serve God first and foremost every single day?
So
I return to my original thought. The
greatest sin is the corruption of the highest good. You and I can be one of God’s priests. But as soon as you become one of God’s
priests the world is out to get you, drag you down, and make you just like them
again. So what will it be? God’s priest or the world’s corrupted? Whom do you serve?
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