We are deep into the season of Lent, the reflective space that precedes the agony of Good Friday and the blinking incredulousness of Easter Sunday. On our team we are working our way through "Surprised by Hope", because, well in this global season we all need a bit of hope and surprise. NT Wright explains the victory of Jesus over evil as a CEO who has taken charge of a global enterprise, still working out the new way of running things as his messengers disperse to all the various branches. But the message, he says, must be matched by the method.
"The kingdom will come as the church, energised by the Spirit, goes out into the world vulnerable, suffering, praising, praying, misunderstood, misjudged, vindicated, celebrating: always--as Paul puts it in one of his letters--bearing in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed."
"we are in the struggle"- on a masked student in chapel at CSB. Message and material matching.
Not a forceful triumphant dictator unilaterally changing the culture and operation of the company by fiat from the top down, though I for one feel that method is quite tempting. Of course the fantasy is an illusion, that if only the church (or more accurately my brand of it, right) were in charge of finances and information and medical procurement and the prison system and taxes and infrastructure and education, well we could sort this out more beneficially. Christendom through the centuries has brought a mixed record of blessing and oppression. No, the method must match Jesus' life. Which means, the cross before the glory. The night before the dawn. Which means suffering is not excluded, the cup does not always pass. Which means even the moments of power, of dazzling angels or thousands fed, happen with enough obscurity and alternate explanation that faith is never forced. Our CEO Jesus knows how to live in a body authentically in feasting and friendship, how to speak justice and truth, how to handle wounded sinners with mercy. But He does it gradually through time and through people who are salt sprinkled over the globe, who preserve and flavour, whose power is perfected in vulnerability and sacrifice and not primarily in money and weapons.
Biola Lent devotion image, Peter Koenig, Jesus CEO
Being a team leader, or a parent, an Area Director or a doctor, are hardly CEO roles, but we all have some leadership. Like Jesus, we have a sphere to influence, to till, to order, to care for. And in that process we constantly face the dilemma of how much to direct, and how much to empower. Jesus cast out demons and gave some blistering speeches. There is a time to run a code and tell people what to do. Yes. But. The vulnerability piece has to also be there. First, because we are NOT Jesus and we are prone to bossiness and drifting into arranging our world to suit ourselves. But also because Jesus took the path of "not my will, but thine, be done." The method of Jesus came down to a night of betrayal, of nakedness and scourging, of abandonment and weakness. The method of Jesus required complete humility, complete surrender to the worst evil could do with the secure assurance that none of that love would prove stronger than death.
A week ago we drove back into Bundibugyo, hurrying to change clothes and join the pre-exam celebration dinner (our equivalent of a graduation party) for the seniors at CSB, and then directly from there to the house of mourning where one of our longest-term faithful partner midwives had lost her adult son. The week was back to normal life revved on the steroids of a preceding absence. Mentoring meetings with team, delving into issues. Greetings and welcomes. Teaching our staff Bible study and our team study and our weekly CME. Leading our Area prayer zoom. Calls, security check ins. A day-long Board meeting for Christ School. Supervising construction, repairing damage to our pizza oven, ploughing through laundry. Hundreds of emails and texts and communications. Nutrition supplies from UNICEF still delayed, plugging gaps. And of course the patients, the wards, the ongoing dilemmas.
We felt loved and missed!
In all that, I wonder, what does it look like to be a vulnerable CEO? I think it is this: to hold ourselves accountable to pour into this place the best we have to offer, the best explanations, investments, decisions, guidance, service. To gather data, to follow best practices, to be responsible. Yes. But at the same time, to do all of that with our scars visible. To ask questions, take feedback, adjust. To be willingly inconvenienced and uncomfortable. To keep breathing the humid fog of cough through the suffocating N-95 mask, to keep crouching to the floor, to keep filling out lab forms or struggling to draw blood when surely those tasks could be done by someone else. To strain to listen for the heart behind the complaints, to understand, to love. And to know that our best might not be enough, and that's OK, because God has resurrection up His sleeve.
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