Not Worth It

A Reflection for St. Bartholomew's Day

The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors.

— Luke 22

Today is St. Bartholomew's Day, honoring one of the Twelve Apostles about whom we know surprisingly little.

Tradition says that Bartholomew suffered an especially gruesome martyrdom, being flayed alive, which explains why he became associated with tanners, leatherworkers and related trades. His day also accumulated some wonderful old folk traditions. “St. Bartholomew brings the cold dew,” one weather proverb says, while another promises a prosperous autumn if Bartholomew's Day is fine and clear.

There were fairs too. The great Bartholomew Fair at Smithfield in London began in the twelfth century and was held around this day for centuries.

But the Lectionary gives us something more important to consider.

“The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors.”

That's quite a sentence.

Jesus understands power.

The powerful don't necessarily want to be regarded as powerful. They want to be regarded as benefactors. They want us to believe that their exercise of power is for our good.

That's not merely an ancient problem.

Political leaders still present themselves as servants of the people. They work for us. They fight for us. They protect us. Even extraordinarily powerful people understand instinctively that naked ambition isn't particularly attractive, so power learns the vocabulary of service.

And perhaps some of it is sincere.

That may be worth remembering too. Human beings are complicated. A leader can genuinely want to help people while simultaneously enjoying power, protecting a legacy, rewarding allies, punishing enemies and worrying about the next election. Those things can exist in the same person because they exist, in smaller ways, in most of us.

Jesus doesn't seem terribly impressed by the whole arrangement.

“But not so with you,” He says.

Instead, “the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.”

The interesting thing is that almost everybody already knows servant leadership is admirable. That's why powerful people work so hard to look like servants.

But actually serving is different.

Real servants frequently aren't famous. Much of their work is invisible. They're taking somebody to an appointment, feeding somebody, visiting somebody who is lonely, cleaning something that needs cleaning, helping a struggling family member, teaching a child, giving money nobody knows they gave, or quietly making peace between people who have stopped speaking.

There isn't much of a marketing campaign.

They're too busy serving.

And that makes me wonder why Christians allow ourselves to become so bitterly divided over political leaders.

Families fracture over them. Friends stop speaking. Church members glare at one another. Social media becomes a daily opportunity to ridicule people on the other side. We become emotionally invested in defending our leader and exposing theirs.

Really?

For kings?

For benefactors?

For politicians?

They're not worth it.

That doesn't mean government doesn't matter. Elections matter. Laws matter. Justice matters, and Christians should take citizenship seriously.

But no politician deserves the power to make me hate my neighbor.

No political party is important enough to divide my family. No candidate is entitled to my contempt for another Christian. And if my online behavior regularly leaves people angrier, more suspicious and more divided, perhaps I should stop telling myself that I'm merely standing courageously for truth.

Jesus gives us something better to do.

Serve.

Really serve.

And if I'm not very good at it yet, perhaps I can become a little more of a servant today than I was yesterday.

We've spent several Reflectionaries thinking about shalom: things becoming whole, rightly ordered and brought back together. We've considered listening, looking and lifting our eyes toward God. We've considered our dependence upon Him, and yesterday Paul reminded us that Christians are actually “members of one another.”

St. Bartholomew's Day adds another piece.

Don't become mesmerized by the kings.

Don't let their battles become ours.

And certainly don't tear apart the people God has given us because somebody powerful persuaded us that the people on the other side are the enemy.

Let the benefactors compete for the headlines.

We have serving to do.