Jesus is wild, not domesticated!

Jesus is wild

An old nun, who was living in a convent next to a Brooklyn construction site

...  noticed the coarse language of the workers and decided to spend some time with them to correct their ways. She decided she would take her lunch, sit with the workers and talk with them. She put her sandwich in a brown bag and walked over to the spot where the men were eating.

She walked up to the group and with a big smile said: "Do you men know Jesus Christ?"

They shook their heads and looked at each other.

One of the workers looked up into the steelwork and yelled "Anybody up there know Jesus Christ?"

One of the steelworkers yelled down a "Why"?

The worker yelled back. "His wife's here with his lunch."

Submitted by Pat, Smith Mt. Lake, Va.

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Pope John Paul II gets to heaven. St. Peter says, "Frankly, you're lucky to be here."

Pope says, "Why? What did I do wrong on earth?"

St. Peter says, "God was very angry with your stance on women becoming priests."

Pope says, "He's mad about THAT?"

St. Peter says, "She's furious."

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We are all familiar with breeding dogs. We know how to tame them and how to make them do the stuff we want them to do. We call that process domesticating an animal. We get frustrated when they don’t get tamed and when they remain wild.

But then, there is some beauty to being wild, pure, and natural to anything, whether that is flowers, trees, animals or people.

For that reason we even say of some people are wild. It is hard to tame some people. They remain wild. It is not that they are ferocious but they remain their own individuals.

This story of Jesus talking about the children we consider it cute and sweet. It is easy to make Jesus, a cute, sweet God. If we make God, Jesus, cute and sweet, gentle, and kind, then we don’t have to deal with the hard stuff he talks about occasionally.

One of the reasons why Jesus was crucified is that the clergy leadership of his time could not tame him. He was a wild card. He spoke stuff that they didn’t expect a rabbi to speak about.

But now, pastors try to tame Jesus. We want to domesticate Jesus, so that we can make God whatever we want God to do. We can justify whatever we do in the name of religion and scripture.

It is in this context I want to reflect on what Jesus says about leadership.

In the famous broadway show Hamilton, Washington tells Hamilton, “Dying is easy, living is hard.” That’s the gist of the story. Dying and being important are all easy, but live that is not easy thing to do. Servant leadership is a necessary outcome of following Jesus. It is not an exalted position that powers our journey, but humbled acts of service and love.

It is not about power. It is not about strength. It is not about money. If you remember the argument here had been that who is the greatest among them? Who can control, dictate, known, important, and powerful. In another words who is better than the other. Or may be one can do things better than other. They compared themselves to each other rather than comparing themselves to Christ. They thought of themselves as better than the other and deserving more than the other.

The greatest gift of a leader is to know when to shut up and when to speak. In the book of Ecclesiastes 3: 7 we read “a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;” Some of us do not have the wisdom to listen and others do not have the control of their tongues. And some of us believe we need to speak without thinking and that is the expression of free speech, the first amendment right!

Jesus is teaching his disciples some truths about being the first among them. It is the humility and servanthood that makes one significantly higher than when they exercise their power. In the Gospel today we hear twice the Apostles being quiet. Once when he told them how he is going to die, and the other when they were asked what were they talking about.

According to J.K. Rowling, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. “It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.”

The problem with the disciples was they were confused about what it is to be the follower of Jesus.

“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” ― Ronald Reagan

To enable someone to succeed requires such personal security that you can not be threatened by the greatness of the other. This is what Jesus is trying to teach the disciples. Jesus was least threatened by the powerful kings or governors. Jesus could not be tamed. He could not be domesticated. He was wild. And that is what made him a true leader.