Thought for Today
Matthew 5:37 He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.
Matthew 17:1 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.
Mark 13:3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately,
Luke 8:51 When he came to the house, he did not allow anyone to enter with him, except Peter, John, and James, and the child's father and mother.
This day last week, I wrote about Three Letter Acronyms (TLAs). My thoughts returned to them today, as I read a newspaper headline about the current MVP of TLAs, DEI (I know, I should be ashamed of that, but, I’m not).
I had never heard of DEI until very recently. I had no idea that companies and other bureaucracies actually had HR programs for DEI. From the current hullabaloo over their being cancelled, this is evidently a Constitutional problem demanding immediate action and resolution.
Irrespective of the implications in the news coverage, DEI was not created by any administration of the government of the U.S.A. I will leave the debate over meritocracy versus DEI to folks more qualified than I. I did take my one non-engineering baccalaureate elective course, Introduction to Sociology/Anthropology, more than 10 years ago, so I am obviously an authority in the subject matter.
Anyone who has ever worked for any bureaucracy, governmental, industrial or spiritual, knows about how such organizations are formally structured contrasted with how they actually operate. There are formal organization charts and actual organization charts. There are also the realities of how things are supposed to work and how they actually do work. Both the organizational structure and the actual operations themselves are much more complex than the charts and the DEI programs. I’ve never seen it on any chart or in any program, but the reality of all human interaction is also what I think of as a dance of power. Some combination of personality, position and inclination combines to make an individual a leader. Leaders and those they come to trust and rely upon work together to form power blocs. Within any bureaucracy, company or organization there are competing power blocs. These competing power blocs participate in an intricate ‘dance’ to establish effective control of the organization.
As I read that headline this morning, I thought about Jesus and his disciples. We all know that there were 12 disciples. We know some of the names, although the lists of disciples does vary a tad from one gospel to the next. We have read the call narratives in the gospels and should be aware that at least 4 were fishermen, 1 was a tax collector and 1 was a ‘zealot.’ Was there a ‘fisherman bloc’ within the 12? Was there an ‘activists’ bloc’ or a ‘collaborators’ bloc?’ Did the blocs cooperate or compete?
Repeatedly in the gospels we encounter the names of 3 of the disciples together at almost every pivotal event. The names of Peter, James and John appear together 9 times in the gospels and once in Acts. Two questions come immediately to mind: (1) was there a power bloc among the 12; and, (2) what happened to Andrew?
If you read the entire New Testament, you quickly come to realize that the majority of the books were written by members of the power bloc, assuming it existed, and Paul. So, was that power bloc a ‘big 3’ in competition with the ‘’Pauline bloc,’ or, was there merely a ‘big 4’ power bloc?
We do know from reading the New Testament and other accounts of the 1st century, that eventually the early Christian church evolved into “the five major episcopal sees of the Roman empire: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.” (en.wikipedia.org) Each of these sees became a power bloc within Christianity.
Christianity today is divided into a myriad of faith traditions, sects and denominations. Each is a power bloc unto itself. Within each, every congregation contains power blocs. More importantly than any faith tradition, sect, denomination, congregation or bloc within that congregation is that we all work together as Christians to hasten the day when God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We need more cooperation than DEI or any other TLA.
Stay safe, work together to Advance the Kingdom of God (AKG), trust God,
Pastor Ray