Over the last few weeks we’ve heard Jesus go back and forth with the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, and just about everyone who was anyone in the government of the time. Today we hear his summary (Mt 23:1-12). Basically he says, don’t trust them. They may talk the talk, but they don’t walk the walk.
So this fits with the current vibe, yes? Let’s leave to one side the bishops and just think about the other set of leaders in our society, the politicians. They are corrupt, self serving, untrustworthy. So we’d be better off without them – in one of those catchphrases that captured the sentiment of the time, and echos through subsequent generations, government is the problem not the solution.
However you feel about that analysis of the current state of politics that isn’t where Jesus goes. Yes he seems to espouse a radical egalitarianism: “you are all brothers”, “you have but one master, the Christ” but these are statements about our personal relationships, not a political manifesto. The implications are not to do away with leadership (politicians). Jesus’s radicalism hits us as individuals, not as a program for political reform. He wants us to understand where true leadership lies, following his model: “The greatest among you must be your servant”. He is the master, the Christ, he is also the suffering servant, despised and rejected.
Pope John XIII (convenor of the Second Vatican Council) readopted a title as Pope which was first introduced in the 5th Century by Pope Gregory the Great (and often not emphasized by his successors…): “Servant of the servants of God”. Since canonized, John clearly fits the model of one who humbled himself who is now exalted.
Few are called to be pope, not many even bishops, and only some to be politicians, but we all act as leaders in some way, however minor it may seem to us. The call to humility applies to all. And the result is available for all: “whoever humbles himself will be exalted”.