July 21, 2024 at Saint William Catholic Church in Naples, FL
Jeremiah 23: 1-6 + Psalm 23 + Ephesians 2: 13-18 + Mark 6: 30-34
I read recently that a leader is a person “who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” This Gospel today could invite us to give some prayerful thoughts about leadership using Mark’s description of Jesus as the model. We could well use Mark’s Jesus as the norm for choosing whose leadership we want to follow when it comes to politics or even entertainment for that matter. When I think about it in the context of this Gospel, I begin to believe that our choice of leaders usually says more about us than about them. It ends up being a matter of what we want or need, so we tend to follow someone who will provide that.
The idea of a leader varies from time to time and place to place. The two-fisted gun-slinging defender of the wronged worked in the old west. A man or woman who makes quick decisions with good command of subordinates works in the business world. A military leader can get others to follow them through all kinds of danger. Today’s Gospel will delight anyone who thinks popularity is the mark of a leader as those people go chasing around all over the place after Jesus.
Whatever model of leadership it is, to be effective, there must followers, and that’s when the real truth about us gets revealed. The leaders we follow these days reveals just who and what we are. Wanting a life of wealth and celebrity finds us falling in line behind those who can make that promise. Needing affirmation, reassurance, and self-respect leads us to follow someone who will constantly be patting us on the head saying all the nice things we need to hear whether they are true or not. Most of the time, Jesus could look over us and sadly observe that way too often we are sheep without a shepherd.
In Christ Jesus, we have a leader who can lead us but not to wealth and deeper into consumerism if that’s what you want, but to more priceless treasures like compassion, mercy, and reconciliation. The only leader who can take us to pastures of peace and deeper into the life for which we were made is the Word Made Flesh – a God who stays with us, seeks us when we are lost, and puts us in touch with the very reason for which we are on this earth. Christ Jesus is the one who knows the way to the Father, has gone the way, and has shown us the way.