Bullies and leaders
12/01/14 05:19
I am not qualified to provide more insight into the current scandal that is surrounding the administration of Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey. The basic story seems to be that Christy was angry with the mayor of Fort Lee for not having endorsed Christie’s re-election campaign. Or perhaps its wasn’t Christie, but some of his aides. It is unclear. What happened next was a series of e-mails. Someone in the port authority issued an order to close two lanes of a highly-traveled bridge, a huge traffic jam occurred, and the community of Fort Lee was snarled in traffic for days. They’ll be arguing about who knew what and who said what and who did what for months. Governor Christie held a news conference at which he announced the firing of one of his aides and declared that he felt betrayed by those who worked for him.
It is clear that there is a culture of bullying in American politics. Regardless of who is directly responsible for the scandal, regardless of what Governor Christie knew and when he knew it, someone thought that bullying and intimidation was the way to get to a political end. Then, when the scandal broke and the media surrounded the Governor, he responded with another act of bullying. Instead of examining the culture of an administration and asking how such a thing could happen, he found someone to blame, someone to fire, someone to get rid of. His reaction to the incident was a demonstration of his power. It was as if he was saying, “See, I can make this problem go away. I can fire people. I’m in charge.”
The model of politician as bully is demonstrated daily throughout the United States. Here in Rapid City we have a young and dynamic mayor. He has a reputation of getting to the bottom of things and not worrying about who gets hurt in the process. As a councilman he decided that there were problems at the city landfill. He made intimidating visits, threatened lawsuits and arrest and probed again and again. A company went bankrupt, one of its employees died by suicide, people went to trial and there were no convictions of criminal charges. Cases were thrown out of court for lack of evidence. The councilman got the headlines and was elected mayor. The company’s owners lost everything including their retirement savings. And the public doesn’t know the truth of what was going on. There is a general perception that someone was cheating, but no one knows who was cheating and how big the fraud really was.
Now that mayor has been working to pressure a developer and the developer’s backers to speed up the pace of a proposed $50 million project in downtown Rapid City. The city council voted unanimously to acknowledge the developer’s complaints and request that the Mayor “cease and desist” from contracting and questioning potential funding sources for the project. The Mayor has already declared that he doesn’t plan to back off one bit. The developers are uptight, the council is uptight, and the only way that the Mayor knows how to proceed is to display power. He has seen plenty of models of leadership by bullying. It has worked for him in the past. He intends to continue to use that style as he proceeds.
He, like a lot of other American politicians has never learned the difference between appropriate use of power and bullying. What he thinks is exercising the power of his office is seen by others as bullying pure and simple. You can bet that this mayor has further political aspirations. He can imagine himself as governor.
It is the use and abuse of power that is one of the reasons that we have to return again and again to the familiar stories of the Bible. Today is the day of the celebration of the baptism of Christ. In Matthew’s telling of the story, there is a simple exchange between Jesus and John. John doesn’t think it is appropriate for him to baptize Jesus. He understands power and he thinks of the heavenly order in earthly terms. He states that Jesus is above him, that Jesus should be baptizing him and not the other way around. He is uncomfortable with a disruption of the chain of command. He sees the power of God as coming from the top down. God is above Jesus and Jesus is above John and John is above the people that he baptizes.
Jesus doesn’t spend much time with John’s argument. “Let it be so for now.” he says and then plunges into the water - into the midst of humanity - into the lives of the people - into the common world where we live.
Jesus never engaged in power politics. His ways weren’t the way of the world.
There were plenty of people who had been praying for and preparing for the coming of the messiah for generations. They thought that the messiah would mean a return of political power to the religious authorities at Jerusalem. They thought and dreamed and wrote poems about a new political leader for Israel who would return Israel to a position of glory and power over all of the nations. They weren’t big fans of Roman oppression and prayed for the day when the tables would be turned and the Romans would have to take their orders from Jerusalem.
God sent the messiah. But the messiah didn’t play politics by the rules of the world. Instead Jesus plunged into the waters of humanity. Jesus stood alongside all of the other common people. He visited with the lowest and most marginalized in the community. He didn’t curry political favor. He didn’t work like a “take charge” “get ‘er done” kind of guy. He loved and cared and healed and walked alongside the poorest and most lowly of the people.
He was a servant to all.
The term “public servant” has fallen out of favor in politics. Politicians instead surround themselves with servants. They call them aides. They issue orders. They claim authority.
As John’s gospel says, “He came into the world, but the world did not know him. He came to his own people and his own people did nto recognize him.”
Suffering servants don’t win mayoral elections. They don’t get to live in the governor’s mansion.
But in the end they do more good for the world than the bullies.
It is clear that there is a culture of bullying in American politics. Regardless of who is directly responsible for the scandal, regardless of what Governor Christie knew and when he knew it, someone thought that bullying and intimidation was the way to get to a political end. Then, when the scandal broke and the media surrounded the Governor, he responded with another act of bullying. Instead of examining the culture of an administration and asking how such a thing could happen, he found someone to blame, someone to fire, someone to get rid of. His reaction to the incident was a demonstration of his power. It was as if he was saying, “See, I can make this problem go away. I can fire people. I’m in charge.”
The model of politician as bully is demonstrated daily throughout the United States. Here in Rapid City we have a young and dynamic mayor. He has a reputation of getting to the bottom of things and not worrying about who gets hurt in the process. As a councilman he decided that there were problems at the city landfill. He made intimidating visits, threatened lawsuits and arrest and probed again and again. A company went bankrupt, one of its employees died by suicide, people went to trial and there were no convictions of criminal charges. Cases were thrown out of court for lack of evidence. The councilman got the headlines and was elected mayor. The company’s owners lost everything including their retirement savings. And the public doesn’t know the truth of what was going on. There is a general perception that someone was cheating, but no one knows who was cheating and how big the fraud really was.
Now that mayor has been working to pressure a developer and the developer’s backers to speed up the pace of a proposed $50 million project in downtown Rapid City. The city council voted unanimously to acknowledge the developer’s complaints and request that the Mayor “cease and desist” from contracting and questioning potential funding sources for the project. The Mayor has already declared that he doesn’t plan to back off one bit. The developers are uptight, the council is uptight, and the only way that the Mayor knows how to proceed is to display power. He has seen plenty of models of leadership by bullying. It has worked for him in the past. He intends to continue to use that style as he proceeds.
He, like a lot of other American politicians has never learned the difference between appropriate use of power and bullying. What he thinks is exercising the power of his office is seen by others as bullying pure and simple. You can bet that this mayor has further political aspirations. He can imagine himself as governor.
It is the use and abuse of power that is one of the reasons that we have to return again and again to the familiar stories of the Bible. Today is the day of the celebration of the baptism of Christ. In Matthew’s telling of the story, there is a simple exchange between Jesus and John. John doesn’t think it is appropriate for him to baptize Jesus. He understands power and he thinks of the heavenly order in earthly terms. He states that Jesus is above him, that Jesus should be baptizing him and not the other way around. He is uncomfortable with a disruption of the chain of command. He sees the power of God as coming from the top down. God is above Jesus and Jesus is above John and John is above the people that he baptizes.
Jesus doesn’t spend much time with John’s argument. “Let it be so for now.” he says and then plunges into the water - into the midst of humanity - into the lives of the people - into the common world where we live.
Jesus never engaged in power politics. His ways weren’t the way of the world.
There were plenty of people who had been praying for and preparing for the coming of the messiah for generations. They thought that the messiah would mean a return of political power to the religious authorities at Jerusalem. They thought and dreamed and wrote poems about a new political leader for Israel who would return Israel to a position of glory and power over all of the nations. They weren’t big fans of Roman oppression and prayed for the day when the tables would be turned and the Romans would have to take their orders from Jerusalem.
God sent the messiah. But the messiah didn’t play politics by the rules of the world. Instead Jesus plunged into the waters of humanity. Jesus stood alongside all of the other common people. He visited with the lowest and most marginalized in the community. He didn’t curry political favor. He didn’t work like a “take charge” “get ‘er done” kind of guy. He loved and cared and healed and walked alongside the poorest and most lowly of the people.
He was a servant to all.
The term “public servant” has fallen out of favor in politics. Politicians instead surround themselves with servants. They call them aides. They issue orders. They claim authority.
As John’s gospel says, “He came into the world, but the world did not know him. He came to his own people and his own people did nto recognize him.”
Suffering servants don’t win mayoral elections. They don’t get to live in the governor’s mansion.
But in the end they do more good for the world than the bullies.