A Contrast in Coaching
My first year in high school, I played soccer. The team had just gotten a new coach. He had previously coached wrestling, and this was his first year coaching soccer. I’m not sure that he had much background in soccer. Many of our practices focused on upper body elements, and I wondered if some of this was simply a carryover from his experience as a wrestling coach. I remember that at the beginning of the season, he sent home an introductory letter to our parents, sprinkled with references to the importance of virtue and even a few scripture references. But then in our first team meeting behind closed doors, gone was the scripture, gone were the references to selflessness and kindness. Instead his speech was littered with foul language and machismo. He painted soccer as a battle and demanded that we be warriors, willing to fight and play dirty if necessary. As the season wore on, he persisted with this rhetoric. Fear can be a powerful motivator, and I think that was his intention. But it was not entirely successful. Behind his back, players would crack jokes about his exercises and express doubts about his tactics. They would refer to him by his last name only, without the title coach. On the field, they would carry out his instructions mechanically, like children being forced to do a chore. The coach had our heads, but he never had our hearts.
The next year, this coach was gone (I never learned why). In his place was an older man who was a former soccer player and went by the name Buddy. (“Coach Buddy” to us, of course—but even so, the name “Buddy” seemed to set the tone.) Buddy maintained a clear set of rules and boundaries, but not through fear. I remember many practices when he would participate in the drills alongside us, when he would run the long miles beside us, suffering with us. When he was on the losing team, he would do the extra drills that they were required to do. When he spoke, everyone listened because everyone knew he was speaking from experience and wanted the best for us. We trusted him.
In so many ways, Buddy was with us. And so we were with him. He had our heads, but more importantly he had our hearts.
Power Vs. Authority
Sociologists make an important distinction between power and authority. While they are both forms of influence, their influence comes from diametrically opposed sources. Power is the ability to control others that comes either by force or the threat of force. Power is assumed or seized. Its every command comes with an implicit “or else!” Power ultimately rules by fear. It commands the head of its audience, but not necessarily the heart.
Authority, on the other hand, comes from the followers themselves. It is not assumed by its leader but granted. Why is it granted? Usually because the followers detect the leader’s integrity. That is, they can see that the leader is not operating from self-interest but rather drawing deeply from their own experience, which is relatable and makes them trustworthy. They can see that the leader cares for them. That the leader is with them. And so they are with the leader. The leader has their head, but more importantly the leader has their heart.
From Josiah to Jehoaichim: The Failure of Reform
About a half century before the time of today’s scripture, an almost identical scene takes place in the king’s palace. A royal secretary becomes aware of a new word from God and rushes to inform the king about it. In the first instance, it is King Josiah who is sitting on the throne (1 Kings 22-23). And the newly discovered word of God is actually an old word, that is, a part of God’s covenant with Israel that had been lost in the temple. (Some scholars speculate that it was the scroll of Deuteronomy.) When King Josiah hears the contents of the scroll read out loud and realizes how he and Israel have strayed from God’s law, he immediately becomes penitent. He tears his clothes and then commences to burn the idols and other religious paraphernalia that go against God’s law. He also institutes a nationwide reform, commanding observance of the Passover among other things. Josiah goes down in Israel’s history as the last good king, a reformer who tried to get Israel back on track.
In today’s scripture, we see the same scene play out in a very different way. This time, it is King Jehoiachim sitting on the throne. And when the royal secretaries bring news of a word from God from the prophet Jeremiah, the king beckons them to read it. But whereas King Josiah had torn his clothes and burned the idols, King Jehoiachim tears the scroll itself and burns its words (Jer 36:21-23). This vivid contrast between humble penitence and arrogant willfulness underlines the ultimate futility of Josiah’s religious reforms. Scripture speaks about Josiah in glowing terms, in a way that even rivals its glorification of King David: “Before [Josiah],” it says, “there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him” (2 Kgs 23:25). And yet even such a king could not turn Israel around. Which is perhaps to say, even the best intentioned laws and a good king cannot force a change of heart.
Which leaves us with the question: if laws and a benevolent power are unable to change a people’s heart, then what can?
“A New Covenant”
The prophet Jeremiah has a holy hunch. He can only see the faint outlines, but he declares them nonetheless. “The days are surely coming, says the LORD”—says Jeremiah—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer 31:31, 33). Just how God will write God’s law on their hearts is unclear. At this point, it is only a matter of hope, and as Paul would remind us, “hope that is seen is not hope” (Rom 8:24). In other words, if we could see it clearly, then it wouldn’t be hope, it would be a plan. And we would be in control of it, not God.
Jeremiah’s hope would be fulfilled in a way no one could foresee. God’s law written on our heart would happen not through edict, but example. Not through force, but through fidelity. Not through laws, but through a living person. Not a person who lords it over us, but a person who is thoroughly with us and one of us and whom we trust with our lives.
The first time an unknown Jesus walked into a synagogue and began to teach, his audience’s response? “They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (Mk 1:22). Growing up, I had interpreted this remark to indicate that Jesus simply demonstrated superior knowledge to the scribes or had bested them with his miraculous signs. But today as I ponder the difference between power and authority, as I ponder the difference between my high school soccer coaches, I begin to wonder if Jesus’ authority had more to do with the simple fact that he spoke from experience. I begin to wonder if the people gravitated to him because of his integrity, because they could tell he wasn’t there to lord it over them for his own interest but to share something precious that he had experienced and they could too. I begin to wonder if the people took to him because he took to them, sharing their sorrows, sharing their joys.
Today is Christ the King Sunday, the final day in our church calendar year. In many ancient religions, the harvest festival (their version of our Thanksgiving feast) was a time to celebrate the local god with a ritual enthronement festival, in gratitude for the past harvest and supplication for the next harvest. But today we do something a little different. We do not enthrone God above us. We enthrone God in our heart. We do not look passively for power from above to save us, but rather we actively commit to follow Christ because we trust in him.
The law that God would write on our hearts? It is not a cold command, but a living person. Jesus Christ. He is with us, and so we are with him. He has our heads, but more importantly he has our hearts.
Prayer
Gracious God,
Whose law is love,
Whose law is Christ—
In this season, we give you thanks
For the fruit of your love in our lives:
Meaningful relationships, our wounds cared for,
Our gifts to others received and flourishing,
The beauty of creation as comfort and inspiration.
As we give thanks, so we give you our hearts.
May we receive from Christ
The experience he so longs to share with us.
Guide us in his footsteps,
Who is our lord and our savior: Amen.
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