A perennial topic at management seminars is delegation. It should be obvious that far too many people are getting it wrong. The problem with management seminars and similar training is that it's one more aspect of leadership that cannot really be taught; it must be caught. I'm not silly enough to then turn around and presume to teach it in one of these little short lessons. What we will do here is simply encourage leaders to do it. Go ahead -- delegate.
They had not been with their Rabbi very long at all, just a few months. Yet, they had been with Him almost night and day for that time. They had truly left their jobs, their homes, and their families to follow Him. He had finally selected twelve as the long term group with which He would work. What a varied crew they were!
They had seen countless miracles of healing, demons cast out, storms quieted by mere words -- things they had only heard or dreamed of, though surely believe God could do. And He was doing it all through the hands of their Rabbi. Every day, wherever there was room for people to stand, there would ever be a crowd. They were always in need. Was the whole world full of sick, lame, blind, demonized people?
And Jesus made it clear always that those miracles had nothing to do with the needs of people, for there would always be people in need of miracles. The miracles were to back up His teachings. Surely the part about backing up the teaching they understood, but the other part just did not make sense. Why else do the miracles, except because it was needed? Jesus seemed to be saying that the "need" was more a matter of what God might "need" to get this message out. "God" and "need" didn't seem to fit in the same thought. Perhaps it would make sense some day.
For now, it was all they could do to absorb yet another challenging idea: Jesus was going to give the authority to do miraculous signs to them! But He kept hammering on the need to use those signs as proofs for what He taught, and what they were to teach: The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand; the Messiah has come. That was but the starting point, the preliminary announcement. From there, they would show how the traditional Rabbinical teachings had been wrong on so many things.
He warned how dangerous it would be to teach that way. Then He gave them some rather odd rules about not carrying money or any traveling bags. Just go by faith, live by faith. Accept the situation if the villagers reject you. If it means missing a few meals, so be it. Depend completely on God; make no provision for anything. Carry only the message and the power.
So Levi found himself standing with a group of men who, just a few weeks before might have spat on him -- one man might have even killed him -- given the chance. Levi was one of the "traitors," a tax collector for Rome, enforcing the Gentiles' tax on his own people. He was easily far better dressed than they, and was probably the only one who could write more than a few lines at a time, and in several languages, at that. Most of them could not even understand real Aramaic, much less Latin, Greek and Syrian.
He held no contempt for them, though. He knew that much of this mission would be far harder for him, having lived such a prosperous, soft life. As a tax collector, he was permitted to demand a certain percentage beyond the quota Rome required him to collect from the citizens. Like most in his work, he was not above pushing the margin on some, especially those who gave him the most trouble, or those who simply could afford it.
So while he was quite used to handling delegated authority, he was not certain he was quite ready for this kind of authority...
Most leaders who fail with delegation fail from caution. In other words, they don't delegate soon enough, nor often enough. People who really grasp that they are called by God, and take the time to develop all the skills they posses, to the point they are confident in getting everything done that needs doing -- these are people who have a hard time letting someone else do it. To them, the sense of obligation is so great, they cannot let go of the task when even God Himself wants to do something.
In a sense, we must learn that passing the burden to our followers is, for us, letting God handle it. Skillful we may be, and honestly the best one for the job, but just whose job is it to begin with? Cannot God manage it under the hands of someone less competent? Let's go back to the very root of things: Who saved you from sin? The Lord who worked a miracle in your soul can also work a lesser miracle in the hands of someone who will surely mess up a small task. You see, good can come from things that did not go just right, and we have to make room for Our Father to work that way.
Early in His ministry, Jesus was faced with the overwhelming task of establishing His credentials. It only makes sense that He would do so by performing such a vast number of miracle healings, such that no one could deny His authority to say what He said. Jesus addressed this head-on when the paralyzed young man was dropped through the roof of the house:
"What difference does it make? Which is easier to say, 'Your sins are forgiven' or 'Get up from your bed and walk'? To show you that I had to authority to say the first [which is harder to prove visually], now I'll say the second and let's see what happens!" (Mark 2:1-12)
The Gospels seem to indicate that His miraculous signs became less frequent later in His ministry. He spent more time confronting the dramatic difference between what was commonly believed and taught by the Jewish hierarchy, and what was actually in the Old Testament. At some point He would be executed as the final sacrifice for sin, for all time.
Meanwhile, there were an awful lot of people who needed the message, and needed to see miracles to confirm it. There were more of these people, in more places, than Jesus could reach personally in the short time He had. Being the ultimate perfect Leader, He knew to delegate. We can debate all we want about why there are relatively fewer miracles today than then, but one thing we cannot argue: Jesus delegated a whole lot more authority than you and I have to worry about delegating.
Let's follow Him in every way.
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Ed Hurst
30 September 2002
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