Step Down, a reflection

We measure ourselves and each other by our “influence” and worry at the scarcity of it. We have a dangerous relationship with influence – we are prone to acquire it too fast or become too dependent on what of it we secure. We need it for a sense of significance and we sense that significance is a scarce resource. Entrepreneurs, politicians, ideologues, writers, musicians, and any others with an ambition for influence, may under all their beneficent poise have a darkside because of the way they attend to their need for significance.

Pastors, too, are not guiltless of using their platform as a path to power and influence instead of a path of simple faithfulness. Many a pastor has fallen for inappropriate use of their office. It is discovered in a devastating revelation that the man’s public image was not consistent with his private life or inner world. This may be because of their priority of influence over faithfulness; influence over character.

Any office of influence can be the haven of something like a paranoid narcissist. This is a person who needs influence for to hide or beat down the demons of their inner world. They hunt significance even at the cost of their authentic self. This is a person who more than likely has achieved influence by the production of an image which is inconsistent with their inner world and private life. Such a person is not living faithfully, but rather compulsively, and all that they build they have built on a faulty foundation. Such an influencer is impelled by fear as much as they try to present confidence.

It would not surprise me to find that many of the world’s most powerful people are this person.

Influence and power, themselves, are not evil, but we find more often than not that the people in this world that wield them should not be the ones to wield them. There is, however, a good kind of influence. A good influence is one that comes from a faithful life, not a compulsive life. In a moment, I will work to define faithfulness and gives you its archetype, but first a confession:

As far as I am concerned with “followers,” recognition, and impact, I may well demonstrate paranoid narcissism. Sometimes I care more about looking like I’m doing the right thing, than I care about actually doing the right thing.

Often, however, the right thing is that which will guarantee obscurity:

Like 30 years of simple manual labour in an obscure part of the country; Like 40 days in the wilderness; Like refusing to garner recognition through shortcuts. Like a life of unforced obedience and integrity.

The right thing is always faithfulness. And the faithful act might not be the one which makes you most influential (at least not in world’s power schemas):

Like calling out the power-keepers, who would otherwise have gladly added you to their caucus; Like refusing all the kingdoms of the earth in favour of your first loyalty; Like faithfulness unto death just when the crowd would have made you king; Like knowing your time, and fulfilling your role, with no deviation into influence by means other than faithful obedience.

My Christ does not engage in the world’s power climb. Jesus is the diametric opposite of the paranoid narcissist. He is the antithesis of fretful egotism in this:

Christ steps down. (Phil. 2:6, John 10:11)

And Christ makes himself last. (Math. 20:16, Mark 20:31, Phil. 2:7)

And chooses death rather than points in the world’s power schemas (Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45, Phil. 2:8)

All in the confidence of the affirmation of his father, (Matt. 17:5, Luke 3:22, Phil. 2:9,

For the joy set before him, (Heb. 12:2)

And for the name given him not by the populus, or by the elite, or by Caesar, but by God. (Phil 2:9)

Jesus knows who he is, so it doesn’t bother him to be last in the world, to be scorned in the world, and to be unrecognized in the world. His secure identity enables him to operate independent of the world’s power schemas, while loving the world in the way it needs, not the way that it wants.   

            He stepped down into the human experience, received its wounds, and took its death, never obliged at any point to do so but always operating in freedom. He chose faithfulness to his Father and to the world he loved, even when that faithfulness meant behaviour counter to the world’s power and influence schemas.

            The Christ-disciple is called to do the same, to step down. We’re called at least to step down from our ego, instead claiming as sufficient what dignity is given in Christ. Lose the world to find that you have enough in the definitive affirmation of God. Lose yourself to find yourself.  

            This may well mean – appropriate to the Spirit’s leading of course – leaving a place of influence. It may mean practically stepping down, as Paul the apostle stepped down from his high position in the sphere of the Pharisees. It may mean giving something up as Barnabus gave up his land investments. Stepping down may mean giving up a persona you have developed by which you secure social esteem or it may mean letting go of a project by which you had imagined you had defined yourself.

            Stepping down will mean not only the letting go something, but also the taking hold of something else. Step down, into the expression of yourself enabled by complete acceptance. Step down from false images and ideals into the full embodiment of who you actually are. This will entail the acceptance of your wounds and hurts. This also will entail the acceptance of your faults and false assumptions. It will entail a reception of yourself as you are empowered to be in grace – wholly honest, and unashamed.

            Step down into the acceptance of your faults and limitations, and then into acceptance of your gifts and capacity. A right discernment of your limitations and faults will actually better enable you to then discern what your true capacities are. You can then apply yourself in faithfulness, unashamed to offer what you have, and nothing more – “more” would be a lie.  

            This is faithfulness: The dedicated offering of your true-self in love, according to your God-given capacity, independent of the world’s warped significance schemas.

            Follow Christ who stepped down into the world in love, trusting his Father to provide his dignity. Step down from what influence you gained in a fear of insignificance, down into acceptance and faithfulness, which in turn will have a different kind of influence. It will be an influence that you do not need but which naturally comes from the secure fulfillment of the self you have been given. You won’t need to worry about fluctuations in influence, or the way the world receives you; you are loved completely and you are simply living authentically and faithfully. Whatever influence you are given is a gift. It is not the constitution of your identity; It is a privilege added unto your already complete self. Perhaps it will be in the letting go of many things that you find who you really are. There may be a great deal of freedom in stepping down.