Thinking Anew:PRESIDENT BARACK Obama is universally accepted as a supreme orator. Irrespective of one's politics, everyone agrees that the US president has an aura, a charisma that makes him a very special person.
Other great people, who exuded a special aura included John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali. All demanded your attention. They left you with no option but to listen to them. How many people around the world with not the slightest interest in boxing got out of their beds to watch Muhammad Ali fight? It was not just for his boxing, but mainly because of his quick mind and the dexterity of his tongue. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” is firmly established as a unique moment in US history, a powerful call to action to an oppressed people, out of which the new US president has emerged.
When it comes to Europe and Ireland over the last 50 years it is difficult to single out anyone who has been a great orator. On the European scene, Pope John Paul II comes to mind. It’s difficult to think of anyone in Ireland who is of the same calibre as Obama or Martin Luther King.
We admire great orators not just because of their special charisma but mainly because they fill us with hope and we believe in what they say. We want to believe that they are authentic.
And then there are the demagogues, who can stir up a crowd to do anything.
Hitler comes immediately to mind. It might be true to say that demagogues come to the fore in times of national crisis, where people have lost their self-esteem, and are vulnerable to “idiot simplicities”, like scapegoating minorities, or punishing imagined enemies.
In tomorrow’s Gospel we read how Jesus calls his first four disciples.
“As he was walking along by the Sea of Galilee he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net in the lake – for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fishers of men’. And at once they left their nets and followed him. Going on a little further, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John; they too were in their boat, mending their nets. He called them at once and leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the men he employed, they went after him.” (Mark 1: 16 – 20) They were impressed with this man Jesus, so much so that they decided there and then to give up their fishing careers and follow him.
On the face of it, it would seem that this life-changing decision was made almost at a whim. But obviously the four men were impressed with what Jesus had to say to them. But more than that – they must have believed in the man and seen that there was a link between what he had to say and what he lived out in his own life. He came as a man of authenticity.
Sometimes we might make decisions that seem too quick or at some superficial whim, but they can be decisions that have been in the making for a long time.
In the end the reality is blinding and we are left with no other choice but to follow what appears obviously clear to us. And clearly Jesus’s first disciples were convinced that what they were doing was perfectly clear and the right thing for them to do. They believed in the Good News and wanted to be there in the vanguard in spreading the word.
And this man Jesus had convinced them sufficiently that what he was offering was an extraordinary message.
Just a few lines further down in that passage we read how Jesus’s teaching left a huge impression on people, because unlike the scribes, “he taught them with authority”. Mark uses the very word “authority”.
It’s impossible to pick up a newspaper or turn on a radio these days without hearing of the doom and gloom that surrounds our current economic state. All the time we ask ourselves how did it happen. Were our leaders and captains of industry honest and authentic when they were telling us little over a year ago that all was well?
Did they weigh their words carefully, or were they telling us what we wanted to hear? Maybe we too have been careless in the way we use words. Have we sought certainty where none could exist, demanded clarity where the best we could reasonably hope for was that “things would work out for the best with a bit of luck”? If we do not require authenticity with one another, if we are not truthful and honest, then our words mean nothing at all. Of course you don’t have to be a Christian to be truthful and honest. But it is a central tenet of Christianity that we speak the truth, that the words we use have a backing and substance in reality.
It comes back to authenticity and if the orator does not believe what he or she says, or the listener is gullible or worse, then it is like a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. Jesus's disciples expected and got the truth from him, not comforting reassurances. MC