In the Oscar nominated film, Selma, we see a portrayal of Martin Luther King and his leadership that is both inspiring and honest. King has been memorialized in stone, but as the movie demonstrates, no one, not even history’s greatest and most transformative leaders, emerge onto the world’s stage as icons.
The movie shows King’s humanity. It does not devolve into tabloid like innuendo (thank goodness) but it does allow us to get a glimpse of his less than perfect life, his fear, and most insightfully, his doubt. By doing so King becomes more than a granite statue revered for his powerful preaching and heroic stands. He becomes real.
In a review published in the Boston Globe a critic notes, “Selma focuses purely on his doubt, and in that moment you start to realize how much of history is made up on the fly, even by its great men — how close to ordinary a great man can be and thus how close to greatness ordinary people always are.”
As I read those words I thought of the history of the church. Looking back over the centuries, all the way back to the first century even, we continually see ordinary people making it up on the fly. Yes, in hindsight, we can see where there were obvious moves of the Spirit but in the moment it is rarely easy to know exactly what we should do or what choices we should make. Doubt is often the most constant companion found among pastors and church leaders. Oh, we may not admit it and we may not want anyone to know that, but get a group of preachers and lay leaders in a room together, ask them to be honest about their concerns for the church universal, and the one thing they’ll all have in common is the worry that no one can ever know for sure exactly what we are supposed to do next.
That honesty is the place where transformation can begin. It’s true in the church, in your family and in your soul. Ordinary people like us, ones with names like Peter and Paul, Lydia and Priscilla, started the great movement that became known as the Church of Jesus Christ. They stumbled along the way. They fought. They argued. They doubted. They broke bread. Above all else they lived and loved together and sought to follow Jesus.
I doubt anyone else but a merciful and loving God would have chosen such ordinary folks like them, and us, to be the church. So much of how we live our lives is made up on the fly but by the grace that has been bestowed upon ordinary people like us, we are this close to greatness.
Grace and Peace to you,
-Glen
