Deciding on Leaders

Gospel: Luke 6: 12-16

The Gospels do not provide much of Jesus' thought process in deciding on who would be leaders in his movement.  He prayed about it, then came down from the mountain and chose twelve.  Among the choices we have impetuous Peter who will deny him; Judas who stole money from the community and betrayed him; James and John who continually jockeyed for position and power.  We know little about the others in this group; all of them would abandon Jesus in his hour of greatest need, all of them doubted his resurrection.

And in a certain sense it does not matter.  We find the same failures and weaknesses in church leadership in every time and place.  If Jesus chose a different group of twelve the same outcome would be likely because we are sinful human beings who are attached to our own self-interest and selfish concerns.  Each one of us could - and have - denied Jesus, betrayed him, abandoned him, doubted him.  None of us can claim special status or privilege.

What we can claim, however, is that our sole model of faith and virtue is the Lord Jesus - not the apostles or anyone else.  What makes the Apostles special is that in spite of their many and varied failures individual and collective, they keep trying.  They continue to follow the Lord, hoping that one day they would get it right, one day make progress.  Let that determination be ours today on the feast of two Apostles.