ON BEING A PRESENCE
A dear friend of mine heads up a thriving
business which in reality is a combination of businesses and at lunch
one day a while back I asked him if what he did was mainly to
administrate and see that everyone did their job. My question was poorly
phrased and his response broke the bounds of the question with its
richness.
He said he worked at being “a presence” and that is
precisely what he is in his company. He is more than an administrator
and an advisor who often has to make decisions and set precedents that
go against what some employees might think are warranted. He is more
than a leader who determines specific policies without explaining all to
his work force. He’s the visible force of the company; he embodies its
spirit and heart. Even when he isn’t there, he’s there, and his vision is what shapes the direction in which the company moves forward.
Even
the employees who don’t know him at a personal level to any marked
degree are influenced by the “spirit” of the company for which they work
and the spirit is embodied in my friend who provides “a presence”
there. His presence has so shaped the firm that when they become a part
of it they enter within the sphere of his influence and are
affected by his vision of things and by those around them who are also
affected by that vision; a vision that’s made visible by how he goes
about being what he is in the workplace. I don’t believe nor do I wish
to believe that all the companies in the area are crooked; that isn’t my
point; but because he is a presence there I know one company I can do
business with and be sure I’m getting fair, honest, courteous and
satisfying treatment.
Millions of us believe we see that truth
at work on a cosmic scale in the person of Jesus. We hold him to be Lord
and we claim he makes decisions and determines some policies but we
believe that that truth is only one facet of what we think about the
Lord Jesus. As my friend is “a presence” in his company so Jesus is “a
presence” in the world. 1 Peter speaks of those who haven’t seen Jesus
but says of them. “Still you love him.”
My friend isn’t Jesus
[there’s only one Jesus!]. I need hardly tell you that humans being
humans his numerous employees at some time or another and in some way or
another surely mistreat the clients—that’s life as we know it but where
his spirit prevails for his company that won’t happen. I’d insist that
my friend’s presence in his company is shaped by Jesus’ presence in the
world and that he is, in that respect, a servant of Jesus Christ as a
agent of change for good to the human society.
Not everyone goes
along with the spirit of Jesus [do I need to tell you that?] but even
the brilliant though confused Bertrand Russell toward the end of his
life confessed that if the world was to get any better we would need to
look to the spirit of Jesus Christ and his way in the world. While more
needs to be said about Jesus than Russell would have allowed, Russell
was right on target. My friend’s company can’t be all it can be without
his “presence” and the world can’t be all it can be without the presence
of the Lord Jesus who shapes the vision and the behaviour of people
beyond his own peculiar People.
The point I began with was
illustrated just a couple of weeks later when I had some work done and
went to pay for it and the invoice was adjusted. My friend’s trusted
employee and colleague chuckled as he completed the adjustment. “Don’t
want the boss to think I was gouging you,” he said. Bearing in mind that
a presence was there I couldn’t help saying, “That’d never happen
here.”
One day when Jesus returns to right all wrongs and when as
compensation he ”restores all the years the locusts have eaten” to all
those who have been ceaselessly oppressed, in a world made new someone,
somewhere, will smile and say, ”Let me adjust that bill. Don’t want the
Boss to think I’m gouging you” and the answer will come back, ”That'd
never happen here.”
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.