Whom Are You Holding?

Scripture — Luke 10:33-34 (NRSV)

But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

Devotion

In recent Life for Leaders devotions, I’ve been reflecting on a question posed by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky in their book Leadership on the Line: “Through your own experience, you may indeed have become extraordinarily good at providing a holding environment for people . . . . But who’s holding you?” (p. 176). Following the lead of Heifetz and Linsky, I’ve talked about how we need others to “hold” us as we lead, rather like Timothy “held” the Apostle Paul. But I’ve also suggested that God is our ultimate Holder, in whose arms we find unmatched comfort and rejuvenation. I pointed to the Parable of the Prodigal Son as giving us a powerful picture of God’s gracious, forgiving, “holding” arms.

Before I leave the theme of holding, I want to examine another parable of Jesus. The Parable of the Good Samaritan, I would suggest, gives us another picture of “holding,” one that encourages us to be “holders” of others (Luke 10:29-37).

In this familiar parable, a man walking on a road was attacked, robbed, and left for dead. Leading religious officials saw him but passed by at a safe distance. Then, unexpectedly, “a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him” (Luke 10:33-34). In so many ways the Samaritan functioned as a holder of the needy man, including the physical holding required to put an injured man on the Samaritan’s animal.

In this brief parable, Jesus doesn’t describe the inner work that was done by the Samaritan. It’s not hard, however, to imagine what some of that inner work must have been. The Samaritan was someone whose heart could be “moved with pity,” even for someone who was a cultural pariah to the Samaritan. The Samaritan may well have been worried that caring for the injured man would lead to being attacked, but he found the strength to put this worry aside. As Jesus tells this story, we sense that the Samaritan is a wise, caring person, the sort of person who has done plenty of inner work in the past.

Moreover, the occasion for the telling of the Parable of the Good Samaritan had everything to do with inner work. In Luke 10, a scholar of the Jewish law challenged Jesus, asking “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (10:25). When Jesus answered by telling him to love God and his neighbor, the scholar tried to trick Jesus by asking, “And who is my neighbor?” (10:29). In response, Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan. He did so to provoke the legal scholar to do some serious inner work, not only by learning to think in new ways about what it means to be a neighbor, but also by confronting his own academic and religious arrogance.

As leaders, we do need people to “hold” us. No question about that. But we also need to be “holders” for others. When we see someone on the leadership road who has been beaten up by those who resist their leadership, we need to become a Good Samaritan to that person. For this to happen, we must do a good bit of inner work, growing in our compassion and learning to overcome our fears.

As a leader in various contexts, I’ve had to do this sort of inner work, and I’m sure I’m not done with it. For example, many years ago when I was an associate pastor in a church, I was looking out the window of my office. To my horror, I saw an older, frail woman in my church trip and fall. I could see that Margaret was bleeding profusely from her arm. Now, you’d think that as a caring human being – not to mention a pastor in her church – I’d instinctively run out to help her. The problem was, however, that I was very squeamish about physical injuries, especially bleeding. (I had not yet been a parent, after all.) I was afraid that if I went to help Margaret, I might actually throw up, which wouldn’t have been all that helpful.

In that scary moment, I did some quick inner work. I identified my fears and decided I needed to act despite them. I cried out to God for help as I ran to be with Margaret. When I got to her, her arm was much worse than I had imagined, with her thin skin torn to pieces. But, by God’s amazing grace, I did not feel sick. Rather, I felt genuine compassion. Honestly, I also felt shocked by what God was doing in my heart. I was able to help stop Margaret’s bleeding while calling an ambulance to get her to the emergency hospital.

I’m not telling this story to suggest that I was some kind of hero. There’s no doubt in my mind that God is the hero of this story. However, my awareness of what was going on inside of me enabled me to be open to God’s inner work as my heart was strengthened and filled with compassion by the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes what keeps us from “holding” others is a visceral fear, like my fear of blood. Often, however, our fears are more complicated. Perhaps we are afraid of being rejected by the person we’re trying to help. Or maybe we’re uncomfortable with emotional intimacy. We might even be fearful of what our “holding” of someone else might evoke in ourselves. All of these fears can limit our ability to be present for others. And all of these fears are worthy foci of thoughtful inner work. Plus, they are fears that God can help alleviate through the inner work of the Spirit.

If we are going to be “holders” of others, then yes, we need to be available to them. But we also need to do the inner work that will motivate and set us free to “hold” them in their time of need. In particular, we can ask the Lord to release us from the grip of our fears so that we might care for others with genuine compassion.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: The Good Samaritan at Work—Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself (Luke 10:25-37).

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