Issue 418
It is a well known fact, in my opinion, that if you ask three economists for their solution to an economic crisis you will get four different answers. Have you noticed how many matters, portrayed as facts are, in fact, opinions? Truth has, as a matter of fact, always been tricky to pin down.
This week in your work you will operate in the world of opinions and facts, but you will also know for sure that some things are hard to label either way.
Is your team functional or dysfunctional? How do you measure it? Perhaps you measure by results – your accountants or shareholders will. Perhaps you measure by job satisfaction, in which case you will get varying answers.
Workplace conflict often has its roots in the interplay between opinions and facts and you will not need me to apply that to your situation.
The truth is, however, that we are complex beings, moving between realities, and in order to be sophisticated, which you must, you will want to learn how to handle these dynamics.
So we visit a first century working environment, where a politician and military ruler (Pilate) has to handle a mixture of opinions and facts in order to rule in his area of responsibility. It’s a world away from your job, but heartbeat away from your challenges.
Wrestling with his own thoughts, Pilate asks ‘what is truth?’ but unfortunately doesn’t wait for the answer. It’s a missed opportunity of epic proportions since the only person capable of answering his question stood right before him.
But don’t dismiss Pilate nor minimize the impression his prisoner was having upon him. All around Pilate was hypocrisy ‘we have no king but Cesar’ tripped of the tongues of those Pilate knew despised Cesar and had a puppet king in Herod. Pilate was not stupid. He saw a man of poise before him in stark contrast to the miserable meanderings of his accusers. He saw dignity in a beaten body, contrasting with religious and civil trappings which stank of self-service.
Pilate had seen Roman generals conquer vast territories; he had met charismatic leaders and global commanders. He knew authority when he saw it and he saw it standing fearless, undaunted, majestic and authentic this fateful day. In 18 hours, Pilate had made up his mind. If the Jews of the day had but realized, this was the man worth following. Like Achilles realizing Priam not Agamemnon or Menelaus, was regal and worthy of his sword, Pilate saw the real kingly soul ,captured and on trial.
So, in an act of deliberate intent, he puts a notice on the Nazarene’s cross in three languages ‘THE KING OF THE JEWS’.
Straight away, he was challenged and a request to change it to ‘this man claimed to be…’ was submitted. Pilate refused with ‘what I have written, I have written’.
What just happened? Pilate got the answer to his own question. This was not an opinion, this was a fact. This really was a king, in fact, THE king. Pilate knew he had seen the real thing. The priests wanted it portrayed as an opinion – it was not.
So how can you harness this insight for your week? Perhaps you can reflect that Jesus is who he is -as a fact. He just is, because there is ratification from the Father and the Spirit, and from within himself, the truth that he is the great I AM who contains inside of his being the authentic kingship.
Jesus isn’t, in your opinion, or mine, king. Jesus didn’t just claim to be something. He is -whether it is yoursor my opinion, or whether you or anyone else believes it.
Now this should help you this week. Your life and your words point, not to your opinion, but to a fact. Your life and your words do not authenticate the fact – it is a fact – it is the fact irrespective of you or me. Jesus himself will authenticate his own reality. This is both inspiring and pressure-reducing. Someone famously said that defending Christianity is like defending a lion – you don’t really need to – just let it out and it will defend itself.
The Jews thought Pilate wrote the notice. Pilate thought he wrote the notice. The craftsmen who prepared under Pilate’s orders thought they had written it. All of this was partly truth, but in the end God determined it should be hung above his Son. Pilate was right to say ‘I have written what I have written’ as will you (and I) this week.
What do you want – opinion or fact?
John 19:16b-22
So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. 17 Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle.
19 Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20 Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. 21 The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.” 22 Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
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Work well
Geoff Shattock
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