Issue 237
Have you noticed that we are all middle people? It may not sound glamorous or appealing, but in some form or another, all our work will involve receiving, handling and passing on. You may, of course, be a specialist middle person, in that your job involves being part of a supply chain. It might be that, just occasionally, you needto act as a go-between.
Your ‘middle person’ activities will operate on a variety of levels. At a basic level you may receive specific small amounts of information which you are charged with passing onto someone else. As regards information, you may again be commissioned to communicate a complex project, idea or strategy to a large number of staff, customers or even the public.
Some of you reading this piece handle petty cash. A small float is entrusted to your care to be made available for out-of-pocket expenses. Others will be handling multimillion pound funds in order to buy and sell companies, manage pensions, or invest in markets on behalf of your employers or clients.
It might be your job to get a product out of the door in response to an order, or to supply back-up to onsite machinery.
If you teach, your job is to pass to your students the knowledge they require in order to progress – knowledge which you acquired from other people’s writings or research. You might take a brief, analyse it, and use it for yourself or your team; or it might just be an urgent message.
If you stand back a little you can see that you have been given skills, gifts and talents designed, not to be hoarded, hidden or buried in the ground, but shared, exposed and multiplied.
Stand back even further and you may realise that you have been given a life to live and a life span to live it, which you can use for a myriad of purposes. Have you also noticed how variable your experiences are of other middle people? Some are unreliable and drain your energy by not reporting clearly or demonstrating their efficiency. Others are a joy to work with and there are many shades in between.
Whilst trying to be a middle man (because I am male) for you, in finding something useful and passing it onto you, I came across a surprising and intriguing incident:
During one of the many attempts to repair or rebuild the Jerusalem temple, a man by the name of Joash put in a forty year career as King. As ever, fundraising was a problem and the project was late by twenty three years – poor by any building project standards. The problem seemed to be that funds were locked up or misapplied. Finally, the King had had enough and intervened to get the financial supply sorted out and the funds for the project released. There was a management structure for this funding. Under the King himself were a Royal Secretary and a High Priest. These two were charged with getting the work done. It seemed that these two had been dragging their feet a little until the King intervened.
The actual workforce consisted of carpenters, builders, masons and stonecutters. Enter the middle people: the Royal Secretary and High Priest handed money over to a group of men appointed to supervise. The whole project now depended on these supervisors doing their middleman jobs properly. It is at this point that you get the surprise. All I need to do is quote the record and you will get the point. ‘They did not require an account from those to whom they gave the money to pay the workers, because they acted with complete honesty.’ (2 Kings 12:15)
Here is the hallmark or gold standard for our role. These men were transparently honest, fair and scrupulous in their dealings. They were so trustworthy that they didn’t even need to be monitored. They were self-regulated, ethical dealers.You might like to do a middle person audit on yourself, reviewing your handling of information, messages, finances, projects or tasks. You might like to step back and consider how you are doing with the gifts, talents and skills entrusted to your care. You may even be brave enough to take a peek at your life and reflect on how you are using your days.
I have tried to pass on a bit of wisdom again as a go-between. It is a serious challenge to match up to the temple supervisors. You may feel you need some strength and advice, or even some release from the feelings of regret, guilt and embarrassment that your review uncovers. Or you might just want to become better at this whole middle person business.
Enter the Middle Man himself.
2 Kings 12:13-15
13 The money brought into the temple was not spent for making silver basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, trumpets or any other articles of gold or silver for the temple of the LORD; 14 it was paid to the workmen, who used it to repair the temple. 15 They did not require an accounting from those to whom they gave the money to pay the workers, because they acted with complete honesty.
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Work well
Geoff Shattock
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