In today’s first reading, Jotham’s apologue presents us with a great lesson on the concept of leadership and why good people should take up the responsibility of governance. He tells the story of the trees, who want to make a king for themselves. Evidently, the trees in this story have a high concept of leadership: to appoint a king, they look for a tree of great quality, of great capacity, because the king should be the best of all. This explains why they first approach the best among them.
Trees Refusing to Be King
First it is the olive tree. But the olive tree refuses to become king. They turn to the fig, which also rejects their proposal. They turn to the vine: “Come, reign over us!”, but the vine also declines. One would ask the reason these “responsible” trees refuse to be made kings. Probably, they simply have a very low concept of the task of a king; they have a distorted idea of what leadership means. For them, the major work of a leader is to “hold sway over” the others, that is, to dominate.
The olive tree replies: “Must I give up my rich oil, whereby men and gods are honored, and go to wave over the trees?” The fig and the vine reply same way. By this response, they project that going into the position of “power” will stifle their already productive status as trees, and they do not want to risk being sterile if they enter into power.
Human Leaders
Being in charge is not necessarily a productive activity. If there were no other people who work or who produce, those in charge would be useless. On the other hand, it is essential that there are administrators, managers, and good political leaders, to ensure that the productive efforts of others contribute to a common good and do not get lost in different directions. There must be some people in positions of authority in order to have a well-ordered society, guided by the social contract principles.
Service Required
However, authority must be seen as a service, an effective service, not a vain “dominion” over others, not a selfish exploitation of the abilities of others. “Whoever is the greatest among you, Jesus said, should become like the least, and whoever governs is the one who serves” (Lk 22:26). True greatness consists in serving humbly, out of love. This is why good people are expected to get involved in the business of ensuring that there exists a well-ordered society. Politics, and by extension leadership, should not be left for the “less productive” or the “thorn bush” set of people. When the good trees refused to be made kings, the other trees were left with no other option than to approach the thorn bush, which readily accepts to become king but to the detriment of the common good of all the tress (Jg 9:14-15).
The utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill was quoted to have said: “Let not anyone pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing”. Looking at what is happening in the world of politics today, the story of the trees as told by Jotham should be an important lesson: if (good) Christians refuse to get involved in politics, then the “thorn bush” will dominate the space and we have no option than to live with the condition they would give us.
