N is for New

Which do you like to be: the new person or the old hand? Is it better to lead or follow, precede or succeed? Would you rather be the warm-up act or the headliner? Maybe it depends upon who is your counterpart: who precedes or succeeds you. For example the priest, in the preceding piece, in his popularity would be a tough act to follow. But subsequent to his embezzlement, anyone who came next would look good.

Who comes after me Lord only knows, but who comes before me, as editor of Crossings, is well known, awfully well known: "rwb" (is that pronounced "rub" or "ruub"?)

Another successor, Philip Melanchthon in 1546, exiting the room in which lay Martin Luther's just expired corpse, said to those waiting outside, "My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!" Of course. Luther had at other times thought himself near death; don't you suppose Melanchthon had had several occasions to ponder what it would mean for the whole evangelical movement, of which Luther was so central a figure that his name got pinned on it, for Luther to be gone? The movement, accustomed to a central figure, would demand to have a new one, and Melanchthon was the obvious successor. But did he succeed, succeeding Luther? When Elijah was taken up, the one who was to succeed him, Elisha, cried, "My father, my father!" Elisha was no Elijah and Melanchthon, who quoted him, knew he was no Luther. The mantle was too big, way too big. "My father"-- perhaps a few friendly by-standers, beyond their grief for Luther's passing, felt what it meant for Melanchthon to be in a position he did not covet and was not suited for.

Of course there are in our family history stories that run the other way, which turn out "better later than earlier." Ask Esau. Or all our Lord's parables in which the younger sons (usually representing Johnny-come-lately Gentiles) fare much better than their elder brothers (representing law-abiding Jews). But in these stories the thing that is better about later is personal blessedness. In stories concerning Word-work, on the other hand, the disciples are definitely not greater than their masters; they are "later lessers." Need another example? Who would trade Paul's vital and radical letters for the true but narrower pastorals, probably penned by his lesserly gifted students?

Now I am to succeed rwb; but how can I succeed in that?

todd b c murken