The accountability of spiritual leaders

And now, you priests, this warning is for you.  Malachi 2:1

When Malachi addressed the priests, he had a very specific group of people in mind. For me, this message is applicable to a much wider group: to all those spiritual leaders out there of any tradition who are acting as spiritual guides in some way. That’s a totally diverse bunch, encompassing priests and vicars and archbishops and the pope to spiritual writers and speakers and bloggers….

And the message is this: you are all accountable for what you are teaching people and how you are behaving towards God and others. No one is above God’s scrutiny. In fact, it’s the opposite. God is closely watching these people who have been entrusted with leading others towards truth and light. They have been given a great responsibility. They are entrusted with a leadership that they should never abuse. Others will listen to them and respect them and obey them: in that lies a power that should never be abused.

These spiritual leaders are the ones who are meant to be showing the rest of us how to live in relationship with the divine. In Malachi’s time, the priests have lost sight of this. They’re not listening to God any more. They are not committed to respecting God and honouring His name. And because of that, God is planning a curse reserved especially for them.

I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. Malachi 2:3

Nice. Everyone will clearly see what God thinks of them!

The first priest God ever put in place was Levi, back in the days of the Exodus. He got it right. He was the model for all spiritual leaders to come.

My covenant with Levi was to give life and peace. I kept my covenant with him, and he honoured me. He stood in reverent awe before me. He taught the truth and did not lie. He walked with me in peace and uprightness. He kept many out of the ditch, kept them on the road.  Malachi 2:5-6, The Message

A leader who always honoured the God he served.

A leader who always taught the truth.

A leader who did not lie.

A leader who lived the way of peace.

A leader who could be relied upon to do the right thing.

A leader who was there for his people, showing them the right path and helping them to stay on it.

That’s the kind of leader I want to follow.

We can get caught up in taking on board the teaching of charismatic characters who are skilled in the art of public speaking and are saying just the things we want to hear, whilst conveniently pushing to one side the glaring discrepancies between what they’re teaching and what’s going on in their own private lives. We know that they are not putting into practice what they preach. Worse than that sometimes, they are actually damaging lives by the way they are treating people.

For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth.

It’s the job of priests to teach the truth. People are supposed to look to them for guidance. The priest is the messenger of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.  Malachi 2:7 (NIV and The Message)

It’s an exceptionally privileged role, isn’t it? To be speaking on behalf of the Lord Almighty. To be leading people to the truth. People’s lives are in the hands of their spiritual leaders.

Your teaching has messed up many lives.  Malachi 2:8, The Message

And this is the indictment. This was the indictment way back then and is still the indictment today.

It’s a word to those who use their Instagram posts to influence others, those who preach their own agenda from the pulpit instead of God’s, those who use their position to incite hatred and division, those who whisper into the souls of innocent young people turning them to unspeakable acts of religious extremism, those who abuse their position of power and respect to manipulate others….

Know this.

If you have ever been misguided by a spiritual leader, that leader will be held accountable by God.

If you have ever been lied to by a spiritual leader, that leader will be held accountable by God.

If you have ever been hurt by a spiritual leader, that leader will be held accountable by God.

If you have ever been betrayed by a spiritual leader, that leader will be held accountable by God.

But know this too.

This is a word to any of us and all of us, actually. Because we all have a role to play in speaking God’s truth, in shining God’s light, in guiding others in God’s way. We are all teachers and guides: maybe to our kids, our friends, our readers, our Facebook friends. People watch how we live. People may be inspired by what we say or what we do. We all have a great responsibility to everyone in our lives. And we too will be held accountable for how we have influenced others along the way.

The last thing I would ever want, any of us would ever want, would be for anyone to ever be able to say this about us:

Your teaching has messed up many lives.