Jesus = CEO

In today’s corporate America, it has already become the practice of some to equate Jesus with a CEO. While this parallel may speak relevance to the hearts of some, it can very easily fall on deaf ears to others. While any analogy ultimately breaks down when confronted with reality, the danger is not in a misuse of the CEO metaphor, but in placing Jesus smack dab in the middle of the executive boardroom.

In our society, CEOs of major companies enjoy celebrity status. Like movie stars, rock singers, and sports figures, they enjoy the perks of lucrative contracts and performance bonuses. However, their celebrity persona is exemplified when the everyday peons who grease the gear shafts of the white collar world worship these deal makers and concept engineers. Because of their ability to waltz into strategy sessions and dream up the next iPod, eBay or other four letter word where the second letter is capitalized, we fall at their feet as we worship the almighty economy with our gifts and tithes of our hard earned money.

Of course, when Bill Gates, Martha Stewart, Jack Welch or Michael Dell become household names, their failures become household dinner table fodder. Gracing covers of magazines as you jet around the world does carry some sort of social responsibility, I suppose. What you do on your own time becomes the object of what other people do on theirs.

Even though the headlines as of late have been filled with corporate bigwigs as they fall from grace, this is not the reason that Jesus is not our CEO. If the simple failure of some rendered comparison obsolete, then what could Jesus be compared to? Instead, I must depart with Jesus as CEO because our corporate structure very seldom makes way for grace.

John the Baptist paved the way for grace to make a home here. Eating what he did and baptizing as he did, he served as precursor to the ultimate experience of humanity. With the way paved, Jesus was able to begin to build a kingdom with the likes of prostitutes, sinners, idiots, self-conceits, lepers, epileptics, and doubters. Forgiving more than seventy times seven, Jesus showed us the holy importance of process as opposed to product and why we should focus on meaning instead of the bottom line.

So Jesus as CEO doesn’t work for me just like Jesus as President, Jesus as King, or Jesus as General doesn’t work: prestige is empty. Those who have tried to climb the corporate ladder know that there truly is no top rung. Those of us who have chased the almighty dollar know that our legs can get tired pretty quickly. But those of us who have surrendered to the amazing peace found in servitude and repentance have found a home at the house of grace.

For me, Jesus as housekeeper, day laborer, construction worker, French fryer, or landscaper resonates deeper. Sure, there’s no magazine cover and we won’t talk about it much, but the humble wonder found in occupying these position captivates me just like the man who walked everywhere he went and wrote his legacy upon human hearts.