Page 51 - The Bible On Leadership

38 THE BIBLE ON LEADERSHIP

purpose.’’ The first thing he did was to open the doors of the temple
and repair them. This was not just the repairing of pieces of wood; it
was a rededication of purpose. He then exhorted his subjects: ‘‘Listen
to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple
of the Lord . . . remove all defilement from the sanctuary.’’ (2 Chron.
29:1–11) Many of the sacred items had become impure or unclean, and
Hezekiah wanted to restore the temple to its former level of cleanliness.
For a modern parallel, let’s segue for a moment to the ‘‘golden
arches’’ of McDonald’s, the modern version of a fast-food ‘‘temple.’’ If
there was one thing Chairman Ray Kroc couldn’t stand to see, it was
the defilement of one of his temples because it deviated from the clean-
liness standards for which his chain had become known throughout the
world.
One day, Kroc drove into a McDonald’s franchise near corporate
headquarters in Oakbrook, Illinois and observed a strong deviation
from McDonald’s purpose of offering an attractive, sanitary environ-
ment. The flowering bushes were littered with paper cups, Happy
Meal boxes, napkins, and other trash. The manager was not present, so
Kroc had the assistant manager call the manager in from his house.
More than a little shocked, the manager asked Kroc what he could do
for him. Kroc’s answer: ‘‘Look, we don’t want trash around our sites!’’
That’s a simple but effective statement of purpose from the head of a
multibillion-dollar corporation to the manager of a unit. An even more
effective statement was Kroc himself helping the manager to pick up
the trash. 13
Whether it’s young Jack Stack, young King Hezekiah, or old Ray
Kroc, when the right leader shows commitment to purpose in the right
way, people respond emphatically. We’ve seen how the unit manager at
McDonald’s responded to Ray Kroc’s leadership. Here’s how the Isra-
elites responded to Hezekiah: ‘‘Then these Levites set to work. They
brought out of the courtyard . . . everything unclean that they found in
the temple of the Lord.’’ They purified the entire temple and all the
articles in it: ‘‘We have prepared and consecrated all the articles that
King Ahaz removed in his unfaithfulness . . . they are now in front of
the Lord’s altar.’’ No trash in front of or in that site either!