Scripture: Matthew 18:1-10
During Lent, preachers at PPC are addressing the 21st Century temptations of money, sex
and power. Not so coincidentally, they are the same three that vexed First Century
Christians.
Money, sex and power may seem like secular topics, yet we tread on holy ground. As much
as breaking bread and drinking juice in The Lord's Supper is sacramental, so is living
faithfully with reference to money, sex and power, sacramental. To misuse and abuse these
is to desecrate the holy things of God. To use these same three to glorify God and dignify
humanity is a sacrament by any measure.
Today, I pick power. If money hits us in the pocketbook and sex hits us in the bedroom,
then power hits us in our relationships. Power permeates our relationships, whether
interpersonal, societal or our relationship with God. Power can destroy or create. Power
that demands control will destroy relationships. It can destroy trust and extinguish
dialogue. It can hide behind the loftiest ideals and destroy integrity. Whether we look at
the vast, sweeping movements of human history, or the microcosm of our own personal
histories, power can destroy.
In the original temptation story of Adam and Eve in the garden, the sin didn't have
anything to do with sex, despite popular misconception. The sin of the second-creation
myth was the sin of power turned awry, of wanting to be bigger than they were created to
be. The first two human beings are portrayed as enjoying every good gift of creation,
every pleasure, every delight. Yet they wanted more. They grasped and grabbed in a
headlong rush for more. To be more, to have more, to know more than what is right, so as
to be like God. Not satisfied with being creatures, they wanted to be gods, knowing good
and evil.
What does abusive power look like? For Adam and Eve, their desire to be big ruptured
their relationship with God and placed enmity between them. Lust for power destroys
relationships. Life-long friends turn into distrusted enemies the minute the
vice-presidency in the company is at stake. Climb, push, and shove, whether in the
playroom, boardroom or bedroom. is the language of power. We hear its destructive drama
played out everywhere: between husband and wife, parent and child, employer and employee.
The face of a broken humanity is tear-streaked with the wreckage of destructive power.
What does abusive power look like? Think of the disciples arguing bitterly over who was
the greatest in the kingdom of God. The bickering and jockeying for position undermined
the band of disciples and ultimately led to the abandonment of Jesus by all of them.
Our human obsession with power means that when we are jockeying to be the greatest, we
are deciding who is the least. We decide in all the conventional ways: by skin color or
car size or street address; by gender or age or education; by who is in and who is out; by
whom we exclude and whom we include. Abusive power must decide who is least, because we
are terrified of being small. To be small is to be helpless, vulnerable, without
authority, without power, mere babies.
Whenever the argument came up among the disciples who was the greatest, Jesus would sit
a child in the middle of the group and teach them about greatness. I think what he was
doing was pointing to the ability of children not yet poisoned by adult notions of
"big" to work and play without the need for supremacy. Have you ever watched a
group of children play in the mud? Supremacy doesn't matter in the making of mud. There's
enough dirt and water and luscious mud for all while all around them they are oblivious to
the world's rush for greatness.
Power can be an extremely destructive thing in any context, but in the service of
religion it is downright diabolical. Religious power can destroy in a way that no power
can. The horror of the pedophilia scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston - and I am afraid
time will prove it is pandemic across every region of the country, and not only among
Catholics - is horrible not only because it shatters lives forever, but because this
atrocity is perpetrated by those who purport to be arbiters of good and evil,
representatives of Christ, himself. To take on the mantle of piety and then to become a
law unto oneself is lower than human language can describe.
When any of us is convinced that what we are doing or believe is identical with the
kingdom of God and anyone who opposes us must be wrong, then we have made our bed with the
evil one. We are possessed by demonic power.
There is power that abuses and destroys. There is also power that creates. There is
power that gives life and joy and peace. There is redemptive power. There is power that
breaks the chains of bondage and releases the hope of freedom. This power brings life, not
death. It brings transformation, not coercion. This power restores relationship and gives
the gift of wholeness to all. This is the power that proceeds from God and the life of the
Spirit. Sometimes the church is infused with this power. Sometimes it isn't.
What does the power that creates look like? When Joseph was sold into slavery by his
brothers, he lost hope. When he later rose to a position of great power, he was able to
avert great famine. The fateful day arrived when his brothers the ones who had sold him
into slavery came seeking relief from their own hunger. Joseph was faced with a choice
with his power. Would he choose to obliterate his family or would he choose
reconciliation? The Bible tells us that Joseph was overcome with compassion and wept.
Relationships were restored by the one most aggrieved. Such restorative power grows from
suffering redeemed. When Nelson Mandela was freed from his South African prison after 27
years of incarceration, he used his new freedom not to perpetuate the cycle of hate, but
for justice and reconciliation.
The use of power to restore and create is a part of our everyday, personal world.
Whenever a parent admits to her child she is wrong, whenever a school principal changes
life-destroying rules, whenever a pastor intervenes in destructive patterns in and among
committees of the church so that differences are settled with the tools of the faith, then
creative power is being used.
What does the power that creates look like? Creative power sets people free. When
Martin Luther King, Jr. stood firm against America's racism, millions were set free. When
teachers unlock the joy of discovery in their students, they are unleashing God's creative
power. When an older sibling uses his strength to build the self-esteem of a younger
sibling, he is doing God's work. When a political leader chooses what is right over the
latest poll, she is engaged in an act of creative power.
This act of creative power can look like weakness. This power does not come as a
laser-guided bomb pinpointing a dime, but a fierce adherence to basic human rights for all
people.. It comes not as a bombastic boast of "We're number one!" but by the
degree our children are fed, the elderly are loved, and poverty is alleviated. It comes
not by simply waving flags, but by guaranteeing the civil rights of all, citizen and
foreigner, patriot and terrorist alike. This is greatness. It may look like weakness.
What does creative power look like? Think of Jesus and his ministry. In him is a
display of perfect power. The power of God in him took him to the margins, into smallness.
Everywhere he went the powers of darkness were defeated. Paralysis was transformed with
healing. The reviled and the rejected were welcomed into a new community of love. The
powerful were humbled. Relationships were restored. People came alive to God and to one
another. The Spirit infused the community of the broken with incredible strength.
At the cross, this creative power reached its apex. The demonic forces threatened by
Jesus' overturning the world's power arrangements hurled their forces at him with all
their collective might. But God turned the destruction of Christ into the ultimate act of
creative power. From the tombs of death came life. From the tombs of violence came
resurrection. From the margins of lost hopes came the power of God. "I preach Christ
crucified," says the Apostle Paul, "the power of God."
That's why there is no cause for alarm or discouragement whenever any movement of
authentic liberation meets a temporary setback. Whether it's the defeat of Amendment A by
a well-funded Neo-McCarthyite hate campaign by The Presbyterian Layman, or a struggle for
liberation in Palestine, or a group of citizens seeking to clean up a waterway, demonic
forces will always fight with all the hellacious tools at their disposal: lies, fear and
manipulation. But Christ has already defeated these demons of hate. The grave is empty.
The door has been opened. Christ is risen. The creative power of God cannot and will not
be contained.
The church of Jesus is the body that both seeks to embody and bear witness to this
creative power. It does so imperfectly and incompletely, but when we set our eye on this
creative power, we gain new life. We gain courage for our creative and risk filled
ventures. I can think of nothing more life giving than to die to any notion that the
church is somehow privileged whether by pedigree, or status or position in the power
structure and to embrace a vision of the church of the margins, a community of the broken.
In our inclusion of those who society marginalizes we will gain life. This is the power of
love. Jesus use of power, the healing of the blind, the sick, the maimed, the leper, is
the power of love that we too have at our disposal. Here at PPC our multi cultural
experiment, our espoused inclusion of all people, of all cultural and racial backgrounds,
all sexual orientations, all conditions of life, will be our power, because it is the
power of God, the power of love.
We can choose today which power we will serve. Will it be the power of darkness, the
power of secrets and lies, the power of lording it over and the power of fear? Or will it
be the creative power that gives life, the power of God, the power of love and the power
of inclusion?
I know which I shall seek to serve. I think you do as well. "Now to him who by the
power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or
imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and
ever. Amen."
