Richard Maxwell

Power is an interesting thing isn’t it? We sophisticated, 21^st century, Americans have an interesting relationship with power, don’t we? In short, I think it’s safe to say that we love our own power but fear that of others . . . and I think that statement applies to individuals, as well as groups, and even nations. Today’s Gospel story is all about power . . . it may not seem so at first, but I think this is a valid way to interpret it. Jesus is trying to teach about power . . . about how God’s power is expressed . . . and his disciples just don’t get it.

Last week we heard Peter proclaim for the first time that Jesus is the Messiah; following this declaration Jesus began to teach his friends about the cross. That was a hard lesson for Peter and the other disciples . . . they didn’t get it. And they still aren’t getting it this week. So Jesus continues to teach them, trying to get them to understand . . . the ways of the world, and the ways of God . . . and he’s having quite a hard time of it. Not surprising, I suppose . . . in the Gospel of Mark the disciples consistently are dunderheads. But to be fair to them, something important happened in the Gospel between last week and this week . . . the Transfiguration.

Last Sunday, I described the choice that Jesus needed to make . . . the choice between claiming his true identity, and turning his back on that identity and leading what we might call “a normal life.” Trying to make this choice, Jesus asks his friends who they think he is. Peter blurts out that Jesus is the Messiah. Hearing this, Jesus makes his choice and begins to teach his disciples what it means to be the Messiah . . . which is, of course, the way of the cross. THEN, just before the Gospel story we heard this morning, in front of Peter and James and John, Jesus’ identity is confirmed in the Transfiguration . . . after which, Jesus takes his disciples off privately for more lessons about the cross.

No wonder they’re confused! Jesus is talking about sacrifice and suffering and death when what they’ve SEEN is glory revealed . . . Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah, his clothes whiter than white, his face as bright as the sun, and then a booming voice coming from a cloud, saying, “This is my beloved son, listen to him.” The disciples are bedazzled. No wonder, when Jesus takes them off the mountain and continues his lessons about the cross, they don’t hear a word. Even though that big voice said, “LISTEN to him!” They’ve seen glory, and in the ways of the world that equals success and health and wealth – POWER – and they’re wondering how much of all that they’re gonna get to share.

The ways of God and the ways of humans are sometimes extraordinarily different. And the use of power is one of the places where I think this is most frighteningly clear.

It’s a commonplace to say that we are created in God’s image. And we can see a reflection of God’s self-determining power, through which God creates the world, in our own powers of self-determination. As the great preacher Austin Farrer points out,[1][1] this reflection of God’s self-determining power is what is heavenly in us . . . but also satanic. Satan, you remember, abused angelic power to be his own god. We abuse our godlike power to play our own game. We use the creative power God gives us to create our own reality, to deceive ourselves, to make up a story and live in it, to shape the world into our image.

We even do this in religion. Farrer draws a distinction between true religion and false religion. He states that true religion crumbles the creations of selfish invention we build up, while false religion gives to the world we make-up a firmness and detail that true religious thinking could never give it. Man oh man, do I think THAT’S true. Think of the so-called “gospel of prosperity.” (It’s the gospel I think the disciples were hoping to hear.) The message of the gospel of prosperity is that God will reward the faithful with success and health and wealth. Plain and simple: become a good Christian and you’ll become rich. It’s very popular . . . and it makes me CRAZY, because it is NOT Christ’s message. Think about it for only a moment, and you’ll discover what a disturbing message it is . . . what’s it mean, for example, if someone DOESN’T get rich, or comes down with some dreadful disease? Does that mean that they’re not really a Christian? That their poverty or illness is their fault?

But I have to be careful. Because, while I’m absolutely certain that I’m right that the gospel of prosperity is a made-up bunch of hooey, I’m not immune from creating my own reality . . . my own truth . . . none of us is. Even in my certainties I try to remember that I may not have gotten it entirely right . . . that I may have missed something . . . or not understood something. I try to keep some humility, in other words. But it can be hard. Because we LOVE the exercise of power in ourselves. It is our darling sin. At the same time, however, we fear and hate it in others . . . because, of course, others are no more likely to use power well than we are.

Oh my, my, my . . . what a mess, eh? One of the saddest aspects of this love/hate relationship we have with power is that our suspicion of it can make us suspicious of God’s power. We know how badly other people misuse power, and if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we misuse it too . . . and so when we turn to God, we may fear that God will use God’s power to harm us somehow. God’s infinite love – the source of everything – may not always be easy to perceive, hidden as it is by our suspicion of God’s power.

We so mishandle our personal power . . . we play the tyrant so effectively, lording it over those less powerful than ourselves (you know, of course, that even kindness and virtue can be used as weapons of power) . . . we see the governments of this world so mistreat their own citizens . . . that we find it impossible to love the power of God. And yet we profess to believe that all we are and all we have are from God. We do not draw a single breath except through God’s mercy. God gives us one another and all the world to delight us . . . and God lights our eyes with divine intelligence so that we may perceive and wonder at God’s creative love. And yet, as Farrer points out, all God’s kindness is lost behind the mask of power. Overwhelmed by omnipotence, we miss the heart of love.

And so God attempts to teach us about power through the person of Jesus Christ. God comes to us in the form of a helpless infant, dependent upon others for survival. As Jesus grows, he grows in grace, and when he becomes a man, he exercises power as God does . . . as love in action. For this is God’s power: love in action, pouring itself out for us. Jesus, so in union with the Father, does not need to rein in his power, for that would mean reining in his love. No, he goes forth, driving out demons and healing the sick . . . love in action. And eventually, the time comes for Jesus to teach his disciples about the difference between God’s ways and human ways with power.

Which is what Jesus is doing in last Sunday’s Gospel story as well as in today’s story. Of course, the disciples don’t get it. They stand around looking stupid, afraid to ask any questions. Who can blame them? I fear that we’re not much different. We love our own power because we pretend that we can use it to protect ourselves. But Jesus explains to us that this is not real power . . . it is an illusion. Real power is love . . . love in action . . . pouring itself out, giving itself away, united and grounded in God, one with the Father.

Real power is God’s gift to us – like everything else – and is grounded in love . . . it is, in fact, love itself. This is what Jesus is teaching in his lessons of the cross. Real power gives itself away, pours itself out, offers itself as a servant. Real power, real love is never more omnipotent than in weakness . . . than in the pain and suffering of the cross.

As we sophisticated, 21^st century Americans grapple with our ambivalence with power, Christ’s lesson of the cross is as pertinent as ever. May God grant us the grace to use our power – the reflection of God’s creative, self-determining power – as the love it is, pouring ourselves out for the welfare of one another and the world, to the glory of God.

[1][1] “A Grasp of the Hand,” in Austin Farrer, the Essential Sermons, edited by Leslie Houlden and published by Cowley publications in 1991, pages 207-11.