Prove it!

 

Sounds like Jesus was having a bad day.  First, he was tested by the Pharisees, then by the lack of foresight by his disciples.  He was speaking about faith and using a metaphor to do so, and his disciples completely missed the point and took his words literally.  Not only that, but they were coming from a very defensive position, assuming that he was blaming them for their lack of preparation.

Nobody was getting it.  The Pharisees wanted signs, the king wanted absolutes, the disciples wanted their bellies full and no one wanted to think about God or mission or higher purpose.  Here they were in the presence of Jesus, and had seen and experienced marvelous things, but all they could do was stay fixated on their own perceived needs and their own sense of what was proper.

Like a mobile, the three groups were used to a certain way of living.  Herod was used to having uncontested power over the country and influence with the Roman Empire.  He was a figurehead and knew it.  He was also plagued with guilt over the death of John the Baptist and wondered if Jesus was John reincarnated.  He had been manipulated by his wife and stepdaughter into executing John, from which we get the phrase, “serve his head on a platter”.  He was a dangerous and volatile man, easily swayed, and a wily politician.  He was not afraid to kill people to keep his power.

The Pharisees were, as Robbie the Dragon said, the ‘status quo’.  The religious people who ran the temple.  They were used to being upper managers in the institution of religion, which was a big thing in Jerusalem.  They liked their systems, their debates, their logic and their many rules. 

They liked the superiority they had in knowing that they had the truth all wrapped up and that they were better than the rest of the people they saw.  They were sure they were right.  They ‘knew’ they were in God’s good books.

Then there were the disciples.  Fishermen, farmers, day laborers.  They knew their place in the society’s hierarchy.  It was at the bottom.  They knew the constant struggle to find enough food to eat every day.  They knew grinding poverty, and they knew that they were not good enough to deserve the best seat in the temple.  Like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, they only dreamed of one day having a seat of honor in their most sacred institution.  Survival was the best they could hope for.

Imagine that this society was like a mobile with the strings and sticks balancing the different people at each level.  You remember the kinds we made with our kids as school projects, or maybe hung a store-bought one over a baby’s crib.  I had one festooned with plastic butterflies that entertained my children, especially when they realized the butterflies moved when they kicked their feet on the crib mattress.

The mobile that was the society of the people was committed to being still, calm and static.  It hadn’t been that long ago that there had been two nasty sieges of Jerusalem that had led to wholesale massacres of people hiding in the Temple, less than 100 years earlier.  Power imbalances had led to civil wars and thousands of people dead. So status quo and peace was very precious to all.  It was a matter of life and death.  People didn’t want more war, more death, and more disaster.  They wanted stability.  They wanted safety.  They wanted security.

Jesus wanted equality.  He wanted people to share their abundance with people who didn’t have abundance.  He wanted fair play and justice, so that poor people wouldn’t be the oppressed and the marginalized.  He wanted healthy community, where all, young and old, were treated with compassion and respect.  Where status was not based on what one owned or who one controlled, but on how well one served, and loved the people who could least repay a kindness.

He wanted a community that laughed together, played together, worked together and experienced God together. A community freed from the fear of not having enough or being enough.  A community of love and joy.

To get there would take much change.  The mobile would have to move and bounce and whirl to get that change.  Herod and the Pharisees were not having it.  They wanted the mobile to stay still and peaceful for them.  They were prepared to sacrifice the people under them to maintain that peace.  They certainly weren’t going to let some upstart Galilean preach to them how to practice their faith and upset the peaceful mobile.

So they demanded signs, not because they wanted signs, but because they wanted to keep the mobile from moving.  And Jesus realized the game they were playing.  Jesus realized they kept moving the goal post and would keep moving the goal post as a way to discredit him in front of his followers.

When he tried to communicate this to the disciples, once again, they didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.  They were fixated on their assumptions that there wasn’t enough food around because they could only believe in that which they could touch or taste.  They didn’t trust in this new community, they only trusted in what they knew.  They needed bread, not just once in a while but daily, like the rich folk could afford.  And that need was enough to erase their memories of the loaves and fishes that were in abundance whenever they met in community in the presence of Jesus.

Where do you find yourself in this story?  Are you worried about your daily bread? Are you worried about upsetting the status quo?  Are you stressed out about what other people might think if you do something different than everyone else?  Have you forgotten the special moments in your lives when you had a sense of community, of support, of the divine awe that inspired you and connected you to something bigger than yourself?

I hope amidst the challenges and the shifts of our world, that we remember to hold to the vision of a community and a society where all are valued, where all have found a bigger purpose to hope in, where all are committed to spinning the mobile until all know the joy and the glory of being beloved children of God.

Who’s got the power?

When I read Paul’s story, I immediately thought of that commercial with the pink energizer bunny, and the jingle, “I’ve got the Power”, resonating with the drum beating.  And on days like we’ve had, with the heat beating down on us like an everlasting drum, well, it’s hard to feel energized.  I remember a few years ago hearing that it was so hot in Italy, people were burning their hands when they went to touch their doorknobs.  Not so hard to imagine after this week.  The energy to work in such temperatures is hard to muster.  Even construction crews are working shorter shifts on the rigs and ending their days early to prevent heat exhaustion.  The power has gone out of us as we wait and pray for rain and a break from the sun.

Power is one of those things we don’t like to talk about much.  We are fine with talking about power in terms of electricity, and about power of politicians way over some place far away.  We’re much less comfortable with the power we might have.  Or might need.  Or might be abusing or might have abused in the past. Psychologists talk about three needs that every person has, competence, connection and autonomy.  Autonomy is the power to make decisions and choices for oneself.  But sometimes that power can step towards making decisions and choices for others.  Which is a good thing.  I don’t want to make decisions on where to build a generating station in the neighborhood, and I’m quite glad to delegate that to provincial and municipal leaders.  Where the danger lies is when the folks we delegate the power to make choices forget that they are to make choices for all and think only about the best choices for themselves.

We saw that in our previous town council.  I fear we are seeing that in our provincial leadership that ignores the call to have residential school history in our curriculum, public parks for people who can’t afford resorts, protected areas like our Rockies to stay safe from coal mining, accessible health care, fair dealings for health professionals and teachers and more.

But what does that have to do with us?  And more importantly, the scriptures?  Jesus had power to heal those who needed healing and yet when he was back home where he had grown up, in the midst of all the negative, critical, verbal attacks, his power was lessened.  The home crowd had power over him.  With their nitpicking, they exerted their power over Jesus.  They wanted to put him in his place.  They wanted him to remember he was nothing special, just a small-town boy with delusions of grandeur that he didn’t deserve and certainly shouldn’t inflict on them.

Can you imagine telling someone that they shouldn’t make the world a better place, or even worse, that they can’t and will never make the world a better place?  We would never do that, especially not to a loved one.  And yet, we often do.  I find something wrong in the way this person waters their plants or how that person drives their car.  I easily slip into judgement and when that judgement is spoken without any loving intentions, it robs the power from the person hearing it.

Judgement is addictive and judgement is easy.  It leaves me feeling more powerful than the person I am judging.  I meet my need for autonomy but in a way that competes with my neighbor and erodes my love for my neighbor.  Judgement is why the residential schools were so toxic for so many, and why the conversation about them is so hard today.

Paul talked about another way.  Instead of competing for power, he recognized that it was a competition he could never win.  And he would know.  As Saul, the persecutor of the Christians, he had a fierce reputation for being so judgmental and disparaging that the Temple authorities gave him a letter empowering him to go out and not just judge, but condemn any who were corrupting their faith with the teachings of Jesus.  They saw their faith as competing for power over people’s souls and sent Saul to stop it.  To say he was knocked off his high horse is putting it mildly.  Saul went blind and had to humbly ask for healing from the very people he had been sent to judge.  The people he thought he had power over, were the ones with the power over him.

He learned firsthand that it wasn’t his power, or the power of Ananias, his healer, that made him able to see again.  And it wasn’t a competition between him and Ananias over who had more power or more holiness.  It was God’s power that healed him.  This was the key.  

God used Paul more when Paul was weak, than when Paul tried to do it all himself.  God’s power flowed through Paul, transforming his weakness into a testimony for this different way of living that continues to inspire and transform.

There are days when I feel as weak and judgmental as Paul, and I wonder if I am making a difference.  There are days when I hear stories about the abuse of power that break my heart.  And then there are the stories that encourage and empower me.  The fellow who drove all the way from Edmonton and ended up coming back for seconds, buying 11 strawberry shortcakes!  The angel in our congregation who shared 8 shortcakes with her apartment complex, the neighbor who bought three to say thank you to friends despite being uncomfortable with this different way of doing our tea, the folks who paid so others could eat and the many saints who worked hard not just to serve up 80 desserts, but also to stay patient and calm despite the hustle and bustle and dreadful heat.  Especially them who worked hard to be nice to each other, apologize when necessary, and keep focused on loving and serving.

Jesus didn’t want power over his family and hometown.  He didn’t want power over his disciples.  He didn’t give up his power to the naysayers and complainers, and he didn’t punish them for their insolence.  He gave his power to all in the form of stories and healings.  He gave his power to his disciples, telling them to go out and share the power of love with everyone they met.  He told them that nothing could take that power of love from them, not even the dust of a judgmental community.  If you want to read a great article on the power of that love, and how it continues today, check out Wilma Derksen’s interview in this month’s Broadview Magazine.

And ask yourself, where do you get your power?  How are you doing with the struggle to not be competitive?  And who will you empower to go out and make a difference in the world?  God has sent you to the people, just as Jesus sent the 12, and just as Paul in his weakness was sent to empower all who heard or read his story.  May we find many opportunities to do just that.  Amen.