Posts Tagged ‘Powerlessness’

Christmas – the powerlessness of God

December 24, 2024

Christmas Eve – 2024

Marian Free

In the name of God, who comes to us as a vulnerable baby insisting on our cooperation in the building of a just, compassionate and caring world. Amen.

I am conscious that many of us come to this Christmas burdened with the state of the world – the encroaching collapse of democracy,  the internal strife in more nations than I can name, the horrific wars in and between so many nations and the toll they are taking on human lives and on infrastructure, the increasing ferocity of natural disasters – bushfires, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes and floods –  and of our feelings of helplessness as we  watch tragedies unfold all around us. 

How does the birth of a child speak into this situation? Collectively we seem to be worse off, not better off as a consequence. It is clear that 2025 years ago, God did not sweep in and end injustice, oppression and corruption for all time; just as God did not forever disarm the natural forces of this planet.

In Christ God did not burst on to the scene and make everything right – just the opposite. What God did in Christ was to expose God’s powerless. In Christ, God gives us a glimpse into who and what God is and into what God can and cannot do.

That said, the birth of Jesus is God’s masterstroke, because it is the baby that catches our attention. Few people are unmoved by the vulnerability and the innocence of a newborn.  Most of us are filled with the desire to protect, nurture and love an infant into maturity. More than that, at Christmas time, we are captivated by the humble domestic scene of an ordinary family, and we find ourselves in awe of the miraculous – the star, the angels and the magi. It is no wonder that at this moment that our love of God is at its strongest as we kneel in homage with the shepherds and the magi, and our hearts are warmed by the thought of God’s love for us.

This is as it should be, but the danger is, that this warm glow blinds us the real meaning of Jesus’ birth and that our faith and that our concept of God does not extend much beyond the comfort and hope expressed in many a nativity scene and that we do not grasp what this scene really tells us about God. 

The birth of this child is so much more than the fulfillment of a promise, and so much more than the assurance of God’s presence with us. This birth brings us face-to-face with a confronting truth. This infant is God. God the creator of the universe is here, lying on the straw, totally dependent on Mary and Joseph for his every need and completely defenceless against the wrath of Herod. The one to whom we look for intervention in the world, the one to whom we attribute all the power and might is at this moment in time utterly powerless.

Here perhaps is the nub of Christmas – that the very being to whom we entrust our lives, entrusts us with their life. This baby, the Christ-child tells us that the presence and power of God in the world is in our hands. God is in our hands – not in the sense that we can control, manipulate or coerce God, but in the sense that God is powerless because we have it within ourselves to thwart, obstruct and to sabotage God’s plans for the world and for humanity.

Christmas, the coming of God into the world in such an unexpected, humble and vulnerable manner, is a reminder that we are in partnership with God, that we are co-creators with God and that from the beginning God entrusted us with the world and with each other. That means that if the world is not as we would wish it to be – it is on us, not God. When we wring our hands and bemoan the state of the world and when we wonder why God is not doing more to intervene, we overlook our complicity in the problems of the world and our failure to cooperate with the one who created us. We forget the helplessness revealed in the infant Jesus.

You see, God did not create humankind so that God could spend eternity cleaning up the mess that we make as a consequence of our selfishness, greed, and grasping for power. God created humanity in the hope that we would work together with God to build a just, compassionate and equitable world. God gave us the power to change the world for good or ill and more often than we have let down our side of the equation.

At Christmas, God once more brings us face-to-face with reality, with the gap between the hope offered by the Christ-child and the despair that still afflicts the lives of many, the gap between the innocence of the babe and the corruption that continues to exist in many parts of the world, and the gap between the potential of the Prince of Peace and the conflicts that rage in more places than we can name. 

The infant in the manger has no power to throw down world leaders, to destroy the arms of war, or to end the need for security and comfort that builds barriers between ourselves and others. Yet, what power this child has – the power to enter our hearts, the power to draw from us love and awe, the power to inspire us to work for peace and justice, and the power to remind us of the power that we have been given to work with and for God for the good of all.  

The life of this child is in our hands. The future of the world is in our power. How will we respond?

What will we do with the precious gift that God has given us?

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Why is this Friday “Good”?

March 30, 2024

Good Friday

John 18:1-19:42

Marian Free

In the name of God who exposes the values of this world for what they are. Amen.

I am often asked why today is called Good Friday, when it is a day filled with horror and death. 

It is good, not because of what happened OR because of what will happen. It is good because of what it tells us. 

By going willingly to the cross, by refusing to engage with a process that was blatantly unjust, and by resisting the temptation to save himself, Jesus exposed all that is wrong with this world – the grasping for and holding on to power, the desire to increase one’s wealth (albeit at the expense of others), the marginalisation and stereotyping of those who are different, the limits placed on freedom of expression, freedom of movement, and the attempts to control the narrative.  By submitting to and not fighting the powers of this world, Jesus exposes their powerlessness – to control, to limit, to label or to frighten. Jesus reveals that it is possible to play by a different set of rules – that one does not have to be bound by fear, hatred, greed or by a hunger for power or seduced by the desire for self-preservation or. control. By refusing to give evil power over him, by refusing to compromise to secure his own comfort and safety, Jesus takes power into his own hands, stripping evil of its power to intimidate, coerce or subjugate. 

Jesus overpowered evil and death by refusing to let them control his story. By facing the forces of this world head on, Jesus deprived them of their power over him.

Today is called “Good” because on this day Jesus showed that by standing apart from the world and refusing to be bound by worldly desires and conventions, and by resisting the. temptation to engage in the grasping for power, recognition and possessions Jesus stripped them of their power over him, and ultimately over us.   

It is Good Friday because the victory has been won and with our cooperation can become the reality for all people. 

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Maundy Thursday – modelling resistance

March 30, 2024

Maundy Thursday

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Marian Free

In the name of God whose thoughts are not our thoughts and whose ways are not our ways. Amen.

In a recent tweet, the Archbishop of Canterbury commented “Jesus doesn’t wash his disciples’ feet despite having power, but because of it. Jesus’ power finds its fullest expression when he gives it away. Something we’ll see again on the cross.” (@JustinWelby)

Tonight begins the observation of the Triduum, the three days from the Last Supper and Jesus’ arrest to the Resurrection.  Not everyone takes advantage of the liturgical observance of these events, but they are of one piece – each event in the Passion of Christ shedding light on and expanding another. Jesus begins by demonstrating what it means to be free of human desires, to have the confidence to overturn and reject human conventions and the courage to face death. On the cross, he exposes futility of trying to maintain power by force. On the first day of the week, Jesus’ resurrection proves that freedom is won, not by making compromises with the devil (however that is represented), but by standing firm and resisting evil (in whatever form that takes).

Tonight, John’s gospel tells us that: “Jesus knew that his hour had come.” He knew too that: “The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him.” Knowing that he was to die and knowing that one of his inner circle had already determined to hand him over to the authorities, Jesus held fast.  He refused to let his behaviour be determined by the values of this world – self-preservation, anger, bitterness, resentment, or disappointment. Jesus held fast to kingdom values, selflessness, love, forgiveness and acceptance. 

On this night, Jesus did not “rage, rage against the dying of the light”[1]. He chose not to fight the forces of this world on their terms – by force, oppression, injustice, suppression and self-protection. Jesus showed another way, the only way to defeat evil and to allow love to triumph. He tied a towel around himself, took on the role of a servant, and washed the feet of the disciples. He washed the feet of Judas, who had already made up his mind to hand Jesus over to the authorities and he washed the feet of Peter who was blinded by human pride, and he washed the feet of those who would abandon him.

Jesus’ simple action of footwashing speaks volumes. With his disciples he showed that it was possible to rise above the pettiness of human fears and jealousies.

In willingly facing his opponents, submitting to arrest and torture, Jesus demonstrated the powers of this world will not be defeated by force, that using the  tools of the enemy makes us no better than them, that vulnerability freely chosen is not weakness but strength,  that courage is stronger than fear and above all, that love is stronger than hate.

And so, having shown by example that he will not engage in the power struggles of this world, Jesus goes out to let them do their worst.

[1] Dylan Thomas Do not go gentle into that good night.

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God and slugs

December 24, 2015

Christmas 2015

Some thoughts

Marian Free

 In the name of God who could chose to be anything and yet chose to become one of, one with us. Amen.

 From time to time, I dip into a collection of daily readings that uses the writings of C.S. Lewis[1]. Recently, in the readings for December, I came across this statement: “The Eternal being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a foetus inside a woman’s body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab[2].” I have to admit, that as much as I have pondered the nature of the Incarnation, I had never grasped the enormity of God’s decision as clearly. Lewis’s comparison really puts the concept of the Incarnation into perspective. In fact, as I absorbed the new point of view, it occurred to me that the difference between divinity and humanity is so vast that even Lewis’s distinction may not be sufficient to capture the chasm that exists. In fact it is almost certainly impossible to come up with an image that does the notion justice, but it might be more useful to consider our becoming an amoeba, a mould or some other microscopic life form.

It is beyond imagining that a human being would voluntarily trade their human form for something so base and so insignificant as a single-celled organism. Is there any circumstance under which a human being would make that choice? Is it conceivable that there would be a situation that would draw out the sort of love and compassion that would compel a person to make such a radical sacrifice?

I suspect that there is no way that any one of us would willingly choose to give up our independence, our rational thought, our self-determination. There is no imaginable state of affairs that would cause us to make a choice that would leave us completely at the mercy of the elements, adrift in the world with no power to change our position or to influence the direction that our lives might take. Human beings can and do make enormous sacrifices for others, but it is hard to imagine any human being giving up their humanness for any cause whatsoever.

Yet, God, the source of life and love, God who could and can do anything, who could choose to be anything at all and who could determine any number of ways to save the world, made the choice to fully and completely enter our existence. There were no half measures. God did not appear to become human. Jesus was not merely similar to us. God took on human flesh with all its frailty. God abandoned power and glory, imperishability and immortality to fully enter the human race. In so doing, God exposed Godself to all the indignities associated with being human. God sentenced Godself to all the restrictions, all the limitations of the human form – the spewing, mewling, incontinent state of infancy and old age, the vulnerability to disease and accident, the risk of being emotionally abused or abandoned.

We cannot come close to envisaging the cost of God’s abandoning the glories of Paradise for the uncomfortable realities of life on this planet. We cannot take lightly God’s love, commitment and compassion for the human race.

This is what the Incarnation, what Christmas is all about. God’s desire that we should be saved that is so powerful and so overwhelming, that what to us is an unimaginable decision becomes a realistic solution. God could see no other way to demonstrate God’s love and to bring us to our senses than to share our existence and to show us our real potential. I have no desire to become an amoeba or even a slug, but I will for this life and the next be overawed and filled with gratitude that God should love so much that God would become one of us.

 

Christmas 2015

Family service

If you could be anything at all when you grow up, what would it be?

(Take responses and comment – something like there are some pretty ambitious and amazing goals there. I hope that you work hard enough to make them a reality. If there are no outrageous comments, mention some that came up at our grandson’s Kindy graduation – princess, batman, Prime Minister)

God can do or be anything that God wants, and what did God decide to be? (Wait for answers or simply provide the answer.) Yes, God decided to be a baby. God could be anything at all, and yet God became a baby – a baby that cries, that needs its nappy changed, that throws up after it is fed. Yuk! Why would God want to become a baby? Why? Because God loves us so much, that God will do anything to get our attention. Why? Because God knew that we wouldn’t really trust God unless God became like us and that if God was to become like us, then God had to be just like us – starting as a baby. Why? Because God knows that everyone loves a baby and God hoped that if we loved the baby, we might learn to love God.

So Christmas is all about the baby, and the baby is all about love – God’s love for us that is bigger than anything we can begin to imagine.

God loves us, and hopes that we will learn to love God.

 

 

 

 

 

[1] In C.S. Lewis. The Business of Heaven. Ed Walter Hooper. Great Britain: Fount Paperbacks, 1984.

[2] op cit 300.

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Outside the box

October 17, 2015

Pentecost 21 – 2015

Mark 10:32-45

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who challenges, surprises and above all turns the world upside down. Amen.

For the third time, Jesus predicts his suffering and crucifixion and for the third time his disciples show their complete failure to understand. If you remember, the first time Jesus announced his upcoming death and resurrection, Peter rebuked him. On the second occasion the disciples (embarrassed and awkward) changed the topic and began to argue among themselves as to who was the greatest among them. Finally in today’s gospel James and John ask Jesus to give them preeminent places in his kingdom. It appears that despite Jesus’ teaching and example, they have still failed to understand the nature of Jesus’ task.

It is simply beyond the comprehension of Jesus’ disciples that the “anointed one”, the one sent by God, would be anything but a leader – someone in control of not only his own destiny, but of the destiny of those who followed him. The notion that the one sent by God would be a servant, that he would exhibit vulnerability and frailty and, worst of all that he would be at the mercy of the leaders of the church and of the nation, was completely outside their world view. So even though Jesus tries to explain to them the nature of his ministry, it simply does not sink in. They can only think of Jesus in ways familiar to them.

In order to understand the request of James and John then, it helps to understand something of the culture of the first century Mediterranean culture in which ideas of honour and shame played a very big part. Honour was something to be sought after. It was what set one person apart from another. Honour was bestowed primarily by one’s birth, but it could also be bestowed by a leader – as a reward for services rendered, in response to flattery and other inducements – or by competing with other members of one’s group for positions of influence over the remainder. Honour could also be gained by shaming another in debate. Shame was to be avoided at all costs because to be publicly shamed was to lose one’s place in the world both figuratively and in reality[1].

So, even though James and John have completely misunderstood everything that Jesus represents, it can be said in their favour that they are behaving in a way that is completely understandable in terms of their cultural situation. They are on their way to Jerusalem, the seat of government. We, the readers, know that this is a risky venture, and the text tells us that Jesus’ followers were afraid. No doubt they expected some sort of confrontation. Reading between the lines, we can assume that the disciples thought that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem in order to take on the authorities. There seems to have been no doubt in their minds that he would come out of such a confrontation as the victor. Hence the request by James and John: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.“ James and John believe that when Jesus has conquered the authorities in Jerusalem he will be able to share his victory with those who have followed him. That is, he will be able to give positions of honour to those who have served him well.

What they have not realised is that Jesus’ “glory” will be unlike anything that they can imagine. Jesus “glory” will be unrecognisable as glory. To them, at least initially, it will appear as shame – crucifixion being a humiliating and shameful way in which to die.

Jesus does not strive for honour in the same way that his disciples do. For Jesus, honour was to be found not in striving for recognition or power, but in accepting the fate that God had in store for him. He will willingly “drink the cup” that has been given to him, however degrading, and he asks whether James and John have the courage to do the same[2].

Mark almost certainly uses Jesus’ predictions and the disciples’ failure to understand as a literary device. The juxtaposition of Jesus’ predictions and the disciples’ misunderstanding illustrates the point that Jesus’ mission overturns the values and expectations of this world.

God’s action in Jesus was so radical, so “outside the box” that twenty centuries later we still fail to completely understand. The notion of a God who serves, the idea that God could love us so much as to place Godself completely in our hands is so utterly foreign to the idea that many of us hold of God, that we simply cannot grasp it. We long for a God who is all-powerful and who is victorious over all. Instead we have to settle for a God who is powerless and vulnerable and who, by his life and actions, confronts all human values and ideals – thereby demonstrating that service, vulnerability and an absence of striving are the values that will lead to peace in our own lives and thus to peace in the world.

[1] Jesus plays on the idea of the avoidance of shame in the parable about taking the lower place at the banquet and it was in order to avoid shame, that Herod allowed John the Baptist to be beheaded.

[2] Here again, understanding the cultural context is useful. “In Mediterranean culture, the head of the family fills the cups of all at table. Each one is expected to accept and drink what the head of the family has given.” (John Pilch, www.liturgy.slu.edu) In the case of Jesus, the head of the family is of course God and it is God, not Jesus, who will determine places of honour.

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The vulnerability of God

December 24, 2012

Christmas Eve 2012

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who gave up all power and authority to create and then to re-create us. Amen.

I often think that the infant in the cradle, “wrapped in cloths”, distracts us from the reality of the situation. We are drawn to the baby as we are drawn to all babies and our hearts are filled with love and a longing to wrap our arms around the child. In the depictions of the Nativity, we see a loving family, comfortably gathered and surrounded by the shepherds and wise men who come to worship.

What we don’t always see is the raw, naked vulnerability of the child – the child who is God and who at this point in time is completely powerless to control his destiny and who is utterly dependent on those around him – on Mary and Joseph, on Herod and the political circumstances of the  country which he finds himself.

Thinking of God as a defenceless child can be startling and a little confusing. It goes against our expectations and forces us to see God from an entirely different perspective. A vulnerable, powerless God does not conform to our concept of a God who is omnipotent and all-powerful, who directs and determines, who judges and condemns. To think of God as a helpless baby challenges everything we might have thought about God. And yet, from the inception of Christianity this is one of the images of God – a God without power, a God unable to intervene and God unable to force God’s will on anyone.

In fact, from the very beginning of the Judeo-Christian faith, the image of God is of a God who instead of keeping all authority to himself, chooses to give that power to humankind. In the Garden of Eden, God the creator gave humanity the freedom to choose. God who could have determined the future of humankind, ceded that power to human beings who used that power to choose to compete with, rather than serve God.

When it all went horribly wrong God chose, not to force humankind to change, but to trust humankind to change themselves. In order to do that, God put himself in our hands and risked everything in the hope that we would rise to the occasion, in the hope that our response to the infant Jesus and to the man, would serve to bring salvation to the world.

God still depends on us to get it right, trusts us to return the world to the idyllic state of the garden. God is still powerless unless we co-operate. The vulnerable God in the cradle depends on the people around him for his survival. The powerless God depends on us to change the world.

The powerlessness of God is demonstrated in the vulnerable and suffering of our own time. Until we accept the vulnerability of the baby, the helplessness of the child in the manger, we will not recognise our responsibility to be those who empower God’s saving work in the world. We will not change the situation of

–       the children of Syria and throughout the Middle East who are dependent on warring parties sitting down at the negotiating table and committing to a lasting peace.

–       the children of Niger, the Sudan and countless other nations who are dependent on our goodwill for food,

–       the millions of children who are victims of the AIDS epidemic who are dependent on education programmes and access to health care,

–       the children working in sweat factories and mines, who are forced into slavery and prostitution who are dependent on enough international advocacy will to set them free,

–       the children of Sandy Hook whose lives along with the 20,000 other young people killed by guns in the US are totally dependent on the will of a nation to give up a love affair with guns.

Until we are willing to change our lives, until we are willing to give us some of our comforts, until we are determined to engage our political leaders and to confront world leaders, until we in our turn become vulnerable and dependent on each other, God remains powerless to intervene in world affairs. Because God is dependent on us, God can only do what we are prepared to do in God’s name.

Next time you look in the manger, see beyond the comforting image of a well-fed, well clothed, well-loved baby and see in that child’s eyes, the eyes of God doing the only thing God knows how to do to change the world around – to give himself utterly and completely to us, hoping against hope that we will give ourselves to God and to each other.

 

 

Let us pray

Holy God,

give us grace and courage to acknowledge our contribution to the suffering in the world. Help us to become vulnerable as you became vulnerable that we may be part of the solution and not of the problem.

Powerless God,

make us aware of your presence in and around us. Help us to have the grace to open ourselves to you, that your presence may be made known through us.

Living God,

be with all who live life in the shadow of poverty and despair,

especially those in our own community whose needs often are overlooked

as we look further afield in our desire to ease the suffering of others.

Give hope to the lost and support to the powerless and make us sensitive and responsive to needs and concerns of those around us.

 

Healing God,

in Jesus, you shared the pain of the sick, you knew what it was to face death. Be with all who at this time are in need of comfort and healing. Encourage and strengthen those who are ill and recovering from surgery, support those who are dying and be with all whose task is to bring about healing.

 

Dying and rising God,

as you shared our existence, may we strive to share yours, that at our end we may             join you and all the saints for eternity.

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