Our Gospel today raises the issue of POWER. That is a good red-blooded American and
especially Texan topic, appropriate for this Independence Day weekend. Power. What is it?
How to get it? How to use it?
And more
specifically, what does Christian power look like?
It is a bit
tricky.
At the
beginning of today’s Gospel Jesus appoints 72 disciples, sends them off in
pairs, and tells them “Go on your way;
behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.” Like lambs among wolves? Hmmm.
What would that be like? Where
does the power lie in that image?
Even if you
have never been a shepherd, or worked with sheep, or have never encountered a
wolf, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure this one out. Like lambs among wolves is a position of powerlessness.
In the way of
the world the wolves have the power.
Lambs are cute. They are
innocent. They are charming. But they are not powerful. They are powerless. That is the judgment of the world, and Jesus
tells us “I am sending you like lambs
among wolves.” You are
powerless. How does that make you
feel?
Look around at
the forces that drive the economy, at greed, at illness, at injustice, at
natural disasters, at war, at famine, at crazy people with assault rifles, at
all the distracted and rotten drivers and the accidents that happen every day,
at cancer and the Zika virus and superbugs immune to antibiotics, and you will
begin to recognize yourself as a lamb in the midst of wolves. (You’re screwed.) Good luck.
But then, just
a few verses later, Jesus says almost the opposite: “Behold,
I have given you the power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon
the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you.”
Well that is
more like it. That sounds powerful:
power to tread upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you. I like that a lot better than being a lamb
in the midst of wolves. How about
you?
So which is
it? Was Jesus just joshing us and joking
with us when He told us we were lambs among wolves? Teasing like an older brother? Getting a fright out of us? Or did
Jesus change His mind and decide we really are powerful? Which statement of Jesus is true?
Well, Like so
much in religion, they BOTH are true, and both are true at the same time, and
in the same way. ¿How can we be both
powerless like lambs among wolves and at the same time be powerful to tread on
the full force of the enemy so that nothing will harm us?
The key to
understanding God’s power – which is what Jesus is teaching us about – is the
cross. On the cross Jesus was utterly powerless. // On
the cross Jesus was supremely powerful.
On the cross Jesus was totally helpless, at
the mercy of His executions, pinned to the cross He could hardly even
move. Yet, on the cross Jesus fully
defeated sin and death and won the victory of life for all, the greatest
triumph ever. He was both like a lamb
among wolves and supremely victorious.
The power that
Jesus gives us is not the power to smite our enemies. Not the power to destroy, not to blow things
up, not the power to water-board, nor enslave, nor to harm. Rather the incredible power that Jesus
promises us is the power to overcome sin in our hearts. The serpents and scorpions we are able to
tread on are the hatred, the vengeance, the violence, the greed, the pettiness,
the juicy gossip, the indifference, the laziness, the lust, the prejudice, the
fear and all the other serpents and scorpions of evil that nest in our
hearts.
Over these,
over our own selves, Jesus gives us the power.
He can set us free from all the works of death that diminish and demean
us. We can be free. Free to live as children of God, free to live
lives of dignity and integrity, free to love without pettiness or selfishness,
free to be children of God.
In the eyes of
the world this is nothing. It is like
being a lamb in the midst of wolves: dangerous and imperiled. But in the firm knowledge of faith, it is
victory. It is triumph. It is the ultimate power. It is the paradox of the cross.
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