October 20, 2024 - The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
My friends, I speak to you today in the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.
Good morning, Epiphany. I want to tell you from the early outset today that this sermon is about power. I know that in the current political climate, this election season that we are now in, that a sermon about power could be a cause for concern for some of you, because let’s face it, nearly everything seems to be anxiety-producing this time of year. I’d argue that there are some in positions of power who like it that way, keeping you and others in a constant state of anxiety, but this sermon isn’t about your anxiety, it’s about your understanding of power. I hope you will stick with me and the lectionary this week because this subject is simply unavoidable. I know, because I have tried to avoid it. The lectionary is funny that way; sometimes it gives us what we need to hear, but not what the preacher may want to preach. Power must be what we need to hear about today.
As some of you may know – I have not been shy in sharing this fact – it was a very busy week for me as your rector. On Monday, I met with and spoke to the Kiwanis luncheon at the Senior Center at George Ebright’s invitation. On Tuesday, Chris Flood and I met with WeCare executive director Erika Morrison for a good 90 minutes. On Wednesday, nearly 30 of us gathered at Chuck and Mary Moore’s home for a newcomer dinner; we’ll talk more about that at announcement time. And then on Thursday, I drove to the very first convention of the Diocese of the Great Lakes; the Diocese of Western Michigan is no more. After essentially two and a half straight days of being socially “on” at convention, though, after a week of what were actually really good meetings and conversations, this introvert got back to town after dinner last night, checked in for a few minutes with Abbey and the girls, and then basically went straight to bed, still mostly packed from the trip. I was and still am pretty tired. (To be fair, Abbey probably is too.)
I have talked a bit about our denomination’s diocesan convention in the past few weeks, many of you knew it was coming, and whether you cared about it or not is neither here nor there. But again, back to our topic today, what is almost unavoidable in convention centers, in church diocesan conventions, and even in casinos themselves (where ours was oddly hosted due to its central location in Mount Pleasant), what is almost unavoidable in those places is an underlying current of power.
Who holds it? Who wants it? Who’s grasping for it? Who has been denied it? Who is hopeless in the face of it? Who is oppressed by it? Who is using it for good? Who is using it for selfish ambition? Where does their power come from? Who is granting it? Who is giving theirs away?
All of these questions about power, and more, swirled through my head throughout this week actually, in each of my meetings if I’m honest, and I blame the very fact that I had power on my mind every day this week on Jesus. Thanks, Jesus.
But Jesus is not the only member of the one holy and undivided Trinity that I blame either, as you might understand if you heard our Old Testament reading from Job this morning. Job is suffering and crying out to God in Job 38, and God is answering Job “out of a whirlwind.” In this passage, we get some of our most memorable verses about the sovereignty and omnipotence of the creator God, even with a little side of godly sarcasm: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements, surely you know!” And more directly, a few verses later: “Can you lift up your voice and make it rain? Can you make lightning? Can you feed the hungry animals when they cry out?” Job, you can’t possibly understand. After chapters and chapters of seeming to ignore Job’s suffering, God is finally answering Job’s lament and he reminds him of where the power lies between humans and God. God has more than we can imagine. Job, as we’ll read next week, is awed by that fact and repents. No spoilers though, that’s for next week, come back next Sunday.
Job, then, for all it says of God’s power, is not the sermon text today, because Jesus has a far more interesting take on what a Christian reframing of human power should be about. James and John, two of Jesus’s disciples, come to him in this text, a story echoed in the gospel of Matthew, and they are as straightforward as you can possibly get: “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” I can imagine Jesus being a bit taken aback at that, I know I would be if someone came to the rector’s office and said that to me... “I want you to do whatever we ask,” but Jesus simply asks what it is they want. All they want, they say, is to sit at his right hand and his left hand in glory. No big deal. “Grant us the positions of power and privilege at your side in glory for all eternity.” Oh, is that all? The nerve, right? As we read later, the other disciples don’t approve of this power play, and I can almost see the alliances forming between the disciples now... we’ve been watching the CBS reality show Survivor at our house for the first time ever this month, the shifting sands of power and back-stabbing and secret deals can be hard to track. Almost reminds me of diocesan convention...
But Jesus’s response to this request is where our message comes from this morning: They don’t know what they are asking for here. Jesus’s power isn’t like the power that the disciples had seen in the rulers who lorded over them, it isn’t like the power that we see in convention centers or halls of Congress or nonprofit board rooms or the White House. A Christian understanding of power, I will say it clearly now, is not like the world’s.
See, when I imagine someone on Jesus’s right hand and on his left this morning, I am actually most reminded of the cross. There, when Jesus was crucified, when he pursued his radical understanding of the Kingdom of God to the fullest, when he laid down his life for us in abundant, sacrificial love, there, on his right and on his left were two others being crucified too. When James and John came forward and asked to sit at his right and left, they were in part expressing their devotion to him, and that was good, Jesus confirms they will indeed drink the cup he drinks, even if they don’t understand what they’re asking for right then. The rich young ruler, we’re reminded from last week, was not nearly so devoted when his request for eternal life required his sacrifice, required selling all he had to follow Jesus. Following Jesus requires a different understanding. The power of Jesus, of the Kingdom of God, comes not through a sword or a gun or a gavel or a position of power or a place in the White House. The power of Jesus comes through the cross.
Jesus tells the disciples that day, Jesus tells us this morning, that among you, among the disciples, among us as twenty-first century Christians, “whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” Following Jesus redefines, reframes, and transforms our understanding of power completely. Now, that’s almost impossible for us to fully understand on our own; echoing last week’s sermon, we need God’s help and we need the church to help us understand it. Daily, we are being formed, and the more we can be formed by fellow Christians, by each other in loving Christian community, the better. See, we are fed the opposite images constantly in our media today, especially in an election season, we are fed an understanding of power that says we must rise to the top, and we must do so by defeating the other. There is good and evil and we, who always self-define as the good, must defeat the other, who we cannot help but define as the evil.
But power as Jesus teaches us is wholly based in our level of service to others, in our level of love. Now, that does not negate the existence of good and evil, do not hear me wrongly this morning, but it does reorient our goals, our aims, our purposes, our lives. We must be living with this Christian understanding of power – of service, of love – this upside-down view that Jesus shares with his disciples, that whoever wishes to be great must be a servant of all. I see you live this out at brunch, especially so when you’re in the kitchen doing dishes... and I saw it at the newcomer dinner on Wednesday, when so many of you shared why you landed here, because it was a place not of judgment, but of welcome. This life of service and love, the redefinition of what is great and what is powerful, it is the very heart of the gospel. And it is our challenge here at Epiphany and as individual Christians to make sure it stays at the heart of who we are.
Julia Ayala Harris was our keynote speaker at convention on Friday night. She’s the president of the House of Deputies, which I believe is the highest position for laity in our church, working alongside the Presiding Bishop. Now, she didn’t talk about power at convention, that would probably be some level of inception we’re not ready for, but she did quote the venerable and living saint Dolly Parton in her keynote address: “Find out who you are and then do it on purpose.” She challenged us as a new diocese to figure out how we were to live as Christians in Michigan, and to “let everything we do be in service of connecting people to the transformative love of Jesus Christ.” That’s a good word.
I would like to make an addition to that charge, in this election season in particular, in a time when messages of power are rarely Christian, when Jesus’s message and example of service and self-sacrifice and abundant love are rarely held up as the ideal if not pushed aside altogether. We must indeed figure out who we are as Christians, as individuals even, I challenge you to take time to do that this week. Figure out how your whole life, how everything you do, may connect with this redefinition of power, how your life may embody the example and power of the cross, and then live that life on purpose. Let that life of putting others first, of loving your neighbor, help you and all those around you connect with the transformative love of Jesus Christ, today and every day. Amen.
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