Power

A few years back our fridge used to be covered in fridge magnets. Now we’ve got one of those integrated fridge freezers, the magnets don’t stick anymore!

But I always remember one that said ‘do you want to speak to the man in charge, or the woman who knows what’s going on’? Fairly sure I didn’t buy that one!

There are different kinds of power, the fridge magnet is telling us. And the power of influence and knowledge always trumps the power that comes with mere rank.

Wesley Carr, a former dean of Westminster, used to remind his students that when they went out into their first charge they shouldn’t kid themselves that they had any authority, just because they’d finally been ordained. “You have exactly as much authority as your people vest in you.” he used to say. “It doesn’t come with the title. You have to earn it.”

And it’s the same for the freshly qualified engineer, straight out of Uni, walking into a room of grizzly guys twice his age and trying to tell them what the work schedule is for that day. Or the newly appointed teacher facing a class of kids she doesn’t know and wondering how tough she’ll have to be to let them know who’s in charge.

The politics of power. We’re all caught up in it, whatever stage in life we happen to be at. Whether we’re struggling to meet the imperious demands of a two year old or trying to stay independent as health begins to decline in our twilight years. The questions are always the same. What power do we have, and how should we use that power?

It’s a struggle – for every one of us.

And that struggle between healthy and unhealthy use of power is right there in our text for today as Jesus continues to be about the work his Father has given him, and jealous men make plans to stop him dead in his tracks. We see the power of God at work for good, but also the power of Man for evil

Peter, James and John have just come down from the mountain of transfiguration where they’ve seen Jesus revealed in all his glory.

But as is the way of things, now it’s back down to earth with a bump. They hear the commotion before they see it: down at the foot of the mountain the teachers of the Law are arguing with the rest of the disciples and a crowd’s gathered round to watch the fun.

And although we’re not told why they’re arguing, it’s not difficult to guess. The disciples have failed to cure this poor lad of his epilepsy, and the teachers of the Law are loving it: “There you go. We told you this was a lot of rubbish. These guys are charlatans. You can’t believe a word they say!”

And that’s where things are at, until Jesus comes on the scene. And Mark doesn’t pull any punches as he tells us about it. I can’t think of many other places in the gospels where Jesus sounds quite as exasperated, though I’m not sure whether he’s angry at the disciples, the teachers of the law, the crowds, or all of them!

“How unbelieving you people are! How long must I stay with you? How long do I have to put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”

So they do. And before Jesus even says a word to him, or lays a hand on him, the spirit convulses the boy and sends him into a seizure. And we get to see the effect this has not just on the boy, but on his distraught father. A dad, brought face to face with his powerlessness to help his son; but also – painfully -  his doubt that anything can be done to help him. “I believe, Lord. But help my unbelief.”

And that lame admission, rather wonderfully, seems to be enough for Jesus to work with.

God’s power flows through him and out from him. The boy is healed; and I think the father also finds a kind of healing when he realises that even the little faith he can offer is enough.

And so once again, we see the power of God at work through Jesus. Bringing life and healing.

But the passage ends with an ominous reference to the Power of Man. For all the compassion that he’s poured out, all the good he’s done, all the wisdom that he’s shared - “The Son of Man will be handed over to those who will kill him.” Jesus tells his disciples.

Why would  they kill him ? Because he was a threat to their Power.  We want to have things our way and we won’t let anyone get in our way, even if it’s God himself; God help us.

God uses his power to bring life and healing. But history shows us that all too often, Man’s power leads to death and destruction

As I was preparing for today I remembered something that happened to me many years ago, and it’s a story I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone before.

It happened in the mid 70’s when I was a kid, and all the local children spent our entire summer down at the local park. Out after breakfast, back for lunch, back for dinner, back for bedtime. No worried mothers, no mobile phones. It’s just how it was. And it was great.

And that park saw all the little dramas of our lives play out – the glorious goals, learning to ride a bike, the skinned knees, dares and kiss-catch; the fallings in and out that make up a childhood.

But this story took place before all of that. It would have been one of my earliest excursions to the park, I was maybe 5 or 6, and somehow I’d got my hands on one of those big plastic sweetie jars you used to get in the corner shops.  I’d thrown some grass into the bottom of the jar and was combing the park for ladybirds – and by that stage I’d probably collected several dozen.

And then a couple of older boys came along on their bikes, 8 or 9, saw what I was doing, and offered to help. This was great! So they started collecting them too.

And my memory tells me we must have collected a lot, because I vividly remember those boys taking the jar away from me, pouring all the ladybirds onto the tarmac pathway and then riding over them on their bikes again and again ‘til they reduced them to a puddle of red mush.

I imagine myself standing there, open mouthed, watching them do this. Too powerless to stop them; to shocked to find the words to protest.

Why did they do it? Quite simply, because they wanted to and because they could. The power of man to destroy. Don’t need much reminding of that; especially on the 11^th of September. 15 years ago today.

But of course destruction’s not the whole story. If you go to Manhattan today there’s a beautiful memorial garden in the footprints of the Twin Towers, and a stunning new glass skyscraper beside it called Freedom Tower. Man can destroy, but he can also build and create marvellous things as well.

Every trip to Ellon or into town on the A90 is a reminder of that these days. The very landscape of our parish is being reformed before our eyes. We’re good at this stuff.

But here’s the thing – whether we’re destroying or creating, man’s power tends to be external and coercive. It’s the power to move things around, for good or for ill. We push and pull and prod and manipulate but it’s only the outside of things that we really change. That’s where our power seems to end.

Chances are you know the story about the mum whose 6 year old decided he wanted to stand up in his chair at the dinner table.

“Johnny – get down”

“No”

“Johnny – get down”

“No”.

Finally she got up, plonked him down in his seat and pushed it right in against the table.

And scowled at her – “I may be sitting down on the outside, but I’m still standing up on the inside”.

Just because you have power over the external, it doesn’t follow that you’ve any power over the internal.

An army can crush another army, but it can’t destroy an ideal, or bomb a principle that’s worth fighting for.

A woman can command another woman’s service, but she can’t command that she likes it.

That’s the limitation of human power. Formidable though it is, It can only ever take us so far. It can change the outside, but it can’t change the inside.

And that’s where God’s power differs. He doesn’t use his power to bully and cajole on the outside. He uses it to draw us on and change us on the inside.

And that’s why I’ve always loved these words of Napoleon Bonaparte, a man who knew more than most about what could be achieved through human power:

“I tell you. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself have founded great empires. But our empires were founded on force. Jesus alone founded His empire on love, and to this day millions would die for Him. I think I understand something of human nature, and I tell you, all these were men, and I am a man. Jesus Christ was more than man.”

And we might add, his power was more than man’s power.

It was God’s power we saw working in him. In life, and – paradoxically - in death.

They gathered around him, those old pious men he’d enraged so much with his teaching. “He saved others – let him save himself” they cried as his lifeblood fell to the ground for the dogs to lick.

They thought he didn’t have the power to come down from the cross.

What they didn’t understand is that he was held there not by lack of power but excess of love. For God SO loved the world, he sent his one and only son. And God, more than anything, wants us to love him freely in return.

But in giving us the freedom to love him, God also made it possible for us not to love him. To resist him, deny him and even crucify him. And this is what we chose to do. We crucified the Lord of Glory, you and I. We turned him into red mush on the pavement.

It didn’t take much for the power of Man to triumph. Manipulation of the crowd, rigging a trial, painting Pilate into a corner.  And then a handful of soldiers, a handful of nails and a wooden cross to finish the job.

 But the great irony of the cross, exposed three days later in the resurrection, and in the centuries and generations since, is that the cross was a victory for God’s power, not man’s.

The cross exposes us at our worst and God at his best; we used our power to kill the best of men! He used his to breathe ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.’

Our sin saw him murdered on a tree. But his self-offering broke the power of sin and death once and for all, so they no longer have the last word on our lives. Through Christ, we can overcome.

And his self-giving on the cross, choosing to lay down his power and let this happen for our sake, did what no amount of coercion could ever do. It made us come to love him of our own free will, because we’ve realised that what he did there, he did for us.

He did for me.

Where folk begin to grasp that in their inner being, and respond to it in faith and service, there we find the true church. And the power of man, and the gates of hell, shall not prevail against it.