Church of All Nations

The Canadian theologian, Douglas John Hall, in his book The Cross in Our Context also suggests that there are two themes within scripture and Christian tradition. On the one hand there is what he calls the theology of glory – a theology that has, perhaps until recently, undergirded Christendom and empire. On the other hand there is the thin tradition, as he calls it – the theology of the cross: a theology which he sees as now being relevant for the church in these post-Christendom times; our own context.

Today our readings are about these profound tensions, almost fissures, within scripture. On the one hand we have the great might and power of Israel’s greatest king, King David, and his establishment of Jerusalem which he immodestly names The City of David. As our reading says:

David became greater and greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him. (2 Sam 5:10)

The psalm for today, Psalm 48, we sort of sung about in an earlier hymn, is even more explicit about the might and power of God – especially in relation to this city of Jerusalem.

Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised
In the city of our God is his holy hill. (vs 1)

But then brother Paul presents a different insight. Paul is the renowned interpreter of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. He is the theologian of the cross par excellence. In our reading from 2 Corinthians 12, he is continuing to address this difficult church at Corinth. You may recall our amusement last week as he tried to develop arguments for them to give to his Jerusalem Appeal. Well this week he is dealing with the reality, perhaps not greatly different from our own time, of when a group of teachers and preachers had breezed into Corinth promising knowledge, power and might in the name of Jesus. I take it this group supported an early form of the ‘prosperity gospel’ of which we often hear today: “Believe and you will be rich and blessed by our God of power.”

Paul begins to challenge this visiting group and their teaching in the preceding chapter to our reading, chapter 11: (I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me!) … so he says, someone has come to you to proclaim another gospel, another Jesus. Then he says, “I think that I am not in the least inferior to these “super apostles”. I may be untrained in speech, but not in knowledge – and so on.

And so in chapter 12, he comes to his weakness, or his famous ‘thorn in the flesh’. Paul wants to make the point God does not work through boasting, and crass appeals to power and might, or the teaching of these rather sarcastically named “super apostles”. He has God addressing him saying:

My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.(vs 9)
So I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (vs 9)

Yes, God is a god of power, but that power is made perfect, perhaps made evident, made real, in weakness. Here Paul is talking of his physical “thorn in the flesh” – whatever that was for Paul, but it also applies to how God shows love in the cross of Christ.

Indeed this tension that exists between these two paradigms: one of power and another of love, is shown in the account of Jesus’s return to his hometown, Nazareth. Now we usually remember this story by the observation:

Prophets are not without honour except in their hometown and among their own kin and in their own house.  (Mk 6:4)

But why would that be the case here?  Was there something about Jesus being a prophet or a good coyote which was actually the cause of the problem; the cause of the rejection?

I have been musing – if Jesus was actually, in the ways of the world, a celebrity: a great sporting identity, or famous musician or entertainer, or military hero, the locals would adulate him. We would do the same. We recall fondly those with whom we went to school, or university or who used to live down the street and who became famous. Or in this suburb, we at home are always having the conversation about who we saw today in Lygon Street, or while we were having coffee. If Jesus was a hometown boy who had made good, I don’t believe he would have been rejected. You see, the hometown-boy-made-good plays to our interest in flirting with power and fame.

But that was not what Jesus was doing, or was on about in this ill-fated return to Nazareth. I suspect he was actually challenging his old town to move to a new self-understanding, a new way of living.  He was offering a new teaching of love and peace. He was seeking a conversion.

His healings, though not huge in number, were still there – “he laid his hand on a few sick people and cured them”. He just was not an all singing and dancing, bells and whistles, display of power and miracle.  Indeed, as Mark says, “he could do no deed of power there”.

So who does he think he is?  He is just Mary and Joe’s son!  The carpenter’s kid.  Which really is saying, he can’t tell us what to do.

Interestingly Jesus himself was rattled by all of this. He thought people would be eager for a new way of living and a new way of relating with God – but apparently not.

He was amazed at their unbelief. (Mk 6: 6)

Within our understanding of God, there has to be an understanding of power. Our God does have power – but it perhaps it is not what we might think. As Paul says, “God’s power is made perfect in weakness”.

What can that mean? It does sound rather wimpish. I believe Paul is saying God does not lack power. Indeed on the Mount of Olives when Jesus is arrested, he said to the soldiers God could have sent a whole legion of angels to protect God’s anointed one (Matt 26:53), but God’s object was different. God sought to reach down to us, into our soul, befriend us, cleanse and offer new life.

As noted in then – to live by the sword, is to die by the sword – a statement which is true for us humans, as it is also true for the divine. Douglas John Hall says a god who rules with the sword, who shows power and might, will not survive the revenge of his victims.

To have a relationship with anyone, let alone with God, requires love – and not power, or power over them, which will only induce fear and submission. As Paul says in his great hymn of love (1 Corinthians 13), “Love does not insist on its own way . . . but bears all things, believes all things, endures all things.” Love qualifies power; peace speaks to power. Reinhold Niebuhr says:

“The crux of the cross is its revelation of the fact that the final power of God over us is derived from the self-imposed weakness of God’s love.”

The strength and power of God all get redefined through the cross of Christ. God seeks a different relationship of power with us.

So to our own time – are we wanting the church to return to the power and might of Christendom and our colonial times?  Do we want the church to exist again as a powerful institution across the land?  Or is our hope for a different sort of transformational power that we Christians can show through our mutual love and support and our care for others. . . our love for the outcast and marginalised?

Are we wanting God to act in power and might to right wrongs or address evils, so people will just respond out of fear and we will be self righteous about our cause?

I hope we see a different reality of power.  Our strength rests on God’s love, and because of that we can pursue a path of peace and of selfless love.

‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’

I hope we all can enjoy being good coyotes.