Reckoning with power

"Jesus saw power better than anyone who's ever lived. He did that because in order to love people well he had to discern how power was at work in their lives. The seventh axiom, then, is that God's love always reckons with power." 

This chapter in Ben Sternke and Matt Tebbe's book 'Having the Mind of Christ: Eight Axioms to Cultivate A Robust Faith' is, shall we say, quite powerful!

They begin with this profound quote from Obery Hendricks Jr....

"An important goal of [Jesus'] ministry was to radically change the distribution of authority and power, goods and resources, so all people - particularly the little people, or 'the least of these,' as Jesus called them - might have lives free of political repression, enforced hunger, and poverty."

 A couple quotes from the authors:

• "God's power isn't the power to control, but rather the power of love: God's desire and activity of uniting in covenant loyalty the entire created world and working for the flourishing of the entire cosmos. God's power is God's love, and as such it always reckons with the real-life effects of how ungodly power works in the world."
• If we are going to love each other as Christ loved us (John 15:12) and not fall prey to the dead faith that does nothing to address the inequalities and injustices that power differentials create in our world, we must learn to see, through the ministry of Jesus, how God's love always reckons with power."

I thought this bicycle illustration was a great way to show how power works (p.122):

"...those who benefit from cultural power rarely understand the work it does for them. Much like riding a bicycle with a 20-mph tailwind, cultural power pushes those with power in a way that makes it invisible to them. When you have a tailwind, you don't feel the wind because you're moving with it. But those trying to pedal their bicycle into a 20-mph headwind know for sure how much the power of wind impedes their progress. It's difficult for those with a tailwind to feel how that power helps them, but it's not at all difficult for those with a headwind to feel how power creates struggle in their lives. God's love sees and reckons with these power dynamics and works to bring about justice and peace in our world."

The rest of the chapter is on how this reckoning-with-power works. First showing how Jesus did it, then how God's love reckons with power today. There are three ways this is done, and, as they say, they aren't three distinct activities, but three facets of one impulse...

GOD'S LOVE RECKONS WITH POWER BY...

1. Recognizing power
2. Redistributing power
3. Redefining power

 

This is definitely one of those chapters I need to revisit. There's a lot here, and much I'm not able to put into words yet. Good stuff. I will leave you with this final though from p. 130:

"To love like Jesus we must ask: Who in our world lacks power and privilege, and how do we faithfully inhabit God's love in the way of Jesus on their behalf?"

 ***

John 15:12-13

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."