Transformation: The Many Shapes of Power

Transformation V: The Many Shapes of Power

I see the good I want to do, but I don't know how to carry it out!
-The Apostle Paul

It’s easy for us to think that it’s only “evil people” who choose power over love.  We think about it in those terms: bad people choose power and become violent.  But the reality is that “good people,” even while rejecting outright violence (which, of course, they should reject) can just as easily choose some other means of power to protect them.  Power is just more easily masked under a nice suit or a warm, sunny, Sunday face. 

A marriage falters and fails because one spouse is unwilling to share their thoughts or fears or emotions, terrified of being exposed.  (Power = Silent Treatment)

A religious man scorns others for not measuring up, while secretly hiding a life filled with addiction and shame.  (Power = The appearance of righteousness)

A student wants to make a rousing speech in front of the class but is terrified of being rejected.  (Power = Staying in seat)

Can you find yourself in this tension between love and power?

I sure can.  When my wife and I have conflict—fights, I can more bluntly name them—on my end, it’s almost invariably linked back to some thing that I want to say that I’m also terrified of saying. 

“You hurt my feelings.” 

“I really want to be near you and I’m terrified that you won’t want that.” 

“When you didn’t clean the kitchen, I interpreted it as you not caring for me at all because who could love me, hideous wreck of a human being that I am?  AHHH!” 

It’s easier to play it cool and not admit to any of those embarrassing thoughts or fleeting emotions.  Power, for me = Not saying what I’m really feeling.  And again, paradoxically, when I am honest, almost invariably I have the intimacy I so long for!  To be human is to constantly be in this paradox: what we most desire we most eagerly avoid.  Our spirit wants love, our ego abhors vulnerability.  (This is the very tension between spirit and flesh/ego that Paul describes in Romans 7, quoted above.)

Of course, we all hide our truest thoughts and feelings, to some degree. Heck, to survive life, you have to learn how to do this; it’s not always safe or wise to vulnerably expose yourself.  The problem comes in when, in the proper context, you can’t expose yourself.  Life in that place is an ongoing experience of being “stuck” and alienated from love. 

And many of us feel this with God.  Because we don’t really trust His love, we are stuck trying to find other, compensating ways of being powerful.  This is precisely what Jesus warns us about.  Think of all the times he red flags the human tendency to embrace power or the appearance of power, through reputation, religion, or riches.  (See, for example, Matthew 6, where Jesus addresses all three in order).  Jesus knows the human propensity to build a mask or persona so that we look good or powerful, or to use money or pleasure to numb out our fear of vulnerability, so that we feel powerful.  Again, it’s not just “evil” people that use power to protect themselves.  In fact, we all do!  Jesus doesn’t berate us for that, but he warns us that remaining stuck in selfishness and self-absorption, which is the heart of sin, will cripple us.

The move that Jesus implores us to take (implores, for he cannot coerce us) is into a radical honesty and humility, which is the only path towards transformation.  This means being led by the Spirit of God to forego and surrender our mechanisms for feeling powerful, even when that’s terrifying for us.  The invitation is: trust me, even if you are exposed, you will be clothed.

When we don’t make this turn, it’s because we don’t really trust Him, no matter how much our theology demand that we say “He’s good.”  It’s only ruthless trust that allows us to bring ourselves, with our weaknesses, to the table.  We think it’s strength and the appearance of competence that would qualify us, when in reality, it’s simply our willingness to be honest about our weakness.  Honesty and humility is the choice that love always makes, which is what makes intimacy and union possible.  Grace, in a tangible sense, is a gift which enables us to live without pretense or posturing, which is the only way to live in freedom.  And humility is the cardinal virtue of a disciple, because it is the only thing which allows us to fall into grace. 

A Reflection

If you were going to fast or forego one of your favorite ways of looking or feeling powerful, what would it be? (Gossiping, so that you look good?  Always having the last word?  Buying this or eating that?)

If you were going to practice honesty and humility, what would it look like, in practical terms, in your life?

Transformation: Love or Power

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold rampage Columbine High School, cataclysm in their wake.

In Laramie, Wyoming, Mathew Shepard, a gay man, is beaten to death. 

Hijackers fly airplanes into twin towers, a murderous act of terror.

Love or power, that is always the choice.  Human beings always choose one or the other, and if we cannot believe in the reality of love--for us, specifically--we will choose some means of feeling powerful.

I was raised in a home that was often unsorted and dirty, and I felt ashamed.  I was embarrassed to bring friends home, afraid of what they would conclude--that there was something wrong with me or my family, perhaps.  My solution was to retreat into my room, where I could have control over my surroundings.  There I made sure everything was clean and in order.  Eventually, I became obsessed, to the point of OCD, with maintaining control over my environment. 

This is a consistent pattern: whenever one of our natural longings (like the longing for acceptance from friends) is frustrated, we scramble for some way to feel powerful to counter-act our vulnerability, frustration, or fear.  If we can feel powerful or if we can seem powerful to others, we think we'll be safe.  No wonder Jesus talked so much about the temptations of money and reputation.  Each one can provide us with a sense of power, even if the power is false or unlasting! 

It’s said that Adolf Hitler had a micropenis.  I doubt that’s verifiable (though God bless the historian who cracks the case), but it would make sense that the personification of evil in the twentieth century chose genocidal power to compensate for an intense feeling of vulnerability.  That’s how history works, on global and individual scales.  Such simple dynamics are the only thing that make history—the story of human behavior and why we do what we do--make sense.  History, including each of the headlines listed above and the stories of our own lives, is ultimately the story of human beings in the struggle of saying “yes” to either love or power.  It’s always some simple impulse driving us, and everything ultimately comes back to our desire for love or our fear of never having it.  You don’t have to be Freud to see and believe that. 

Some lives and the lives of nations, sadly, are consumed by the need to counter-act the feeling of being out-of-control.  By the alcoholic who desperately needs to get control of an internal pain.  By the religious zealot who’s hiding an intense sense of shame.  By Nazis who have to convince themselves that they’re better than other races in order to feel safe.  The “principalities and powers” mentioned in the Bible are surely reflected in the human propensity to choose power over love. 

What is revealed in Jesus is the God of Love who has the power to cast out all fear and to release us from the need to feel or seem powerful.  When you know you are loved and adopted, there’s little impulse left to try to feel powerful through some other means.  It just ceases to make sense.  Thus, the abundant life is a life committed to choosing love and saying “yes” to our adoption and rejecting short-sided ways of getting control, even when it’s challenging or painful to do so.  This certainly recasts the idea of “obedience” as Jesus describes in John 15 from some sort of religious of legalistic “have to” into a clear “get to.”  Obedience as Jesus means it is simply doing what Loves says to do and forsaking short-term ways of feeling powerful.  In so doing, we claim our identity.  This is not an easy walk, but it’s the only journey into abundance and joy. 

We shouldn’t be surprised then that Jesus, though he’s the master of both-and thinking, often makes binary distinctions—between light and darkness, spirit and flesh, love and power—in order to help us see clearly.  We need to label the behaviors (the "what") that get us stuck, but more importantly, we need to label the “why” behind them.  It’s not enough to label the branches or the fruit; we need to label roots.  Doing so catalyzes transformation because it creates space for Jesus to touch the real issue, which is way more effective than behavior modification alone.  It’s one thing to tell someone “stop watching porn,” quite another to help them discover why pornography is so alluring or what deep fear is driving them to numb out.  This does not mean understanding our motives completely (no one can do that) nor gazing endlessly at our navels (which stops transformation in its tracks), but rather developing a sober and healthy understanding of the “why” behind what we choose.  This understanding is born from listening to the Spirit of Jesus within us, which is why unhurriedness and space for contemplation and listening are essential spiritual practices.  Apart from them, there’s no space for encounter and thus, no place for transformation. 

A pastor friend of mine told me that whenever someone came to him to confess something they’d done that they regretted or were ashamed of, he’d always look for the loneliness or sorrow beneath their behavior.  I’ve learned to do the same, with myself and with others.  When I do something that violates my conscience, I ask, “What was going on?”  What internal anxiety was I trying to numb out or get power over?  Then I can surrender not just the behavior, but the longing beneath it.  Again, Jesus is not just interested in pruning branches but in touching roots. 

This practice of labeling the things that drives us—which is connected to the labeling we do in confession and repentance, discussed in earlier blogs—can change everything.  As we practice it(which takes discipline and commitment), we begin to get a vision for what it means to say "yes" to love. 

Invariably, what calls someone out of addiction or any other destructive behavior is not just saying “no” (though saying “no” is important, too).  What ultimately transforms is saying “yes” to something that’s bigger than the behavior.  A vision that weighs more than just feeling or seeming powerful.  And ultimately, Jesus is calling us to reject the violence we do to ourselves and to others when we try to be powerful on our own terms, so that we can discover that the love of God is truly enough to make us feel safe.  Jesus describes this process as “losing our lives, so that we can find it.” 

May we have the courage to lose, that we may find.  May we have the courage to say “yes” to love. 

A Reflection

Jesus, where in my life am I choosing power and control over trust and love?

What does it look like, in the context of my life, to choose love this day?

Transformation: Befriending Weakness

Let me invite you into confessing your weakness.  Of pulling it closer, not pushing it away.  Of making friends with it rather than wasting energy hating, judging, and condemning it.

Befriending simply means accepting the truth of our hearts--the good, the bad, and the ugly--and refusing to hate or blame them.  When we befriend them, we are being honest with ourselves and with Jesus, which finally creates space for us to connect with and commune with God.  When, on the other hand, we say to our weak parts, “No, you’re bad!  Get away from me,” we are actually resisting transformation, because we are resisting the grace and love of God through which foundational transformation always comes. 

I find that whenever I berate myself, judge myself, hold myself in contempt, Jesus is not interested in that at all.  I imagine him standing near me, looking at his watch, wondering how long this is going to go on.  When I approach him, he says, “Okay, you’re done now?  Great!”  No wonder Paul says, "I don't even judge myself!"  (I Corinthians 4:3)

It is much better to befriend our weaknesses so that we can, as Henri Nouwen says, listen to what they have to say.  Lust and anger and any other part of us that we deem unacceptable is, first, a helpful messenger, alerting us that there is a deep longing within us that wants to be fulfilled and which God Himself wants to fulfill and make whole.  Of course, this has nothing to do with indulging lust or anger or “giving in to them.”  We are told, for example, “that in [our] anger, we should not sin” (Ephesians 4:26).  But resistance without a humble listening will always become mere religious performance devoid of transformation.

Befriending, then, is a step into transformation, as we remember that we don’t come to God through our strengths or competency, but through weakness and humility.  And it’s a step towards doing the hardest thing that a human being will ever do: saying “yes” back to God’s generous “yes” to us.  In a world run by egos which only want to pay their own way and prove how great we are, accepting our acceptance, even when we’re not worthy, is the great spiritual challenge.  But when we do, we discover that, in Jesus, we are totally worthy.

Let me challenge you to practice this question: “God, how can You be so good?”  When you find yourself gravitating back towards self-hatred or self-punishment, interrupt your thoughts with this question.  “How can I be adopted by God when I’m still so unsorted?  Jesus, how can you be so good?!”  If you want to practice transformation, start asking that question.  Such confession allows us to experience the incredible generosity of God by interrupting our certainty and opening us to the reality of how ineffably kind He is.

The irony is, the thing that actually transforms us is befriending our weakness! Only then we do experience the love of God that transforms us.  Let us step then, into our weakness, knowing we are stepping into union with God.  Let us confess and celebrate it with joy!

A Question for Reflection and Response

Where in your life can you start practicing the question, “Jesus, how can you be so good?!”