What Kind of Power?

 

PROPERS: FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT, YEAR B 

TEXT:       JEREMIAH 31:31-34; JOHN 12:20-33                             

PREACHED AT RESURRECTION, STARKVILLE, ON SUNDAY, MARCH 17, 2024 

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The concept of the gospel as power is a heresy; it is a call to servanthood and death.

 

Not far from our home in Fairhope is a billboard for an FM radio station – 88.5, I think. Its symbol is a cross, emitting bolts of lightning.  The station calls itself “Power 88.”

 

That image… that message… that sign is a heresy. Pure and simple.

 

In seminary we learned of the ancient heresies: Gnosticism, Arianism, Patripassionism, Docetism, Adoptionism, and dozens of others.  My favorite was Quartodeciminianism. 

 

But the heresy represented by that billboard is uniquely modern. The cross as a source of power.

 

Sadly, that is a source of the church losing its meaning today.  As Jesus, facing the cross, told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

 

The heresy involves the belief that Christianity is a source of worldly power, and it should be used to coerce others into believing and behaving in a certain way. That philosophy led to the Crusade’s failed attempt to hold the Holy Land for Christians and the disastrous last battle with the forces of Saladin at the Horns of Hittim.

 

That approach led to the Swiss persecution of Anabaptists in the 16^th Century and the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts in the 17^th Century.

 

Sadly, that temptation to meld Christianity with the lust for worldly power is never far away.

 

Christianity is not about worldly power. It IS about the power of the cross, but an entirely different power – the power and willingness to love and lay down one’s life.

 

My father used to tell me about an old, perverse saying: “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

 

That seem to be the approach of many – pummel the concept of Christianity into people. Make them believe. Make them toe the line.

 

The prophet Jeremiah, writing 2,500 years ago, said the conversion would be of the heart. Hear his words he conveyed from the Holy One:

 

“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

 

The life God calls us to follow will not be forced.  It will be written on the walls of hearts. Not through worldly power, but the power of love.

 

We follow that way through Jesus’ call to self-giving and self-sacrifice.  Hear his words today from John’s Gospel:

 

“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.”

 

The temptation of worldly power violates the second of the Ten Commandments we heard two weeks ago.  A week from now we will hear proclaimed the eternal truth of our faith – that giving of self overcomes all power – even the power of death.