THE TEMPTATION OF POWER

Henri Nouwen maintains that the third temptation of Jesus was the temptation of power. “The devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you, if you will bow down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:8-9)

The temptation to consider power as an instrument for the proclamation of the Gospel is the greatest of all. It is the temptation to believe that having power: political power, military power, economic power, moral and spiritual power, the power of influencing people’s mind through the arts, through education, through the media, provided it is used in what we consider the service of God and humanity, is a good thing. With this rationalization, crusades took place, inquisitions were organized, colonies were established, positions of great influence were desired, palaces and cathedrals were built and much moral manipulation of conscience was engaged in. Every time we see a major crisis in church and state we always see that a major cause is the power exercised by those who claim to be the followers of the poor and powerless.

There is the temptation today to believe that the answer to our problems is to be found in political power. If only we could get other people to agree with us and vote the way we do the problems of our society would be solved. If only we could increase funding for all our projects and interests we would be better off. Yet the nation is sliding into deeper and deeper debt which will saddle future generations with increasing liabilities. Chris Gibson, in Rally Point: Five Tasks to Unite the Country and Revitalize the American Dream, writes,

“While we slide into fiscal crisis, we are also experiencing a moral decline. We are searching for answers in all the wrong places. As humans we have material needs, but we are essentially soulful beings. To revitalize our republic, we must bring that back into focus. We must recognize that we cannot solve all our ills with abject materialism. We have lost a sense of balance…feelings of alienation abound – suicide attempts and completions are at all-time highs. It would be easy to pin all of this on the leaders of government and business, but as H.L. Mencken once told us, Americans get exactly the democracy they deserve. The leaders of government and captains of industry respond to the will of the American people. Our most profound problems are not political, they are fundamentally philosophical – what we value and how we choose to approach, organize, and live our lives. The erosion of our political culture must be addressed.” (p.106)

What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life. Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” The disciples asked, “Can we sit at your right hand and your left hand in your Kingdom?” The long painful history of the church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led.

The temptation of power is greatest when intimacy is a threat. Much leadership is exercised by people who do not know how to develop healthy, intimate relationships and have opted for power and control instead. Many empire-builders have been people unable to give and receive love. They fear vulnerability.

Jesus said to Peter “In all truth I tell you, when you were young you put on your belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands and somebody else will put a belt around you and take you where you would rather not go.” (John 21:18)

The world says, “When you were young you were dependent and could not go where you wanted, but when you grow old you will be able to make your own decisions, go your own way, and control your own destiny.” But Jesus has a different vision of maturity: It is the ability and willingness to be led where you would rather not go. Immediately after Peter had been commissioned to be a leader of his sheep, Jesus confronts him with the hard truth that the servant-leader is the leader who is being led to unknown, undesirable, and painful places. The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross. This is the way of joy and peace.

The Christian is not seeking power and control, but powerlessness and humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ, is revealed. It is when power is constantly abandoned in favor of love. It is when you are so deeply in love with Jesus that you are ready to follow him wherever he guides you, always trusting that, with him, you will find life and find it abundantly. It is to think, speak and act in the name of Jesus who came to free us from the power of death and open the way to eternal life. It is to discern from moment to moment how God acts in human history and how the events that occur during our lives can make us more and more sensitive to the ways in which we are led to the cross and through the cross to the resurrection.

We have the task of responding to personal struggles, family conflicts, national calamities and international tensions with an articulate faith in God’s real presence. We have to say no to every form of fatalism, defeatism, or shallowness that makes people believe that the truth is to be found in statistics. We have to say no to every form of despair to which human life is seen as a pure matter of good or bad luck. We have to say no to sentimental attempts to make people develop a spirit of resignation or stoic indifference in the face of the unavoidability of pain, suffering, and death. We have to say no to the secular world and proclaim in unambiguous terms that the Word made flesh, through whom all things came into being, has made even the smallest events of human history into an opportunity to be led deeper into the heart of Christ. We have to know the heart of God, and are able to see that hand of God’s saving work in the midst of the many seemingly random events of our time. We are called to help people to hear the voice of Christ and so be comforted and consoled.

Jesus replied to the devil, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” What would you say if confronted with the temptations of success and power? What do you worship? What do you serve? What is first in your lives?

At the Last Supper a dispute arose among the disciples as to which of them was considered the greatest. Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at table or the one who serves? But I am among you as one who serves.” (Luke 22:24-27) And he washed their feet. “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master.” (John 13:14-16)

God comes amongst us to save us not through the exercise of power, to compel us to recognize and reverence him; but through the powerlessness of suffering service. The Cross, not the Crown, is the emblem of his sovereignty over human lives. He reigns through the power of truth and love. He calls us to worship and serve him in humility and kindness. He puts the kingdoms of this world and their splendor into the perspective of history and eternity. All this world shall pass away but his kingdom will endure.