Power Gone Mad

July 28, 2024, Orchard Ridge UCC, Madison WI

2 Samuel 11: 1-15

 

You can see a video of the sermon here.

Art by Hannae Kim

The story that Ginny read about David and Bathsheba and Uriah is not the only story in history of someone with power behaving very badly. It may be more extreme than many – a rape and a fatal hit job to cover it up. 
 
But we have plenty of examples in our own time of powerful people – most often powerful men – abusing their power and exploiting others. Yes, the first that may come to mind right now is a guy named Trump. But there is a long list – John Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, network executives, Catholic priests and Protestant clergy.

 
There are women with power who misuse it as well. There’s the story of Jezebel in the Hebrew Scriptures who has a penchant for murdering perceived enemies. But mostly, there are fewer stories of women abusing power because until recently, women rarely had the kind of power that men have. 

 

Maybe somewhere along the way, you may have encountered someone like David, someone holding lots of power over others and then using it for their own benefit. We wonder what we can do. And we wonder if we have any power. And if we do, how we might use it for good rather than for ill?

 

Power is a hard thing. So I’d like to spend our time together today thinking a bit about power.

 

Recently, I was listening to a conversation with Raphael Warnock, the pastor at Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta who is also a U.S. Senator from Georgia.

 

“Serving every day in Washington in the Senate has given me a great deal of preaching material,” Warnock said. “If I never understood sin before, I understand it now. Human pride and arrogance, the obsession with power.”

 

That’s the thing in so many parts of life. People become obsessed with the power they have, the power they don’t have, how to get more power. In the process, we lose sight of how we can use power for good and wind up using it to improve our status. If you need an example from the current headlines, check out the saga of New Jersey Democratic soon-to-be former Sen. Robert Menendez who used his power in the U.S. Senate to enrich himself.

 

So it’s not just David.

 

It is clear that despite today’s story of horrific misconduct, David still is a heroic figure in Jewish life. His story gets told in great detail in the Hebrew scriptures, from slaying Goliath who was threatening the Israelites to becoming king to securing the land for his people. He is considered the author of many of the Psalms.
 
Muslims also consider David to be a significant figure, describing him as a prophet of Allah.

And Jesus – our hero – was born in Bethlehem, the City of David. The Gospels according to Matthew and Luke describe Jesus as a direct descendant of David. That was part of the symbolism for early Christians in establishing Jesus as the Messiah, the anointed one.

 

In medieval Western Europe and Eastern Christendom, David was treated as a model ruler and a symbol of divinely ordained monarchy, a biblical predecessor to Christian Roman and Byzantine emperors. The name "New David" was used as an honorific reference to these rulers. Not all of them were models of using power for good, of course.

 

Yes, there is a model of David being considered a great and often wise and courageous ruler. But as today’s story tells us, he also had his flaws. 

 

You may think this story is about David misusing his power in so many ways. And it is. And ultimately, he is held to account by the prophet Nathan. Then he seeks forgiveness from God through words we hear in Psalm 51, a prayer we often read on Ash Wednesday:

 

“Have mercy on me, O God… For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.”

 

Yes, it is about David – both his failure and his quest for forgiveness.

 

But this is also a story about all of us – how we understand the power we have, how we use it or don’t use it and who suffers or who gains in the way we use our power.

 

Let me ask you to think for a moment about where you have power. 

“Oh, I’m very powerful,” some of you might say. 

 

“Oh, I have some power, but I use it wisely,” others might think.

 

I’ll bet almost no one here will say, “Yeah, I have power, and I like to crush others with it.”

 

First, don’t underestimate the fact that you have some power as an individual and that we collectively have power. 

 

I am a straight white male who is economically secure. That gives me a status that comes with power. Most of us here are white. Many are older. We have learned that women have more power now than at many times in the past. Young people have power in many ways – think of what they can do with social media, for instance.

 

But how about thinking about the ways each of us might use the power we have to help others rather than to elevate ourselves. 

 

Does power take on a different dimension then?

Baratunde Thurston

Baratunde Thurston is a comedian, a commentator, a cultural critic. You may know him from his work with Trevor Noah on The Daily Show or for his 2012 book How to Be Black or  for his travelogue series on public television called America Outdoors.
 
He is now doing a podcast called How to Citizen With Baratunde that led to a recent discussion with Monica Guzman of a group called Braver Angels that tries to bridge the divides in our country. One of the things they talked about is power.

To be a citizen, Baratunde argues, means to understand power. I think that is the same for us as people who follow Jesus.

 

He says is that we have an impact on what things have power in our lives. In his words, “What we pay attention to, we give power to. So if we pay attention only to stories of negativity and division, we will get more negativity and more division.”

He goes on, “There's no permanent state of the powerful and the powerless. That's a story that serves people currently holding power. But if you see it as dynamic and movable, then it's up to us to figure out how we shift it, how we build it, how we move it and reallocate it. And it's literally empowering.”

Monica Guzman

Monica Guzman, who is a liberal, and her friend April Lawson, who is a conservative, talked about how each side tends to understand power. Liberals, Guzman said, tend to see power as quite fixed, hard to change. She said, “I think if we see power as very fixed, too often we're gonna forget our own individual power in conversation or in other places.”
But for April, the conservative, she saw two things.

Some faith communities tend to surrender power, turning it all over to God but not doing much about the issues facing the world. The other that is more common in the world of politics is the impulse to play the game no matter the moral cost in order to get more power.

April Lawson

As things get more grim, as people feel more left out, they see the only option for them to get power is to burn it all down because there are no other levers to pull. We see that both in a lot of the political discourse of our time and in the rise in political violence. 

What Baratunde talks about is creating a story that empowers both us and those who are being left out. That’s some of what Jesus did. He faced religious leaders and Roman occupiers and offered a way to see the world that did not depend on position or power but was built on relationships – relationship with God and relationship with each other.

JR. Forasteros, a pastor and author who lives in Dallas, wrote earlier this month in Sojournersmagazine that “Authoritarian regimes seem invincible, but they are not. In the days of the New Testament authors, the light of Jesus’ resurrection helped reveal the truth of peace and the lies of violence.”

He suggests that “We cannot hope to work for the kind of change that lasts, change that liberates both victim and victimizer, unless we can learn to walk the path of Jesus — the path that eschews violence precisely because it – violence - is the chief weapon of the empire.”

We’ve come a long ways this morning from that ancient story of David and Bathsheba. But the world has not come so far away from it. The dynamics in that story still exist. Less common are those follow ups – holding those who abuse power to account, hearing them express sincere regret over what they have done. 

But those are things – accountability and true regent – where we can use our power to put them in play – first for ourselves if we get a bit too self-serving with our power, then to demand that others are indeed held accountable. 

Then we can think about ways we can use whatever power we find that we have ourselves to make a difference. So many of you here do that already. Maybe it is as simply as sending a message about issues you care about or making a contribution to an important cause, like you have done for JustDane and Casa Alitas and now for the Good Shepherd Food Pantry. 

Maybe it is about organizing a project like Heart Room that has made a difference in so many people’s lives. Maybe it’s the young people from this congregation traveling to Nashville to serve others and having their understanding of their power deepened in the process.

The list goes on and on. When we choose to use the power we have in ways like this, we are creating that alternative story to what our culture says power is all about. Think back again to the way Jesus changed the story in his time and that helps us change the story in our time.

Here, then, is a question to take home with you. It’s actually a two-part question, because I have the power to define that.

Where do you find power in your life? 

And then how are you or might you use that power for good?

For our closing hymn today, I picked the very first hymn in the New Century Hymnal, the one you have at your places. When the editors of a hymnal put it together, the first hymn is always a statement of importance, something that encapsulates the core themes of Christian faith. 

In our hymnal, Number One – “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” – speaks of a God who creates and sustains us, the invisible God whose visible works in nature testify to God’s glory and majesty. It is how God uses power.

It has a long history. The words were written by a Scottish pastor and it was first published in 1867. So it has a rich history and invites to consider in a beautiful way the power of God – the power of creation and the power of sustainability that can be reflected in how we choose to use our power. We, after all, are all held in God’s love.

So let’s sing it together. (The link takes you to a version of the hymn.)

Taking Refuge, Bringing Healing

July 21, 2024, Orchard Ridge UCC, Madison WI

Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56

A video of the sermon is here.

The week before last, I was up at Moon Beach camp with my daughter, Julia, and three-year old granddaughter, Ellie. It was the week after many folks from Orchard Ridge were up there for your annual time at camp.

Three-year olds, as you probably know, can be pretty active. So the days were busy. But Ellie’s activity did not always settle down at night. It would take Julia a while to get her to sleep. And finally an exhausted Julia could drift off to sleep herself.

Sleep, that is, until 2:30 one morning, when Ellie woke up in tears and wanted all the lights turned on. Julia was exhausted but her daughter needed compassion. So the lights went on, Julia cuddled Ellie and soon she was back to sleep – but mom wasn’t.

 

That same week, I got to know a man from Edgerton, a retired guy whose wife is four-years into a journey with Alzheimer’s. He increasingly must be with her - and it is exhausting. He does get away occasionally to be with an Alzheimer’s support group. And he got to go to camp because his daughter and family came up from Texas. She stayed with her mom while dad and the two granddaughters went to Moon Beach. 

“How’s it going back home?” I asked as the week went on. I knew that his compassion for his wife never left his thoughts for long. He told me that one of the things he had to deal with was her inclination to turn the thermostat down to 58 degrees. Then he would turn it back up when he noticed. He told his daughter that was an issue to watch out for. 

When he had talked with his daughter the previous evening, he asked how things were going. “I am losing the thermostat war,” she told him.

 

Exhaustion. Responding to needs. That was story we heard about Jesus today in the Gospel.

 

Just before the section from Mark that Dee read today, Jesus had been rejected by the folks in his hometown of Nazareth. 

 

Then he sent his followers out to help those dealing with what they called “unclean spirits,” what we today might call people dealing with mental illness. They also reached out to those who were ill and brought a sense of healing. 

 

Then his cousin John the Baptist was executed on the orders of King Herod. 

 

You can see why Jesus and his closest followers might have felt a bit worn out, in need of quiet, a time for prayer. As the reading said, Jesus told his friends, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”

Nice try, Jesus. 

 

Pretty soon there was a crowd. And, as the reading said, Jesus had compassion for them. 

 

Our reading today skipped over the next part. The people not only wanted Jesus’ wisdom. They were also hungry. 

So Jesus told his exhausted followers to feed the crowd. You know the story – only five loaves and two fish and yet everyone was fed. 
 
Jesus goes away to pray again. But the apostles were out fishing and got caught in a storm. Jesus got up again, this time to rescue them. When they finally reached land, the people surged again, bringing people who were ill for Jesus to heal.

 

It never ends, the needs of all the people. Over and over, Jesus tries to find a place of refuge for himself in the midst of it all and winds up reaching out to those in need. He was not a good example of that life/balance thing we hear so much about. But he was a good example of giving hope to those who were at the edges of despair.

 

I think some of you here are familiar with Mitri Raheb. He is a Lutheran minister who grew up in Bethlehem. He says he is pretty sure his great, great, great, great, great grandmother babysat for Jesus. He served as pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church there for 30 years. 

 

While at Christmas Lutheran Church, he founded Dal al-Kamila University in 2006, where he still serves as president. It is in Bethlehem - and had a second campus in Gaza until it was destroyed by Israeli bombing and some of it students and volunteers killed.  
 
He has lived through the Israeli occupation of Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank. And now he is in the heart of the current horrors in that part of our world.

There are people here who know a lot about the crisis in Israel and Palestine. You have found ways to react with compassion to the horrors in Israel on Oct. 7 and to the horrors in Gaza and the West Bank since then. You can only imagine the sense of exhaustion that must envelope Mitri in the midst of all this. Where does he find the resources to bring compassion to all of those who are suffering?

 

In part, he anchors himself in hope for the future – hope informed by his faith, hope made real by his vision for what can be even in the midst of today’s horrors. He is a theologian among his many talents and has been leading an exploration called “Theology after Gaza.” As hard as this time is, it is not the end and Mitri is always looking ahead, no matter how discouraging, how exhausting the present moment may be.

 

Folks at Orchard Ridge have developed an ongoing relationship with the immigrants who are served by Casa Alitas in Tucson. Last month, you contributed almost $3,330 to the ongoing and essential work there – just the latest example of your generosity to those living on the edges.
 
At the center of that relationship has been Ruthann Landsness. I am pretty sure there have been times at Casa Alitas when she is feeling both overwhelmed by the needs, exasperated by our governments’ policies and tired from all her efforts. And yet when someone needs her, she is there.

 

She said she knows she has skills speaking Spanish so she can talk with people even more exhausted than her. “All I have to do is think of the hundreds of people to whom I have brought smiles to their faces.”

What gets her up the next day? Not a naïve optimism, she said, but hope. And meditation helps sustain her. One of her mantras is “Just for today,” adding “If I can do it once, I can do it again.” 

 

And, of course, she does not do that alone. Neither does Mitri. Neither does my new friend caring for his wife nor my daughter up in the middle of the night to comfort Ellie. Neither did Jesus, for that matter. He asked his followers to go out to care for others, he asked them to get food for the hungry crowd.

 

The day after Julia’s sleepless night when Ellie got her up, she was pretty tired. So during nap time – “feet on bed” as it is called at Moon Beach – she texted me to ask if I could take Ellie after nap time so Julia could get some uninterrupted sleep. Of course I could.

 

My friend’s daughter came from Houston to be with her mother while her father got a week away. She was not only caring for her mother – she was caring for him as well.

 

While Mitri is a visible leader of the shrinking Christian community in Palestine, he works hard to keep expanding the circles of people supporting not only his work but the urgent needs of so many in that land. His U.S. organization, Bright Stars of Bethlehem, has as its motto, “Hope is What We Do.” Hope even in the face of so much that can lead to despair.

 

When he wrote an essay for the Religion News Service this past Holy Week, he said that without a cease fire and the release of the Israeli hostages, “the region will be pulled into a dark spiral of misery, reprisal and instability. We will continue to cry out: Stop.” Then he added, “We will continue to practice hope.”

 

And as he looked at the story of Easter, he wrote, “We are waiting not for angels to roll away the stone, but rather people who hear the call for justice, for liberation, for peace.”

 

Hope. Working together. A vision of what can be.

 

That sustains Mitri. It sustains those working at Casa Alitas. I think those are examples that can sustain us in whatever is wearing us down.

 

Whether it is the political turmoil swirling around us right now, the worries about climate change, the lack of housing for so many, the anger that too often bubbles to the surface, or whether it is caring for an ill relative, grieving the death of a loved one, helping a child struggling with addiction – whatever it is, I think we can learn from the stories of Jesus and so many others that seek to walk in his way.

 

Here's a starting point. 

 

Acknowledge what is exhausting you. Don’t pretend that everything is OK.

 

Sometimes, you will have to get up and deal with it yourself – at least at first. Then find ways you can involve others. You do not to do any of this alone. And as a church community, we have the networks to do this. 

And draw on the rich resources in our traditions – the Psalms, the hymns we sing, the prayers we say together and alone.  They can offer sustenance along the way.

 

Since there seems to be a tradition here of the preacher sending you out with a homework assignment, here are a few questions to ponder this week:
     When do we take care of ourselves? 

     When do we sacrifice ourselves for others? 

     How can we help each other get rest and be resilient?

 

Let me tell you one more story that will take us to our closing hymn. It is a story of one more person facing the grimmest of odds – imprisoned by the Nazis during World War II, facing execution. 

And yet in that time when all must have seemed dark, he found hope in his trust in God and help in getting his words out of prison – words that have offered inspiration to others across almost 80 years. 

 

Many of you will recognize his name. It is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian imprisoned for being part of the resistance to Hitler., first helping to organize Christians apart from the churches that bowed down to Hitler, then becoming part of a group trying to remove Hitler from power. 
 
He was sacrificing himself for others. Surely he knew exhaustion yet he kept reaching out, moving forward, sustained by the Psalms, the Gospels, prayer and ultimately, his trust in God’s love, come what may.
 
On Dec. 31, 1944, from the Gestapo bunker in Berlin where he was being held, he wrote to his friends the words that became this hymn. It was smuggled out of the prison, given to his mother a few days later and then published in several places over the years. He was executed four months later, on April 9, 1945.

 

Bonhoeffer’s heart is tormented, his cup of sorrow is brimming over, yet he believes that his life is still part of God’s love and care. 

 

The hymn Bonhoeffer wrote is in our hymnals – it is #413. And the words will be on the screen. It may not be familiar to many of you, so I’d invite Vicki to play the melody through once.