November 26, 2006: WHAT IS TRUTH?
John 18:33-38, 2 Samuel 23:1-7, Psalm 132:1-12

Eileen Parfrey         Springwater Presbyterian

As the first colony to revolt against European power, Americans are almost driven to suspicion of kingly power. How can the Church expect American Christians to accept with good grace a Sunday celebrating royal power? Should we skip to the Reign of God, without all that king talk-avoid personalizing "king"? That doesn't get us out of the preposition problem. Is it power over, power against, power to, power for, or power with? I'd rather skip to the conclusion that we all have power, and make the power question a verb problem. Action or state of being? Is it power taken, given, or used?

Bible Geek solution: check scripture. Take today's 2 Samuel, for instance. It's David's reflection on Israel's kingship, the royal power ending to a book that begins with Hannah's song about God's power inversion. David portrays God's anointed king as the culmination of the plan for an ordered creation. As if Israel's king's power is power for life-expressed as the righteous administration of justice for the common good, especially for the afflicted and marginal. The kind of king Israel would look for in the Messiah.

Today, the royal theology of God's anointed intersects with a servant leader so counter to the world's vision of power that we join him as he stands trial for his life. Jesus and Pilate seem to banter about who gets to be alpha male, but truthfully, Jesus invites Pilate to faith with integrity: "Do you ask on your own, or is this about what others say?" Jesus contrasts his vision of power with the Evil Empire's-a power based in neither superior fire power nor pre-emptive strikes, but one based in "testifying to truth." Words!

It's a crying shame the internet hadn't been invented yet. If words were Jesus' tools-for-power, just think what he could have done with Listserv. Truth could have been put out quickly enough to do some real good-public opinion polls better managed, Palm Sunday parlayed into something useful, the cross avoided entirely. As a last resort, camera phones could have taken the resurrection out of the realm of the secret.

Maybe that kind of "words" isn't the medium of God's truth. Maybe God's Kingdom isn't about "winning" or even "being right." There's a thought-! "Truth" isn't about "right." If it were (about winning), Reign of Christ (or Christ the King) Sunday would be different. Instead of a Servant King, we would have a king who rules by majority opinion or political finesse or shrewd strategy. Instead of a king whose power depends on ensuring that everyone has enough to eat and a safe place to sleep, we'd have a king whose power depends on stating as facts those things he desires to be true-whether or not they reflect actual experience. Instead of a king who returns energy and carbon to the earth's eco-systems, who lives gently on the earth, protecting resources and restoring clean water-instead of a king like that, we'd have a king who sells energy and makes sure the rich get as much as they want and the poor get as much as they can pay for. Instead of a king who heals the sick and promotes wholeness, we'd have a king who manages health care and allocates it to those who can afford it.

Foreseeing the potential for misuse of power in the 1920s, and wanting to give religious perspective to the right use of power, the Church Universal formed the theological conclusion, Reign of Christ Sunday. Internationally, the "war to end all wars" had just concluded. The Church had ceased to have civil authority, civil authority was usurping religious authority for oppression. Consequently, a theological event such as Reign of Christ Sunday, begs the question, "What is God's vision of the kingdom?" God's vision of the kingdom is more properly spelled, "kin" not "king." Kin-dom, a social structure of relationship, most particularly family relationship. If you know anything about living with kids, you've heard, "Hey, that's not fair!" and "Me too!" and "How comes she gets to and I don't?" These are the cries for establishing justice in family. Family is the place where we learn to say, "You hurt me" and "I'm sorry" and "Let's share" and "Thank you" and "I love you, although you drive me nuts sometimes."

Family was the basic social unit in Israel, and Israel's national and religious life is the basis for understanding God's Kin-dom. Into the national rhythm of faithfulness and faithfailing, God's anointed, the Messiah, came to fulfill the everlasting covenant made with David for a Righteous Ruler. We see that One today in all his power, handcuffed in front of the agent of oppression. This guy was dangerous. With nothing to lose, his vision of power uses a different set of prepositions than Rome. Not Rome's power over nor the zealots' power against. His is power with, power for, power to. In the gospel of John, Jesus does not give up any power to become human, but neither does he need to know how everything will turn out. He trusted God for God's will to be done. Jesus' use of power was to take the "right now" step of faith. He didn't even need to know the next faithful step. Right now, he came to "testify to the truth," and so he did. He personified Truth.

Power exists for everybody. We've all got power. We all use power. The power to get other people to do your work is called "management." The power to get other people to take the blame is called "passive-aggressive." The power to make things happen is called "politics." The question of power is "how does it fit with God's intention for its use." We've all got it. The issue is how we use it. To merely have power, to hold it to stop things from happening is passive-aggressive. To keep others from using their power to do what needs to be done is as oppressive as overtly taking power from them. God gives us power; we don't need to take it. Power is ours to use or not. To simply use power, to treat it as a convenient commodity, to toss it when it's not, is consumerism. The right use of power works to ensure justice for all persons. The right use of power is stewardship of what is not ours to begin with. We didn't make it or generate it; we just see to using it appropriately until the rightful owner returns to assess how we've done.

As Christians, we understand that the highest and best use of power is to incarnate God, to put flesh and bones on the power God entrusts to our use. At the last presbytery meeting we heard a report from the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) team from Corvallis, who went to Mississippi in June to help the recovery of Katrina victims. One day the PDA team took its assignment, knocked on the house door, and was greeted by an elderly man who asked, "Who sent you?" They said the PDA, but he asked again, "Who sent you?" As they explained about Presbyterians, he again insisted, "Who sent you?" Corvallis? Our congregation? Finally, the man invited the team in to survey the house, ten months after Katrina, still filled with stinking mud and debris. The man and his wife, through gut-wrenching hard work had been able to clear a place in the kitchen to sleep and sit on boxes to eat what they were able to cook with what was left of their stove. The PDA team worked for 10 hours, clearing, stripping, hauling, shoveling, scrubbing. At the end of the day, stinky and exhausted, they'd made significant progress. As the old man and his wife embraced them they were told, "We know who sent you. God sent you." That morning, the couple had made a pact. If no one showed up today to help them, they would kill themselves. On that June day, these volunteers were the first people to come and help them since Hurricane Katrina in August. When the PDA team got back to base camp, they told the director their heart-warming story about the folks on Oak Street. The director looked quizzical. Oak Street? Oak? They were supposed to have gone to Pine Street. They'd gone to the right house number, on the wrong street. Who sent you?

Who sent you? For whose kin-dom do you use your power?