The Pharisees’ Warning

Luke 13:30-35

The death toll from the hate-fueled terrorist attack in the mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand is now at 50. When a white-supremacist posts a racist manifesto online designed to get people of differing races upset and arguing with one another and then goes on a live-streamed shooting spree I feel a strong need to speak out condemning these actions, to lament that such a thing could happen, to mourn that it did, and to grieve with the children who have lost parents and the parents who have lost children. I’m sad. I’m angry. And I’m overwhelmed. What can I possibly say or do to responsibly and adequately address all that needs to be addressed? I feel powerless.

“A sense of powerlessness is always a spiritual disease deliberately induced by the Powers to keep us complicit,” writes Walter Wink in his book on Engaging the Powers. “Any time we feel powerless, we need to step back and ask, What Principality of Power has me in its spell?”[1] To give in to this sense of powerlessness is a surefire way to ensure that nothing will change. The reality is that we are quite powerful to do something, the Powers that Be just don’t want us to realize this. When we feel powerless, nothing changes, and that’s exactly the kind of environment in which the Powers that Be thrive. So what Power is at work here?

Before we answer that question, we might need to better understand what Walter Wink is referring to when he uses the term “Power.” Here’s a quick and incomplete summary by Ted Grimsrud:

Wink argues in Naming the Powers that the language of “Principalities and Powers” in the New Testament refers to human social dynamics—institutions, belief systems, traditions and the like. These dynamics, or what he calls “manifestations of power,” always have an inner and an outer aspect. “Every Power tends to have a visible pole, an outer form—be it a church, a nation, an economy—and an invisible pole, an inner spirit or driving force that animates, legitimates, and regulates its physical manifestation in the world. Neither pole is the cause of the other. Both come into existence together and cease to exist together.”

In Wink’s view, we need such an integrated, inner-outer awareness in order to understand the world we live in and act effectively as agents for healing and transformation. “Any attempt to transform a social system without addressing both its spirituality and its outer forms is doomed to failure,” as he puts it in Engaging the Powers. [2]

This “integrated, inner-outer awareness” is what I was trying to describe by calling our attention to how Jesus taught us to pray that “God’s will be done on earth as in heaven.” Jesus wanted our life to be influenced and inspired by God’s will, but he also knew that we would encounter obstacles that didn’t want us to realize the power we have to do good when God’s Spirit is upon us. Within this worldview, Wink speaks of “‘demons’ as the actual spirituality of systems and structures that have betrayed their divine vocations.” [3] This is another way of getting at what I described as “divesting earthly accountability from spiritual intelligence.” And all of this is just another way of getting at what it means to sin: to attempt to live and move and have our being apart from the will and influence of the grounds of our being. Apart from the will and influence of God, apart from mindful and intentional attempts to breathe in the Spirit of God and be strengthened by its presence in us, life very quickly becomes overwhelming. And when one feels overwhelmed and powerless, fear and hate and anxiety take root, becoming weeds that choke out hope and love and peace.

To live in sin permits the invasion and influence all manner of evil. The evidence of evil’s influence can be clearly seen in systems and structures and societies through racism (prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior), xenophobia (the dislike or prejudice against people from other countries), and jingoism (extreme patriotism, especially in the form of warlike foreign policy, grown out of a sense of superiority).

I didn’t want to force current events into this week’s Gospel lesson, but nor did I want to ignore them, to hide in the Scriptures as a way of escaping from reality. So I prayed, and I read through the Gospel lesson from Luke, and I read through commentaries, and then I began writing, hoping and trusting that God’s word would meet me where I was: feeling sad, angry, and overwhelmed.

Around the time I was typing out the words “I feel powerless,” is when the warning of the Pharisees caught my attention. “Go!” they said to Jesus, “Get away from here, because Herod wants to kill you.” Something about my own situation of vulnerability as I read these words of warning caused me to recognize Herod, the 1st century ruler of Galilee, as a representative of the “Principalities and Powers” about which Wink wrote, and to recognize his threat to kill Jesus as an attempt to make Jesus feel powerless and to keep him complicit within the earthly systems and structures through which he, Herod, maintained his own power.

Recognizing “Herod” as a representative of the Powers that Be and his threat “to kill” as an ultimate attempt to make Jesus feel powerless, The Pharisee’s warning becomes, in other words, “Go! Get away from here, because the Powers that Be want to make you feel powerless.” And how does Jesus respond to this threat? “No. I am not powerless. I will continue casting out demons and healing people until my work is done.”

We have already seen the power of the Holy Spirit at work in Jesus’ life when he, filled by the Spirit, spoke similar words of resistance to the temptations of the devil in the wilderness. The devil, writes Wink, is the world-encompassing spirit of the network of Powers which have become integrated around idolatrous values--that is to say, Powers which have divested accountability from God and the influence of the Holy Spirit. [4] It may be more helpful for us in this modern age to recognize Satan, or the devil, not as a personalized being with red horns and a pitchfork, but as a spirit or influence that shows up to tempt or threaten us in those times when we feel the most powerless. It might also be helpful for us in this modern age to realize that we aren’t powerless against those threats and temptations.

If “demons” are the spirituality of systems and structures which has betrayed their divine vocations, then Jesus’ insistence on casting them out is another way of saying “I will not allow you to make me feel powerless, nor will I allow your influence to overwhelm these people to whom I am ministering.” Jesus heals us from the “spiritual disease” of powerlessness by which we are easily overwhelmed and influenced by demonic impulses that offer us power if only we would worship the rulers of this world.

You want an example of what it looks like when we give in to the influence of these demonic impulses? Just watch what happens when we begin, in response to this most recent mass shooting, to debate gun control laws and talk about racism and Islamophobia. The Powers want us to feel trapped and helpless, the Holy Spirit wants us to feel empowered and set free from these demonic delusions. Pay attention to the voices that speak up in the debates which are to come: are they threatening, influenced by hate and fear, do they seem to suggest that we are powerless to change things? If yes, then these are likely examples of the vulnerable human spirit succumbing to the overwhelming delusion of powerlessness. Are the voices inspiring, influenced by love and compassion, do they seem to suggest that there is another way forward...but that things must change? If yes, then these are likely examples of the vulnerable human spirit finding strength and courage to redeem the systems and structures of this world to their divine vocations.

Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem shows his awareness of the people’s susceptibility to the former: to be overwhelmed by delusions of powerlessness, and easily influenced to violently resist the ones who come to rescue and redeem them. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who were sent to you!” Despite the threat of Herod, despite knowing what awaits him in Jerusalem, despite the Pharisee’s warning: nevertheless, Jesus persists. Like a mother-hen longing to gather chicks under her wing, Jesus persists in his ministry of rescuing the people from feeling powerless.

In the face of an overwhelming reality, the threat of death, Jesus refuses to back down from serving and growing God’s Kingdom. My hope for us, our nation, our world, is that we don’t get caught up in the delusions of powerlessness produced by this most recent terrorist attack in New Zealand. May we, in the face of this overwhelming reality, persist in showing love, compassion, and concern. May we proclaim that there is another way forward, but things must change. May we not fall away from our ministry as members of the Kingdom of God: to restore the systems and structures of this world to their divine vocations. The Powers that Be would love nothing more than for us to give up, to give in to temptation. When we feel powerless, may we recognize it as the Pharisee’s warning, and may we respond as Jesus did: ”You tell that fox: we will continue throwing out demons in Jesus’ name, we will continue healing this world today and tomorrow...until we complete our work.” Amen.

Footnotes:

[1] Wink, Walter. Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. (Ausburg-Fortress, Minneapolis, MN, 1992). p103.

[2] Grimsrud, Ted. “Transforming the powers: the continuing relevance of Walter Wink”. <https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/transforming-powers-continuing-relevance-of-walter-wink/> 3/16/2019.

[3] Wink. 9.

[4] Wink. p8-9.