True Strength
Dear church,
It was Lao Tzu, the old Chinese master, who once said, “Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” It’s a fitting quote to contemplate the readings for Palm Sunday, because the entire story of the Passion, especially the sight of Jesus on the cross, is a challenge to the definitions of power that we’re accustomed to. It’s a thorn in the power structure of this world. It was a thorn 2,000 years ago and it still is in our days when global powers try to subjugate, buy out, squeeze out, asphyxiate smaller countries. The man on the cross is God’s counteroffer. And most people who love power for the sake of power don’t even get it.
To follow up on Lao-Tsu’s quote... How many of us master ourselves? I don’t count myself among that elite group of people. Too often, I come to my limits of patience when it is needed or the limits of objectivity when my passions steer me in a certain direction. I want to force things when they can’t be forced or give up when I shouldn’t. Mastering yourself is a life-time challenge. Jesus is our teacher, a teacher mostly in humility and a teacher of the right kind of strength. Learning from this teacher will help us become people who can be trusted because we master ourselves just enough not to be the slaves of our ambition and ego.
So, let us listen to these two readings, paired up for the opening of Holy Week, lessons in humility: Isaiah 50, a poem about a servant of God who foreshadows the Passion of Christ, followed by the oldest Christian hymn from Philippians 2. Both readings claim that true strength comes from a place of surprising… meekness. Oh, that is so darn Christian! That is so annoyingly against the norms of our world! And… so important for people in our country to hear right now. Holy Week is about power, but the right kind of power. Follow me into the first reading please as we open ourselves to the power of humility.
The poem in Isaiah 50 talks leads us to an interpersonal challenge that we all know: how to comfort someone who is grieving, hurting, miserable, downtrodden? We’ve been there, wondering what to say when someone is under the cloud of dark thoughts or terminally ill or stuck.
The person in the poem says: “The Lord has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.” As most clergy, counselors and therapists know, as you may know, that “word” part is tricky business. What to say or not to say? Often, when someone is weary, people succumb to the temptation of saying too much in an effort to sooth and comfort and make the person feel better. But the person feels miserable and senses the other’s need to make them feel better and may not feel understood deep down. More often than not, listening and entering another person’s concaved life, spending time in that depressed place with them, is a more promising approach. Let us notice that the poem talks about sustaining the weary with “a word,” not words. What that magical word may be, that’s the art of counseling.
The poem also provides insight into the spiritual practice of this servant of God. It’s a practice of listening, similar to the modern, fashionable practice of mindfulness. It’s contemplative in nature. “Morning by morning he wakens - wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.” The poem suggests that it will be easier to listen to others when we are training ourselves daily in the art of listening and listening to God. Morning by morning he opens my ear… That’s how we learn to master ourselves.
And finally, the poem opens a window into the suffering of this servant, which has long been likened to the Passion of Christ: “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.” We Christians are acquainted with this language and imagery. For 2,000 years we have made room for the story of Jesus’ suffering. We believe there is hidden strength and glory in Christ’s ability to suffer the inevitable, to accept what couldn’t be changed, to humble himself. And yet, for 2,000 years, Christian people and countries have often not practiced what they preached. Humility. There is secret power in it. That’s what the texts teach us.
Last week, scientists at the world-renowned research center in Cerne, Switzerland, celebrated a breakthrough in science. They were able to isolate and transport anti-matter, a part of the physical world of microparticles we know little about. Scientists are curious about this part of life, and now they have found a way to discover it.
In our Christian faith, the parts that we don’t see or are aware of, the anti-matter hidden in the universe of life, are indispensable. That’s what the texts teach us.
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross.”
Amen.
