These words were used in an article in the New Statesman looking at the campaigning group 38 degrees. The article explored the reluctance of MPs and parliament to give room for new cyber forms of lobbying and political representation. In fact, the article implies that some MPs seek to resist change by cancelling their internet email addresses and representation on the web. This is blatantly an attempt to prevent representation and therefore for power to be withheld by the so called ‘political classes’.
Today and tomorrow the Church pays witness to Jesus washing the disciples feet, the last supper, the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus.
To many of this world that believe that power has to be taken, Jesus’ actions are a complete paradox that just does not make sense. In fact the realty of Jesus’ actions were a profound challenge to a model of change and power that Martin Luther King and Ghandi understood and utilised.
In Jesus’ case powerlessness is taken that brings lasting change through the birthing of the Kingdom of God and the love mission of the Divine.
Like most of society – the political systems of this world are not about love but about might is right and the retention of power through aggression and the resistance of change and of sharing power. This is the world of the ego and the false self, a dualistic world of fight or flight which perpetuates and exacerbates the violence of the world, it’s brokenness and oppression of the minority in power of the elite over the majority of the ordinary.
Jesus begins this deeply spiritual and political action of the Kingdom of God by washing the disciples feet as an act of love, servant-heartedness and importantly here as an act of radical empowerment. Jesus is giving respect and in washing the disciples feet is encouraging them to realise their potential and shift from being disciples that follow Christ, into becoming the Apostles who are called to birth a new Church as the visible expression of the invisible Kingdom of God. In washing feet he is challenging them to ‘grow up’ in an adult-adult way. He is challenging them to hold onto what they believe, and critically – to let go of their idea of the Messiah as the one who is going to take power from the Temple Priests and the Romans, but rather draw people and the whole Cosmos back into restored non-violent relationship as a direct action of reconciliation of a loving God.
So Jesus empowers the disciples at the washing of their feet, and at the last supper, and then gives his life up to the might of the Roman Empire and fear of the Jewish establishment. In dying Jesus is challenging the myth of the political domination system that keeps order through violence, he is dying to breakdown this myth and the system of the powers and principalities of his day, seeking to use the power of God’s love to bring in a new order of the Kingdom of God. We remember that the Roman Empire did not win by might, but Christianity actually became the official religion of the Empire after Christ’s death. We remember also that Christianity did not die out – but following Jesus’ example – the disciples to become Apostles all went to their deaths seeking to live out God’s mission of peace, love and reconciliation through non-violence in challenge also to the political systems, and Christianity spread throughout the whole world.
After the last supper Jesus gave the disciples the most important teaching which is called a new commandment as the fulfilment of the great shemah of the Jews – to Love God, love themselves and love others. This is simple and yet profound because if we really live this – it will not only change us but change the whole world. It would lift us out of our primitive and violent dualistic world into something more evolved, something more loving, something definitive of being of a new God -led loving order. This would be a new type of civil society modelling the values of the Kingdom of God which is why some have called this – the challenge to a new and more evolved loving consciousness that sees life and the world as a gift in ourselves and others – rather than fight or flight. Jesus’ actions are seeking to build such a loving expression of humanity – so that all can have a direct relationship with God and empowerment to express their constructive potential.
The liturgy of this season reminds us that we are all individually loved by this God, that seeks to empower us from our self-doubts, our self-preoccupations and deceptions, seeking to love us into our potential through the gift of a direct loving relationship with the divine. Like Jesus washed the disciples feet to help them realise their empowerment and fulfilment, so we are challenged to grow up, realise that we are profoundly loved, so we can in our lives live out this depth of fulfilment in living life with joy and fullness, supported by a deep and loving relationship with the Trinity, our God of Love and sacrifice.
This powerlessness cost Jesus his life, and a painful and humiliating death. This is the time of the year when all Christians remember this incredible gift of love for each and everyone of us.
POSTED 05.04.12 BY: ianmobsby |
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