What has power over you?

This week, I’m back from a weeklong clergy renewal retreat in Arizona called CREDO. Although I had joked with our interns and staff that I was going to “Clergy Spa” (my fantasy), in reality it was more like a cross between that, and Clergy Boot Camp. A chance to look at one’s well being, via a drill-down look at one’s health, spiritual life, finances, and vocation. Well worth it. For me, the best part was just a general time to reflect on life, and what God’s up to in it.

But enough about that: to the sermon this Sunday. And the scriptures.

This Sunday is Christ the King Sunday. I’ll be honest: not one of my faves. A tough Sunday for preachers, at least this one. So easy to trot out abstractions about King Jesus.

The text is John 18:33-37. Actually, this is one of my favorite little scenes in the gospels. Jesus vs. Pilate. The classic Johannine cage match between “world” (Kosmos) and “spirit” (Paracletos). (OK, Cage Match – not John’s word here…). Between the power of earthly rule, whose ultimate authority derives from the point of a sword; and the power of spiritual rule, whose ultimate authority derives from a crucified God, the power of one pierced.

The text involves the question: who’s really in charge? I think Jesus is “playing” Pilate. Not with swords, with words. Just listen:

“My kingdom is not of this world.”

“So you are a King?”

Jesus riposte: “You yourself have said.” King is an inadequate locution for the kind of power that the divine wields in human life; a power that is a much slipperier, subtler, harder-to-detect kind.

Our Buddhist brothers and sisters refer to water as the most powerful substance on earth. It’s so because water, headed to its source, cannot be stopped; it will always get past anything in its path, even rocks – and eventually, will take them with it. Anyone who’s been to the Grand Canyon can testify to the power of H20.

That’s the kind of power that Christ wields. Power that eventually conquered the Empire that paid Pilate’s salary. Power that was seen through martyrs dying for the truth, folk unafraid to be cowed by Pilate’s (or Caesar’s) sword.

So, here’s where I’m going on this one. What kicks around in my head for Sunday, which may make things a bit less abstract. A question:

Who has power over you? What has power over you? Pilate is under the illusion that he has power over the person who faces him, Jesus of Nazareth, whose fate (to live or to die) he must decide. But we all know that there’s another power at work, to which we owe our highest allegiance, and which has ultimate authority. Pilate may think he owns us. We know better.

But what else pretends in our life to that kind of ownership? That kind of power?

I realize there are those out there who feel this quite deeply – folk who have had experience with the power of addiction, of alcoholism, or drug addiction. Many of us have had our date with depression, and its soul-deadening power.

On my motorcycle trip this summer, for example, there was this sign posted outside a drug rehab place: “He who angers you, controls you.” Interesting.

But, the question is: do we believe in a power that claims us, to which we “belong” – a power that exists quite separately from us and our choices, but if we allow it can renovate our entire lives?

Thoughts and reflections welcome.

See you Sunday.

Jeff