It has been my habit for many years to read through the Bible each year. As I continue this practice I am increasingly amazed at how absurd God’s plan for the world and his kingdom is — that is, in human terms. God seems to delight in abuse and rejection, for he receives plenty of it. He seems, by our standards, to prefer weakness to strength, humiliation over domination, freedom over control, gentleness over force, and grace over condemnation. I have become what you might call “enamored” with God’s weakness.
The whole drama begins with creation. God creates a world that he pronounces “good,” and then introduces into the world human beings who are capable of doing great evil and destroying the very good he has created. He gives them freedom of will that means they can reject him, avoid him, disobey him, contradict him and even work against him without being destroyed by him. Free will is a frightening thing. The more freedom he gives us, the less power he has. Anything humans do seems to go unchecked, and things seem to be out of control. In fact, the great conundrum of theology through the ages has been, “Why doesn’t God do something about the evil in the world?” It is not only the question of theologians, but anyone who has experienced the effects of evil in the world, like mass murders in a Colorado theater, and who cry out to God and question him. Why hasn’t God destroyed the world a thousand times over, like he did in the days of Noah, over the evil in the world? In fact, when evil people decide to harm innocent people, God does nothing to stop them. The gift of freedom to humans puts them in a frightening position of power, and is a part of the weakness of God. If he stopped one evil person, then there would be no such thing as free will. We would not be moral beings and there would be no moral choices. But he will not force anyone to do good, or take away from them the power of choice, even when they choose to do wrong. God calls and beckons, but he does not overpower. God is working in silent and mysterious ways that often look frail and weak to the casual observer.
Eventually, the Bible has the story of how God chooses to work through a man named Abram. Ah, the man whom God renames Abraham. There is new hope. God makes a covenant with this man and promises that all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him. God’s plan for the world, his plan of salvation, rests with this man. But hardly had the covenant been made than Abraham nearly sabotaged it — giving his wife to two different kings (Pharaoh and Abimilech) to do with her as they pleased — before the promised child could come. And when Abraham felt he could wait no longer, he had a child by a household slave, which caused problems of historic proportions that we are still living with today. The plan seems so frail and so open to disaster. Abraham struggles in believing God and trusting in his promises — so much like us. We could go on with Abraham’s son Isaac, and his son Jacob, and his sons who became the leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel. Story after story of their failures and unfaithfulness — the weakness of God on display. No one would have mistaken this for power.
We especially like to point to the account in Exodus of God bringing his people out of slavery. But this is a miserable lot. They are uneducated and uncultured slaves with mud splattered all over them from making bricks. They have long forgotten the faith of their father Abraham. Yes, it seems that God uses great power to deliver them from Egypt with the plagues and parting of the Red Sea. But the whole covenant and plan of God is resting with these rebellious people who turn out to be a grumbling and discontented lot, in spite of what God has done for them. Rather than showing appreciation for how God has rescued them from a life of misery, they repeatedly want to return to Egypt and slavery — to their leeks and onions and pots full of meat. They have already forgotten about their hard labor and abject subjection. God gives Moses the Commandments in an awesome display of power, but Moses does not even get down from the mountain before they have begun to worship the gods of Egypt again and indulge in sexual revelry. They did not heed the power of God, spectacular though it was. God threatens to do away with them, but he does not, because that is not who he is. Weakness.
The people grumble and complain their way through life — again, much like us — and they do not want to enter the Promise Land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey, but it matters not, and they are busy checking out their GPS devises for directions back to Egypt. For forty years they simply wander in the wilderness — the weakness of God. And when the next generation does go into the Promise Land, they are half-hearted about possessing it. From there the history of Israel is pretty depressing as the people continue to rebel against God and worship the gods of the people around them. It seems like God does not have much power over his people or his plan. The people are continually in a mess. Kings come and go, and even the best of them commit horrendous crimes and sin against God, all this while God has seen them through many dangers and difficulties. All through the Old Testament God is calling and inviting, but few are hearing the call or accepting the invitation.
Onto the scene bursts the prophet Elijah. He is on fire for God and calls the people to repentance, but the people of God are going from bad to worse. The people are in love with a god named Baal who promises power and gives them freedom to indulge themselves. Finally, Elijah decides to have a contest — a dual between the God of Israel and the god Baal. Elijah will show them who really has the power. Baal is the storm god who brings rain, but Elijah has told the people that he will pray that no rain will fall for three years and bring a great famine. He will show that Israel’s God has power over Baal. It is near the end of the three years, and Elijah calls all the prophets of Baal to a meeting on Mount Carmel. It will be a dual of the gods.
Two piles of wood, each with a sacrifice on them. Now the irony is that the idols of Baal, the storm god, show him holding a lightning bolt in his hand. The contest will be whether Baal will send one of his lightning bolts to set the wood on fire and consume the sacrifice, or whether God will. So the prophets of Baal begin to pray. They agonize in their prayers. They cut themselves with sharp stones to show Baal how serious they are, but nothing happens. Elijah begins to taunt them, “Maybe he is busy or traveling; maybe he is sleeping and needs to be awakened; maybe he is in deep thought.” (Actually, the Hebrew implies, “Maybe he is on the toilet.”) Whatever — he is not answering.
Then Elijah prays. One simple prayer and lightning comes from heaven and consumes the sacrifice. What power! We love this story. Elijah has had the sacrifice and wood under it soaked with water, but the fire of God consumes it all and even licks up the water in the ditch. The people yell, “The Lord, he is God.” And then the people take all the prophets of Baal and slaughter them. Baal has been defeated and his prophets are dead. To top it off, Elijah will now pray for rain, which the land has not seen in three years. One small cloud arises, then a few more and then a great storm comes over the land and gives the thirsty earth a long awaited drink.
It is a great victory, and a great demonstration of power. But then, in only a matter of hours, Elijah is threatened by Queen Jezebel who promises to kill him. He runs in fear and hides. Now his prayer is that God will just let him die. All that power, and none of it seemed to have any effect. King Ahab and Jezebel were still in power, and the people still loved Baal. Elijah believed that he was the only true believer left.
So now this God of power begins to reveal his true self to Elijah. God sent a great wind storm that was terrifying in its effect on the landscape around him. But the Bible says that God was not in the wind. God sent a powerful earthquake that seemed to shake the foundations of the world, but God was not in the earthquake. God sent a raging fire, just as he had earlier on Mount Carmel, but God was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. A gentle whisper. Not a scream, not a command, not an overpowering shout from heaven, but a whisper, and a gentle whisper at that. And God was in the whisper.
What was the message? The message was that God had shown Elijah and the people of Israel his power and it had no effect. He had sent thunder and lightning. He had sent a storm and neither had any lasting effect. It was sort of like church attendance the Sunday after 9/11, which was higher than Easter, but by the next Sunday we were all back to normal. God does not work through power, but through weakness — in gentle whispers. It is the power of powerlessness. He gives commands, and then does not exert any power to enforce his commands. He gives invitations, not threats. He does not bully, he entices. He solicits us — seduces us, if you will — and summons us to embrace. John Caputo writes: “Suppose God... moves not by force but by attraction, like a call, by drawing us on and luring us?” And the call is a call to his kingdom of joy.
It’s pretty frustrating to us because we want God to overpower the world and bring it into submission. We want him to powerfully put a stop to evil. We want him to destroy his enemies and ours — with fire, or storm, or earthquake, or bomb, or whatever else it takes. A lot of Christians don’t like this kind of talk at all, but it seems to me it is the message of the Bible, and certainly the message of Christ.
Consider what Jesus said in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are poor, the mournful, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers and the persecuted.” No power there — or is there? Is God’s weakness actually his strength? The Bible indicates this when it says, “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25). The kingdom of God is in opposition to the kingdom of the world. It contradicts the world and its values. It surprises the world and mocks its power. Its weakness is overcoming the world. The powerful destroy their enemies and kings control those under them. God does neither. The kingdom of the world demands proof, but God invites us into a life of faith. The kingdom of the world wants to be in charge, the kingdom of God offers life through losing control. The world says, “Never forgive,” and the kingdom of God calls us to always forgive. The world tells us to destroy our enemies, the kingdom of God tells us to love our enemies. What could be weaker? What could be more powerful? The Bible says, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:27-28).
Certainly the life of Jesus exemplifies this. When he began his ministry, he did not come offering clear explanations, but spoke in confusing parables. It was not to the shakers and movers of society that he came, it was to the shaken out and moved out — the nobodies of the culture. He seemed to love being around people that no one else had any use for: lepers, hookers, IRS agents. Yes, there were powerful miracles, but how much good did they do? Power rarely works, and it did not work for Jesus. The effect of the miracles did not last, no matter how powerful they were. The people only loved him as long as there was bread and healing, and even then their love did not last long. The religious leaders dismissed the miracles and explained them away, just as skeptics and religious leaders do today. And the Roman leaders didn’t even seem to notice that there had been any miracles.
In the end, Jesus dies a humiliating death, hanging naked and exposed to the world as a fraud. The lion had become a lamb — a sacrificial lamb. His pitiful band of followers are in disarray and have fled. He could have made a power play and called 10,000 angels, but he did not. He could have come down from the cross, but he did not, because that is not who he was and it wasn’t how he worked. But it was in the weak act of Jesus dying that a Roman soldier was able to say, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39). Without the agonizing death, there would be no resurrection. The Bible says, “For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power” (2 Corinthians 13:4). He was a God of weakness — at least as far as the world understands it. But his weakness was where his power was found — as is ours. As Paul faced a debilitating problem that was limiting what he could do and hampering his ministry, he prayed for God to take it away, but God said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Then Paul said, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
The world says, “Do what you have to do to get ahead.” Jesus says, “Follow me, regardless of the consequences.” The world says, “Defeat your enemy, crush them.” Jesus says, “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic” (Luke 6:27-29). Weakness — and how we hate it! But in doing so, we become partners with God in his weakness, and his weakness becomes strength, humiliation is followed by exaltation, death is swallowed up by life. The Bible says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10).
The kingdom of God is weakness to the world and is mocked by it, but it is a weakness that overcomes the power of the world. It is weak in that it is a treasure that is hidden in a field. It is like yeast that is hidden in the dough. It is like a man named Jesus living in poverty in a remote part of the world, and yet he is King of the universe. And he is inviting us to share his life. The Bible says, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11).
April 6, 1994 marked the beginning of dark and infamous days for Rwanda, a small country in central Africa. For the next hundred days, up to 800,000 Tutsis were killed by Hutu militia — mostly using clubs and machetes. It was a genocide of monumental proportions, as the rest of the world looked on in silence. A young Christian named Benyoni lived in this world of hate. His name meant “Little Bird” because he was so musical. He graduated with honors and became a school principal. But educated people were suspect, and routinely executed in Rwanda. Sometimes just wearing a tie could get you killed. Benyoni was at school with eleven of his friends who were teachers. One day soldiers came and took Benyoni and the teachers out of the school. As they stood together Benyoni asked the soldiers if he could pray for them. He prayed for his friends and for their families, but he spent the most time praying for the soldiers who had come to kill them. Benyoni’s friends were encouraged and were expecting a miracle as a result of his prayer. The soldiers considered freeing them, but they had their orders and knew they would pay with their lives for failing in their mission. They continued their march outside the town, and when they stopped, Benyoni asked the soldiers if he could sing for them. He began to sing a hymn you may know:
Out of my bondage, sorrow and night,
Jesus, I come; Jesus I come.
Into Thy freedom, gladness and light,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
All the young men began to sing with him. You may remember the last verse of that great hymn:
Out of the fear and dread of the tomb,
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into the joy and light of Thy home,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of the depths of ruin untold,
Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,
Ever Thy glorious face to behold,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
When the last note was sung, the soldiers raised their rifles and shot all of them to death.
You may be wondering how the story got out since all of them were killed. Those soldiers went out to get as drunk as they could get that night — all except one. He sought out an old Quaker missionary he had met. He asked her, “What kind of God do you serve who could give his followers such courage and joy in the face of death?” She led him to Christ, and soon he was telling anyone who would listen about Jesus and starting Bible studies. It was not long until they shot him as well.
But I ask you, who were the weak and who were the strong in that story?
The Bible speaks of those, “who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength... Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated — the world was not worthy of them” (Hebrews 11:33-34, 36-38).
Rodney J. Buchanan
July 29, 2001
Amity United Methodist Church
rodbuchanan2000@yahoo.com
