Somehow the concept of power in church has been all over my radar screen this past week.
First, the pastor of my church, Paul Rock, gave a terrific sermon (click on the Jan. 8 sermon) about power this past Sunday -- the opening of a sermon series he's calling "Sex and Power."
His text was the first 11 verses of chapter 2 of Philippians, in which the Apostle Paul, probably drawing on an early hymn, writes that Jesus "made himself of no reputation," or, in another translation, "made himself nothing." He "humbled" or "emptied" himself.
That, Paul Rock said, is our model for how we are to handle power. As St. Paul wrote, we are to "look out not only for (our) own interests, but also for the interests of others."
Then someone alerted me to this good piece about youth in church. It says that if churches really want to draw more youth in they need to give them power.
The idea of giving up power, of sharing power, of limiting our use of power -- this is part of what makes the Christian faith so difficult to follow. Our culture seems to want us to acquire power, to exercise it almost ruthlessly and to display the signs of power, whether that means the fanciest car or the highest-tech devices. Christianity, by contrast, says to think first of others, to empty ourselves of power.
No wonder G.K. Chesterton once wrote that "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried."
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WAIT. WHAT? WAS GALILEO GAY?
Pope Benedict XVI says gay marriage is a threat to humanity. A lot, I suppose, like that strange old idea that the Earth revolves around the sun.
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