THEME: ‘The worst evils in the world are not done by evil persons; the worst evils in the world are done by good persons who do not know that they are not doing good’ (Reinhold Niebuhr).

The Word of God in Scripture: 1 Kings 21:1-19, Luke 16:19-31

The Word of God in preaching: ‘YOU HAVE POWER TO CHANGE THE WORLD’

(Text James 4:17: ‘So then, the person who does not do the good he knows he should do is guilty of sin’).

Response Hymn: 515 ‘Where cross the crowded ways of life’

POWER AND JUSTICE, a sermon

I’VE BEEN THINKING A LOT ABOUT THE NOTION OF POWER LATELY, particularly power exercised by human beings against each other…

MY JOB – equip pastors and church leaders to equip the people of God in their churches for ministry. Greatest functional problem pastors have – they accrue rather than give away power. Vision of he church: fowlyard – little rooster strutting around, and a lot of chickens with their wings clipped. Devil to Jesus: Be a powerful Messiah. Jesus resolutely refused to be that sort of Redeemer. What the devil has failed to do with Jesus he has succeeded with Jesus’ ministers. Jesus with desciples – very early sent them out to minister – tossed them into the deep end; to do a few simple things at first, like heal the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead, preach the kingdom (start with the simple stuff, and get to the post-graduate ministry later).

Don’t get me wrong: most pastors are conscientious. Most of them – right across the denominational spectrum, want to see their people grow spiritually.

In the church – many categories of people feel powerless –

* pastors, who can’t speak the word of God fearlessly, truthfully, radically, because they might offend some in the congregation – and who feel precarious, because a congregation can vote them out of office at the whim of a few powerful people;

* pastor’s spouses – the only people in the church generally not to have a pastor;

* church leaders, who are expected to be spiritual leaders, counselors, administrators in the church but don’t feel equipped for the task;

* women, who have God-given gifts for leadership and ministry, but denied these roles in a male-dominated institution.

SPIRITUAL POWER. James Stewart has a sermon (‘O Man Greatly Beloved!’ in The Gates of New Life, H & S, 1938, 1973, pp. 73 ff.) in which he asks ‘What are the marks of a life that has found God?’ They are three, he suggests – courage, peace and power. ‘This is the heart of religion – not an intellectual discovery, but an experience of power; not something we achieve, but something God puts into us.’ (p.81).

‘To know God is courage, and it is peace; but above all, it is power. And I thank God that when I have bungled things and been defeated and made a sorry failure of my hopes, Christ does not come to me and say ‘You must try again! You m,ust try harder, you must try as hard as ever you can’ – for there would be no gospel in that, and it would only drive me deeper to despair. But Christ’s word is, ‘Get closer to God, and He will do it for you! Come closer to Me, and my strength shall be yours.’

And it does work out, I know it. I cannot guarantee that Jesus will malke life all roses and honeysuckly and blue skies to anyone who takes His way – I do not think He will. But I can guarantee that, whatever the days of darkness or of danger may befall, He will reinforce you inwardly to meet them, and His power will carry you through.’ (p.82)

In another sermon (‘The Fellowship of the Spirit’), Stewart says the ‘fellowship of the Spirit’ (2 Co 13:14) in the lives of the apostles after the Resurrection of Jesus meant an inflow of power into their lives: the heart of the [Pentecost] experience was not the rushing winds, nor the fire, nor the tongues – these were mere accessories and corroborations. The heart of the experience was power – a power that shook them to the very depth of their souls, and then sent them out to shake the earth.

‘It is power that our religion lacks today: not organization, not intellectual equipment, not social idealism – but power. And there is no secret of power except in a deepened spiritual experience. Such an experience we can have if … we want it with all our heart and wsoul, and if we are prepared to pay the price in self-surrender to Christ and self-commitment to the holy will of God.’ This power infused these early Christians at the physical level, giving them energy and vitality they did not have before; mentally, ‘what a power of initiative they had, what a surenesszx of touch, what a keen eye for essentials, what a directness of decision’; morally, they could walk through ‘living dens of corruption, yet clad in the purity of Christ’; spiritually, they had ‘been swept out of all the narrowness and pettiness and selfishness and censoriousness…into a life that was radiant and released and exultant and contagious; and the world, looking at them could only say, ‘You have been with Jesus! You have found the secret! Help us to find it too!’ (pp. 107-9).

OUR OWN POWERLESSNESS

WE ALL FEEL a sense of powerlessness from time to time. Two weeks ago spent some time with an Anglican pastor and wife. Just 6 months ago they found their little baby boy of 5 months dead in his cot – cot death, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome as they call it. Beautiful baby – why did God do it? Their feelings oscillate between confusion, numbness, despair, – and anger. In a situation like this a lot of unhelpful things are said, but they told me one of the most encouraging comments someone made was simply this: ‘God has broad shoulders: he can take whatever you throw at him. Or, as my favourite preacher John Claypool once said in a sermon after his 9-year old died of leukemia: God has a lot to answer for: he does, and he says – at Calvary – and he will, and the answers will be most satisfactory.

Most Christians along the way a little can point to times of powerlessness as times when they learned to trust the Lord better: they are better people as a result. But if we allow bitterness or cynicism to develop – then we’re sowing in our hearts the seeds of death.

BIBLE. Four things. (1) God cares a great deal about his suffering people. (2) When they cry out to God, he hears and he comes to their rescue. (3) Generally people – even the people of God – who live in a relatively secure situation don’t really care, and try not to get too involved. (4) God’s judgment will inevitably fall on those who misuse their power against weaker people; but it will also fall on those who could have done something and chose not to get involved.

Cain/Abel. Mosaic law. Naboth’s Vineyard. Prophets. Jesus to Pharisees (Mt 23:23). Stephen. Paul – theology checked out by heavies (that’s the idea of his words in Galatians) in Jerusalem – ‘but don’t forget the poor’ which, says Paul, was exactly what we didn’t want to do anyway. Martyrs in Revelation.

NABOTH’S VINEYARD 1 Kings 21:1-19

Ahab the king was very wealthy, and as it is in the nature of greed to develop into covetousness (the insidiousness of covetousness Je 6:13, Mi 2:2; covetousness can easily become idolatry Lk 12:15, Cl 3:5) he was never satisfied with what he had but wanted more. Looked out of his summer palace window one day – wouldn’t it be lovely if these palace gardens were larger – sweeping lawns down there, fpountains over there, and a vegetable garden over there; over there – who owns that? wanted to buy a vineyard adjoining his palace in Jezreel. Being a king with power, not used to mnot getting his own way. King’s chariot pulls up outside Naboths place, and you lose adrenalin – either excitement or apprehension; happy or frightened. This spot he’d spent his childhood, worked alongside his father, every part of it embedded in his memory; worked the soil with his own hands, reinforced the fences, gone through the terrors of drought and rain at the wrong time a nd burning heat shriveling his crops – his whole life was bound up in this parcel of ground. In a sense it wasn’t his – forbears and his progeny all tied together in a stong familial tie. Naboth couldn’t part with this land by law – and both he and Ahab knew that. It was beyond money, beyond price. No other vineyard could take this one’s place – it’s not the material worth of the property that’s important but all the powerful intangible family associations. Naboth refuses to to sell, or to exchange this piece of ancestral land.

Ahab reacts like one of the terrible two-year-old many parents know about, goes back to his palace and sulks like a spoilt child – throws himself on to his bed, turns to the wall, and won’t eat. His feelings are hurt because he can’t get his own way; he was dealt a severe blow to his pride by an ordinary citizen; but also his conscience was troubled; deep down in his heart he knew that Naboth was right. Didn’t the ten commandments say quite clearly ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s house… nor anything that’s his.’ A person has the right to retain what is lawfully his or hers, and one the functions of govertnment is support and defend that right. Ahab as the king had the duty under God to protect Naboth from injustice, not threaten him unjustly.

Jezebel arrives on the scene. As a kid in SS only three things knew about Jezebel – Ahab’s wife, she came to a sticky end – very sticky actually (as a boy enjoyed that story – (with Jael and Sisera) when they came to bury her they found no more than her skull, and feet and the palms of her hands’ (but we’re moving ahead a little) and she painted her face ( a warning for good Christian girls against wearing make-up). But then Billy Graham came along in 1959 and had to explain to dowdy Australians why American Christian women wore so much make-up. Told story of talking to a lady who asked him about the problem; he looked at her and said ‘Lady you need a little!’ So Billy Graham has given permission to all good Christian women in Australia to wear make-up every since. Finds him there, and like every situation in which an insecure man marries a wife to find a mother, she says after hearing the story ‘Well, are you the king or aren’t you?’ (GNB); ‘Some king of Israel you make’ (JB). Nothing more humiliating for a man than to be taunted by his wife about his weakness. Now now now, have something to eat (nice pavlova all ready for you), cheer up, I’ll fix everything.

She usurps his authority ad using his name sets in motion a train of intrigue, deception and lies of Letters to the nobles – apparently from the king: simple choice. They no doubt suspected somethingh, but if they disobeyed their heads and land forfeited, so what can we do? When someone in authority commands you to do something wrong – what are you supposed to do? (Milgram’s experiment).

Two witnesses – for a capital conviction, two witnesses were required Found a couple of good-for-nothings, what the English call ‘ne’er-do-wells’. Every society has these sort of people, who’ll commit any crime if the price is right. Even to mention the sin of blasphemy is a sin. ‘Cursed’. Importance of a spoken curse. God’s word – powerful, once it goes forth it accomplishes something. Words in our society are cheap. (Story of Jacob and Esau – father’s blessing).

So they took this innocent man and according to 2 Kings 9:26 Naboth’s sons also to the edge of town and stoned to death, liquidated. — possession reverted to crown if (1) a crime committed and (2) no heir – Jezebel wanted to make entirely sure.

Jezebel says to him – It’s yours. Take possession of the vineyard of Naboth, who refused to sell it to you; he’s not alive anymore, but dead. So gets his chariot, and with the overseers of the palace gardens goes over to the vineyard. Text my mother used to quote to me when I’d done something wrong – ‘Be sure your sin will find you out’ (Nu 32:23 Then Elijah the prophet of the Lord suddenly stands before him. Elijah had appeared before when Ahab had sinned, and the consequences of – God’s judgment were still very much in Ahab’s recent memory. His heart sank. Uh-uh! ‘Have you caught up with me, my enemy?’ ‘Yes I have.,’ said Elijah, ‘You have devoted yourself completely to doing to doing what is wrong in the Lord’s sight. So the Lord will bring diaster on you, and the males in your family. Ahab had forgotten that Yahweh had put him on the throne: and the God who set him up can also put him down. In the very place where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth they will lick your blood. And the dogs shall devour Jezebel in the field of Jezreel.

Similarity/ story of Nathan and David 2 S 12: on each occasion the Lord ‘defends the powerless against the powerful and there is the same reprieve for the repentant offender who is punished only through his son. But there are differences too: David’s dynasty retains the divine promise, whereas Ahab’s is ‘swept away’. Nathan remains David’s prophet and blesses Solomon, but Elijah is Ahab’s ‘enemy’.’ (Jerusalem Bible note f. p.465).

COVETOUSNESS is a primal sin. Eve coveted the forbidden fruit in the garden, and so the image of God in which man/women was originally created to be satisfeid with what God has already given us, became marred: it is only in Jesus Christ that the scars of sin are removed and the image remade. Covetousness leads to many other sins.

Covetousness is wanting what belongs to others. Justice, says Brueggemann, is ‘sorting out what belongs to whom, and returning it to them’ (Walter Brueggemann, Sharon Parks, Thomas H. Groome, To Act Justly, Love Tenderly, Walk Humbly: An Agenda for Ministers, Paulist, 1986, p.5)

POWER EXERTED AGAINST OTHERS THROUGH VIOLENCE (History – normally written by conquerors).

SOUTH AFRICA; Relocations: The churches’ report on forced removals 64-page report by the South African Council of Churches in in 1984 (See ‘One World’, May 1984, pp. 11ff). Two decades – 3 and a half million blacks and others uprooted and forced out of their lands — root of apartheid. Function of these tracts of land, which the government has successively called ‘reserves’, ‘Bantustans’, ‘homelands’ and now ‘nation states’. When the Europeans sailed around Afrtica in the late 1400s, ‘many if not most of today’s Bantu-speaking peoples of Southern Africa were already settled in areas suitable to herding and agriculture’ – contrary to the common mytgh that whites and blacks arrived there about the same time. White settlement of the country was the outgrowth of the mid-17th century establishment of a refreshment station for sailing ships of the Dutch East India Company. In some parts – like Transvaal and the free State white farmers powerful

Doris Lessing, ‘The Wind Blows Away Our Words’ (Picador, 1987) stories of Afghan refugees: ‘Every story began, “The Russians bombed our village and we came over the mountains to this place.” A woman said that when the Russians find people in a village they slit up the women’s stomachs, and kill the children, ‘for fun’. One said that the Russians found a girl baking bread on the edge of a village when they attacked, and they threw her into her own oven and burned her to death. And laughed. Did we know the Russians piled alive people in heaps, poured petrol over them, and set them alight? Did we know that the Russians put alive people into pits, heaped earth over them, and then drove tanks back and forth over them until there wasn’t any more movement? The atrocity stories go on and on.’ (p.114) Did you know that the Russians have tied living people together, poured petrol over them, and set fire to them? (p.162).

Now you’d expect that of the ‘evil empire’ as President Reagan called the Soviet Union. How many million people were deliberately murdered during the forced collectivization of the peasants in the Soviet Union by Stalin? Seven million? Nine million? Twelve million?

‘Recently, a Russian said on television that a remark from a critic to the effect that the Soviet regime had murdered ten times as many people as Hitler had been censored out of a programme, ‘because it would hurt the feelings of us Russians… According to Victor Suvorov (the pseudonym of a Soviet officer who defected), Soviet demographers say that the population should have reached 315 million in 1959, but the census showed only 209 million. Where, he asks, are the missing hundred million? Hitler, he says, is estimated to have ‘executed’ twenty million). (pp. 166-167).

ABORIGINALS. Superficial reading of the Bible, the children are implicated in the obedience or the sins of the fathers – blessings and curses — to the third and four generation, and so on. What our forefathers did is our problem, and we can’t, like Pilate wash our hands of history, and think it’s none of our concern. It’s interesting how conquerors, and the conquered have a different view of history. (I preached about justice to a national aboriginal conference – blacks’ feedback was very positive; the white missionaries very negative).

As recently as 1967 in his revised edition of Australia, Russel Ward perpetuates the myth that the Aborigines were a weak and passive race, which ‘gave way’ before the white settlers. Books like M.F. Christie’s Aborigines in Colonial Victoria 1835-86, Fergus Robinson and Barry York’s The Black Resistance, C.D.Rowley’s The Destruction of Aboriginal Society, or ( ) Massacres to Mining all give the lie to the idea that the blacks did not struggle bitterly to retain their land. In fact recent historical research has shown overwhelmingly that a sustained guerrilla style war was waged all over Australia, for many decades…

Note: this sermon-material is not copyright. It may be adapted for preaching or writing with or without acknowledgement.

Resources: See also van den Heuvel, These Rebellious Powers, Jurgen Moltmann, The Power of the Powerless, Barclay on Luke, Brueggemann et al ‘To Act Justly’…, Cheryl Forbes ‘The Religion of Power’, David Prior ‘Jesus and Power’ etc.