Sunday Sermon; Rev. Avery C. Post, S.T.M., The Graceful Uses of Power, 1966-07-31

if we look and listen for the word power we find it everywhere just look for it in the headlines and book titles and articles in popular magazines dissertations in scholarly journals the titles of courses in schools and universities listen and you will hear it as a reverberating word in political addresses the staccato word in demonstrations and marches be celebrated word among those who's the man at the dawn of a new age for is not a new fact what it is a fact coming at us with new dimensions and urgency our generation is assigned the task of living in the presence of power between threat and promise we knew in our bones that this would be so on that day in august twenty one years ago in

one burst the power issues suddenly escalated for every man living an ever to live we will then and there that whether or not we were ready for it the majority of this nation would be tested at the point of its use of power that the decisions of an indeterminate future what pivot on the issue of power that the primitive be of this word would haunt every leader an echo in the heart of every citizen night and day god has given us a power issue and all of its concrete news sanford various news he asked abbas response responsibility at a critical juncture of historical and human freedom to spare at the issue of power away and religions all too

typical pattern of spiritual eyes and away the harsh realities of history is no more carnival and sleeping through such years as these under the influence of affluence so dated non serious and irresponsible the times call for you is the responsible you as if you will a graceful use of paul now the christian doesn't have to look very far for our original material about the power issue the bible is saturated with it the early church was preoccupied with it whatever else it was a jesus event was a vast power and then god has made him lord and cries that jesus was crucified that is a witness to power paul and his apple style i can still boldly before the world and cry and i'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of god for salvation to everyone who has faced of the duo

first and then to the greek and that is the announcement of a pall or triumphant although the classical divisions among men in history and the terrible brokenness of man's life what we call the gospels are in truth diaries of the preaching of the early church and story after story as a the power power over it please spare it's powerful the powerless along every road he tried even the winds and the ceo pay him quite an onlooker so daring was the claim for what god was doing industries the world was passionately a stir with the incredible fact that in him the kingdom of god had finally come with power the principality is ann powers themselves that is the universe is whole system of controls had yielded to this stunning event so across all cultures into establish worlds of

thought and the proud precincts of religion swept this great stoic word god has a disarming the principality isn't parts and made a public example of them triumphing over them in jesus what about diarrhea preaching came a story that will not leave any age alone it has a built in relevance in the interplay of dramatic components it is our history itself and its message is very simple the park at work in this jesus this power to heal at the attention of the world in other words this activity of human restoration was no up country spectacle it didn't belong to the province's it was a cosmopolitan event and the recognition of that stupendous fact was entrusted not the peter and obligations and

not their job but to a roman company commander doing his tour of duty in the permian and when jesus saw that recognition he explained while i haven't seen anything like that anywhere in israel or just look at the story and its juxtapositions it was a native an adult lander a rabbi and a soldier a jew when a gentile the religious world in the secular world but the war against those polarities look at the one thing they had in common how are they were both power men in their own right both had a calling to use power both used it gracefully in the century and no less than in jesus we see the graceful you use of power by any standard that century and was a remarkable man

as a military employer he was free of any obligation of the hired help but he cared enough for a sick servant to search for someone to healing as a role he was free to regard the jewels as the lp was very little people and world society but according to the account and lokey had come to love the jewish people and build a synagogue for them and peppered him as a soldier he had every personal and political reason to maintain a pasture of authority with everyone and this occupied country but he went up to a young country rabbi and he said to him i am not worthy to have you come under my room what and where a combination of personal factors in his life toughness and tenderness confidence and deference authority and humility freedom and responsibility no uncertain paul but tae do

with a certain weakness a graceful thing that jesus celebrated with the word play so the story of a meeting between a soldier and a rabbi on the edge of a little town reserve in the preaching diaries of the early church does today first it tells the old old story of all come upon or at work in history to make man and manhole and secondly it throws us into this generation's agony over the power issue and it does this by showing us a style of using power that can only be called responsible even gracefully it forces the often unwilling and the religion of beep passionately historical this worldly concrete and so to the tough and complicated

an urgent issue of all we turn our first concern is the neglect or the shining of power let's admit this is a fast and dangerous point of temptation for people just like us all hover rather comfortably in the precincts of religion or set her life and faith in churches and make it our business to be in public worship here or by radio on a midsummer sunday we are in a long tradition of people who miss really the biblical faith and draw he run these distinctions between the spiritual and the material the religious and the world and so the notion of power with all of its historical and political connotations they seem to some of us when we're sitting as religious men just a bit vulgar power more than we are prepared to admit perhaps we wrap our spirits about us and for all

practical purposes dismiss the power issue and religious grounds we just keep our virtual by dismissing the world and the only case will make use for something we call in sermons or political addresses our conversation spiritual power some not all but some of the irresponsible under handling of power in american society can be laid to establish religion and it has led to the kind of sardonic remark that we had from william as white a few years ago that meaningful reform is too important to be left to the reformers who was mostly excessive goodwill and in a sense of common sense that often paid that well known way to help poll among us really hasn't been bombed into embarrassment by the charge do gooder and who among us

hasn't in some measure deserved it did you notice that there was no shelling of a car rolled on the part of the center and i suspect that it was this that had jesus admiration and respect in the first moments of their meeting he sent you recall for i am a man under authority with orders under me and i say to one going egos and one other comedy comes and one other do this and he does it here was know cringing from the power role know self recrimination in a basement he was saying something like this as i wheeled power over others will you please sir we'll healing power over my six urban thank you thank you very much and at this point the text reads when jesus heard in the marble the problem of the shining of power is

commonplace in our daily lives you think for example of the horrendous impact on our children and you win parenthood has largely sentimental that is when neither parent is really handling the power role that is implicit in being a mother and father there is a chaotic indefinite miss in such a home and many such parents have found their children delivering to them an oversupply of sour grapes i shall always treasure a home a car that a dear little girl delivered to be on father's day what it said was thank you for being time iq for being firm please people or think of something as commonplace as the situations in which we were someone once put it in this rule of thumb there is nothing worse for a person at the

bottom of an organization that they have a good natured person at the top if the leader is not exercising his implicit authority that is if he is only maintaining friendships and not leaving them no one around him knows where he stands there is a serious adaptation of a power role and it should surprise no one when in such an organization things begin to fall apart some of you were in business know exactly what i'm talking about a shining of power is the refusal of stewardship and active retreat irresponsibility in the face of the real world in which we all it and this is a point of particular temptation for people just like love and we feel that every time that we are jarred by the church's ventures into the public sector

whether the ministry in mississippi or the pronouncements from the world conference on church and society just concluded in geneva when the church confronts the power issues and the power structures directly someone is always rising or to put it more candidly something is always rising up in many of us to protect the thing on holy preoccupations drew protests such meddling and a reminder church what is the proper province of spiritual how one would suspect that the story and the specter of across would be some kind of spending collective peace now our second concern is with the loss of this is the first note that comes through in the story of the centurion lord my servant is lying

paralyzed at home and terrible distress that sickness is loss of power disability a crippling limitation compassion toward deal is not unusual but i suspect that it was not every day that jesus not an officer of the roman army who was all broken up over the sickness of one who had the rank of slain the century is concern for the paralysis the powerlessness of a servant gave him common cause which is why this was what jesus was looking for and he found it rarely not even in israel have lifelong this kind of thing such thing and faith here is more than a century and posture of trust in jesus while it describes i think the toll posture of a man for the ultimate and live

in this century in this pasture expressed itself in many ways and notably in his anguished over the suffering officer my friends because of the poem is no opponents in this nation he is living somewhere in the home and the conscience of every man and a long human story hours may be the generation that is called to suffer through when revolutionary ways the neglected reality of powerlessness god have mercy and we have been so torn god save us now from evasive notes and from a failure to make total common cause with the poor i am as aware as you are the words total

is utopian and so dubious what is that not the right word in this revolutionary time a lethargic churches under the tyranny of the scriptural word though he was re yet for our sakes he became poor that we should rule his poverty might be rigged the times call for empty for the sake of the powerless if other items have been on the agenda of the church these know must be laid on the table where the authentic church exists in this generation it's first preoccupation and at times perhaps it's only preoccupation must be with the poor are discipleship is to be dictated by such a word as we have a few months ago from eugene carson played he wrote while one of the american churches great strengths

is its direct channel to the power structure of the nation through its most influential leaders it will be disastrous if the church now pulled back from the chorus tentatively begun that his civil rights activism and involvement in community action programs in the city in order to preserve and diminished this influence on the power structure the mire of the presence of the awaited messiah is still related to the poor having the gospel preach to them and the captives being religious now our concern for the loss of power must become far more concrete then the sermon or that resolution the church where it exists and authenticity is called the joy and the poor not nearly in the passion for power but in the fight for and if the church does not do this than it is on the other side of the issue all the netherlands getting all pronouncement notwithstanding it is on the other

side of the issue in addition to serving as a courageous community of interpretation in a revolutionary time the churches call to become a community hall all the identification and this would mean far more than being where the action is on a visitor basis dropping down out of airplanes to join in this march in that market it will mean hoping as harvey cox put it that today's poor will continue to be noisy and on accommodating and the liturgy will mean becoming itself part of the noise and part of the lack of accommodation the graceful uses of power in behalf of the parlance will win our baby tested to the very hilt there is one car that we almost drowned and that is the power to be honorable the show that paul is to opt for the life of responsibility nothing less than this appears to be are calling in the

christian community behind us and before us and in the midst of us as one when the wilderness struggled with the possibility of being an involved and more likely than not on a sunday morning we are in the wilderness many of us with the same struggle now we are concerned of the third place about the misuse of power it is at this point that the american soul as you well know has the shakes the stock market's wild week certainly records this nervous day presumably we are in a period of dominance fear another one and now a power factors are such that james reston is probably right in his comment at the only thing we have to cheer is our fear before the dread

possibility that the powers at hand might be misused here a century and has peculiar relevance to a nuclear age and even though the specific crises in vietnam in south africa and in every corner of our own land as the civil rights struggle titans essentially it is a model of power limited by a viscerally courageous decision he relinquished power for the sake of gaining the power that he gazes marveled at this it was a beautiful thing it was a graceful thing my friends in a day in which the shaping of image has been raised to a high art by the public relations industry i hope to god that it will not be counted disloyal to warn that there is a fatal possibility of

arrogance empower our nation the most powerful in human history cannot and must not avoid massive search you know soul at this point certainly we are righteous nation wrote ten years ago we have i suppose he went on a strong sense of justice and we have managed to win a sense of responsibility compatible with a great hour we now hold in the world and i think we have but our righteousness would be more insufferable if we had a sense of the temptations which a sale all right shoes and powerful nations the question is whether our christian faith can be strong enough to penetrate through these liturgies of self esteem in which we know and gave as a nation if a nation begins to confuse power with virtually and if it begins to feed the illusion of omnipotence

then that nation needs nothing more and i have a sense of the temptations that a sale when the processes of history become revolutionary as they had at this time no one is exempt from these temptations if as one civil rights leader has noted the rights revolution has now changed its character as more from protests to politics from the quest for justice to the quest for power then there are two there must be an awareness of what dr neighbor has called the precarious lives of all human configurations of power and the mixture of good and evil in all human virtue but carl larry of power is responsibility and even a free the revolution does not free a person from that equation graceful as we have been saying is about a rather bland and polite notion for the tough

our game and our day i wondered is the graceful use of power really so strange to us when you're leading church this morning look again at the great george washington bridge there is power you lose gracefully some of you are on record as saying that you're in love with that bridge and why not or go downtown to the ballet is the graceful use of power strong and meaningful movement accomplished with restraint and balance and delicacy or join a fine mountain climbers i have a couple of times this month and there it is again power in the legs and the arms and the ends of the fingers but you would grace so that what you

see as the slow steady pace of the hiker great economy of movement across the rocks and enormous respect for the mountains when power is you lose with grace we are in the presence of something ultimate my friends that is why the cross will always be the surest sign that we have of the reality the a likeness of golf their grace and power combined and one result and was an astonishing weakness a land that before it shear is with dumb opening not a smile the meaning of that event was never put in better words than the crib and heifers god allows and so to be edged out of the world and undergrowth body is weak and powerless in the world

and that is exactly the way and the only way in which he can be with us to help us that amazing event will always make our mind swim and we shall always tremble with all and thanksgiving that we have been given the sea so starkly how god deals with the power situation he chose is what his week in the world issuing a strong they're the foot of the cross you remember among others was a centurion well we don't know but what he said was entirely consistent with a century in english money he looked up at this gas leasing all of ignominious defeat and naked weakness and he declared surely this man was the son of god

it is and that story more than from any other source in history that you and i learned that power that cannot be shown must be graceful you even to the point of powerlessness and weakness only soul is healing powers set loose in this it were where it is all blunder bus and no restraint where it is all try no humility where it is all military and no negotiation where it is all muscle and no imagination then a nation is in trouble is our nation in trouble right now i do not think for a moment that we have lost our capability of becoming more graceful stewards of power a promise of maturity is everywhere writ

large in the heritage and in the exciting present to move from promise to fact is our generation's calling god help us allman's ba power it's b fb