Christ the King Sunday

Luke 23:32-43

Loving Power

Christ the King, 2022

Luke 23:32-43

Today is Christ the King Sunday. The issue is power. How will that power get used? Will Jesus save himself? Or will he use his power in another way?

Here is the gospel in today’s Gospel. Jesus does not love power. Jesus uses power to love.

Bruce Almighty is a 2003 comedy film starring Jim Carrey. Bruce Almighty is my favorite theology movie of all time. The film wrestles with the connection between power and love.

Carrey plays Bruce Nolan, a television reporter in Buffalo, New York. Bruce is whiny, selfish, and irritated about everything. On a particularly bad day, Bruce rages against God. He makes fun of God and demands an explanation for his troubles.

God shows up. God tells Bruce that if Bruce can do any better, then have at it. God, played by Morgan Freeman, then leaves on a long-overdue vacation.

Bruce discovers that he suddenly has the power of God. He walks the streets of Buffalo accompanied by Snap’s 2003 hit, “I’ve Got the Power.”

Bruce blows the top off a fire hydrant with a wave of his hand. He steals a nice outfit from a store window by thinking about it. He gets revenge on his enemies. He makes his competition, played by Steve Carrell, look foolish on live TV.

We find Bruce standing atop the highest building in Buffalo. The sky is dark with flashes of lightning. Thunder rumbles and the music builds to a climax. “I am Bruce Almighty!” he declares. “My will be done!”

We would all like to be Bruce at that moment.

The issue is power. On that first Good Friday, Pilate had the power. He could execute this inconvenient imposter. Everyone knew it. Power over death means power over life.

Power is the path to privilege, pleasure and protection. Powerful men, for example, presume ownership of the female bodies around them. They grab whatever is handy. They then hide behind political and cultural machinery designed to shield them from consequences.

Bruce Almighty makes a prediction about that use of power. Bruce moves the moon to impress his girlfriend, Grace, played by Jennifer Anniston. He changes Grace’s body to suit his preferences. Bruce thinks he can use his power to manipulate Grace.

But for a while, Bruce loves power more than he loves Grace. That love of power nearly costs Bruce everything that really matters to him. For a while it costs him his relationship with Grace. The love of power will destroy us in the end. The power of love will save us in the end. The movie asks whether Bruce can learn that lesson or not.

For Jesus, the purpose of power is love. Jesus does not love power. Jesus uses power to love.

“The God we know in Jesus,” writes David Lose, “is revealed…not in power but in vulnerability, not in might but in brokenness, not in judgment but in mercy.” That is the God who comes to us in Jesus. Will we act as if that King is returning? Will we recognize Jesus where he chooses to be? He chooses to be the King who rules by serving, who conquers by dying.

Jesus does not love power. Jesus uses power to love.

Who has the power? Jesus, the Crucified and Risen Lord. He turns power inside out and upside down. He inaugurates a new order governed not by fear, force, and judgment, but by love, mercy and justice. Jesus is the King, reigning from his unlikely throne. He is the king the grave cannot contain.

Paul writes these words in Colossians one: Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.”

Jesus showers that power on his body, the Church. Paul’s words are nothing short of astonishing here: “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.”

Jesus does not love power. Jesus uses power to love.

For a while, Bruce is lost in his power. Habitual power produces spiritual blindness. This blindness is more than an image. It is a physical reality.

In an article in the Atlantic magazine, Jeremy Useem reported that “Power Causes Brain Damage.” “If power were a prescription drug,” Useem wrote, “it would come with a long list of known side effects.” He shares the results of various studies that demonstrate the corrosive and corrupting effects of power on human behavior and perception.

What grabbed me was a study that showed actual shrinkage in brain tissue among those accustomed to power. The brain tissue necessary for empathy and understanding was atrophied in such folks. Exercising habitual power makes us less human.

The historian, Henry Adams, puts it this way. Power, he writes, is “a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.”

Jesus does not love power. Jesus uses power to love.

Habitual care, on the other hand, makes us more human. Bruce comes to the end of his rope. He has lost his way. He has lost his friends. He has lost his job. And he thinks he has lost Grace. In desperation, Bruce kneels down in the middle of a highway. He pleads with God to make it all right again. As he prays, he sees a brilliant light coming toward him.

Unfortunately, that light comes from a semi-trailer. Bruce finds himself in heaven. “Why,” Bruce asks God, “Why, just when I understood things, would you let that happen to me?” The answer is practical. “Bruce, you can’t kneel down in the middle of a highway and live to tell about it.”

God asks Bruce what he really wants. Suddenly, all that lust for power is gone. All that greed for gain is gone. All that fever for fame is gone. Finally, what Bruce wants is Grace. No, not Grace. What Bruce wants is what’s best for Grace – whether that makes Bruce happy or not. God smiles and says, “Now that’s a prayer.”

The love of power will destroy us in the end. The power of love will save us in the end. The movie asks whether Bruce can learn that lesson or not. Bruce learns that lesson. And they all live happily ever after. Well, what do we expect? After all, it’s a movie.

For Jesus, the purpose of power is love. Jesus does not love power. Jesus uses power to love.

The love of power will destroy us in the end. The power of love will save us in the end. The daily question for us is whether we can learn and live that lesson.

We are powerful people. That is the economic, political, social and racial truth. We are Americans. We are mostly white. We have enough money to live. We are educated. We are powerful people. The only question for us today is how we will use that power. Will we love our privilege, pleasure and protection? Or will we use our power to love?

Jesus loves the lost, the strayed, the injured and the weak. Jesus loves the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned. Jesus loves them enough to be one with them. Do we? After all, we’ve got the power – the power of Jesus’ love.

Let’s pray…