Power of powerlessness

"I, the Lord, am your God … You shall not have other gods besides me. You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on earth below or in the waters beneath the earth, you shall not bow down before them and worship them." (from today’s First Reading, Ex. 20: 2-5).

From the very beginning of divine revelation, there was only one, universal God over us all – and all here means the entire human race, whatever color or historical period of time. But over and over again – throughout the centuries – men and women have been creating their own gods that they choose to control, rather than surrender to the Supreme God and be under His control.

Money as god. Power as god, whether it be political power, military power – and today, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction as god. Lastly but not least is religious power! All this boils down to the worship of Self as god. And Self here can mean one, many, institution, or nation.

Throughout human history, God is His own way and time has allowed the tragic consequences of this hubris to rise and fall, to come and go. Ultimately but ultimately, God is in control. This we know in deepest faith. And in the end, it is His love and mercy that prevails.

It is in this spirit that He has sent us the very person of Christ, who precisely taught and live out the one and only divine law of love – through the power of powerlessness, the very opposite of hubris. "For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger that human strength." (From today’s Second Reading, 1 Cor. 1:25). The vulnerability of love ends with the triumph of endless love.

In his brief but full life here on earth, Christ did not cling to power. Not to economic, political, nor military powers. Much less to religious power. The very incident in today’s Gospel reading was a denunciation of the temple purity system, which was a source of money taken from the pockets of the poor. The temple taxes on "purified" oxen, sheep, and doves which were bought by the common people for sacrificial offerings, and the high rates of the money changers – part of which went into the temple coffers – all these were forms of social injustice in the name of religion.

"He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, ‘Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace’u." (From today’s Gospel incident, Jn. 2:15-16). The three other Gospels had a much stronger word than market place. Den of thieves! (Mt. 21, Mk. 11, and Lk. 19).

Thus, the only power Jesus used was for the sake of the powerless, and this was what brought him to his crucifixion and death. It was this power of his person – the power of love – that came from the Father, the God of us all.

After all the horrible human cost of this war in Iraq as well as that in Mindanao – will we ever learn to accept God as the one and only power over us all? The power of powerlessness. The power of new life here and hereafter. Let us incessantly pray and work for this in our lifetime, and for the generations to come.

Love and justice bring peace.