“And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so, stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
– Luke 24:49, NRSV
I don’t know about you, but every year at this time, as we await the Ascension of our Lord and the Day of Pentecost, I start thinking about power. The good, the bad and the ugly, but most of all, that power from on high that dwells in each of us, the power of the third person of the triune God, the power of the Holy Spirit.
POWER GOING OUT FROM OURSELVES
In his book, Principles of Christian Theology, John Macquarrie — the great systemic theologian — contemplates the power of God working in us, especially how this power proceeds from God, then through us into the world.
He reminds us that, as people of faith, we carry the Holy Spirit within us, as a “capacity to go out from (ourselves) in freedom, creativity, love”, and that “the Spirit’s role” is to “draw out” the “potentialities of creation at all levels.” (see pp. 328-329).
OLD POWER AND NEW POWER
In 2018 I purchased a new book on power that I frequently revisit. It’s called, New Power: How Power Works in our Hyperconnected World — and How to Make it Work for You, co-authored by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Tims.
In the book, Heimans and Tims write about Old Power and New Power, so it seems a perfect subject for the contemplation of what it means for us to be clothed with the power of the Holy Spirit from on high.
Here’s how they define old and new power (p.2):
OLD POWER “works like a currency. It is held by a few. Once gained, it is jealously guarded, and the powerful have a substance store of it to spend. It is closed, inaccessible, and leader driven. It downloads, and it captures.”
NEW POWER “operates differently, like a current. It is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer driven. It uploads, and it distributes. Like water or electricity, it’s most forceful when it surges. The goal with new power is not to hoard it, but to channel it.”
Every time I read those words, with my Bible open to Luke 24: 44-53, I begin my contemplations with one question:
“So, Cathy Lee, how’s the current of YOUR channel moving and working?”
Then, I ask many more questions, of how we’re channeling the current of God’s power through our leadership in the Church.
Here are just a few:
Do we feel our new power potentialities being drawn out by God, AND channeling out into the world?
Are we, and the parishes entrusted by God to our care, allowing God’s new power to channel out from ourselves in “freedom, creativity and love,” allowing God to work God’s “power from on high,” through us?
And how is the channeling of this new power blocked by us, inhibited by us, through our old power models of being Church in the world, that have as their foundation the desire to control outcomes or perpetrate self-interests that are born by fear of the unknown or of change?
When is the last time that we made conversations about power — old and new — part of our Parish Council agenda?
Or that we spent time sharing with one another from the heart what it means for us to be “clothed with power from on high”?
Are we open channels for the Holy Spirit, partially open channels, or closed channels, controlling the gates through self-interest or fear?
I wonder — as we approach Ascension and the Day of Pentecost:
Do I, do you, do God’s (not “our”) Parish Councils feel that our “potentialities” for doing God’s work are being drawn out at ALL levels?
If so, how?
If not, why?
I can’t help but fall to my knees as I contemplate the awesome responsibility that has been bestowed upon us by our Beloved Risen Lord, as those “clothed” with that “power from on high”, to be His hands, feet and voice in the world.
What if we actually make intentional time this June in our Council meetings, our committee meetings, our outreach, preaching, book studies and missions to really talk about power — not just the new power, pure form that we are clothed with by God, but the ways in which we are called to use that power to confront its corrupt old power forms in the world? An even more daring question might be: How do we see power being used for good and for ill in our parish mission fields, even in the parish itself?
I leave you with these familiar words as company for the journey:
“Glory to God, who power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine….”
Book of Alternative Services, p. 214
See you back here in the June Issue when I explore the concept of new power and how it is changing the world through one particular congregation.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
If you need any help, assistance or resource suggestions to move through this time of pandemic, contact me directly at [email protected] and find me on social media @vocapeace.
