Our success-driven culture scorns failure, powerlessness,
and any form of poverty. Yet Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount by praising
“the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3)! Just that should tell us how thoroughly we
have missed the point of the gospel. Nonviolence, weakness, and simplicity are
also part of the Western shadow self. We avoid the very things that Jesus
praises, and we try to project a strong, secure,
successful image to ourselves and the world. We reject vulnerability and seek
dominance instead, and we elect leaders who falsely promise us the same.
I can see why my
spiritual father, St. Francis of Assisi, made a revolutionary and pre-emptive
move into the shadow self from which everyone else ran. In effect, Francis said
through his lifestyle, “I will delight in powerlessness, humility, poverty,
simplicity, and failure.” He lived so close to the bottom of things that
there was no place to fall. Even when insulted, he did not take offence. Now
that is freedom, or what he called “perfect joy”!
Richard Rohr
– Daily Meditations
______________________
How can I profit you?
Let me count the ways.
Any leader who has any savvy at all
Knows that the way to recruit followers
Is to make it all about them
Their wants, needs, fears, and yes
Hope
In 1860 Abraham Lincoln’s slogan was “Vote Yourself a Farm”
1920 Warren G.
Harding promised a “Return to Normalcy.”
In 1928, Herbert Hoover promised “A Chicken in Every Pot and
a Car in Every Garage.”
In 1956, Dwight Eisenhower offered “Peace and Prosperity.”
In 1980, Ronald Reagan asked, “Are you better off than you
were four years ago?”
And Trump?
Trump offered people power and wealth, too.
Dominance seems to be woven into the fabric of our being
The need to win (so much winning we get tired of it)
The need to dominate and control
To succeed and accumulate
There are anomalies
St Francis of Assisi, who said
“I will delight in powerlessness, humility, poverty,
simplicity, and failure.”
Quite a mission statement
And people such as Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr.,
Mother Theresa and Pope Francis
Who, though imperfect and flawed
Had servant hearts
But we live in a top-down, power-over world
Where the goals are to be in a position of power
And to “have” as much of everything as one possibly can
So we value those people with power
And actively devalue those who do not
Indeed, our very goal is to put as many people
“Beneath us” as we possibly can
We assume those with wealth must inherently be
richer, wiser, harder working, better
than those who happen to be poor
We know this is true, whether we want to admit it
Or not
We tend to avoid and ignore looking at our dysfunctional
relationship
With power and wealth
With winning and domination
So we don’t admit to ourselves.
Or confession to God, our addiction to domination
Which is why very pious (in the legitimate sense) people
Can embrace an ideology that is fundamentally
“Not Jesus’
Which is why we now have in power a movement whose core
values are
Reclaiming White Privilege (aka Racism)
Using power ON others (not FOR others)
Retribution (rather than reconciliation)
Exclusivity rather than inclusion
Radical safety rather than vulnerability
The accumulation of resources by a few,
Rather than the use of resources for the common good
We have become fearful hoarders.
People who must win at any cost
People who make others less so we might be more
We have become people willing to
Demonize, neglect, deport, suppress, oppress others
For our own benefit
I don’t think Jesus would be very popular today
Not in America
Can you imagine a candidate who said
Love your enemies":
Turn the other cheek
Sell everything you have and give to the poor
The way of Jesus is hard.
O God of love
Forgive us when we become addicted to strength and success
Forgive us when we reject vulnerability and seek dominance
instead,
Help us to be people who like Francis
delight in powerlessness, humility, poverty, simplicity, and
failure
Who do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
But in humility value others above ourselves,
And look not to our own interests but to the interests of
others.
Give us the mindset of Jesus.
Make us servants
