“Power, Privilege, and God” based on 1 Kings 21:1-10 and…

June 12, 2016February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

King Ahab wants something. He really really wants it. It isn’t at all clear WHY he wants it. He wants a piece of land that is adjacent to his palace property in the village of Jezreel. Now, the capital and primary palace was in Samaria. Jezreel was, at best, a secondary palace. Why would anyone care so much about space for a vegetable garden near their second home? I mean, the story says that after he asked for the land and was rebuffed, he was physically ill. As one commentator put it, “King Ahab is made sick by his greed for a vineyard he cannot have.”¹

Why? Because from the perspective of nearly 3000 years later, this doesn’t seem worth getting bent out of shape about. I guess that isn’t really a reasonable standard for humanity though. 😉 Most of us, most of the time, can’t really figure out if something will matter tomorrow, much less next month.

Now, King Ahab of Israel is said by the Bible to be the worst king who had ever ruled (to that point). He was particularly terrible. Six chapters of the book of 1 Kings exist primarily to talk about how awful he was.

Even given that, I’ve been trying to figure out how a person could get obsessed with having one particular property for a vegetable garden. In some ways it feels familiar, this way of obsessing over wanting something that doesn’t matter at all. It feels familiar to how I’ve watched myself function at times, and it feels familiar to how I’ve seen others function as well. There are a few ways I’ve watched us all do this:

We decide we want something – just because we see it and think to want it. Sometimes, we then become obsessed.
We decide we want something because we can’t have it, and that makes it attractive in and of itself. Sometimes, we then become obsessed.
We decide we want something because someone tells us we can’t have it, and we want to prove them wrong. Sometimes, we then become obsessed.
We decide we want something because we really need something else entirely and we tell ourselves that this will help us get what we really need. Sometimes, we then become obsessed.
We decide we want something because some one else has it. Sometimes, we then become obsessed.
This has been known to happen to humans – with some frequency. I suspect that most of the time, when we as humans want someTHING, we’re wrong. We don’t want that thing. We want whatever it is we associate with that thing as its meaning.

That is, I wonder what King Ahab REALLY wanted. Was he undernourished and wanting more satiating food? Was he hoping to entertain and make connections with someone and worried that the food he had to offer wasn’t sufficient? Was he continuing the normal human system of searching for safety and security through a constant desire to acquire more? Was he wanting to build community by having enough food to make gifts of it to others? Did he actually really like growing food and intend to spend time in the beauty of the space?

It seems likely his desire was motivated even more deeply than that. If he was like the rest of us, he probably wanted the land because of some story he was telling himself, that he wasn’t aware of as a story. What could the story have been? Was he looking for affirmation that he mattered by telling himself the story that if he could build a bigger secondary palace he would be more respected in the world? Was his story about trying to be as good at being king as his father was, and thinking that he could gain (posthumous) acceptance from his father by building up his holdings? Was his story about seeking a deeper relationship of love with his wife by being able to be more impressive to her? Was he trying to prove to himself that he had a purpose in the world, and needing to have a pet project at all times to feel at peace with the fact that he would die?

That’s what the Biblical account doesn’t tell us – it doesn’t tell us what the land meant to Ahab. I don’t think it is possible that the land was really about the land, because that’s not how humans work! We are, usually subconsciously, telling ourselves stories about what things mean beyond what they actually mean. And those stories that we tell ourselves impact our emotional realities in how we respond to the world.

Whatever story Ahab was telling himself was pretty big, since he was SICKENED by Naboth’s refusal to sell. Now, I think Naboth’s refusal makes a lot of sense. We need much more information to understand it. His land WAS his ancestral inheritance, which in theory at least could not be sold, and tearing down a vineyard to make a vegetable garden was pretty insulting. As one scholar points out, “The same Hebrew phrase ‘vegetable garden’ occurs in Deuteronomy 11:10 to describe Egypt in contrast to the promised land.”² Furthermore, vineyards took many years of labor to make profitable. They were serious investments. He was under no obligation to sell to the King, and he had no reason to want to. So he said no.

Ahab couldn’t handle the no. I’m still curious if the land purchase was just a passing fancy, but being told no utterly enraged him. They stories may not have been as important as being denied something he vaguely wanted. It may be that when he was told no, he started telling himself some other stories! Perhaps stories that said being told no was a lack of respect. Perhaps stories that being told no meant he was wrong to have asked. Perhaps stories that said that important people weren’t told no. Perhaps he was shamed by Naboth mentioning the “ancestral inheritance” and some part of him told him he was a bad person for wanting the land at all. Perhaps the story suggested that he wasn’t a good man if he couldn’t convince someone to do things his way.

I don’t know what stories he told himself, but the text seems to indicate that the stories were pretty potent. They sickened him. Then comes Jezebel. Now, Jezebel makes me squirmy, because she is ultimate anti-heroine, and I don’t like it when evilness is associated with women. This isn’t just a vague woman thing about not wanting to be associated with evilness, this is because we are associated with evil way too often and in ways that do harm to humanity. Yet, no fairy tale nor Disney movie has ever been able to make a character as utterly evil as Jezebel. I’m not even sure Lady Macbeth is as bad, and if she is, I suspect it is because Shakespeare modeled her in part on Jezebel.

Worse yet, part of the way Jezebel is so darn evil is because she is such a powerful woman willing to use her power to get what she wants. In this story, what she wants is a false accusation that would lead to a stoning. That is, she wants a murder, and she has the tools to get it. Actually, likely, she got several murders because the accusations that she brought would have gotten both Naboth and his male descendants killed. This she gave to her husband as a gift so he would feel better because he got his stupid garden. She’s the worst, and she’s female, and I can’t fix it.

I’m not sure what to make of the fact that the acquisition of this garden, even through these means, seemed to ACTUALLY sooth Ahab’s spirits. Clearly getting what he had decided he wanted mattered to him more than the means of acquisition. As hearers of the story though, we might hope that it wouldn’t end there. We don’t want the anti-hero and the anti-heroine to win in the end. It almost seems for a moment that they have. They got away with murder. They got the land he was seeking. He’s the king, and he has all the power and all the privilege, and it has just been proven that saying “no” to the king is a a death sentence.

When he gets to the land, God’s prophet was there. The prophet’s role was usually to tell the king when the king had acted unjustly. Therefore, the-king-who-was-the-worst-in-history-to-that-point responded to the-prophet-who-kept-having-to-tell-him-he-had-messed-up-again with “Have you found me, O my enemy?” Did I mention that my take on Ahab is that he wasn’t particularly self-aware, nor good at differentiating reality from the stories he tells himself? A good leader might see the person who most often whistle-blows their work and think “Ut oh. I must have messed up again!” A great leader would see the same person and say, “I wonder what I can learn now.” A poor leader would simply think, “I’m in trouble now.” Ahab was terrible. He actually saw the person whose job it was to call for God’s justice AS HIS ENEMY. Talk about stories we tell ourselves!!

Of course, I really hate what Elijah said to Ahab. It doesn’t sound like God’s justice to me at all. It sounds like a threat and a punishment. This is one of those cases where I choose to believe that the people who wrote and edited the story were more interested in good story telling than they were in considering what they were implying about God. The story will go on to tell a gory and miserable account of Ahab’s death. Likely some people thought it was fitting after the life he had led. As the story was told through the ages, that sentiment became a part of the story itself. I think that reflects a human longing for justice and a world that makes sense.

In life these characters reflect all of us at times. Sometimes we are irrationally obsessed with the acquisition of something, like Ahab, and we can’t even figure out why we care so much. Sometimes we are going about our normal life when someone else’s whims end up ruining everything (EVERYTHING) like Naboth. Sometimes our desire to make someone we love feel better motivates us to do great harm to someone else, like Jezebel (although almost always to a lesser degree). Sometimes we are the voices of justice who have to call for accountability, like Elijah.

But, truth be told, while each of these aspects of life are real in each of our lives, they aren’t all proportioned equally. Some people have more power, like Ahab and Jezebel. Some have significantly less power and are more vulnerable to injustice and the whims of others, like Naboth. Some of have more privilege, and many have less. Our various levels of privileges intersect in multiple ways.

Yet, we can rest assured that God still works and moves in the world toward justice, and calls us to account for the ways power is used. Injustice is still a reality in the world, but God is never at peace with that. Thanks be to God. May we learn to be speakers of truths, and to call for justice like Elijah (although maybe we can do it with few less threats!) Amen

1Carolyn J. Sharp “Theological Perspective on 1 Kings 21:1-10 (11-14), 15-21a”, p. 122 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 3” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2010).

2Marsha M Wilfong “Exegetical Perspective on 1 Kings 21:1-10 (11-14), 15-21a” , p. 125 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 3” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2010).

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

June 12, 2016

Sermons

“Visibly Invisible”based on Mark 10:42

November 11, 2015February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

I’m going to mention two important dates in my life. The first is Tuesday, January 28, 1986. That is the date of my first class in a course I took during my first year in seminary called “Religion and the Social Process.” It is the ONLY course I ever took where I still remember the introductory comments of one of the three professors who were team teaching the course. Professor Joanna Gillespie looked at us and said, very emphatically, “In this course we are going to give you a lens which will enable you to see structures of oppression.”

That stuck with me. It kind of hit. I had never heard that kind of talk before. Structures of oppression. I had not really thought much about oppression up to that point in my life and I kind of had the vague impression that oppression was what bad people did to the helpless. Oppressors were villains. And of course, I wasn’t an oppressor. I wasn’t racist. I wasn’t sexist. Let me tell you, was I ever in for a wild ride that semester.

In reflecting on this I went back to my notebook from that course. Still have all my notebooks. I was reminded of the phrases and concepts that, as I look back, shaped my thinking and the way I look at the world. Simple things such as an operative definition of oppression:

The use of coercion, force or violence by any holder of power – individual or institution -to constrain others or deny their rights.
Or the idea that social relationships can not be seen except as they are given meaning by the culture.
That there are ways that structure mediates meaning
And that institutions create their own value system

Here is one that I found very powerful.

Social structure operates in three realms; discrimination, segregation and stereotype.

Discrimination – denial of the right to have.

Segregation – denial of the right to belong

Stereotype – denial of the right to be

And all of this organized around a system of in groups and out groups.

Now as the course unfolded through the lectures, readings, group and written assignments it became very clear, to me at least, that my own personal beliefs, attitudes and view of the world came out of this whole structural social-political realm. My belief system was

formed in the context of being a white, middle class, protestant heterosexual.

Fast forward thirteen years. Thursday, May 20, 1999.

That is the day I walked into the administration building of Bare Hill Correctional Facility in Malone, New York, to begin my new job as that prison’s Protestant Chaplain. As I walked into that august institution I very quickly discovered that I might as well have landed on

another planet. It was a different world. And yet it is a world that, in many respects, is a microcosm of the outside world. It is a world where everything is intensified and where the lines of demarcation a brutally sharp.

Talk about a structure that has in groups and out groups! I mean, you can see it as soon as you walk in. Officers in blue, inmates in green, civilians in civilian attire. It’s right there before you. The lines of demarcation were so sharp that as a civilian staff member I was not permitted to wear green or red. Only inmates. The security staff, the guards, in fact all staff, had to be able to visually discriminate population – that is, the incarcerated ones – from non-population. There are many things a prisoner is not permitted to have. And there are groups to which a prisoner is not permitted to belong, namely gangs. And it is the Department that determines what a gang is.

It is a world of organized discrimination, segregation and stereotyping.

Now to be sure, there are sound security reasons for this in most, but by no means all, cases. It wouldn’t be good for prisoners to have guns, knives, drugs, certain metal objects or escape paraphernalia, of course. And gang activities in prison are never good. But the point is all these restrictions are imposed from above.

However, all too often a line gets crossed. And it gets crossed because staff in that setting are cloaked with power. While at Bare Hill I had two clerks who were inmates. One day I called out for one to come into my office for a moment and in about one second he was in front of my desk with a ‘yes sir?’ Boom! There!

Now, in eleven years of teaching prior to that I NEVER had any student respond that way. In 23 years of parenting up to that point I NEVER had a response like that. In 25 years of marriage….well, never mind.

But I call out the clerk’s name and in one second he’s there.

Now this had absolutely nothing to do with me. It is no reflection on how my clerks viewed me. You see, there was something else controlling the situation. It was in the form of something called rule 106.10. Rule 106.10 is in a little booklet that is issued to anyone entering a New York State prison to serve a sentence. It is called Standards of Inmate Behavior. Rule 106.10 is the only rule printed in bold faced upper case letters. Rule 106.10 states AN INMATE SHALL OBEY ALL ORDERS OF DEPARTMENT PERSONNEL PROMPTLY AND WITHOUT ARGUMENT.

It doesn’t say ‘follow,’ doesn’t say ‘comply,’ it says OBEY. Absolutely no wiggle room is given in that rule. And WE, staff, were expected to follow a principle that has a name I’ve always hated, called ‘zero tolerance.’

That simple phrase is a manifestation of immense power. So much so that it gets invoked almost as a religious talisman. I would see signs posted that said such things as “Inmates can not enter without permission of staff.” and the numbers 106.10 would be printed underneath.

Power.

We see the manifestation of it. But there is an invisible component to it. It is visibly invisible.

“You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.” So Jesus told the disciples in our Gospel reading. I’m only going to deal with that statement.

The phrases ‘lord it over’ and ‘exercise authority over’ are each rendered as a single word in the Greek. ‘Lord it over’ has as its root ‘kyrie’ meaning lord and the ‘exercise authority over’ has the word exousia, meaning authority. And the word ‘archein’ or ruler is in that sentence.

Ruler. Lord. Authority.

I’m going to use those three words as a jumping off point into the work of a remarkable scholar who has given me deeper insight into what I began learning thirty years ago in that wonderful course, my experience as a prison chaplain of fifteen years, and an awful lot of what has been going on in our country, world and yes, in our denomination.

Walter Wink, a New Testament scholar and teacher at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York and who died in 2012, produced a five volume work known collectively as “The Powers” in which he explores the language of power as used in New Testament writings; how the language is used, how the biblical writers conceived of power and the powers and the very real implications that has for us now. Like all good scholars he was not without his critics but I have found his work remarkable.

Those three words, ruler, lord, authority, are power words, part of a language of power that, according to Wink, pervades the New Testament. Other words are kings, rulers, principalities, power, name, wisdom, commission, throne, dominion, lordship. He also observes that the language of power is imprecise, liquid, changeable, and unsystematic. His words. But in spite of this there are clear patterns of usage that can be seen. He also finds that, because they are interchangeable, one word can be used to represent them all.

Now here is one of several kickers. And I’ll quote him directly: “These Powers are both heavenly and earthly, divine and human, spiritual and political, invisible and structured.” That is, invisibly visible.

Now here’s the other kicker; the Powers are both good AND evil.

The processes, definitions and categories that were identified in that course all those years ago could easily be dismissed as mere sociological and psychological reductionism. Explained, or explained away by our modern mindset and world view.

What I have always found remarkable and invigorating is that this work that Wink had done gives us a way to see all of this theologically and biblically. He shows us a way to have a theological and biblical understanding of these processes and categories.

Yes, on one level we can think of kings, rulers, principalities, power, name, wisdom, commission, throne, dominion, lordship, as political structures, social systems and institutions. But he found that there was always something that could not entirely be reduced to those

categories, something immaterial, invisible, spiritual and real.

He argues that the principalities and powers are the inner and outer aspects of any manifestation of power.

The inner aspects are the spirituality of institutions, the inner essence of outer organizations. The outer aspect is seen as political systems, appointed officials, the chair of an organization, laws, all the tangible manifestations which power takes.

Police and law enforcement. Prison guards and prison systems. Chaplains and Administrators in those systems. Governors and governments. Churches and pastors. Bishops. Annual Conferences. Boards of Ordained Ministry.

There is a visible pole, an outer form – be it church, nation, economy – and an invisible pole, the inner spirit, the driving force that animates, legitimates, regulates its physical manifestation in the world. Neither pole is the cause of the other. Both come into existence together and cease to exist together. And the way the inner and outer aspects of a power work, the relationship they have to each other can be complex and is largely unseen. Unless we look for it. I feel it is legitimate for us to think of the spirit of an institution as having a mind of its own that, collectively, may be fundamentally different from the minds of the individuals within that institution, and that the spiritual aspect can influence in unseen ways those who are a part of that institution.

When a particular Power becomes idolatrous, placing itself above God’s purposes for the good of the whole, then that Power becomes demonic.

The church’s task is to unmask this idolatry.

One example that comes to mind is the long, complex and convoluted legal history of corporate personhood. The Citizens United Supreme Court case was but the latest occurrence in a history that goes back centuries. The whole question of what rights are to be afforded a corporate entity has a long, long history. Of course corporations have long had the right to enter into contractual agreements and individuals have long had the right to file suit against corporations, both of which are aspects of personhood. The longstanding question, though, seems to have been just what rights are to be afforded a corporation. ALL the rights of an individual or just some of the rights? To my mind the simple fact that this question has been seriously considered for so many years is an indication that there is an immense and largely unseen power at work here.

When a corporate entity gets to the point that IT’s existence and life is it’s only reason for being and is to be considered of more importance than actual individuals and if it’s life is to be fostered at the expense of individuals – THEN THAT POWER HAS BECOME DEMONIC.

And this is true whether that inner spiritual dimension is that of a corporation, or a law enforcement agency, prison system…

even ideas and ideologies…

And yes, even a religion and it’s concomitant organizations, such denominations.

As I’ve already stated, the church’s task is to unmask this idolatry. Bring it into the light of day. Make it visible. Allow people to see it for what it is.

A warning. You know how you can tell if a person or group is successfully doing this? The more successful anyone is in unmasking a power and shining a light on it, the more angrily and even violently that power will respond.

We’ve seen it in the Occupy Wall Street movement in which the violent response was, at least to me, horrifying. We’ve seen it in Ferguson when the racist basis of law enforcement was called into question.

And yes, we see it in our own denomination – now I’m goin’ from preachin’ to meddlin’ here – we’ve seen it in our own denomination in the recent spate of church trials over the issue of marriage equality. Violence doesn’t have to be physical.

So, that’s it. Our task as part of the Body of Christ is to unmask that which is hidden. To see the invisible in that which is visible. To shine a light and be a light. And to do so without fear. And to do it with love not anger. And yes, to bear the response when it comes.

For are we not the Body of Christ, and do we not have a task to do?

Amen.

Appendix and notes

The references to the course Religion and the Social Process, a course that was taught during the spring semester of my first year at Drew Theological School in Madison, New Jersey, are based on my own recollections and the notes I took during that course.

Our required texts were

The Predicament of the Prosperous, Bruce C. Birch and Larry L. Rasmussen

Beyond Liberation, Carl Ellis

Sexual Violence, Marie Fortune

Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, Letha Scanzoni and Virginia R. Mollenkott

Hunger for Justice, Jack A. Nelson

Habits of the Heart, Robert N. Bellah, et al.

My very brief discussion of the work of Walter Wink is taken from his three volume work collectively entitled “The Powers.”

Naming the Powers: the Language of Power in the New Testament Fortress Press, 1984

Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces That Determine Human Existence Fortress Press, 1986

Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination Fortress Press, 1992

My comments are primarily from the first volume. For those who are interested, but are hesitant about tackling a fairly monumental three volume work I recommend his 1998 book The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium, originally published by Augsburg and now available in paperback. It is a digest of the third volume with elements of the previous two and at 200 pages considerably shorter than the 784 page total of the three volume work. He also omits almost all the secondary literature references from the larger work.

One important element in Wink’s work, which I did not address, is his coining the term ‘the myth of redemptive violence.’ It is a powerful concept very pertinent to our own time.

This sermon was primarily descriptive as opposed to prescriptive. In addressing any kind of prescriptive approach to the issue we need to be aware of some issues regarding the nature of the Powers, for the Powers are ignorant of God’s plan. I conclude these notes with a fairly extensive quote from Naming the Powers. All emphases are mine.

“The Powers did not know”: seen from the perspective provided by our hypothesis,evangelism and social action are the inner and outer approaches to the same phenomenon of power. I have already described the subversive character of the early church’s refusal to worship the imperial genius and its recourse instead to prayer. Many modern Christians have unfortunately understood injustice in simply materialistic terms and have not recognized the need to “convert” people from the spirituality that binds them to a particular material expression of power. It is not enough merely to change social structures. People are not simply determined by the material forces that impinge on them. They are also the victims of the very spirituality that the material means of production and socialization have fostered, even as these material means are themselves the spin-off of a particular spirituality. In a new structure people will continue to behave on the basis of the old spirituality, as they have to varying degrees in every communist regime, unless not only the structure but also their own psyches are reorganized.

Evangelism is always (Wink’s emphasis) a form of social action. It is an indispensable component of any new “world” Unfortunately, Christian evangelism has all too often been wedded to a politics of the status quo and merely serves to relieve distress by displacing hope to an afterlife and ignoring the causes of oppression. The repugnance with which most liberal Christians regard evangelism betrays their own failure to discern that all liberation involves conversion. Whenever evangelism is carried out in full awareness of the Powers, whether in confronting those in power or liberating those crushed by it, proclaiming the sovereignty of Christ is by that very act a critique of injustice and idolatry. And as the churches of South Korea and Brazil and Chile and around the world have learned, such evangelism will inevitably spark persecution. In sum structural change is not enough; the heart and soul must also be freed, forgiven, energized, given focus, reunited with their Source.

Walter Wink

Naming the Powers

Pages 116-117

___

–

Rev. James Sprenger

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

October 18, 2015