“Power Moves”

Luke 6:1-16 Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood February 2, 2025

In January and February of 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. retreated to Jamaica with Coretta and two family friends. You can find photos of the Kings enjoying the sun on the beach and eating dinner with breathtaking views in the background. It’s nice to know that this man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders could sometimes step away from the fray and find a bit of sabbath rest. 

What the pictures don’t show is that this was very much a working vacation. While King caught a break from the day-to-day realities of the movement, he didn’t actually stop working. Instead, he took a step back to regroup and find some clarity to fuel his next steps. It’s said he was pretty much cut off from the world during this trip - not even a phone in his apartment. In isolation, he wrote. 

The book he wrote on this trip ended up being his last. It was called Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? and it contains a mountain of quotable quotes that articulate King’s Christian faith. 

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The past few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about power. I’m going to guess that many of you have, too. I reached out to my friend Emilee Bounds who is a community organizer in Oklahoma. I knew she’d have a good working definition of power, so I asked her. She said, “Power is the ability to act,” and reminded me that the word shares the same origin of the Spanish verb poder - to be able. Even if you don’t know any Spanish, you may be familiar with the phrase popularized by the United Farm Workers: “Si, se puede” - “Yes, you can.” That’s poder. Power. Agency. The ability to act. 

Political theorist Saul Alinsky spent his life studying power. Generations of community organizers like my friend Emilee have used his teachings to make positive change. Alinsky taught that power is inherently neutral. It can be used for good and it can be used for evil. 

If we want to follow Jesus and love loudly? If we want to embody the Beloved Community? We have to get comfortable with power. 

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Back to Dr. King. In that book that he wrote in Jamaica, he said this about power: 

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” 

Let’s talk about power and love, shall we? Because Dr. King’s question: “where do we go from here?” seems particularly salient right now. Chaos has been the theme of these past few weeks. It is chaos deliberately sowed to create imbalance, confusion, and - ultimately - to take away our sense of agency. It’s meant to overwhelm, make us shut down, make us think we have no power. An important part of the antidote to the overwhelm, as King’s title reminds us is COMMUNITY. 

Community is not only about the connections we have here and now - like gathering for worship on Sunday. It’s also about connecting to our faith ancestors and sharing stories from the past. And it’s carrying an awareness that we are in relationship with our descendants - we are, every day, creating the world they will inhabit. 

The author of Luke invites us into community with these three little stories about Jesus. And, like Dr. King, Jesus was clearly thinking about power and love here. 

We’re going to zoom through today’s passage really quickly, so buckle-up. 

First story: Jesus and his followers are walking through the fields, grabbing handfuls of grain and eating them. Some of the Pharisees are horrified because it was commonly understood that you were not supposed to harvest grain on the Sabbath. Now, we could go into all kinds of ins and outs about who is right and who is wrong here. But we’re not going to. Instead, I want to point out how Jesus justifies his behavior. He calls upon the authority of King David who also broke rules. You can look up the story he’s referring to in 1 Samuel 21. It’s an odd little story and David’s rationale for breaking the rules (and lying, I might add) is basically, “Because I’m David. The rules are different for me.” 

Regardless of how we feel about David breaking the rules and claiming special privileges, that’s exactly what Jesus seems to be doing here. It’s a major power move. He’s saying that he has special authority and is choosing to exercise his power as he sees fit. 

Not surprisingly, the Pharisees are skeptical. I get it. I’d be pretty suspicious if some guy showed up here and claimed that kind of authority, too. Wouldn’t you? Part of claiming our own power is being very cautious about who we allow to claim authority in our lives. It’s not a wise move to just trust leaders willy-nilly. It’s prudent to ask a lot of questions, which is just what the Pharisees do. 

Second story: Jesus, fully cloaked in his authority David’s descendent, violating sabbath norms again. This time, he’s teaching in the synagogue. And there is a man there with a withered hand. Jesus knows he’s being watched and tested. And so he asks the Pharisees a question: “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” And then the man’s hand is healed. 

Now, it was absolutely lawful to save a life on the sabbath. You would never allow someone to die if you had the power to help them just because it was the sabbath. That would be abhorrent. And so, by asking these questions, Jesus seems to be broadening the question here about what it means to save a life. 

Biblical scholars Amy Robinson and Robert Williamson point out that a single withered hand isn’t likely to be life-threatening. And so, how is it that Jesus argues that he’s in line with sabbath norms by healing this man? Perhaps, they say, it’s a reminder that there is no neutral. Unless we are actively creating good, we are allowing harm. And so any good, no matter how small, is life-saving. 

If that’s the case, this story makes me deeply uncomfortable. Because I’ve seen too many do-gooders exhaust themselves to the point of burnout by never taking breaks. I want to pull Jesus aside and argue with him about the importance of sabbath-keeping. 

And my guess is, Jesus would probably argue with me about love. It’s always the last stop for Jesus, isn’t it? “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” So easy to say and so hard to know how to do. We find ourselves tangled up in guidelines. We aren’t sure when or how to take a break. We exhaust ourselves trying to love beyond the limits of sanity. 

I wish there was an easy 1, 2, 3 that told us how to balance it all. Maybe an index card we could memorize about how to use power and love to work for justice. 

I haven’t found that index card yet. And if someone handed it to me, I’d be skeptical. Because, as these stories from Jesus show, power and love and justice are complex. And our decisions feel particularly loaded when we are overloaded by chaos. 

Remember what Dr. King said - chaos or community? There may not be an index card with answers but we do not traverse the chaos alone. We can turn to community for guidance as we continue to show up in a chaotic world. 

We can read the words of Dr. King or call our friends who are community organizers. 

We can pick up Alinsky or turn to our favorite Bible podcast. 

We can look to Jesus as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. 

And we can turn to one another. And that’s what I want to do right now. Two questions for you to ponder in sixty seconds of silence. And then I’ll invite a few of you to share aloud. We’re going to make this embodied. When you’re thinking or listening about power, you can do hands on hips - superhero pose. When you’re thinking or listening about love, please do hands on heart. 

Power first: was there a time when you saw power used for good?

Love next: what does everyday love in action look like? 

(Silence. Then space for people to share aloud)