Unlike the traditional assumption regarding the “all-powerful” god, Jesus does not impose his will. The story of “The Rich Young Man” reveals Jesus to be uninterested in controlling others. In this story a wealthy young man asks Jesus if he can become one of his followers. After being assured by the young man that he keeps the commandments, Jesus commissions him to sell his possessions and share the proceeds with the poor. The young man sadly acknowledges that he cannot let go of his wealth. As a result, Jesus observes that the young man is unable to follow him. At first Jesus’ response seems to be a harsh rejection; however, in expressing this verdict, Jesus is explicitly described as loving the young man. Jesus doesn’t refuse discipleship but recognizes the young man’s inability to put something before his wealth. Jesus makes no effort to manipulate him by trying to convince the young man to change his mind; instead, Jesus respects the young man’s freedom to choose the direction of his own life by placing his wealth before his desire to accompany Jesus.
Similarly, Jesus associates the capacity to let go, not the power to assert control, with god in his parable of the Prodigal Son. The father in this story renounces the patriarchal virtues of power, authority, and control. The shockingly unconditional nature of his love is reflected in his refusal to coerce or manipulate his son into good behavior. This confuses the older brother and defies conventional wisdom. No one would fault the father for withholding the inheritance, or at the least his affection and kindness, in order to passive-aggressively coerce his son into what he perceives to be good behavior. However, since worldly power is not a Gospel value, we are left with a powerless, heart-broken father who has let go of any need to force his child to conform to his expectations.
Conventional power is especially undermined by Jesus’ example on the cross. I suspect Jesus’ understanding of power was too radical for the Roman Empire, which eventually demanded that Christianity and its Jesus endorse the Empire’s definition of power as control. Arguably, the Empire’s conventional understanding has dominated popular Christian thinking ever since these early days of its history, while Jesus’ respect for the freedom of the other and refusal to seek power, wealth, control, and self-interest have often been ignored in “Christian” societies.
In the ego schema the cross simply becomes something Jesus did for us rather than the path he prescribed for his disciples when he instructed them to “take up your cross and follow me.” In reality the cross is a terrifying reality because it represents the very things we try so hard to escape: embarrassment, powerlessness, suffering, and death. In the cross Jesus challenges disciples to the radical, self-emptying love that he preached and embodied. Love’s renunciation of control of the other is incomprehensible for the ego.
Fyodor Dostoevsky acknowledged the challenge relating to love saying, “love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” Unfortunately, we prefer love in dreams, which turns love into a self-serving quality. The cross and the story of the Prodigal Son indicate that gospel love is unconditional, even including those who do not please us, while modern love is filled with conditions. Henri Nouwen observed that worldly love often takes the form of, “I will love you if” love. We imply, “I will love you if” you respect me, you are nice to me, you please me, you are related to me, you don’t ask anything of me, you look like me, you benefit me, you follow my rules, and you share my values. The reason that this love is not authentic is that the ultimate value is not the other person but the condition, and in many instances that condition is self-oriented (i.e. I will love you if you make me happy / I will love you if you please me). This love functions to give us power and control over others. If they want to attain our love, then they must follow our commandments. In this way the selfless nature of love is replaced by selfish considerations.
Leo Buscaglia paralleled Jesus’ understanding of love when he claimed “Love is always open arms.” Love is ultimately oriented toward freedom for the other and a disconcerting willingness to renounce control of that person. Jesus’ suggestion in the Beatitudes that the meek, poor, hungry, and persecuted people are the ones who are truly blessed does not make sense from a self-centered perspective, because these people are not successfully controlling their world or living for themselves. They are not winning. Pema Chӧdrӧn observed that the Tibetan word for pride literally means “me-victorious.” Like the Tibetans, Jesus is suspicious of the prideful need to feel superior to others and instead prescribes humility.
Love is not a self-interest based response to the behavior of the other; it is the result of an active, committed choice to see and value the other. This demands that we look beyond our personal interests. Jesus invites this personal transcendence when he proclaims, “The one who saves his life will lose it; the one who loses his life will save it.” In other words the one who clings to self will be lost, but the one who goes beyond self-interest will live authentically. Letting go of self-interest as our primary concern is the most profound act of faith and trust, whether in god, the universe, virtue, or oneself, that is possible. In contrast to our assumptions regarding an all-powerful god, Jesus invites us to imitate his acceptance of powerlessness and to stop clinging to the illusion of control. On the cross Jesus models this act of faith, and, I would argue, he does so without any assurance of reward. After all, for Jesus to be affirmed as truly human, even Christians must acknowledge that he shared the human experience of limited knowledge.
It is not that the Gospel promotes passivity, rather it understands power differently than the ego and many Christians do. The mother bird’s act of pushing her chick out of the nest is not an act of weakness and passivity; it is an act of strength and empowerment. It reflects the strength of love, the strength of giving freedom to the other, the strength of letting go.
Nonviolent resistance operates in a similar way. One might feel that a crowd of angry protesters with guns and grenades marching across a bridge in Selma (during the Civil Rights Movement) would have been a representation of power and strength, while the historical event, which involved people nonviolently accepting the unjust acts of those who wanted to preserve discriminatory voting practices, represented weakness. Certainly, the actions of those who sought to violently impose their will and defend the racist status quo, as they attacked the nonviolent “bridge-crossers,” are much more reflective of conventional beliefs about power. However, had the protesters adopted the “world’s” ethos relating to violence and power would they have had the capacity to change the hearts of many Americans or reinforced the prejudicial assumption that separation was necessary? Violence, likely, would have amplified the ignorance, hate, and prejudice that were the sources of segregation and discrimination. Love has the power to change hearts or at least to invite that transformation. We cannot force people to change their hearts; we can only provide them with the opportunity to do so. Conventional power prefers the sense of control provided by a violent path, but Jesus indicates that love is not a path of violence or control.