Experiencing the Power of God

The explosiveness of dynamite should help us grasp the biblical understanding of the power of God’s Spirit. The Greek word for power is, of course, dunamis, from which we get the word dynamite. As the “Power of God.” the Spirit does the unexpected, going wherever the Spirit wills (Jn. 3:8). This is not a form of power that we can control. Think of the hurricane or tornado: both storms have great power that cannot be controlled. Such is the nature of God’s power, not that it is destructive, but that it cannot be tamed by us.

Barbara Brown Taylor picks up the sense of the power of the Spirit’s presence in her reflections on the Pentecost story.

This is the Spirit, who blows and burns, howling down the chimney and turning all the lawn furniture upside down. Ask Job about the whirlwind, or Ezekiel about the chariot of fire. Ask anyone who was in that room on Pentecost what it was like to be caught up in the Spirit, and whether it is something they would like to happen every Sunday afternoon.

[Barbara Brown Taylor, Bread of Angels, (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1997), 67.]

Could we be comfortable with a Pentecost like experience every Sunday? With Taylor, I’m not sure any of us is quite ready for such a demonstration of power. But, Pentecost underlines the biblical picture of the Spirit being that energy of God that cannot be domesticated, possessed, or even harnessed. Yet, the Spirit freely enters the community bringing to it energizing power. We might not be able to harness the power of the Spirit, but the Spirit remains present, infusing our lives with life changing energy. When coupled with the gifts and abilities God provides the people of God, world-changing ministry is truly possible. Thus the church can be a force that brings to the world God’s transforming love through both word and deed.

An excerpt from Gifts of Love (unpublished mss.)

Transforming Acts: The Power of the Name (Bruce Epperly)

In his fourth installment of his journey through the book of Acts, he comes to chapters 3 and 4, chapters in which transformative ministry begins to move out into the community, and it is done "in the name of Jesus."  It is interesting that the first chapter of Ephesians, a letter that may have been written at about the same time as Acts, and perhaps from within the same broader Pauline community, also lifts up the preposition "in."  So the question for today has to do with the nature of the power that is present in the name of Jesus and how we should understand that name and its power today.

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Transforming Acts: The Power of the Name

Acts 3:1-4:31

Bruce Epperly

Acts 3 begins with a healing story in which a man with paralysis is cured by invoking the name of Jesus. This healing story begs the question: Is there a special power in the name of Jesus? Does the invocation of Jesus' name have some spiritual and metaphysical power that can change minds, bodies, and spirits? Can the faithful mentioning of Jesus' name open up an energetic force field through which God is able to do extraordinary things for our well-being? Do other names carry healing power? In Acts, chapters 3 and 4, Peter heals in the name of Jesus and the early church experiences signs and wonders through invoking Jesus' name.

Could Jesus' name be a life-transforming mantra - a power word - not unlike the Hindu “Om”? The biblical tradition asserts that God creates through the word (Genesis and John). The wisdom of God moves over the waters, creates through all things, and enlightens all human beings. Words matter: holy words join our spirits with what Herbert Benson (Relaxation Revolution) describes as "remembered wellness," our primordial wholeness that brings health and healing to our hearts. The word of God sets in motion vibrations that create, restore, and reestablish order. The name "Jesus" was a power word for those first Christians, a word that focused and expanded God's presence and power in their lives. Many Christians today still use the name of Jesus to mediate power, healing, and protection. I personally use the name of Jesus to center myself when I am giving Reiki healing touch attunements: for me Jesus’ name grounds the dynamic energy in Jesus’ ministry and field of force.

The Biblical tradition proclaims that God's word is present in Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. The author of Acts proclaims boldly that there is salvation in no other name. But, what does this affirmation really mean? Is the presence of God in Christ inclusive or exclusive? On the one hand, salvation in Christ can mean that wherever we experience wholeness, God is its source and that Jesus mediates that wholeness to us. Jesus Christ is the ultimate source of all saving ways. The love and wisdom manifest in his life give birth to all authentic religious experience, Christian and non-Christian alike.

In contrast, does this apparent limitation on salvation to Christ alone mean that only when we assent to this name we find wholeness? From this perspective, apart from invoking Jesus' name in some prescribed way we are lost.

Or, is there truth in both. That is, God's power is everywhere, operating in all creatures, and seeking the well-being of all creation, but when we assent to its media greater power flows through us. Jesus Christ - or speaking in the name of Christ - elicits unique energies to heal, transform, and save human beings. This does not rule out God's healing and saving revelation in other faith traditions, but describes the unique and effective power of Jesus' name to bring healing and wholeness. As a Christian mantra, the name of Jesus creates a protective and energizing field of force around us and those for whom we pray. This protective power is evident, for example, in the Celtic caim or encircling, in which a person draws a circle around himself with the right index finger and says words like “Christ in me…Christ before me…behind me…above me…beneath me.” In life and death, the power of Christ is present to save and protect.

Finally, openness to the word of God in Christ's life inspires boldness in proclaiming the good news. These are days in which we need boldness - we need to be shaken from complacency in terms of issues of global climate change, justice, care for the vulnerable, and our role in sharing good news. This is a matter of both meaning and action, of responding to the cultural thirst for wholeness and also the deep needs of our society and planet.

Boldness is called for today: boldness born of passion in God's healing presence and our calling to be God's partners in healing the earth. Awakening to Jesus’ field of force by calling out his name is one way we gain courage and wisdom for the journeys that lie before us.

Bruce Epperly is a seminary professor and administrator at Lancaster Theological Seminary, pastor, theologian, and spiritual companion. He is the author of seventeen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living, a response to Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life. His Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry, written with Katherine Gould Epperly, was selected 2009 Book of the Year by the Academy of Parish Clergy.His most recent book is From a Mustard Seed: Enlivening Worship and Music in the Small Church, written with Daryl Hollinger.



Why Progressive Christian Theology Matters: The Primacy of Love (Bruce Epperly)

As we wander through these summer months, Bruce Epperly is drawing out attention to the question of whether and why progressive theology actually matters.  In today's piece he reminds us that the basic theological confession about God is that God is Love.  It is something, he says, we too easily forget in our quick embrace of God's power.  I invite you to ponder this question -- what is the primacy of love?  How does focusing on love change the way we envision God? 

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Why Progressive Christian Theology Matters:

The Primacy of Love

Bruce Epperly

In his latest book, The Nature of Love (Chalice Press), open and relational theologian Thomas Jay Oord asserts that “if love is at the center of the biblical witness and the core of Christian theology, it should be the primary criterion for theology.” Yet, as Oord notes, “those who write Christian theologies have often not placed love and its implications at the center of their work.”

Theologians have often forgotten that the proposition “God is love” is the primary description of God’s nature. In contrast, many theologians are willing to jettison love rather than power when it comes to describing what is most central to God’s nature. To compromise on divine power is unacceptable even if this means God is responsible for tsunami and earthquake; while compromising on God’s love for broken and wayward people seems in line with orthodoxy. When power becomes definitive of God’s nature, justice is, then, viewed primarily in terms of punishment rather than healing and transformation and divine knowledge is described as controlling rather than freeing and supportive.

Progressive theology affirms “a metaphysic of love” (Charles Hartshorne) in which God’s power is defined as relational and healing rather than unilateral and coercive. One of my teachers Bernard Loomer spoke of two kinds of power: relational and unilateral. Unilateral power is, by definition, coercive; it controls and shapes, but does not receive. The goal of unilateral power is to exert as much influence as possible without being influenced by others. It speaks but does not listen; it creates but does not respond; it demands but does not negotiate. Uninterested in the unique experiences of others (its subjects), it desires conformity and obedience, rather than creativity and adventure. One of the worse things that can happen, from the perspective of coercive power, is for God to be surprised or influenced by creatures like us.

In contrast, relational power is responsive as well as creative; it welcomes the influence of others. It embraces the gifts of creation and encourages freedom and creativity. It embraces surprise as the opportunity to exert its own freedom in novel and innovative ways. My teachers John Cobb and David Griffin describe God’s power as “creative-responsive love.”

When power is defined in terms of love, its primary goal is healing and transformation. God’s power is, as Peter Schmiechen describes it, entirely “saving power.” God is on our side, forgiving even the faithless and violent as a means of their healing. Loving power, however, is not weakness: it is persistent and challenging of alienating behaviors. As I Corinthians 13 proclaims, loving power never ends.

Loving power is reflected in Jesus’ approach to healing and wholeness. The healing narratives reflect Jesus’ affirmation that his mission was to promote abundant life. Jesus did not blame the victim, nor did he identify disease with divine punishment. While Jesus recognized that behaviors and attitudes could play a role in disease, even those who struggled with their faith or previous misdeeds received his blessing.

Loving power is reflected in Philippians 2:5-11. Here God’s power is revealed in presence and relationship. Every knee shall bow – yes, every knee! – not out of fear but out of gratitude for a love that knows no end and that rules by letting go rather than demanding obedience. Often love is seen as something weak by those who see power as definitive of God; they want a God who can rain down hell-fire and brimstone and punish the opponent. Often they exhibit this same behavior in relationship to their opponents, drawing lines that divide rather than circles that include. Love is powerful; it is willing to go to the cross to bring wholeness to humanity; it is willing to forgive the enemy; and it is willing to become “unclean” so that others find healing.

Today, in this time of cultural and religious polarization, we need to emphasize the love of God and the embrace of otherness, rather than denunciation and division. Only the vision of a truly loving God, for whom love is the primary motivation in the use of power, can help us find a spiritual and cultural common ground. As progressives, we need to let the light of love shine, as we tell the good news of an infinitely creative, adventurous, persistent, and loving God.

Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary and co-pastor of Disciples Community Church in Lancaster, PA. He is the author of seventeen books, including  Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry. Those interested in his work on healing may consult God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus   and Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice. His most recent book, From a Mustard Seed: Enlivening Music and Worship in the Small Church written with Daryl Hollinger, will be released by Alban Institute Books in August.

The Gift of Gradual Healing (Bruce Epperly)

For the past several weeks we have been treated to a discussion of God's divine agency in the world.  We've explored the question of whether divine power is unilateral or persuasive, whether we can envision the resurrection as being more than metaphor, and whether God is engaged in healing.  In this week's column Bruce Epperly returns to the question of healing, exploring a passage that reminds us that sometimes healing is a gradual process.  I invite you to consider Bruce's contribution and join in conversation.

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The Gift of Gradual Healing

Bruce G. Epperly

In some ways, all theology is healing theology. By that, I mean that the aim theology is not just armchair speculation, but the transformation of our lives and communities. Healing goes by many names – salvation, conversion, curing, reconciliation, wholeness, unity, forgiveness. All of them point to a change in our hearts, often reflected in a change in our social relationships, vocation, emotional well-being, spiritual priorities, and physical condition. Over the past several weeks, I have been pondering the healings of Jesus and the healing vocation of moderate and progressive Christians. Healing is about meaning (and I hope to address the interplay of meaning, imagination, and truth later this summer), but it also about whole person transformation that may literally change the cells of our bodies as well as our spiritual lives. The postmodern world is about connectedness, relationship, and holism, in which the transformation of the body changes the mind, and the transformation of the spirit or social location has an impact on physical existence.

Now, the strange story of the man who was healed gradually (Mark 8:22-26) is perhaps one of the most helpful healing stories for contemporary persons; perhaps, it was transformative in the first century as well. I have a strong sense of the literary and imaginative power of scripture: there are no throw-away lines or unnecessary stories in the remembered history (Borg) of Jesus’ life. But, why would this story be included? There is no dramatic healing; in fact, it begins in failure and disappointment. Jesus touches the man and he can see a little bit, but not yet well enough to see clearly. Jesus touches him and his sight is restored.

In a time in which healing and curing are dominated by quick fix technologies and quick fix televangelists, this story reveals the everyday realities of God’s healing movements in our lives. Most of us are not healed immediately, but need to go through a process of transformation until the wounds of body, mind, and spirit are healed. I have often noted that the flamboyant healing ministries of Benny Hinn, Richard Roberts, Gordon Robertson, (Pat Robertson’s son) and others may do more harm than good to the average congregation seeking to initiate a healing ministry. The televangelists only show us the successes – the people who get up from their wheelchairs, the cancer cures, and the glasses tossed away. While I do not wish to challenge the integrity of these televangelists, these programs present an inaccurate picture of divine healing that often prevents people from trusting God’s gentle, naturalistic healing over the long haul. The majority of people who attend televised healing services do not experience dramatic healings; and, for some, the cures are short-lived. Often, participants in congregational healing liturgies in moderate and progressive churches wonder why their healing services don’t produce such dramatic results; indeed, people can feel guilt and failure when a dramatic cure does not occur after an anointing or laying on of hands. (For more on progressive and moderate healing services, see Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice and God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus).

I believe dramatic changes can occur in the mind, body, spirit, relational, interdependence of life. I believe that God moves toward wholeness within all things, but most of the time, the divine quest for abundant life is revealed in gradual, almost imperceptible ways. Our health and illness, and the healing process occur in the context of factors such as DNA, physical condition, economics, health care accessibility and treatment, faith, and community support, along with our prayers and the prayers of others and movements of God in our lives. When a cure occurs, God is always the ultimate source, even though God works relationally and persuasively through the many factors of life, from meditation to medication, and contemplation to chemotherapy.

In the story of this man’s gradual healing, a cure emerges, but not immediately. When the man is not immediately cured, Jesus does not blame him. Rather, he continues the healing process. This is an important healing moment for the man and his culture: Jesus defies the acts-consequences approach to health and illness and success and poverty. People are not always sick because of immorality, negative thinking, or inadequate faith. Though these factors enter into our health and well-being, they are part of a larger psychosocial-physical-spiritual-economic matrix.

Jesus continues the healing process, ministering to the man’s spirit as well as to his eyesight. Freed from guilt and blame, the curative processes continue to operate, bringing healing and wholeness of body, mind, and spirit.

The story ends with Jesus sending the man home, with the admonition, “don’t even go into the village.” Perhaps, like the story of Jairus’ daughter that we explored last week, this man needed to return to an environment where he would be known as healthy and whole, rather than in terms of his blindness. Perhaps, he needed to gently grow into the cure that he had received. Moving too quickly physically, relationally, and spirituality can actually impede the healing process.

This story of gradual healing is important for people today. First, it portrays God’s aim at healing as naturalistic, occurring within the causal interdependence of life. Second, it portrays Jesus using a first-century healing media, saliva, which reminds us that we can take our medication prayerfully and that God is working not only through Western technological medicine, but also through prayer, global healing techniques, laying on of hands, energy work, and social transformation to restore persons to well-being. Third, it reminds us that gradual healing and curing is just as revelatory of God’s grace as dramatic healing. A God who works for wholeness in all things primarily works gently in the world, using the media of our daily lives; but, God also works persistently to transform our lives, body, mind, and spirit, lovingly and without blame.

Bruce Epperly is a seminary professor and administrator at Lancaster Theological Seminary, pastor, theologian, and spiritual companion. He is the author of seventeen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living, a response to Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life. His Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry, written with Katherine Gould Epperly, was selected Book of the Year by the Academy of Parish Clergy.

Persons interested in progressive approaches to healing and wholeness may consult his God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus; Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice; and Reiki Healing Touch and the Way of Jesus, written with Katherine Gould Epperly. He can be contacted at bepperly@lancasterseminary.edu.

Divine Power -- Unilateral or Relational? (Bruce Epperly)

Bruce Epperly follows up on his discussion of the Resurrection with a discussion of divine power.  Is it unilateral (direct and irresistible) or relational (engaged but resistable)?  Bruce prefers a relational understanding of power, one that fits with his progressive theology.  I invite you to read and respond.

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Divine Power – Unilateral or Relational?

Bruce Epperly

Over thirty years ago, my graduate school theology professor Bernard Loomer asserted that there were two primary kinds of power – unilateral power and relational power. Unilateral power is by nature coercive. It gives, but does not receive; acts but does not listen; demands but does not compromise. It sees the other in terms of its wishes, rather than the other’s deepest desires. Creativity and freedom are frowned upon, if not outright abolished. Anything that deviates from the ruler’s edit is, by definition, wrong and subject to severe punishment. In business or parenting, unilateral power proclaims, “my way or the highway” as it paternalistically seeks to act “for our own good.”

In contrast, relational power takes into consideration the value and perspective of others. It gives, but also receives; acts but also responds; has a vision but is open to change and transformation. Relational power is at the heart of good parenting as well as democratic decision-making. Relational power encourages freedom, creativity, and coloring outside the lines, within the context of overall environmental safety and order. Relational power recognizes that well-being in personal and institutional life is best achieved by welcoming diverse perspectives and balancing order and novelty for the common good.

Christian theology has struggled with these two approaches to power in its understanding of the relationship of God and the world. While Jesus is proclaimed as the primary revelation of the divine nature, Christian theologians have often, in the words of the philosopher Whitehead, preferred Caesar to Christ in their understanding of divine power. Sovereignty, defined as unilateral and all-determining (omnipotent) power, has been judged superior to love in describing God’s character and relationship to creation. Defined in terms of unilateral power, God can do whatever God wants – destroy cities, send plagues, kill innocent people, pulverize the planet –simply because God wills to. There is no court of appeal, because unilateral power is supreme and unquestioned regardless of its cost to creation. The elect can feel comfortable knowing that God will protect them while unilaterally condemning the unfaithful, or persons who ask questions or have different perspectives, to an eternity of suffering.

As I noted, Christianity has struggled with the nature of divine power even though Jesus’ embodiment of power was far different from that of Caesar. Borg, Crossan, and Wright have correctly noted that the gospels proclaim an alternative social order and an alternative understanding of the divine to that of unilateral, power-oriented, and domineering rulers and gods. Jesus’ ministry, described in the gospels and in Paul’s Christological hymn, from Philippians 2:1-11, was defined by relationship, empowerment, acceptance, mutuality, and love. If Jesus is the window into God’s nature, then divine power, while variable in expression and intensity, is, by definition, loving and relational.

Divine relational power – and remember, Jesus opened the door to seeing God in relational terms by calling God “abba” (or father) - shapes the world though loving and respectful relationship. On the one hand, this means that God has a vision, appropriate to each moment of experience and, in the broadest sense, for the vast expanses of planetary and cosmic history. God presents the world with possibilities and the energy to achieve them. God does coerce the world but inspires the world with dreams, visions, and possibilities. On the other hand, this means that God really experiences our lives. God touches us with vision and beauty, but we also touch God by our dreams and actions. The “One to whom all hearts are open and all desires known” truly experiences our joy and suffering, and allows these experiences to shape God’s response to the world. The world lives by the dynamic divine-creaturely “call and response” in which God presents visions and the world responds, thus enabling present new visions appropriate to our personal or global situation.

As in the case of all healthy and dialogical relationships, God “listens” often before God “speaks.” God seeks what is best for the real world and not some ideal person or universe. In some ways, this could be said to place limits on God, that is, God works within the world as it is, presenting possibilities that enable us to move forward. We can refuse these possibilities and often do; but our refusals cannot defeat God, who responds with new possibilities in light of what we’ve just chosen. For example, in a violent situation, God cannot personally restrain the threatening fist; but, God can move within the perpetrator, opening him or her to new possibilities, which at that moment might be restraining the fist, while still boiling with rage.

Many persons affirm the theological necessity of divine unilateral power. After all, such power insures God’s victory and asserts that God can always get what God wants. While I concede this point, I believe divine unilateral power raises some serious theological issues. First, it makes God equally responsible for salvation and damnation, cancer and recovery, catastrophe and escape, and evil and good. Second, the image of divine unilateral power goes against the dialogical vision of the Hebraic scriptures in which God often has to adjust God’s vision and action in relationship to the behavior of God’s people. Third, Jesus’ healing miracles, while revealing extraordinary manifestations of divine power, reflect the interplay of personal faith and divine action, or divine call and human response. Forth, divine unilateral power makes God beyond good and evil, thus, exalting amoral power over love as essential to God’s character.

A relational God, in contrast, seeks abundant life for all things, but must work through the freedom and creativity of the world, slowly, patiently, and constantly luring the world toward greater and greater love and beauty. A relational God is not without power, but it is the power of love and relatedness, not coercion or violence. It is the power of shared vision rather than unilateral demand.

God’s power is present shaping each moment of experience, and some moments reflect God’s power in unique and transformative ways. God’s vision, like our own, can be embodied in more vital, lively, and transformative ways, as a result of the divine decision to be more present in some places than others and in some persons rather than others and in the corresponding creaturely or community response to God’s initiative and vision. Such revelatory moments truly embody the divine aim toward beauty and wholeness, whether in a Celtic “thin place,” a liturgical healing service, a Damascus road experience, or in the radical openness of Mary and the moment by moment transparency and revelation of Jesus of Nazareth, whom we call the Christ.

The power of love, divine power incarnate, trusts us enough to inspire and encourage our own use of power and creativity. In inviting to “greater things” (John 14:12), God expands God’s own creativity and power in the dynamic, transformative, and evolving divine call and human response. Like a good parent, God says “surprise me,” to creation, knowing that in the dance of call and response God has the visionary resources to respond creatively and lovingly to every creaturely act.

Bruce Epperly is a seminary professor and administrator at Lancaster Theological Seminary; pastor at Disciples United Community Church, Lancaster, PA; theologian and spiritual companion. He is the author of seventeen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living, a response to Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life. His Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry, written with Katherine Gould Epperly, was selected Book of the Year by the Academy of Parish Clergy. (http://www.bruceepperly.com/)