The Gospel of Luke: Rethinking Power - Audio

But he said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is David's son? For David himself says in the Book of Psalms: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’ David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?" And in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” Luke 20: 41-47 Throughout this section of the Book of Luke there are repeated attempts to trip Jesus up: to debate him and get him in trouble with the elite. Jesus repeatedly turns the tables on these attempts. This exchange is an example of that. In Jesus's Day, as in ours, the purpose of great power was often misunderstood, which led to a multitude of opportunities to abuse that power. In this passage, Jesus challenges the crowd with questions about understanding and abuse of power. In the verse that Jesus quotes, there are two individuals mentioned: "The Lord" (which translates Yahweh) and "My Lord" (which translates Adonai). The crowd would have agreed that the passage was referring to the messiah and the Son of David. Jesus here urges the crowd to follow the passage to a higher understanding of these concepts: David's referring to his Son, the Messiah, as "Lord" doesn't make sense unless he is more than simply the Messiah. This points toward Jesus's divine identity. It is Jesus whose enemies will be made his footstool. The crowd's constant debates with Jesus show their complete misunderstanding of who he is. After He makes this point, Jesus turns to a discussion of misunderstood power, issuing a warning about the scribes to His disciples. Note that, in Jesus's day, where most people were illiterate, the Scribes wielded enormous power--as the resident legal experts, they functioned as both lawyers and judges, with the general populace having essentially no ability to question what they decreed. Jesus's warning to his disciples, coupled with his earlier question about scripture, reveals that the scribes themselves are misunderstanding the proper use of their power. They do not even understand the text they've spent their whole lives copying and studying, but they are filled with so much pride that they lord over people and exploit the poor and vulnerable. When power is misunderstood, it becomes corrupted by pride and misused. Jesus's warning begs the question: What does true power, properly used, look like? It looks like Jesus's example: Sacrifice for the sake of others. We don't often thing of extending grace, mercy, and love as acts of power, but this is where God is magnified: by having one's worship terminate on God, rather than one's self. We, as followers of Jesus, must be aware of what we communicate with the ways in which we use our own power.