Psalm 2

¹ Why do the nations conspire,
    and the peoples plot in vain?

² The kings of the earth set themselves,
    and the rulers take counsel together,
    against the Lord and his anointed, saying,

³ “Let us burst their bonds asunder,
    and cast their cords from us.”

⁴ He who sits in the heavens laughs;
    the Lord has them in derision.

⁵ Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
    and terrify them in his fury, saying,

⁶ “I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.”

⁷ I will tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said to me, “You are my son;
    today I have begotten you.

⁸ Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
    and the ends of the earth your possession.

⁹ You shall break them with a rod of iron,
    and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

¹⁰ Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
    be warned, O rulers of the earth.

¹¹ Serve the Lord with fear,
    with trembling 

¹² kiss his feet,
or he will be angry, and you will perish in the way;
    for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Happy are all who take refuge in the Lord.  Amen.

Power.

Who has the power?  Who is in control?
Who decides what happens, and how it happens?
Who hold the most sway over the most people?

The question of power is one that dominates so much of our world.
This is the question that sends people into the streets in
            Ukraine,
            in Venezuela,
            in Egypt and Syria and Libya
            in Raleigh.

This is the question we seem to constantly be asking ourselves,
            whether we acknowledge it out or not.
So many of our relationships revolve around who has the most power.

Scholars believe that this text was probably read during the coronation of a new king.
  During the ceremony, a priest read these words.

While this would have been the function of the text,
       the message addresses something much more broad.
            The psalm is concerned throughout with the 

             relation between the kingdom of the Lord

              and kingdoms of this world.

Turmoil in the region

As a new king ascended to the throne in Israel, there was turmoil.
At times of transition in government, it seems the region was vulnerable to
   rebellion, upheaval, or attack by a foreign power, like Babylon or Persia.
      There was an immediate threat to the power of the new king.

This was the effect that power had on people.
    When the opportunity for a power-grab presented itself,
      there was scramble to take over, to gain personal power.
This is not just a temporary effect,
     this is a downfall which people throughout the generations have succumbed to.

One of the things that makes us human is our sinful nature.
     when given the chance to act for ourselves
     to further ourselves at the expense of others,
         our impulse is often to take that chance,
            our culture seems to have trained us to take care of number one.

Stanford prison experiment

In 1971, researchers at Stanford University became interested in learning more about the relationship between guards of prisons and the prisoners held there.

A professor named Phillip Zimbardo led a study.
He placed student volunteers for the study in a mock prison ward.
       The researchers randomly divided the students up into a group of guards
         and a group of prisoners.
       The plan was to place these students in the test environment for two weeks
          to study the effects of this imposed prison.

The researchers went into the experiment with a hypothesis.
   they believed that abuse of prisoners by guards was the result of the personality traits
     of the guards themselves
          the personality traits of the kind of person that would pursue such a career.

Before the experiment, Zimbardo instructed the volunteers assigned to be guard

     to not physically harm the prisoners, but to instill in them a sense of fear and boredom,

          to make them feel like their life is controlled by the system.
  through a process of arbitrary control, the guards were encouraged
      to remove the individuality of the prisoners.

      In other words, the guards were encouraged to demonstrate their total power
over the prisoners.

The two week experiment began fairly smoothly.
The prisoners were arrested from their homes on mock charges
            by actual police officers.
they were taken to a mock prison, were given identification numbers
            and were placed in cells.

The guards were told to call all of the prisoners by an assigned number only,to avoid eye contact with the prisoners,
            and to reward and punish them as they saw fit.

The first day went fine, but by the second day, the prisoners began rebelling.
They refused to obey the demands of the guards,
 and the guards punished them severely by taking away their beds,
 placing them in isolation closets,
 and by making them do punishment exercises.

The experiment quickly went downhill.
One of the prisoners had to be let go after the first few days
because of the psychological impact.
The guards became increasingly severe and increasingly controlling.
They went well beyond the bounds of what the researchers imagined.

Even the head professor, Zimbardo, lost perspective acting as the superintendent for the prison.
When a colleague of his came in to interview the participants, she demanded that he stop the experiment because of the extreme strain
            that she witnessed.

Six days into the two week time line, Zimbardo cancelled the experiment.
Some of the guards began to exhibit “genuine sadistic tendencies”
during the course of performing their role.
     The prisoners underwent extremes of hunger and stress.

This is just a demonstration of the role which power can play in our lives.
The students assigned to the role of guard were not assigned to that role
because of any particular character trait.

         not because they were particularly mean, or particularly controlling, or particularly sadistic.

The assignments were random.
         Yet the guards were quick to see themselves as dominate.
         They were quick to demonstrate their power over others,
            to take advantage of that power.
         They were quick to forget that it was total chance that gave them that power,
         they could just as easily have been assigned to be a prisoner.

Sinners
This is what we as sinful people are capable of doing
when power is on the table.
           

Think about relationships maintained through abuse based upon one person having power over each other.

Think about the wars that have raged through the ages, when power was at stake.
Think even about the way we converse with each other, vying for our chance to control the conversation.

Displays and competitions of power are all around us.

House of Cards

Netflix is a dangerous thing, because it is so awesome.
Claire and I have begun watching a Netflix TV show recently called House of Cards.

            It is a political drama, and I warn you, it is not for the faint of heart.
The main character is a Congressman from South Carolina named Francis Underwood.
Frank is one of those characters like Jay Gatsby in the Great Gatsby, Don Draper in Mad Men, or Walter White in Breaking Bad.
    You watch this character and know that you should not like him or her,
        but you just can’t help but rooting for them. You can’t help
             but want to see them succeed.

Frank spends the majority of the TV show manipulating those around him,
    from journalists, to other congressmen and women,
        to the President of the United States.
And the viewer picks up very quickly that power is Frank’s currency.
      He never does anything without calculating the costs and benefits
          to his personal power and the control he has over those around him.
            And people are drawn to him.

The Lord laughs

According to Psalm 2,
When a new king ascends to the throne of Israel,
            and faces an external challenge to his power,
            God has a surprising response: God laughs.

The New International Version of Scripture reads,
            “The One enthroned in heaven laughs.”
I love this translation in particular because it puts into perfect juxtaposition
            these two competing powers.
            The earthly rulers seek to undermine the king of Israel,
           but the king of Israel needs not fear,
              because they are actually challenging the power of the one who rules all things.

The king of Israel does not find his power rooted in himself,

 or in his own abilities,
      He finds his power rooted in the God:
      You are my son, God says, you are my begotten – you find your power in me.

Demonstrations of God’s power

And if they doubt the power of God, they need only look at God and the history of God’s people.
            Creator of the entire cosmos,
            flooder of the whole world,
            savior of a chosen people,

Who were brought out of a land of slavery, through the parted waters,
            fed in the wilderness for 40 years,
            brought to a new land, made into a great people,
                        who constructed a great city,
            and ruled over the whole region.
God’s actions indicate the one who has the ultimate power.

This truth helps us understand

that our sense of power is an illusion.

But this is not something to be mourned, it actually comes as a relief.
            because the power is really held by God.
                        and faith is when we recognize this truth and act accordingly.

This is why Psalm 2 tells us to serve the Lord.
            to live as a child of God is to recognize God’s power in all things
                        and to serve God in all we do.

Happy are those who take refuge in the Lord…that is because
God’s power is able to overcome our weakness,
God’s power is able to overcome our frailty,
God’s power is able to work through us,
                        to do incredible things
            if we are only willing to place our trust in the Lord.

Lent

As we begin the season of Lent this week,
            we begin an entire season of recognizing that power is the Lord’s.
On Ash Wednesday we place ashes on our foreheads and hear these word:
 Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.
       In other words, we are temporary, but God is forever.
       Our power is limited, but God’s power is all encompassing
         

We will travel on a journey during Lent in which we will be reminded of God’s presence
     A journey in which we will be reminded of God’s power.

But it is in this season that things get a little weird.
because during this journey
       the world will try to overpower God
           and it will kill the Son, the beloved, and it will bury him in a tomb.

Conventional thought would say this is the end of God’s power.
            With Christ dead, the rulers of the world have won,
            We have seen who holds the true power.

But God reveals that true power, real power, God’s power
   does not rest in that which is strong
                but in that which is weak.
   true power does not rest with the one who gains personal glory
                 true power rests with the one who is humble

    true power does not rest in that which destroys and kills,

       but in that which suffers death

           and rises to overcome it.

This journey will end when the powers of the world:
            the power of sin,
            the power of destruction
            the power of death…
Will be completely overpowered when Christ rolls aside the stone,
            walks out of the tomb,
            and calls us to take refuge in him.  Amen.

Ash Wednesday Reflection

Like many other churches throughout Christendom, my church held Ash Wednesday services yesterday to mark the beginning of the season of Lent.  I love all of the opportunities that we have to join together as a community in worship, but there are a few worship services throughout the liturgical year that speak to me on another level.  It says a fair bit about me, I guess, that these are the more solemn, somber worship services: Christmas Eve at midnight, services of healing and wholeness, the Good Friday Tenebrae service, and the Ash Wednesday service.

Part of the reason I love these services so much is because they give me an opportunity to stop and reflect on some of the more startling truths of Christian faith.  They give me an opportunity to think about what it truly means to commit ourselves to God, to try to live for those around us, to follow the path to which Christ calls us.  Moments in my worshiping life when I am challenged to truly reflect on these things are some of my most memorable.

We have two Ash Wednesday services: one at noon and one at 6:30 pm.  We do an imposition of the ashes at each service.  For those of you who may not be familiar with the practice, it is when Christians rub ashes on their foreheads in the shape of a cross.  We do this using the words, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."  During the first service, I participated in this ritual, which I enjoy playing a part in.  But something felt different when I was rubbing ashes on the foreheads during the 6:30 service.

For the first time, as I placed the ashes and said the words, I actually looked into the eyes of each individual, and something dawned on me.  I realized that I was standing there telling each of these people, "You are going to die."  That is essentially what we are saying with this ritual.  "Remember that you are created by God from the dust, from the carbon of this world, and one day you will die, your body will decay, and you will return to the dust."

It became a moving moment for me because I also realized that the meaning behind my words was, "You are going to die, and I am going to love every step of this journey.  Your death is not going to separate you from God's love, and it's not going to separate you from my love either."  It almost brought me to tears in the middle of the worship service to have such a raw, intimate encounter with each person in which our eminent deaths was the focus of the exchange.  I loved it.


On another note, my mother shared this TS Eliot poem with me yesterday.  The poem is called Ash Wednesday.  I think the language is about the Word is fantastic.  (Don't be too) Happy Lent!

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.