If Power Is Complex, What Is Yours For?

We are starting a new series, Lessons in Leadership.

And we're going to learn a little bit about what Jesus would teach us about power today.

Power.

So hearing the passage, probably uh many of you are quite familiar with this passage.

It's something that uh we deal with in the church fairly often.

Jesus asking Peter, who do you say that I am?

And we ask ourselves that very question, who do we say that Jesus is?

And maybe even more importantly, do our actions back up who we say that Jesus is?

But today we're going to focus on the back half of that passage instead of the first half, especially that part about Peter getting the keys to the kingdom.

The keys to the kingdom.

Do you remember the first time you were given the keys to the family car?

Got to take that first drive?

How did it go?

Yeah, it was fun.

Yeah, you even get stuck somewhere, break it down or anything like that.

You remember when uh in in in uh in the work world where you finally got that that project that you were hoping to get and you finally got something you could sink your teeth into and it was all yours, you were in charge.

Remember that feeling of responsibility, your own your own baby to run?

Or or maybe having kids.

Those moments when you have children, and all of a sudden it's the keys to at least this life that you need to raise and to grow, and the responsibility that came with that.

So if you think about that amount of responsibility, I invite you now to think about the keys to the kingdom and what responsibility might be involved there.

Is anybody intimidated?

You probably ought to be.

I don't know.

Me and Mark are, and I think Boyd, I think, as well.

You know, intimidating, you know, that that's that that's power, right?

Should I want that power?

Right?

Would I even really want to be in that position?

I mean, what would that even look like?

I I think I have a picture here of what it might look like for Peter.

Did that get up there?

Yeah, there, see?

Are you ready for that?

You know, standing at the gates, keeping track of everybody, not just whether they belong or not, but why they belong or not.

Right?

Anyway, I'm having a little bit of fun.

It's in Exodus that we get a story that really talks about power and the different dynamics of power.

And in particular, a story that's paired with this passage is one that's used here.

That story talks to us about power.

And it's the story of Moses being born.

Some of us will remember we went through Exodus last Lent, and so you might remember especially the story of Moses getting born.

Just a quick summary again of that story.

We uh left Genesis with Joseph in a pretty high-level spot.

The Jews were given a neat place within the kingdom, but as Joseph died and life evolved, the Jews' role got kind of smaller and smaller, more indentured, more enslaved.

And over time, Pharaoh, who was running the world at the time, started to get nervous about the Jews because they were the workers.

And because they were working all the time, they were strong, they were hardy, they lived longer, they got sick less.

And this made Pharaoh a little bit nervous.

So he does these orders to say all of the male babies are to be put in the river, basically killed, right?

This is the order from Pharaoh.

And if you remember the story, that order gets subverted by a couple of Hebrew midwives, Shifra and Pua.

I found a fun picture of them too, of some artwork that kind of get you into the story.

It is the story of Hebrew women grabbing on to some power of their own, basically letting the the Hebrew males survive.

And when Pharaoh got upset, they just said, Well, the Hebrew women, they're just so vigorous.

They have them before we can get there, is their story.

But amidst this, Moses is born, Moses of all the Old Testament fame.

Uh, the story is that his mother hides him for three months so that he doesn't get killed.

But then they his mother finally puts him in a basket on the river as she was supposed to do.

He gets found by Pharaoh's daughter.

Pharaoh's daughter decides that this is a Hebrew male that she would like to uh support and raise, and so she decides to pull him out.

And then Miriam, Moses' sister, sees this happen and says, Hey, Pharaoh's daughter, I know somebody who could take care of that Hebrew baby for you.

And the Pharaoh's daughter said, Great.

And so Miriam brought Moses' mom in to raise Moses.

So there's the story of Moses' birth.

I hopefully you remember some of that as we went through it again last link.

Uh, but let me break it up a little bit because the power dynamics are really interesting in this one.

I mean, you start with Pharaoh, right?

The ultimate power, Pharaoh.

He's the king of everything.

He's got so much power he can say, go kill all the Hebrew males.

But the Jews have some power too, do they not?

It's an ironic power, it's a subversive power, but it's this health that they have from being the working class, this strength, right?

You know, if we don't think of it as power, consider that Pharaoh was nervous about them, nervous enough to have the males killed.

And Shifra and Pua, they've got some power too, right?

They're the ones that are there, supposedly making sure that this order gets carried out, but they being people of faith, decide not to do that, not to have these males killed.

Again, a subversive power.

Then Pharaoh's daughter, she's got some power too, right?

She's the one who can pull a Hebrew male out of the river where he was supposed Moses was supposed to be sent to die, and she can pull that male out and be okay with it to almost defy her own father's orders.

That's a certain power, too.

And then Miriam, Moses' sister, she's got some power.

Her power is in this information that she knows.

She knows whose baby that is.

She knows that she can reconnect that baby with Moses' mom.

So that power that comes from a certain amount of information.

You know, you finish the story, and hopefully you're realizing, like I do, power it's complex.

It's not simple.

Power isn't just one thing.

Power comes in all different shapes and forms and moves in all kinds of different directions.

We should remember there is one more ultimate power that is involved in this story.

We as people of faith would hold to this power, the godly power, the pres the power of God's presence throughout the whole story.

God's being there and he's infiltrating all that's going on, he's integrating with all that is happening.

And if we look at the story, we can see kind of what values God is trying to support, trying to bring to the surface.

We can hopefully agree that God is working towards a certain justice, that these males can't just be killed, that that isn't appropriate.

I'd like to think that God is in the support that people get for the faith and the trust that they have in God, mostly in Shifra and Puah.

Right?

That God is working through to affirm that faith that those midwives have, to affirm that they're doing the right thing, even when they go against the Pharaoh's orders.

I think God's power, God's presence is there in the sense of a love for humanity.

That God steps in when something inhumane is happening and works with those who are trying to undermine that and end that.

And then finally, I think there is a saving power that God is expressing here.

God isn't just hanging around there, but God is actually saving people, saving Moses, hopefully saving others as we know the rest of the story.

So God's presence, God's power, hopefully is really, really evident in that whole story.

And in that spirit, I'll invite you to remember what Jesus asks Peter.

Who do you say that I am?

Another way to say it would be like, What what power do you see that I have to Peter?

And Peter answers with the exact right answer, evidently.

You are the Messiah.

The Son of the Living God.

You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

This gets him the keys to the kingdom.

Now we think because we're human beings and our brains work this way, we think, oh, Jesus is rewarding Peter.

He's rewarding Peter because that he has figured it out.

He got the right answer, and because he figured it out, he's going to get these keys.

But what if what if he's not getting the keys because of his belief?

But his belief and his understanding are the key.

Jesus really is just acknowledging that Peter has figured out the key to the kingdom.

That it has to do with understanding that Jesus is the Messiah, that there's a saving experience that's happening here.

And he's acknowledging that Peter's figured out that Jesus has this connection to the divine, this connection to God, and that understanding is the key itself.

The core of his belief is the rock, the understanding and faith that is going to build the church, or what the church is going to be built on.

It's that understanding, it's that faith.

We read the story and we think, oh, power was bestowed on Peter.

But I wonder if more accurately it was acknowledged that it was in Peter, that he had opened himself to it.

And the question then becomes for us, is the same true for us?

Might we also get the keys to the kingdom when we figure out that faith, that understanding?

Our power might be coming from knowing Jesus' connection to God and how we are able to tap into it.

Our power is in understanding how that belief is a life-saving belief.

We have communion this morning.

Communion which allows us some time for reflection.

And here's what I'm going to invite you to be reflecting on.

As you are hearing the words, the liturgy, let your mind go to this question.

What does the word Messiah mean to you?

Messiah, often translated as Savior.

How is Jesus saving you?

What is your particular understanding of how that happens?

What is Jesus doing to shape you and to shape your life in a way that is life giving and life saving?

As my invitation to you, an invitation that comes from Scripture.