It was Sunday morning, and I was rushing around to finish getting ready for church. My wife had already gone ahead to help with the worship team. I was wrapping things up at home, trying to gather up our two preschool boys and get them into the car. Evan, our four-year-old, had a toy in his hands and was trying to ask me a question.
“Put the toy away and come on, Evan,” I said.
“Daddy, I want to take my puppy with me.”
“No, son let’s go.” I kept gathering up my Bible and notes for the sermon that morning.
“Please Daddy.” I mumbled something in return and kept getting stuff together. Finally, when I was about to go, I ignored what he was saying and grabbed the stuffed animal from his hands and tossed it aside: “Let’s go.”
That’s when it hit me. The look on my son’s face was embarrassing. He was confused and a little hurt. He did not understand why I had acted that way.
In that moment I had given in to temptation. I was big; he was little. I wanted something; he wanted something else. I could take it from him; he could not stop me. I had the power; he did not.
I used my power at that moment to impose my will on him regardless of his personality and will. Of course, had the occasion been something that threatened his life, I would not have thought twice. But it wasn’t. I was merely inconvenienced and thus forced my way. In that moment, I depersonalized him and the look on his face told it all.
***
As spiritual leaders, we are, whether we realize it or not, accorded tremendous amounts of power. Scripture enjoins believers obey leadership (e.g., Hebrews 13.17). In addition, many people give such heed to the words of spiritual leaders (for good or ill) that they live in fear of their disapproval. As if that wasn’t enough, we tend to spend a lot of time making sure that our churches know they should follow and honor us.
Though certainly a question worth examination, my focus here is not on the amount of power we have. My focus is on what we do with it. Nearly every day we are tempted as leaders to ignore the personhood of the people we lead and focus on our own desires and use power to gain those desires. We are constantly tempted to impose our will for the sake of speed or convenience and bring our will to pass. I suggest that when we yield to that temptation we no longer use power rightly. Instead, we have become no better than the nihilist who believes that the only purpose for existence is to “will to power.” Certainly this flies in the face of the One who took on weakness to destroy evil.
So what is power for? I propose it is for love. Indeed, I would even say that love is the power we wield. When we love, we will and act in the best interest of the object of that love. In the case of my son, acting in love would mean I would have stopped, listened, and respected his personhood. Of course, in the end it would have been unreasonable for him to take that particular toy to church. However, I could have accomplished the same end in a way that humbled myself and respected his personal dignity.
The same goes for the way we treat those that we lead in the church. Certainly we become frustrated at times. Nevertheless, we are still called upon to act in love. We are pressed by the Spirit to lay aside the power of imposed will – such is what the world uses – and take up the self-denying and self-giving love of the cross.
In the short term, such ways seem inefficient and fruitless. No doubt it appeared that way to the followers of Jesus when they saw him go to the cross. But in the end, I think, as we see in the death and resurrection of Jesus, that there is no power greater than love.
So how do we use our power? To what end do we wield it? What is the power that we use?
