From William C. Placher’s “Narratives of a Vulnerable God”
The assumption that God means, first of all, power runs throughout much of history, and it carries a great deal of accompanying baggage. God can do anything to anyone, but no one can cause pain to God – such an account of omnipotence often seems central to the very definition of deity. God is perfect, and, if we want to be perfect, it follows that we ought to try to be a powerful as possible. The Christian gospel, however, proclaims the God self-revealed in Jesus Christ, and that God is very different – a God, in Leonardo Boff’s phrase, “weak in power but strong in love,” a God willing to be vulnerable to pain in the freedom of love.
The upside-down nature of the Good News comes out dramatically in the phrase “weak in power but strong in love.” God’s Reign is outside the picture. We can look all around at how the world is run and even how the Church is run and we will see honor, status, and prestige given to those who are able to grasp the power of the moment. And yet, those who turn and walk to the cross in order that God’s love might be incarnate among us will find the road rocky and long in our everyday world. Such a love as this – this cross love…this vulnerable love – is the leading edge into a whole new orientation to all that transpires around us. God leads us into a profound and yet simple love that knows no other way to walk within this day. People who like to hold God wars…matching my God against your God to see which God will win it all, miss the story that we continue to call Good News.
Connection: Weak in power but strong in love – something to jot on a piece of paper and recycle it in our minds.
Lord of Life, you make yourself know in the common and ordinary aspects of our day because that is where we are. You are the God who stands with us, walks with us, suffers for us and with us, and takes a hit for us for that we might come to see with our heart’s eye the profound nature of your love – a love that brings a new creation to light in every day. Praise be to you. Amen.
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