Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. How long will you assault me? Would all of you throw me down - this leaning wall, this tottering fence? Surely they intend to topple me from my lofty place; they take delight in lies. With their mouths they bless, but in their hearts they curse. Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. ... One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard: “Power belongs to you, God, and with you, Lord, is unfailing love”; and, “You reward everyone according to what they have done.”
(Psalm 62:5-8 & 11-12)
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Some things just go together. Think about what the old song says - love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage. We know that. Perhaps not surprisingly I think of food combinations! Spaghetti and meatballs. Bacon and eggs. Fish and chips. And, while I’m not much for alcohol, and we very rarely have alcohol in the house, I have to confess that when I attend a wedding reception I tend to select as my choice of a celebratory beverage a rum and coke. There’s another perfect combination. And, from time to time, I do find myself at some sort of event that serves wine and cheese! There are all sorts of these perfect combinations - combinations literally so perfect that you really can’t think of one without the other. They just go together. One leads us to the other, and one without the other seems incomplete. But the Bible doesn’t always follow that rule. Sometimes the Bible holds together things that don’t seem to go together all that well. Jesus, for example, is both lamb and shepherd. Those two concepts don’t complement each other - they’re contradictory. It’s impossible to be both, and yet Jesus is both. Jesus is also fully human and fully divine in nature. That's a tough concept to wrap our heads around. It’s a part of the wonder and the mystery of our faith. As I hear these selected verses from Psalm 62 that were read just a few moments ago, I’m struck by this: “... Power belongs to you, God, and with you, Lord, is unfailing love …”
Those are qualities that we don’t very often link together: power and love. They seem somehow not only inconsistent but even opposed to each other. In the context of relationships, power is cold and often heartless. It’s about control and it focuses on one person establishing and exercising authority over another person. Sometimes, for example, we talk about governments being elected, emphasizing the will of the people, but just as often (and maybe more often) we speak of governments "coming to power" - emphasizing their newfound ability to do whatever they darn well choose to do. Love, on the other hand, is emotional and it’s about romance and it focuses on two people who are partners walking hand in hand through life, co-operating as partners rather than competing as rivals. Or, at least, those are probably the images that come to mind when we think about power and love. Let's think a bit more for a moment about the way the two are usually perceived.
In day to day terms, power is generally seen in terms of coercion. We exercise power in order to get people to do what we want. We exercise power in order to get our way. We exercise power in order to further our own agenda. Power, unfortunately, is usually about us and what we want. In extreme cases, power isn't only coercive - it becomes downright abusive and oppressive. The thoughts and feelings and well-being of others become at best secondary concerns and at worst of no concern. It was Lord Acton, the 19th century British historian, who said that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." People usually leave out the next sentence of the quote, but I think it's worth adding. Acton continued, "Great men are almost always bad men." When the focus is on power, good rarely triumphs.
And what about love? How does the world divine love? In worldly terms, love is an emotion - an emotional response to someone or an emotional attachment with someone. Love is equated with passion. In a lot of entertainment media love is equated with sex. Sometimes, too often, love is cheapened so we talk about loving not people but things - which is actually a pretty good fit with a materialistic world which often determines a person's value not by their qualities or ethical standards, but by how much "stuff" they have. And when love is based on this kind of understanding, then love is fleeting, lasting only until something or someone we deem "better" comes along, or only as long as it's returned.
Tempering power with love seems to be a bad fit. Power is about raw strength. Love isn't weakness, but it does seem like something that would detract from sheer power. But it doesn't have to be so. Power and love don't have to be so different; so contradictory. Power and love can co-exist. In fact, they do co-exist - with God.
"Power belongs to you, God, and with you, Lord, is unfailing love." What if power wasn't coercive or abusive? What if power didn't focus on getting my way? What if power was manifested instead in compassion and gentleness? What if power was focused instead on the well-being of the other. So it is with God! And love? What if love wasn't seen as just an emotion? What if it wasn't equated with passion and sex? What if love, rather than an emotion, was an action - reaching out always and extending kindness and compassion? What if love, rather than being a passionate response to someone that seeks a passionate response in return or else it's taken away, became something that was simply poured out, with no expectation of anything in return. What if we just loved others because we love? So it is with God!
In the world, power and love aren't usually a good fit. In God, they're a perfect combination. So should it be with God's people: may we be powerful enough to love without expecting any return, and loving enough to change the world - just as it is with God!
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