Good Power and Bad Power

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B (23 September 2018)

Wisdom 2:12, 17-20

James 3:16—4:3

Mark 9:30-37

"Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

Don Bosco, a priest in Turin in the 19th century, took his inspiration for life from today's gospel picture of how Jesus welcomed and caressed the little child. He took to himself the waifs of the street who had no homes, the children of the night already caught up in the cycle of crime, and the uneducated boys who had no prospects. On one occasion, when his work took him to Paris, he sought a night’s lodging of a local priest. His boots were dirty and his cassock travel-dusty so all he was given was a mattress on the floor in the garret between the accumulated boxes, cobwebs and dusty cases. His host of the night lived to see the day when Don Bosco was canonized. "If I had known that I had a saint in my house for a night," he admitted, "I would not have given him such a poor welcome." But, even then, he was still missing the point of the gospel. The way of the world is to honour a VIP. But the way of the gospel is to welcome a Very Unimportant Person.

According to Jesus, the child is the model of greatness. If one wants to be truly great, then s/he has to be like a child. In other words, a person is powerful only inasmuch as s/he is able to be powerless. True greatness, Jesus says, does not come from having power and influence over people but consists in humble service.

The disciples never cease to amaze us. In today's gospel, at the very moment when Jesus is telling them about his coming passion and death, they are not even listening. They are so immersed in a quarrel, squabbling over who is the greatest among them, that what he says does not even register with them.

Jesus uses this occasion to put them right and to point out to them what constitutes true greatness in God’s eyes. He tells his ambitious disciples that everyone is important and that greatness comes from being available to all people even down to little children. Children wear no masks and are uncontaminated by the selfish ways of the world, where we can concretely see the use and abuse of power.

Power is one topic that we dread to talk about. Watch the news any day, work on a committee, observe a marriage, and you will see that this issue of power has not been well-addressed for most people. The abuse of power is more rampant that we may even imagine. Perhaps it starts with you. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

However, we need to distinguish between good power and bad power. Good power or growth hierarchies are needed to protect children, the poor, the entire animal world and all those without power. Domination hierarchies or bad power is used merely to protect, maintain and promote oneself. Hierarchy is not inherently bad, nor is power. It is just very dangerous for yourself and others, if you have not done your interior work.

There are many who reject all hierarchies, and there are some others who presume all hierarchies to be the very voice of God. Avoid extremes. We need good power, we need healthy hierarchies to run this world.

We need both power and love; that is good power. Power apart from love leads to brutality; but love that does not engage with power is mere sentimentality. A lot of Christians today are still trapped in one or the other. Now where are we? How do we exercise our power in our families and in our communities?