At the beginning of the week, when I first sit down with the Gospel reading for the coming Sunday, I am always looking for themes in the passage that are relevant for us today.

There are many possible themes in our Gospel reading from Luke for today that could be preached upon: temptation and evil being two popular focuses from this passage, but not ones that grabbed me this time around.

Instead, what caught my attention was what this passage has to say about power and what it says about how Jesus and by extension God uses power.

Now if you do a google search for power you will find all sorts of theories and definitions of power.

For example, an article from Psychology Today claims there are 5 types of power (I am sure you could come up with many more, but it is one model from which to operate):

1. Legitimate Power: power granted by rank, status or position.

2. Reward Power: The ability to grant various kinds of benefits to others such as hire, promote, and give raises. People comply with the person who holds this power because they want the benefits the holder can grant.

3. Coercive Power: The ability to punish. Others will comply out of fear of being punished.

4. Expert Power: This is power that comes from having specialized knowledge in a valued area. This is a power we give to our doctors when we are not feeling well.

5. Referent Power: A person with referent power gains their power through charisma, likeability, and attractiveness. People comply with those with referent power because they admire the holder of this power.

Power in these definitions is about the ability or capacity to influence or direct people and/or events.

If we have the ability to influence or direct others, then we have power.

If we don’t have this ability, then we don’t have power.

We all want the ability to influence and direct so we all want one of these forms of power.

Each of these kinds of power gives the holder a strength which they can wield to gain what they want.

And we often imagine God to be simply a more powerful version of ourselves.

We make God in the image of humans.

We imagine a God who is the ultimate holder of legitimate, expert, referent, coercive and expert power and behaves accordingly.

So, if we behave, we will be rewarded.

If we don’t behave, we will be punished.

And God will punish those who mistreat us.

God is all powerful and knows all things, so we come to God in prayer to have our questions answered and our needs met.

But this isn’t the kind of God we see revealed in Jesus in our Gospel reading for this morning or in the rest of the Gospels either.

Jesus is God incarnate.

Jesus is God become human.

So, while we can’t know all of God in Jesus, what we see in Jesus reveals God.

The devil in this passage approaches power from a human perspective.

The devil wants to exercise power over Jesus.

He wants to get Jesus on his team and off of God’s team.

He waits for a time to approach Jesus with his three tests when Jesus is at his most vulnerable, when he is exhausted and famished.

He first offers Jesus legitimate power.

The world translated as “if” in the NRSV translation we heard read this morning can also be translated “since.”

“Since, you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

In other words, “You know you are hungry, and as God’s Son, you know you have the ability to feed yourself.

You have legitimate power man.

Use it to take care of yourself.”

Jesus is being tempted by the devil to use his status, his position, for himself and apart from God.

But Jesus refuses.

Apparently, God does not use power in this way.

Apparently, this is not how power in the reign of God operates.

The power Jesus has as a result of his status as God’s Son is to be used for others and for the furthering of the reign of God.

In the second test, the devil uses reward power in offering Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if only Jesus will grant legitimate power to him, the devil, and not to God.

Jesus could gain all sorts of kinds of power with this offer, but the cost is too great for him.

Again, Jesus refuses the devil’s offer.

And finally, the devil tests Jesus by asking him to test the very nature of God.

“Since you are God’s Son, he will take care of you.

Jump off this pinnacle.

Let everyone see that you are God’s son.”

And Jesus again refuses.

Just imagine what kind of power Jesus could have wielded over his human followers had he taken the devil up on his suggestion.

His referent power, his charisma, would have shot through the roof.

Who wouldn’t want to follow someone who can leap from a tall building and live.

He would be Superman.

And think of all the good Jesus could have done if he had accepted the devil’s offers.

He could have fed the world with the stones turned to bread.

He could have led the nations humanely and justly.

Everyone would have listened to him, even the political and religious leaders, if he could fly.

But Jesus, God incarnate, the one who reveals to us the very nature of God, turns down all three of the devil’s offers of power.

He is not interested.

He does not want to possess power that will gain him anything, not food, not prestige, not power, even if that power could have been used to feed people or defeat the Roman emperor.

And by refusing to practice human power, Jesus made himself vulnerable to human power.

Jesus chooses weakness.

He refuses to define his ministry by the kind of power we humans tend to idolize.

And in so doing he shows us that God’s power has nothing to do with the way we humans think of power.

God’s power is lived out in vulnerability, weakness and mercy.

We want God to be all powerful.

We imagine that God is the Great Rewarder, Coercer, and Expert in the sky because it makes us feel safer and less vulnerable.

We believe that more power will keep us safe, so we seek to accrue more power for ourselves, and we imagine that we are on the team of an all-powerful God.

But what we discover in this passage and throughout the Gospel stories of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is that God’s power is in vulnerability.

God’s power is not coercive.

God’s power is nonviolent.

God’s power is the only power that has the ability to transform hate.

God’s power is love.

And as followers of Jesus, God incarnate, the One in whose image we are made (not the one made in our image), we are to exercise the same kind of power in our lives—the power of weakness and vulnerability, the power of love.

But we are not Jesus.

We won’t pass all the tests presented to us.

We will fail.

We will choose human power that seeks to meet our needs for prestige, security, status and material wealth more frequently than we will seek the vulnerable power of love, a power that always sides with the marginalized and oppressed.

And God will forgive us.

But those times when we are able to choose the power of vulnerability, weakness, and love, we will catch ourselves living for a moment in the reign of God, in the world that God dreams for us, a world in which peace reigns and everyone has what they need.

In a time when it often feels like human power is gaining the upper hand, I find myself mentally collecting stories I hear of people willingly choosing love and vulnerability over human power.

I find myself mentally collecting stories in which I can see the kingdom of God breaking in, even if it is just for a brief moment.

I want to hear stories of when regular human beings, and not just Jesus were able to exercise power through the vulnerability of love.

Perhaps you could stand to hear one of these stories yourself.

The story I want to share this morning is about President Lincoln.

When Lincoln was running for president the first time around, one of his most vocal opponents was a lawyer from Ohio named Edwin Stanton.

Stanton was an ardent democrat who had worked for President James Buchanan. Throughout Lincoln’s campaign, Stanton seized every chance he could to slander and insult Lincoln.

You would think that Lincoln would want nothing to do with him after that treatment, but this was not the case.

After the start of the Civil War, when Lincoln’s secretary of war proved incapable of performing the duties of the position, Lincoln replaced him with Edwin Stanton.

Many objected to Stanton’s abrasive personality and lack of loyalty to Lincoln.

Lincoln replied to them, “If you will find another Secretary of War like him, I will gladly appoint him.”

Lincoln believed that Stanton was the man for the job, and he was proven right.

Stanton whipped his department into shape and played a large part in the Union winning the war.

And Lincoln never wavered in his support of Stanton, even though Stanton continued to insult and challenge him.

On one occasion Stanton angrily called his boss behind his back the original gorilla. When told about this by someone who was furious that Lincoln would let one of his subordinates insult him, Lincoln replied, “Now, now, Stanton is entitled to his opinion.” Then, with a twinkle in his eyes, Lincoln went on to say, “What concerns me is that I have found that when Stanton says something, he is usually right,” and with that, Lincoln brought forth a delightful smile.

I wonder if the Civil War could have been won, and the evil institution of slavery ended in this country by someone who did not exercise his leadership with vulnerability, weakness, and love.

Lincoln knew that he was part of something bigger than himself, and that in the end this bigger aim was what really mattered.

He understood that hate could only be conquered with love.

And I see in this story a glimpse of the reign of God.

We are living in a time in this country when human power is being exercised in ways that are causing harm and suffering to a whole lot of people.

Even if you are not experiencing harm and suffering yourself, I can guarantee that someone you know is.

It is tempting to think that we need to fight fire with fire.

But when we meet coercion, violence, and hate, with more coercion, violence and hate, we simply continue the cycle of violence begun by others.

When we meet coercion, violence, and hate with love—not passivity, but active resistance through love—we stop the downward spiral and we, for a moment, participate in the kingdom of God.

We are not Jesus.

We are not even Abraham Lincoln.

But every day each and everyone of us is given opportunities to answer human power with the power of God, with the power of love.

And those times when we are able to do this, we will catch a glimpse of the kingdom of God and the world will be a little better because of our love.

I leave you with a quote from Martin Luther King jr. that I used last week, but I think we need to hear again and again:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

May the Holy Spirit give to us the power of Jesus to meet hate with the power of love. Amen.