Weakness and power
Is 58:7-10; Ps 112:4-5, 6-7, 8-9; 1 Cor 2:1-5; Mt 5:13-16
Most alumni of high school chemistry class will recall learning that ordinary table salt is a compound of sodium and chlorine, NaCl. Considered separately, however, the individual components (sodium atoms and chlorine gas) are highly toxic and ought never to be consumed.
It’s an amazing property of nature that two elements that are both lethal to humans could combine to produce one of history’s most common seasonings and preservatives.
While Jesus may not have intended to instruct about sodium or chlorine atoms, I’d like to suggest that this little chemistry lesson is relevant to his calling the disciples the “salt of the earth” in today’s Gospel.
Jesus himself embodies a combination of two traits which, taken separately, could be destructive of growth in the spiritual life. Yet, when combined properly they lie at the heart of his transformative mission.
I am referring to the duality of weakness and power. Too much stress on weakness, perhaps in the interest of emphasizing humility, can lead to moral cowardice and a fear of opposing injustice. Conversely, too much stress on power, perhaps out of the desire to combat injustice, can inflate narcissistic tendencies and yield intolerance.
In reading through the Gospels, we see how Jesus consistently embodies weakness and power in a way that the culture around him can rarely fathom. For example, his nonviolent response (which some might interpret as weakness) to the townspeople of Nazareth when they violently accosted him and threatened to throw him off a cliff (Lk 4:28-30) illustrates his personal power as he is able to pass through the crowd unscathed. Similarly, his refusal to match the military force of the Roman soldiers with equal force (e.g., Lk 22:49-53) provides the very foundation for his ultimate triumph over the seemingly irresistible power of death.
Furthermore, throughout his public ministry he preached the power of loving one’s enemy (Mt 5:43-44), turning the other cheek (Mt 5:38-40) and forgiving transgressions with an almost profligate abundance (Mt 18:21-22). Any of these prescriptions could have been interpreted as signs of debilitating weakness that would only lead to defeat at the hands of one’s enemies.
It did not take long, in the wake of the resurrection and under the animating power of the Holy Spirit, for Jesus’ disciples to appreciate this strange dynamic of power via a path that the world often interpreted as weakness.
Perhaps no one grasped this more clearly than Paul. We find him expressing it in our second reading today from his letter to the church in Corinth: “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling … so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God” (1 Cor 2:2-5).
It should come as no surprise that Paul would fully understand the apparent paradox that “when I am weak then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). After all, he was rendered completely helpless after his first encounter with the risen Christ (Acts 9:1-9), and only then was he of a mindset to embrace the heart of Jesus’ mission.
All his prior power as a Pharisee and persecutor of Jesus’ disciples was transformed through this helplessness into the apostolic zeal of a missionary to the gentiles. Paul would learn to hold both his weakness and his power in a creative tension, because they were now singularly united within Christ’s own heart.
One of the sublime joys of Christianity is that Paul’s fruitful paradox can be ours as well. What are your weaknesses and what are your powers? Rather than shunning or suppressing our weaknesses, we can instead ponder how they might actually provide an entryway for transforming grace.
To acknowledge weakness is to admit our vulnerability and our dependence upon the help of another. To act upon that vulnerability is to be open to receiving help and not acting out of whatever power sources we control in order to mask our needs and feign total independence.
Such behavior is Christlike and ultimately has a power all its own — a power grounded in the love of God and which has the capacity to transform hearts and minds.