Speaking Truth to Power

            This weekend (January 11th & 12th), I begin a new six-week sermon series on how Christian faith can help us become strong individuals.  Of course the word, “strong,” can have multiple meanings.  If you type it into Google Images, the search engine will return with various images of physically powerful people.  Physical power is one of the core meanings of “strong.”  When we use the word in this way, it describes a physical attribute or characteristic of a particular person.  Someone is strong; another person may be fast or agile or weak.

            In contrast, my sermon series will not focus on strength as a physical attribute.  Instead, I will focus on strength as a psychological, emotional, and spiritual quality.  In this sense, strength is that quality which empowers a person to persist in spite of set-backs, failures, accidents, hardships, difficult challenges, severe threats, and disappointments.  Strength is synonymous with courage, tenacity, persistence, and endurance.  Since strength in this sense is a very abstract term, the sermons in this series will focus on strong men from the Bible. 

            This weekend we will explore the strength of the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 12: 1-13.  In this passage, God sends Nathan to confront King David.  David has used his royal power to coerce a woman named Bathsheba into an illicit sexual affair.  When Bathsheba becomes pregnant, David again uses his royal power to indirectly kill her husband, Uriah, who is a soldier in the army of Israel.  At that time, Israel was at war with the Ammonites.  So, King David orders Joab, his General, to withdraw during the battle in a strategic way designed to expose Uriah to certain death.

            Even though he has been sent by God, Nathan is wary as he enters the palace to confront the King.  So, he begins by telling King David a parable, which induces David to condemn himself and his actions.  David’s self-condemnation provides the opening for Nathan to deliver God’s judgment concerning King David’s misuse of his political power to gratify his own sexual lusts.

            In the story of Nathan, we can gain a new perspective on the role of courage in becoming strong persons.  Because of his courage, Nathan was able to speak truth to power.  Each of us today must sometimes find the courage to speak the truth to power. 

There is an element of social justice in speaking truth to power.  Christ calls all of his disciples to help establish God’s Kingdom here on Earth, and certainly working for social justice is a major part of building up God’s Kingdom.  So, advocating for social justice is an integral component of being a true follower of Christ.  In my message this weekend, I will focus on human trafficking as an example of a critical social justice issue that contemporary American Christians must address.

Yet, there are other aspects of speaking truth to power.  Each of us must sometimes confront the powers in our lives and the lives of our loved ones.  For instance, we may need to confront a doctor or a supervisor or someone else with power.  Sometimes, the power that we must confront is not another person, but rather a system or an addiction/dependency in our lives.  Alternatively, we may be the person with the power, who is confronted by someone else.  Using the story of Nathan and David, I will explore how God expects us to faithfully speak truth to the powers in our lives—or, how to respond when we are the person who has power and is confronted by someone speaking the truth to us.

 

I encourage you to attend our weekend services at Meriden UMC, in order to see how I develop these elements of Christian courage for speaking the truth to power.  Our church is located at the corner of Main and Dawson Streets in Meriden, Kansas.  We have two worship services each weekend:

Ø  Our contemporary service starts at 6 pm on Saturday evenings.

Ø  Our classic service starts on at 10 am on Sunday mornings.

Everyone is welcome and accepted because God loves us all.