Truth and Power: A Love Story

a reflection on Luke 6

by Don Phan-Huy

WARNING: this post contains profanity, convoluted run-on sentences, and is a little too long for a blog post. Reader discretion is advised.

To be honest, I was reluctant to sign up for this because reading the Bible can be tricky and I saw myself running into one of two possible complications. I thought I might either: (1) come across a passage and have no idea what it was saying; or (2) come across a passage that is so well-known, so defining, that much smarter people have said much more interesting things about it than I ever could. Well it was just my luck to encounter both scenarios this week, but as we say when I drop my pick or Jojo breaks another a string, “the show must go on!”_{(We don’t actually say that.)}

There were two passages that really stood out to me last week. The first is one that I have always been fond of but have a newfound appreciation for. As the story goes, Jesus was teaching at the synagogue on the Sabbath. While he was teaching, some Pharisees were carefully monitoring him from afar (cue Every Breath You Takeby the Police) to see if he would heal anyone, or otherwise work, on the holy day of rest. They were desperate to find another reason to accuse him of blasphemy, heresy, social justice activism, etc. Jesus was aware of their intentions, so he called up a man with a withered hand, said something baddass, and healed him in front of the whole crowd. Needless to say, this pissed off the pharisees.

This passage resonated with me when I was a new Christian because I grew up believing that everything in life has its limits. And while I still believe that most things indeed have (and probably need) limits, this passage helped me realize that Love does not. The all-encompassing, self-giving love of God is not confined by what our cultures have deemed worthy or lovable. God’s love overcomes the conventions of man so that all may experience his restorative power. 

After reading this passage more recently, however, I discovered an aspect to the story that made me laugh because I think it’s hilarious. Basically: while knowing full well what the pharisees wanted, Jesus looked them dead in the eyes and, in the most Jesus way possible, flipped them the bird. I’m not entirely sure why seeing this part of Jesus made me so happy. Perhaps it’s fun to imagine the Son of God being such a punk. But maybe there is something deeper at play here. Maybe it’s not justthat Jesus was a punk but that what he did was profoundly moving. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Jesus, as he so often did, stood up to those in power to care for the sick and marginalized, even when it put him at risk.

As mentioned by my co-contributors to this blog, there seems to be a recurring theme throughout the Gospel of Luke that revolves around how God raises up the lowly and brings low the powerful. I think that’s a fair interpretation for the withered-hand-man story but Luke does something very interesting with this theme in the second passage that caught my attention. Week 5’s reading ends with the blessings and woes spoken by Jesus in the Sermon on the Plain. The structure is similar to the Beatitudes in Matthew’s Gospel. The first half consists of blessings that Jesus speaks upon people who struggle – blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, etc. But the second half is a little different.

The second half of the Luke Beatitudes also contain four “woes” which all seem to target things that don’t seem inherently bad. It made me wonder, “that’s kind of messed up, Jesus. I get why you’d go after rich folk because that’s kind of your M.O., but why woe to people who are well fed? Why poo poo on people who are laughing? What do you have against laughing??” Without knowing Luke’s undergirding agenda, this would have made no sense to me at all. But considering the types of people Luke puts in the limelight, it became clear to me that Jesus isn’t just talking about someone who randomly laughs at a joke or eats until they’re full. He’s talking about people who have enough money to eat well. He’s talking about people who have enough comfort to laugh. He’s referring to people who can afford these luxuries because of their position in society. He’s talking about us. He’s talking about me.

And now I’ve run into a third complication that I hadn’t considered earlier (but probably should have): I’ve come across a passage that called me out on my shit. This is definitely my least favorite one. It makes me feel bad. Or a nicer way of putting it: it is very humbling. But this is probably why the Pharisees hated Jesus so much. Apart from whatever political or religious reasons they had for wanting to get rid of him, I think it really just came down to the fact that Jesus made them feel bad about themselves – and not in an insecure way, but in a way that made them face a truth about themselves that they didn’t want to face. I think this is the power of the Gospel when it speaks truth to power. It forces those of us with privilege to take a good, hard look at ourselves and ask if we’re doing our best to follow Jesus with what we have. For me, the answer is often no. And that is a tough pill to swallow. I say all this because I think it’s important to note that while it can be redemptive to identify with people like the prodigal son or the woman at the well, we cannot escape the reality that, in many ways, we are also the Romans and the Pharisees. To tie this into the Christmas story, we might even find ourselves in Herod, plotting to kill what we know about Jesus because he gets in the way of what we want. 

            This got very dark so I’ll try to end with something a little more hopeful. As we close out this Christmas season, I’m reminded that God must reallylove us. He already knows how messed up we are and yet deemed it a worthy endeavor to come into this world tolivewith us and showus his love. As much as we focus on how much faith we have in Jesus, it’s probably worth mentioning that it seems God has faith in usas well. With all that power, why else would he not just make things right again with the snap of his fingers? It seems that there is a work to be done, and God knows that we have the capacity to participate in that work. So the next time we gaze upon our reflection and see our face in all its beauty and shame, we ought to remind ourselves that the Creator of Heaven and Earth loves us and believes in us to be better.

             If you’re reading this and you’re already doing your best in life, I’m proud of you! Keep doing what you’re doing and make sure to take a break once in a while. Self-care is important and learning to love yourself is just as important as learning to love others. If you’re like me and often find yourself unmotivated but want to do something about it, my prayer is for you to realize that you have a lot to offer – even if it doesn’t seem like much. Something as small as a word of appreciation or a little bit of your time can go a long way. I know because I’ve been a recipient of these gifts and they meant the world to me. In closing, these are my main takeaways from reading through Luke so far and reflecting on Christmas: (1) if you haven’t written a blog post in a while, don’t wait until the day before the deadline to start writing it; (2) Jesus is hilarious; and (3) regardless of where we are in life, and no matter what good or bad we do to each other, we and God are all in this beautiful shittiness together. So let’s do our best to help make this world a little more loving, and a little less shitty than how we found it.

Artwork: The Man with the Withered Hand,James Tissot (1836-1902)