We rounded up last Sunday with love for God and neighbour. True discipleship is a translation of our love for the Lord into love for our neighbour. Today our reflexion is guided by two widows and their experience of power.
We can begin with an irony. In the Gospel, Jesus excoriated the scribes for swallowing the properties of widows. The behaviour of these leaders sounds much like the frequently highlighted scourge today and that is “clericalism”. It is a disordered attitude of superiority that is disliked immensely by the present Pope. Consider then the 1st Reading showing Prophet Elijah in full “clerical” or hierarchical mode. He demanded a near-starving widow to serve him first.
Of course, Elijah’s behaviour might come across as authoritarian. We could perhaps take a closer look at “clericalism” to appreciate better what the lessons these two widows can bring. With respect to Catholic leadership, we have been taught to esteem our bishops, priests, and deacons. Through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, these ordained ministers are called to lead, to teach and to sanctify God’s people. According to St Ignatius of Antioch, “Where the Bishop is, there is the Catholic Church”. That is how central the hierarchy is, in the person of the Bishop, to the definition of the Church. A priest acts “in persona Christi” and no personal sin of his can even blot out this power which Christ Himself conferred on His ministers. Yet we all recognise that exalted though the clerical state may be, the minister is not infallible in his judgement. Neither does he possess moral superiority. For example, if one could speak of “Apostolic collegiality”, perhaps, the one scriptural record of it is to be found at the Garden of Gethsemane. All as one, the Apostles fled and abandoned their Master.
In both the 1st Reading and the Gospel, one can home in on the “clericalism” of both Elijah and the Scribes. That would actually miss the point that the nature of power is such that its strength is found through consolidation. Thus, the experience of the two widows is not “clericalism” per se but rather of power or the misuse of one’s authority. Just think of how naturally a leader coming into power will consolidate his or her power base. In nature, a new queen bee will kill off the older queen or drive her out of the hive. In our human set-up, vitiated by original sin, power to be felt, usually devour those who have no means to resist. The abuse phenomenon highlighted in the last three decades is based on this power differential. Hence, a poor widow against the might of any powerful machinery generally does not stand any chance against it. “Clericalism” is just one expression of how power is obsessed with itself.
Thus, a label itself can be “restrictive” because when we fixate on a particular expression of abuse of authority, we might miss out on the reality that the same power differential is at work with Big Pharma, Tech Titans and Deep State. The core issue is not really about “clericalism” even though it might be problematic. The two widows’ experiences merely call our attention to the true nature of power.
Essentially power is derived. In the responses of the widows, while waxing lyrical about their generosity and faith, the fact is, at the heart of giving their everything and trusting in God is the idea of dependence. Both the widows are compelling reminders of our total dependence on God. This reliance runs contrary to what we have been socialised to think, that power is autonomy and control—the freedom to do what we want and the ability to coerce others. More or less, we have come to associate power with might but it is not. Authority is not more effective the more you have it. Power’s strength lies in the quality of one’s relationships.
Hegel himself said that there can be no master without slaves. It shows how “dependent” masters are on the subservience of their slaves. Bullies are only powerful because the bullied have ceded power to them. In our unequal world of the mighty and the defenceless, of the potent and paralysed, if we believe power is obtained from those who are oppressed, then we are mistaken. In His ministry, Christ showed us that ultimately His power was derived from the relationship with the Father. His state was divine but He did not cling to His divinity (which He shares with the Father) but emptied Himself to assume the condition of a slave.
Power is efficacious through renunciation. The “kenosis” or the self-emptying of the Crucified One is indeed a compelling example of how we should approach power and authority. We think of it in terms of having or possessing. The generosity of the two widows redefines our understanding of power’s purpose. In the scribal demonstration of clerical clout and in the dispossession of the widows, two relationships come to fore, and they are dependence and providence. The scribes who behaved as if their largesse were an expression of their status forget that all they own is dependent on God’s providence. Thus, the widows, one in putting everything into the box and the other giving everything to Elijah, do so with full confidence in God’s providence.
In giving or surrendering, what is suggested is that the giver has and the recipient has not. The transaction between benefactor and beneficiary is based on possession and privation. Since the two widows barely have anything, their giving cannot be an expression of benefaction or possession. Instead, hidden in the act of giving up is the Christian idea of stewardship.
Generosity flows from stewardship—that we own nothing and the two widows recognise that. The narrow focus on “generosity” might just miss the point that power is one of the most difficult stewardship to bear and its strength is proportionate to our dependence on God and not contingent of the scale of oppression. If everything is dependent on God, power has to be too.
The silence of two powerless widows speak the loudest calling those who are powerful to account for themselves before God and others. Power is a reflexion of God’s omnipotence and in the Son’s abnegation we see power’s true vocation that it must always be at the service of others and never for itself. In Him, power’s potency comes not from the ability to command or compel but from His absolute dependence on the Father. The Crucified One commands no army and yet His power over Satan’s kingdom comes from surrendering everything including His divinity. Through the two widows we appreciate that the currency for heaven is not possessions, power or prestige. It is faith in God and like Jesus, generosity in total self-surrender because God will provide.
