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From the very beginning, God is able to use unlikely figures, and in one way or another, they are always unable, inept, unprepared, and incapable. The biblical text often shows them to be “powerless” in various ways: Sarah and Abraham, Moses, Rachel and Rebecca, David, Jeremiah, Job, and Jesus himself are some of the clearest examples. God didn’t pick the Egyptians; God picked the Israelites, an enslaved people in Egypt. In each case, there needs to be a discovery of a new kind of power by people who do not have power.
The bottom, the edge, the outsider, as we see in the Bible, is the privileged spiritual position. In a word, that is why the biblical revelation is revolutionary and even subversive. It is clearly disestablishment literature, yet has largely been used by establishments, which is at the heart of our interpretative problem.
The so-called “little ones” (Matthew 18:6) or the “poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3), as Jesus calls them, are the only teachable and “growable” ones according to him. It seems to be God’s starting place, as it is in the Twelve-Step program, because until we admit “that we are powerless,” the Real Power will not be recognized, accepted or even sought.
Adapted from
Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, pp. 89-90
Gateway to Silence:
When I am weak, then I am strong.
(2 Corinthians 12:10)
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