Submission, Subversion, and Social Transformation
By Jayakumar Christian
Abuse, violence, exploitation, poverty and neglect all have a strong “power-powerlessness” flavor. Analyses of these situations immediately raise the issue of power. Any transformational initiative, therefore, must address issues of power and powerlessness.
In Kanpur, India, while talking to children involved in rag picking, I asked them, “What is a good time for collecting rags?” “Four in the morning,” a six-year old quickly responded, “That’s when rags are fresh.” A day spent searching for fresh trash! In the midst of their search, these children would also have to cope with adult harshness towards them. At their workplace they cope with abuse from the law and order officials and, at home, from their parents. Parents often abuse these little ones when they return with little money. Stories of the abuse of power punctuate the lives of many of our children in vulnerable situations. Their identity is marred and childhood destroyed. In situations like this, it is essential that we, the church, be the voice of the children and their communities, challenging abuses of power. However, our mandate is to go beyond and challenge the very nature of power, transforming flawed perceptions of power.
This brief article seeks to examine powerlessness and submission as a way to expose and ridicule the real intentions of the world’s power, and to transform it.
Kingdom of God’s Tendency to Reverse
It would be appropriate to begin our conversation with the Kingdom’s understanding of power, taking our cue from the Kingdom of God’s tendency to reverse the “natural order.” The Kingdom’s strangeness and reversal are most acute when power is understood as powerlessness. In the Kingdom of Satan, domination and oppression characterize power, which is built on arrogance and fear. However, Jesus reversed the order and held the world’s power perceptions to a total ridicule (Jacques Ellul, Jesus and Marx).
Jesus the “Servus Servorum”
Jesus’ perception of power seemed more like submission in the eyes of the world. Jesus challenged the world’s notion of power through power in weakness. J.B. Webster writes that Jesus was the “servus servorum”–a strange form of power that ushered a great reversal (“Some Notes on the Theology of Power” in The Modern Churchman). In Jesus, victory is won by the agony on the cross and the vindication of the crucified Christ through resurrection (Hans-Reudi Weber, Power: Focus for a Biblical Theology).
John Howard Yoder argues that the strangeness of the power was lived out on the cross. This reversal was more than a strategy. Yoder further writes, “He (Jesus) does not just tell us “I am on the other side; I am in favor of the other people who had been victims.” He becomes the victim” (“Power and the Powerless” in The Covenant Quarterly).
Jesus lived out this great reversal. For Jesus it meant being a defenseless baby–a precursor to the helplessness of the Crucified Christ (David Prior, Jesus and Power). It meant the washbasin and the towel, being misunderstood and ridiculed before people. It meant being treated as a mere option by Pilate with an unexplainable preference for Barabbas. When rejected, it meant the cross. The journey from a defenseless baby in Bethlehem to the cross on Golgotha was a clear demonstration in powerlessness. This demonstration, Jürgen Moltmann writes, “..changes our whole concept of glory, greatness, achievement, and the development of power. Normally we look upward…in the case of Jesus we have to look downward” (The Power of the Powerless).
Submission and Mission
Jesus showed that the cross is the best stance for world mission. The cross suggests that, “Mission cannot be realized when we are powerful and confident but only when we are weak and at a loss” (David Bosch, Transforming Mission).
The cross confounds the wise and the strong. Probably the hardest lesson the Church will,
Have to learn in the coming years is how to become again what it originally was and was always supposed to be: the church without privileges, the church of the catacombs rather than the halls of fame and power and wealth (David J. Bosch, “Vision for Mission” in International Review of Mission).
The cross also challenges the means in mission. The cross would completely preempt the need for guns and swords in the Kingdom’s mission. We cannot do a right thing by using the wrong means. Jesus testified to this alternative type of power at the cross.
Submission and Subversive Intentions
Kingdom power is best realized through submission. Intentional submission is also a radical criticism of the world’s power. It subverts the exploitative and abusive tendencies of the world’s power. It challenges the very nature of power, transforming the world’s flawed perceptions of power. The following are some implications for our consideration:
1. Kingdom power intentionally submits. This is different from the imposed powerlessness of the poor. There is a need to shift from the “negative lowliness” of their poverty to the “positive lowliness” characteristic of the Kingdom of God (David J. Bosch, “Mission in Jesus’ Way” in Missionalia).
2. Submission is a genuine expression of kingdom lifestyle, not a mere manipulative strategy. Submission is not a strategy but an authentic expression of Kingdom lifestyle.
3. Submission does not distort God’s nature. Through intentional submission, we express complete dependence on God. God’s power is made known through our weakness. So that the world may know without doubt that any transformation is a result of the power of God and not through human wisdom or power (1 Cor. 1:19). Submission is an authentic expression of God’s nature.
4. Intentional submission is a radical criticism of the world’s understanding of power. Jesus held to the light the real intentions of the world’s power. In The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggemann writes that Jesus’ criticism of the world’s power, “is about the self-giving emptiness of Jesus, about dominion through the loss of dominion, and about fullness coming only by self emptying.” There is no power that is greater than the power of submission, as expressed at the cross.
5. Submission is in essence a faith act. By refusing to play the game that marks the power of the powerful, the Christian makes a political statement. It is a way of proclaiming the sovereignty of Jesus Christ over all powers of this age. Kingdom power, when expressed in submission, witnesses to the coming of the King in all His glory.
Submission challenges the very frame the world uses to define power — a lifestyle that transforms.
Jarakumar Christian is the International Director of Transformational Development for World Vision’s Partnership offices. Jayakumar has published a number of articles in addition to his excellent book, “God of the Empty-Handed.” He earned his Ph.D. in Intercultural Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary and hold Masters degrees in Social Work, Missiology and Divinity. He and his family live in Chennai, India where Jayakumar and his wife, Vidhu, volunteer at the WMF Home of Happiness.