The problem with powerlessness

Abstract

Language and imagery for God have congealed around understandings of God as authoritative and powerful, male and excluding for centuries in Christian theology. In recent decades, there has been a certain attraction to counterbalancing this emphasis with a focus on Jesus the Christ’s powerlessness. In light of the damage inflicted by those who have accrued power within the church, this is an understandable trajectory. However, constructions of powerlessness in relation to the Christ event and related theologies of discipleship are also insufficient, dangerous even. The Matthean Christ exudes authority and power claiming, “no one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father accept the Son” (Matt. 11.27). This chapter excavates the Wisdom christology at the foundation of this claim. In the embodied presence of the Matthean Jesus-Woman Wisdom, the One from the beginning is now disclosed in person and is using her exclusive power and authority for the scandalous inclusion and healing of all. In attending to the evidence, the discussion shows that, beyond the binary of using power over others or being powerless, the Matthean Christ embodies power for others and, in so doing, provides a framework for contemporary constructions of christology and discipleship.