{"id":20373,"date":"2021-08-12T10:19:55","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T14:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20373"},"modified":"2021-08-12T10:30:32","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T14:30:32","slug":"20373","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20373","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ASw-I8s-yzc\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Letting Go of Power<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In her book&nbsp;<\/em>The Wisdom Jesus<em>, Cynthia Bourgeault describes how Jesus modeled the path of kenosis. Taken from the Greek word in Paul\u2019s letter to the Philippians (2:5\u20139\u00ad), it means to \u201clet go\u201d or \u201cto empty oneself.\u201d In Jesus, this self-emptying pattern revealed itself as \u201cnot love stored up but love utterly poured out.\u201d [1] Episcopal priest and author Stephanie Spellers writes about how Christians in the United States can practice \u201ckenosis\u201d for the common good.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus\u2019s life on earth was a purely kenotic, downwardly mobile path. . . . Jesus could have been a prince on a throne, holding power, riches, and every kind of privilege. Instead, he denied it. He let it go. . . . He consciously chose a path that assured suffering, humiliation, desolation, and finally death on a cross. In response, God lifted him up and gave him glory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>None of this was an accident or coincidence. Jesus entered as he did, where he did, doing what he did, because God needed us to finally comprehend the truth: <strong>God is not a sky king who heads an empire; God is the love that gives itself away for the sake of more love.<\/strong> Jesus could only communicate that point by standing outside the power structures and inviting disciples to join him and discover new life with him on the margins. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Jesus, God shows us what it looks like to be this vulnerable, humble, and self-giving. In him, we see one who did not run from the things that broke his heart, nor did he first calculate what he could gain from a situation. Jesus sought instead to give away his life, so he and others might flourish as God intends. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God invites us into a covenant, where by the power of the Spirit <strong>we can choose to allow our hearts to break, and then take the pieces\u2014our lives, our goods, our love, and our privileges\u2014and share it all like a broken loaf of communion bread.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Granted, this is a very non-American way of being. Think of the phrases that shape our national identity. We assert our \u201cright\u201d to \u201clife, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,\u201d &nbsp;which means we are free\u2014and even expected\u2014to organize our lives around our own individual desires. So much of our American story consists of groups of people protecting themselves and what\u2019s theirs, with a gun or a flag or the cloak of racial, class, or gender privilege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus\u2019s story is exactly the opposite. In this moment, as we reckon with the limits and consequences of self-centrism, domination systems, and the church\u2019s capitulation to empire, we could lean into the Jesus way. We could reclaim kenosis, or perhaps claim it for the first time. . . . When you take something you possess\u2014your bread and power, your abilities and identities, your comfort and control, your treasured structures and even life itself\u2014and release your attachment to it and make it useful to God\u2019s movement, you are practicing kenosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"324\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/image-3-500x324.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20376\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/image-3-500x324.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/image-3-300x194.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/image-3-768x498.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/image-3.png 1892w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Letting Go of Power In her book&nbsp;The Wisdom Jesus, Cynthia Bourgeault describes how Jesus modeled the path of kenosis. Taken from the Greek word in Paul\u2019s letter to the Philippians (2:5\u20139\u00ad), it means to \u201clet go\u201d or \u201cto empty oneself.\u201d In Jesus, this self-emptying pattern revealed itself as \u201cnot love stored up but love utterly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20373"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20373"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20380,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20373\/revisions\/20380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}