I once got into an argument with an activist who was dedicating his life to social change. I was preparing for a management career: my goal was to fight for justice from within a structure that would have the ability to deliver it. He said it was impossible to participate in the corporate power structure without becoming a tool of injustice.
In the 20th century, most scholars saw social power as pervasive, inescapable, inherently unequal and divorced from moral concerns. They saw the use of power as the only realistic response to injustice, but anticipated that those who exercised power would be corrupted by it.
Economist Max Weber said: "[Power is] the chance of an individual to make his own will, at the heart of a social relationship, triumph over all resistance, without calling into question that on which this chance rests."
Sociologist James T. Duke said power elites form even in so-called egalitarian groups. They use ideology to expand their sphere of influence while legitimizing and hiding their power.
Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, viewing power from a particularly pessimistic perspective, saw social organizations as fundamentally immoral.
An Alternative View of Power
Paul Tillich pointed out that the source of power is united with love and justice. Power cannot sustain itself without them. When power becomes abusive, its weakens itself. Power that grows on a base of injustice and unlove reminds me of a rubber band that is stretching. As it gets bigger it may look more menacing and dangerous, but in reality it is becoming weaker and less stable. Unless it strengthens itself with acts of justice and love, it will eventually break and be replaced by new powers.
Some surprising interactions between power, justice and love are illustrated in the Joseph story (Genesis chapters 37-50).
To understand Joseph, we look first at Jacob, grandson of Abraham. Jacob fell in love with a beautiful young woman named Rachel, worked seven long years to win her hand, only to find that her father had hidden her older sister Leah under the wedding veil.
Rachel's father requires Jacob to work another seven years for Rachel's hand and Jacob never makes room in his heart for Leah. God has mercy on Leah's loneliness, blessing her with ten sons. Rachel gives birth to Joseph and dies giving birth to her second son, Benjamin.
Joseph is clearly Jacob's favorite child. When he is 17, Jacob gives him a beautiful coat (scholars aren't sure if it was multi-colored or had fancy sleeves). His brothers--who work much harder in their father's pastures--are enraged with jealousy.
Joseph dreams that his brothers and father bow down to him, shocking even his father with his arrogance. His brothers plot to kill him. At the last moment they sell him to a passing caravan driver. The brothers tell Jacob that a wild animal has killed Joseph--bringing Jacob the beautiful coat, torn and red with goat’s blood, as evidence.
Joseph becomes a slave in Egypt, where he rises to the position of slave-manager of Potiphar’s estate. She-who-is-married-to-Potiphar begs Joseph to lie with her. Joseph explains that he cannot sin in this way against Potiphar or against God. She-who-is-married-to-Potiphar accuses Joseph of trying to seduce her and Potiphar has Joseph imprisoned.
In prison, the chief jailer commits the other prisoners into Joseph’s care. God gives Joseph the ability to interpret the dreams of Pharaoh's baker and cupbearer: he correctly anticipates when the baker will be executed and when the cupbearer will be released and restored to his position.
Two years later, Pharaoh is troubled by a dream his counselors cannot explain. His cupbearer remembers Joseph, who is brought from prison to interpret the dream. Joseph explains that the dream means Egypt will experience seven years of unusual plenty followed by seven years of terrible famine.
Pharaoh appoints Joseph to oversea the management of the crops through the years of plenty and drought. When famine hits Joseph’s hometown in Canaan, his brothers come to Egypt and, not recognizing Joseph, kneel before him to beg for grain to save their family.
This is Joseph’s opportunity to use his power to either punish his brothers for selling him into slavery or try to repair the damage. It would be easy to punish—simply withhold grain and let them go home and starve. But how can Joseph repair the damage? What can power do? He can’t buy his brothers’ love with food. Nor is authentic forgiveness possible for him or the brothers without the restoration of justice in their relationship.
Joseph chooses the possibility of reconciliation. He re-creates the events of his own betrayal--insisting that the brothers are spies and that he will not believe in their innocence until they bring their father's remaining favorite, Benjamin, to Egypt. When they do so, he invites his brothers to a feast and treats Benjamin as a favorite—giving him five helpings of food, giving him a special blessing—and watching the brothers' responses.
The tension reaches a climax when Joseph plants a silver cup in Benjamin's grain sack and accuses Benjamin of stealing it (apparently borrowing the idea from she-who-was-Potiphar’s-wife).
The brothers throw themselves on the floor in anguish and Judah offers himself in Benjamin's place, enacting his remorse for the sorrow he has caused his father and making it possible for Joseph to reveal his identity and offer genuine forgiveness.
As time passes and the famine worsens, Joseph's power becomes distorted into a tool of oppression. He enslaves the Egyptians while giving his family ill-gotten Egyptian land.
Power, Love and Justice in the Joseph Story
The following observations on the nature of power as seen in the Joseph story are based on Paul Tillich's ontology of power in Love, Power and Justice (19..):
Power is inseparable from love. In this story, love is deeply involved in both human and divine power. Jacob's unjust love and inconsolable grief, Joseph's love for his family, the brothers' injured love and God's loving intent provide the foundation for the movement of power throughout the story.
Violence is rooted in the pain of separation from love. The brothers' use of power to dominate Joseph would be meaningless and unredeemable outside of the context of hurt, jealousy and damaged relationships. Without the backdrop of betrayed love, the brothers would simply be the two-dimensional "bad guys" of comic strip lore.
Violence is self-destructive because it cannot restore the conditions of love. The brothers' use of violence to restore love fails completely. Rather than being established more securely in their father's love, the brothers must face his unceasing mourning, his anxiety for Benjamin's safety, and their own choking guilt.
Joseph's loyalty appeared complete, Potiphar's wife felt secure in claiming him. But Joseph's loyalty to Potiphar was conditional in a way that was invisible prior to the confrontation with Potiphar's wife. Even slavery could not compromise Joseph's ultimate freedom to refuse an abusive demand.
Latent power is indistinguishable from weakness. The image of Joseph in prison is a metaphor for God's latent power. What could be more unlikely than a forgotten prisoner who holds the key to life and death for the empire? But even Joseph has no reason to view himself as anything but powerless and forgotten.
Time provides the context in which power becomes manifest. Joseph's power cannot be realized until Pharaoh has his dream. Joseph cannot force the moment. There is nothing he can do in his prison cell to shorten the time of waiting.
It is impossible to predict before the fact which party to a confrontation will have greater power. The outcome of waiting and the potential of Joseph's latent power could not be known until the moment of confrontation with Pharaoh. No social science equation could have predicted the appearance of Joseph's sudden and decisive power.
Material power is vulnerable to exposure of its contingent nature. Joseph's ability to interpret Pharaoh's dream is subversive because it exposes the fundamental vulnerability of the Pharaoh's power base--the fertility of the Nile, over which Pharaoh has no power.
Pharaoh's rapid appointment of this foreign ex-con to a position of command over the welfare of the empire reflects Pharaoh's recognition of the seriousness of the threat to his power. Pharaoh is unwilling to risk insulting this God who could compel his disturbing dreams. But Joseph's position is contingent on Pharaoh's fear and Joseph’s success—Pharaoh would have destroyed Joseph without a moment’s pause if the future he predicted had not been realized.
Participation in power can be a form of vocation. Brueggemann says: "This narrative affirms that power is a good thing. It celebrates the capacity to make tough decisions, to face crisis boldly, and to practice prudence so that the empire can be fed. At the same time, however, this is public power for the public good. Political power is defined as a faithful way to serve the community."
Faithful vocation requires us to remember the ultimate source of our power and ultimate object of our loyalty. Joseph does not claim the power to interpret Pharaoh's dream as his own even though he is the agent of interpretation. He gives the credit to God, publicly acknowledging that his power is subordinate to God's purposes and God's power.
Power is unable to command authentic love. When the brothers arrive and place themselves at Joseph's mercy, his original dream is fulfilled, but the rage and betrayal that led them to sell him into slavery makes a happy reunion impossible. Even if Joseph wanted to forgive his brothers, nothing he could do would change the past or wipe out the brothers' guilt.
Authentic reconciliation requires justice. The brothers' violence destroyed the conditions for trust that would make an easy reconciliation possible. The broken love in their relationship can be healed only through an act of justice.
The demands of justice are discovered through love. According to Tillich, only love is able to discover the demands of justice—either Joseph’s love or God’s love acting through Joseph leads to the reenactment of the conditions which led to his enslavement, thus allowing the brothers to condemn themselves through a second betrayal or act out their repentance.
The brothers suspect Joseph is waiting until their father dies to take revenge on them. According to the Genesis account, it takes years of assurances from Joseph (and the death of their father) before the brothers believe they have been forgiven. But we listeners know. The brothers demonstrated their change of heart. With Joseph we forgive them. With Joseph we rejoice in the recognition that power has been used to achieve justice and restore the possibility of love.
If Joseph were a super-hero, the story would end with the family reunion. But as his years in power continue, Joseph forgets the contingent nature of his position and oppresses the very people who are the source of his power. Because power rests on the love and commitment of the people, the abuse of power undermines its conditions and makes it vulnerable. Through his oppression of the Egyptians, Joseph may create the conditions that lead to the latter enslavement of the Israelites and the conflict that leads to the Exodus.
God’s power is created such that it favors conditions that allow us to restore justice and love. Sometimes there is a miracle. Sometimes there isn’t. That’s God’s choice. Sometimes we use love to restore justice and create the conditions for reconciling love. Sometimes we don’t. That’s our choice.
Joseph's dream is fulfilled in part through his brothers' violence. It is impossible to imagine that God intended the violence. Rather, the evil done in freedom by the brothers is redeemed because God's love, power and justice work through and are inseparable from human reality.
Excerpt from The Light of Taybayel
15 years ago
