24 - Power Politics in the Upper Room

Power Politics in the Upper Room

The key to Peter’s ability to respond appropriately to his mistake and properly address his denial is a complete paradigm shift in his understanding of power. This narrative is not new, however here it is one we are explicitly casting the shadow of power relationships.  In the lead up to the passion, Peter has several key events involving his changing understanding of power. In the passion narrative there is definitely a pronounced progression in Peter’s understanding of power. From Christ washing the disciples' feet on to his confrontation Jesus after the resurrection, Peter’s  relationship with power shifts from the idealized traditional secular vertical structure of power to a horizontal organization based on relationship and receiving actual power from what would be considered weakness. The transition from the foot washing to the upper room and the violence in Gethsemane yield to the fulcrum of the change with Peter’s actual denials and subsequent reconciliation with Jesus. Let us start from the beginning sequentially and what each event  means in regard to Peter’s relationship with and understanding of power. 

Peter starts enamored with power, be that in an individual who doesn’t easily fit into the typical vertical arrangement. Yet Peter is going to fit Jesus into his secular top down framework whether Jesus likes it or not. No amount of Sermons on the Mount or parables could erase his paradigm of a mighty leader from his mind. When Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, Peter sharply pushes back. This man of great importance has humbled himself to the station of the lowest servant. This is not how strong leaders behave. This is not how the powerful act.

And yet this precisely is the whole point of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. Jesus is acting very deliberately with the assumed power structures in mind. He consciously is flipping the traditional arrangement of power on its head, purposely rendering the vertical relationships as flat. This neutralization of the effects of power on  relationship leaves only the individual relationships between subjects as the focus. Yet Peter’s response reveals that he has completely missed this point.

Peter refuses to have his feet washed. Jesus is inverting the power relationship between himself and the disciples to flatten the power relationship between him and the disciples. He starts the upper room with signaling that what is about to transpire has nothing to do with his power relationship with them. It is the personal relationship that actually matters. It also is a process of empowering them to take the reins of leadership from him when he is gone. But for Peter, to remain powerful, power should never humble themselves. The point of a power relationship is to increase it. Peter still has hopes that Jesus will be a political revolutionary and bring the Roman occupation to an end. Peter is completely unprepared for the traumatic shock that the next few days will be.

When Jesus responds to Peter that unless he allows Jesus to wash his feet “you can have no part of me”, he wants Jesus to wash more of him, as if more of the water or ritual would increase his closeness to Jesus. Close that vertical gap. However the power inversion that Jesus insists upon in the foot washing is the whole point. It is to erase that vertical gap, the one between master and servant, leader and disciple. This inversion does not in itself remove that gap from the relationship Jesus has with the disciples, however it is a very large step in this process