The shared ground of human experience is suffering. As embodied creatures who possess a will, we carry the burden of choice in a moral universe. We navigate the consequences of ours and others’ decisions in a matrix of history and relationship. We are, thus, overwhelmed by both our limitations and our vulnerability. We are routinely exceeded by the demands of life, and this, in a manner that is unpredictable and often brutal in its effects. Children are born into dynamics of abuse, the elderly are often dispossessed, our communities, both outside of the Church and within, are often ravaged by corruption and by the host of character flaws to which Jesus points in his sermon on the mount and the beatitudes. Simply put, we are outdone by life and are persistently helpless in the face of all that it brings. Despite the fact that the Modern Self is enshrouded in narratives of triumphalism and invulnerability, our ineptitudes are proven by the gamut of follies that invariably show up in all human domains, all families, all societies, all tribes, all politics.
In the matrix of meaning that human life involves, we are limited in our ability to make coherent sense of our own story inside of the larger ‘human story’. We bear this burden and prove our limitations any time we fail to align our interests with what love—understood as will-to-good—would invite of us in any given dynamic. Such failures (or successes) emerge in three primary living domains: those of the self, those in relation to our human neighbors (family, community, colleagues, fellow citizens and global citizens) and those of creation in the broader sense (our local environs, ecology, and the creatures with which those are populated). The last of these three in particular are where our engagement at the level of commerce and technology have widespread and long-standing systemic impact. These are the forms of corruption spoken to by the biblical writers and doctors of the Church as characteristic of ‘the world’, the one ‘ruled’ by the prince of darkness about whom Jesus assured us had no claim on any part of his life, interests or character.
Our desperate finitude, ignorance and selfishness are evidenced in several domains as a very particular kind of human immaturity, but perhaps nowhere more vividly than in the endless spate of wars—both long and short term, large and ‘small’—that comprise an unbroken and unredeemed cord that spans all of human history. That we are capable of such good, but continue, despite that fact, to fall into patterns of unbridled evil and pestilence, proves how far away we are from being ‘raised up’ into the fullness of maturity—to become fully human—as both individuals and a collective human race.
It was to these matters that St. Paul exhorted his followers along the following lines:
Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you also were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says,
“WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH,
HE LED CAPTIVE THE CAPTIVES,
AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO PEOPLE.”
(Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.) And He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of people, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, that is, Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
So I say this, and affirm in the Lord, that you are to no longer walk just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their minds, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves up to indecent behavior for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former way of life, you are to rid yourselves of the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
Therefore, ridding yourselves of falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE OF YOU WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, because we are parts of one another. BE ANGRY, AND YET DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. The one who steals must no longer steal; but rather he must labor, producing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with the one who has need. Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but if there is any good word for edification according to the need of the moment, say that, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. All bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and slander must be removed from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4)
St. Paul’s words here stand first as proof of his own beautiful transformation—of the restoration and redemption of previously misguided, however sincere, interest. The man who used to wage war through what might today be interpreted as radicalized terroristic and fundamentalist religiosity, here spells out in detail the redeemed heart and new identity that allowed him to pen such beautiful prose for the communities that he pastored and for which he received a new name. Saul became Paul in the midst of such characterological morphology. The shocking transformation that Saul underwent amounted to nothing short of a revolution of mind and heart. He learned that God’s love had no limits and that its effect was to completely change the character of those who were permeated by loving encounter with Jesus, whether in person or, later, by his Spirit. It was for this reason that St. Paul understood that, “…it pleased the Father that in HIM all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, By Him, Whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross.” (Colossians 1: 19-20).
This remains one of the distinguishing features of the followers of Jesus: both the suffering they inherit and the suffering they transmit are ‘made use of’ for their own and others’ ultimate good and redemption. This is the heart of Jesus: that none of it be wasted. Against this consideration, St. Paul notes to those in Ephesus that all things were being “summed up” in Christ. St. Paul continues in the tradition of Jesus teaching by inhabiting a share of his very life, that promised by Jesus in the statement,
My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. (John 10: 27-30).
In St. Matthew’s account, the shepherd heart of Jesus is exemplified inside of the same motif:
What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains, and go and search for the one that is lost? And if it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that have not gone astray. So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven for one of these little ones to perish. (Matt 18: 12-14)
“Not one of these to perish”… Jesus’ heart of love, perfectly aligned with that of his Father, on brilliant display in the midst of the conflicted interests and malformed minds, not only of the Pharisees who opposed him, but also those who presumed themselves to be in his fold. To each of them he posits humility—childlike faith and trust in Jesus—to be the means of access to his Kingdom. In his great gathering mission, one of restoration and redemption, he reminds us that “…the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19: 9).
A cogent question at this juncture might be, lost to what? It seems clear, not only upon reflection on the entire sweep of Jesus’ ministry, but of the legacy of his followers, whether in the form of his apostles or the laity, that the ‘saving’ to be done is not merely from the extrinsic forms of evil that occur under the “Ruler” to whom Jesus was noted above to have referred, but from ourselves—from the heart of corruption that YHWH declared, just on the other side of the storied ‘fall’ of humankind, to be evil in its intentions: “… I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done.” (Genesis 8: 21).
The incarnation of Christ as Jesus of Nazareth is the ultimate ground for restoration and redemption in that his legacy is to enter the same imminent frame, the same forms of suffering carried by every human who has ever lived.
By virtue of his incarnation and perfect submission to the will of the Father, therefore, Christ “sums up all things within himself” having left nothing out of the range of his human experience. Not similar by way of facsimile, but by way of exposure to the very prospects—tests of will and character—that mark the human journey at its core. This is the “…mature man… the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” The life of Jesus stands as the high-water mark in the history of humanity, the exemplary instance and fulfillment of what we were always meant to be: willing collaborators—inhabitants and progenitors—of agape love into creation; mature women and men who bring more life to life. By virtue of his own embodiment, the Christian narrative holds that Jesus of Nazareth—God enfleshed—took on stewardship of the burden of ‘choice’, often in conflict with the desires or inclinations of his own body in the same matrix of relationship into which each of us is born, the substance of which comprises the heart of human living. He does so perfectly, which is to say that every decision he makes, every action he undertakes, is guided by his love for his Father, his love for the Spirit they share, and for us, his image bearers.
Healing and restoration are possible, not as a technical solution—as the invention of science or some novel theory or technique—but by virtue of the living example Jesus. His clear-eyed invitation is to learn from him how to choose love and to thereby redeem, all corrupted domains of human life, of mind and heart, body and soul. This dynamic between humanity and Christ—summed up, such as it has been, through his incarnation—remains for us a living revelation regarding how to engage suffering in order that it might be redeemed. The revelation of Jesus’ life and ministry remain, not as historical artifacts, but as a standing opportunity to take on the sort of character that can do what love invites and refuse what fear demands in any conceivable case, even unto death. Jesus’ revolutionary action in these regards divided known history in two and is exemplified by the legacy of those who have learned from him, who conduct their lives in “his name,” that is, for his sake and with his resources.