When the early Christians wrote about Jesus, this was the story they believed themselves to be telling. They didn’t see him as simply a teacher, a moral example, or even as one who saved people from a doomed world. They told his story as the point where the dark forces of chaos converged, in the cynical politics of Herod and Pilate, the bitter fanaticism of the Pharisees, the wild shrieks of diseased souls, the sudden storms on the lake. They invite us to see his death on the analogy of Jonah’s being thrown into the sea, there to be swallowed by the monster called Death. They insist that in this death God has taken upon Himself the full force of the world’s evil. As a sign of that, the final book of the Bible declares that in the new world, now already begun with his resurrection, there will be no more sea.
Saying this precisely does not give Christian theology an easy explanation (“Oh, that’s all right then”) for the continuing presence of evil in the world. On the contrary, it tells a story about Jesus’s own sense of abandonment, and thereby encourages us to embrace the same sense of helpless involvement in the sorrow of the world, as the means by which the world is to be healed. Those who work for justice, reconciliation and peace will know that sense, and perhaps, occasionally, that healing.
This isn’t the kind of answer that the Enlightenment wanted. But maybe, as we launch into the deep waters of another new year, it is the kind of vocation we ought to embrace in place of shallow analysis and shrill reaction.
“…[I]t tells a story about Jesus’s own sense of abandonment, and thereby encourages us to embrace the same sense of helpless involvement in the sorrow of the world, as the means by which the world is to be healed.” I agree that to engage the world is to have a sense of helpless involvement in the sorrow of the world. But is embracing this attitude the “means by which the world is to be healed”? I thought the means by which the world will be healed is the second coming of Jesus Christ. Are we really embracing a helpless involvement in the sorrow of the world, if we believe that that attitude will be the means to heal the world?
Otherwise, I think Wright’s formulation is a vast improvement over the Jefferts Schori formulation of working for social justice in order to be a co-worker with God in creating the kingdom of
God on Earth.
I dunno… for some reason this appears to be an unconvincing intellectual construction. Not that Mrs J S is remotely capable of measuring up to even this as a standard, of course.
‘…encourages us to embrace the same sense of helpless involvement in the sorrow of the world, as the means by which the world is to be healed.’
‘Right, lads,’ sighed the Captain in his weary voice as he gazed at his battered men through rheumy eyes, ‘over the top with you. I expect we’ll all get killed and it won’t make a blind bit of difference, but we just have to believe we’re part of some Homeric tragedy in pursuit of a goal we won’t achieve.’ He continued in this rhetorical and learned vein for several paragraphs, and then looked up in surprise. ‘I say, chaps – where have you all gone? Come back! Come back!’
The dismayed Captain looked up and down the now deserted trenches, then over the sand bags to the desolation of barbed wire and mine fields before him. Only the Padre was left, half-mad with shell shock, staring at him in astonishment. Perhaps this was the time to request a transfer to other duties?
Right on target, #3. Larry