Take up your cross and...

The Passion of the Christ

I had written a couple months ago about something which I titled, "The Illusion of Caring", referencing the documentary Roots by Alex Haley. What initially grabbed my attention in this mini-series was the Captain of the slave ship, The Lord Ligonier, who professed Christianity, and was deeply perplexed about his first slave mission to West Africa. The Captain originally seemed disturbed about this mission, but participated anyway, and I thought that the documentary did a marvelous job portraying the slow, insidious process that took place in the Captain's actions during this endeavor. Slowly, the Captain seemed to succumb to the power of evil associated with this slave trade, until he was fully engulfed and participating in the trade wholeheartedly. I thought about Jesus' call to, "Take up your cross and follow me" in Matthew 16 and how the cross is a counter intuitive to what we think will bring forth life, but in essence will bring us to the point of death.

The Christian tradition over the past thousand years has interpreted the crucifixion of Jesus through the lens that the cross "pays for the penalty for our sins and appeases the wrath of God", which is a marvelous way to understand Jesus' crucifixion as long as we understand what "sin" really looks like. The Penal Substitution model basically says that Jesus stood in the place of humans and took upon himself God's wrath for the sin of humanity, which in essence appeased an angry God and therefore, allowed humans to once again know God, since his wrath was subdued. (My words) The penal substitution model though in our culture, because of it's implicit dualist worldview, does not situate sin as participation, but situates sin as either individual or abstract. This model therefore, has limited power to address or due justice to the historical reality that Jesus died a death as a Roman agitator and the only way Jesus would be thought of as an agitator would have been to challenge the Roman imperial policies of his day. That the "sin of humanity" killed Jesus through the participation of humans, in their actions, hearts, and public policies.



The central praxis of the crucifixion of Jesus fits with Jesus' direct interaction with the practices of Israel and Jesus' own statements of kingship over against the kingship of Caesar. If Jesus stood against the powers which were attempting to destroy humans for the sake of power, privilege, and status, then what would this mean in relation to the ministry of the church? The ministry of forgiveness and reconciliation should recenter our worldview to at least default to the fact that we must work toward love for an enemy, but the splitting of the world and the splitting of the human being into various parts, can keep humans from understanding that, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." (MLK, Jr.)



The difference of course in Jesus' way of challenge and other counter revolutionaries that came before and after (Barabbas as being a good example) is that Jesus did not pick up the sword to overthrow by violence, but bore the violence of humanity into his own body. Therefore, the invitation by Jesus to "take up your cross and follow me" in Matthew 16:24, could have been interpreted by the faith community as being embodied in the counter revolutionary act aimed at subverting the system of oppression contained in the slave trade. The Captain not simply looks perplexed and strained at participating in this horrible industry, but engages with other Christians who offer a language more in line with the voice of God and he says "No!" to the British Imperial Crown, i.e the systems of the world which Paul talks about, but then suffers the fate associated with counter worldly wisdom. His fate is that he loses his position as Captain, he no longer makes the money which procure for him a life of luxury, and people no longer heap upon him complements for the position he holds. In turn, he gains freedom to say and do those difficult tasks to which Jesus calls his followers. His position as Captain no longer matters, because the community of faith embraces him as having suffered along with his Lord and in a major way contributed to the release of those held in prisons (Luke 4). The paradox and scandal of the cross is that freedom is found in bearing the cross by becoming the exact image for another of the "good news" that yes, Jesus cares for how one is treated in society. The world continually proclaims very loudly that freedom is found by throwing off the boundaries, or throwing off any forms of authority, whereas it is not the boundaries and authorities which are the issue, but the domination systems associated with these boundaries and authorities. When one creates boundaries which are unable to be crossed at various moments. When authorities proclaim that they possess the truth and one must assimilate into their likeness in order to know the truth, this poses serious problems for truly understanding the dynamics behind systems of power.


As a Christian, I know that I am endowed with power by the Holy Spirit's direct action in the midst of the church, of which I participate through the communion of the saints of God. When this communion is broken through my participation with the communion of the systems of the world as described above in the slave industry, I must gain power through the direct demonization of another, since identification with those who suffer is usually non-existent. This poses a significant problem for Christians, since the call of Jesus is to "love God and love neighbor", this means we must somehow develop a way to address the problem of caring for those who are not as "blessed" as we are. How then should Christians trained in the ways of Western Civilization address caring for others? For the most part, we have followed the ways of the Enlightenment thinkers before us and tilted our heads to the side, looked concerned, and maybe even shed a tear or two at the suffering in the world. We then return to our vocations, our houses, and our isolated lives, afraid that real participation in the kingdom of God will cost too much.


Remember that Pentecost brought forth the Spirit of the living God, drawing people together from all tribes, tongues, and nations, forming a community of people who no longer were held by the bondage of property, but understood that all earth's abundance is truly a gift from God and the hoarding of property in lieu of the communion of the saints could cost Christians their lives (Annanias and Saphira). There is a degree of socialism within the structure of God's economy and only an economy of individualism would believe that each person provides for themselves. Individualism within the scope of the Captain of the slave ship contributed to his eventual demise, since he believed that he could be a Christian and participate in an evil industry. Roots does an incredible job in portraying how as the lone individual Christian on the ship, he slowly succumbs to the pressure of assimilating into the evil associated with being the Captain on a slave ship.


Although at any point the beautiful gift of grace would be available to this Captain, in my opinion his repentance, i.e. his turning away from this horrible industry would be needed to truly experience God's grace. I do believe that grace is always found in the midst of evil, but the continuing of participation with evil would in the end diminish the grace which we find in following Jesus. In order to truly follow Jesus, I must not make God into my image, but be recreated into the image of God, who brings the slave out of bondage, not into bondage.
We today have these same institutions and I continually struggle with our participation in them. Our world has created massive institutions, which make it very difficult to live outside of their powerful influence upon our lives. In Max Weber's, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, he very clearly examines how the individual vocations of Christians became their ministries from the Reformation onward and how this has affected the life of the church in Western culture. Without the community of faith standing alongside the the Captain of the slave ship, the power of the systems of the world will most likely ensnare him and all that he will be left with is an "illusion of caring."