Crucified with Christ

Over the past year I have been meeting weekly with 10 seniors from the Ignatian Service Corps to discuss and contemplate the intersection of faith and social justice. These 10 seniors have taken a close look at the issues of poverty, immigration, prison reform, environmental justice, and politics among many others. This examination has taken place through the lens of Catholic spirituality, specifically using Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J.’s 1973 speech entitled “Men for Others” as a point of reference, along with writings from an ecumenical collection of authors, theologians and Christian activists like Dorothy Day, Shane Claiborne, Brian McLaren, Fr. Richard Rohr, Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann and Frederick Buechner - to name a few. Our guiding questions for the year have been: Who does Christ call us to be as revealed in scripture, and in the tradition of the Church? As a person who desires to be faithful to that vision, what is our first and primary loyalty? How do our varying loyalties create inherent conflicts for us? How do we respond to those conflicts? Each week students were required to submit questions for discussion based on their reading and personal reflection. These conversations have been enriching, challenging, and at times tense.

As we have examined scripture and sought to imagine what a life committed to responding to Christ’s command to love and serve the poor might look like, some of the questions that came up on multiple occasions were variations of the following: “Mr. Riemer, how can we do the very hard work that scripture suggests and do what we want to do - have our own lives? Is there room for both fidelity to Christ and also to achieve the vision and ambition we have for our lives?” I must admit I have struggled answering these questions. Not because I don’t have an opinion (if you know me well, you know I have an opinion about almost everything), nor because I haven’t considered the answer very deeply and sincerely. If I’m being honest, I’ve struggled responding primarily because I don’t think people will like the answers, including myself.

Together, we have wrestled with these questions and it has been proposed that the answer lies in the phrase that “God is in all things.” Therefore, we are able to serve God in whatever shape our lives take. “God in all things,” it is a familiar mantra in our Ignatian culture. We have taught our students well. Yes, indeed, all of creation reverberates with God’s majesty and his desire to know us, to captivate our imagination with the things that fill his imagination. Because of this we should be compelled to worship him and to serve him with our entire lives. The First Principle and Foundation reminds us that everything in creation may be used to help us fulfill this purpose - to “praise, reverence, and serve God.” But it also says that we are to use the things of this world, the gifts we are given, only to the extent that they enable us to fulfill that purpose. And so, I think on Good Friday, when we remember Christ’s ultimate sacrifice, it is appropriate to consider what sacrifices we are willing to make in order to serve God more fully. Have we faithfully used the gifts God has given us to serve him and others, particularly the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized with whom Christ identifies himself, or have we used these gifts to serve and enrich ourselves? Do the lives we have created exist principally for our own pleasure, or for God’s pleasure and for the benefit of the world? Do our lives worship God, or worship ourselves? I often wonder to what degree we unknowingly employ a phrase like “God in all things” to justify lives which are directed more by our own goals and ambition rather than by God’s, thereby avoiding the sacrifices that come with following Christ. We seem to be in the habit of making the Gospel easier to follow, more palatable, less offensive, and more comfortable. We read the words of Christ where he says that we must lay down our lives, or that we must sell everything we have and give to the poor, that we must abandon our families in order to follow him and we think, “...that’s crazy. Surely that's not literally what Christ meant.” It must be asked, are we shaping God in our own image rather than being conformed to his? Metaphor becomes a convenient escape hatch, our oft pulled rip cord. I think this is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer means when he says we have cheapened God’s grace.

One of my favorite authors, Shane Claiborne, reflects on this idea in his book The Irresistible Revolution. He suggests we can admire Christ for everything he did and everything he stood for - his love for the poor, his compassion for those at the margins of society, and his solidarity with the outcast and the vulnerable - yet not emulate that life. We can worship him and honor him for his sacrifice and death on the cross, and yet never pick up our own cross.

But what is the measure? How do we know if we are anywhere near to this ideal, a life of following rather than mere admiration? A simple examination of how closely our gilded lives resemble the life of Christ may provide us with all the insight we need.

I wonder how the apostle Paul might answer my questions and my students’ about reconciling our ambitions with those of Christ’s. Perhaps his letter to the Galatians provides a window into his thoughts. He says in chapter 2, verses 19-20, “... I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” It occurs to me that the vision we have for our lives, our desires and goals, our ambitions, indeed the world may be very different were we to die to ourselves and in exchange be united with Christ in his crucifixion.

Author: Michael Riemer, Community Service Dept.