Let It Be

“Leave him alone, and let him curse.” – 2 Samuel 16:11

There are profound parallels between our Old and New Testament texts today. David does not fight Absalom, but leaves, weeping as he ascends the Mount of Olives, allowing Shimei to curse him (in a passage we’ve discussed before). Jesus also goes to the Mount of Olives in great distress, refuses to fight, and gives himself up to derision. In his book The Stature of Waiting, W. H. Vanstone notes how Jesus goes from “action,” a time marked by initiation and activity, to “passion,” a time marked by things being done to him and having no control. The turning point is when he allows himself to be handed over. “Jesus fulfills his vocation not in action only, but also in passion,” he writes. When he says “it is accomplished” (John 19:30), he is saying not only “I’ve done all I wanted to,” but also, “I have allowed to be done to me what needed to be done to me to fulfill my vocation.”

Our culture is preoccupied with staying in control. As people age, we talk about them “still being active,” as if that is the primary marker of worth or meaning. We assume that power is active, but we see that David and Jesus chose to not act, to instead be the recipient of others’ actions. They were not passive because they were lazy, or unaware of the situation, or even without power to retaliate. They were passive in the sense of intentionally yielding control, because they were actually more aware of the situation than usual: they saw more of its spiritual reality, and more of their own calling, than was apparent to others.

Sometimes we fulfill our vocation by allowing things to be done to us. We receive the erosion or limitations of our physical bodies. We receive the attitudes of our teenagers as they are separating from childhood. We receive the grief of seeing people leave a church or community when we have been called to stay. We may receive all manner of things during seasons of waiting or suffering. “The truth,” writes Nouwen, “is that my suffering for love is a much greater part of my life than my action.” The world says to be older is to gain more control, “but Jesus has a different version of maturity: it is the ability and willingness to be led where you would rather not go” (John 21:18). These experiences are not only a normative part of the Christian life, but they can be the very living out of our vocation, the very following in the path of Jesus.