More | Was Jesus Jaded?

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If you work for a parish, a school, or really in any ministry in the Archdiocese, it is easy to become jaded. If you have never experienced this, it is possible you just haven’t been around long enough…

To be jaded is to be cynical, and to be cynical is to believe that the base motivators for certain actions in others – namely those contrary to our desires – are selfishness or just plain pigheadedness. In this way, cynicism lacks the creative imagination that would allow one to conceive of motives that are innocent (even if wrong) or those driven by personal brokenness.

The greatest cynic is Satan. He would relish us joining him in his cynicism especially because of our work in ministry. Satan desires our cynicism because he knows the near impossibility of our pursuing holiness when we are jaded.
 
Satan wants us cynical because he wants us to see those we are called to serve as the enemy. Satan does not want us to resist him: he wants us to resist with him. He works unceasingly to sow seeds of cynicism in the minds and hearts of those called to serve the Lord. This is not a temptation for some of us; this is a temptation for all of us. However, St. Paul reminds us that our brothers and sisters are not the enemy: “For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens” (Eph. 6:12).
 
Jesus surely knew all of this during his ministry – but was he jaded? Not only was Jesus tempted by Satan like us, he also faced no fewer challenging realities with the people of his time than we do now. Moments that could have easily caused his jadedness abound: 

They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. (Luke 4:29).

Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? (John 14:9)

The Jews again picked up rocks to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?” (John 10:31-32)

O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you
(Mt. 17:17)
 
…They shouted out, “Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us.”  …They continued their shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” (Luke 23: 18, 21)

Jesus was often wounded, hurt, disappointed, sad, angry, and frustrated by the repeated choices and actions of those whom he came to save, but he never became jaded. Why? The Lord was clearly aware that men can be selfish and obstinate. He knew as fact what we sometimes only know as a doctrine: humans are fallen. With this certainty, Jesus looked into souls knowing that the most difficult behavior in others was animated by sin and woundedness. When he looked at others, Jesus recognized that woven into each person was his own image and likeness. Even with Judas and Pilate, he never looked on the other as an enemy. By the time of his arrival on Golgotha, Jesus had certainly “seen too much,” and yet, as he was suffering and dying on the Cross, Jesus looked on us – and continues to look on us – not with dull apathy but with love. The very reason he became man was to save us from our sin and to heal our wounded souls, which is also the reason he sends you and me out to his brothers and sisters today.
 
Perhaps you have “seen too much of something” and perhaps feel justified in your jadedness. Perhaps you are in faith formation and have experienced too many families asking for sacraments as if they are ordering items on Amazon. Perhaps you are in education and have seen families take advantage of a great parochial school but want nothing to do with Jesus. Perhaps you are a pastor with enough experience to wonder at every baptism “will I ever see this family again?” Perhaps you have poured yourself into your ministry, giving your best efforts, and no one shows up. Jesus may not have been jaded, but as for me... 

The suffering that comes from these experiences is legitimate, and it is a small share in the same suffering of Christ who poured himself body and soul into his ministry to end nearly alone on the Cross. Jesus chose the Cross. We, too, have a choice: bottle up this his suffering until it bubbles over as cynicism, or unite it with Christ on the Cross. By uniting our suffering with Christ, that which threatens to make us jaded transforms into a source of grace “filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church…” (Col. 1:24) There is great grace in suffering on behalf of the Church. Feeling cynical is human; being cynical is a choice – a choice that misses opportunities for great grace.
 
For those in ministry, to give and give and give until you have nothing left is exactly our calling. When we have nothing of ourselves left to give, the only thing we have to give is Jesus Christ. Only in Jesus Christ can we love the painful or difficult person. Only Jesus Christ supplies and even guarantees this grace to us, but he only gives it when we trust him enough to unite our suffering with his.
 
 Lord Jesus, lend us your heart that we can love like you, suffer with you, receive the Father’s grace like you, and stay immersed in the hope that we will one day be forever with you.