Jesus Calls Us to Creative Resistance

“They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
— John 17:16–18

Most of us have experienced a desire to just drop out of the world — or at least ignore it. There are too many intractable problems, conflicts, and difficult situations. It can be stressful to even think about engaging, let alone enter the fray.

In this passage from John’s Gospel, it seems Jesus might be encouraging us to walk away. In a prayer for his disciples, he says, “They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.” It’s easy to believe, as Christians, that we should seclude and separate ourselves from “worldly” issues to focus on “higher” things. But Jesus continues, “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” So, which is it? As disciples of Jesus, are we to engage in this life or not? What does it mean to be sent into a place to which we don’t belong?

We are called to participate fully in our communal life in a way that allows God’s love to flow through us — for the benefit of all.

Jesus is holding two things in tension. In his prayer, Jesus is not asking God to remove us from the world but to be with us as we live prophetically in it. So much of how our world is structured diminishes or even prevents human flourishing. If we believe each person is made in the image of God — if we believe we are called to love our neighbors and ourselves — then to live prophetically means to actively create a world where all our needs are met. Our salvation doesn’t happen by God plucking us out of our lives; it happens each time we choose love over the alternative, it happens in and through this world.

Being sent into the world means we are called to creative resistance. Instead of getting sucked into the forces that impede our mutual flourishing‚ or simply exhausted by them, with God we are empowered to practice the opposite. In the face of greed, we practice generosity. In the face of institutionalized violence, we practice active nonviolence. When the very human fear that lives inside each of us creeps in and says, “Keep yourself safe,” we loosen our grip, let go of our power, and practice radical hospitality and sacrificial love, knowing our needs will be met not by hoarding resources but in vibrant community that includes everyone. We are called to participate fully in our communal life in a way that allows God’s love to flow through us — for the benefit of all.

Read John 17:6–19.

Here are five ways to think about thriving when we don’t belong:

Meditation  Priest and theologian Henri Nouwen writes, “As long as we belong to this world, we will remain subject to its competitive ways . . . but when we belong to God, who loves us without conditions, we can live as [God] does.”

Prayer  In “Thou has loved us first,” philosopher Søren Kierkegaard calls on God to “help us never to forget that You are love so that this sure conviction might triumph in our hearts over the seduction of the world, over the inquietude of the soul, over the anxiety for the future, over the fright of the past, over the distress of the moment.”

Theology  “The prayer [Jesus] prayed was one that showed his deep priorities: be nurtured and turned towards and supported by the truth,” writes poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama, “This is not an abstract concept, it is a way to live, a way of being gathered into a spirituality of action in the midst of conflicts that will exhaust you.”

Music  In her song “In the World, but Not of the World,” composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith describes the surprising joy of engaging in your life: “I love it when I think I knew something and then I find out that it's the opposite.” Here are the lyrics.

Visual Art  This passage from John takes place at the final meal with Jesus and his disciples, the Last Supper. Italian painter Ugolino da Siena imagines the scene on an altarpiece panel circa 1325–30.