Not surprisingly, the way Jesus described his mission was precisely in terms of slavery and ransom for the captive. It is worth quoting the passage in full, for it reveals how radical Jesus’ approach to the issues of power and slavery were:
And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him, and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:35–45)
Note the big picture here. James and John were seeking to sit at Jesus’ right and left because they believed this new Son of David was much like the old son of David, Solomon. What had Solomon done? He had built a splendid kingdom—on the backs of slaves. That’s what oriental potentates did. That’s why Solomon was remembered with a mixture of pride and resentment in the Old Testament. On the one hand, his reign was a golden age of immense national pride. On the other hand, he became a new Pharaoh in order to achieve these goals. When his son Rehoboam promised to continue his policies, the news was greeted not with excitement but with civil war and the permanent loss of ten tribes of Israel (see 1 Kings 12).
Now someone greater than Solomon was here, and James and John were all about getting in on the action as top dogs over a new kingdom of slaves doing their bidding. It was that ambition that Jesus rebuked with his new definition of greatness. And what a new definition it is! He proposed not merely to ransom the captive with money or gold as a king like Solomon might have done. He proposed to ransom the captive by taking the captive’s place as a slave!
For as he made clear, the ultimate form of slavery is spiritual, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one (see 1 John 5:19):
Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one. How is it that you say, ‘You will be made free’?”
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:31–36)
Slavery to sin, with its various spin-off forms such as slavery to addiction, fear, violence, and so forth, is the root of all the slavery in the world. Attack that and you ultimately attack physical forms of slavery.
That’s why one of the craziest complaints about the Christian revelation is that it is somehow responsible for the creation of slavery. In fact, it’s the only thing that, in the long run, ever expunged the cursed thing from the face of the earth. To complain that it happened in the long run rather than instantly is like complaining that an Olympic weight lifter took a long time to stoop down, get a firm grip on the bar, summon his might, and then hoist the three thousand pounds over his head. Slavery has been absolutely endemic everywhere in the human race since the dawn of time. The one and only thing that ever succeeded in beating it back and rooting it out is the Christian tradition. That it took a long time and a lot of back-and forth struggle to do it is due not to some peculiar and disgusting weakness in the Christian tradition but rather to the fact that the Christian revelation was born into a world of mortals who took slavery for granted as the normal state of things, just as we take all our favorite sins as normal and resent having them challenged. The reaction of the Jews in the passage above—the Jews who had believed in him, mind you, not the Jews who rejected him—is our reaction: “Whaddaya mean, calling us slaves?” Our culture’s conception of freedom is “doing whatever I feel like.” Usually that means “doing what everybody else does.” In antiquity “everybody else” lived in a slave culture.
Meanwhile, in our culture we continue to live with a false conception of slavery and freedom. We have no notion that “doing whatever we feel like” is often a straight road into bondage. Addicts to drugs, alcohol, violence, pornography, and sloth all “do what they feel like.” Indeed, we may be quite decent citizens who pay our taxes and recycle, all while living in slavery to raw, unadulterated pride—the sin that made the devil the devil. Confronted with a real saint who is a slave to Christ (and therefore truly free), we may find that our conversation with him goes uncomfortably like the conversation between the ghost and the heavenly spirit in C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce. The ghost, after boasting about what a decent chap he is, says, “I’m only telling you the sort of chap I am. I only want my rights. I’m not asking for anybody’s bleeding charity.” To which the blessed spirit of his old comrade replies, “Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought.”2
In short, the first captive you can involve yourself in ransoming is yourself, sold as a slave to sin. Or more precisely, you can submit to the ransom already offered when, for your sake, Jesus Christ was sold as a slave for thirty pieces of silver and, with that silver, said, “My brother, you no longer belong to evil but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.” This hostage exchange is made every time someone is baptized, or goes to confession, or celebrates the Eucharist or one of the other sacraments.
Once you have accepted that ransom, pay it forward as best you can by telling somebody else about the Great Ransom. Then you will be well on the way to living that work of mercy in the highest sense of the word.
(For more information, see my book THE WORK OF MERCY: BEING THE HANDS AND HEART OF CHRIST (available here, signed by me, or in Kindle format here, or as an audiobook here).
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