Discipleship Secrets of the X-Men (Part 2)

Unauthorized Reflections on Mutant Spirituality and Agapē Love

by

Mike Nappa

To Read Part 1 of this Article Series, Click Here

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All Roads Lead to X

Logan is running. Again.

It feels like he’s been running for a lifetime, but he knows it’s only been 15 years or so. Fifteen long years, since…since…well, Logan’s not sure what. In some ways he’s always been like this, for this is all he can remember. According to the memory clock in his head, he’s always been a mutant killing machine, constantly on the run. It’s possible that he was different before, but he doesn’t remember—can’t remember—anything past that 15-year mark, past that time when he found himself a prisoner being subjected to horrific experiments designed to test the limits of his incredible mutant healing ability.

He doesn’t think about it much anymore, about the "enhancements" they did to him. Now he just takes it for granted. Yes, the skeleton under his skin is lined with the indestructible metal, admantium. Yes, part of that skeletal lining includes razor sharp blades that, by force of will, he can flick out through the skin between his knuckles, a snikt like a switchblade unsheathing or a cat releasing its claws. Yes, he was always a freak—all mutants are. But after the experiments he became something even worse: a freak among mutants.

And so he runs.

The only talisman he carries from his former life is a military dog tag that he wears around his neck. The tag says "Wolverine," and Logan doesn’t know why, but somehow he likes the name. So he uses it, calling himself Wolverine just because it suits him. His life over the past 15 years has been just a collection of varied running experiences, bouncing from bar to bar, drinking away his bitterness, earning spare change as a street fighter in staged brawls. Living out of a beat-up truck with a camper on the bed and a trailer hitched to its bumper.

Until now.

Last time he was awake, he was under attack from some…some thing that nearly killed him until two strange mutants appeared and literally pulled him out of the fire. Then he was unconscious. When he woke today, only moments ago, he was on another medical table, being injected with who-knows-what by who-knows-who.

The rage had flashed instantly inside him. He would not allow them—whoever "them" might be— to do any more sadistic experiments on him. Not now, not ever.

It had been easy to overpower that poor creature tending him in the medical bay. She hadn’t struggled at all. Wolverine let her live. And now he was running. Is running. Making his way with practiced stealth and heightened awareness through the maze of corridors that threaten to imprison him.

What is this place? Did he hear children?

Then, a voice. Several voices?

"Where’s he going?" A whisper.

"Where are you going?" Louder now. Someone is watching him. But from where?

An elevator door opens. a voice whispers.

"Over here,"

A friend? Wolverine follows.

Wolverine feels his heart pounding inside him. He breathes in scents like an animal, but no hints come from the air. The polished hallways before him are empty and foreboding. Beads of sweat form on his forehead. His breathing becomes labored, short puffs of air that barely fill his lungs.

Where is the exit to this place? Wolverine feels the danger, feels a familiar fear.

He’s running, yes, but he doesn’t know where he is going. As usual.

Elsewhere, in his office at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, Charles Xavier—also known as "Professor X" to his students—waits. His mind is on two things: Physics, and Wolverine. The students gathered around his desk are here to learn about physics, so the professor is dutifully teaching them. But he also knows that Wolverine is close by, that he is running, and that if the professor lets him leave, he will keep running forever.

Charles Xavier is, by all accounts, one of the most powerful mutants in the world. He can read minds; he can actually control the thoughts and actions of others when so inclined. He knows something about Wolverine, about his past, about the dangers in his future. He would be forgiven if, just this once, he stepped in to speed things up a bit. It would be a simple thing for the professor to simply take control of Logan’s thoughts, to pacify the threat he poses and to march him into the office like a docile little lamb.

But Professor X is a patient man. He knows that if he waits, the Wolverine will come to him of his own accord. If he waits, Logan will hear him out, might possibly trust him, and perhaps will join his band X-Men in the coming conflict with the evil mutant, Magneto. So Charles remains comfortably seated in his office; he continues teaching children about physics. And from the back of his mind he projects just a few thoughts, directions really, into the mind of the dangerous mutant racing through the hallways of his school. Time is ticking away. The threat of Magneto grows stronger with every passing minute. But still the professor waits. After all, Logan is running again.

And this time it’s right to Charles.

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I have to admit that there have been times in my life when I’ve longed for Charles Xavier’s mind-controlling powers. For instance, when I’m at the Department of Motor Vehicles, as I was recently. I arrived just after lunch and dutifully received my number in line: 675. Then I glanced up at the display that told which customer was currently being served. It read 633. Nearly four hours later, I finally heard my number called—but not before I’d read the entire book I’d brought (a boring little treatise on copyright law!) and endured an ever-increasing pain in the posterior from those cheap plastic chairs spread like lawn ornaments on the rock hard floor of the DMV.

At the time, I would have given just about anything to speed up the process a bit, to somehow jump to the front of the line and get my business done. Which is why Professor X’s little mind-control power would have come in nicely. I can picture it now. The shaggy guy behind the counter who was lazily processing the customers in front of me would have suddenly perked up a bit. He would have gone into high gear to finish taking care of good ol’ customer number 633 (hey, I’m not entirely heartless!). Then, before anyone could move, my new disciple would have stood to his feet and announced:

"Due to a change of policy, we are now going to process customers in backward order, starting with customer number 675 and working our way down to 634. Next!"

Then I, with a sympathetic smile and a shrug to the others in line, would casually walk up the to counter, process my business, and be done so fast I’d make it home in time to watch a DVD double feature before dinner.

Yep, that’s how I would probably use that cool mind-control stuff. But Professor X is (apparently) a better mutant than I am, and a much more patient man. Given the opportunity to exercise that timesaving power over the wandering Wolverine, the good Charles Xavier chose to exhibit patience, to wait for the proper fruition of his labors on Wolverine’s behalf. Rather than forcing Logan to join the X-Men, Professor X wooed him, called him, waited for him to walk right into his front door. And by living out that kind of patience, he became an example of the deep respect that love shows when it waits for it object of love to come freely into relationship.

It reminds me of a story that Jesus once told to his disciples about a father who waited patiently for his beloved son to return home. That story is recorded in the gospel of Luke, and it goes like this:

"A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now, instead of waiting until you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.

"A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and took a trip to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money on wild living. About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him to feed his pigs. The boy became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.

"When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired men have food enough to spare, and here I am, dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, "Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired man."’

"So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long distance away, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’

"But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger, and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening in the pen. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.

"Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on. ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the calf we were fattening and has prepared a great feast. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’

"The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve worked hard for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the finest calf we have.’

"His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you and I are very close, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’"

Whenever I read this story I am struck by two things. First is the father’s patience toward his wandering prodigal. That patience showed itself right at the start, when the father decided to let the son take the inheritance and leave town. Think about it: by releasing the son into his own selfish pursuits, the father deliberately trusted that someday his son would understand the error of his ways and (God willing!) that he would eventually return. Knowing that return was possible, the father—right then, right there—had to commit to waiting out the years, had to decide that he would never leave his home so that the prodigal son would always, always have a dad to return to.

I think it’s significant that Jesus, in telling the story of the prodigal’s return, pointed out this illuminating detail: "While he was still a long distance away, his father saw him coming" (emphasis mine).

Not only was the prodigal’s father patiently waiting for his beloved son, he was watching. He expected the son’s return, and (one could assume) that each day as he filled his time with work and play, he also made time to keep peeking at the road, hoping and preparing for the moment when the horizon would fill with the image of his youngest boy. I aspire to that kind of watchful, patient love, but somehow it continues to elude me!

The second thing that catches my attention in this story is the father’s patience toward his older son, toward the one who stayed behind. This other, responsible brother was angry at the way the father welcomed home the wayward child. It was unfair, and he knew it, and he wasn’t afraid to say something about it. But the father showed more than just kindness to the young son, he demonstrated agapē patience toward the older son’s lack of understanding of grace and love. Notice that he didn’t scold the older boy for his obvious jealously and lack of compassion. Instead, he embraced him with his words ("dear son…everything I have is yours!") and then patiently explained the rewards of loving patience toward another:

"We had to celebrate this happy day," the father enthused. "For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!"

I can’t help but thinking that the older son probably still didn’t get it, not right away. But his love for his father likely won out in that moment; perhaps he decided to put up with the old man’s wacky ways, to be patient with the elderly, as it were. And in so doing, my guess is that before long he too began to experience what the father was talking about. That by expressing patience toward his father, he gained a touch of agapē love toward his brother. And I like to believe that before the party was over he was dancing in the happy celebration for his brother—and growing in love toward his family as well.

Love is patient. The father’s attitudes in this parable (and Professor X’s example toward Wolverine) are models of that kind of love for me. They are also reminders of how far I am from the place I really want to be in my spiritual life and growth. I mean, I’m the kind of person who gets annoyed waiting behind one person in line at the grocery store. I get frustrated if my teenage son is slow coming to the table for dinner, or even if a TV show ends in a cliffhanger. Yet if I truly want to live a life of agapē love—of loving others the way Christ loves me—then I must make myself open to that which is unnatural for me. I must be willing to let God’s Holy Spirit work a “mutation” of sorts within me, to let me not only know that love is patient—but to live it through his power.

Gratefully, the examples of the prodigal father and of Professor X also remind me of another important truth. You see, neither of these characters—the father nor the professor—is unique or original. In fact, they are both unfinished copies of someone who has been around since the beginning of time: God, our heavenly father.

Do you know why the Apostle Paul could say with confidence, "Love is patient"? It’s because he had met Love—personally, intimately—and discovered that God is love (1 John 4:16). Prior to that meeting, Paul had spend his adult life as an enemy of the Son of God, imprisoning, torturing, and even murdering followers of Jesus Christ. Had any one of us been God, we would have simply sighed, snapped our fingers and given Paul a massive brain hemorrhage or something—anything to end his vicious attacks on Christians. But God instead demonstrated patient love toward Paul, waiting until just the right moment when, on a road to Damascus, Jesus Christ appeared to Paul and redeemed his life from that second on through eternity.

Listen to how Paul later described that experience: "I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life" (emphasis mine).

Love is patient; I am not. But, like Paul, I too know the Author of love, the One who patiently matures me with the seed of Scripture and the water of his Holy Spirit. Friend, that makes all the difference!

You see, agapē love—a love that is patient—takes time. You can’t slap a frozen dose of patience in the microwave and have it miraculously appear, fully finished, after two and half minutes (three minutes in higher altitudes). No, like a garden it must grow, planted first in seed, then being nourished to sprout, centimeter by centimeter, inch by careful inch, until it finally reaches full bloom into our lives. As our love grows, our capacity for patience as an expression of agapē love also grows. And while we certainly bear a measure of responsibility for pursuing that kind of growth in our capacity to love, it is God himself who must take the final responsibility for actually growing that patient, agapē expression within us.

God is patient; love is God. When we open ourselves to his Holy Spirit, we allow him to nurture us like a loving gardener of the soul, allowing our lives to be filled with his "mutant spirituality" that yields a harvest of agapē love in our lives.

Aah, but here’s the hard part that we must be ready for: God will surely fulfill his responsibility to grow agapē-style patience within us—even when it means he must make us uncomfortable to do it! Consider the example of someone I’ll call Mike (and no, it’s not me!)…

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Mike felt the paint stinging his eyes once more and strangled a curse in his throat. It would not do to utter profanity in this place. Still, he closed his eyes in frustration and let the tears flow out, washing away the burning sensation in his eyes.

He tried to sit up, remembering too late the ceiling only inches above and giving himself a knock on the head. A sigh escaped his lips as he collapsed backward on the scaffolding. "I’m a sculptor, not a painter!" he muttered for the hundredth time.

Four years. Four long years Michelangelo Buonarroti had been working on this blasted ceiling. Four years of his life, gone, with only these pictures on plaster to show for it.

He remembered ruefully the day when Pope Julius II had called him to Rome, saying he wanted sculptures to fill his courtyards. Now that was something Michelangelo could do! He’d spent months searching for just the right pieces of marble, envisioning the sculptures inside them, excited to bring life and beauty out of those heavy marble blocks. But when he returned with his marble, the Pope had changed his mind.

"I want you to paint it," Pope Julius II had said after leading the sculptor into the bare—and vast—Sistine Chapel. He pointed to the blank ceiling overhead and said simply, "I want it decorated."

Michelangelo was stunned. "But I am a sculptor!" he said. "I’m no painter. Get Raphael to do it. He is skillful with the brush."

"Nonsense," said the Pope. "Raphael is busy." And the decision had been made. Michelangelo the sculptor was now a painter, and his canvas would be the 10,000 square foot ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

So began the thankless, unwanted task that Michelangelo now found himself performing day in and day out, for four long years. At first he tried hiring other artists to help speed up the job, but they couldn’t match the skill of the sculptor. Before long he had sent them away, erasing what they’d done and redoing the visions himself.

Month after month, each day was the same. Michelangelo worked alone, silently, patiently, laying back on a scaffold and painting the ceiling over his head. The paint dripped in his eyes; his arms and back and legs and neck ached from being cramped on the scaffolding day in and day out. The immensity of the task consumed him. He would start at first light of morning, painting until the darkness of night filled his gloom. He often forgot to eat, couldn’t bring himself to stop for sleep, even became ill from exhaustion. It was a hard job; a dirty job he had not wanted—but now one he was determined to finish.

Time and time again, Pope Julius II would climb the scaffold and ask, "When will you make an end?"

And time after time, Michelangelo would patiently stretch his aching muscles, refocus on his plaster canvas and say, "When I am done."

At long last, Michelangelo Buonarroti painted one last stoke on a corner of the ceiling, then let his brush drop to his side. At long last, the aching, filthy, lonely painter had finally finished his masterpiece.

Soon after the scaffolding was taken down, the floors wiped clean, and the doors of the Sistine Chapel were flung open. Hundreds came to see Michelangelo’s work, then thousands, then tens of thousands. And each gaze up onto the ceiling of the chapel revealed the same sights: Over three hundred figures—men, women, God, angels, and more—stretched across the vast expanse of Michelangelo’s 10,000-foot canvas. And each scene showed in beautiful detail the stories of Scripture—creation, the fall of humanity, the great flood and other timeless moments in the history of humankind.

Staring out of the center of this masterpiece was the hand of God reaching, longing, for the hand of the first man, Adam. From the tip of Michelangelo’s paintbrushes had flowed the beauty of God and His creation. No artist had ever before, or has ever since, captured with such clarity that kind eternal loveliness.

It is said that the great painter, Raphael—the same Raphael that Michelangelo had begged the Pope to choose for the job—came himself to view the Sistine Chapel. He was so moved by what he saw that, upon leaving, he paused to thank God for being born in the same century as Michelangelo Buonarroti.

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Painting the Sistine Chapel certainly was a dirty, difficult, time-consuming job, but imagine how much poorer our world would be if Michelangelo had not done it. If he had not patiently applied one stroke of the brush after another onto the ceiling that still stands centuries after his life ended. If he had abandoned the work, impatient and overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation. Truth is, God was willing to burden Michelangelo with years of backbreaking toil and labor, to allow many of his days to be miserable in order to make was his life something special. God determined to grow within the artist a patience that would one day yield a timeless work of beauty that has enchanted millions of people for nearly five centuries now—and counting.

Love is patient; God is love And friend, he will happily lay upon you and me any burden that he knows will spur the growth of a timeless work of beauty within our souls. If we are patient through that process, we will see his art flow out of us as agapē love in our lives. And that’s better than anything Michelangelo ever created.

Now, I know what you must be thinking, friend. You must be saying to yourself that it’s funny how a simple scene from an X-Men movie (a scene of Wolverine running down a hallway no less!) could spark this kind of reflection on agapē love in me. I agree with you—it seems silly! But in Professor X, in an unexpected, unplanned for moment, I glimpsed a prodigal father figure sitting in Charles Xavier’s wheelchair. Then, when I read later Jesus’ story of the prodigal in Scripture, I caught a peek of my heavenly Father in that prodigal father figure as well. And in my heavenly Father now I can see—and affirm—the truth that Paul the Apostle once declared for me:

Love is patient.

My hope and prayer is that I have helped you glimpse this too.

Now, as we finish the chapter friend, let’s you and I make a commitment to each other. We know we can’t be patient, agapē -style lovers in our own strength, so let’s promise to remember to ask our heavenly Father for help, for his diligence to grow within us the patient expression of his agapē power. And in that spirit, I’d like to close this chapter with a prayer once spoken by William Barclay. Let’s pray it together, shall we?

O God, my Father, give me patience all through today.

Give me patience with my work,

so that I may work at a job until I finish it or get it right,

no matter how difficult or boring it may be.

Give me patience with people,

so that I will not become irritated or annoyed,

and so that I never lose my temper with them.

Give me patience with life,

so that I may not give up hope

when hopes are long in coming true;

so that I may accept disappointment without bitterness

and delay without complaint.

Hear this my morning prayer for Your love’s sake. Amen.

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