Take That, Sisyphus
The biblical call to downward mobility
The ancient myth of Sisyphus tells of a man who dies and descends into the underworld. Some time later, he is allowed to return to his earthly life. As he returns, he realizes anew what he had missed—the simple pleasures of the world. This time, he does not want to leave. As a result, he is condemned to endlessly push a stone up a hill. Yet each time he nears the top, the stone rolls back down. The cycle repeats endlessly, with no progress and no change. The image Sisyphus leaves us is of a person who cannot break free—unable to escape the cycles of life, to change, or to move forward.
The story of Sisyphus, as bleakly depressing as it is, mirrors the experience many of us face each morning. We set out to become different—to change, to become someone new—only to discover, time and again, that we wake up in the same old body, in the same bed, living the same life. We dream of a day when we can finally stop pushing the rock up the hill. And then we are reminded, yet again, that the rock and the hill are our lives.
The greatest lie many of us come to believe is one we carry somewhere in the grey matter in our heads: I can’t change.
Scripture repeatedly tells stories of people who begin well but end poorly. To name a few: Solomon begins by crying out to God for wisdom, only to finish his life marked by greed, political alliances, and what appears to be sexual excess (1 Kgs. 3–11); Saul begins humbly, small in his own eyes, but ends in paranoia, fear, and self-absorption (1 Sam. 9–31); and Judas begins by faithfully following Jesus, only to betray him (Mt. 10; Jn. 13; Mt. 27). There are many such stories of a slow and steady decline from light into darkness.
But Scripture also gives us the story of Manasseh. Manasseh was the king of Judah who reigned for fifty-five years. His early years, we are told, were marked by “doing evil in the eyes of the Lord” (2 Chr. 33:2). He built altars to foreign gods, worshiped the starry hosts, erected pagan altars in the temple, and even sacrificed children. But when the Assyrians came, they devastated Jerusalem and carried Manasseh into exile. Something changed, however. After he was returned to Jerusalem as a vassal king, the final years of his life were marked by repentance. He tore down false altars, restored true worship, and put an end to the evil practices he had embraced. Scripture says that he “humbled himself” (2 Chr. 33:12, 19). He began horribly but ended well.
What the story of Manasseh shows us—unlike so many stories we encounter in the world—is a life marked by increasing holiness and deeper submission to God as death draws near. It is the same pattern we see in Peter. In his restoration conversation with Jesus, Jesus tells Peter:
Feed my sheep. Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!” (Jn. 21:18-19)
It is that line—“when you are old, you will stretch out your hands”—that strikes home. Peter’s younger years were marked by freedom, self-determination, and self-direction. But now Jesus tells him that he is moving toward the opposite. He is being led into a cruciform life, shaped not by his own desires but by God’s desires.
Henri Nouwen famously called this “downward mobility.” When we speak of the American Dream, we are often describing a vision of life in which everything moves up and to the right—expanding, advancing, flourishing like a rising stock market. But Peter’s future would not look like that. Nor will the lives of those who follow the way of Jesus. As we grow in Christlikeness, the path increasingly becomes an inversion of the American Dream. Nouwen writes:
We are taught to conceive of development in terms of an ongoing increase in human potential. Growing up means becoming healthier, stronger, more intelligent, more mature, and more productive. Consequently, we hide those who do not affirm this myth of progress, such as the elderly, prisoners, and those with mental disabilities. In our society, we consider the upward move the obvious one while treating the poor cases who cannot keep up as sad misfits, people who have deviated from the normal line of progress.1
Downward mobility—Jesus-style—is the slow way toward holiness that comes from embracing a life of holy limitation. And that is something we see, even if only faintly, in the life of Manasseh. Perhaps this reflection dates the author, but the older I get, the more I find myself tempted to protect an existence that is always moving up and to the right. I think that is the flesh at work. But I find myself asking God to teach me what it means to enter more deeply into the freedom that comes from submission to him, rather than the kind of freedom that comes from surrendering to my fickle desires.
Sisyphus is the work of the flesh. Submission is the freedom of obedience. And learning to let go of one and cling mercilessly to the other is the work of the Spirit. Here’s to embracing downward mobility.
For those who believe the lie of their own unchangeability: tell that to Manasseh or Peter.
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Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2012), 27.
Thanks for sharing! This really encouraged me today.
Good word and I understood it!