Healing our fragmented world

“Hope is hearing the melody of the future. Faith is to dance to it today.” So rejoices Brazilian theologian Rubem Alves. And the good news is that even now we may anticipate a wonderful future — so much so that, in the words of the apostle Paul, the whole of creation is on tiptoe.

There is one word from the New Testament that encapsulates this hope — so much so that it is a strong candidate for the longest word in the entire corpus. Here it is in transliteration: anakephalaiōsasthai. And according to N T Wright, it may be the most important word in all twenty-seven books.

As you may know, I am a great fan of Tom Wright, and I am currently reading his latest book on Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. He has long argued that we have been unduly influenced by the sixteenth-century Reformers — Martin Luther and the like — in giving such prominence to Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.

But when it comes to the big picture — where God is taking us — Ephesians is the letter to read. And it begins with a bang. In the original Greek, verses 3–14 of the opening chapter form a single, breathless sentence, as Paul almost trips over himself in marvelling at the wonder of God’s grace.

In fact, my project for the coming month is to learn this whole section by heart — and take it from me, it has not been easy.

The key verse is verse 10, and within it the key word is — you guessed it — anakephalaiōsasthai. Just say it with me: uh-nuh-keh-fuh-lie-OH-sass-thy. What makes it so wonderful is that it is in the middle voice — which I will explain in eleven paragraphs time.

So what does it mean? Here is the NRSV translation of the verse: “As a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Ephesians 1:10)

And here is the Message paraphrase: “A long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.”

Essentially, God is going to heal our fragmented world — forming a single, coherent unity centred on Christ. This embraces the totality of created reality. Everything. Nothing lies outside God’s reconciling purpose.

As recent surveys show only too vividly, people are anxious. Things seem to be falling apart; the centre does not appear to be holding. Historian Tony Judt puts it starkly: “We have entered an age of insecurity — economic, physical, political.” Even watching the news can feel like an ordeal.

We may live in a fearful age, but as disciples of Jesus we are secured by the wonderful hope of anakephalaiōsasthai.

So why is the word so long? Breaking it down:

• ana — again / up

• kephalē — head

• iōsasthai — to make or bring about

Literally: to bring up again under a head.

Paul chooses it because no simpler verb is large enough. In our broken, fragmented world, God’s long-range purpose is to gather the scattered pieces of creation into unity in Christ. This is where we are going — such is the wonder of God’s grace.

Meanwhile, as Paul explains a few verses later, each believer is “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit as a pledge” — a down-payment of this glorious future.

But there is more. The reason anakephalaiōsasthai is so long (and so hard for me to pronounce) is that it is an aorist middle infinitive — which I suspect does not immediately grab you.

The aorist views the action as a whole, not as a process. Paul is not describing an ongoing attempt, but a decisive act and purpose of God — even an event. And the event?

Going back to my Grammar School English lessons, we were taught that verbs have two voices: active (“She closed the door”) and passive (“The door was closed”). Greek, however, has a third: the middle voice, where the subject both initiates the action and is personally involved in its outcome.

The implication is striking. God is not distant, nor is he delegating. God personally undertakes this work himself — and he does so through a concrete event in history: the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

No wonder the early church became excited by anakephalaiōsasthai. One of its earliest theologians, Irenaeus of Lyons, made this single word the very centre of his theology.

So he writes, in paraphrase: “In Christ, God gathers up again the whole human story — creation and fall, obedience and suffering, hope and renewal — summing it all under one head, so that humanity may begin again in him.”

And this is where it touches the ground for us. Anakephalaiōsasthai is not just a grand doctrine about the end of time; it is the quiet confidence with which we live today. Every act of love, every half-spoken prayer, every refusal to give in to despair already belongs to that great gathering-up in Christ.

We do not yet see the whole, but we are learning the steps. Hope lets us hear the music of God’s future; faith dares us to move our feet now. And as we do — sealed by the Spirit — we discover that the future we await is already beginning among us, fragment by fragment, life by life, until all things are finally brought together in Jesus.