2022-10-16 A Meditation on Assessing

“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” (Eph 4:1–7 ESV)

Assessing our world view means picking up the broken pieces, the ways we’ve been hemmed up, the scar tissue and the expectation of evil (Is 42:22). For we expect evil, not that we might be quieted or softened, but because it makes us stand at the ready. The mournful lament of hard times does not detract from the full-on victory we are standing in. We are standing in victory mode because we honor a Savior who went one better than the evil spirit in the air: He rose from death; He created a storyline of hope; He changed thought-patterns from fright and cynicism to all-systems-go optimism. All this, through some kind of winsome determination, and a gyroscope within the heart that spun and channeled all of us followers into the good course.

And then the personal inventory and honest appraisal, the prayer, in which we see how beholden we are to a friend or peer, to a parent or sibling, to age-old, by now, experiences; we are more integrated and embedded than we might imagine, for our thoughts tend to forget custom and simplicity, and assume we are a more intellectual being, a more choose-your-own-path kind of creature. We overlook the deep currents that do drive us down to this day, innocent and simple longing for a friend, fears of rejection, wondering how and when to relate to parents, accusations that should long ago have been forgiven, and those simple desires that can still light up our active mind.

We are creatures of the community, and slouch this way and that because of a hard-knock culture. We self efface, for the good of the community, it may be said, yet today hear the Call: if you, self-effacing as you are, are now a recipient of baptism, of holy cleansing, then do all of us a solid and speak up; lead; show us the way, for many still languish. For life is careening onward, and each of us finds the right aspect and ambition into which to “make the executive decision”, to “take the earnings”, to “put in the knife”, that is, to let soulful wanderings give way to making hay while the sun shines, to service, to giving immediately from our heart, servant-minded as it is.