2023-03-19 A Meditation on Shunning

“They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them.” (Ga 4:17 ESV)

To well up inside, to walk and be joyful, to companion and vibe off of one another; it is funny how in some hours this is seen with despair (“Is that all we have?”). The soul longs to know why some people “get it” and others seem one healthsome conversation away from ever really getting along or finding something in one another. They refuse to fellowship. They judge and shun and all this adds to our consternation and fright: is all we have some finite accident of friendships “out there”? Genuine friendships?

The Christian tries to dwell back in an imagined peace and fellowship, but in this finds doubts: people judge me; I don’t know how anyone ever really liked me; is this brotherhood in the end all we have?

The flipside to any despair is the reforming zeal we bring to bear on many things. Simply to share time together in fellowship. We can be downtrodden that life seems to judge us and we wonder, “Why are people mad at me?”. So we discover the efficiency and rapidity with which Christ was crucified, when we see what they did to His disciples.

And then to roam companioned and in unison, is to desire friendship, this is a strange bedrock, bedrock because we’ve made our confession and accepted wondrously our digs. If only they would just talk to me, then the meeting of minds would bear fruit! But it is as if they know this, and shy away.

Then the sad conception of what lesser promises some seem to have accepted and made do with. Pathetically made do with. For it is not ourselves we preach, but Christ crucified. If we arrived at the party with too much good cheer, then we are called to humble ourselves and talk about that fact, instead of other distractions or preemptive escape. To escape would be nice, but we are called to be peacemakers of a fine stripe. To turn that occasion for forlorn despair into an occasion for floating along, thanking God for what buoyancy we have found. For our discipleship will never be enough. We alight today upon reasons we should be in the dog house, but are not clever in that regard; we are beggars in a king’s court. Heroic today, beggars. Yet what we beg for is not mammon but the promises of Christ. And we preempt any rumor that has preceded us, illegal though we are seen as, begging for some inkling of understanding as to why this one is not talking to me.