2023-03-22 A Meditation on a Shoulder to Lean On

“[Y]ou yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Pe 2:5 ESV)

It is a happy circumstance when, needing something to lean on, we have the shoulders of our peers who also are “about the business”; that is: leaving behind our own searching ways, the ways in a former life that we floundered, now our labors in the Lord are obvious and accumulate spiritual capital: it just seems obvious the steps forward; it just occupies our very being, in the truest sense of having found our “calling”; we know the downtimes and the invasive worry, but also we stop assuming all will go to pot, and we live into this mortal life. Into this mortal sojourn. Into this mortal reckoning.

For we are reckoned worthy, by Christ the King, who needed us (he flatters us to say: “could you not watch with me one hour?” (Mt 26:40), preparing for His ultimate sacrifice). He was human, and what tickled His feet may have always been ordained of God, but still ran the gamut of composure to predicament and panic. Strong on one level, He revealed comfort with these His disciples and peers sufficient then to go the route of dependence. He revealed something that we, perhaps, less perfect than He, would mask and prevaricate around. We hate to show our weaker side.

Not that we are weak: on the contrary, capable of great deeds of courage, nonetheless we are still alive and sensitive, carrying burdens and fears, in simple ways struggling through a workplace that at times is urgent (so, obvious how to proceed in courage and bravery) and at other times fakes us out being less urgent (so, anyone’s guess how we are to wake up to a challenge that, evidence notwithstanding, looms). In the down times, we can fuss over peccadilloes, or downplay our own Belonging and Agency and Service to a Lord Above. It is His title we small people carry. It is His office we tiny specimens rise to. It is His calling we solo travelers coach ourselves into.

So to lean on the proverbial shoulder is to defeat an enemy not just at a distance, but coming and going; it is devastating to the enemy, perhaps, but the alternative is to underestimate. To underestimate that the enemy wishes just as much by way of victory against us ourselves. The enemy wishes for discord and pent-up, unconfessed, character quirks, historical facts in our lives that we wish would go away, things that make us feel like lone wolves. Indeed, we draw out perverse ways and affections via channeling them, that is, repenting of how we perceive them to be, and then all in, allowing the glad heart from a near fellow or gal. Allow the love for the fellowshipping, the hearts intertwined, the proximity, simple ways we reduce grand plans to simple deeds.