2023-07-18 A Meditation on Persistence

“26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”” (1 Co 1:26–31 ESV)

God’s children are requested to be persistent: “Just give me an education”; “I won’t let go until you teach us”; “I am so eager to be like you”. The Divine Mandate is therefore no longer all meekness and apology, but we are to be tenacious (Ge 32:26).

Any revolutionary of love rightly understood, of Grace held aloft for its peculiarity and special role, of this goodness of theology met for the layman and amateur; this revolutionary fighter is determined.

Persistent, hopeful, possessed of strange clarity of thinking, the wild scourge and mildew of life sharply divided and passed through, the inexact wishy-washiness of bland discussion minus Cause, minus Mandate, minus Divine Call. This persistence for the journey is our manna and our call to rise up. We are to rise up to the determined learning. We are to rise up to the determined plea for forgiveness: “I will not let you go until you bless me”. And we are to have confidence that, whatever our sins, there is an elysian field just yonder, over hill of repentance and glade of receptivity. Meek receptivity, today our heavenly “birthday” and we the special soul on display, held up as proof that Yes, God loves.

Then for the soldiers already converted: for them nothing is lost, no jealousies piqued, no confusing spells cast; we are already in group mode, already in Divine Mandate, already healed and solidarity already won. Yet we do wonder for a moment at the daring, courageous Soul who is pleading the blood, who is pleading that yes they are today washed in Something costly yet overabundant. God Himself no joking matter giving His very Son. This is no jokester’s invite to kill in the spirit and then boast in so-called Jesus, to demote then claim all is kosher since the demoted soul has a divine reassurance that thus they did to the saints before. No, we genuinely warm to the puzzle of just how to recognize Jesus in our midst without all and sundry going south, going down the tubes, too sacrificed and too willing. For, the devil may cite scripture for his purpose.

For we are never too willing, but Believe and therefore Rise again. When we “get” something, and someone else doesn’t “get” it, we pray. We try to do the unseemly and unattractive duties of simple washings and boring playing fields, the coming alongside. The tedium and the banal, the deeds with paucity of enjoyment. For we are thus entitled to call ourselves “Converted”: no long list of our qualities, no statement of “Blessed among all are you, patient and wise”, a “Proverbs 31 woman” is all well and good except vis-a-vis New Testament Christianity: no, we long for no more flattery but rather to be known as the Lord’s converted, as those washed and healed rather than innately “Good”.

And this is a harrowing journey, at times feeling it is our own personal quest, then the warmth of shared experience, of worship and prayer. No matter: it is with some sincerity that we are traveling thereby unto a group dynamic, a hope in the pleasant thoughts shared with friend and neighbor, that no matter how clever and utilitarian our cap and our intellect, we are genuinely sitting in this pew, and genuinely exploring just what it might mean to our florid, computing mind to Believe. Our pugnacious heart is taught to demand that blessing, to be purposed around the fight for hearts and minds, to be sincere and ready: for a tomorrow that will cost so much, but that has the One thing needful, a Christ of some years ago who showed the way of Divine Blood: His mandate the “done” and completion of any fears or worries of what tomorrow brings, of what longevity or life cut short, is the day’s fare. We can do all these things through Him who strengthens us (Php 4:13).