2023-10-31 A Meditation on Teamwork

“25 I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, 26 for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. 27 Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. 28 I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. 29 So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, 30 for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.” (Php 2:25–30 ESV)

Relying on our people means delegating, it means cogitating on a faith that lies undefiled (Jas 1:27), it means sharing the bullet points, the personal experience, the Encounter, in hope that something by way of miracle exists in the human relationship. Relying on our people means dealing with much hubris, all the right people tied up and bound, all the unqualified souls somehow in positions of responsibility. But to the cynicism—this is a bullet point—we turn to celebration. We celebrate because God did it all through one soul met a dozen souls met five hundred souls, and so on.

Reliant, we find spheres simply of gladsome exchange, of writing or ministry, of a brief escape from that harrowing life experience, the experience of wondering if any of it matters. Two-point-oh. The subsequent version. The bullet points marching staidly along, that we have died and our lives are hid with Christ. That we have learned one Outlet rather than lazy solicitation of things that cannot compel life. Life is compelled now because now we have learned to dwell near to the flame, in a harrowing and paradoxical strange Emergent Phenomenon: yes, doubting, we go further rather than go cautious. We lance forth rather than to cower. The bullet point is marching forth, one upon another, of sincere discovery of Grace.

To find Grace is to have a come-to-Jesus moment whilst studying the Law. It is to hear the plaintive voices, desiring more that someone would hear (“Is anyone listening?”) than any particular desire of exactly what they hear; the voices of self-doubt, of frustration, of defeat, of longing. Lift the voice instead unto praise, to thanksgiving; this is just as sincere an appeal to be heard. For God uses flawed creatures to bring about startlingly Touched, Infused, Embedded creations. Our creations are Touched because they are post-death and after-resurrection. The wounds on Christ’s body were still there, just mollified and with their power stolen away. He was a walking Saint, a corporate Soul, a blemished Frame turned Upright.

Likewise our creations resemble something post-architecture, post-design, post-illustrious perfection. Instead, our creations speak out of a defeat; they ring true amidst a harrowing failure; they evoke, emote, evince and supply every want and need according to Christ Jesus. It is this that makes a doctrine of Grace somehow married to a doctrine of Law: we get the latter by way of a gift consequent from the former. That is, when once we’ve tasted that the Lord is good, when once we’ve had that utterly freeing and blinding experience of life minus law, well it is then that we receive back a hundredfold criteria and doctrine and hefty books of Legality. We love this legality because it comes equipped with the means to carry it out: namely, our sagacious leap and dwelling near unto Grace. There, we find the bullet point: celebrate, don’t be dour. Praise, don’t obsess. Self-congratulate, don’t self-burden.

Then the nature of our people we rely upon, is a nature minus that dread of “so-and-so, who is always so fussy”. Instead we liberate. Instead we go the opposite of the route of “running a tight ship”. Our ship is shipshape because we know Created Man, Woman, flourishes when understood, when loved, when peace and spacious in the halls of sanctity, of fellowship, of strange bliss.