2023-12-23 A Meditation on a Common Master

“13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”” (Lk 16:13 ESV)

Against all self-centered interpretation, against measuring the deeds of others against our own sense of “copacetic”, against discerning and pruning according to what we personally “get with”, “find likable”, “discern to be fruitful”, is a Peacemaker above who sees across the church’s divide, and teaches us to honor one another as serving the same King.

Everyone operates on a different timeframe, until it is asked, “Do you serve the same King?”. This question stamps some with approval and others with disdain, the reason being that much humility is called for, an inordinate amount of coming to the table, which table others longed for us to come to years ago, months ago, yesterday. Anything but today. Today is too late! Today is exasperating! Today is just not kosher, not copacetic, not enough!

For, we plead the “Other” to recognize, we have no guile, no surreptitious judgment, no slick measuring rod. We know the ropes of this wrestling match. We know the tragic garment of our own rites. We know the falling apart and falling down, life too much for us to bear up under at least by our own strength. We are not about to judge the newcomer to the King’s Courts. We are not about to judge them unworthy.

Yes, we find a pleasing productivity and labored existence, in finding ours the soldier’s calling. We soldier under the banner of Christ, not crazed but rather pleasantly peaceful, awaiting that Armageddon or Liminal, Horizon-like Day when others shall likewise come before the Throne of Grace. No matter: we are enveloped and suited up, already like those hired earlier in the day, working with joy and delight, for wages that we shall ultimately see to be equal to the wages of these our later co-laborers (Matt 20:1-16).

Therefore there is much fuss to be made around “making for peace” even within our own ranks, even hoping against hope that the presentation of a Common Enemy will streamline and bring many to repentance, in order that they may together fight the Good Fight. All this, and who knows: the profiteers of war and the group-herding non-repentance, non-principled stand, these we rightly hate and detest, yet too the foolish ones late to the Altar: these we love all the same.