2023-12-30 A Meditation on Divine Valuation
“46 An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest. 47 But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side 48 and said to them, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great.”” (Lk 9:46-48 ESV)
Things we dare not hope for, these things the average rank and file member in fact has entrusted to themselves: God’s personal involvement; God’s valuing of human life; God’s strange pick-me-up game that He plays even with the average or the no-name soldier. God is there, to bequeath a strange personal Accomplishment and Drive: we are healed, we are entertained, we are cared for. As though He had enough largesse and impulse to bare open arms even to us, to us as the one’s so meek and inoffensive, daring not even to dream of such an opening. We are the footsoldiers who are beckoned, “Come up here!”. We are those who gaze in urgent honesty unto the hand that is raised in solemn blessing even unto the lowly and unto the forlorn.
The game is proceeding, and one’s personal Faith is cause, of course, for jealousy, yet see the strange Will of the Father to be form and substance, hands and feet, of today’s solemn and meek “average” footsoldier. See the loud and brash types doff a cap of respect unto God’s own Choice. Those He chooses, as though theirs was the ne plus ultra of humanity and life experience: we value you! We are strangely befuddled at what genius, what instinct, what coping and accomplishment, you have brought to the table this day. We are seeing the tides turned and a contagious Respect lent in your direction. All suddenly Respect, the footsoldier, the one peeping up like an infant in the hen and rooster’s nest, today encouraged and today Prepared.
Prepared for what is unexpected, and to witness, that as Crucifixion became the Direction and Forecast of our Lord, that He asked us to turn even this ending, even infamy, even destruction, to the praise, honor, and glory of His Kingdom. His Kingdom now stronger because of what was intended to destroy it. His Kingdom now poetic because of what was intended to make it flat and banal. His Kingdom now “moving in mysterious ways” because of what was intended to curse it and cause its dissipation.
Therefore, to the Call and to the Circumstance and to the Trenches: see she or he whom God has chosen to bear a heart aflame, a face aglow, a body smooth and working in unison, for the King and for His strange taste, His strange domicile, His strange place of residence. Unto the lowly and the meek. Unto those whom we—servants, we all—gladly prop up this hour as being God’s workmanship. This hour, we smile and delight upon some untold Value of that human Life, which Life is no less part and parcel of His economy of souls, and His desire each of us to live, His peace and abode so near to places where human-as-we-are we make concessions. No matter! He doesn’t concede. He doesn’t devalue. He doesn’t surrender or sacrifice without utmost Decisive Victory. He is victorious, because of something started in earnest in those trenches and in the behind-the-scenes stuff made front and center.
Today, accept His strange or odd order of affairs. Today, love what was too easy to pass up. Today, be the soldiering force He designed and enabled, saluting and charging into commission. This is all of us; this is the Gospel of how each of us does feel in some sense overlooked and meek: we are meek around our own insecurities, perhaps, or simply ways we’ve been socially-trained to a meager or hidden aspect of ourselves. Not good enough for the light of day. Not able or beloved enough to shine in all-on composure, radiance, fully-human and fully-saved, divine and blessed, angelic and heroic. In all these things, He is strangely boosting our embarrassing realities, and wondrously buttressing our Entire Being unto greater and greater situations.