2024-02-15 A Meditation on Respectability

“2 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, 2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” (2 Thess 2:1-4 ESV)

With lofty titles like “discipleship” the Christian tries to make sense of life and of a Call rather other-worldly. The Call is scarcely mentioned before the rafters come crashing down, scarcely emoted or quietly and reverently paused over, before jokesters and lost souls have a go at denying it all. Denying the gentle soul remembered. Denying the purpose or mission calmly, hopefully, urgently imparted. In a dying soul’s working and labored-over hours of investing in each of us. In that dying soul’s certainty and habitual nature, of Love, of Valuation, of a thankless or rather other-worldly place of investment. We invest, but our plight in life calls for forgiving ourselves and mocks anything casually undertaken.

We take things on with mettle, with firm resolve, with determination, with the cool steel of living in the twilight of this world and the oncoming new form, new gestalt, new Arrival. We have arrived, and await the world catching up; we have been humbled, and learn to say “no matter”; we are no longer mocked but rather jumble doubts with the resolve, to be healed and to be bettered, patient in prayer and hopeful in endeavor.

Lofty titles suppose a right-to-live, to coexist in this world and rub shoulders with other callings and tracks. Yet the Christian is both mocked and assured that her or his call is indeed about each other’s business; it is our Call to believe our faith has a meaning for all comers, has a relevance to all situations, has a wide-eyed awakening for its chosen vessels—we, the people—to be enthusiastic and patient and motivated. All things are indeed brought to a heavenly Table, a banquet and a sense of no-time-to-delay as horizons beckon and give hope, as we unburden ourselves but rather, as we take on those greater burdens yet easy burdens, of the urgent word or patient prayer. We pray as to heal and to cease to let ourselves be mocked by half-way seriousness or anything severe. Our severity is unto a gentler scope, a softer climate, where much obstruction occurs. Yet we walk on water. Yet we own up to the Call to be about the business of meeker stands but bolder calms.