2024-05-21 A Meditation on Active Faith

“50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Cor 15:50-58 ESV)

Probably the most hair-raising fact of the matter, fact of our faith, is found in direct opposition to the “submitted” creed: namely, that God uses exuberant moments, words that flow, a death-defying avalanche of meaning, experience, Encounter. God uses the soldier’s kit and simple meal of faith, to award Astonishing involvement and meaning. The simple morsel of bread, the Certainty: that, once saved, always saved, and this not in some lonely esoteric creed, but in fact fearing only to be found too stoic, we lance forth: this is war in its youth; this is less a fright around “messing up” and more a fright around “not doing enough”: we are Called to act, to serve, to fight, to inspire, to lead, to communicate, to Discover: God is in the mellifluous flow of words; God is in the death-defying alighting upon a Prayer Felt, Heard, Inspiring: gladly will I go to what fate has decreed, if only I can do so in full Celebration of Christ’s Reign. In full Celebration of Christ’s tomb and empty morning. In full Celebration of Christ’s words we’ve all memorized. In full celebration… that to err is the worst outcome imaginable, other than the outcome of fearing even to try.

Therefore the up-by-the-bootstraps Response is a Reaction bold and patently lifelike: we are lifelike in Assignment met, in Duty discharged, in Enervating, Explicit, Emphatic Life Together, life in the commune where no past faults or memories can haunt, and where a gladsome Word, a Shout, a handing-over of all things unto Christ the Head, this wins hearts and minds, saving them from the self-loathing, saving them from the patent regrets, saving them from the empty effort simply to “appear truthful”, to be “found dutiful”, to wear on our bodies the “marks of discipleship”. No, a more charismatic service is necessitated, more bodies bent over the steps of the altar and more tears dabbed dry. More of much, we can say, because This Day we are announcing to any who will listen: “I am forgiven!”. And in this rather stark Conclusion of a whole litany of proper theologies and psychologies and therapies and philosophies, is the strange difference made between the Christian and the patently frightful secularist, the one who prescribes Judgment too awful, or Deeds unmentionable, or self-harm or resentment “from the crowd” of observers: we do not self-hate, though our acts come and go through patent fright and circumstances terrifying: see who we are. See, who we have become. See, that in unguarded moments we allowed a tempter to Assess, and that tempter found us lacking.

In that moment, the soldier is no-nonsense Refusing to hear even for a moment the litany of complaints and fault-finding: the soldier is no-nonsense Abhorring to take that so-called route of humility, for the implied accusation it would levy on her or his soldier-in-arms. We do not concede even for a moment that false humility that denies Salvation Status: we are Saved; we are therefore Encouraged in our joking around or our playful liturgies, our stream-of-consciousness, our “speaking as if it were our last words”. We love to pray aloud, if it seem fitting, and love to pray in peaceful silence if that seem fitting. We love to stand Tall around our status as Belonging and Needful, though a tempter whisper self-hatred into our ears.