2024-06-21 A Meditation on A Way Forward

“25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matt 6:25-34 ESV)

The way forward may really hide from us, that is, our better sensibilities may rather shirk from it; we may be in another scope, a range and a pasture a little more familiar, more “in any case, here is where I am” sense.

Then life occurs. Then all our failed efforts past bring us to This Day, when new friends made may just be the elixir, may be met in all sincerity: who says they have no one? It’s not that we have no one, it’s that Christ is in the Now business; unashamed of accumulated stories that are points of fellowship, unashamed of yet additional, rather of here and now, friendships. Unashamed of layering on any one of His footsoldiers the mantle of Forgiven, of Blessed, of Sent, of Missional, of Encouraged. We are encouraged to dwell Here and Now, not Yesterday, not “I have enough friends”; for, do we? That is, the way forward is not overly cautious or cynical about that field of harvest found even in the midst of a church elusive and a pressure cooker: the peace of out-and-about meets the pressure cooker of missional life Together, and some things succeed; some things chalk up one in the win column; some things are a flat-out dire Urgent Meeting and Fresh Beginning. So this is our way forward, that those who do Listen, may just hear above the cacophony of all the more easy and familiar things.

The soldier therefore is in the Resurrection business, resurrection being a Total New Tomorrow, even after crossing that wild no-man’s-land. That no man’s land where we were saying Yes and Amen to the orders of Another, of a Drill Sergeant and too a Shepherd, who used us mightily and effectively, sparing no concern for dignity and measured caution: our lives enter the equation, our respectability and soothing comfort zones enter the riddle, our planned-out love for the troops: this, too, is banked on and utilized. That we did well to love on each other. That we did well to say, here this pocket of grace amidst a church high and nigh Impossible to do well by, this pocket and little warm new friendliness, is perhaps enough to go on.

So each is on some vast unbelievable sliding scale of Peacefulness, of Accumulated friendships, of no apologies Intent: some hate us, we might fear, denying that the Gospel makes our lives look crazy or even to some wicked; that we are not hiding from our matter-of-fact “just do it” responsibility to the brethren and sistren and the folks back home. We are not smug. We are not careening about from one pinball machine of sin to another. Yet we can understand why some would see us that way and, this is the rub, we even acknowledge our own prospects cut short, life’s work suddenly in the too hot glare of the sun; some things need a Shepherd, and this is where we appeal: do you not share with me a sensitive side? Do you not share with me a desire to share the Gospel?

No matter, our fellowship is with the five out of ten, with the one out of a hundred, or with the ninety-nine who needed no shepherd’s loving crook. And in this we plead, we beg—not out of milder weakness, but out of Holy Boldness—that each hear us out, and that each know our Intention is right and good, to make the solemn confession in its time but also to celebrate the After Party of Christ’s benevolent feasting. Both parties we attend, certain that the wedding banquet, this has perhaps already occurred, and Jesus made wine. And Jesus called new disciples. And Jesus gave us bi-gender love, bi-racial love, bi-lifestyle love, bi-cultural love, bi-vocational love. All this, because we are turning to a New Tomorrow so evasive it might be, as far as our own cautious Vision. But we have Christ’s Vision.