2024-08-08 A Meditation on Slaves of Righteousness

“15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 6:15-34 ESV)

People pray for things Discovered, Emoted heights, Motivational truth: to guard knowledge (Mal 2:7), to be touched by a burning ember (Is 6:6ff), not to be silenced when treading out the grain (Dt 25:4): these things are prayed up upon in a frenzy, an inspired Realization of a More Healed, More Gospel, More Highland Clearinghouse, More Criss-Cross Junction and More Trail Head.

Because the gravity of life brings doubts and brings compromises. Brings denials and brings scoffing, ameliorated truth, compromised verity, doubtful aim, wrong marksmanship. Yet to Believe in a conduit, in a Word Spoken, is to forgive the man or woman still patently insecure or doubtful, when from that lips of the priest comes knowledge. Comes veracity and truth-telling. Comes a moment of Goodness, when the healing is announced, the placated ill is broadcast, the talked-down demon is eviscerated.

That is, heights consist in some Courage to go broad and deep. They consist in some Boldness to catch the fish, evict the demon, find a live one on our hands: the “live one” of the soul submitted and on retreat, composed of words True and Narrow, hearing communal prayer-time Welcome and Inspiring. All this because we are slaves of truth now, when formerly slaves of sin.

Slaves, as in bondservants, as in hopelessly compelled, compulsory sin and wrongheaded outlay, being the diagnosis. It was a dire estate, a horrid bequest, a matter-of-fact Observation that these are still unawares of their outlays, unmindful of what it all in fact looks like, victims of slavery’s—sin’s—iron grip on the Man, on the Woman. Not settling for this status, we were prayed after and confronted, reminded it is a nasty foe we used to serve and now still see others serving. It was time and chance to Believe in a new status called Righteousness, that we can be slaves of that instead.

That is, compelled to do what is right; thoughtful and mindful to think what is Peace and Composure; reminded and observant to glow out of what is Spiritual and Healed. We are healed of so much lack of devotion, of so much trespassing across the No Trespassing signs of each other’s souls and bodies and minds, horridly Wrong—so wrong, that it is not spoken of in polite company, the estate of the sinner. Yet we were washed, we were cleaned, we were Upheld as New Converts and Disciples made Fresh. We became, in other words, slaves of that same Gestalt and Joint Movement called Peace, called Righteousness, called Home and called Hope.