2024-09-14 A Meditation on Cynicism in the Church

“8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” (Col 2:8-15 ESV)

Man, woman, prepares endlessly to be accounted as worthy. It behooves us to ask, however, if genuine anticipation… of a date, of a judgment, of a heavenly reign-of-peace invasion… informs us at all, in any way, in all seriousness. That is, utter paradox creates frustrated church citizens. Utter insincerity mocks the initial first baby steps of faith. “Bah! Humbug!” we say, as even slight offenses against the Law, against the Morality, against the Faith, against the Crown, ridicule our waking and sleeping thoughts.

All of us compromise, and it has grown too desert-like, too long without respite, without ointment, without flowing springs of water, for us rightly to steer clear of the compromise. The saints “Here I stand, I can do no other” is by lesser plebeian spirits mocked: those same words, but surrounding a moral compromise. And the saint, so high on their convictions and so accustomed to their cautious moral investigation, forgets about how the ninety-percent or the other half live.

To the pulpit, then! Not: “Love your enemies” until blue in the face, but “Accept Mercy, for not loving your enemies sufficiently”. With this… the maddening outcome, the allotment of payroll and bequest, is frustratingly not according to who has worked the longest hours, who borne the heat of the day, but is each of us making solemn, Holy, sacrifice of all we’ve “Earned” for the sake of Another: for the sake of our shivering peer or wide-eyed postulant.

The camaraderie is its own sincere reward, a judgment D-day occurring already and Now. Were we to take stock and accounting then we would see ourselves minute-by-minute divested to the point of genuine gladsome and hearty exchange of love. We would see ourselves with no hangover-producing glee, but an umpteenth watering hole or experience of Grace: we needed not to be blessed once but a hundred-fold, so cocooned and sheltered were we from any unction. We needed to be laid hands upon not once but a few dozen times. Because the truth of the matter is, only with baby steps, held firmly from above, do we begin to give thanks, to honor the other vessel, the vessel of love, the vessel of community, the vessel of peer and co-conspirator.

The machine of time soothes us with Promise for a brother in the faith, knowing we are foremost pastors and only secondly belong to a given creed. Jesus lived on a scale of suspicions and acceptance: of the religious hierarchy, of the people’s trusting faith, of the God He knew reigned High Above. This God—to Him we are worthy, and cocooned for a coming Judgment, held but also prayed over: we ourselves have the potency to make a drastic difference, if—this being the prayer—we meld sight with inspiration with action. But if we don’t—here the prize observation—we can await the next season when and where God will use us anew or someone else anew, to effect the Coming Realignment and Judgment of sane and peaceful and potent society. Potent to effect things in the lives of its citizens. Potent to value life while also promising Eternity. Potent to focus on One Encounter, write a hundred times into the journal and into the coming-of-age story, the high art that is birthed in poverty, the Jesus analog: these rumors are in the air, so let us make high art to equate some poor soul with what rumors in the air are out there. Let us do our dance and honor our Culture, for its God-fearing persistence, the excited artist glad but meek, to see her or his art on the big screens of life.