2025-03-06 A Meditation on Breakage and Compromise

“12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. 17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God 18 and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; 19 and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— 21 you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. 24 For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” 25 For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. 26 So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? 27 Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. 28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” (Romans 2:12-29 ESV)

Morality breaks. Compromises accrue. One of the most illogical on paper aspects of the Gospel is we nonetheless are equal under Judgment. All are sinners. The saint’s complete oblivious or lacking in experience Friendship, is lopsided. Grace on one hand, sin on the other. These two meet, and these two joust it out a bit; but if we must put logic to the endeavor, we believe in some weird Vacuum wherein the “Hello!” knocking on our brain and skull keeps us saintly Per Design, and good deeds enter that vacuum and multiply. The community hearkens back to a time before the exploitation took place. The camaraderie hearkens back to a time a little more innocent on the “I give up” compromise.

What is this to say, however? We believe that in taking Christ’s Name upon us, we are taking upon our shoulders a Lord who is King not just of the Jews, but of the rabble. And that sin, their sins, become part of our equation. So do enter, O Soldier of the Cross, if you are able. If you are willing to Forgive. If you are hopeful in an equanimity of your own sanctity, and it being shared broad and deep across those less morally fortunate.

That is, we have a bit of a reality check in certain things wherein by and large we feel certified, authorized, saintly, yet—you can’t make this up—we also are Hurt when others doubt us or when the Law enters the equation: we begin—because of the Law—to rebel. We have just, in this paragraph, invented Grace: that Law is a terrible nursemaid or manservant. Law literally creates what it tries to undo. And so to the ramparts! Alongside the less fortunate—morally speaking. Alongside the plunderer, the evil capitalist, the usurping colleague. It is Never About their—or our—good deeds. It is the Capacity to go for broke and… if this headstrong reaction to Law hefted our way, is to say “Bah, humbug!”, then let it be. We are all things to all men and all women. We do not judge the ambiance or the circumstances of their “party” or their “invite” or their “celebration”: Christ attended the luscious feasts. And what is and isn’t in those treasured scriptural gospels is that Christ went soup-to-nuts, in ways tempting the scribe to record a lesser miracle. “They’d never believe it”; “That He was with sinners, no”; “That even mentioning the deed is sufficient to tempt and to ruin, to bring that very deed about”. We do not shy away from mentioning the deed. If that will help us confront the inverted Reality, that insofar as “This one” is a sinner, we celebrate because of their Presence in the courts of the Lord.

Stay calm, then, misunderstood saints and beleaguered prophets. You have a judge: as Paul writes, our own thoughts will accuse and excuse us. Never for a moment allow that backsliding to take place wherein, to please a majority, we allow a tittle or iota or dot of the Law to claim some legitimacy. That simply ain’t God’s Truth! That is, look beyond the Sin, and speak of Elysian Fields. Look beyond the presenting Cause of Degradation, and speak of commiseration, brotherhood, sisterhood. Because on paper it just don’t add up. That the wildly travelled one is sitting next to the happens-to-be saintly one. The former in just as much equanimity as the latter. Just as much belonging as the latter.

The Christian Cause, then, is a lightness of being that is holding aloft the heavy sins of the people. It lifts and sets aright. It literally laughs at itself a bit and says, it never occurred to me just what compromises a crew, an individual, a cohort starts down the rabbit hole of. Therefore group yourselves around those impossible Experiences with friends, the guilt, the sense of having gone too far, the lusts and the lying, the ways only Good Grace prevening does save us from worse sins… but it required some Time and Prayer to overcome. We are after all Simple and Childlike people. So form your own church! Form your own creed! Only this, that saints in the land have already tried and make the Church as she exists, as her Captain exists, a welcoming place for those on the cusp of even greater sins.

It is not some “higher echelon” of social engagement. It is not some “Pleasant social club” when we remember a few precious ones. All are served by One, and we strive to be that one indeed. Knowing it is a thankless and precarious job. To be lumped with such as these. And it is still Grace that rebounds when Law both accuses and makes the morality become compromised. We ignore the compromise. We dare say—such as these, who can say how far off course they have travelled. But feeling pretty, sitting handsome, all dressed up, in the pews, complimenting ourselves, “At least I’m not like this sinner; I fast twice a week…” etc. (Luke 18:12). It takes Divine Mandate to bring us to holy places, and we pray that occur throughout our week, throughout our forty days, throughout our coming into the Presence.