“17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. 25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Eph 4:17-32 ESV)

Post-negation, any moral litmus test no matter how obvious or no matter how intrinsically “felt”, is occasion to reinvent grace. To reinvent covering for a brother or sister in the faith. To reinvent somehow dropping the talons bared, the “obvious” brand of Christianity that is anything but, and to stoop down and condescend to their level of need.

Need not for a patronizing brand of “Look at how much love I’m showing towards them, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, wanna help?” when instead we should be a bit respectful of each other as Men, Women, self-contained and purposeful. The dweeb in our midst, is perhaps a wake-up call: stop selling the theological enterprise for scrap, stop dismantling the teachings, stop getting irate around “their” sins. This soul is valued, and to them we attribute full Agency, Potential and Livelihood.

We are all of us one Body, and members therein. We all of us sometimes have a more difficult time of it when nominally walking in utter innocence and sinlessness! Because it dehumanizes us to be sinless. No human, in truth, is free of sin. It is Christ who took sin on Himself in order to make a better showing of it. It is Christ who stood astonished at the rapidity, the scourge, the pandemic, of Rumor and of Accusation, Malice and Greedy Slander. It spells contagion. Whereas He arrived at a tabloid headline in and of itself: Christ has died, for sin. Come gawk at the, yes, what a poor man. Come sigh and strike a moral “understanding” tone. “It was only fitting, for someone so pure”; “Yes, yes, such is the life of the saint”; “Wouldn’t you know it?”. Meantime, His message to us, as He cried from the cruciform Tree, is a choice: either gape, or get down to business: nothing “funny” here, nothing to sigh about, but rather Immediately open the prisons, Immediately cover for the sister or the brother in Christ, Immediately pray for the enemies, Immediately… because we need no Christ to ape one another, but we do need Christ to live radically “Other” types of lives. We need Him to refuse to point out “Obvious” blunders, somehow to mutter “Devil” about full-scale attacks on the morality or chastity of a community (each community an ecosystem: no “one type” of sinner) but to mutter “Jesus”—rather, to speak the word called Silence, for we do not swear by His Name or any name—around the End of patronizing “gotchas” and the beginning of biblical life together.

Counting it all joy… the winning ticket is the relief of the saints: we are relieved because we are able to forgive others. This is us engaged in widespread “theft” of the Fact: Christ died for them, as much as for me. So, no thieves, we “borrow” the Joy, “borrow” the Catharsis, we experience it vicariously. To treat the “Dweeb” as somehow still Capable to decide, to heal, to repent, and all this without a patronizing type of love. Love for the matters even scripture doesn’t at first glance appear to address. Love that all life is a turmoil, and our wealthier counterparts, to them the game is to raise strong sons and daughters… of wealth. And so there is more love and patience in order to address subtle points. But to the beleaguered, to the poor, to the demon-oppressed, we need to impute a certain level of self-mastery, that is, not fussing over a rich man’s type of healings, but over urgent need to Listen, to Dream, to Engage, to Lance Forth. Into better Causes and Modalities. What is your hope, O favored one? Can we work it out in lockstep? With one another? With the community, you for a moment in the driver’s seat? See the Spirit make widely-friendly souls of each of us! We are rugged, beleaguered, ragged, for Christ’s sake, delighting to share with any and all comers, the Joy of believing. The Joy of no longer judging, of escaping our judgmental, gossipy boredom. The Joy of quite elevating body mind and soul around a Delightful mutual forbearance. And to those who are putridly fantasizing of revenge in the pews, to these we yield not for a moment, nor do we become like them, but even to such as these we attribute, we Impute, that they have it in them to Thrive in Christian full fashion. That their dreams, too, with a good stylist, barber, couture are shipshape for the Public Scene. Of shared ambitions. Of dreamwork elegant. Of gladsome Life in sober community.