“12 For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you. 13 For we are not writing to you anything other than what you read and understand and I hope you will fully understand— 14 just as you did partially understand us—that on the day of our Lord Jesus you will boast of us as we will boast of you. 15 Because I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a second experience of grace. 16 I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on my way to Judea. 17 Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh, ready to say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time? 18 As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. 20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. 21 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, 22 and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. 23 But I call God to witness against me—it was to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth. 24 Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.” (2 Cor 1:12-24 ESV)

The fabric of the Christ-follower begins with some Patient Encounter, not a creed, not a set of talking points, not a rational assent. More, it requires us to have been in precisely the right frame of mind, to accept this Weak Man’s love, if by “Weak” we understand: so strong as to dare to be vulnerable, to dare to approach on unguaranteed footing, to share with the populace the Blessedness He has as a Son.

And our frame of mind is therefore Right precisely if He finds us at day’s end or in Christian stead, in Christian morn, in Christian absence of Pride. Where formerly Mankind was Proud, today Mankind is unashamed simply to Be. Simply to be part and parcel of the Hometown Crew. Simply to laugh a bit or smile at the Curiosity Factor: Christ for us, and we His people now Ministered to in the name of that frenemy we at times Hate, or that friend we tire of bending down to aid, or that parent we forget to honor, or that sinner we can’t help but Judge. 

Church life… the Fabric… heroic in passing over minus Judgment, the Christian finds gladsome Battle Front, War and Repartee in the reason for the season, Christ the almost-secret Friend. We certainly heard as He prophesied of Wars and Rumors of War, but “the end was not yet”. We certainly were wise as serpents to meet the general public on their proud terms, to couch the war effort in belligerent or at least sensible terms: that we are secretly escorting Christ into the camp, this was a Truth a little too deep for some. Not for all, but for one or two naysayers, all it takes to see Christ Crucified.

Because He was hearth and Livelihood to the would-be saint. It was nothing mechanistic nor boring, nothing too lugubrious or bloodied-up or dull the Friendship most fresh and sanguine of His right hand of fellowship. It was the Reason we love life, to know Him and be Known. By this Person greater than all the words written about Him for we do witness: that the best Words are unscripted, are to each her or his own, are something Modern and Special for the sinner-become-saint

Christianity, therefore, forgets—beauteously, conveniently forgets—to make a sticking point over doctrine, at least when approaching our fellow-laborers in the vineyard of another religion. We have the chutzpah, the self-confidence, the dying will-power, to share with them just this: Christ for them, as much as for us; our boots-on-the-ground Presence not an imposition but a saline Encounter and Desire to share. Share some thing of Mercy and of Gorgeous Tomorrows. Share… even if it costs us Everything… the gladsome exchange He made by becoming the one sitting at Our feet, to hear pray tell of wars and rumors of war, to laugh at our jokes and honor us in ways we are just liminally beginning to see and comprehend.

The war is not to the stallion and the strong, so much as it is a shelter-in-place, a crystalline Palace most jealously Guarded, of tendrils called Love and called Vulnerable. For this we, having once tasted and already now set into motion, are fighting and laying lives on the line. We don’t need to own it any more than we already do: “I’ve seen the light, and I know what I’m fighting for!”. If high noon looms, if our reckoning seems germane to the hour, then multiply all the wondrous things we saw by a hundred million, to know God’s generational, epochal, era-drawn plans for Civilized Man: that we are at stage zero of some five or six stage first approaches to our Genesis as a civilization. And when the bombs drop, when the lives are sacrificed for the Protected Status of a few poor nuns or monks or servants or souls, here we put down our foot and say that the Mission is still crystalline and clear, Christ For Us, and we His people of glad tidings as the martyr’s fate bears down.