2022-10-01 A Meditation on Divine Deeds
“Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!” (Ps 44:26 ESV)
We can be too big for our britches but also have this zany faith that God is no-time-to-delay at work, challenging, recruiting, upbuilding, restoring, reconciling, inspiring, amidst a world chock full of standards and what is familiar; we easily fall into the mousetrap that says, “Calm the noise”; “What’s the fuss?”; “See us patriotic and clever here”. By patriotic is meant loyal to that great name of our Lord, that is, for those who believe, for the Christians, patriotism is discipleship and following our Christ. So we pray.
We pray, because we use the same word; yet where is that Christ? Where is the no-time-to-delay race, not to empty platitudes and stolen consolation, but to something that we make a fuss over. We fuss over the hawkish outlays of our children, wishing the men to be bold and beautiful, and the women to be strong and capable (we might say). We wish too for a society not resting on its laurels, but seeking via personal discipleship to be prepped for a world gone mad, frustrated and aghast at the Christian “thing” that is going on. So is it high treason to say, our founding documents and civil order is secondary to our personal involvement, investment, time, in certifying Christianity proper as what we believe?
That is, we pray because this Christianity is calling for zealots amidst calm belovedness. We are beloved, and prayed over, and nurtured, and spirit-fed; yet in this comes the clarion call to bold maneuvers and an actual fight, a war, scarcely seen yesterday but full-on today. We cannot bow out. We are certified fighters, because of the beheldedness and beholdedness. And what is currency today, is different from what was currency yesterday, in some regard: we always dwell, if we’re honest, in a place unjudged and not honorific of the rules and memoranda and things memorized; all of us have some special place where we are encouraged that God went before us, likewise not regaled by the civil authorities; likewise challenged to peep out in faith, in certainty, in trust not in easy answers and familiar but outdated tropes of yesterday, but in a reckoning with today’s fight, today’s outlay, today’s maneuvering. No, the gospel of stasis and familiarity, has to go. We have to recognize our own hatred, our own clamoring to lead the pack, more in tuned with stepping on others than on glad service irregardless of how the Lord has so arranged us (His, we remind ourselves that we are, troops).
We are glad in secondary positions. We made no concessions, though once seemed to. Our confession of faith was no blanket submission to man, but a common cause and Encounter with a spirit all who confess Christ do know and do love, a searched-out spirit, a responsive spirit, a Holy Spirit. “Oh, we made the matter plain, and so-and-so seems to have accepted our terms!” Such is a negotiating spirit of this world, when in fact Christians do indeed put all on the line when they claim something beyond simple obedience, but a key in-the-face message of obedience to this One, this Christ, this Reconciler, this Encourager, this Lamb. So our weakness is our strength.
We are servant to others because it no longer seems their backs are all we see. We believe in a Divine order where one or two deeds are sufficient for the Good Lord to elevate us, to pass momentary but Divine judgment on us as those called and worthy now by the blood of the Lamb. The Lamb slain for us, to uphold that law and order, but only insofar as we attest to this: we are saved by His blood, not by any cheap gimmick or simple flattery. He searches hearts, and ours is here on display; we are part sinner and part saint, entirely beloved, cherished, and fed. That is, each of our deeds done in faith is without sin, yet it is the Divine storyteller who spins together the fabric of our lives. In Him we have our belonging-against-the-odds. For much is arrayed against us, and many have already been chosen to go to the front. Many have the front brought to them. Many simply in weariness extend a hand to their likewise wearied peer.
The Christian who blocks and protects their kin and neighbor from what is unsavory or the Christian who scoffs at the presumption of those who are unwell, presumption to draw near, actions deserving of a hearty laugh, this Christian is taking an ordained office upon themselves, the office of safeguarding the flock. This Christian sees clearly and is not bamboozled nor fed fairy tales. This Christian, we pray, refuses to make their excommunications the first message, but, wearily, actively makes something life-affirming their key outlay. I know: it isn’t fair the trials that come upon us, so in this fight they should be honored, we do suppose. In this, is no gaping, staring, appeal to “what things were like yesterday”, but an eager reckoning with what life has started to blossom in each of our midsts today. We are a fabric all together called society. We are living outlets of said society. Said society is primed for a Gospel experience, thanks to the clear-thinking of its preachers and priests. Yet we do not clericalize.
Many are the tears, “I’m trying so hard”; “I always feel that in response to my heartfelt labors I’m only asked to give even more, to have even more patience, to suffer yet even more, for foolish creeds and some kind of experience I wish to preserve”. It is not life according to the rule books or status quos. It is plain reckoning with unexpected new challenges to the community, lusts indulged, debate as to just who it is who needs to take a sacrificial, servant, principled role (clue: all of us).
Many have found sanctuary even amidst their simple and weary peers. Many have gone to be with the Lord because of some pre-Gospel message, rather, a gospel message hidden in tangible actions and words of love from Jesus.
