2022-11-11 A Meditation on Personal Recognisance

“Tychicus will tell you all about my activities. He is a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts, and with him Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They will tell you of everything that has taken place here.” (Col 4:7–9 ESV)

There are many storylines or explanatory cause-and-effect setups, and some make more sense than others. It makes sense that we form discipleship cohorts, platoons under commanders and drill sergeants, mutual submission around a cause. We are minions. But the soldier has a special storyline unique to her or himself: personal recognisance; no higher earthly authority; their own decision-making on the line.

Indeed, we shy from such a fact. We want some higher embrace to cultivate us. We find it hard to believe that we ourselves are responsible for running the show, on some level. The platoon revolves around the good vibes or ill souls of its each and every person. On some level, we are released unto our own recognisance. On some level, there is no one higher; will we this day make judicious decisions, no gambling insanity, but holistic and heart-approved outlay? All this, even as the outward appearance is one easily lampooned or caricatured, as simple beings taking orders.

God the Father cultivates this notion of each of us being an army of one, cultivated and Created, on a ledge, having to take on responsibilities that grow and grow and grow as we ourselves learn to trust, responsibilities mocking any thought of perfectionism or suitability: the more we learn to trust and toe that faith-line, the more that strange authority and leadership is cast our way. Never do we know for sure that things are at a calm and manageable level; instead we are discipled and educated as to this: that our pride, our perfectionism, our rationality, all this is made into a jest by the Higher God who gives us occasion for glum or upbeat comment on the situation; our thoughts really matter, and we are first of all depressed that nothing matters, then all of a sudden, we are in the limelight and asked for an opinion.

To be asked for counsel is to put aside one’s pride and perfect ideations; one cannot emerge themselves anything other than a fool for Christ in some decisions: we will be laughed at by a wider world. This is a wider world that perhaps does not know a sense in which all are set apart; all are called; all are hastened to go to that Cross as to their own fears.

Our mission is simple: to do ministry, which is shorthand for loving the down-and-out, healing the aggressive or competitive milieu in our platoons and barracks, the sickly curse, the dismissive faith, the picked-on and mocked unfortunate ones. We learn to make it no advertisement for ourselves, but rather a group-effort where all hands are on deck, and somehow that perch called “Fool…” is autographed, “…for Christ”.

Indeed, in the faith, all that we believe has a strange logic to it, a reasonability; but one a little too far forward for others; we cannot expect it to be embraced but rather, whilst we have that Love and Assurance to direct us, others glance off of us at strange angles, and life’s unfairness, the constant boot on one’s neck, the poo-pooed insights we try in love to bring to the table, these things help us stay “all systems go”. They help us beam up and take responsibility for the state of our own hidden, or at least, only with difficulty discipled, heart. That heart is this day handed back to us by a God who made us in His image: Dare! Be brave! Explore! I trust you, having heard your mellifluous words of confession! Today!