2024-11-29 A Meditation on Alternate Flags of the Faith

“15 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray. 17 On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. 18 And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, 19 but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. 20 And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” 21 And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 22 When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, “Why do you question in your hearts? 23 Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralyzed—“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.” 25 And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God. 26 And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen extraordinary things today.”” (Luke 5:16-26 ESV)

Working ourselves up to the Gospel, fluttering in the day’s breeze the Truth on display, the Faith Once Delivered, is beguiling. On some level we are those who Lose: lose the works-righteous competition (and make no mistake about it, any interlocutor in the pew save one or two perhaps precious ones, is Ambitious, greedy and covetous and inconsiderate, on some level). We lose the head-long dive into a melee so un-Christian as to sicken. We lose the very title of “Christian” in the minds of some. Because their fluttering flags flown, have never gone quite the route of Conversion. It is a downtrodden or happenstance or simply pat and circumspect, variety of what are called Religious Experiences.

Working ourselves up to the Gospel, we see the endeavor to do one or two Christian things, as what drives our interlocutor in the pew, absent starkly the endeavor to experience Mercy. And in this we are beat. In this we are forced as though man-handled so rudely or so starkly, to see our own Presence or Constitution or Assembly of the Soul to be half-hearted, un-Christian, odd-ball, and “oh, yeah: me again”. Because we are not those proud to see what “me” or “I” has gotten up to. We feel like the loser in the equation, because we know that, insofar as the competition is one of good works, we are loserdom. We are seeing ourselves as so much striving and wishful thinking, but scarcely able to cross that threshold called Divine. We see ourselves as failures by our parents’ measures, and failures by our siblings’ measures, and failures by our teachers’ measures. In short, the community, through it’s eyes, we see ourselves as failures.

Therefore let the Prize be given to someone else, if it is a works-righteous prize. Let us see that heightened state of alert, and be composed and sure around this: that Christ the King longs for us and desires us. He desires for us to approach still broken by sin, and is a bit reassured in His Person that the one broken by sin is a little bit more reliable, a little less grandstanding, a rather comforting notion too, by the way, for her or his ability to be salt and light to a neighbor or bunkmate or platoon comrade. Non-threatening, for good works are the most threatening thing out there. And the illusion bandied about, is of a soul who never received the licks or the loving discipline that proved the point: nothing we do satisfies the Father in Heaven, except that we learn to Thrive in mercy. To be on the up-and-up, on the ascent, from a rock bottom that none can invent, so dastardly does it prove us to be. This He loves. This, He says, “Finally, a man or woman after my own heart” to.

Therefore our sense of being on shifting ground or a stark precipice, meets the God who hears our plea: “This war, with my fellow in the pews, I think… I dare say I think… I think I’ve lost”. And He creates for us Peace and Situated presence, in order that we may thrive and leave up to Him and Him alone whatsoever shall be done to the more atheistic or works-righteous. Thus we are babes in arms, not greedy for more but quietly and peacefully wondrous and amazed: a space for Us! A quality of life, with a few peers! Not many, but a few. Because the world is addicted, or unconverted, by its head-long dive into Good Works. And if we wonder why the unction of church life has gone dry, it is because of this Competition, one we naturally joined up to because that is what we do, but that This Day we need to learn to deny and vacate. We need to learn that our own good deeds are a case of the hand not knowing what the other hand is doing. We need, in short, to be those who receive Mercy. And see, that as we self-critique, the bastardly alter-ego jumps on how we judge ourselves, and says to her or himself, “See? I knew they were presumptuous, greedy, all those things they point out by way of confession!” And we do the same, when apologized to for some interruption. We forget: that the Gospel of Today is immediate and stark, needful and top-to-bottom: Today, not when convenient but Today, learn from your peers in the pew to discern and to reject, to accept Mercy and to finalize a ledger based on contrition. If we say we have no good works, well they will jump on that. But we have our testimony of Grace, to carry the day.