“27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. 32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judging Others 37 “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38 give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” 39 He also told them a parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. 41 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye. A Tree and Its Fruit 43 “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, 44 for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. Build Your House on the Rock 46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”” (Lk 6:27–49 ESV)

The house built on the sand can fall apart if even one voice rises up in opposition; it is a flimsy house that cannot see even one Rejection, Divorce, Exemplary Friendship (especially those across gender boundaries); it is a flimsy foundation that cannot see one Vocalized testimony from the perceived Foe (who may be us).

The house built on a rock is peaceful and gentle, exemplary of Sharing Nature, of Open Talk, of testimonials filled with those waves and storm clouds that prove to be the undoing of the house built on sand. We are like the poverty-stricken who share everything they have willy-nilly, who tell the truth and the whole truth (not hiding behind the legal precedent of Christianity being a secret society). That is, who will call a thing what it is, who will spice up their retelling and account of matters, with some highlighted sins of their own. Because their house is built on a rock—on The Rock—on Christ.

The pie-in-the-sky heights of this house on sand, of this Tower of Babel, of this hubristic and proud exemplar, leaves the soldier with a new sense of Duty: to soldier on despite the malaise and the sense of a Reckoning underway. Christ’s foundation is meanwhile battered and storm-tossed, victim of a raging Sea and howling Winds. His foundation… the enemy on the foundation of sand argues a Legal Right to win the battle, even in a capitalistic society, that anything we “Do” is aggression or unfair to them. Even if it has nothing to do with them, only their own attempts to run and stage-manage the narrative, to say, “Already established: they are thinking only of us… and so anything they do is aggression… stop them!”. We respond just by remembering our Christ’s—our Foundation’s—own words, that their house will not survive the day of stormy judgment. But for now, already the latter’s rock is storm-tossed, and the former’s sand is in pretty mode, in sitting pretty mode and pristine and with lawsuits preventing the natural course of stormy weather, even.

We may make fun and jest, but the Truth is a society Today turning a corner and Beginning—just Beginning—to piece together a legal or militaristic Response to the Heinous sins. If some careers are ruined, that is but a foretaste of the coming Judgment: the rock will withstand the Storm, but just barely, and with a deep sense of tragedy—not, the tragedy of those careers ruined, but the tragedy of how Compromised by Satan was our community so precious.

Or the truth is a little Fold, a Carved-Out space, in our community, to Celebrate and Persist yes in secret-society fashion, to Celebrate the Christian Word and Sacrament. God will make of twelve disciples a Nation and an Era, a War and a Seedbed. From one man, and Him soon to be dead, came twelve witnesses (saying nothing of the five hundred or several thousands fed, of the women who accompanied Him), who changed the world.

Really tragic is just that there is no way to negotiate, we being pragmatic, idealistic, but also pragmatic, that perhaps some truth pertains: she, he is indeed a big fish (tycoon?) in the world, so let us do the thing with jurisprudence and Talk, talk Shop, talk Negotiations, talk Languages misunderstood. “But he… but she… they aren’t bopping people over the head and fulfilling Rocky Horror Picture Show types of prophecy. Well, because those are dreamy visions and the truth is that we are Civilized as a people, that those are just celluloid humor and to some, even, junk. Truth is stranger than Fiction! So come to the table in humility and with abundant sense of sins forgiven. Forgive those not Aware war is on the doorstep, or already here, when several thousand go the way of Judgment, of Christ’s reign and second-coming already amongst us in anticipation of Tomorrow’s Man-child. If this is the last call for some, it is the first Beginnings for another, and their Magical Experience… it will be shared as in a friendship, no need for legal disclaimers (“we are only friends”) though true, but no need to fuss and worry because we are all things to all people, we are Servant and Tutor and Friend.