2024-12-05 A Meditation on Celebration

“10 I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:10-13 ESV)

The ongoing party mindset hearkens to this principle, that rightly understood the climate of faith is a climate of celebration. Likewise, we live in the moment, the inclination urgently to Pray being an induction into a worldwide mindset called Prayer. We celebrate not with any shame or embarrassment as to our profligacy, but rather because rightly understood the soldier is of gladsome disposition and hearty giving nature.

That is, no contradiction to put strength to root, to steel up the rafters and undergirdings, while ending any Cynicism or Perfunctory Obligation: we are dutiful unto a Strength neither foolhardy nor unfortunately self-deprecating: we dare to Believe, and in this Strength—a strength borne by Another—we light up the prayer channels of the heart and the unapologetically Victorious channels of the spirit.

We light up because we are profligate in the right sense, not guilt-ridden about this fact, that a day in God’s courts is a day of planning and intentional war footing. It is instead of being our nervous dubious frustration, a cause to gladsome engagement one to another, with our peers in the Cause, with our new Neighbors in the Mission, with a social contract that we be Alert to the miasma of misogyny or duelling loyalties, and Sharp to the myriad mysteries of Holy License to Celebrate, Him with us.

She or He, with us. It was a long night that woke us to a stretch, a reach, for the Gospel lesson of the day. We teach ourselves, because we need more than a stasis or more subtle give and take: these things overlook that gladsome Pastor’s ecstasy and urgent Need to Celebrate. We shout down Satan. We stare down compromise. By alerting to Prayer Life, we alert to that notion deep in the subconscious that, just as we are praying for peers, others are praying for us. Does that lift the heart and soul? Does that mean anything? Only insofar as we Believe our own petitions and blessed missional Requests are heard. We scarcely need vocalize them, as God the Father knows: He knows all the embarrassingly simple mindsets and focal points. He also knows all the “Hey, that hurt”, sensitive aspects of our soul, and those sensitive guiles at times building up to Concern, for Others, for our Peers and long-lost Friends. Who taught us to Be. Who taught us to Question and Answer. Who taught us to waltz through the night in no awareness of poverty but rather of richness. And today, others would have us morbid and resentful of the advantages of a competitor or wartime opponent, but we refuse thus to mope. We refuse thus to complain. We are… are we easily pleased? Foolishly content? Silly in our boasts? No! The Spirit has frustrated all interlopers and enemies in the Good Name of our Cheer. We did not plan it, we did not calculate it, it was indoctrinated into us from our mother’s milk. It was there on our father’s knee, and elder sibling’s prayer for us… to Learn, to have Knowledge, no longer to float along in blase complicity.

The Spirit has invited us to turn any unfortunate tidings into existential cause for Joy. We are tied down in so many ways, yet aloft and soaring in the Name of Christ. We are so foolish as to Forget that we of all people have the most reasons to complain. But instead we look outward, and inward, and everywhere, searching for the Savior’s Mindset imputed to us, lent in our direction, fastened in to our cockpit of the soul and frame of the Employment. Our Employ is for a cause only accidentally begetting of War: we solemnly mourn, but also know that the War is no might-makes-right, no hunger for battle, but rather a Fruit and Result of our own soul’s urgent need for Progress. We have no time to compromise. We have no time to tolerate. We were forbidden to Stand Tall, even as Christ in Luke and elsewhere straightened the backs of the women hunched over, with debilitating spirit in them.

To stand tall… dare we say? This offends and confronts the street corner pundits. Yet we have now the License, in Him, to stand tall. We know how to be abased and how to soar: in all these things we are more than conquerors. Some lifestyles are just so indulgent, but we do not thus worry or declare war… yet. We declare war on our own indulgence, and on our own curved backs, and on our own shy demeanor around things we should be bold and sly (both) with. We are in talk therapy. We are singled out as Burden Bearers of subtle teachings and leadership. The false front, the complete Mystery around why and where and when we learn suddenly to Thrive, these are mysteries that start with the incommensurability of the Season. It was no logical deduction, but a Gift from Prayer, from Outside of ourselves, the Inspired, unevolved and instead Inducted, Attributed, Stolen, outward-in Inbreaking Spirit of Jesus that meant everything to us.