2025-04-19 A Meditation on Christ’s People

“13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” 16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”” (Luke 12:13-21 ESV)

Christ’s people. Life at times feels spacious and inviting. Today, by contrast, we focus on that time when all are to a man unified and a great mass and working in lockstep. Immediately we ask, shouldn’t we plan up and prepare and ready ourselves for that eventuality? But in some meekly whispering or gentle manner, God asks us not to worry what tomorrow will bring, not to save up, not to build ourselves walls and safehouses, arks to weather the storm; for who knows but that today your soul will be required of you?

It is therefore that we all along were working in lockstep. The gladsome greeting is multiplied across the Body. We are taking that Trust Fall wherein we do not save up and build up, but rather in counting ourselves naught, flimflam and detritus almost, we attain to a Value unto Him. That is, we are simple materials and lightweight, cheap and plugged in across the accordion waves and pulses of frontline. We are the consumer brand and the generic brand and the times-tables multitudinous repetitive Brand. Horizons of repeat, distant gaze of cookie-cutter soldiers. God not only refuses to devalue human life, He by way of deconstructing Man’s edifices builds up a New Generation poised, ready to strike, coiled, and in Sync, Lockstep, flimflam Definiteness. We sway with the wind. We are lightweight, because we are poised. Limber. Rooted, yet in no obsessive or frantic manner.

God did not devalue human life but Honored it with His own dying day. And He apes the scripture commentator or professor of holy writ, because His words directly challenge the OT words. Do not build up for yourselves a castle. Do not worry about tomorrow. All this is un-Jewish, right? Directly changing the scriptural mandate (as if He knew His words were New Writ already, or were soon to be a Bible in any case)?

The posture, then, is poised and Ready, to hum through the pointed, accurate, on-the-ball Attack against rampant satanism. And this comes second nature, when we do indeed study and show ourselves accepted. It comes second nature when we have that “Uh Huh” moment: mercy, redemption, belovedness. It startles us, and gives a New Mandate to our very Being. We then are the serpent to the serpent’s own guile. Something has struck a chord with us; we are wildly wandering and prophesying and Seeking, a shout that knocks down a fraught and frozen Gestalt. And to that no-room-to-bargain Group Mind: in the hour, it feels no less spacious than our so-called times of preparation. Our times of Free Society for better or for worse. Our times of decision-making and wide fields in which to roam. Always there was some Christ with us; always some pain, easily brushed over in the reappraisal; always some faultiness because after all we were less than “most popular”, less than “beloved”, less than “unfraught and at peace on all sides”. It was always War. Today is yesterday’s repetition. So what we are now, is what we have always been in the Son. He saw our former selves, and blessed. He saw our unforgiven selves, and wildly sacrificed His own self to bless us. Coiled, striking, and recoiled, today He is post-pain and suffering, in Heaven, and that being no simple paradise, but a Rest and a friendship and a chance to shrug off the weary-headed post-confusion and battle-scarred reality.