2024-10-15 A Meditation on Easy Going

“8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you 10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— 12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.” (Rom 1:8-15 ESV)

Because the faithful servant is so easy-going, it is occasion for doing a double-take: we scarcely appreciate just what radical stewardship, discipleship is on display; the servant is radically formed and unwavering, such that they are all things to all people. That is, the servant looks beyond any luscious, tempting call to “submit even more” if said call is not biblical, Grace, punctilious, as in sharp and decisive.

That is, the soldier has some inner monologue that spells relief upon any hazardous materials claim: we know we no longer have the hazmat in us, the hazmat of sin, or rather, we know a more astute and robust Claim called Christ’s claim on us. No longer guilted, no longer wearily seeking, we are coached to rest secure Here and Already in the glowing love of our beatific yet unassuming Lord Jesus.

He is unassuming regarding the plain claim that all are washed mightily clean by that strange simple sense of Call, of Belonging, of Gladsome Ability to interact and to network, or to rest. It is a Call that does away with the heavy spirit and with the horrific, frustrated finger-pointing. No longer pointed at us, because we are Theological first, and blandly submissive not at all. That is, our submission is like Jesus’ first words in the temple: it causes demons to shout out. It causes frustrated glances aside at each other. It causes that heavy spirit “out there” that claims someone in the room needs yet more tutelage, yet more warm and fuzzies, and yet there is no bedrock to those fuzzies, no guarantee that our better angels won’t be eaten alive wholesale.

Underappreciated, the fact all of us are sitting in this room and getting along, in Christ’s Name, is a cause for unrelenting and subterranean Gratitude, Awe, and Wonder. And we see ourselves so quick to judge, or flip-flop around how we see each other, judged by our words, judging others by their words, but in all this Hopeful for a sacramental Goodness to prevail. It is, again, a light trick or shadowy gig, a mysterious Element that the gentleness towards others is not exactly seen, but what is seen is a personal Invite to Follow in speech, to Follow in heart, to Follow in spirit. We underappreciate the Christian Presence, and replace it with so much cleverness that forgets: no, dear sir, dear madam, no one here needs to be coached as though yet still far from their Lord. No one here needs to be denied the claim, where two or three are gathered, there I am in the midst of them. No one here needs to be seen as a competitor over just who speaks of a Conversion, but rather needs be seen as a Bedrock, a Radical Stance that yet still heads begin to nod around.