2024-01-16 A Meditation on Edenic Curse

“24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, 25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” (Col 1:24-29 ESV)

Man’s established state is to work; the end of works-righteousness includes the blessing of dutiful labor. We are blessed to have employ. We are fortunate to have occupation. Somehow the rightful limits of our days are met as paid hours approach the fullness, the infinite called wholeness, called one, the proximity to what holy numerology or experience has identified as the right number of hours to labor under the sun.

This was the Edenic curse (Ge 3:17ff), that Man should work tirelessly until such day as Christ returns in glory. Yet the gift is found when is ended the focusing on our works. It is the lightness, that these deeds of labor I do not because they save my soul, but with zero pressure and zero accounting. They are simply how things be around here. They are simply an ecstatic nearness to Freedom: the freedom, wild-eyed, to turn to all good occupation as somehow a derivative of the main game: the main game being that God has already loved us, already invested in us, already counted our laboring hours as needful, as beneficial, as contributory unto, His undying Work around cruciform progress. We progress in light of a cutting edge, a rampant perimeter, a blustery forward lunge, unto the Place Consecrated unto sacrifice and unto enveloping trade-off: trade this, One Man’s life, for the peace afforded to the Many.

So Christ’s work is a drop in the bucket after seeing Him sacrificed on the hill. All our labors are endeavored upon Peace or rather upon pleasant innocuous accomplishments so meager yet so proud. We are proud because our bodily frame bears the wounds of a career, of a back bent or a skin wizened by the cool air. We are proud because our mind has met the limits: limiting reaches, no room to dwell in our successes but rather always apologizing and honorific of these the deeds of those around us. We put aside any notion of “getting there” on works alone, any notion of solving the puzzle of the hour, of the day, of the century; we were found curiously enthralled and amused by what parlor games or pattern-recognition or logical diagrams seemed Humane, that is, seemed melded unto how our better angels, our better mindset, does function. To be particular around these parts. To have a few notions of cleanliness around this office space. To have a few notions of efficacy around these contracts and business dealings. Finally, to alight upon the Joy of Next Things, duty sacrificed unto duty, works no longer unto personal paragon or height, but unto sacrificial meeting point: we meet, we adhere unto, we minister through, the simpler climes and levels. There we die unto our own pride and become Teacher and Manager: we are elevated rather than degraded, upon discovering the Abundant Cruciform Figuration. Cruciform delight on our visages, our skin bright and radiant around the labors of Another, which labors our own labors only imitate, meagerly, lightly, quietly imitate. We are shadows and evocations of the Real Thing. We are today so thankful to be distracted from any Call unto overcoming, by that overcoming gifted us: honest employ, truthful dedication, abnegation, zeroing, distancing from any empty Call, that is, the empty Call that asks us to imagine a better state of our own soul, that asks us to accept blanket forgiveness. Yes, we accept forgiveness, but all the more so if only we can look elsewhere from our own decrepitude, can look unto our labors, unto our Calling and our Occupation. Strange, right? That to soldier is to forgive, ourselves and others, to end the prescription of good works, rather to meet each comer at the checkpoint as already blessed, even before we discern if they’re the likable sort of fellow or gal. We are those who get things done ‘round here. And that “getting things done” is in light of savoring every life, of fighting and soldiering up precisely because not all peoples hear that call.

We hear. We serve. We are tantamount to escape velocity, because we could never work up enough psychologizing and self-healing to the end of forgiving All our sins. No, we could not enter our own therapy closet and emerge Certain. In principle, certain, but in fact, delighted to have something to do around here. Nevermind my sins, I have a job to attend to. Nevermind my insanity, I have a post to man. Nevermind that sin is just that, insane contrary evidence to the notion all life is plain and logical. And in this insane reckoning, we are gifted an Employment to fix our thoughts and address our doubts. We are ready and able, pulling our weight around here, yet not. Not worried any longer, because He is the end of our lunge. He is the billowing storm clouds around that Front and that Cutting Edge, where blood meets blood, and bloodshed meets cold steel: winning, we are, because of those sacrifices and gifted Conclusions, Last Will and Testaments, of the would-be Christ on His Cross. A service in season, so that all our day’s labors can be forgiven, acceptable as part and parcel of our solemn confessions: I was useful, wasn’t I? I was servant-minded, wasn’t I? I was no longer obsessed but rather focused on right things, wasn’t I?