“29 When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. 31 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. 32 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” (Luke 11:29-32 ESV)

Fashioned and discomfited, the soldier’s Reality is of something abstrusely “wrong” and today’s service the immediate Call and Answer, as though all that’s “wrong” one day will reward us with a hope and a future. One day fashioned as the plowshare in our hands, the family life in our conscious thought, the prayers lifted up out of Gratitude for the peace. Yes, let this be that metaphysical Carrot on a dangling stick that we follow… or is it? Is it real? Is it sufficient to assuage the day’s nervous fright and fear of Service?

God makes us people of the Here and Now. In fact, it is our prerogative and Mission to work Today, to go somehow into that realm most discomfiting, where we alight upon one Christ deed or another, always against our better willpower, always by the stern breaking point of a father’s or mother’s adjustment, correction, teaching moment, humbling cut made. The threat of punishment, the desire to please, the placement of ourselves the moment we’ve begun to judge others, the placement of ourselves in some “not there yet” mentality around sanctification.

The moment we begin to judge, it is us losing our faith in Christ, for He is the first one we judge. We say to ourselves, true He was good on points A, B, and C, but see how He failed to love the unlovable. As if! It is precisely in loving what is unlovable that He had character and uniqueness. He had His own special way of doing it! “Oh, but He’d never love me if I wasn’t insert-your-criteria-here”. Rich. Beautiful. Slender. Gracious. Model-worthy. And we judge. We judge because it deuces us to think that all, after all, are equal under God’s justice, all equal under Sin. And no sooner do we allow this possibility, then we decide our own fate is probably not biding so well. Either that or we get vainglorious and proud. But either way, it is a slippery slope.

The people He makes of us Here and Now, is the soldiering Call to find our home base in that awkward and difficult daily sojourn: taking our lives, once more, into our hands. Living in a hovel or makeshift tent. Muddied and unwashed, here Christ finds us and somehow makes us Content and fed, well-nourished and capable, no longer adhering to that distant hope of Tomorrow. Yet hope we do, that a Tomorrow will survive for our kids’ sakes, for our younger brothers’ and sisters’ sakes. For our spritely and chipper parents’ sakes. For the sake of something the community once-upon-a-time gave to us. When we were more presentable. Prior to the years the locust ate or the blemish consumed. When we were, after all, offensive to all good rule and order, because of what our generation might lead with. The possibility we’d ape our parents’ generation. The possibility we’d be a little too Apropos. A little too courageous. And thus we invest in the next generation.