2025-01-05 A Meditation on High Minded

“27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. 32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:27-36 ESV)

Expansive dictum, response, the Christian’s hope and dream rests lightly in the space. The shared space, substratum of life together, means automatic resistance to the powers that be, to the downward tug, to the harping song, to the cultivated Hatred. We see hate, as a fruit of Frustration. We see automatic response, as a fruit of Denial. We see destruction on the backs of pessimism.

Pessimistic, let us honor the fallen ones, who stood tall above the fray for only that moment it took to invite Hatred onto her or his back: stood tall, recited life-affirming creed, spoke of a Hope and a Future, resisted the machinations.

Machinations most devious, because they are forgetful. Unclean, because it was still easy—knowing ourselves to be in the right—to get carried away with the jests. To get carried away with the portrait of Evil. And yet, also to be Divine and Perfected in the spirit, to meet the naysayer In Situ, where they are, on location.

Today, if you hear His voice, be not like your ancestors in the wilderness, who asked for meat from heaven. Take it slow, and understand: to live into the fight, to wage the good war, to be emblem and signature of the Most High, of the Divine, sets principalities and powers into antinomy: we are Tall together, lifted High above the fray now, lightning rods and magnets to Inspire and to draw Attack. Criticism.

Oh, so was it after all this easy to get “them” precocious and belligerent? Just by speaking up? Just by the quiet furtive praying wanderer suddenly called up because they Know, they Own, they Reflect, they Prophesy, of things to come; of what “is”; of what is “out there”; of by whom and how shall Judgment occur.

The enlistee, always we are on a precipice, and the urgency is to know Authority, thus humbly to Point, to Own up to, to Decree, because the Word will travel high and wide. Others, they are already in bunkers, whilst we go about our merry days. And a devilish enemy has been tempting us, crouched and accumulating from day one, even as we… no losers, but latecomers to the fray, begin to venture forth, begin to toe the line, begin to invite the Battalion.

God preserved us. We were sallying forth unprotected, sheer and made over as Peace rather than hunkered-down spiritual fight. Yet now a battalion of Insightful, inspired Vision that war is not the answer, that there is a gladsome handshake and pull from the wreckage, by people needing no way to prove their authority. By the soldier hidden in the prayer warrior.

The gospel is an Advance of Peace, and a wonderful strategy. It clicks. It ratchets into place. It is accumulated a bit, invested upon, mesmerizing to the community who owns it. We are Low. We are breathing a bit of oxygen as though Near to Death and submerged most prayerfully. We are operating with Patience, with Listening, with Reactivity. We react: they are Heard, they are Blessed, they rest assured that in their nightmarish fantasy of war, that the hate is met with love, with tender prayer in their general direction, with a refusal to butt heads. So that when we flicker, when we blink and see men, women falling on all sides, that we be unashamed to Share the conflict because it is around Gospel. It is around life-affirming Hope. It is around a wide horizon that Blesses each and all comers. Space for you, and title for this other, and license and authority for yet a third. We can grow. We can be the delicate bud of the flower, even allowing for a Divine Preservation from crushing hate. On all sides hate; here, a modicum, a sanctuary, of Peace and Love.