2024-01-09 A Meditation on Logistics

“22 Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, 23 with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. 24 Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, 25 it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. 28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: 29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”” (Acts 15:22-29 ESV)

Logistics, matters of coming together, dearly undertaken secretarial work, basic maneuvers: each Christian is called to go for the gold standard, even whilst reigning over life’s daily matters evoked.

Matters peeped up about. Matters pedantic yet exasperatingly in need of attention. Somehow, it is a temptation we do not covet, the temptation to be the one’s in executive positions: we are content as those borne of Faith, who know all human gesture and maneuver, all gesticulation and flashpoint, bold maneuvers and showy displays, all these things are deeply informed by where we stand vis-a-vis the Faith Once Delivered.

Our Faith is the same faith that sees a good or deed of forgiveness, that sees a career duly submitted unto the so-called inimical converse side of affairs. The Protestant working as though a Catholic. The liberal as though an Evangelical. The biracial or “minority” as though a safer color of skin and invisible pattern of mind. The rich as though poor. The healed as though decrepit.

For, it is no sinful distraction to concede to the crowd, to those we serve, some writ of communication, some dotted line to sign on, some somewhat exasperating concession that we need leaders. We need some beguiling sense of Accomplishment, the Peace and Joy of coming under authority, the discovery zone when for once all our dastardly pew fears and sinful recollections, come clean in the wash: we are just as sinful as the unchurched, just as longing for that Discovered Intimation or Indulgence, that clarion call never again to try to walk back the sinful observations, but rather all of them to bring to the Altar, to the Cross, and thereby to murmur as those Cleansed, suddenly to have the chutzpah to forgive others, and to allow them to know this by our gladsome expressions.

Logistics are a talking point, a distraction wherein we can have a more meaningful conversation evoked: we evoke deeper questions about belonging and mutually-observed duty to one another, of attitudes of Grace writ large, the Law agreed upon wherein suddenly it is no law but rather Forgiveness: eat the meat, go on the date, wrestle through the day with all those nearnesses indulged, those would-be temptations brought near, those deliverances and emergences from a rather cavalier proximity. We are proximate and near because of a gladsome willingness suddenly to talk Law and Contract, to talk Logistics and Mechanisms, to get in writing things reluctantly walked down, talked down, broached, and approached. Such as the gladsome face of a New Friend. Such as the realization of a more hands-on variant of the authorship we have long looked up to. Such as coming to the table as though at the end of a long day of legalisms and maneuvers so determinedly walked through. We are logistical yet carefree, not impinged by the Law but Emerging Whole and Celebratory.

Such are our leaders. Such are our each of us would-be prophets. Such is the Call to assuage and to instill Trust, to heal and to Testify, unto untold Grace; unto magnificent Employment; unto soliloquies of Freedom. We are free, and have faith such refusal to speak materialistically, refusal to speak any concessions unto the flesh or unto the demand for rigor and Principles; this refusal is a prayer heard, a love letter written, a plea and appeal for the Notions to Come Together, that each of us understands something Sacramental, as in Material, Physical, Lived Out, Patent Deeds and More Patent Ideas. Some sense of that sacramental handshake means all the world. Some sense of that shoulders brushing against shoulders means Hive Mentality and Getting Along. Some sense of a light-hearted willingness to discuss “practical affairs” will lean in on, indulge, partake, in that overflowing wellhead within the converted soul. Which soul knows Apostolic succession, that is, the affair of having met or known a person sent forth. The sense of contagious prophesying, of contagious affection, of contagious upbeat demeanor, a demeanor upbeat yet hated and persecuted; each of us called to relate and to hear Today’s Word: a Word bringing us back unto relentless Love. Bringing us through the valley to a place miraculously, in the moment, Saved. Not flattered. Not given bland warmth without sacrificial “getting there”, getting to the soul curtailed and consecrated, meant for, intended unto, delivered forth to Serve and to uncrimp, unfold, re-posture, as souls Touched and Habitated.