“2 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Lights in the World 12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me. Timothy and Epaphroditus 19 I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. 20 For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. 21 For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. 22 But you know Timothy’s proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel. 23 I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, 24 and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also. 25 I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, 26 for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. 27 Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. 28 I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. 29 So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, 30 for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.” (Phil 2 ESV)

Mutual respect is learned in time, yet the edginess of the disciple also behooves her or him to go beyond auto-pilot and to engage on terms called Principled. The edginess of the disciple means to have learnt Wonder and Admiration, yet to be zero compromise on a few matters of principle.

Zero compromise is the abrupt scoffing gesture towards the “let’s all concede around here”. It is the scoffing gesture to any and all attempts to unseat Moral Courage. We have morality, and we have learnt in time to Respect those of a different guild, quilt, tapestry. We have learnt the stark Wonder of how and why people preach their own flavor of Peace, their own—admittedly Foreign—notions of Spirit and Kumbayah silliness, love for the brethren, humility, screen-time most sanguine and stage-center most sincere.

The soldier is no longer offensive to Good Order, but in times of penitence, in Lenten Journey, is engaging again, with newly minted Respect. With principled gusto, refusal to Concede, but with Love and with patience.

Sometimes it seems Too Much respect is shown to an alternate, to a would-be enemy, to a friend in name only. The stereotype of the classy elder gentleman or lady, who is too cautious around their younger selves, their younger interlocutors… sometimes we just wish people would man up around here, and Lead, and Direct, and Overrule. Overrule the footsteps of those less sophisticated than them. Overrule the decisions of those less educated than them. Overrule the mild pronouncements of those less socialized than them.

The soldier is Engaged, In Love with what fasting and retreat has created: a soul longing and eager to Engage. And a soul edgy and full of chutzpah around non-negotiables. Such as that Christ came in the flesh, in a simple Frame, as a servile Friend. While we were looking—pre-mutual respect phase of life—for Strength and Gusto, His terms were a gentler form of love. More, that His terms in our former lives of sin, would have aped us had we engaged back then. He knew the time and season, and too, we have what’s called theologically-speaking, “Common grace”: just the general peaceable common grace received by all people, believer or not. We had actually strong friend networks. We had lovers and friends, patrons and students. Why the Conversion Story, then? If already we had a lifestyle others would have killed for? Well, because a rolling stone gathers no moss, right? It was a case of stepping up to the plate for Duty, to concede to the middling classes of the average pewsitter, decrease our social Rank, decrease our career Pedigree, decrease our social Class, to come alongside Brethren, Sistren. It was a case of Theoreticals: we needed Forgiveness, and regardless of the facts on the ground, the Church we submitted to did offer this. And indeed we found forgiveness.

And is this somehow to toot our own horn? Rather, it is alleged that the Church and her people, that this is somehow actually a Higher social standing than before, that we are those nipping at the heels of a new social Rank we scarcely deserve, rather, that we as young hoodlums and furtive, peripheral characters, were presuming on the social Center, on the community Heartframe. No! It was service and duty all along. And if we then later fell away, there is no sin but that Repentance will heal it.

Therefore it is a thing of argumentation most divine, to engage even despite moral no-go zones, zero compromise zones, aping one another but doing so in Love: we love to hit up against the stark Decision and Religion of a peer, in dialog, in Encounter. If this ever happens, it is an occasion to count ourselves Blessed. To see their framework, wherein—yes—maybe we ourselves have solemn repentance to go through on a few points ‘round here. But also that we stare in Wonder, awestruck Wonder, at the elevated lofty status points accumulating, like in a video game (for those of Generation X and later). Status points for yes believing that Creedal Point, that God forgives sins. And that the preaching of Law, cannot ultimately Save anyone. The law is good and upright and True, but it cannot in and of itself Save the sinner. We end up using it as a crutch, one that cannot in fact hold the weight of a Heart burdened with sins, with failures, with trauma, with loss. So to that Church Service most Holy, wherein the Good are baptized and Made Good by the church at large, on the basis not of works and Law but on the basis of Love and the gesture—coming even from an officer of law—of laughter and Recollections most blessed, because they are Recollections of Him.

We recall His intervening and blessed Foray into Human-Realm. We recall that all things suddenly tasted sweeter, in our parched and arid spiritual lands. That He was home and substance to our fears, our trauma, our errors past. That friends and lovers, would-be partners and acquaintances, already were Present and Accounted for, as the beginnings of a vast Movement called Christianity, called Moral War, called Abject Prayer, through the pain, through the abstemious horror, through the efforts to Recreate our longing (was it the fast? Or was it the end to fascination with oneself, and the beginning of Solemn Respect for what others are capable of?) for each other and, equally, for alone time. We are content in community, and outside of community. In all things we have learned to Love and Directly Address the error zone or slanders so conveniently lofted in the saints’ directions. Then, judgment day… on the day when the troops march and race into War, this is when it is all the more evident who is preaching immediate Restoration from penitence, and who is caught up on methodological points called Law, called Good Works, called False Promise.