“13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. 16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. 18 We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. 19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5:13-21 ESV)

You got my back, I got your back: strange pockets of Discipleship Lived Out coincide with wild romps of the Disciple as found in Community. Some community, it is too much to bear; our better instincts go haywire, our sense of Center goes AWOL, there is a strange tug that undoes our better angels. That tries to undo our better angels. For, our Tomorrow War is already meted out in that Community, in that Center of Being, in the Socialized Middle of the gathered faithful.

In that middle called Gathered Faithful, Today we fight and Today we learn; we learn a dastardly Creed that takes no prisoners; our Walk on Water shall not be hindered! Because we are needed, called and needed, to do some Good Things ‘round here. We are Needed, called and Needed, to save some from erring. Pastor says nice things to us, sure, but it is a challenge on all fronts, and we… we give it our all; we go in to the encounter Determined to ape their compromised and nitpicky, efforts to make sense of the trials. Make sense of why this one is claiming a headache of hardships; they pass the smell test; they pass the interview test; so why the hardships? Why, when for any one point of reference we can point to a dozen “respectable” spirits “out there” who are marching right along, getting a lot done, serving the Community and Church?

Therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If we struggle, we plead Mercy as unto someone who the people past invested love in; they invested Love in us; we need find a simple retreat and sanctuary of the soul, wherein we jaunt forth, strangely apropos, strangely front-and-center: our doctrine, our preaching, our testimony, it carries some strange weight that is unique to us. We are unique, and special, and beloved.

Because you got my back, I got yours: people mope and get miserable around aspects of life that have caught up with them; that they have Allowed to catch up with them. We, it is no vain fantasy to say, we stay limber and in the Master’s care; we do not allow spirits of dispirited flatness overtake. More, we are mocked for our bedrock certainties; but we plead, any discipleship minus Christ’s atoning sacrifice, is no discipleship for us. We dare to see the crazed look in the parishioners’ eyes as they go up for the bread and the wine: that God Died for us, this is too much for some. If we have made a cultic following out of this creed and this sacrament, so let it be: we are exhorted while it is still day, to teach and heal, to walk on water and to embrace our slumped but soon resurrected Savior.

Therein the soldier finds his or her Patient Employment about the Master’s business. The master banks and makes mint off of simple interpretive jaunts around our Roles as officers of the cloth, as agents of the Crown, as secretive Missionaries of the good news. Who can point to more than this Certainty: that we are as built up as is capable of a secretive role, as built up as is capable of a plausible deniability, wherein we talk and mask two-thirds of where our confidence and composure comes from. Our service to the flag, to the Cross, it is part of a community called Soldiering, called Intelligence, called Missional agentic Crossings. We are crossing our rivers, our Thames and Tiber, our Bosphorus, our Jordan; our Rubicon. We are doing so as fully licensed Officers of the Crown. We are therefore making Meaningful expeditionary jaunts wherein said Decision Matters. Our decision, it makes all the difference in the world that we, as officers of the Sainthood and Brother, Sisterhood, are wearing heart on sleeve. No cynical expedited convenience measures, but all things rooted in hearts Transformed and Principled. Yes, maximum deniability; it helps, however, to be able to vocalize things… this, the intelligence agent of the Crown prays through, becoming emboldened by the trust falls taken and the simple Reassurance that God is a miasma of wonder and All Things belong to Him. All society’s tokens and emblems, they are His. All culture’s totems and icons, they are His. We can live into our childhood Dream, of being Community and Secret Agent, in some mellifluous confluence of peoples and spirits. We are all this and more, through Him who loved us.