2024-06-09 A Meditation on Outlets
“8 We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, 2 for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. 3 For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, 4 begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints— 5 and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. 6 Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. 7 But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you—see that you excel in this act of grace also.” (2 Cor 8:1-7 ESV)
First decisions are not whether to celebrate or mourn, not whether to lend or accumulate, not whether to share a kind of ribaldry and joy, or to be miserly: first decisions are as to the direction we outlet ourselves. That is, when it comes upon us to dive in head first, is it towards… shall we say “our people”? Not if that implies excluding anyone. We should say, God’s Chosen: the poor—in the many measures that poverty can be assessed along—the overlooked, the humble, the contrite. That is, times do a-come when we are simply overflowing and elated with good cheer for others, and times come when we are more measured. Only the question is out there, how much brimming cheer to this cohort, and how much to our enemy?
To love our enemies, then, is a facet of a horizon broad and a scope far-reaching. It is when we easily overlook past slights, because of a newfound Sabbath animation. A Sabbath willingness. An accidentally-arrived-at Encounter with contrition and its partner, Resurrection.
Therefore we do not rule out any Encounter as “Impossible” but rather, with a pointing unto the Father, we credit, attribute goodness to His goodness measured out to us in unmeasured and copious amounts on the Cross. And this dynamo, this balancing act between the measured and accounted-for debts or guilt or luxuries or persecutions, the ways we catalog and categorize, the standard “storyline” of who is where on the Beloved scale, who is afforded sympathy and a leg up, and who is shunned as the merciless of introspective wealthy.
No, for our own Judgments of others, which we all do make, are in fact the occasion for Jesus to be at work; and Work He does, until even our hardest enmities soften, until even our deepest judgments of others break into fine pieces. But the first point is to await this Spirit whilst also taking care to “aim it”, if we can. If we can’t, that’s life: we give to a stranger what we hoard and secret away from a companion of many years. We worry not for what the day brings, for our peace and our Outgoing, Gregarious, Simply-Cheerful demeanor is to apply to whomsoever finds themselves near us; only we Trust the Spirit to outlet in fine fashion and with fine discernment as to the recipient, or as to whose feet we sit at to learn from.
Therefore as the volume mounts up, and as the crazy breakage of all that the Law has built up around us, becomes the fine anointment or oils in vases or jars shattered; life is not fair, either, but precisely in acknowledging, praying through, gifts due us but given elsewhere, we can Become Resurrection Joy. We can live precisely in inverse proportion to the hardships or slights cast our way. And so on some fulcrum, all comers are invited to Celebrate, to Receive in their bodies the reward promised them, to receive in their minds the sagacity due, to receive in their souls the grin and Heaven-ward tilt.
And thus to make radical, soldiering, assessments and reassessments: no time… no, we deny nothing to anyone… but no time to fuss around so-and-so; time instead to race to the battleground of those “God’s Chosen”, the poor, the meek, the afflicted, the hated, the merciful, the contrite. And to allow deep tactical logic to produce Fruits for such as these, via the strong resolve we administer on a related front. We fight on our front, that all reason cast away, we may arrive at Delight for the souls even those whom we fight against. Love triumphs over dying, over the perennial question of whether we “make it” or not; love has no time to fuss around pedantic questions or “logic” or human ignorant questioning: “Whose wife will he be in the resurrection” ; “for you do not know the power of God” (Mk 12:23-24); it won’t “make sense” that we fight against those whom we also in times of high spirits, do love. But it will cause us to fight all the more boldly, because we have an Outlet and time and chance to produce, to provide for, to pat on the back, to Encourage, these our brethren and sistren.