“1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings. Testing of Your Faith 2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. 9 Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, 10 and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. 12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” (James 1:1-18 ESV)

Probably the closest we get to Christ’s Passion is in the perplexed, betrayal sensed, heavy or lugubrious and compromised spirit of a church where contract is breached (“The church welcomes all… our mission is to announce that sin is forgiven…”); and where we are strangely faulted even by those who would do better not to create contretemps and war but simply to dialog: here, I wear Two Hats, the one a confession of sin, the other a willingness to aid since… since I see you have a bit of a contretemps of your own, all things told…

The rambunctious and the ramparts of the life of a soldier, however… we do well not to sound the alarm for middling things, for the banal and tedium of life, but to Dream Higher. We do well to overlook that to some, church is a career ambition whereas largely to some of us it is a Service Rendered, a Sacrifice of Career, a Desire to Contribute for the sake of… for the sake of just a precious few who come through those sanctified doors. 

The ramparts of the soldier are of a winsome Spirit who refuses to budge, no compromise around our Good Cheer, our Joy in its entire trademarked special sense. No more shall two parties vie over a battle of the wills, at least not around Holy Things. No more shall we eat food fit only for dogs and swine. No more shall we feel that uncomfortable Embrace where the other party just won’t let go. Where we are asked to Surrender to those, hey, weren’t we all friends around here?

That is, the Christian sense of Joy has not, all things told, forgotten the first Impetus, namely the sin forgiven, the repentance reached, the Hope God will do a magnificent Work in our lives. More, the Wild West of such work, the pillars here or there, and the beacons there or here, the pyramids of One Man’s life’s work, the lighthouses and the bustling cities, all these will sound gregarious greeting over newfangled things like the telephone or email account, while other newfangled things puzzle even our best theologians.

It is a dastardly puzzle, because the lagging spirits flatter us, whether explicitly or implicitly by their antagonism, that we got “something right”. So even as we approach mournful over our sins, humbled by contrast to the lives of the saints, then we are flattered as the only ones in the room who “get it”.

The right levels of alarm sounded, these include just the painstaking Fact of lives lost in the shuffle, and whether we are cage-fighting enough, for self-flattering words write themselves but strangely stirred-up emotions, these take a little pause to reflect. That we are emotive around Something Heard in the pulpit on occasion. That we are stirred-up around Something Seen in the fellowship on occasion. That these few we find ourselves with, they shall do as our friends and bunkmates, as our fellow laborers and end-days Company.

End days, the shrill sound that the horsemen of the Apocalypse have been seen and identified, the fascination and interference game run by the secular and the judges of secularism. Don’t go to law against one another before unbelievers, it is said, but instead our story is told rampantly, widely, without permission, and that before those who arrest for so-called “sin” rather than forgive. Only this: is our sin a matter for the civil courts? Is it not largely sins of Sabbath-breaking, of failure to uphold Jesus as Holy, of failing to pray for our friends and enemies alike? Did we even have the sagacity “back then” to identify the contretemps, so that we might be moved to pray for our troublers of spirit?

All this to say, the right levels of alarm are sounded around any One Soul lost to the ravages of street or turf warfare, the gunshots, the drug deals gone wrong, the insane faultlines of consideration, wherein some people are just shouldering so very much each and every day. And then the breach of contract: too greedy to say, “we’ll pass on you, go find another career”, but too proud or duplicitous, perplexed, to say, “Your sins are forgiven, and, what’s more, we could use a little no-pressure dialog here about things you are able to help with, that none of us ever were prepped for”. The church’s contretemps. The liberal-conservative divide. Only too proud, “be humbled, O Man”, to ask simply for a little pressure-free zone of dialog. And then those deeds that prove: they really had No Idea how to fight the war. They were utterly confused about the other half.

But to our contrition, which is cousin to our sadness and heightened alert, that entire regions already were written off as Lost to Secularism, whereas this after all is where not those horsemen but those mini-Christs, were forming and blessing one another: “he, she, is someone I can Always lean on, Dialog with, be there for”. We love on each other, because the substance of abuse is not the end of the game. People discover a side of themselves that they like a bit better, under the influence. And we, we are hardly innocent: in times past, minus the firm love of the Father, we preferred insobriety to sage wisdom and learning.

It never made sense. It always was a bit precious or Fabulous. It always was a bit Indulgent, party spirit lofted upon strangers we meet at the bar or in the club, on the street corner. And no, we refuse a church where people by and large are free of sin, with one exception: ourselves. Everyone should approach only for one purpose: the forgiveness of their sins. And somehow, those entrusted with teaching, should put in writing, not that we need “much grace”, not that only “some” are asked to start to attend, but that Always we endanger one another’s sanity with the presence of Sinners. We endanger the controlled nature of the worship. We endanger… the kids will be alright… they will simply help to bide the church’s Cross. Christ’s Cross. They will have a few grown-up lessons. The giving of ourselves to each other. The temptations to adulteries also implied, but part of suffering like Christians. The fact of strange sins that rear up precisely in contrast to how much of a peaceful place is being shaped: Jesus spoke up, and at once a demon shouted out! And this demon… was found in a synagogue, a holy place! And was glib and sly and oiled and presentable until Christ’s voice preached a New Peace.