2023-12-03 A Meditation on Some Precautions

“14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. 18 But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” 19 But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says, “I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation; with a foolish nation I will make you angry.” 20 Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, “I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.” 21 But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”” (Ro 10:14–21 ESV)

It’s easy to get carried away. It’s easy to imagine the worst. It’s easy to make decisions on the basis of hearsay. For the Christian toes a line. The Christian resists the accumulation of a certain quota for hate or for feeling better than others, for lusting after the diminutive Other Soul whom we judge, persecute, and refuse to show mercy towards.

It is a treacherous line precisely because to soldier is to take matters up ourselves, to make those conscientious or scary decisions, to assess and appraise and claim, in good son, good daughter of the evangelical faith, to be loving what is unlovable, what we mock, what we scorn, what we rebel against and resist and run from. The discomfiting weakness or anxiety of a peer. The hateable pleasantries or small-talk of a one who exasperates us or just caught us at the wrong time. We really can also get carried away and invent whole narratives to avoid some measure of prayerful reciprocity. We need to reciprocate, but have more fun in a different guise.

So to the Calling to be humanistic and honorific of each life. As some comment on vast political or ideological divides, thus: proofs of concept, dry runs, test beds, situational assessment, war games, mock-ups, practice vehicles. We have an M. O., a modus operandi. We do as well as we can, ultimately falling prayerful, motored along mode into times of trial wherein it is a Spirit Alive that coaches us and inspires us. If we get a headache, so be it: lives are on the line. Rather, to say that differently, it is a Holy Calling to fight. It is a celebration of each life, but no time to fuss around the gravitas or lack thereof; we rejoice in a “damn the torpedoes” mode that does Claim, lay claim unto, the whirlwind capacities of the Human Spirit, to bless, to create with a word, to assure, to store up treasure in heaven.