2023-03-04 A Meditation on Strange Getting Along
“as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”” (Ro 9:33 ESV)
Truth is kept from the wise and shown to the meek. This truth is an alien and unnerving vista, called Christ; often invoking His shame and ruin on the Cross, but in truth there all along. We can invoke the Cross, but in so doing find it to give a lens to the entire edifice, the entire operation. The Cross is the centerpiece, and in its trail comes a whole theology of Christ.
Therefore, to discern good spirit from ill, is a frightful task: if we are but a smidgeon too self-satisfied and cozy in life, we might mistake His glory for trash, His purpose for offense, His love for unnecessary offering. What a task! To turn all our own wanderings into Purpose. To turn all our infamy into Experience. To turn all our commiseration and camaraderie into Preaching. Therefore, whereas in times past we had our mission: a job, an ambition, a task; and we had our release valve: the friendships, the romantic dates, the family time. Today, that recipe is turned on its head.
Rescued by the skin of our teeth, we know a unity in Christ wherein One Man caused demons to reveal themselves. The demons show themselves when He arrives. To the proud and confused, a demon looks just like Jesus might look to them. It is a daring game, a brave necessity, a courageous certainty: God has blessed us with all things, including the overwhelming love of Sabbath rest—even for the poor laborer—and a church to attend.
God has blessed us with a map for duality, in light of unity. There cannot be two: one is Judas, the other is Christ. One is Peter, the other is Jesus. One is Mary Magdalene, the other is Yeshua. Yet He sent us out two by two, to live under one Head. This takes labor and work.
The labor and work is simply called “getting along”. It is the confidence of seeing past someone else’s judgmental fast and knowing we are saved, and for that reason that we are plucky and determined, of stern visage or loving embrace. For, people judge others by their own decisions, needing to go to the Cross themselves when instead they are pleading self-righteous fasting and good works. To go to the Cross means, no matter who is “right” in the equation and the debate, that we must take up our hardship and die for one another. This we can do in a relationship consummated with time together, or in mutual regard from a distance. This can be a spiritual union high and elite, or a material companionship, that is, in the right season.
In the right season, we overcome all splitting spirits that hoard and harbor the truth into separate bins: some of you go this way, others this way. No, instead, we labor to be those spirits on the horizon that have made their peace, no amped up response to amped up approach, but the recognition of friendliness in that approach, the very opposite of what rumors precede us “Jesus people”. So we can rightly disentangle and defuse that old childhood game of getting in the last commotion when we are told to quiet down. “Quiet! We’re trying to sleep!”
To tell the world we love each and every soul, is to carry out our duty; it is offensive sometimes if we are quick to deny our interest. For we have healthy interest in learning from past relationships, even those long over, even those scarcely more than a brief conversation, but informed by the crowd, informed by the teachers and preachers. That healthy interest is cause for thanksgiving: Thank you, Lord, for this person in my life. It is also blueprint to sally forth educated and prepared, knowledgeable for the war that, in microcosm was waged between just two people. To figure out the Head, Jesus. To figure out the two-by-two discipleship. To live into the strange vista of a crucified stranger now become friend and accomplice. For He rose to accompliceship, to the prevailing weirdness writ large and copacetic for your heart and mine.