2024-05-14 A Meditation on Total Depravity

“3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. 11 For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Pet 1:3-11 ESV)

“26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” (Rom 8:26-30 ESV)

Strange brand of wealth, the accumulated heights of a spiritual routine, do nothing to obviate the spiritual resistances and strange mountainous obstacles. We are called to thrive in the Spirit precisely in the ending of what “Law” and “Observance” has coached us unto. Our coaching, to see instead of “all kosher”, “all copacetic”, “all routine”, to see “indulge the fix”—wow, did that just get said?—somehow to be “normal”, “indulgent in small things”, to add to the stoic routine a plain “Christ did it, not me”. Meaning, the death on the Cross. Meaning, the complete paragon of stoic resolve. Both “Yes” and “No” here teach us, that we were so far up the totem pole of “spiritual ascent” that the mountains still became just as mighty, the mountains that humble us and make us soar anew: yes, to confront little sins, is to soar anew, properly coached now and reminded of our creaturely need rather than our self-sufficient ascent.

And the ill thoughts, the question mark, the strange way today all things might just be coming to an end. It is an encounter with that deep fear or familiarity: in the end events, it will be just me alone. In the end times, I will be in sum a failure. In the end times, the faith-based work will turn up empty.

The soldier’s plea, then, is of a wealth that is self-determined by a litany, perhaps, by an hour spent in revisiting, in revelry, in wonder and in faith: God will coach us, carry us, be there for us, even as the stark end times shatter and blossom anew with other Callings and Determinations. No, this is never a grandfathered-in resolve, never an accumulated possession, never a time to coast on the fumes: today, like ever, we are called to be new believers, to walk in patience through the litany and through the wondrous prayers, through the strange—in the end obnoxious—alternate “spiritual” conclusions. We conclude that God is for us, that today’s “End of all callings” is a beginning of “Fresh new callings”. The soldier is geared and primed to hold steady as all the world, resisting the soldier’s call, goes topsy-turvy. The world will concede all this and more, concede its very sanity, rather than hear such a sublime Resolution: God is my Lord above; God is patently working out our salvation with Fear and Trembling; God is asking us to wait on the Word.

Therefore it is a plain mockery to say, “all is peace and accordance”; “all is obedience and sanctity”; we are reminded that sitting in the pews are people hating on their neighbor or their sister or brother; sitting in the pews are people jealously boasting or claiming a spiritual ascent; sitting in the pews are people mesmerized by their ambitious social walk; sitting in the pews are people putting all trust in that nearby and soon drink… of tea? Of coffee? Of who knows what.

And it is plain faith that actually sees these “impossibilities” and finds a peace and new resolve in the Hope—plain hope—that a patient and forgiving spirit does indeed begin—just begin—the task of reform. Reforming the sinner. Loving what is unlovable. Beginning to shape up the wanderlust or the daydream or the cozy familiarity. Yet, again, it isn’t the outcome that measures the status as saved, but rather it is what has already Happened, in the Cross, in the parental self-sacrifices, in the pastor’s self-giving sermon, in the sacraments and liturgies revisited. We need that sacrifice; we need that sacrament; we have no time to reflect, “am I walking in sinlessness?”, rather, “am I walking in belovedness?”.

Therefore it is no cop out nor denial to say, the soldiering call is Now, Here and Ready! We do not belabor others’ sins. We do not wait on a repentance. We know Already ruined by sin, and Already forgiven and called to the march and the soldier’s barracks. To boast in what He has done, no longer fascinated by our own steadfast “holiness”. Boy, did that extra cup of coffee feel “good”—even though I am fetishizing it, even though seeking an “inebriated” Nirvana—boy did it take me to a Place so special, to know—how foolish!—no longer thinking oneself even remotely Saint-like, but decrepit and beloved at the same time. And this goes for the patent sinner in our midst, as well, that unmentionables mark us as Ready, Primed and Ready, for the all-powerful revision and Encounter.