2023-09-23 A Meditation on Upheavals That Encourage

“25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” 27 Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” 28 Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (Mt 19:25–30 ESV)

Many last shall be first, upheavals undo “obvious” situational outcomes. Is this a claim exclusive to our religion, to Christ’s faith? It is a gospel for the hard pressed and the rundown. It is a beautiful fact of a final coup de grace, a final reckoning, a spark set in motion, upheavals and binds reclaimed for the Lord. These, yes these, shall go with us unto the night. These, yes these, shall be part and team of the Lord’s army. These, yes these, shall be proved mystically “right”: right to have faith; right to have assurance; right to be brave and bold in the night season and cold; right to have that offensive charm or peace or joy about us.

My way or the highway: this meets the enemy as a platform to use to harangue and oppress, abusing and careless nonchalance making wicked decisions, impersonal decisions, insensitive decisions. The enemy reaches a point of such utter madness, insanity, that they will threaten and invade and kill the spirit of Man just to vent and be exasperated at a little pluck and sass from the winning team. For it is no sass but rather glad happy tidings. It is no rebellion just a little carefree license in life’s smaller things: license to mealtime and prayer. License to friendship and partnering. License to jokes and cultural critiques. License to learn and to form and to design.

And then the ones who have gone before, these have not in fact lived to see the Day Coming, of a reckoning; of a righting of the ship; of a mystical investment, soaring commodities prices of that commodity called the Beleaguered, the Persecuted, the Oppressed, the Unfortunate. Poor souls, today trading near zero, and when and how shall a platform, a bedrock, a locus and environment, a mystical kingdom, an ecosystem be afforded space and time and place to thrive? When and how shall the distant eyed vision of the soldier ever be more than a guarantor of peace in our dying breath? That is, our hope belies a confidence we can live and die in the Faith. Our vision is so sharp, so sassy to some, so cretin-like and boastful to others, that it may never literally come to pass in this lifetime. For the enemy simply refuses to budge. An invincible force meets an immovable object. Our mellow vibes and carrying-on faces a reckoning: an enemy may nigh be our equal in its capacity for military thrust. They may have a sneak attack planned. They may be “loco”, going all in though the fates have proven one side to have a heart and the other side to be in rampant sin.

And then the ambiguity of anything moral; the citizen of the gestating period we are in has some final sense of self-preservation, some hope that his or her moral compass and code will be seend one day and valued. That they will be proven right, only having gone so far as is possible to credit Another with that “morality”: morality called Grace, called Spacious Capacity, called Discovered Ways and Means. To take moral offense at ludicrous breaches, never quite being corrupted ourselves—to their chagrin and madness—but remembering “how things were”. If only! If only we were so able to walk that highwater mark, that tightrope, that perch of principle and begging hope that others see the moral code as no jest or demeaning comment levied their way, but as simply our background and personhood. We are principled by fate’s course of development. We have these gifts, that are so loathed and pilloried and ransacked and attacked.

Thus the hope not to be resting on our own feel-good laurels, but with humility and engaging disposition to approach the one less fortunate. The one feeling judged or affrightened of their reckoning at, yes, our hand. Our hand is a scary proposal. We are so “slick” and “experienced” and “seductive” they slanderously accuse us of. Yet all things turned over to the Lord are redeemed to the good of the congregation, and we plead an enemy has found neither the pinnacle nor the dregs to fight against, neither a mighty thug nor a diminutive sensualist, in any of us, but something fighting and in-between. Trying to “get there” but not “there already”. That is, we are Normal. We are fighters. We are not the ones to make a fuss about.