2024-10-01 A Meditation on Working With What We are Given
“8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor 13:8-13 ESV)
The prophetic impulse fails if its prompt is, “Choose what to say”. Instead, it is in deep knowledge, words run dry, prophecies fail, the kettle drops its last drop. Our prompt is, “Let not your own plans speak, but those of God”.
We don’t know if our “technique” is accomplishing “this, that, or the other”. We don’t know if we are grand enough, pan enough, relevant enough, to rise to the challenges of the day. We are called, when the moralistic pot is being stirred, to be those consecrated unto the Word called mercy. Called wisdom. Called vision.
It’s not that we are against reform. It’s that any brand of religiosity has some escape valve. We have made scientific the notion of “grace”. We do not despise or deny these children of the Lord their right to be priggish on some level (we see that, but they do not see it), only we ask that emphasis be placed on the escape valve. On the free association, speech without hindrance, communal gladsome exchange, a laugh, a translation of so much “pleasure” into their particular lifestyle. Into their uptight, yes, variation on the theme of Escape, Indulgence, Unwritten Code. What is unwritten is in fact not unwritten: it is right there in Paul, in Christ. But it is read paradoxically in the midst of church services that go on completely to deny what was just read.
We did what we could while we had Peace. We saw the omens and the strange days. We saw bizarre compromises, and petty immaturity. We saw, in short, things that to some might be a call to scoff and mutter, but to us is at once a call to arms. Our observations will not alone suffice: we need resolved reinforcements and opposite-thinking. We need to be a spirit opposed (Luke 2:34). And not all will be in honesty about this appraisal; they have lost sight of, or never had, the game plan or pattern played out, of my sins for His mercy. When we have honestly seen ourselves for what we are, then we cease to hide out from judgment by pandering or being complicit in the other side. We start to see all mankind pent up in sin. We start to see there being no contradiction, that even friends have some ulterior motive sometimes, but do so in all unawareness and innocence. We are each of us married to some spirit, and the Holy Spirit stirs the moral pot to the end of invoking Grace. Some plateau on which we are no longer masters of what we say, only conduits for Someone Else to speak. We cease to worry about falling into sin, for our life is hid with Christ. We begin to bless friend and enemy alike, knowing the obtuse and frustrating fact of War will take care of itself. Sorry, pal, we ended up at loggerheads. Sorry, enemy, we announce judgment here and now, but make no judgment on your own personal state of salvation. God will reckon. God will bless that strange leveling resolve to bless those who curse us, that all may be differentiated not at all except at the final harvest. On some post-awareness, or post-planned prophecy, state of voracious life together. Our hope is voracious to indulge, voracious to embrace, voracious to find that escape valve of even the priggish church body, feeling so uninvited to that great graceful wedding feast. All belong. All stand to learn from a newcomer. All can supplant frustration with humility: oh, this so-called loose spirit, this atheist, this agnostic, has something superior to me. They have some peace or insight superior to mine. Except that I know one thing, its name. His Name.