Sovereignty and Scandal
I recently read a memoir from a politician acknowledged as an expert of his art by opponent and admire her alike. Since I've no desire to divide my readership between those two camps, I'll refrain from naming him. Said political Zen master invited the reader a scene in which he was sitting across the negotiating table from his ideological opponent. The memoirist admitted to liking his opponent as a person, but not as a representative of a constituency he opposed. The author confessed, for anyone, it is difficult to restrain the source of one's power.
Cue the sermonator. Other People need to digest this. We can quickly homogenize the particular materials of the human condition and come up with predictable pablum. Where popular consensus is the source of human power, Other People will end up with Pilate's predicament between acknowledging the supremacy of Christ and bending to the wind of popularity. Where material security is the source of human power, Other People need to know Christ's parable about the man suddenly prospered. Enough will never be enough. You, Other People, will ever build bigger barns to sustain your new standard of living instead of thanking God by giving from what He has given to you. As Respectable Christians, we might even allow ourselves to be splattered with a little of that which befouls Other People, just to be fair. We might, pressed by a desire to appear humble, admit that both alternative sources of power occasionally tug at Christians also.
The sermonator of such standard fare, strains, smokes, and grinds to a halt, leaving the considering Christian most convicted of all men. We who have stepped out by grace a little in advance of other sons of Adam and daughters of Eve know a little more of Christ as the Source of our power. With more intimacy and knowledge comes more responsibility. We who, given an audience, will be the first to designate Christ at the Source of our power, will be the first to attempt to restrain Him if He strays from our present notion of respectability. Peter may have founded the Standards and Practices Board here when he objects to Jesus' mission to go to the cross and die. Peter is no longer among us, but his censorious mission is ever resurgent, like a hearty weed, among those of us who would follow Christ – on our terms. No, Lord, we utter inconsistently. Not the mud. Not the Samaritan. Not the cross. Not, then, truly the Christ.
True faith, no matter how long and how diligently practiced, must leave more than a little room for awe, for mystery, and for submission contrary to what makes sense otherwise. That urge to censor, restrain, negotiate with, the Holy Other is OUR warning light, not His. There, his ways have taken the place of Him in our hearts. Our habits have become more important than our habitual dependence on Him in each moment. Confession, agreement with He who is greater than our hearts, somehow in the mystery of communion frees Him to do the scandalous and the majestic through the likes of us.
Cue the sermonator. Other People need to digest this. We can quickly homogenize the particular materials of the human condition and come up with predictable pablum. Where popular consensus is the source of human power, Other People will end up with Pilate's predicament between acknowledging the supremacy of Christ and bending to the wind of popularity. Where material security is the source of human power, Other People need to know Christ's parable about the man suddenly prospered. Enough will never be enough. You, Other People, will ever build bigger barns to sustain your new standard of living instead of thanking God by giving from what He has given to you. As Respectable Christians, we might even allow ourselves to be splattered with a little of that which befouls Other People, just to be fair. We might, pressed by a desire to appear humble, admit that both alternative sources of power occasionally tug at Christians also.
The sermonator of such standard fare, strains, smokes, and grinds to a halt, leaving the considering Christian most convicted of all men. We who have stepped out by grace a little in advance of other sons of Adam and daughters of Eve know a little more of Christ as the Source of our power. With more intimacy and knowledge comes more responsibility. We who, given an audience, will be the first to designate Christ at the Source of our power, will be the first to attempt to restrain Him if He strays from our present notion of respectability. Peter may have founded the Standards and Practices Board here when he objects to Jesus' mission to go to the cross and die. Peter is no longer among us, but his censorious mission is ever resurgent, like a hearty weed, among those of us who would follow Christ – on our terms. No, Lord, we utter inconsistently. Not the mud. Not the Samaritan. Not the cross. Not, then, truly the Christ.
True faith, no matter how long and how diligently practiced, must leave more than a little room for awe, for mystery, and for submission contrary to what makes sense otherwise. That urge to censor, restrain, negotiate with, the Holy Other is OUR warning light, not His. There, his ways have taken the place of Him in our hearts. Our habits have become more important than our habitual dependence on Him in each moment. Confession, agreement with He who is greater than our hearts, somehow in the mystery of communion frees Him to do the scandalous and the majestic through the likes of us.
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