Saturday, October 31, 2020               (today’s lectionary)
Soft move
After days of dreary weather, sunshine crosses the country today. Because I’m human, I forget that my experience is not that of everyone else. Narcissism and people-pleasing are edges of a spectrum, but the rest of that spectrum is normal in the rest of us. We are all caught in our own bodies and minds. It’s what we call the soul that helps us transcends these limits. Thanks to our Father. God is good to everyone and makes no comparisons among us, and he would like to pass that awareness and ability on to us.
Christ is being proclaimed, and I know this will result in deliverance for me through your prayers and support. My eager expectation is that I shall not be put to shame in any way but that Christ will be magnified in my body whether by life or by death.
Sydney Carton’s words at the end of his very selfish life? “It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done.” Charles Dickens lived his own selfish life beside his hard work for social reform and personal generosity to the poor in England. Don’t we all have Jekyll and Hyde inside our skins? Or is it just me?
For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I’m to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I long to depart this life and be with Christ, which is better by far, but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.
In Romans 7 Paul wrote of his own Jekyll and Hyde. Just like the rest of us he did not always have the vision to know what was best. God’s will is sometimes clear, but often not. When it seems only to take the shape of water, then whenever I touch my tiny finger to it, what I thought I saw moves and forms again another way.
But of this I am convinced: I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith. Let your boasting in Christ Jesus abound on account of me.
Paul talks a lot about himself. He knows how much his listeners depend on him. He has been the Messenger. God’s touch, Paul’s words, and his listeners’ growth in the Spirit intertwine into a tree of life. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches. Let new life come forth. So why so downcast, O my soul? Amid the sufferings of Jesus, the troubles of Paul and all the saints, living water flows.
The deer pants for streams of water, and my soul pants for you, O God. I am thirsty! I have had only my tears for food all day and all of the night.
As Margaret and I prepare to make our “soft move” to Austin in the next few weeks, we are  not sure where we are from one day to the next. We are split between past and future, between here and there, and especially between what is … and what might be. Late at night, I am inclined to be afraid. And going to church on Sunday isn’t what it used to be.
When shall I go and behold the face of God? Let us go in procession to the house of God and sing, with the multitude keeping festival.
We might not know much about the details, but God’s design and protection are clear to us both. This is all about NOW, and it’s now that we feel God’s promises. NOW is the day of our salvation. Jesus does not stop calling, “Follow me.” Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself.
Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. If you’re content simply to be yourself, you will become even more.
(Philippians 1, Psalm 42, Matthew 11, Luke 14)
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