Unconditional Faithfulness
The twenty-fifth saying of the Living Christ:
Beware the idol for it is the most seductive call from the way. Idols are not carved from wood or stone, nor are they sculpted from metal and clay. True idolatry turns the eyes from life toward treasures that rust and the moth consumes. True idolatry is a well that promises water but offers only dust. It is a fire that demands more wood but never warms the hands of the poor.
An idol serves itself rather than life. It catches the heart, setting its hook deep, to draw the soul away from life and into the dry, narrow land where the rains are captured and kept from the earth. The river of God is diverted, so that the land believes it needs to follow the straying path, fearing that to leave it is to die.
The temple of the idol still offers its sacrifices long after the spirit of life has departed. The work continues out of habit, greed, or fear, rather than love. The temple of the idol becomes a tomb where the living are sacrificed to feed the memory of the dead. It demands the strength of the weary to keep its own walls from falling. Its faithful cannot rest, because it feels like faithlessness.
Anything, no matter how good or righteous, can become an idol when the craving becomes the object of worship. Effort bows to effort. The cup believes it is the source of the water. The lamp believes it is the sun. The fire that once warmed the house burns it down.
Unconditional faithfulness has no idols. It knows that Adonai is the One who is, the great and true I am. God is loving kindness lived in the cosmos, the great flow of life itself. Abba, Imma, Bar Enash, Shekhinah, these and others are faces that bear the most Holy Name. Each can be an idol, just as anything else can be.
Abba and Imma are our Divine Parents who endure with us through the long dark paths we walk, as well as the brightness of the new day. They do not compel us forward, but remain present when the way forward feels impossible.
Persistence is not the hunger of the achiever. It is the faithfulness of the Covenant. It is the bond that does not break when the hands are heavy. Our Parents do not stop because of our or their weakness. They stop because the Child is worth waiting for.
The children of God do the work of the kin-dom becoming the parents of the Child born among them.
May your endurance remember who it serves.
Mend your understanding. You do not persist for the sake of the struggle. You persist for the sake of the healing. Persistence is repaired when it serves life and those with whom it lives. When it endures for endurance’s sake, it breaks.
Tear down your idols to heal your soul. Whatever is within you that does not answer to love must be cast down.
When the people ask if their actions serve life, they restore the earth. The kingdom that will not look into the mirror of Truth will eventually devour the children it was meant to protect.
A mother does not abandon the path because the child stumbles; she slows her step so they may walk together. This is the endurance that knows no idols.
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