Will we be a sign of contradiction?

Salvation is created, by Chesnokov (w. 1912). 

The gospel is creative. It creates sinners out of saints. It creates holiness out of impurity. It creates a new heart and a new spirit in the old man or woman. It creates a new community in the old, and a garden people on this scorched earth. God creates "all one in Christ Jesus" out of Jew, Greek, slave, free, male and female (Galatians 3.28). Paul addresses the salvation that is created in the most generative terms in Galatians. The creative work of the gospel makes us restored, justified, free, adopted, heirs, ALIVE. The ethical imperative bit in Galatians is more of a tour around garden. The way God intended relationships to work, including restoring sinners, bearing burdens, sowing and reaping life. Our baptism into Christ makes us garden people, a garden community.

Of course, the problem is we, like the Galatian church, are still living on the old scorched earth. Adam's "That woman you gave me." Thorns and thistles from the ground. Working until sweaty and bloody. Multiplied pain in child birth. Cain's fratricide. And all the blame. "The Lord saw that the wickedness  of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6.5). For more on our modern delight in brutality read my article: Coming Soon to a Living Room Near You--Colosseum-style Brutality. 

Paul gives the Galatian Christians a garden tour around their new salvation land. It is deeded to them, not earned. It is verdant. It bears fruit. It is alive and lively. We get to take the tour with them. Instead of "That woman you gave me" or "the serpent made me do it." Paul describes the new garden way, "If anyone is caught in transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness." Instead of jealous fratricide, "Bear one another burdens, an so fulfill the law of Christ." Instead of thorns and thistles, sweat and blood, Paul invites, "the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good." (Galatians 6.1-10).

Nothing so demonstrates the spiritual person as their treatment of someone else's sin." Augustine

"Forgiveness is an immensely creative act. Condemning is simply reactionary, responding in kind to an offense. Condoning is simply lazy, avoiding the difficulties of dealing with what is wrong in the world or in persons. Gentle forgiveness is the work of an artist, using the Spirit gifts in skilled and disciplined interaction with the hurt and harassed, the maimed and rebellious." Eugene H. Peterson. Traveling Light, 169.

We think that brutal words can only be defeated by our own brutal words. The blame cycle is becoming a vortex sucking in anyone who watches even a hour of news or doom scrolls Twitter. Simeon prophecies that Mary's son would "be appointed...for a sign to be opposed." A sign of contradiction. The Jesus way is a contradiction to all the other ways. The cross is a contradiction to the world's definition of power. 

The question of our time, for the church in America: Will the church's way look anything like the Jesus way? Will we be blame for blame. Brutality for brutality. Arms for arms. Violence for violence. Power for power? Or, will we be a sign of contradiction? 

G. K. Chesterton wrote, "Every generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most."

Samuel

Jeremiah

Jesus

Athanasius (contra mundo)

Benedict and Scholastica

Francis and Clare

Luther

Tubman

Bonhoeffer

King

Teresa