“This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience — Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.”

“Atticus, you must be wrong….”

“How’s that?”

“Well, most folks seem to think they’re right and you’re wrong….”

“They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,” said Atticus, “but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

– To Kill a Mockingbird

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No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8 NLT).

What is important is faith expressing itself in love (Galatians 6:6 NLT)

The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith (1 Timothy 1:5 NLT).

What is desired in a man is steadfast love (Proverbs 19:22 ESV).

* * *

What makes Atticus Finch one of the great heroes in American literature?

He has a number of admirable attributes. We love his patience, gentleness, and wit, the homespun wisdom he shares with his children and neighbors. We admire his willingness to stand against the dehumanization of an entire race and to embrace one particular member of that race. His courage to defend Tom Robinson in a community marked by petty racism inspires us, even if he ultimately loses his case and fails to go further to destroy the systemic injustice of his society. He not only represents someone who does the right thing but is also a man who can tell us why a person should do the right thing. He is both idealistic and realistic, as ready to shoot a threatening rabid dog as to talk about “walking in another man’s skin.”

All these qualities are commendable but ultimately I think we love Atticus Finch because we would want him to be our neighbor. We recognize in him a person who epitomizes Romans 13:10 — “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Atticus Finch loves his neighbors as himself. He is not perfect in the sense of being flawless or without sin. But he is a person of faithful love.

I imagine people like Atticus Finch when I want to visualize the goal of spiritual formation.

I don’t think of monks or nuns or others who have devoted themselves to religious vocations. I learn from them, and I respect their work, but this is not the path the vast majority of people are called to take.

Most of us are ordinary folks living in communities of lots of other ordinary folks who are not separated from the world and cloistered in religious orders. It is here — right here — that we are called to love our neighbors as ourselves. Spiritual formation is mostly about learning to live the new life of love in Christ in ordinary settings as we do our daily work and relate to our neighbors.

Those who have been saved by grace through faith in Christ are free to do that. We don’t have to worry about “doing works” in an anxious effort to please God. We don’t bear the responsibility of making or keeping things right between us and God. By his doing we are in Christ Jesus. We are God’s workmanship. He has forgiven us, washed us clean through baptism, and raised us up into a new creation, the realm of the Spirit. The Spirit indwells and renews us day by day to walk in the good works which God prepares beforehand for us.

The spiritual practices we have talked about as being a part of the “training” process that forms us have nothing to do with any of that. We have been set free in Christ, and spiritual formation is our subsequent enculturation into the new creation, into living a life of love.

It is as though God has provided every detail necessary for us to travel to a new land. He took care of our documents and provisions, paid our passage, and made sure we got on the right flight. He guided the plane to its proper destination and when we disembarked we found ourselves in a new place, with new customs, a new language, and new currency. We are now free to live as full citizens of this new country.

Funny thing is, a lot of it looks just like the old country. I still awaken each day and find my ordinary life. My family. My friends and neighbors. My work. My play. It looks like my ordinary, daily life, but somehow it’s all new as well and I have to learn to negotiate it. I have to become enculturated so that I can live at one and the same time as a person of this age and the age to come, a citizen of both this world and the Kingdom of God.

Like Atticus Finch, I find myself simultaneously at home and not at home in the community where I live.

And here I must learn to love.

In the final analysis, there is one thing that enables believers to grow in Christ.

Few are willing to put it that starkly. In fact, there is so much false advertising out there about what actually equips people to change, develop personally, and become mature followers of Jesus, that we have become utterly confused and in some ways unable to talk honestly about it. We have replaced the plain, hard truth with hype and ineffective programs. The church’s teaching about the matter rarely hits the mark. Living in a “can-do” culture that has a technological answer for everything, we seek to apply that mentality and approach to spiritual formation, and guess what? Spiritual technology doesn’t work. It can’t.

We have talked about spiritual practices as “training exercises” which encourage us to live a life “with Jesus,” developing our capacity to receive God’s gifts. While I believe it is essential to take a “train, not try” approach for reasons that have been spelled out in previous posts, even this is not enough to facilitate a genuine growth that will move us toward maturity. No, there is only one thing that will do that. And, surprise! you won’t find it listed on the purpose, vision, or strategy statement of any church out there. You won’t find it incorporated into their program or materials. In fact, in many segments of the church, you won’t hear much about this at all.

If I could summarize this divine opportunity for spiritual formation in one word, I would use the term . . .

Continue reading “God’s Spiritual Formation “Program””

Much Christian piety and spirituality is romantic and unreal in its positiveness. As children of the Enlightenment, we have censored and selected around the voice of darkness and disorientation, seeking to go from strength to strength, from victory to victory. But such a way not only ignores the Psalms; it is a lie in terms of our experience. Brevard S. Childs is no doubt right in seeing that the Psalms as a canonical book is finally an act of hope. But the hope is rooted precisely in the midst of loss and darkness, where God is surprisingly present. The Jewish reality of exile, the Christian confession of crucifixion and cross, the honest recognition that there is an untamed darkness in our life that must be embraced — all of that is fundamental to the gift of new life.

– Walter Brueggemann, Spirituality of the Psalms

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In his work on the Psalms, Walter Brueggemann has identified a pattern that groups the psalms roughly into three kinds: psalms of orientation, disorientation, and new orientation. This scheme has personal and pastoral as well as analytical value, for as the scholar says, “the flow of human life characteristically is located either in the experience of one of these settings or is in movement from one to the other.”

Psalms of orientation speak of and to those seasons of life when we enjoy a sense of well being and stability. In these times we praise the God of creation, who bestows his good favor upon us in the regular cycles of nature. We give thanks for the beneficence of the God of providence, from whose hand we welcome sunshine and rain, as well as his good gifts of food, health, human fellowship, family, and stable economic and political circumstances.

Psalms of disorientation evoke those times in life when the bottom falls out. The ground beneath our feet, once firm, starts shaking and we lose our bearings. Illness and other forms of personal distress, financial problems, relational conflicts, “wars and rumors of war,” and “fightings without and fears within” make it seem as though God has abandoned us, or at least hidden himself for awhile. We hurt. We question. We doubt. We may despair even of life itself. We are lost!

Psalms of new orientation celebrate those times when God breaks through our darkness with a new burst of light. Weeping has worn out our night, but joy awakens us at dawn. As on Christmas morning, we stumble downstairs and behold surprising stacks of new gifts under the tree with our names on them. Our jaws drop at the generous display of grace that appeared overnight while we were asleep to the possibilities of God. Like the birth of a Baby, the sight of the Master walking on water in the midst of the storm, the appearance of One raised from the dead standing in our midst, we can only squeal and gape wide-eyed with childlike wonder and praise.

Furthermore, Brueggemann asserts that the Psalms portray these seasons of life, these contexts of faith, in a dynamic manner. That is, we are always moving from one state to the other. The two primary movements involve:

• going from the state of settled orientation into a season of disorientation, and
  
• moving from distorientation into a new orientation by God’s gracious intervention.

These movements provide the drama which characterizes the Psalms and our lives. They are also easily seen in the great events of Scripture.

• The story of Israel moves through regular cycles of blessing, exile, and restoration.
• The story of Jesus moves from glory at his Father’s side to self-emptying that culminates in death on a cross, to resurrection and exaltation (Phil 2:5-11).
• This is all portrayed in the sacramental act that marks us as Christians — graced with the gift of life we die, buried with Christ in baptism into death, raised to walk in newness of life.

This pattern also explains the movements of the Church Year in its cruciform shape. At the beginning of each year, we participate in Advent activities, which invite us to experience the depths of our disorientation because of sin and brokenness. Advent also calls us to anticipate the fulfillment of God’s promises in Christ, when God will break through the darkness and visit us with the light of salvation. In Christmastide, we will celebrate wholeheartedly our newborn King and the gifts he brings. This pattern continues until its climax on the Three Days and the season of Eastertide — ultimate new orientation!

Such a grid in two movements reveals an understanding of life that is alien to our culture. The dominant ideology of our culture is committed to continuity and success and to the avoidance of pain, hurt, and loss. The dominant culture is also resistant to genuine newness and real surprise. It is curious but true, that surprise is as unwelcome as loss. And our culture is organized to prevent the experience of both.

This means that when we practice either move — into disorientation or into new orientation — we engage in a countercultural activity, which by some will be perceived as subversive. Perhaps that is why the complaint psalms have nearly dropped out of usage. Where the worshiping community seriously articulates these two moves, it affirms an understanding of reality that knows that if we try to keep our lives we will lose them, and that when lost for the gospel we will be given life (Mark 8:35). Such a practice of the Psalms cannot be taken for granted in our culture, but will be done only if there is resolved intentionality to live life in a more excellent way.

– Walter Brueggemann, Spirituality of the Psalms

Little children, I’m writing to you because your sins have been forgiven through Jesus’ name. Parents, I’m writing to you because you have known the one who has existed from the beginning. Young people, I’m writing to you because you have conquered the evil one. Little children, I write to you because you know the Father. Parents, I write to you because you have known the one who has existed from the beginning. Young people, I write to you because you are strong, the word of God remains in you, and you have conquered the evil one.

– 1John 2:12-14 CEB

One fact I did not understand when I was younger is that life is made up of different seasons and circumstances that can virtually define any given time in life, or even the entirety of your life. I could hardly grasp that I would be called to adapt and change and learn and respond differently — sometimes for extended periods of time — regarding aspects of life over which I would have little control. I still find it hard to deal with change and disruption of my plans and expectations. And if this is true of me, one who has lived a relatively trouble-free life, what of others who have faced monumental challenges and tragic life-altering situations?

A lot of “discipleship” does not take this into account either, but comes across as generic and all-purpose, a program for all audiences — read your Bible, pray, get involved in church, find places to serve.

What they never tell you is that you and life and God and work and relationships and the way you think about all these things and what you need to flourish in life and love is different at age 22 than it is at 35 and very different at 50 or 65. Discipleship programs rarely, if ever, let you in on the secret that you may have to trudge through vast swaths of wilderness in your life, hungry and thirsty, exhausted and threatened by heat stroke. Nor do they talk about the challenges of good times and the temptations of prosperity and the successful seasons of life and the fact that they may or may not contribute to one’s personal growth.

They also don’t take into account that each person has his or her own inner landscape, climate, and weather — that life with its seasons and circumstances looks and feels somewhat different to each individual.

There is a conformist tendency in institutional religion which suggests that because we’re all in this together, we must learn to deal with life in basically the same manner. This effectively disregards the apprenticeship approach Jesus took with his disciples and the apostles’ insistence that we live in the freedom of the Spirit.

Continue reading “Seasons and Paths of Formation”