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Once a monk went to his abbot. “Father,” he said, “I study and read the Scriptures often, but I do not feel any closer to God.” The abbot replied, “Go and eat the Scripture.” The befuddled monk spoke, “Father, that is impossible!” Replied the abbot, “That is why you now feel the study of Scripture is not nurturing you. The interpretation of words by the mind cannot penetrate the depths of the spirit. Only the passing of the words through the mind into the heart lead to the Scripture replenishing the spirit. And the replenishing of the spirit is the enjoyment of the Presence of God.”
Scripture teaches us in II Corinthians 3.6, “For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (ESV). Many a person is farther from God due to religion than before adopting religion. Indeed, many confessing Christians sit with dead faces on Sunday morning and live dead lives. Possibly, once they were bright with hope. Now, they sit: the letter either could not fulfill their hopes or after beginning with the Spirit they fell into the letter. These persons are killed persons. It seems many a whole congregation has been killed by servitude to the letter.
What is this letter? This letter is attachment to the externals of religion, even good externals. However, these externals cannot give life. Scripture cannot give life. Ritual cannot give life. Morality cannot give life. Church attendance and public worship cannot give life. That which is the means of life is not the source of life.
Why does this certain man or woman, even faithful in attendance and participation in the congregation, not enjoy life? Indeed, he or she may be the pastor or priest. This person has not grown into spirituality; this one sees with shallow eyes. This person still, after claiming the faith for many years, interprets Scripture as a document of does-and-don’t-does or as an intellectual treatise to dissect like a frog, or as a manual to seek scriptures that justify the self while judging the other who is different. This person sees the world as a problem to solve or through moral or dogmatic lenses.
Many of these persons are well content with the shallow religiousness flooding the market, books and tapes and devotional materials providing sweet thoughts, promises of prosperity, and God-will-take-care-of-you. These persons are waiting for heaven, and “church” has become a social event of friends and foes waiting for glory land. These have turned the living faith, or life-giving journey, that Jesus lived and preached into a cultural phenomenon that the person on the street ignores as irrelevant and more out-dated than a jackass with a wagon.
But the Spirit does give life? I speak not of existence, but life, and a certain quality of life, and this has nothing essentially to do with religion. This life is the gift of the Spirit. By this life a person shows in attitude and action and service an unconventionally divine quality of being. This person truly filled and flowed through by life is the person who has grown beyond the letter. Even in ritual and word, this person sees with the eyes that discern a sacramental depth in both religion and nature. The person most fulfills the letter, or outer manifestations, for he has been plunged into the Deep from which the outerness of things are sourced in Love. Wherever this life manifests, inside or outside religion, there is the Source.
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Then what is the evidence of the Spiritual man or woman? This person will be a person in whom the spiritual persons see clearly evidence of the presence of an odd life—recall holy means “otherness, different”—, that is, odd (truly holy) to those chewing on the letter. This spiritual man or woman will never sacrifice the Spirit of freedom to the letter of law and custom. He or she would prefer to leave religion all together, therefore, this person is most needed by religion and most essential to the world.—Why would one give up the water for the well? The well is the means, the water the satiation.— She or he will live directly from and through the Spirit. And appreciation for any of the letter will be only as such letter can be the means of being spiritualized to manifest life and to share that life.
Reflections
What encouraged you in the writing today? Explain.
What did you not agree with in the writing today? Explain.
What is the difference, theologically, between existence and life?
Do you agree with this statement: “A sure evidence of a community enjoying life is that other persons outside it are coming to enjoy life through its sharing that life?” Explain your response.
Are you existing or enjoying life? Explain.
Is the spiritual community you belong to an existing group or a living community? What is the difference between “existing group” and “living community”?
Spiritual Exercise
Make sure you have a sacred space in your home for time alone in prayer and spiritual reading.
Make sure you are in a covenant group. For more information on covenant groups, write me at the address below.
Consider, if you are not already, sponsoring a child through Compassion International. You can find out more about Compassion International by going to www.compassion.net to read about sponsoring, in the name of Jesus, children living in poverty. Thanks! Brian K. Wilcox
Brian’s book An Ache For Union can be purchased at major book dealers.
To contact Brian, write briankwilcox@comcast.net .
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