|
This is not a sweet devotion today. It might appear less than “sweet” or “devotion.” However, please read on. And, understand, I myself face the daily challenge to grow into the likeness of Christ. Some days I seem to do it well and, frankly, some days I seem to jump back to the beginning, as though I easily forget all learned since I started following Jesus as a child some forty years ago. Read whatever I write here as from a companion on the Way, one learning daily more of what being a disciple is and can become for us.
USC Philosophy Professor, Christian speaker and writer in spiritual formation, Dallas Willard, uses a term for the typical mentality of the institutional church: consumer Christianity. He writes that this is “just a matter of receiving benefits from Christ” (www.dwillard.org). In this, “Salvation is just heaven.” Willard affirms this is the “ ‘ default’ system of Christian identity in the Western world.” We can become a Christian forever and never be a disciple [or student of Christ], Willard observes. This is a free ticket to glory land, giving all without our having to invest anything but fit in with the collective. It is like graduating without having to attend class. It is like enjoying the blessings of love without having to accept the vulnerability and realness of learning to give love. At most, we might be required to take some classes to prepare for church membership and take some vows that we are not held accountable to keep. We are in, got a diploma. Hurray!
Trungpa Rinpoche, the famed Tibetan Buddhist, used another term for this. He popularized the term spiritual materialism. So, this is a universal challenge, and not just a fact in the Christian communion or a Western matter. Knowledgeable Buddhists or Hindus can tell you the majority in their communions are consumers, not disciples.
I do not mean to be critical, only to observe, for being a consumer is for many an opening to learn what discipleship means. Likely all of us, regardless of how we have grown spiritually, have remnants of the religious consumer and, at times, regress to that mentality. Possibly, it remains part of us, often at subtle levels that we do not notice.
Many persons, it seems, enter contemplative practice with this mindset. I did. Here was another but more “spiritual” way to get what Brian wanted. Thankfully, contemplation is a direct means, the most direct among spiritual practices, to transform that mentality of consumerism. One who enters contemplative practice soon discovers that true contemplation is rough, though lovingly so, on the separate-self sense. And, in transforming that perception, we see ourselves becoming less a group of consumers and more a communion of mutual sharing. See, spiritual consumerism rests on the sense of a solid, separate self, apart from other separate selves and relating to them as absolutely other than “me.” Communion rests on faith in and the sense of a participation in Christ.
Regarding this transforming contemplative path, either persons will give it up, soon, dabble in it, or give themselves over to its transforming process and often having no idea how it is working to transform. The Spirit rarely yells how the Work is proceeding, rather the Spirit works like yeast to transform our whole selves—body, mind, emotions, spirit. If one keeps with contemplation, it will keep transforming even subtle aspects of spiritual materialism into Love and self-donation.
Contemplation, as well as all true Worship, offers an alternative to cultural addictions to convenience and productivity, as well as individual gratification and instant results. Drive-through religion is a mode of the day, and we may find it hard to believe that the Spirit is not in the big hurry that we might be in. God has Eternity, and Love is seeking to grow disciples, and that is a slow, but sure, process, if the principles are applied and patience enacted, with trust in the Spirit working to transform the community of faith, as one together.
I would rather pastor a congregation that grew to be a church of disciples, over a process of years, than fill the pews with spiritual consumers overnight. I, as well as other pastors interested in discipleship, would rather resign the pastorate than raise up congregations based on any other principle than that of Christian discipleship.
My affirmation, and that of OneLife, is that discipleship flows from a deeply lived life of spiritual disciplines. Discipleship is linked organically to disciplines, or means of Grace, enacted like any science, and the data will follow: we call this the Fruit of the Spirit. Otherwise, we risk churches becoming clubs, or maybe social activism groups, much like a social agency functioning under the name Christ.
Discipleship entails the slow marinating of daily spiritual discipline, directed by definite practices, transforming us into persons embodying and having lived through us the Holy Spirit. St. Paul writes, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2.20, ESV). We, then, serve others from motives that are undergoing the transforming work of the Inner Christ, Who is becoming more and more the whole of our being. We serve, not for selfish interests, but out of a collective interest that includes no privileged and entails all as equals. We serve, not so much out of some determination to serve, but because we are being transformed into a servant. A servant naturally serves, that is the way of Christian transformation.
I suggest that modern parodies of the Jesus way of evangelism and growing churches is part of the complication. In a culture of big, big churches can fill pews with an enthused individualism or group conformism, offering a spiritualistic psychology and tantalizing many with the Sunday Morning AM Show.
Billy Graham once made a comment of how he could build a strong church, beginning with just four deeply committed Christians. What he meant was a few disciplines. Jesus, likewise, turned the world right side up with a small band of followers. To do so, he had to resist capitulation to numbers, power, and popularity that would have meant the death of the Jesus movement, likely, soon after His resurrection, if not before. These decisions He faced during his forty days of temptation in the wilderness, at the beginning of his public ministry. We can assume His upbringing, likewise, shaped His value system and priorities, as well as His witness to the ineptness and injustices of the consumer religion that was part of His own faith communion. Indeed, there is no evidence in the Gospel that Jesus opposed the good in his native faith or in other faiths; rather, Jesus opposed the manipulation of persons through a religious hierarchy that practiced a politics of consumerism.
Another potential parody of Jesus’ approach to being the Church is that of seeking to make converts, rather than building communities of disciples. Churches that have over-stressed a born again philosophy are prone, it seems, to this instant fix salvation, as a point in time and not a process over time. Salvation, even if having a beginning in time, and often it does have a definite beginning marked by a decisive decision, is a process over our entire lives. However, likewise, some persons cannot point to a definite beginning point. Some persons seem to experience a gradual flowing into the Christian Way and others seem to have a dramatic jump, or push, into it.
A disciple is always being and, at the same time, becoming a disciple. Change, then, in disciples and disciple churches is a process, not a set amount of fixed points in time, for transformation, or sanctification, is ongoing. Indeed, transformation might better be noted as transforming, to note that process as verbal and not a fixed experience. We do not so much experience salvation as we are experiencing salvation.
OneLife is a ministry that is built on what United Methodists and its patriarch, John Wesley, calls perfection. Jesus taught, “Be whole as your Heavenly Parent is whole” (Matthew 5.48). The Christian is a child or adult who is a disciple of Christ, and Christian disciplines are essential to discipleship—which is evident by the words discipline and disciple-ship. The Christian is not just someone who has joined a church fellowship, or said a prayer of repentance, or been baptized at some point. A church does not make one a disciple, it provides the context for growing disciples through means of Grace. To be a Christian, according to the Scripture, is a choice, an ongoing choice, and is equivalent to being a disciple, which is the process of being transformed into the image of Christ. The primary source for witnessing the image of Christ is the Gospels. “Christian,” “disciple,” “following Christ,” and “discipleship” are interchangeable; “Body of Christ” and “disciples of Christ” are the same.
I welcome us all to follow Christ, not as an idea, but as a living, universal, and life-giving Presence. I am not, here, welcoming you to a particular church communion, a particular creed or dogma, a particular religion, bookstore and magazine spirituality, health and wealth gospel, or to find your special Teacher or Preacher or Guru. Your choice of communion to grow with is important, but, here, I welcome us to follow Christ. And, to follow, not one view of Christ, for there is plenty of room in Christ for persons of different theological thought to gather, learn, and grow together. I welcome you, in a community of accountability, to give the Christ, as best you understand Christ now, an opportunity to manifest the Love of God in ways that may not provide you much that meet the standards of consumerism. However, ultimately, the trick of consumerism is on us, for consumerism ends up consuming us, if we seek meaning and fulfillment in its values of collective greed and personal acquisition in religion and spirituality.
I do not ask you to convert to Christianity as religion. I call us all, in the ways chosen by God for our particular callings, to find a community and live out learning, through study and living and, yes, covenanting together, to follow the disciplines of the Spirit. In this, and together, we will grow to discover more deeply the paradox that in losing ourselves, we find ourselves, in dying to ourselves, we live, and in loving, Love abundant flows back to us plentifully. We give, then, not to get, but we receive abundant Life as gift, for we choose to give without ambition to consume for ourselves and on our own select kind. We no longer even serve to get to Heaven; we serve for we already are participating in Eternal Life, now, eternally, for Christ and Eternal Life are one.
In this, we look into the eyes of those even most unlike us religiously and those who may be of other religious communions, and we see a child of God, we see the eyes of Christ looking back at us. We do this now, for we are not looking from religion into religion, or my belief into your belief, or one Christian communion into another Christian communion, we are looking from Love to Love. As God looks we look; as God sees we see. For we are being transformed into the image of God. In this, we can even say, “Yes, we disagree, but we still see Christ in each other.” Possibly, by even learning of how Christ manifests in many different ways, we can grow to have a more mature, faithful image of Christ to live and share.
I bless you. Know you are deeply, eternally, loved. Not only do I encourage you in contemplation, I encourage you to relax and speak to God, as you best understand God. Speak your needs, your dreams, your concerns, and, then, be silent and Listen. Yes, words of Love will come to you. And, Brian, more than ever before, hears that God, whatever we hear from God, has nothing to say to us but that which is a Word of Love, of Grace. God lures by Love. God is no carrier of bad news, for Love only yearns for our enjoyment of Life and being blessed with Joy, now and in Eternity, and in union with all and the Holy Spirit, who weds us to the Christ in God.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (John 10.10, ESV)
Spiritual Exercices
1. Contrast discipleship with consumer Christianity.
2. What does it mean to say that discipleship is a process of "the slow marinating of daily spiritual discipline"?
3. What does "sanctification" mean?
4. What is meant by saying, "God lures by Love"?
5. Give a one-sentence statement of your present understanding of God?
6. Give a one-sentence statement of your present understanding of Christ?
7. Give a one-sentence statement of your present understanding of the Holy Spirit?
8. What is the role of the three Persons of the Trinity in Christian discipleship?
9. Reflect on the following statement and what it implies about the challenge of Christian discipleship, as contrasted with consumer Christianity.
"It is easier to belong to a group than
to belong to God." (Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs)
10. The Christian monk and theologian Bede Griffith's wrote, in A New Vision of Reality,
"The whole universe is in every part."
What does such an insight into the universe imply about community and discipleship?
Prayer
Thank you for all the persons who have been influential in the forming of my Christian faith. For ..., I give you Thanks. Thank you for those who challenged me to think and live beyond what was familiar to me. For ..., I give you Thanks. Amen.
*Brian K. Wilcox
OneLife Ministries is a pastoral outreach and nurture ministry of the First United Methodist Church, Fort Meade, FL. For Spiritual Direction, Pastoral Counseling, spiritual formation workshops, Christian meditation retreats, or more information about OneLife, write Rev. Dr. Brian K. Wilcox at briankwilcox@comcast.net.
Brian's book of mystical love poetry, An Ache for Union, can be ordered through major bookdealers.
Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors
The People of the
United Methodist Church
|
