Ep 4:25-5:2

10 August 2003

“To Be Spiritually Formed:  In a Distant Land”

            After finishing my four-part series on spiritual themes (darkness, time, imagination, and availability), it seemed appropriate to address spiritual formation itself.  “Spiritual formation” is one of those terms that, for better or worse, has recently become popular in religious circles.  Even though it may be dismissed by some as trendy, spiritual formation has been practiced for centuries.

            And just what, you may ask, is spiritual formation?  Good question!  The term “spiritual formation” may sound like some obscure, mysterious rite of passage.  It may conjure up images of people seated around a fire, gazing into it, or perhaps a scene of dancing comes to mind.

            At some level, spiritual formation is simply a fact of life.  Just as our bodies are formed as we grow up (and for many of us, as we grow out!), so our spirits are given form.  The Christian philosopher Dallas Willard says of spiritual formation that it’s “the process by which the human spirit or will is given a definite ‘form’ or character.  It is a process that happens to everyone.  The most despicable as well as the most admirable of persons have had a spiritual formation.  Terrorists as well as saints are the outcome of spiritual formation.  Their spirits or hearts have been formed.  Period.”[1]

            That’s the kind of formation that simply happens.  But just as there’s a difference between the formation of a body that’s merely allowed to exist and a body shaped by exercise, so is there a difference in the arena of the spirit.  Willard describes a distinctively Christian spiritual formation as “the [Holy] Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.”[2]  That’s as good a definition as I’ve encountered.

            But before I turn this sanctuary into a university lecture hall, I need to pause.  It’s been said that we speak best about what we know.  And stories tend to be better topics of discussion than lists of definitions.  Jesus certainly thought so.  They’re definitely more interesting.  I know lots of stories, but I suppose the story I know best is my own.  I think it’s safe to say that the story known best by all of us is our own.

            Banu and I were ordained on 8 February 1997 at Overbrook Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.  My pastor, Rev. David McMillan, gave me this charge at the end of the service:  he told me to tell my story of being in a distant land.  In a distant land.  He was referring to several things.

The bandana I wore on my head was a mute witness to my experience with brain cancer.  I had been on a journey, almost a year and a half long at that point, which included seizure, diagnosis, surgery, radiation therapy, another seizure, another surgery, then seven cycles of chemotherapy.  Along the way, plenty of CAT and MRI scans, a port temporarily implanted in my chest for antibiotics, and needles, needles, and more needles.  To Rev. McMillan, that constituted “being in a distant land.”

            He was also referring to the spiritual journey I had taken, at least, the parts of it that he knew.  Coming from an Assemblies of God church in Tennessee to an American Baptist seminary in Philadelphia to the PC(USA) church across the street—knowing that I had worshipped and worked with Christians of many different stripes—that also constituted “being in a distant land.”

            I must confess, though, I’ve tended to discount my pastor’s charge to me.  I have included parts of my story from time to time, but probably not in the deliberate way Rev. McMillan intended.  To be honest, I fear boring people by talking about myself.  For that matter, I fear boring myself!  What’s more, I believe that what’s really important is not my story, but the story of Jesus Christ.  Still, as I’ve told people who are hesitant to speak about God and faith:  begin with what the Lord has done in your life.

            It’s also true that many of the greatest spiritual works of all time have been life stories—biographies and autobiographies.  A good example of the latter is The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton, of whom I’ve spoken before as being one of the spiritual giants of the twentieth century.  In his journal The Sign of Jonas, which covers his first few years in the monastery and picks up where The Seven Storey Mountain left off, Merton reflects on this business of telling one’s own story.

            “The man who began this journal is dead, just as the man who finished The Seven Storey Mountain when this journal began was also dead, and what is more the man who was the central figure in The Seven Storey Mountain was dead over and over.  And now that all these men are dead, it is sufficient for me to say so on paper and I think I will have ended up by forgetting them…Consequently, The Seven Storey Mountain is the work of a man I never even heard of.  And this journal is getting to be the production of somebody to whom I have never had the dishonor of an introduction.”[3]

            I especially like that last line, when he refers to himself in his current work as someone to whom he’s “never had the dishonor of an introduction.”  I can understand that.  I look back at things I wrote in the past—more than that, I look back at the kind of person I was—and I wonder, “Who was that guy?  What an idiot!”  Talk about “being in a distant land.”  That’s one place I never want to see again!

            Thomas Merton says such things, because he knows that he must die, so that Christ can live in him.  And there’s no trace of self-hatred here; that would be hating God’s good creation.  Rather, it’s humility that teaches him his own unworthiness to the extent that he promotes himself.  But to the extent that Christ shines through him, he has a message that will endure for generations to come.  And that’s true for all of us.

            Merton speaks of this pretty clearly in a prayer he includes.  “You have made my soul for Your peace and Your silence, but it is lacerated by the noise of my activity and my desires.  My mind is crucified all day by its own hunger for experience, for ideas, for satisfaction.”  And speaking of his own body and spirit, he says, “I do not possess my house in silence…

            “I am content that these pages show me to be what I am—noisy, full of the racket of my imperfections and passions, and the wide open wounds left by my sins.  Full of my own emptiness.  Yet, ruined as my house is, You live there!”[4]  There aren’t many places in which my story parallels Merton’s, but this is one of them!

            For Christian spiritual formation to proceed, there does need to be the kind of honest self-evaluation that we see in Thomas Merton.  According to our friend Dallas Willard, the appeal of such a course in life “is totally obvious to any thoughtful person.  But,” he says, “we are rarely thoughtful.”  He quotes the poet A. E. Houseman in saying, “’We think by fits and starts.’  Thus a part of the call of God to us has always been to think.  Indeed the call of Jesus to ‘repent’ is nothing but a call to think about how we have been thinking.”[5]  The word for repentance is metanoia (metanoia)—a change of mind.

            The point is, spiritual formation involves both body and mind.  Where the mind leads, the body will follow.  Whether it’s a surprise birthday party, a touchdown pass, or a war—it began as an idea.  What is it that fills our minds?  Do our thoughts lead us to abundant life in Christ or to just barely enough to get by?  Do they lead us to what, in our heart of hearts, we know we shouldn’t do?  Or do they inspire us?

            Consider romantic relationships.  People often attribute them to the heart or to other parts of the body.  Still, it is the mind that runs the show.  We make a choice to return that…first look; we decide to let the conversation get to that certain familiar level.  As much as it may seem like it at the time, it doesn’t just happen.  Somehow, we prepare the way.

The apostle Paul, in today’s epistle reading, shows this body-mind connection with his instructions to the Ephesians.  The passage begins, as any sincere search for truth must, with a call to put away “falsehood” (v. 25).  In Greek, the term is yeudo" (pseudos); Paul says to put away “the lie.”  That’s a pretty comprehensive word.

            Something that could qualify as “the lie” in America today is what Willard calls “consumer Christianity,” which he says “is now normative.”  That is, it’s more the rule than the exception.  “The consumer Christian is one who utilizes the grace of God for forgiveness and the services of the church for special occasions, but does not give his or her life and innermost thoughts, feelings, and intentions over to the kingdom of the heavens.  Such Christians are not inwardly transformed and not committed to it,” that is, the kingdom.[6]

            But before I get too far away from my underlying theme of story, let me bring Westminster’s story into view.  You here have been in distant lands—sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively.

            How do we cooperate with the Spirit in the process of Christian spiritual formation?  How can we use our minds differently?  Certainly daily prayer and earnest reading of the scriptures transforms our thinking.  How can we use our bodies differently?  Other spiritual disciplines, like solitude and silence, will liberate us from our desires.  We can be free to be the people we’ve always wanted to be.

            In a couple of months, we’ll begin Wellspring, the spiritual center that we (Banu more so than myself) have been planning for some time.  We’re hoping to work with other churches in the area on matters both “inner” and “outer”—with spiritual disciplines and small groups, as well as on issues of social justice and human rights.

            I want to wrap up by revisiting the fellow who got me started on this matter of speaking about being in a distant land.  David McMillan, in one of Overbrook’s newsletters a few years ago, shared some thoughts from his own story—his visit, so to speak, to a distant land.  I think it speaks well to our own story here at Westminster.

            “Have I grown so accustomed to retreat that I fear victory, so familiar with the role of victim that I know not how to play any other?  Have I grown so accustomed to my guilt whenever I speak that I dare not say much of anything now, resting quietly in my weakness?  Does my sense of inadequacy [so excuse] me from responsibility that I now can enjoy criticizing others without even having to try?  How Lord, shall I dare to think of myself as powerful, and responsible?

            “For anyone who has heard, however dimly, the claims of Easter, these are questions which must be answered.  Jesus Christ becomes a crisis to all who are witnesses.  He stands in the path of our retreat, requiring we say who he is.

            “Take, then, the victory of Christ as your victory over all that makes you afraid.  Have you feared the test result; dare now to take the test you so much feared.  Have you feared the answer; dare now to ask the question whose answer you have so long feared.

            “Take then, the power of Christ as your power over all that makes you feel inadequate.  Have you hesitated to enter the gym because they might laugh at your body; dare now to go where you have not gone.  Have you never written a poem because someone might read what you write; dare now to say what is in your soul.

            “Take then the light of Christ as your light to show you the way.  Have you hesitated to rise and to walk on to the next job, the new home, the new school, the new relationship because you could not see the way; dare now to walk on.  Because you now dare to see death, you can begin to look forward to life.  Thanks be to God.”

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