Discipleship Inside-Out

“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.  Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers.  The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.  Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:45-47)

First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.  (Matthew 23:26)

Spiritual formation and spiritual disciplines are words being thrown around with greater frequency these days.   It is easy to share what I feel about these subjects before I adequately define what I am talking about.  Most of these shared thoughts and feelings would come from the people I’ve run into (in person or through some media) who use these words, for good or ill.

One popular (at least on internet searches) notion is that these terms signal “New Age” views and practices brought up under a different name.  They are seen as efforts to add to the gospel and draw people into confusion or legalism.  Paul identifies such dangers in Galatians 1:6-9.  The fear is that spiritual formation adds to the “gospel of grace” so freely given by Paul.  Not only that, but the additions are seen as unbiblical or even pagan in nature.

No doubt such spiritual formation can be found.  If a person looks for a “spiritual director or guide,” there are many varieties to be found.  Even if one adds the word “Christian” to their search, some of the notions of spirituality have little to do with Christ.  Searching in this area is full of potential danger.

However, just because a term is misused, it does not make it unusable or the user wrong.  As with so many other abused terms and ideas, spiritual formation has been the baby thrown out with the bathwater by some groups and individuals.  I feel compelled to rescue this term.  Others have done a better job than I have, such as Eugene Peterson and Dallas Willard.  Such rescues occur frequently in the Church, such as the rescue of “grace” by Bonheoffer in The Cost of Discipleship.  He did not throw out grace, but gave some clarifiers to explain it: “costly” grace and “cheap” grace.

I would like to frame spiritual formation in terms of discipleship.  Spiritual formation is discipleship inside-out.  First, I like the use of inside-out because it reverses something that many people are familiar with, making it seem strange.  Like pants or a shirt worn inside-out, spiritual formation looks at the seams and pockets of discipleship from an angle where they can be worked on.  Rather than the usual mode of discipleship (“God is good. You stink.  Do better.”), spiritual formation starts with the unseemly (pun intended) aspects of my life rather than merely prescribing good behavior.

Unseemly parts of my life are ugly sins, bad habits, and careless words.  They also are day-to-day work, family life, and mundane tasks.  Spiritual formation begins here because these are the things closest to my heart, closest to my insides.  This is where the work begins.  Rather than sewing “letters” on jackets, brandishing special “designer” labels, or showing off my best qualities with the right cuts and shapes, spiritual formation focuses on cleaning stains, ripping out bad seams, and sewing up torn places in my life.

Secondly, inside-out points to the priority of the spirit (or heart) in the life of a person.  Spiritual formation is not about performing certain actions, but having new attitudes.  Spiritual formation is not about what to do, but about how I do it.  Spiritual formation is not about getting what I want, nor is it about doing good, but about wanting to do good.  Human change always comes from the inside out, and spiritual formation takes this seriously.

Putting “Christian” on the front of spiritual formation may help a little bit, but often the view of Christians is all too low both inside and outside of the Church.  It gives some meaning, but not a lot.  I prefer “Christ-centered.”  Spiritual formation (really spiritual re-formation) cannot occur without Christ at the center.  Spiritual formation without Christ at the center  makes as much sense as performing open-heart surgery on yourself, or trying to determine what is real from what is fantasy for a paranoid schizophrenic (like in A Beautiful Mind.)  No, this activity must be instigated, supervised, and completed with Christ or it will end in catastrophe.  Christ-centered spiritual formation is discipleship to Christ inside-out.

What is truly beautiful about spiritual formation is that the tools are right at hand.  Christ is available to everyone through his Spirit.  He comes to everyone who longs for such change.  Such a longing and a seeking for his influence is what Jesus meant with his invitation, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”  Learning what this means takes a lifetime. . . and longer.  However, it takes only a moment to begin.  And it goes from moment to moment.

His Spirit has also provided the testimony and teaching from lives dedicated to spiritual formation of people from ages past.  These words and stories are the teaching tools of his Spirit, opening our lives to his instruction, healing, and power.  The Bible, read honestly and openly, searches our hearts and minds and lays us open for a new life with God.  That is the result of Christ- centered spiritual formation: Life with God.   That life is being constantly renewed, constantly deepened, and constantly nurtured.  That life is worth every sacrifice.

A Love that Brings New Life

You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride;  you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.  (Song of Songs 4:9)

God demands little, but expects much.  One glance toward him is enough to bring him running to my side.  Sometimes I flatter myself in thinking it is my “beauty” that brings him, but it is really much more his love.  Yet, I also find that when I think of stealing his heart with one glance, there must be beauty in my soul that I am little aware of.

God’s humility amazes me.  He comes with so little invitation.  That is mercy.  His mercy is his willingness to come even though I may only offer “one jewel” from my necklace.  He is ever-ready to respond because of his great love.  Like a star-crossed lover he awaits and anticipates any move I might make toward him.

But he is not like one filled with infatuation, who is completely blind to my unfaithfulness.  He knows about all of my sins.  Yet he loves me.  He knows a truth about me that runs deeper than my sin.  He sees a beauty in me that outshines my filthy deeds.  His heart is stolen by his vision of what he has made me to be and the passion to bring that person alive with my cooperation by trust.  I am raised to life by his love.

Lord, I cannot see in myself what you find so irresistible.  When I look at myself, I often feel ashamed.  By your mercy, let me see what you see.  By your grace, let me become that person.  By your love I am reborn.  Amen.

How might I practice receiving this love that brings life?  In the Song of Songs, the Beloved seeks the Lover and accepts his love.   With Dawn, I rehearse the words and actions of her love in my mind and it draws out the best of me.  So I want to remember God’s words and actions of love in my life and allow it to draw out the person that he sees I can be with him and in him.  The Bible becomes to me his words of love and his actions to draw near to me so I might draw near to him.  Such love comes to the Bible with prayerful emptiness and reads it with humble expectation.  (The Fire of the Word, Chris Webb, Chapter 6)

The God Who Calls Me "Beautiful"

How beautiful you are, my darling!  Oh how beautiful!  (Song of Songs 1:15)

How easy to approach God as an object of study.  How easy to try to fit him into calculations made about a happy life.  How easy to make theories about him.  Perhaps all of these impersonal approaches come from my conception of God as a distant being, far-removed from me and my life.  He may be near in proximity, but not near in concern or love.

Perhaps I do not yearn enough for God because I do not see that he is yearning for me.  In the Song of Songs, the lover can be likened to God and the beloved an individual soul.  It is disturbing to see God humbling himself to the status of a “wooer.”  He sings over me songs of passion.  He yearns for me more than a lover for a beloved.

It’s not surprising that such an interpretation of the Song seems somehow “below” God.  I have read in a book that one man cannot sing worship songs about how “beautiful” God is because he feels that such love is somehow “beneath” God.  No doubt the usual state of love between lovers is beneath God as it is beneath people, but the fault lies not with romantic love, but with the misuse of it.

I think the reluctance to attribute such a “low” love to God comes from more than just its misuse.  I think that the yearning, longing God is not one that I typically imagine.  I want God to be aloof because I want to be aloof.  I want God to remain “above” such behavior because I want to be above it.  God accepts worship; he does not give it.  These feelings keep me from succumbing to the God who calls me “beautiful.”

Lord, I want your love to be a fragrance that rises from the deepest parts of me.  My understanding and acceptance of your love is what deepens and drives my worship and love for you.  Save me from remaining aloof to your yearning love.  Amen.

This misunderstanding of God as “too good” for this lowly romantic love influences how I worship, but also how I read the Bible.  As I worship God, as I read his word, I want to know him more than study him.  “Theorists  explain the offerings, but lovers become one.”  (The Fire of the Word, Chris Webb, 68)

Afraid of Jesus and His Works

When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.  (Luke 8:35)

I get used to certain things.  Some things are familiar in Nature, like the rising sun, the waning moon, or the wind in the trees.  Some things are familiar with my family, like dinners together, people sitting in the living room to read or tap on laptops, or our little dogs laying down in someone’s lap.  Some things are typical around me, like people driving in a hurry on the road, voiced contempt of various people, or sickness always threatening people.

What happens when one of these things is obstructed, delayed, or removed?  It may be a great cataclysm, but often it is just unsettling.  Some of these changes “just happen.”  They are part of the way “life” works.  Sometimes my family doesn’t get to have dinner together.  Sometimes the air is unnaturally still around our house.  Sometimes instead of contempt, I find mercy in someone’s voice.  Some things just don’t change, though.

These people of the Gerasenes did not expect to see this demon-possessed man recover.  At least, not instantly.  It was like the sun had neglected to rise that morning.  It was not one of those things that “just happen.”  People sickened in this way do not recover like that!  It was so unsettling that they saw it as a threat instead of a blessing.

The closeness of God was a frightening thing.  Something made them deeply fearful.  A God who drives demons out of a crazy person wandering in the tombs might do anything.  So the phrase, “Nothing is impossible with God” becomes more than a promise that God can do anything.  It becomes a somewhat frightening idea that God might do anything.  If he cures that crazy guy, if he saves that sinner, if he changes the things I’ve come to expect and rely on, bad or good, he might do anything!

Also, I find that more frightening than crazy people, desperate people, or cruel people might be people in their right minds.  If Jesus is any indication of such a “right mind,” I see that he is remarkable unsettling, offensive, and fear-inducing on a number of occasions.  Sickness and wickedness are strangely comforting (especially in other people) compared to real health and righteousness.  Because of my pride and desire to control, what is unknown can be more fearful than what is evil.

I do not think that it is mere coincidence that the man in his right mind is sitting at Jesus’ feet.  Like Mary when Martha criticized her, this man finds in Jesus – in his presence and teaching – what he needs.  So it is not only that his neighbors found him in his right mind, but that they found him at Jesus’ feet.  “ If all things are possible with this God, then we might all find ourselves at Jesus’ feet.”

Lord, calm my fears when I see your hand healing and delivering.  Let me not run from forgiveness or your help because I fear the unknown.  Please bring me into my right mind, sitting at your feet.  Amen.

More alarming than seeing such changes in people is the yearning of God to be with me.  He brings me to a right mind and brings me to sit at Jesus feet because I will not be near him any other way.  I want to embrace Jesus’ compassion and God’s yearning and remaining near him.  I want to learn to recognize this fear that drives me from Jesus rather than to him.

God's Will to Forgive and Heal

Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.  “I am willing,” he said.  “Be clean!”  (Mark 1:41)

Somehow I have come to believe that it is God’s will that I remain in sickness.  Somehow I have come to see Jesus saying to me, “I am not willing.  Remain unclean.”  My prayers have been heavily affected by this belief.  They are filled with the phrase “Your will be done” which does not really seek God’s will, but instead embraces resignation that God really is unwilling.

It is not God that is unwilling.  The One who came with the good news, with the announcement of the year of the Lord’s favor, did not ever withhold healing and forgiveness.  He reached out his hand and touched and healed and forgave without measure and without hesitation.  No, it is not God who is unwilling.

I find that I am unwilling.  Somehow I hold onto my sicknesses of mind, body, and soul.  I refuse to give them up.  I do not see God with the trust that Jesus had, but instead I am full of hesitation and doubt.  His promises are laid out in the Bible: “Praise the Lord, O my soul, . . . who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.”  (Psalm 103:1,2)  His life is displayed in Jesus, the compassionate healer, the flagrant forgiver.  It is plain.  God is willing, but somehow I am not.

Faith provides the key and the answer.  Simply, I do not trust God.  I would rather wrestle with my sins and sickness than give them up into his hands.  My faith is weak.  I cannot picture what health and wholeness is like in my body, mind, and soul.  I cannot picture such love and brotherhood in my church.  I cannot picture peace and unity in the world.  Help my unbelief!

That is what Jesus does.  Not only does he live.  Not only does he heal.  Not only does he forgive.  He sends his Spirit into my heart so that I may also accept these gifts and live in them, live with them.  Faith becomes living with God and his will rather than living apart from him in doubt.  My Jesus is where my faith lives and grows.

Lord, I struggle hard to believe.  I want to let that go.  I try hard to be healed and forgiven.  I want to let that go, too.  Instead I want to embrace a faith in Jesus, which also contains the faith of Jesus.  Renew my mind, so that I my see and live in faith instead of doubt.  For your sake and for your glory.  Amen.

One practice of seeing in faith is letting go of my doubts.  With the Lord dwelling in me, for instance, pride does not dwell.  I have old thought-habits of pride, but with forgiveness, they are merely thoughts.  I want to learn to put them aside gently and say, “I know you are willing.  I know you live in me.  Where you live pride does not dwell.  These are just old habits that need to be cleaned up.

Paradox Helps Us to See

 Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:43-45)

These paradoxes of Jesus come from the disparity between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of heaven.  “Greatness” as the world sees it is not really greatness at all.  Such greatness has these characteristics: “lording it over “ other people, exercising authority over  others, and being first.  Greatness in the kingdom of God comes with service and giving up one’s life.

Instead of being served by many, Jesus showed that greatness is shown by serving many.  Capacity to serve demonstrates greatness with God.  Greatness with God is not just a matter of some future reward, but to have the kind of influence that God has.  Jesus served not merely out of duty, but because it is the most effective way to love and change human hearts, human society, and creation as a whole.

As I remember how I was raised as a child, I believe the things that have remained with me the longest and seated themselves in my heart the deepest have been the ways in which my parents served.  My father’s work at home and his careful planning of our vacations as well as my mother’s deliberate affection and sharing her love of music and art were ways in which they taught me without being highly conscious of teaching me.  What they did had more effect than what they taught.  The depth of greatness is plumbed by how many hearts I affect rather than how many lives I direct.

So the moments of service become the times I choose not to hold over other people what authority I have.  I serve when I move away from exercising my authority as expert, supervisor, or father, but instead come alongside the people in my life as a resource to be used or ignored, a steward of what has been given to me, and a helper and encourager.  I serve when I choose to be last out of love.  Serving is, most notably, death to my self-life.

The paradox comes from the utter difference between God’s ways and the world’s ways.  Jesus’ contradiction and exaggeration come from his contrast between what I accept as “the way things are” and the truth of how things really are.  The heart of his teaching is “You have heard it was said” followed by “But I tell you.”

Lord, as much as I agree with you that service makes greatness, I inwardly rebel at the thought of service so often.  I feel imposed upon and inconvenienced in so many ways and my heart is often unresponsive to the needs of other people, my mind indifferent to what they ask for.  Please let your truth not remain paradox but come to be truth that I believe.  Amen.

I see how paradox can open my eyes if I open my ears to it.  Jesus is not merely saying, “Serve.”  He shows the try nature and purpose to service and how the very struggle to faith in him is the struggle to serve instead of lording it over others, exercising my authority, and determining to be first.  Without faith service does not make sense.  Without truly hearing the paradox, I think I hear his words when I do not really.  “He who has ears let him hear.”

“But as we took longer [to look at the Byzantine paintings,] we are struck by the sudden realization that the angles and postures are all perfectly natural and correct – or, at least, they would be if we were all dwelling in the world of the icon.  We are outsiders, looking in on the kingdom of heaven: it is our viewpoint that is distorted. . . .  [The Bible] is a thin place through which the presence of God breaks into this world and bursts with unpredictable consequences into our lives.”  (Chris Webb, The Fire of the Word, 31)

Jesus Mediates Biblical Truth

“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)

When I train students in my laboratory, I often have them read about things before they try them out.  I have them read through a procedure and tell them that they may not understand all of it, but just to read it to get an idea of what we will be doing together.  After they see and practice the procedure, reading it makes much more sense.  The “fulfillment” of a procedure is in its execution.

So it is with the Bible.  Many things were heard from God and some of it was understood.  But fulfillment did not occur before Jesus.  Perhaps there was an inkling of what “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” meant through Moses, the Law, Wisdom, and the Prophets.  When Jesus came, though, then the true execution of that phrase was made plain.  Not only did he illuminate the entire Bible, he refashioned history according to its true fulfillment and showed the future in his being and in his teaching.

Everyone in Jesus’ hometown hoped that he was talking about how Israel would come out on top and all the pagan nations would be punished and destroyed.  They hoped for a ruler to make a merely earthly kingdom.  While Jesus pointed to himself, he dashed their hopes of Messiah, even speaking blasphemy to their ears.  He explained that although he fulfilled the scriptures, the people of his hometown would be the first to reject this fulfillment: a kingdom beyond Israel embracing the pagan nations.

So when I come to the Bible and when I speak about it, the true understanding and execution of the scriptures can only be found in Jesus.  He is more than an example.  He is more than a sacrifice.  He is more than a victor.  Fulfillment comes “today.”  He is my ever-living, ever-present guide and friend.  It is Jesus opening my mind to the scriptures and their meaning through an encounter with him.

Lord, you have brought such joy and simplicity to obeying you!  Jesus is the mediator of all truth.  The Bible is now his book to teach me with so that I too might fulfill the scriptures even as I hear from him.  Let my ears hear the one who is the way, the truth, and the life.  Amen.

Like the people long ago, I am tempted to see Jesus’ fulfillment of the scriptures as the fulfillment of my personal earthly happiness.  I do not want him to fulfill all the scriptures, but just the ones that might make my life easier and more pleasurable.  I need to take seriously the parts of the Bible that I might not want to see fulfilled.  In these places I may discover places in my life that need healing and redeeming as Jesus shows leads me into all truth through his Spirit.