Coming Clean

Let’s face it. There is a deep resistance in all of us to growing spiritually — heck, to growing at all. That may come as a shock to some of us who pride ourselves on being very intentional about our spiritual lives, including our spiritual growth. Many may even deny that it’s true; at least it’s not true of them. They know other people who dig in their heels, but that’s because ‘those people’ aren’t as committed to Jesus as we are.

Sorry, but I beg to disagree. I think some of us want the fruits of growing, but not the growing itself. That’s because growing always – let me say it again, always – requires suffering, and more than suffering, death. Jesus himself said that a seed has to fall into the ground and die before it can bear fruit. And he was talking about himself. It was Jesus that the writer of Hebrews was referring to in today’s lectionary: “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through the things he suffered.“

Again, some of us want the fruits of growing, but I don’t think anyone wants the growing itself. I think we all do quite a bit to resist growing, either consciously or unconsciously. And it’s probably time we admitted it.

I love reading books about growing. I’ve pretty much convinced myself that reading books about growing will make me grow. Books about growing spiritually can make me think I’m growing, which may be the greatest deception of all – to think I’m growing, when I’m not; to think I really, really want to grow, when I really don’t.

Don’t get me wrong, I think books are good, especially good books. It might be my professional prejudice (not to mention my need for an income) speaking, but I also think that sermons can help us grow. Certainly reading the Bible can be a catalyst for growth. But none of these can do the growing for us. The seeds or potential for growth can only take place in the soil of our everyday lives. It’s there that we ‘learn obedience through suffering.’ I don’t know anyone who wants to suffer, which is why I don’t think anyone wants to grow. Again, it’s the fruits of growing that we want.

And sometimes we don’t even want the fruit: “Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light.” A part of us is afraid that the new self might be boring compared to our old self. We’ve become quite attached to old desires and the old order. The New Creation is something we don’t mind looking forward to in the next life, but we’d prefer to have a tad bit more of the old creation before we have to let go of it altogether.

So I think most of us, no all of us, are at best spiritual schizophrenics. It’s like that great spiritual teacher Yogi Berra once said: “When you come to the fork in the road, take it.” We don’t mind being slightly altered (as long as it’s not too painful), but a complete transformation is out of the question. And you can just forget about our taking up our cross daily (Luke 9:23) to follow and learn from Jesus. Because if we did, well, it’s like the writer of Hebrews said, we’d all “in fact be teachers by now.”

And that would be too bad, because then I might be out of a job.

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