So, I’m sitting here on the day between the Ides of March and St. Patrick’s day. I just got back from walking Josie, aka the Beast, and, after, giving her a much needed bath. On days like today when we get to go out a walk for a few miles in the sunshine and air my mind tends to go somewhere on its own. As I listened to the screaming of a murder of crows echoing through the woods, a small hawk flew over. Earlier, I had watched as the Beast looked up. She had spotted a buzzard circling in search of a snack.
So during all of this time, my mind was wandering where it would. Now, I don’t know if anyone else’s mind works like this. Sometimes it’s a bit unnerving. When it came back there was a question formed within its deep folds. And, of course it had nothing to do with sun or birds, or even the Beast. It was a question that I’ve grappled with before. It goes something like this:
What makes the Church any different than any other benevolent organization?
The reason that I wonder about that is that so many people read the Gospel stories and find that Jesus taught moral and ethical behavior as a kind of truth statement. He treated the “Other” as real people who deserved love and acceptance. That whole bit about “turn the other cheek” rings true to many people. So, a lot of people, many who are devote Christians, view the Gospel as a manifesto for doing good works. A case in point, I was part of a discussion about Spiritual Formation with members of a progressive church. Well, the church that I attend, actually. When I asked about what Spiritual Formation was, the overwhelming answer was to grow as moral people. We should learn to do what’s right. Just like Jesus showed us. It sounds like the Red Cross or Crescent. Or, perhaps the local food bank. Doing good and moral work, for these people, is the same as Spiritual Formation.
I thought about that for a bit. What is the difference, if any, between that and classic Spiritual Formation? Because, actually what they are saying is more like Moral Formation to me. There’s nothing wrong with that. It just doesn’t sound like Spiritual Formation.
Moral Formation is necessary for communities to live together in a healthy environment. We must be aware of the needs of others. It also covers such things as environmentalism, health care, housing, and food insecurity. All of these are good and necessary for people to thrive. But, they are all directed outward to the world. That isn’t Spiritual Formation at all.
On the other hand, when I think of Spiritual Formation I think of an inward journey. My mind is drawn to look at God and allow God to look at me. The trajectory is more inward and upward. Not Moral Formation at all.
However, when one practices Spiritual Formation, and it is a practice, one finds that God is looking outward at the world. That’s why Jesus was always looking out at others. Not because He was some moral person. It was because He was the exemplar of a Spiritual person. When we seek to know God and to be known by God, our vision also turns outward. One of my heroes was a Trappist monk named Thomas Merton. He wrote that one day he was standing on a street corner in Louisville, KY when this thought came to him, “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers … There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”
Merton was not a better person than anyone else. He did, however, have a deep and lively Spiritual life. Just like Jesus before him, Merton’s practices of Spiritual Formation helped to inform his moral life. The Inward/Upward journey is not complete without the outward focus.
Now, I want to make one thing very clear. In no way am I saying that a person must be a follower of Jesus and practice Spiritual Formation in order to be a moral person. That’s as stupid a statement as it is arrogant. Like I mentioned above, Moral Formation is a good thing. It is a necessary thing. It is a community thing.
What I am saying is Moral Formation is not Spiritual Formation. Even though, in the end, they may net similar outcomes. So, when I consider what is the difference between the Church and benevolent organizations or people, I see that One has the good and welfare of the world as its focus and purpose. The other has God as its focus and purpose. And, to follow God faithfully requires that we also gaze outward.
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