Growing up – 9 May 2014, Easter 4

One of St Paul’s many valuable insights is in the familiar words of I Corinthians 13:

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

Earlier in this letter Paul is critical of the Corinthian church because, he says, they have failed to grow up.  The signs of this of which Paul is particularly aware are their quarreling, their divisions, their hankering after charismatic leaders and spiritual entertainment.  Later, writing to the church at Colossae, Paul describes what grown-up faith is like – rooted and built up in Christ, established in faith, abounding in thanksgiving.  To the Ephesians he actually uses words such as coming to maturity.  We must no longer be children, he writes – and the hallmarks of immaturity include what he describes as being blown around by this or that teaching – the hallmarks of maturity include cordial unity with others who are different, and one of Paul’s most famous phrases, speaking the truth in love.  Speaking the truth in love, he writes, we must grow up in every way into him…

The tragedy in many places is that an infantile form of faith is not only practised and taught, but is vigorously defended.  It tends to be legalistic and moralist.  In some places it encourages the ego, promotes a gospel of success and material prosperity with dollops of self-righteousness.  It confuses prayer and superstition, and dines out on what are perceived to be miracles.  People will remind you that Jesus said we must become as little children – as though Jesus meant deliberately somehow stunting growth and maturity.

One teacher, Richard Rohr, points out powerfully how growth in Christ has a great deal to do with what he calls saying farewell to our loyal soldier – that is the version of us that earned credit from doing as we’re told, presenting an adequate image, being self-consciously busy and admired, using religion as a comfort blanket, being ruled by emotions… or else, its flip side, living chronically guilty because we are not the way we think we should be.  Mature faith comes with the withering of that ego, the simplifying of life, the increase in mindfulness.  A primary discipline on this pathway is the prayer of silence and stillness. 

And so it is that Paul can write …but when I became an adult…, as though there is and must be a change – in a Christian church or congregation just as also in an individual – a change from childish dependence to mature faith and discipleship.  It is tragic when people who may have been assiduous church members all their lives, yet remain infantile in their faith, dependent and superstitious.  As St Paul writes:

…until all of us come to… maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.  We must no longer be children…  But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. [Eph. 4: 13-16]