Spiritual Formation School of Love

The past two weeks have been extraordinary, overwhelming, depressing, rage inducing. It’s nearly unimaginable that we have at least four years of this ahead. Talking with someone earlier this week about living in these times as a Christian, I said “I may be a Saint by the time this is over.” I was joking and then realized that, maybe I wasn’t. I started to wonder what would happen if I re-thought this time as a school of spiritual formation?

A school of spiritual formation or perhaps a crucible¹ of formation? I choose the word “crucible” deliberately. This will not be easy. The temptation is to succumb to despair, or rage. The temptation is to give up, to think that I can do nothing- that no one can do nothing. To forget that God is still present and cares about this world and everyone living. I don’t mean to imply that God intended this time to occur so that you and I could be new and improved versions of ourselves. God works with and in the world as it is. So the question is, how do I live faithfully in these days? How does my Christian faith shape and direct and inform my responses and my actions?

Spiritual formation is, in part, about practices². There is no definitive list of spiritual practices. The practices include prayer, scripture, service, attentiveness, worship, contemplation and more. The point of spiritual practices or disciplines is to “…train us in faithfulness”³

Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 talks about love. This statement on love comes right after Paul writes about spiritual gifts and the church as the non hierarchical body of Christ⁴. He ends that section with “But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.” (1 Cor 12:31) And then he says that love is more important than any spiritual gift. Paul tells the Corinthians that love is more important than any spiritual gift.

Read carefully what Paul has to say about love in 1 Corinthians 13.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothings. If I give away all my possessions, and if I have over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 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. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. 1 Cor 13 :1-13 NRSV

Sometimes we use this passage assuming that love is a private emotion between individuals. Or to suggest that love is passive, compliant and submissive to another person. But Paul is addressing this passage about love to the church in Corinth. We need to think about how this informs how we live and act as members of the Church and as the Church.

Scripture tells us the God is love. So when we read 1 Cor 13 we need to be thinking about God and how God expresses their love. Look again at what Paul writes, love is patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not arrogant, not rude. Love does not require compliance, it is not resentful or angry. If love does not insist on its own way, perhaps we should think carefully before we decide we should “speak the truth in love”. We should pause and think carefully we are tempted to say, ” I love you and so you should do this.” We should pause and think about what we are doing when we are tempted to say, “I love you and so I’m telling you what to do.”⁵

Love does not celebrate bad actions. It celebrates truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. The phrase “all things” holds the idea of completeness, inclusivity. Recall Colossians 1:17 where we are told Christ is “before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Bearing all things and enduring all things is not a mandate for people to endure harm and abuse. This is God, in love, as love, holding everything that exists in the world in love. This God, this Love does not abuse or force. This God, this Love is not resentful or angry. This God, this Love is patiently waiting. Waiting for what? For us to notice? For us to respond? For us to love? This “Love never ends”. We can only understand and know this love in part. We can never fully grasp how expansive, how complete God’s love for us is.

This love that bears all things, and holds all things, that patiently waits for us, is why the Spirit gives us spiritual gifts. This is why we are to be the body of Christ. So we can begin to do what Jesus calls us to do- To love as God loves.

I don’t know yet, all that this particular Spiritual Formation School of Love will require and what it will teach me. It begins with love. The first and ongoing, and perhaps biggest challenge is to love my enemies. “You have heard that it was said, ‘ You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in Heaven” for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those how love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?”⁶

Jesus is very clear about this. I think about this daily. And many days, If I’m honest most days, I am not happy about this command from Jesus. It’s much easier to hate. It’s much easier to label “them” as evil. It’s easier to write “them” off as un-redeemable. It’s easier to be afraid. But our fear and hate damage people whom God loves and they damage us.

How do we hold and love this world and its people in all its wonder and horror? How do we rejoice in the truth and also “not insist on its own way”? How do we keep from becoming resentful or irritable? How do we bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things?

Don’t look at me. I have no idea.

I have some hunches. I do think this is where we lean into and lean on the traditions and practices and insights of the saints of the body of Christ. Again, there is no official list. Perhaps we begin here, prayer, compassion, contemplation, virtue, listening to the Holy Spirit, working for justice, thoughtful engagement of Scripture, the Sacraments, live together in community, Sabbath, self examination and confession, hospitality. We also have plenty of examples. You and I know people, we have met people who are well schooled in love. Think about who they are and learn from their example. If they are still alive, ask them how they do it. You and I can learn about and learn from the saints of the past.

This Spiritual Formation School of Love starts now, in this world, in this life. But it doesn’t stay here and it doesn’t end here. The school of love, the life of love extends into eternity. This is the work of this lifetime and the next.

Perhaps a first step is to pray this prayer, and to mean it.

O God of all, as Christ commanded us to love our enemies, lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (From the Book of Common Worship, Daily Prayer)

1. From Dictionary.com, crucible
   1: a vessel of a very refractory (see refractory entry 1 sense 3) material (such as porcelain) used for melting and calcining a substance that requires a high degree of heat
   2: a severe test. He’s ready to face the crucible of the Olympics.
   3: a place or situation in which concentrated forces interact to cause or influence change or development… conditioned by having grown up within the crucible of Chinatown …—
   Tom Wolfe
   His character was formed in the crucible of war. ↩︎
2. sometimes people use the word “practices”, sometimes the word “disciplines” is used. They are basically the same thing. ↩︎
3. Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life, Majories J. Thompson, Newly Revised Edition, WestminsterJohnKnox Press, 2014, page xxiv ↩︎
4. 1 Cor 12, see also last week’s post ↩︎
5. Here we may want to make a distinction between person to person speech ( and we need to consider how we speak to people we are in relationship with and how we speak to “others” people we do not know or don’t know well) and a declaration from the church about an issue, such as we should feed hungry people. ↩︎
6. Matthew 5:43-47 NRSV ↩︎