Letters from Paul: Maturity—Genesis 3: 1-19; Philippians 3: 8-16
Not long after I moved to Macon for law school, a friend invited me to the early morning Ash Wednesday service at St. Joseph’s downtown. I was enraptured by the beauty and splendor of this church, the moving liturgy of repentance and confession for Ash Wednesday, and just the newness to this kid who grew up in a Baptist country church. I went through my day with the ashen cross still marked on my forehead.
There was a Middle Eastern guy in my class at law school, whom I was friends with. My name ends in J, his in K, so we found ourselves near each other a lot in seating assignments. He looked at me in the library and said, “Hey, hey dude, why do so many of you all Jesus-y people have dirt rubbed on your face today?” I explained the meaning of Ash Wednesday the belief that without God’s hope we are nothing more than the dust we are created from, and we remind ourselves of that hope and love as we repent each year of our lack of love and faithfulness.
He said that was really cool. Then he added, “I just thought you all got together and ate friend chicken each week.” I would have been offended, but I realized he was serious and that was his impression. So instead of a huffy reply, I just said, “No, my friend, sometimes it’s meatloaf too.” Spiritual maturity is a hard topic. It takes years of development and for many is a short-lived endeavor. Paul and Genesis speak to us about three aspects of spiritual maturity. First, don’t listen to every snake in your life. Second, we must press on. And last, we should work to find agreement, hard as that can be.
First, don’t listen to every snake. I love this part of the creation story in Genesis. All of us who understand the hints and connotations of someone being a snake in the grass know exactly what’s coming when Eve listens to the sneaky advice of a snake. Yet, how often do we listen to the snakes in our lives as well? How many times do we listen to people around us who are toxic and ill-adjusted in life? How many times do we listen to our own intrusive thoughts that call and pull us away from the love and beauty that God intended for our lives.
Paul writes to the Philippians, “Everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Paul goes on to tell them that they need to filter out the garbage. I’ll give you an example from the opening story. When my friend asked about the “dirt” on people’s foreheads, the society we live in would have gone ballistic: “How dare he ask that? What kind of disrespect is this? He should know better! This brown-skinned guy needs to stay out of my business anyway!” From an innocent question, too many people move from being the voice of reason and wisdom to being the snake.
A mature Christian speaks with the same gentleness, wisdom, and truth which Jesus spoke with. A wise friend once said to me, “The loudest, most absurd, most offended, and most overwhelming voices never come from the heart of Jesus, for who can imagine the man on the cross shouting like a maniac over every little thing in life?” Growing, maturing faith finds us ready to speak with wisdom, gentleness, instruction, and hope in every situation, just like the Jesus we follow.
Second, we must press on. Paul writes to the Philippians, “I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. I have not achieved it, but I focus on this…: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.” One of the sneakiest ways maturity eludes us is when we get trapped in the past. Those who don’t mature at all shout and holler. But many of us do mature and grow, then stagnate. It happens when we get too trapped in the past to continue moving forward.
A couple of years ago, I was helping a friend house hunt. One “as-is” home had a pool that had stopped and stagnated for years. There was still water in it, but there was enough thick, green algae on top that you could bounce a quarter on it. It was gross, stagnant, and (frankly) stinky. That cannot be the example of our spiritual life. You were meant to grow, to mature, to put away the past and press on to the call which God has given you and for which God has equipped you. Paul tells the Philippians that he…and by extension they…press on to reach the end of the race in this life journey on earth.
Just like it’s easy to live on the defensive, it’s comfortable to live in the past. Nostalgia is a sweet, sweet trap. But God calls us to press on into what is sometimes a scary and uncertain future. Yet God is with us, Christ never leaves us, and in every trial and future struggle, God and our friends in faith walk with us. And as we mature, we realize that’s a point of trust with God and with the faithful around us. But in the end, we must press on and look toward the future God leads us into day by day.
Lastly, we must learn to agree on the basics and let go of the pointless quarrels. Paul writes, “Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. But we must hold on to the progress we have already made.” Here’s where things get a little troublesome for us. What are we to agree on? Paul starts that answer right in verse 8: “Everything else is worthless when compared to the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus.” That is the foundation on which we agree and find common ground.
So, then we ask ourselves a few questions: if we worship with guitar or organ or a mix, does that affect whether we know Jesus or not? If a person dresses differently, looks differently, has a few piercings or tattoos, does that change whether we know Christ or not? If a person, who claims to be Christian, votes Democrat or Republican, does it change whether we know Christ or not? If a person lives with a disability, mental health disorder, physical illness, sings off key, raises a hand in a rousing hymn, or heaven forbid laughs at the preacher’s joke, does any of this affect whether you can know Christ or not?
At the end of the day, what we must agree on is following Jesus, for, as the old saying goes, the devil is in the details. Too many of our worries and concerns come from listening to snakes or being stuck where God has been not where God is going. My Nana often says, “I don’t recognize the world I live in anymore, and I’m not sure I like it.” But the truth is, you don’t particularly have to recognize or like the world to continue telling of God’s love and believing that the love and grace of Jesus can still make a difference.
I was recently told that a new friend was at the Allman Brothers museum and was asking about a church. The folks there had some high praise for how kind and nice this church is. Now, I doubt there is a whole lot of overlap between the Allman Brothers and a fairly traditional looking Christian church beyond the shared parking lot, but I daresay we’ve done something right if the Southern Rock museum and concert venue are willing to vouch for us as “good Christians.”
At the end of the day, the true test of our maturity is how strong our foundation is. I’m going to say that Christians who have a meltdown over everything and get offended by anything have some growing up to do. Instead of listening to snakes, getting lost in the past, or bickering like children, may we instead come back to the foundation of our faith. We live in faith to proclaim the love of Christ that brings peace and hope in a broken world. May we never get distracted from that God-given calling.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/1240678353559214