The Need For Contemplation

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.

Mark 1:35

Recently, in my own personal study and conversations with friends, I have been finding some constant themes.

1. People are not pleased with their lives, and widely report to have no "inner peace."
2. People are looking to alternative forms of spirituality.
3. People think of Christianity as a moralistic, but not particularly spiritual path.
4. Christians do not understand their relationship to the Holy Spirit.

While I do not think any of these facts are good in and of themselves, I find an amazing hope in the way they relate. I will take a look at these ideas individually and then talk about what they mean together.

People are not pleased with their lives, and widely report to have no "inner-peace." This should come as a surprise to no one. We in the United States live in a culture that is finding less and less satisfaction in life. We live in an information age, where we are never more than a Facebook poke or Twitter tweet away from other people, but we reportedly still feel alone. Obviously we are in a time of economic struggle, but is there any proof to say that we will feel better when we come out of it? I've harped on this issue before, but I must maintain that we are slowly killing our souls with materialism. Whether you like him or not, Jimmy Carter was prophetic when he observed:

"Too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose."

People are taking many different outlets to fulfill their emptiness. Family, friends, sports, money, sex, drugs, alcohol, pets (so many lonely people only experiencing love from the Golden Retrievers), and everything else under the sun are becoming outlets to fulfill our deepest needs. Which brings me to my next point...

People are looking to alternative forms of spirituality. From the Hindu Vedas and Upanishads to Kabbalah, from Oprah and her gurus to Scientology, people are dying to believe in something. Obviously I believe their aims are way off, but I still see this as a good thing. Bad thinking Christians tend to be up in arms about the oncoming atheistic apocalypse, but the empirical evidence is not reinforcing such fears. I think our biggest fear as Christians shouldn't be that people like Richard Dawkins are going to argue Christianity away. We should be more afraid of not offering people what they need to the point that they will turn to empty religions in order to satisfy it.

People think of Christianity as a moralistic, but not particularly spiritual path. When I consider this prevalent idea, I cannot decide if I am more saddened or angered by the notion. As I understand it the church is supposed to be the Body of Christ in the world. If the world wants to see Jesus they should be able to look at the church. If this is the case people might think that Jesus...

1. hates all homosexuals and cares more about them not getting married than he does about feeding the poor.
2. thinks Barack Obama is a socialist and might be the Antichrist.
3. has a "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" attitude about salvation.
4. is mean spirited.
5. is antagonistic towards the world.

I don't really want to go into all those misrepresentations of Jesus because I will just get angry, but needless to say we have not done very well as Christ's representatives.

Furthermore, even aside from our ugly face we've shown, we haven't done a great job inside the Body of Christ either. Christianity has become an overly pragmatic religion. We have done a really good job at systematizing the Christian life and a really bad job of communicating the Good News. We teach people what we perceive as the necessary hows without teaching them the whys. Often have I heard sermons on "God's 12 Step Plan to Save Your Marriage," or "the Bible's Money Management System." I am not saying that God is not interested in those areas. Clearly He is. But I think we are going about it entirely wrong. (I'll finish this thought later.)

Christians do not understand their relationship to the Holy Spirit.I actually think that the Holy Spirit is sort of an outcast in many churches. Every good Bible student knows that Christians receive the Holy Spirit, but most Christians seem oblivious to His role in their lives. Just recently I was teaching a class where we were looking at how Jesus' life was Spirit led. Not surprisingly it prompted the question, "How do you live by the Spirit?" I think this is a question many Christians are asking, even if they can't verbalize it.

Now that I've made it through the preliminary ideas, I think it boils down to this: Christians need to learn the contemplative spiritual disciplines. Prayer, meditation, silence, and solitude are what I really have in mind. I think it would be extremely hard to make a universal order for the Christian life (many have tried), but if I had to guess it might look something like this:

1. People hear the Gospel, they believe and repent and are saved.
2. People join the body of Christ, they experience God through worship, fellowship, and the sacraments (essentially the Eucharist and Baptism).
3. People are taught about who God is and how we can know him.
4. People are taught how to spend time with God: prayer, meditation, silence, solitude.
5. People are transformed (not immediately or ever on a fixed scale) more into the image of Jesus.

Obviously I do not think it would or will always work nicely and neatly in that order. But I think that makes more theological sense than this:

1. People hear the Gospel, hopefully they believe and repent and are saved.
2. People join the body of Christ, they learn that singing is worship.
3. They are taught "how to be a Christian."
4. They never spend time with God.
5. They get really frustrated when nothing in their lives reflect Jesus.

I know that I may be exaggerated the process a bit, but not by too much. We have an American approach to Christianity: if you work hard at it, you will succeed. This is not the "faith that was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3). I believe in a God of transformation. I believe that when we experience and draw close to God we cannot leave the same. I love the way Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

What should your church teach? Teach people to draw close to God. Teach people how to live in the Spirit. Teach people the Spiritual Disciplines. If we are helping the body of Christ to behold "the glory of the Lord" we will never have to teach another dating seminar, marriage saving lesson, or business ethics class ever again. I am hopeful because people all over the world are seeking inner peace and satisfaction in their lives and the only fulfillment they will ever receive will be through the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Further Reading:

A Celebration of Discipline and Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home by Richard Foster

The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today by Evelyn Underhill

The Lord's Prayer and The Beatitudes by Gregory of Nyssa