GROWING SPIRITUALLY, PART 3:
COMPANIONS ON THE JOURNEY
Psalm 34:1-14; 1 John 3:2,11,16-18; 4:11-21
November 2, 2008
~ All Saints’ Sunday - Rev. Janet Robertson Duggins
Barbara Brown Taylor writes about the long and winding
journey that led her to faith and to the church and, eventually, to become an
Episcopal priest and preacher. When she
was little girl, her family started going to a little Methodist church in the
small
“One Sunday he asked me to sit up close to the pulpit. He wanted me to hear his sermon, he said, and as I listened to him talk about the beauty of God’s creation and our duty to be awed by it, all of a sudden I heard him telling the congregation about a little girl who kept tadpoles in a birdbath so that she could watch over them as they turned into frogs, and how her care for those creatures was part of God’s care for the whole world.
“It was as if someone had turned on all the lights – not only to hear myself spoken of in church, but to hear that my life was part of God’s life, and that something as ordinary as a tadpole connected the two. My friend’s words changed everything for me. I could no longer see myself or the least detail of my life in the same way again. When the service was over that day I walked out of it into a God-enchanted world, where I could not wait to find further clues to heaven on earth. “
(The Preaching Life, p. 14-5)
I love this story, and I really like that Barbara Brown Taylor so deliberately uses the word “friend” to refer to the pastor who helped her to see her life as part of God’s work in the world. It’s so very clear, isn’t it, that the insight he gave her didn’t just come out of his words and wisdom, but out of the relationship they shared?
We’ve been talking these few weeks about growing spiritually, and last week Jerry asked you to think about what you need to help you do that. Today I want us to think about one thing that all of us need but which might not be the first thing that comes to mind when we think about what we need in order to grow spiritually: friends. And when I use the word “friend” in this connection, I really mean “spiritual friends.” That might be a new or foreign or even off-putting idea to many of us. It might even be hard to imagine, if our vision of friendship comes from TV sitcoms or buddy movies, or if most of the friendships we have revolve around shared sports activities or shopping.
For those of us who are down-to-earth people, maybe “spiritual friend” sounds a bit pious and head-in-the clouds… but that’s not necessarily the kind of relationship I mean. A “spiritual friend” might very well go shopping or golfing or hunting or out for a beer with you, be there to watch your kids and help you paint the living room, share a joke and sympathize with your frustrations like other friends do. Life can’t be all lofty meditating on God even if you happened to be inclined that way! But a spiritual friendship has a deeper dimension too: A spiritual friend is someone who helps you pay attention to God in your life.
We frequently hear people say that they “never discuss religion” – I guess on the grounds that the subject has potential for controversy. It’s a common attitude in our culture, even among Christians, but I have to say that I think it has done us a serious disservice. It’s not unrelated to the pervasive notion we have been fed – that religion - faith - is a purely personal, private matter for each individual to work out for himself or herself. Those two attitudes together have left us with the sense of being alone with our questions and struggles. Consequently, real spiritual friendships are rare, even among people of faith. And that’s a shame, because friends who can help us pay attention to God in our lives can really help us to grow in faith.
Eugene Peterson told the story of having dinner with a group of friends, all long-time Christians, active in their churches and in service to their communities. They spent most of the evening discussing the world’s problems, all the things they had tried to do, and how hard it was to make a difference. But he realized halfway through the evening that no one there had mentioned an awareness of God’s presence or anything God had done or might be doing. You wouldn’t have thought Christmas or Easter or Pentecost had ever happened or made any impression, he said. “Every person around the table has a highly developed …social conscience but not an ounce of theology [or] spirituality. Our host … began the meal with a rapidly read ‘devotional’ page from a Lutheran booklet but not so much as a comma from that reading entered into the fabric of the conversation.”
(The Wisdom of Each Other, p. 70)
Peterson had a sense that something was missing in that conversation that could have been there and given those friends not only a deeper connection to each other but a different and more meaningful way of understanding their concerns for the world as part of God’s care.
Unfortunately, that “something” is missing from many of our conversations, and from our lives, a lot of the time. Maybe we hardly notice it, because we have so thoroughly absorbed our culture’s ideal of self-sufficient individualism. But that’s not Biblical. It’s not Christian. And it’s not good for us. All of the first letter of John is about the love of God but it’s not at all about each person sitting alone and basking in that love; it’s about how we experience and share it in relationship. The love of God moves from the abstract to the real as we are loved by other people and as we love them back. And in that context, we learn about right and wrong, sin and repentance, about truth and theology, about how to know God, how to let go of fear, how to love better, how to share. In other words, we grow in faith. Only, we don’t, often, because we don’t understand that we are meant to have the kind of relationships that foster these things.
Some assumptions that we are making when we talk about spiritual friendship:
- God works through other people to teach us and love us (and through us to teach and love them.)
- It’s not necessary for us to achieve “spiritual giant” status in order for this to happen! We are all flawed people… but God works through flawed people, in sometimes quite amazing ways.
- A friendship that helps you pay attention to God is a gift from God, and reflects the nature of God and of Jesus who called us his friends.
- Spiritual friendship is characterized by openness to each other, not superficial niceness.
- Spiritual friends take each other’s faith seriously and care about each other’s growth in faith.
So what does a spiritual friend do? A spiritual friend
- listens
- helps you notice, pay attention. Doesn’t tell you what to think or do but asks questions or maybe points out what you aren’t seeing.
- encourages you to respond more freely to God.
- encourages you in practices, habits, disciplines, behaviors that help you grow … whether those be attendance at church, prayer, saying “no” to too much busyness, finding ways to serve that are right for you.
- loves and prays for you
Above all, a spiritual friend helps you pay attention to God.
Think about this question: can you name some people who help you pay attention to God? If you can’t think of any, or only a very few, maybe it’s time to consider enriching your life with some deeper friendships which can become the context for helping each other grow in faith.
Do you have untapped resources already in your life? Friends or acquaintances you believe might let you share with them the hopes and questions and struggles that you have as you go about this business of being a Christian? Maybe there is a group you meet with regularly where you experience this, or sense the potential. I believe we have opportunities within our church - these kinds of connections happen at Bible study, at PW, in Adult Ed classes, anytime we gather to work or to play together and make the effort to really go beyond chit-chat to genuine listening.
And I know there are people in our midst who have love and wisdom and encouragement to share. At our last Session meeting, we took a few minutes to talk and share in groups of two or three, and I was struck by the amazing strength of both of the women I talked with, who are very different but share a faith that endures through difficult times. I felt blessed to talk with them; and I think we have many folks among us whose faith we would be inspired by if we made the opportunity to talk with them about it, and listen to them.
You might look to someone who can be a mentor or example to you. Some people seek out a more formally structured relationship with a spiritual director or advisor; sometimes this happens in a much more informal way. There is a long tradition in Christian history of looking to “saints” whose maturity and wisdom in their faith can inspire and help those who learn from them. Every year, on All Saints Sunday, we remember some of those people who touched our lives. I hope the day also can remind us that there are those people around us still, God’s gift to us to help our faith grow. Maybe we can consider, too, the possibility that, inadequate though we might feel, God may sometime want to use us to befriend someone else with that encouragement in faith.
Sometimes it’s not so much a mentor we need as simply a companion, or companions, to walk with us on the journey: A friend or friends who can accept us for who we are, hear whatever we have to say, remind us of our goals, tell us the truth even when it’s hard, help us see the value in what we do and above all, help us pay attention to God… while letting us do the same things for them.
Who would be a good spiritual friend for YOU?
Here are some possibilities:
- It could be someone who shares your hopes, passions, and commitments, or perhaps some of the same spiritual needs or life circumstances. Maybe someone who has struggled with some of the same things you struggle with. Countless people have found friendships that nurture faith in groups like AA ;
I think any setting which fosters the dropping of pretense and admitting we have a need makes us more able to connect on a level that is real.
- It could be someone who seems to have a quality you need or want, perhaps someone whose wisdom or lived faith inspires you, or makes you want to know more about what makes them tick; it could be someone in whose presence you always feel unusually welcomed or free to be yourself.
- It could even be, maybe, somebody very different from you, who can help you see the world, yourself, God in new light.
In any case, a spiritual friend has to be someone who respects you for who you are, who shares his or her journey of faith with you without expecting it to be your journey too. Other qualities that come to mind that might help you recognize a potential spiritual friend: an attitude of faith seeking understanding (to use Augustine’s phrase); listening and compassion; honesty; patience; humility.
You probably could think of other qualities you’d put on that list.
But “perfect” is NOT a good expectation to have of a friend – not only because you’re bound to be disappointed, but because sometimes the most helpful ways we can minister to each other is out of our brokenness and awareness of our imperfections. Someone who has all the right answers to give you all the time might not be qualified to be the kind of friend who helps you pay attention to God, especially when God does the unexpected.
Finding a spiritual friend isn’t necessarily easy. It means investing a little time. Maybe it even means investing less time and energy in relationships and activities that get in the way of growth. That can be a tough choice to make! It means taking a little risk to reach out, maybe even to invite someone new into your life. It means letting someone else get to know the real you, and that can feel a little vulnerable. But it might be worth it.
Anne Lamott says it very simply: “My friends are the reason I have so much faith in God.” Would that we all could say that - and (even more!) that our friends could say it. It’s a big responsibility, to be sure. But what an amazing thing, that we can fan the flames of faith for another person! … that we can help each other pay attention to God.
Amen.
Resources:
Anne LaMott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
Eugene Peterson, The
Wisdom of Each Other
Barbara Brown
Marjorie J. Thompson, Soul Feast