The Good of Growing Up--May 27, 2022

The Good of Growing Up--May 27, 2022

"And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food.  Even now you are still not ready..." [1 Corinthians 3:1-2]

The thing is, some matters in life are not questions of "right" versus "wrong" so much as they are of "mature" versus "immature."  

For example, while we might say it is always morally wrong to sell crystal meth to children, steal money from an orphanage, or poison the town well, some things are actions you grow out of or grow into. When a baby or a toddler acts selfishly or only wants their own needs taken care of, it may be annoying, but you chalk it up to age-appropriate childishness.  But when you become a parent or caregiver, you have to grow out of a "Me-and-My-Wants-First" mindset.  You learn as you mature that other people matter as much as you do, and that your needs and wants are not the only ones to be considered.  So while you might not fault a baby for being fussy about getting fed first at meal time, you would expect an adult to know better, and sometimes to make sure others are served first, and then to wait for their own plate to be filled.  It's not a shame for a preschooler to be immature or childish, but it is when a grown-up cannot act like a grown-up.

I think that perspective is important as we read Paul here, or else we'll misunderstand his point.  Sometimes we draw a rigid line between the categories of "spiritual" and "fleshly," like one is good and one is evil, and we end up with all sorts of terrible theology (and practice).  You end up painting yourself into the corner of saying all physical reality is bad, or sinful, or wicked, and some sects over the centuries have gone off the deep end there and taught that even being physically embodied beings was the work of some lesser, "evil" god, and that our goal should be to aspire to the purely spiritual realm of thought, ideas, and beliefs.  That ends up taking the position that it was a mistake on God's part to make the smell of rain, or the taste of raspberries, or the refreshing peace of a good night's sleep.  

The writers of the Scriptures don't take the position that this physical existence, with these bodies of flesh and blood, are bad or wicked or evil.  What they do want us to see is that a life lived solely for our animal needs and impulses is terribly immature.  The difference between being "spiritual" and being "fleshly" then, isn't that the "flesh" is bad, so much as it is a terrible shame for your body to be an adult but your soul to still be stuck in childish immaturity.  If I'm stuck in petty squabbling, immature divisions, or childish self-centeredness, it's a sign I'm immature.  To be sure, immaturity needs to be addressed, corrected, and outgrown--but that's different than giving up on me because I'm irredeemably evil.

And as Paul writes to the folks at First Church of Corinth, that's where he's coming from.  He's not writing to damn anybody to hell, but to point out where they are still acting like spiritual toddlers--or even infants, really!  They are still so stuck in childish and self-centered ways that Paul can't really dig into the deeper, more complex richness of the Good News--at least not until he's addressed the very basic things they still have to grow into.  He has to still feed them milk, like a nursing mother, because they aren't ready for solid food yet.  And again, that's not a condemnation--after all, it's appropriate for babies to be fed milk.  But part of being human means growing up into maturity, and eventually you discover that you need to get nutrition from other sources.  And at the same time, it means continuing to get the nourishment you need from milk all the way into adulthood--after all, we may stop nursing when we grow out of infancy, but we still need the calcium, protein, and other nutrients we get from milk and dairy all our lives long.  In a similar way, we never outgrow our need for the sheer basic essentials of the Good News of Jesus--but as we grow up in that faith, we come to discover a richness and a fullness that we could not have appreciated earlier in our faith journeys.

Just like we can say it's a shame to stay childish in things like manners or personal responsibility, it's a shame if I stay immature in my faith--say, only ever seeing the Gospel as a post-mortem life insurance policy, or as a gimmick to earn heavenly rewards.  But at the same time, when we see those differences as degrees of maturity rather than one person being "good" and one being "evil," it allows us to give the grace to let people grow, rather than writing them off as forever lost.  

Sometimes I wonder if that's not a bad posture these days, especially when it is so easy to become polarized with scorn for people whose faith leads them in different directions or to different conclusions.  Perhaps instead of seeing me as right and good (we always want to see OURSELVES as in the right, after all) and others as evil and sinful, we might do well to ask if it's a matter of maturity in faith.  Perhaps they--or we... or both of us--have some growing up to do in some area, and instead of being hopelessly lost and reprobate we may need some deeper growing up in our faith.  That still allows us the room to offer and to receive critique from one another, just like I would critique and correct my kids from being childish at the dinner table, or like I can use correction and redirection from mentors to me as well.  But it also means we see in one another the possibility of growing out of our childishness and growing into maturity.  That's a strategy we're not always mature enough to attempt... but maybe it's worthy a try.

Lord Jesus, lead us from childishness to maturity as you will, and give us the grace to bear with one another as we all grow up in faith.