Mar 27 2022 Day 314 1 Corinthians 1:1–3:23

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...For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations?

I have never given much thought to the notion that I’m an infant in Christ. I’ve heard the passage, and although ‘scoff’ is probably too harsh a word, I didn’t really take the notion to heart either. Me? An infant in Christ? Like many phrases in the politicized world today, I responded to the words based on what I thought they meant, all their inferred meanings rather than considering the intent. My bad.

So reading through the whole section along with the commentary, I have a slightly better understanding. Dallas Willard, author of the accompanying commentary for this section writes that a spiritual life is not a life-style choice, a commitment, a political statement or social position. When we use spirituality for those ends it ceases to be of God, and is rather something of mortals to be used. He even writes that the ‘essence and aim of spirituality is not to correct social or political injustices’. I have known many people for whom that seems to be precisely the aim of their spirituality.

He goes on to say that correcting the political and social wrongs of our world will likely be the result of a true spirituality, but it will not likely occur as we imagine. It will not likely occur as I’ve constructed in my mortal brain. True spirituality means we’d be ok if the injustices were solved in a way that seemed antithetical to the way we’d imagine the resolution; we’d in fact turn everything over to God, and abandon our worldly construct of how things should be resolved or our role in that.

In a very mundane example, yesterday morning I got up early, and laid in bed preparing to pray and write. At 5am, I rolled out of bed to the sound of chatter. My loved one and their roommate were downstairs, chatting with my husband and sharing a cup of coffee. They had not slept all night, and came down ready to join us for breakfast, even bringing eggs and sausage to be prepared. My husband and I have developed a lovely morning routine, which does not involve chatting and making a big breakfast before we’ve had our quiet time. Alas that was not to be. Neither was our beloved oatmeal bar. Neither was my prayer time. Neither was his reading time. Neither was our morning regrouping of what projects we were going to accomplish.

My routined mornings help me accomplish good things throughout the day. But their importance should be a means to an ends, not the ends in them self. As it turns out, our morning together was rich in conversation about our loved one’s illness and symptoms, their hopes and fears, and we were able to welcome her friend effectively into the care team for our loved one. 

We mortals hold on to the way we’ve imagined or planned things to be. God sometimes has other plans. The degree to which we hold on to our dreams rather than God’s is the degree to which we are still infants in Christ. When we can stay focused on God’s dream solely, we have a chance of maturing as spiritual beings.