Sermon Illustrations on Spiritual formation



Background

Being Formed in Christ’s Image

In their excellent book Invitation to a Journey, M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton describe the Biblical understanding of the process of spiritual formation over and against the “self-help” philosophies abundant in our day:

Scripture is also clear in its witness to the fact that only God can liberate us from our bondage, heal our brokenness, cleanse us from our uncleanness and bring life out of our deadness. We cannot do it by ourselves. Thus spiritual formation is the experience of being shaped by God toward wholeness.

But spiritual formation as “being formed” will also be seen to move against the grain of our do-it-yourself culture and our powerful need to be in control of our existence. Generally, we like to lift ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Self-reliance is deeply ingrained in us.

To allow someone else to control our life is seen as weakness, to be avoided at all costs. The English poet William Henley captured the spirit of our culture well when he wrote, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” But spiritual formation as “being formed” will reveal that God is the initiator of our growth toward wholeness and we are to be pliable clay in God’s hand.

Lectio Divina

Henri Nouwen once directed my attention to a lovely picture hanging in his apartment and said simply, “That is lectio divina.” The painting depicted a woman with an open Bible in her lap, but her gaze was lifted upward. You understand, I am sure. We are coming to the text and seeing through the text, even beyond the text, to the Lord of the text.

Richard J. Foster, Life with God: Reading the Bible for Spiritual Transformation

The Movement Towards Spiritual Formation

Spiritual formation has become one of the major movements of the late twentieth century. Spiritualities of all varieties have emerged on the landscape of our culture—Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Zen, various Eastern meditation techniques, New Age spirituality and a confusing welter of cults, to say nothing of chemically induced alterations of consciousness.

In the face of a radical loss of meaning, value and purpose engendered by a largely materialistic, hedonistic, consumer society, human hearts are hungering for deeper realities in which their fragmented lives can find some measure of wholeness and integrity, deeper experiences with God through which their troubled lives can find meaning, value, purpose and identity.

Physical Therapy and Spiritual Practice

My transition into my 40’s came with the obligatory hip surgery. The only way to stop the cycle of hip pain was to literally carve out some bone. Those parts had to be removed. But recovering my functionality after the surgery required adding significant and regular physical therapy exercises. Long after I was released from PT, I still have to do maintenance exercises every day. If I stop my routine exercises, pain will return. So, too, our spiritual life requires the complete removal of some of our painful patterns and the regular addition of the patterns that bring us closer to Christ’s peace. But without those regular patterns and ongoing spiritual maintenance, we will drift closer to pain and further from Christ’s peace.

Cody Sandahl

Spiritual Formation Essential to Human Existence

In their excellent book Invitation to a Journey, M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton describe the foundation of life as being spiritual in nature. This means we are constantly be “formed” spiritually, whether for good or evil:

We fail to realize that the process of spiritual shaping is a primal reality of human existence. Everyone is in a process of spiritual formation! Every thought we hold, every decision we make, every action we take, every emotion we allow to shape our behavior, every response we make to the world around us, every relationship we enter into, every reaction we have toward the things that surround us and impinge upon our lives—all of these things, little by little, are shaping us into some kind of being. We are being shaped into either the wholeness of the image of Christ or a horribly destructive caricature of that image, destructive not only to ourselves but also to others, for we inflict our brokenness upon them.

This wholeness or destructiveness radically conditions our relationship with God, ourselves and others, as well as our involvement in the dehumanizing structures and dynamics of the broken world around us. We become either agents of God’s healing and liberating grace, or carriers of the sickness of the world. The direction of our spiritual growth infuses all we do with intimations of either life or death.

Stories

Doing the Work Before the Work

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job, Stephen W. Smith provides an important analogy about the importance of spiritually preparing ourselves for the adversity and challenges that come with success in the world:

Long ago a Chinese man began his career making bell stands for the huge bronze bells that hung in Buddhist temples. This man became prized and celebrated for making the best, most elaborate and enduring bell stands in the entire region. No other person could make the bell stands with such strength and beauty.

His reputation grew vast and his skill was in high demand. One day the celebrated woodcarver was asked, “Please tell us the secret of your success!” He replied: Long before I start making and carving the bell stand, I go into the forest to do the work before the work.

I look at all of the hundreds of trees to find the ideal tree—already formed by God to become a bell stand. I look for the boughs of the tree to be massive, strong and already shaped. It takes a long time to find the right tree. But without doing the work before the work, I could not do what I have accomplished.

Analogies

Lectio Divina

Henri Nouwen once directed my attention to a lovely picture hanging in his apartment and said simply, “That is lectio divina.” The painting depicted a woman with an open Bible in her lap, but her gaze was lifted upward. You understand, I am sure. We are coming to the text and seeing through the text, even beyond the text, to the Lord of the text.

Richard J. Foster, Life with God: Reading the Bible for Spiritual Transformation

Physical Therapy and Spiritual Practice

My transition into my 40’s came with the obligatory hip surgery. The only way to stop the cycle of hip pain was to literally carve out some bone. Those parts had to be removed. But recovering my functionality after the surgery required adding significant and regular physical therapy exercises. Long after I was released from PT, I still have to do maintenance exercises every day. If I stop my routine exercises, pain will return. So, too, our spiritual life requires the complete removal of some of our painful patterns and the regular addition of the patterns that bring us closer to Christ’s peace. But without those regular patterns and ongoing spiritual maintenance, we will drift closer to pain and further from Christ’s peace.

Cody Sandahl