14.03 | Animated
1 Corinthians 3
‘But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.’
1 Corinthians 3:1
“I’m spiritual, but not religious.”
How many times have you heard this? Or thought it? Or said it?
It’s a phrase that captures an ethos of our age. It describes the dissatisfaction with an exclusively rationalistic and materialistic worldview—where we’re merely lumps of matter, pointlessly competing and procreating until we inevitably die. It recognises a deeper sense of self, what Ecclesiastes describes as ‘eternity…[in the]… heart,’1 and Freud called a sense of something ‘oceanic’.2 It is the experiential recognition that I am greater than the sum of my atoms.
And yet it is also a rebellion against being religious. Most people’s aversion to ‘religion’ is less to do with a philosophical or even scientific objection to God, but more to do with our discomfort with being under authority. A God who requires my allegiance sounds dangerous, controlling, and patriarchal. A God who calls me to worship Him sounds very like the messed up, narcissism of the myriad broken leaders of our world. A God who invites my obedience sounds like He will limit my choices and interfere with my autonomy. We fear such a God will make our lives smaller.
Paul has a line for us today.
The mature, he describes, are of the Spirit.
In other words, the mature are spiritual.
This makes sense to us. We’re happy with this idea. Maturity, in our cultural way of thinking, does include a holistic sense of self.
And yet, when we press a little deeper into the terminology of Paul, we find his take on what it means to be spiritual is more expansive than we’ve found elsewhere.
A little bit of translation work helps us. The Greek word he uses is pneumatikos. It’s a noun (pneuma — meaning ‘spirit’), turned into an adjective by adding -ikos.
Stay with me here.
Theologian Tom Wright points out that ‘Greek adjectives ending in –ikos, do not describe the material out of which things are made, but the power or energy which animates them.’3
To be spiritual, therefore, is to be animated by the Spirit. It is to live from the Spirit as your source, with Him breathing life into your every way of being and thinking and doing.
This is vastly wider than the idea of what it is to be ‘spiritual’ in our age. This is not the spirituality of a bit of yoga or mindfulness on the side; it is not the spirituality of pluralism, which reduces the spiritual down to a meaninglessly vague ‘whatever works for me.’ And it is not the spirituality that I make up and manifest into my day to day patterns of thinking.
This being spiritual, rather, is to invite the living, renewing, vibrant, breathing, wild and beautiful, vivacity and tenacity of the breath and fire and water of God, into our every moment and every way of thinking. Rather than grasping for control of our lives, it is a releasing of it, moving from a way of spirituality that centres on me, and instead allowing the Spirit of God Himself to breathe His life, through me, into the regeneration of life all around us.4
Our lived example? Jesus. The most spiritual but not religious person in history, in the truest meaning of that phrase. Religion crucified Him. And yet, His every moment and word and act was the overflowing abundance of a life animated by the Spirit of God. Ultimate freedom came for Him in total surrender.
Living this is both easier and harder than you think.
Easier, because He awaits your every yes and your every invitation. He is utterly willing.
And harder, because the invitation is to abandon your pretence at control, letting go of your fearful grasping, and handing over your every day to His lead, His work, and His renewing life.
Breathe out. Let go. And then give Him your Yes.
It is the first step on the pathway to maturity.
Reflect:
Think of a challenge you are facing at this moment.
What would it look like for you to be animated/sourced by the Spirit of God in this instance?
Let go. And offer Him your Yes.
Pray:
Holy Spirit,
I often feel like I’m lacking:
Not enough time;
Not enough energy;
Not enough ability;
Not enough strength.
I wonder if I’m trying to live animated from the wrong source.
Today, I choose to hand you control,
Inasmuch as I am able to do so.
And I ask you this:
Animate me;
Ignite me;
Resource me;
Inspire me;
Pour into my heart your very fullness,
That in my letting go
My life may move in flow with Your will
And Your ways,
Towards the maturity of Jesus my Lord.
In His Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Numbers 32-33 | Psalm 35:1-10
Ecclesiastes 3:11
Freud discusses this in Civilization and Its Discontents
Tom Wright: Surprised By Hope, p.168, emphases adapted
Buddhism gives half the picture, because a focus of Buddhism is a letting go of attachments. Christian spirituality, however, is not just letting go; it is also being filled—with the very life and power and person of God.