The eCrozier

There are different views of human nature. Some believe we’re inherently good, while others see humans as inherently sinful. Even others hold the view that we’re both good and sinful at the same time, that is, we’re capable of acts of profound goodness as well as acts that we would only be able to call sin. Are we born this way as mixed bags? Or do we learn both the good and the sinful? There’s Biblical and psychological evidence on both sides. Is it nurture or nature that forms us?

As Episcopalians, it shouldn’t surprise us to know that our Church comes down squarely in the middle of these questions. We put a lot of stock in the discipleship process because we know that the only way one becomes a faithful disciple of Jesus is by learning from others what that looks like. We also believe that this is God’s doing. “God is the potter and we are the clay,” as the Prophet Jeremiah put it (18:6). But we also hold the belief in what has traditionally been called original sin. We are “fallen” like Adam and Eve. Part of us rebels mightily against living under the gracious rule of God.

So we make the choice to follow Jesus knowing full well that we’re rebels under God’s rule. The only way to live faithfully (as the mixed bags we are) is to discipline our lives in such ways that we learn to live Good News, that is, to extend to ourselves and to others the unmerited, grace-filled forgiveness God has extended to the whole world in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This disciplining process is what Christian formation is all about. It’s a process by which we apprentice ourselves to mature Christians who have much to teach us about living grace-filled lives. This isn’t an overnight process. St Paul spent 13 years being apprenticed by others before he set out as a missionary. Christian Formation is not unlike learning to lay brick or a musical instrument. It’s the rare person indeed who can pick up the trowel or the violin and master it from the start. Most have to work years to become merely proficient at, let alone master, such skills. Just because we go to Church for a while and read a book or two of the Bible doesn’t mean that we have the whole disciple-grace-forgiveness-God’s-one-way-love thing all worked out.

And being a disciple of Jesus would be simpler if it weren’t for the fact that we’re also being discipled by other people and things to follow someone or something other than Jesus. For example, some people are discipled to be winners at all cost. Some are discipled to be abusers of life. Some are discipled to be greedy, selfish, and indifferent to the lives of others. This is rarely an obvious or formal process, yet the young boy who is taught to violently hate others because of their race or sexual orientation is being groomed and discipled for that day when he can teach his own children the same vile. Should it surprise us then when that in fact happens?

You and I are called to form ourselves in Jesus who extended his one-way love to the whole world on the cross. It’s a lifetime formation project grounded in the truth of God’s amazing grace. Be patient with yourself and with others in this project. It’s not easy. But we know this: All else will fail us every time.

+Scott