Sick with Virtue

Devotional Classics, Theologia Germanica, Excerpts from The Theologia Germanica of Martin Luther

"It is the inner person who receives God's law, his word, and all his teachings. These show him how to become united with God. Where this happens, the outer person is structured and tutored by the inner person and learns that no outward law or teaching is needed, for human laws and commands belong to the outer person. They are needed when one knows nothing better." (p. 148)

One of the concerns when monitoring sicknesses in the public is the avenue of entry. How virulent a disease is in the public depends a lot on how it can infect a person. If the disease is not "contagious," the avenue of entry is improbable or even impossible. The more easily the disease is transferred from one person to another, the more "contagious" the disease is. This is what makes the flu more dangerous than gangrene in a public sense.

God's word is not communicable through outward laws and rules. They may be observed symptoms of an inner reality, but his communication with people does not occur merely through outward actions and observations. This is why public laws will never make people better nor will mere religion. Although there is outward conformity in both spheres that may make life better and easier for all, this is not, strictly speaking, receiving and following God's law and his words. Hopefully, they pave the way for God to speak with people in their hearts.

Outward conformity and outward motivational schemes abound because they produce outward results of apparent "goodness" and often outward rewards of money, respect, and satisfaction. This is not all bad, but fails to treat the real problem and develop real growth because it leaves the inside untouched. A person compelled to follow laws or develop virtue has not really become virtuous, but is merely "cashing in" on the outward benefits of his actions.

So, to begin with, how do I know if I've caught the "disease" of virtue, of following God's laws and words? What would be the symptoms of this disease? Jesus says that it can be tracked through the character of the person - his fruit (Mt.7:15-20). What kind of person am I? Am I getting "sicker" with love, defined as having joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc.(Gal. 6)? Are his commands, in themselves, a delight to me (Ps. 1:2)? Such symptoms truly indicate that I have "caught it" in the roots of my life.

This avenue of entry intrigues me. Certainly it is why Jesus told the Pharisees to clean the inside of the dish and the outside will be clean also (Mt. 23). So what does this mean for virtue in my life? I think that it means that as I learn to love God's commands, the virtue he has and expects, the "symptoms" of that love will be virtuous acts in my life, just like when I am infected with a cold virus, I will display cold-like symptoms. As long a virtue remains a bitter pill to swallow, it will not take root or really "infect" me, but become distasteful to me.

I have noticed my body expresses delight or distaste of God's laws and words. Doing things with "gritted teeth" is more than just a saying, it is an actual bodily response to doing distasteful activities. My body can only be truly retrained from the inside out, otherwise I fall into hypocrisy. Only through my embracing God's grace and goodness will virtue become a delight. I need the room to fail and learn and I need the understanding that virtue is what is truly good - that I'm not missing out on anything by being virtuous.

Lord, I see that I cannot do this alone, but need your help at all points, even choosing to start. I have been resistant in each step, but I find that you are gentle and will not merely impose virtue on me, but will continually invite me into your ways. Help me to see through the fog of misunderstanding I have that calls your laws and virtue "stifling" or "unnecessary." Strengthen me with your grace. Amen.

I cannot choose to get "sick" with virtue, but I can expose myself to it repeatedly and intentionally, hoping to "catch" it. The Bible is, of course, filled with the virus. However, I find that I have developed some immunity to seeking virtue by repeated exposure to biblical teachings and readings that are empty of the real "sickness" of virtue, by replacing it with merely "trying" to be good, or by hoping that it will merely by placed on me through some experience. Therefore, I find it helpful to supplement biblical teaching with the teaching of others who have really gotten "sick with virtue" and can read the Bible with fresh eyes and hear God with new ears. Of course, being around people who have caught the bug is the most effective, and eagerly I look for them.

Virtue and Understanding

Devotional Classics, Theologia Germanica, Excerpts from The Theologia Germaica of Martin Luther

"It may be commendable to ask, hear about, and gather information concerning good and holy persons, or how they have lived and how God has worked and willed in and through them. But it is a hundredfold better that people deeply within themselves learn and understand the what and the how of life. They need to learn what God is working and doing in them and how God wishes to use them and not use them." (p. 150)

"Nothing succeeds like success" the saying goes. So I find myself looking around myself, surfing the internet, or reading the latest personal or even church growth books, looking for success in virtue and getting things right. Somehow I think that the last bit of info didn't take because I didn't get just the "right" answer. I have read many a devotion book like a recipe or instruction manual, hoping that if I just get the proper procedure, I will break into that new and wonderful life and escape my old dead habits.

The temptation to accumulate knowledge is strong nowadays, since so much information is available and easily accessed. Really, that is only what it is: "gathering information." Somehow intelligence and success have been tied to this practice of gathering information. The other night I asked my family, "What does a really smart person look like?" I must admit that being full of information and facts came quickly to my mind.

I think James would agree with the writer of the Theologia in his assessment of this gathering of information. "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such 'wisdom' does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, and of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice." (3:13-16) Gathering information generally does not go deep enough or inside enough to be useful.

Virtue cannot be learned or achieved in this way. The hard, fast throw of gathering information skips across the water of my mind, leaving little waves that quickly disappear. The writer suggests three things to submerge virtue and the right way to live into my life.

First, I need to learn and understand deeply. This sort of learning comes from reading and rereading material. I find that this precludes either skimming or merely quoting a mere phrase. Skimming and retaining quotes can remind me of things I have learned, but cannot replace learning and understanding. So I find that merely reading the Bible without studying it or memorizing verses without pondering or memorizing the surrounding context yields little understanding. However a person finds it, this deep understanding takes time and effort to work it from the surface of the mind into the "inner parts" of the mind, where it can influence a person's heart. The slowness of this kind of learning frustrates me when I am in a hurry and impatient for change, but without it, knowledge can never go deep enough to effect virtue at all. With spiritual knowledge, which is necessary for virtue, prayer must accompany my efforts because, as James says, such wisdom "comes down from heaven" and is not attainable merely through my own thinking.

Second, the content of my learning must embrace "the what and the how of life." I think of the "what" of life as the everyday, moment-by-moment occurrences I experience and effect. Whatever good things I may think about must be true to real life as it happens. I have children, a wife, a job, and I live in the presence and creation of God. Many seemingly "great" thoughts leave out or run over the "what" in life, making them impracticable. Virtue must be framed by real life to be real virtue. Now I find that virtue always involves real changes in my life, but they are changes that have more to do with my habits and expectations than with my circumstances.

The "how" of life is that most things do not happen just because I want them to. Prayer leads to action and action back to prayer in my experience. Virtue must be approached with much thought, but it must not stay there. It must be practiced. But one the realities of virtue is that it generally cannot be practiced directly without falling into hypocrisy or despair. I cannot merely practice being humble, or stopping anger. These sorts of things have to be approached indirectly. Studying them helps me a lot. I follow it by studying myself in God's presence, observing what leads me into virtue or away from him and his virtues (called the Examen of Conscience and Consciousness).

This leads into the last suggestion. He says I need to learn "what God is working and doing" in me. When I understand that virtue can only come to me through everyday life, I must learn to see it coming through my everyday life. When I learn that virtue comes only with practice and discipline, I must seek and find disciplines and practices that will address my specific problems and strengths. This requires walking with God. He addresses me as I pray and study as well as when I reflect on my day in the evenings and helps me to find certain holy habits that will indirectly deal with my barriers to virtue.

Lord, it is so nice to see continuity in so many writers who address developing a virtuous life. I like writing about it. Would that I was better at doing it. So many things come through "fits and starts," but you are faithful in driving them deeper into my heart by your grace. Let me not work too hard, forgetting your love and kindness. Let me not be lazy, forgetting your desire for Christ to live in me. May I live up to my words and up to your hopes, Father. Amen.

This reminds me about how I need to practice my personal reflection (Examen) more faithfully. This is one of the great things about reading writers like this and pondering them is that I can more easily see when I have left something important behind. In our family, we sing a song, "You've got to look behind you, before you move on to the next thing" so that we don't forget our things when we go somewhere else. Perhaps I'll being using that for my prayer in the evenings, so I don't leave anything important behind.

Virtue and Keeping Score

Devotional Classics, Theologia Germanica, Excerpts from Theologia Germanica of Martin Luther

"We have those who have been illumined by God and guided by the true Light. They do not practice the ordered life in expectation of reward. . . . They do what they do in the ordered life out of love. They are not so concerned about the outcome, about how a particular behavior will turn out, how soon, and so on. Their concern is rather that things will work out well, in peace and inner ease." (p.148)

I love the description of virtue as an "ordered life." What is virtue except the practice of doing things rightly, that is, at the right time, in the right spirit, and in the right order? Conversely, what is sin other than doing things wrongly in time, spirit, and order?

How can I hope to have an orderly life of virtue without light? Trying to order anything in the darkness is at least challenging, and often impossible. It's like drawing with my eyes closed. Only an approximation may come about, but more likely, a bunch of squiggles and lines that make no sense. Such is virtue without the Light of God shining in the person doing it.

And yet, even with the Light, my virtue looks a lot like the squiggles of a two-year old. My hand is not practiced and my eyes do not know what they see. This area is probably one of my worst. Virtue and holiness do not have much natural appeal to me. They speak of rigidness, discomfort, and the danger of self righteousness. But this writer speaks of love.

Such love begins with God who loves me, of course, but continues on to become a responding love in me. As my awareness and experience of God's love for me grows, so does my love for him. In loving God, I find a love for his words and his deeds. This love of God's righteous deeds is where virtue comes from. Just as many believers can "love God's words," I can also learn to "love God's virtue, his good deeds."

Such love of virtue becomes most apparent when the outcome of virtue is not so important. Loving to do what is right because it is right, because it is from God is the heart of virtue. This idea of letting go of the outcome, whether reward or improvement, is powerful to me.

I have practiced many (most, all?) virtues because I am eager for the outcome. It was to improve, impress, receive blessing. Measuring outcome is what all human achievement is based upon. In the sense that such outcome can guide me deeper into virtue through perfecting my action and enlivening my love for God, it is not a bad thing. But it quickly distracts me from the worship of God, who orders and sustains everything, and whose commandments create and sustain all life as well. Such love and worship is the wellspring of true virtue.

So I love the idea of virtue as an orderly life that God has created, orders, and sustains by means of the creation itself and his commands. Virtue becomes an art of living well in this life, like knowing and practicing dance steps for a dance. When the steps are hard, I know I am facing places where my desires have misguided my bodily actions, and where practice and strengthening are needed.

Lord of heaven, let me love your presence. Let me also love your virtue, your righteousness. Let the order and beauty of such a life infuse my mind with wonder and pleasure, my heart with plans and determination, and my soul with longing and hunger. Help me let go of results in favor of pleasing you and enjoying virtue for itself. Amen.

Doing right and well could really become a joy if I can "simply enjoy the doing of the task without looking at the 'scoreboard.'" (p.152) The only score I want to keep is the increase of peace in my life coming from the knowledge and love of a God of virtue.

Prayer and Ignorance

Devtional Classics, Jean-Nichlas Grou, Excerpts from How to Pray

"Every Christian ought to say to the Savior as humbly as [the disciples]: 'Lord, teach us to pray.' Ah! if we were only convinced of our ignorance and of our need of a Teacher like Jesus Christ!" (p.138)

What else is there except this as my beginning and my constant reminder? I must first be convinced of my own ignorance in prayer. The best of whatever "methods" there may be underscore this fact and hammer it into my soul. I need the Teacher to instruct me or I will find I am not praying at all, but speaking empty words like people who are speak only to themselves or some idol.

How can I develop this sense, this attitude of complete dependency on the Lord as I pray? I like the phrase "convinced of our ignorance." It means that when I come to pray, there is not a question of whether something I do will reach God or make me better. I am groping in the dark, whether I feel self-composed or frantic. Like entering a dark room without a light, my prayers must enter enter the darkness of my incapacity to reach God, or I have not entered the right room. It reminds me of Ex. 20:21: "The people stayed at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was."

Prayer is not about making things happen, but about meeting God. The first rule is meeting him in the darkness. Prayer is stretching out my hand and knowing that God will take it. I must accept the darkness, my ignorance, and not be afraid to grope around a bit. Prayer that is too habitual or predictable is one that remains at a distance from God. To approach God, I must enter the darkness of my own emptiness, limitation, and ignorance.

Yet, there is great comfort in this. Darkness is not comforting, but knowing that God will take my hand is. Knowing the Lord will be found in this darkness makes the darkness desirable and even pleasing. I begin to enter the place of prayer with expectation that he will meet me. I do not have to have all my prayers "right" or all my feelings in order; I find that God is close in my ignorance.

Lord, I do not want to stand far off from you because I am afraid of what you might do or what you might not do. Distance reveals my anger and fear. Call me to draw near to you in the darkness of my ignorance so I may find the light of your face. You are in the darkness, but you are not darkness, but light! I am blind every time I come, but you make me see all the time. Remind me today. Amen.

The alternative is all to familiar: heaped-up empty phrases. Me talking with no one answering. Routine and ruts. Confusion and emptiness. This is why my prayer must have some time and preparation. I need to remember what I hope for and not fear what I may have to go through. It's always worth it. I want to retain the wonder and dependency of one who is ignorant each time I pray. Let the groping be my reminder rather than a frustration.