Becoming like monks in the world

The world and its desires pass away, but the one who does the will of God lives forever. 

1 John 2:17

Cat Bells, overlooking Derwent Water, Keswick

A few months ago, I began writing regularly on this blog. My goal for these blog posts has been to make a path to Christ for others and myself, whether through gardening, homemaking, working or other topics. Thus, the theme has been our pilgrimage towards the kingdom of God. 

Today's blog post shares the same goal and theme, but rather than focussing on our destination, I will look in the opposite direction, at what we are leaving behind: what St John the Evangelist calls 'the world.'

The scriptural foundation for this blog post comes from the letter of 1 John: Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him (2:15).

St John is warning that if we want to love God, we must shed our love for the world; there is not room to love both.

But isn't the world a good thing? 

I don't think St John is saying we shouldn't love Planet Earth and the rest of God's creation. God created the world and called it very good (Gen. 1:31). Further, he has loved it (John 3:16) and looks after its maintenance (e.g. Ps. 104). As I wrote two weeks ago, our hope is in God's transformation of heaven and earth--not ultimately a destruction, but a restoration of this created world.

Nor do I think St John is saying we shouldn't love people in the world. Jesus taught us not only to love our neighbour as ourselves, but even to love our enemies because they too are loved by God (Matt. 5:43-48; see also Jonah 4). God does not want anyone to perish but waits patiently for people to turn to him (2 Pet. 3:9).

Also, and as a result, I think we can and should love anything that reflects the image, beauty and goodness of God, such as wisdom or beautiful works of art. St Paul encourages us to think about anything that is true, honourable, just, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy (Phil. 4:8). 

In saying 'the world', then, I believe St John is referring to the evil that has corrupted God's good creation, the way a virus can infect an entire population. 

St John describes this spiritual virus in the next verse of the above-quoted passage: For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world. (v. 16)

'The world' is thus the realm of sin: greed, lust and pride (or 'passions,' as the Church Fathers call them). 

Although God created the world to be beautiful and good, the passions have spoiled it so that it is cursed and under the shadow of Satan (e.g. Eph. 6:12). 

And although Christ through his death and resurrection has overthrown Satan (John 12:30-32), evil still has a grasp on the world, and will continue to until Christ comes again to establish his kingdom and restore all things (see Rev. 11:15). 

If Satan has been overthrown, then why is evil still rampant? Perhaps it's like the Israelites wandering in the wilderness towards the Promised Land. God, through Moses and Aaron, had rescued them from slavery in Egypt through the Red Sea; the crucial victory had been won. But then they had to fight a new battle, one taking place in their hearts: would they continue trusting in and journeying towards God despite the challenges of the unknown, or would they look back at Egypt, longing to return to the relative comforts they had left behind (e.g. Exod. 16:2-3)?

Similarly, although Christ has set us free from sin to journey towards Christlikeness, we can still be tempted by the world to do evil. 

A small example: as I said earlier, my goal for these blog posts is to make a path to Christ. However, it can be tempting to make a path to myself instead, seeking people's praise for what I do. Rather than writing to strengthen, encourage and comfort others (1 Cor. 14:3), I can be tempted to write in order to become a world-famous blogger. If this desire for worldly success takes over my writing, then the love of the Father is not present in it, and I fail to write for God.

How can we flee love of the world?

I suggest we need to become like monks who live out in the world.

Let me explain. I am (re-)reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The main character of the novel is Alyosha, a young novice monk in a monastery. Early on in the story, his elder, Father Zossima, tells him that he needs to leave the monastery and live his life of holiness out in the world:

I bless you for great service. Yours will be a long pilgrimage. And you will have to take a wife, too. You will have to bear all before you come back. There will be much to do. But I don't doubt of you, and so I send you forth. Christ is with you. Do not abandon Him and He will not abandon you. You will see great sorrow, and in that sorrow you will be happy. This is my last message to you: in sorrow seek happiness. Work, work unceasingly.

In other words, Alyosha is sent to work for Christ out in the world, in the daily grind of responsibility and sometimes messy relationships. We follow him as he integrates spirituality with every other area of his life: for example, his complex and puzzling relationships with his father and brothers, and his relationship with his betrothed and her family. The monastic life remains in him throughout everything he does. 

Although he is a monk in the world, he does not belong to the world (see John 17:13-19). Because he works for Christ, his love is for God and people instead. 

What might it look like to become like monks in the world?

When Emperor Constantine in about 313 CE declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, Christians stopped being persecuted for their faith. This resulted in a new challenge: being faithful to Christ amid security and wealth, which often compromised their conviction. Monasticism began in response to this challenge. Many Christians left their prestigious positions and journeyed into solitude, like Christ fasting in the wilderness, to struggle against the evil within. They became martyrs of a different kind—not crucified by the empire, but by voluntarily taking up their crosses through poverty, prayer and fasting.

Thus, the monastics attempted to forsake love of the world by single-mindedly pursuing God (the word 'monk' comes from the Greek word monos, meaning ‘single’). They often did this together, forming communities to worship God, work and offer hospitality to people in need as a new kind of family. One example is St Columba, founder of a monastic community on the Isle of Iona, Scotland, in the 6th century CE.

Iona Abbey

Iona is considered a 'thin place', where heaven and earth seem especially close together. I believe what makes it holy is the heritage of prayer, faith, love and sacrifice that has endured there. 

Although monastic life ended on Iona soon after the Protestant Reformation, the contemporary Iona Community, born in 1938 from an effort to rebuild the abbey grounds, was inspired and informed by the island's monastic heritage. I was privileged to be part of this community for a few years. It was the closest I'd come to becoming a monk--although of course, it was far from the dedication and sacrifice required of true monks and nuns. 

Still, my experience there has (among other things) equipped me with this model of living as a monk in the world. Most of the staff who work for the Iona Community stay there for up to three years. This is so that they may carry their experience from that holy island with them wherever they go afterwards.

In my next blog post, I plan to say more about this, answering more fully what it might look like to become like monks in the world.

For now, I close by saying that I don't claim to have attained such a life. Rather, I write this to better understand how we can flee love of the world while living in the midst of it; how to detach ourselves from sinful cravings so that the love of the Father may inhabit us, giving life to the people in our lives.

Looking for the One who has already found us

The one who loves God is known by God. (1 Cor. 8:3)

Last week, I wrote about the hope that can motivate us towards God's purpose for us.

Today, I will illustrate this movement towards God from a scene in the Song of Songs: the Beloved Woman, prompted by a desire to be reunited with her Lover, goes out in search for him.

Although the Song of Songs is on one level about the physical and emotional love between a man and a woman, the Church has usually interpreted the Beloved to represent either the soul or the Church, and the Lover to represent Christ.

Thus, I write this blog post to better understand our quest for God, in the hope that I may love God more. (If anyone else benefits from this, then even better!)

Illumination for the Song of Songs (Winchester Bible)

So our passage begins: 

All night long on my bed

I looked for the one my heart loves;

I looked for him but could not find him.

I will get up now and go about the city,

through its streets and squares;

I will search for the one my heart loves.

So I looked for him and did not find him.

The watchmen found me

as they made their rounds in the city.

'Have you seen the one my heart loves?'

Scarcely had I passed them

when I found the one my heart loves.

(Song of Songs 3:1-3)

This passage describes a long night in which the Beloved searches for her Lover. 

Like the Beloved in this passage, sometimes I feel far from God--whether through my own actions or thoughts that have barricaded me from him, or for reasons I don't know. 

Beyond myself, I consider what appears to be God's absence from the world. Recent events have revealed how much we need reconciliation from divisions based on race, economic status and occupation.

Although all social divisions are replaced by a new creation in Christ (Gal. 3:28; 6:15), how distant that new creation sometimes feels, even within the Church, the very people called to be peacemakers (Matt. 5:9; 2 Cor. 5:16-19)!

Do times of spiritual dryness prompt me to seek God?

Does this absence of God's peace from our nations and communities compel us to leave behind our comforts to repent, praying for God's kingdom to come?

The extent to which they do, perhaps, shows our love for God.


Where do we not expect to find God?

The Woman looks throughout the streets and town squares, but does not find her Lover there.

This prompts me to ask where God is not. What might the streets or town squares represent? Where are unwise places to look for God?

When I feel distant from God, for example, I don't expect to find him by scrolling through Amazon.com or my Facebook newsfeed. Nor do I travel to a city centre, with all its advertisements and shops clamouring for my attention and money, expecting to rekindle my relationship with God there. 

I am not suggesting it's wrong to buy things we need or to communicate with others via social media. Of course, God may show up even there--who am I to say otherwise? God can do anything. Further, I believe it is our calling to bring Christ everywhere we go, including the streets, squares and marketplaces (e.g. Acts 1:8).

What I am saying, though, is that such places tend to distract my inward gaze towards God. Even if God did try to speak to me through Facebook, I might be too distracted by the video advert that has just begun playing to pay attention to God.

If we consider Jesus' earthly ministry, we see that even he, the Son of God, needed to regularly seek God the Father away from the demands of the crowds. He did this through prayer, often alone in wild places (e.g. Mark 1:35-37) and also through worshipping at the temple and in synagogues (e.g. Luke 4:14-16).

Where might we find God?

After the Woman fails to find her Lover in the streets and squares, she is found by guards making their rounds. She asks if they have seen him, and soon after they pass, she finds him at last and brings him home (v. 4).

One interpretation is that the guards represent those who witness to Christ: the prophets, apostles and evangelists, whose words we find in the scriptures.

Thus, through prayerfully reading the scriptures, we can put ourselves in a place where every page helps us find Christ. 

The Law and the Prophets ask questions that are answered in Jesus the Messiah (Matt. 5:17-18).

The Psalms teach us how to speak directly with God, sharing the same prayers that Christ himself has prayed. 

The Gospels are windows through which the light of Christ shines on us, exposing our inner sickness and showing us the path to life.

The Epistles are stained-glass windows revealing the mind of Christ to us through the Saints who wrote them.

Further, the first Christians experienced Christ in their midst when they gathered regularly to learn from the apostles, fellowship together, break bread and pray (Acts 2:42). So too, we can find God when we worship him together, and so receive energy to live out the Gospel Life that we read about in scripture. 

Who finds whom?

While reflecting on this passage from the Song of Songs, one question remains for me: does the Beloved find her Lover, or does the Lover find his Beloved?

The text suggests the Beloved finds her Lover: 'I found the one my heart loves' (v. 3). But if we apply this to our quest for Christ, how can this be? How can I, a mere human, ever claim to find the One who has created and will restore all things (Acts 3:21), as though God were lost and not I?

Rather, we are the lost sheep for whom the Good Shepherd leaves the 99 other sheep (Matt. 18:12-14). We are saved by God's mercy through faith in Christ, not through any works that we do (Eph. 2:8-9).

Note: I am not saying that we should merely accept being found, and then do nothing but sit on our hands until Christ returns. Like any relationship, our participation is required. For example, a baby does nothing to earn the right to be born, become their parents' child or receive their nurture and support. However, as the baby grows older, they learn how to honour their parents and respond in love.

What I am saying is, we are only able to love God and follow his commands because God first loved us (see 1 John 4:19).

I believe this question, then, of who finds whom, is answered in a passage in the Gospel of John (20:10-18), where the Lover is revealed to be Christ and the Beloved is one of his disciples. Through this passage, too, we can better understand our own relationship with Christ.

On the morning of his resurrection, Jesus meets a woman who has been desperately looking for him through the long night of her grief.

'Who is it you are looking for?' he asks her.

She does not answer him directly, nor does she recognise him until he speaks her name.

At last she discovers that the One she has been looking for has already found her.

Growing hope in the face of sorrow

First radishes

These days, I've been acutely aware of the things I hope for.

Starting with the little things, I hope for my vegetables to mature. I'm not alone in this: I recently came across a news article with the headline 'In the face of so much sorrow, we turn to gardens and plants for a sliver of hope.'

Some of the bigger things I hope for include being with family again, worshipping among a church community again and seeing relationships and nations filled with righteousness and justice. 

Perhaps this is why I've been struck lately by the Apostle Paul's words on hope: 'We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope' (Rom. 5:1-3). 

In other words, we can look forward to 'the hope of the glory of God,' which can develop in us even though our sufferings. 

Thus, this blog post is not about growing vegetables, but about growing hope, which comes through suffering. But before we explore the relationship between suffering and hope, first we must understand what St Paul means by 'the hope of the glory of God.'

What is the glory of God?: Becoming Christlike

St Paul describes this glory a few chapters after the verse above as 'the glory that will be revealed in us' (8:18), meaning it is something within us that will one day emerge for others to see. Then he writes that God has destined those who love him to be 'conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be firstborn among many [siblings]', and indicates that this act of conforming them to Christ is God's glorifying them (v. 29).

Thus, the glory of God is our becoming Christlike.

St Irenaeus puts it this way: 'The glory of God is a human fully alive.' We become fully alive when we become like Christ because he is our life and the Life (John 14:6).

In other words, God the Father loves and delights in God the Son (Matt. 17:5) and wants us, the people he has made, to become like the Son. Not only does God want this; the whole creation longs for it because it means that God's purposes for humanity and the creation can finally be fulfilled and set free from the curse of death (see also Gen. 1:26-28; Rom. 8:18-21; Eph. 2:10).

And beyond God and the creation, we ourselves long for this transformation: St Paul writes that we 'groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as children, the redemption of our bodies' (Rom. 8:23). This last part about 'the redemption of our bodies' means that becoming Christlike is not only a spiritual activity; it is a process that involves even our bodies, just as Christ in the flesh was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven. We, too, will be raised from death with bodies that resemble Jesus' resurrected body (1 Cor. 15:35-57).

Then St Paul connects this with hope, saying that 'in this hope we were saved' (v. 24).

In this hope we were saved: Motivated by the bigger picture

Although St Paul says that we were saved in the hope of becoming Christlike, I don't usually associate hope with salvation. My understanding is that we are saved by God's mercy through believing in Christ (e.g. Eph. 2:8), so how does hope contribute to saving us?

This idea of the hope of becoming Christlike saving us is echoed in the words of St John the Evangelist: 'Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as [God] is pure' (1 Jn. 3:3).

St John has been describing that although we, the children of God, do not know exactly how we will be transformed on the day Christ appears, we will become like him--and our hope for this event cleanses us (1 Jn. 3:2-3).

I believe this hope cleanses us by showing us the bigger picture, which motivates us towards Christlikeness. Perhaps it's like when someone is out walking and has got lost but then pulls out a map, and after studying it and the wider surroundings, they then understand where they are and how to get home (or at least back to their car). This reorientation and recognition of where they are in the context of the bigger picture energises them to keep going when otherwise they might have got even more lost and sunk into despair.

Hope Valley, Peak District, UK

Hope, then, comes from seeing the bigger picture of our suffering, which helps us navigate our journey home.

What is that bigger picture? In short, it is that our suffering can lead to Christlikeness, which gives us hope. Now we will look at the relationship between suffering and hope more closely.

Suffering and hope: Joseph in Egypt

As I quoted earlier, suffering develops perseverance, and perseverance builds character, and character generates hope (Rom. 5:3-4).

The cause-and-effect relationship between suffering, perseverance and character is quite evident: our trials prompt us to settle in for the long haul, and sticking it out makes us stronger. In other words, as St Peter writes to believers who have endured all kinds of grief, our trials can transform our faith like metal refined through fire, purifying it and proving it to be genuine (see 1 Pet. 1:3-9).

But what does this have to do with hope?

I believe character produces hope because, as we persevere through suffering, we can recognise that our character is being shaped intentionally; that is, in the likeness of Christ, whose own suffering has brought about our salvation. There is a larger purpose behind our pain; we are going somewhere with all this; our suffering is not the end, but it can be used to bring us to the end that God intends for all creation.

One example is Joseph, a Hebrew patriarch who knew suffering. His brothers, who hated and were jealous of him, attempted to kill him but later changed their minds and sold him into slavery in Egypt. Once there, Joseph had begun settling and earning a name for himself when he was falsely accused of a crime and thrown into prison. But even in prison, God was with him, and several years later, God helped him to interpret one of Pharaoh's troubling dreams, and as a result, Pharaoh put him in charge of all Egypt on the brink of famine (see Gen. 37, 39-41).

This famine was so severe that even Joseph's brothers suffered, leading them to travel to Egypt to buy food. Thus Joseph and his brothers were reunited, and Joseph explained that behind the evil they had inflicted upon him, God had ultimately sent Joseph to Egypt so that he could one day save his family and, beyond that, secure their future descendants (Gen. 45:5-8), as God had promised their ancestor Abraham (12:1-3).

Through his suffering and perseverance, Joseph becomes like Christ, who through the cross and resurrection ventured into death for our salvation. For both Joseph and Jesus, what people had intended for evil, God used for the salvation of many people (Gen. 50:20).

It is when Joseph recognises this bigger picture that he acquires hope. He realises that his pain has not been meaningless. This hope empowers Joseph to forgive his brothers and reveal the truth to them, and in this way, hope saves them.

Growing hope: Some final thoughts

Yesterday I harvested our first whole 'cos' lettuce. Its leaves had filled out to become as thick and large as a loaf of bread.

There are many smaller 'cos' lettuce plants behind that first one, and I trust that they too will follow in size, shape and taste as the first.

'Cos' lettuce

We are like the younger 'cos' lettuce plants, growing to become like Christ, who is like the mature one. Because we believe in Christ, who has gone ahead of us, we have hope that, through responding to our suffering in Christ, we will mature to become like him, triumphing over evil and death.

Becoming Christlike, then, is our bigger picture. And this is the purpose of every other good thing we hope for.

In the midst of this pandemic, we hope for the healing of bodies and communities through a vaccine, through care work, through wise decision-making and other means.

In the midst of injustice and racism, we hope for the healing of relationships, hearts and lands through truth, justice and mercy.

These hopes point to the great hope of the healing and reconciliation that will be revealed when we become like Christ; when he returns to unite God and people, eradicating death, pain and sorrow (Rev. 21:3-5).

Not only that, this hope energises us to live in the mysterious reality that Christ is already in our midst, by whose wounds we are healed (Isa. 53:5) and in whom racial, socio-economic and gender divisions are replaced by a new creation (Gal. 3:28; 6:15).

So that times of refreshing may come

For the past couple of weeks, England has enjoyed warm and sunny weather, but this past Tuesday everything began to change. By midday the sun was screened by a thin sheet of cloud, and by evening the sky was dark grey and heavy; I could almost feel the gathering moisture by simply looking out the window.

Now, as I write this, rain is falling steadily. The soil of the vegetable garden has darkened, and rain is dropping everywhere on leaves, branches and stones, forming a continuous background of tapping against birdsongs and the sound of passing cars.

The rain, according to the prophet Isaiah, illustrates the word of God. As he writes on behalf of God:

'As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it' (Isa. 55:10-11).

As surely as the rain comes to nourish the earth, so will God's word come and provide for people's needs.

But there is another side to rain. In addition to giving life, it brings danger: people must drive more carefully during a storm, and in some places, too much rain erodes the landscape and floods neighbourhoods. In the Bible's first account of rain, nearly all life on the earth is destroyed (Gen. 7).

Similarly, God's word gives life to some while bringing destruction to others.

Another word for this is judgement.

We see God's word judging between the righteous and the unrighteous in Isaiah's foretelling the coming of the Messiah:

'With righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked' (11:4-5).

That his rod comes from his mouth indicates that it is his word that judges between the righteous and the unrighteous (see also Rev. 19:15).

Christians understand that this Messiah is Jesus, who is the Word of God in human form (John 1:1-14). Jesus said that God has given him the authority to judge the world (5:22-23, 27) and that a time is coming when everyone in their graves will hear his voice and awaken (vv. 28-29): those who have believed in him will experience his judgement as life-giving, but those who have rejected him will experience it as destructive (John 3:16-21; see also Psalm 146:7-9).

Christians call this the Last Judgement, which will occur at the Second Coming of Christ (see Matt. 25:31-46). 

The Last Judgement

I don't think about the Last Judgement very much. I would prefer to consider only the life that God's word brings: the blessings that come with the rain. However, God's word is not only comforting; it is also sharp, penetrating the deepest parts of a person, exposing everything within us to the One to whom we must give account (Heb. 4:12-13).

Keeping the Second Coming in mind helps us to get ready for it. Since it hasn't come yet, there is still time to prepare, which we do by repenting.

When we repent, we confess our failure to follow God's commands. By so doing, we open ourselves for God's mercy to heal us, which empowers us to obey his commands.

By repenting, we accept God's judgement upon us now so that the Second Coming may be for us nourishing rain rather than a destroying storm.

In the words of St Peter: 'Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, and that times of refreshing may come from the Lord' (Acts 3:19).