March 30, 2003
By Jack Price

Series: Stages of Faith (Growing Up in Faith)

(Individuative-Reflective faith)

We've been sharing time and energy during this season of Lent trying to understand how you and I grow spiritually by learning to faith (a verb).   Faith development has a lot to do with life development and both really affect our approach to religious belief. 

James W. Fowler's book Stages of Faith provides a scholarly and enlightening resource for studying faith development.  Fowler defines "faith" as a much deeper and less "conscious" process than belief.  We "faith" when we trust enough to put our whole weight down.  We risk making our life's wagers at the point of our faith. 

There are six stages of faith development.  The first three correspond roughly to early childhood, later childhood, and adolescence though many people stay indefinitely in that relatively passive third stage of faith.  They find meaning in accepting what is generally accepted, what authority says, and the general widely held wisdom of their community.  Adults who live in stage three and youth who pass through it generally do not examine the context in which they live closely or critically.  They accept it as a given.  Adam and Eve lived contentedly in the Garden of Eden and might have done so indefinitely if left alone, but life has a way of not leaving us alone.  Let us now return to that Garden.

When last we left our heroes, the man and the woman were celebrating their new life together and their new relationship, living in relative bliss in the security of the delightful garden.  Their situation reflected stage three in faith development.  The " two of them were naked, the man and his wife, yet they felt no shame." (Anchor Bible)   People in stage three tend to accept their own life context, never seriously considering that there might be some other way for them to look at life.  Our heroes were living in an environment they could not step outside, and indeed had no reason to step outside or to regard with some measure of objectivity.  They were "like fish in water." 

The morning of creation now gives way to an evening of intrigue as life in the Garden takes a twist.  The name used for the Supreme Being in this section of Genesis is "God Yahweh," meaning "Ultimate Existence, Ultimate Cause."  God Yahweh has been a very personal creator, getting down on the ground to shape a man literally from clods of dirt, to form animals and birds from those clods, and then make a woman from the man's rib.  After all this, in the same timeless day of creation, trouble comes to paradise. 

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?"  (The Anchor Bible translates it not as a question, but as "Even though God told you not to eat of any tree in the garden.")  ² The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; ³ but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.' " ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; ⁵ for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." ⁶ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

            Adam and Eve crossed the line, ate the fruit, and their eyes were opened.  "The fish have jumped out of the tank" and they see a lot before they hit the floor.  There is a context larger than they had known and now they see with eyes wide open.  They see each other and notice they are different, the man and the woman.  What in chapter two was an attraction of identity, the woman and the man mirroring each other and providing a reflection for each one's self-understanding, becomes an attraction of difference.  There is an energy that causes them to feel conscious of themselves as sexual beings as human beings, a self consciousness that raises feelings of shame in the presence of their Creator whom they have just betrayed.

⁸ They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" ¹⁰ He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself."

 ¹¹ He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" ¹² The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate." ¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent tricked me, and I ate."

            There was a trickster was in the Garden in the form of a snake.  Betrayal was "afoot," so to speak.  Betrayal comes in many forms.  The serpent gains Eve's trust, then betrays her.  She in turn betrays the man from whose flesh she was formed.  The man and woman together betray their creator and friend God Yahweh.  This is beginning to look a lot like a television soap opera!  The man deals with guilt by passing the buck" to the woman.  Not to be stuck, she passes it along to the serpent where it stops.  The trickster does not deny his trickery, his betrayal.  It is almost as if he has come into the world for this purpose.  The trickster remains in our worlds, lurking in the tall grasses of the sub-conscious mind, waiting to strike in moments of weakness or temptation.  But the serpent is also God's creature, part of Eden's own ecosystem.  Clearly, their environment has betrayed Adam and Eve.

            Betrayal is built into the system of creation from the beginning.  Why would God Yahweh do that unless betrayal is very important?  Poet Robert Bly asserts that betrayal is essential in the transition from childhood to adulthood.  Though not a good thing, it is a basic and challenging piece of the dynamic creation of God Yahweh.  Our responses to betrayal, both ours and others to us, are vital to our capacity to grow, change, and move to subsequent stages of faith development.  Our human capacity to betray seems linked to our ability to make moral choices.  Betrayal does not happen all at once.  There are stages of betrayal.  An openness to betray or to be betrayed (often sub-conscious) and the occasion for betrayal precede the act.  Witness marital infidelity or a young person's choices regarding substance abuse. 

            So, the acts of betrayal have taken place and are know to all involved.  Life is about to change for our heroes and for the trickster. 

 ¹⁴ The Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

¹⁵ I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel."

¹⁶ To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing;

in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband,

and he shall rule over you."

¹⁷ And to the man he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,

and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.

¹⁹ By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground,

for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

²⁰ The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. ²¹ And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.

²² Then the Lord God said, "See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"- ²³ therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

So shut the door, turn out the light, plant the sword.  Adam and Eve are moving to a new location.  The transition to step four of faith usually begins with leaving home - leaving physically or geographically and especially emotionally.  This occurs naturally when young people go off to college or join the military in their late teens and early twenties.  

The judgments spoken by God make it very clear that things have changed fundamentally.   The first couple is evicted from their Parent's home, the only home they have known, and told that life will never again be the same.  For the serpent, it's the dusty low road from here on out.  For the woman it's pain in childbirth and a secondary role in her relationships.  For the man, it's hard and fruitless work to find meaning.  It's time for the kids to get out of the house and make their own living.  This is a far cry from the delightful life of paradise in Eden.  The old answers won't be working for Adam and Eve anymore and the couple will soon be looking at life from a very new perspective.

Leaving stage three is leaving home.  It is learning to "look with critical awareness at [your] assumed system of values."  You don't "cut off" from your family, but the relationships are different.  Leaving home means burning your bridges in order to reshape your identity apart from that system that shaped you.

Moving toward stage four means there is a new boss, a new source of authority for my life; a change in who's in charge from "they" to "me."  Outside resources are vital, but ultimate decisions require an internal process.  Fowler calls this developing an "executive ego."  This is not the ego of an executive, but the developed capacity to be an individual "self" connected to others within a system rather than being someone whose identity comes from their system. 

            The easiest time to navigate the transition to stage four is in your 20's when, as a "novice" adult, you are naturally leaving home, when as a young adult you begin taking "seriously the burden of responsibility for [your] own commitments, lifestyles, beliefs, and attitudes."  When this transition does not happen until mid-life, it is most often the result of a traumatic event such as divorce or death.  

You can take one of the key steps toward stage four without taking the other and wind up in a continuing equilibrium between the stages.  If you distance from your original system without developing an internal source of authority, you eventually rely on another external authority, a different "they" for identity and direction.  On the other hand, if you experience the emergence of an internal executive ego while remaining firmly in your "assumed value system" you will get frustrated and more likely become manipulative, a trickster preying on or betraying others. 

            Stage four is called "individuative-reflective" faith.  Identity and authority move to within the individual who also tends to reflect in a more objective way about the systems of relationships in which you find yourself. 

            Jesus' disciples left home to follow him.  In Mark's Gospel, Peter says to [Jesus], "Look, we have left everything and followed you." 

            The disciples had left home and family to follow Jesus, but they were still looking for him to be their external authority and source of identity.  That's okay for stage three faith, but Jesus' response reflects a deeper truth that God Yahweh, the Ultimate Existence and Ultimate Cause, places in creation.  A stage four writer of this gospel might easily have said, "The authority and identity for which you are looking does not come from outside you."  Jesus did not give his disciples the answers to life.  We don't get them either.  What we get is the living presence of the Spirit of Life itself within to help us discover who we are where we are going.

            Individuals and communities can exhibit stages of faith.  You did some "leaving of home" when you started Crossroads Church.  You did some more by calling a pastor from the East, from outside your circle.  You are still working on developing that internal authority and identity.  The annual Open Spaces retreat next weekend is a perfect example.  Individual voices within the congregation will help the body as a whole discern how we will be church in the coming year, giving shape and structure to our dreams.  Wow!  Stage four here we come!   Watch out, though.  In stage four, you are no longer the sum of people's expectations of you.  You are more than the composite of who others say you are or what they want you to be.   Life gets scarier and there is less room to hide.  It's not too late to turn back.  If you keep growing and developing, you will find yourself more and more alone - alone but not lonely.  You'll discover you are a unique self who is uniquely gifted, called, and named by the Ultimate Existence and Ultimate Cause of life itself.  The invitation is open and the choice to grow is your, always.

            Eternal Creator, You have made each of us and placed within us dreams and possibilities.  At whatever stage of faith we are living, our faith is in You.  We trust You.  Lead us to trust what you are doing in our lives.  Amen.