Members of Christ

In 1928 Evelyn Underhill gave a retreat called "The Call of God." The retreat is included with others in the book The Ways of the Spirit, edited by Grace Adolphsen Brame. The following is from a talk given on one of the days of the retreat called "Members of Christ":

"The tendency to discouragement which dogs our over-sensitive, unpeaceful modern minds, however Christianized, the sense of failure, of not doing anything really for God, the fear that if a soul is given you to help you'll make a mess of it--all this comes from forgetting the cardinal principle that we are not free, self-acting creatures. We are not left to ourselves, but we are organs through which God acts. Therefore if we fail in His work, the primary failure is in our relationship with Him.

"Had we a deeper sense of the vastness of God's processes and realized what minute crumbs we each are comparatively, we shouldn't feel so upset when we don't seem to accomplish much individually or lack, as we say, 'scope.' What matters is total love in the actions of the body of which we are a part. It is not the cells which have the most 'scope' who are most essential to this, but those which quietly maintain the rhythm of life.

"Now it is possible to watch on film the processes of cell-life in tissues out of which the body is built. You see healthy cells go on with their cycle of growing and dividing very calmly and steadily, maintaining the stability and energy proper to their position. Then you see some free cells, unattached, moving with terrific speed, dividing, growing with feverish rapidity,so full of life, so busy, never stopping. They are cells of cancer rushing through the body, starting a vigorous growth which is not subordinated to the body's needs. They have enormous scope and industry, but much disregard for the body as a whole. They are not coordinated and subordinated to the purpose and pace of corporate life. (Some of us have met cells like these on committees.)

"A deep entrance in prayer into the total life of the informing Spirit may change the pace and scope of your life, and make what you do more healthy, life giving, and available for the whole. For those surrendered to Christ, sin is mostly what the old writers called 'de-ordination,' self-actuated action out of touch with the great and calm order of God. It is the meek, the merciful, the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, and not the restful, vigorous, struggling, or contentious who are subdued to the rhythm of the Mystical Body and really form part of its life.

"Lastly, let us look at the second New Testament description of corporate Christian life, the great Johanine discourse on the True Vine. Let us look at it. We are not looking at the lovely conventional pattern we see in early Christian art, but at a living plant, expressing one specific character of a vine in thousands of different ways. No two leaves or tender branches of fresh green are quite alike. Some are big and others little, but all are alive! Look at the vine's luxuriant growth, order, freedom, and its persistent tendency to grow toward the light. See the close, vital dependency of each branch on the whole. Notice how all parts drink life from one single root thrust deep into the invisible supernatural world. A bit broken off goes on for awhile looking just the same, but gradually its leaves shrivel, its vital processes cease, its strength tends to go limp and shapeless, and it loses all its beauty and vitality. It dies.

"Look at the vine's image of vigor and beauty and compare it with a neatly edged, separate life, all on its own, radiating from its own center, more like a mushroom than a bit of the living vine. One might say that the mushroom is not a very 'Christian' vegetable! Do you know about the 'holy' mushroom? One often sees it used in certain religious rites. Look at it over against the noble, generous, self-giving vine with its many branches, its burden of fruit and its thrust deep into the world of prayer. When you have seen the difference, then ask for what you want: a closer, more vital and real incorporation into this divine, self-giving life of the mystical Body of Christ in which each cell forms a part.

"Now look at the context in which this meditation is offered to us. Whether the metaphor represents Christ's own words or not, it certainly represents the view taken by those most close to Him in spirit as to the essentials of Christianity. The text of John 15:4 and 5 reads:

Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine; no more can you except you abide in me.

I am the vine; you are the branches. He that abides in me and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit, for without me you can do nothing.

"'Abide in me and I in you.' These are not consoling religious phrases, but fundamental statements about our life and work, about real relationship in which we, individual human spirits, stand before God. If you have recaptured them here with all they mean, you are going back with fresh strength to the world. For they mean a real life and power, not our own, flooding through us and enabling us so long as we are in communion with Him.

"The knife that most surely severs the union is self-occupation. It is all the more insidious because it often takes a pious form. It is expressed as my rule of life, my problem, my sins, my communion with God. This separate life with its anxiety must be utterly lost if the life of the whole is to be yours.

"The Fourth Gospel omits the institution of the Eucharist, but here, in the fifteenth chapter, the essential characteristics of communion are found. It is done in a way that drives home the fact that the single life of the Vine, the mystical sap that flows in all the branches, is for one purpose: to bear fruit. That fruit is the raw material of the wine of eternal life. Yet the grapes, to become wine, must be sacrificed and crushed, devoted without reserve to an end beyond themselves. So here, the Eucharist and Christ are brought together and given under one symbol as the two-fold secret of the Christian life. Only when we accept that position can we be engrafted into the True Vine.

"There is nothing more striking in the lives of the saints than the way in which loving communion and redemptive sacrifice go hand in hand, and in this, they are close to the pattern of Christ. Nothing could have been easier for Him than to keep out of harm's way, choose a prudent course, and be satisfied with His own communion with the Father and the instruction of an inner circle of congenial disciples. But He knew that His work could not be done without suffering and self-immolation.

"The story of the Passion casts a revealing light on the members of his body. Julian of Norwich comments on it too. 'I saw,' says Julian, 'that it was our Lord's will that we should be in Christ with Him. I saw the privilege of suffering, the possibility of sharing in the eternal redemptive act, irradiating and sublimating the most bitter aspect of our human destiny. I saw the griefs, disillusionments, weaknesses, frustrations, and the helplessness of the human creature on the cross.' It is true that things of which she speaks come to all of us, but it is also true that the Christian has an elixir which turns them into gold.

"But now let us look for our last picture of St. Paul at the height of his Christian career as he sits dictating the early sections of his second letter to the Christians at Corinth. See how he looks first at his own supernatural spiritual experience, the revelation he cannot tell, and then at the trying, disabling illness which haunts him. He feels, on the whole, that there is more spiritual wealth for him in that illness than in the vision or the ecstasy. Although the illness makes plain his own weakness, it enables him to feel the power of Christ in him as the sole doer of His works.

"All of this is very horrible from the point of view of the 'Gospel of the Healthy and Efficient Mind' so to speak, but Paul is a witness we have to respect. We have to pay attention when he says: 'When I am weak, then I am strong. If I must glory, I will glory in my infirmity.' There's that queer word, 'glory,' again! Clear adoration, knowledge! It is this that calls to St. Paul the most, through his own weakness. Then it is that he feels most humble and most delighted with his utter dependency on the indwelling life: 'I live, yet not I!' I exist only to express some small bit of my Lord's characteristics and purpose. For this I must submit to such pruning, purifying, and training of my stems and tendrils as shall fit me for my particular vocation.

"Perhaps that may not mean any drastic cutback or any very spectacular sacrifice, but the constant trimming, the little homely disciplines and trials are so much more thorough and mortifying of self-love and self-will. Whatever that pruning may be, I know that the degree of my self-oblivious surrender and docility will be verified and measured by my ultimate vitality and fruitfulness."