Is a rule of life just another fad, a trendy piece of spiritual tech that will soon be found alongside of other artifacts in the church’s junk-drawer, like Evangelism Explosion, The Prayer of Jabez, Seeker services, purity rings, Emergent churches, and so much more?
I want to be honest enough to say: maybe. There is enough buzz around a rule of life to give it the feel of a trendy fashion item - all the cool kids are doing it!
Good thing a rule of life has long roots. The most famous rule of life is from Benedict of Nursia (c. 530 AD), but the Rule of Benedict emerged from an even older stream of Christianity. One of the earlier documents from the early church was the Didache (dated anywhere from AD 50 to AD 130), a guide of practical Christian instruction outlining a way of life for a Christian community. The first form of a rule of life comes from the desert Father Pachomius (d. 346 AD). And before these, you see different instances of a structure of practices that guide God’s people to holy living within Scripture (e.g. Leviticus). Renewing a rule of life, then, is less about novelty and more about reclaiming an inheritance and transposing it into our time in God’s story.
Granted, nestled among the buzz around a rule of life are some misdirections, ways of engaging a rule of life that might land it in the Christian fad hall of fame. So what then is a rule of life about? How might someone engage it in line with its good history?
At its heart a rule of life is aimed at communion with God. The practices and pattern of a rule of life guide our daily lives into participation in God’s triune life, so that we might find ourselves joining in what the Father, Son and Spirit have experienced from before time began.
Communion with God - that’s what it’s all about. Anything else is simply a means to this end. And if you can find a better way to guide yourself into communion with God, do it. As I noted in the last post, a rule of life is particularly well-suited to our make-up as creatures. Woven into the fabric of creation itself is communion, the goal to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
Genesis tells the story of a created cosmos with conditions perfectly designed for fellowship and mutual life between God and humanity. The first humans are full participants in the life of God, walking the paths of Eden together with God in unbroken communion and fellowship. “The man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” (Gen. 3:8)
The image of walking captures this full communion and participation in God’s life. Have you noticed the sheer volume of scriptural references to feet, walking, and ways/paths? The offer of life with God should come supplied with a pair of sensible shoes since it is the invitation to walk with God.
Imagine the trails of Eden created by God accompanying the man and woman, strolling familiar paths of communion through the garden. British author Robert McFarlane, who writes on landscapes, nature and place, observes that “Paths connect. This is their first duty and their chief reason for being. They relate places in a literal sense, and by extension they relate people.” The paths of Eden, then, were mediums of communion, metaphors of an ambled fellowship at the heart of creation.
God through the prophet Jeremiah invites his people to join him in this fellowship, to “ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Jeremiah 6:16) However, can’t you hear the sigh of grief in God’s following words: “But you said, 'We will not walk in it.’” The ancient paths of communion with God are left untried and untrod.
A rule of life is about coming home to communion with God through the way-finding tool of a rule of life. It is about learning the habits of the landscape in life with God. The good way we seek is the ancient path of saints and sinners, pilgrims all, walking through life, moved by the same gracious invitation — to come back home to communion with God, living congruent with his life, to learn that participatory know-how of God and his ways.
A rule of life is not the trail of arduous moral grunting or spiritually slashing our way through to God. The ancient path we seek has already been carved out by the Ancient of Days. Jesus — the way, the truth, and the life — has made a way to us. The good way we seek is well worn by the footsteps of the divine, by doing what God has done since Adam and Eve hid in Eden — always coming to us first, calling you and I to walk with him, inviting us into more life than we can imagine, to learn his ways, to follow and enjoy communion all the way back home.