There was one passage that stuck with me about the Spirit of God I have never been able to shake.  It refers to the promise from Jesus, in part, he would not leave us to our own devices and on our pilgrimage of faith, there would be one sent from God to be present with us, to guide us.  Let me share it from two versions, so to be sure we get the gist.  Here is the KJV and NRSV of John 16:13:

What is consistent here and in all translations is that the Spirit will come, “pnuema” is the Greek transliteration. This isn’t a text where anyone seems to pick a fight and it is clear, the Spirit of Truth is, in Orthodox, classical Christianity, the Holy Spirit.

Paul, in Romans 8:16, declares to us this same Spirit, “...itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” (KJV)  And so the Greek refers to the “pnuemati” of us - our spirit.  This, my friend and reader, is clear throughout the Scriptures of the Church, Christianity is a spiritual religion.

For us in the Wesleyan-Methodist tradition, it is not possible to escape though we seem to have tried to separate ourselves from the content of John Wesley’s heartwarming experience on Aldersgate street.

Wesley wrote in his journal on May 24, 1738:

That “heartwarming” has long been identified with Paul’s Roman 8:16 passage.  From this spiritual event, come many denominations long identified as Charismatic and Pentecostal - “Spirit-filled” churches if you will.  Our’s is a VERY SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY and we dare not lose sight of it nor should the Church of Jesus Christ, anywhere lose our connection to our spirituality.

For me, it seems we have failed to understand the richness and depth of our Christian tradition which has led us to this point of flushing out the spiritual for fear, at times, of New Age beliefs.  There are real reasons to be concerned for certain but we dare not tar and feather all that we do not care to research or understand.  We are a spiritual faith tradition that traces the lineage through 2,000 years of church history and 2,000 more years of Jewish heritage and spirituality.  Ours is an ancient faith steeped in more spirituality than the past century.

To walk away from spiritual Christianity is to walk away from the hope of transformation.  It is walking away from inspiration.  It is walking down a path of humanism once again, elevating humanity to the status of God and builders of Babel.

“What landed Jesus on the cross was the preposterous idea that common, ordinary, broken, screwed-up people could be godly!” wrote the late Mike Yaconelli.  This is Christian Spirituality at its heart and root.  Not that in our works or practices we can become perfect, but that on the Cross of Jesus, the gift was given so we could be godly by the grace of God, not by someone’s personal to-do list of perfection.  Repentance is a vital component to this spiritual journey that began in the cry of the prophets and led to John the Baptist and Jesus, as well.

I can no more be a Christian who is not spiritual and using spiritual practices than I can be a motor vehicle that doesn't have a motor or use gas, diesel, or electric power. To be a Christian is to be on a spiritual journey. It is to be a faith journey. We own up to our need for Jesus. We own up to the mess of our lives, too.  And there, in the place called repentance, we turn from the way we’ve been headed with our lives and find the Spirit of Truth, waiting patiently to join us in the mess and ready to journey with us toward a Christ-likeness that can only be fulfilled by being spiritual.

Do no harm. Do Good. Stay in Love with God.

Jedi Pastor Ken

Here it is: You can’t have a personal relationship with God like God was your friend.

God is not like us.

I have been thinking about this since I produced a recent video entitled “How to Know God” on YouTube and taught about Gary Thomas’s 9 Spiritual Personality types in his book, “Sacred Pathways.” We can know God, just not like we have been led to believe.

God did make you unique AND God really, really does like you and me, and loves us!

But God ain’t like us and we need to get that out there.  And I confess, I have felt so impressed upon to make God “real” to people that I have many times forgotten just how important it is to remember God is God (and in the most basic Christian theological understanding of God - it ends there, though some will want to ask about where God comes from but that is philosophy and not Chrisitan theology or Christian spirituality.  In the beginning, was God - no other being(s) (Genesis 1 and John 1)).

These words from Numbers 23 are foundational to this understanding God isn’t like us at all...

God is not a human being, that he should lie,

    or a mortal, that he should change his mind.

Has he promised, and will he not do it?

    Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? (Numbers 23:19 NRSV)

God has revealed himself not so much in the Bible as God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ (so the whole New Testament unpacks this idea. Jesus is both GOD and human.) and then, shared with humankind, the very presence of the Divinity in the Holy Spirit.  Even more, God offers to be present with our spirit as we journey this life IF we want. 

For me, I don’t want a God like us. Oh, man! No wonder we all have such issues and hang-ups with God - if God was really like us, how terrible would this God be after all. I have come to understand if I really understand and comprehend God, then maybe it is me who has created this God in my image.  God has made you and me in ways we can know God but not like we think; not like us.  This is good.  What is far more important is to know God knows us and “...even the hairs of your head are all numbered. (Matthew 10:30)” 

Prayer is not like talking to a friend. Listening to God involves so much more of our attention than we are willing to give most days! Spending time with God doesn't mean we're sitting in the deer stand together swapping stories or taking long walks on the beach. These and so many more practices point out this relationship is DIFFERENT. It is NOT a bad thing just a different thing because GOD IS NOT LIKE US!!! So let us stop treating God just like a buddy, stop ghosting on God and take God at his word - God is not a human being...thanks be to God!

Do No Harm, Do Good, and Stay In Love with God Jedi Pastor Ken

There is no shortage, it seems, of people telling others how to live and seeking to justify a point of view.  I was reading this week about the ongoing investigation of the late Ravi Zacharias’s ministry and how it concealed and enabled his abuses.

(https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/you-are-one-step-away-from-complete).  It is, of course, one more reason for people to dismiss Christianity and most certainly hastens the collapse of the evangelical moniker of the church.  It has been “par for the course” for Christianity for centuries has it not?  

What are we to make of this?

As we come to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, the words echo from the ye-olde-english: “Rend your hearts and not your garments... (Joel 2:13).”  It is time for the Church Universal to come to grips with its many failings and faults.  More importantly, it is time for you and me to do the same. 

I think it is most easy for us to do just what I did...hide in “group” and make “straw-Groups” as opposed to “strawmen.”  I do it when I write many times and have to check myself.  It is easy to cast stones at “Those people,” or “them,” or “they.”  I can right about “us” and “we” and that tends to be easier than saying what is really at the crux of the problem…

Me.  Just me.  I did.  I did it.  I do it.  I fail.  I fall.  I sin.  

The words of Jesus apply to me, first.  When I read them.  When I reflect on them.  As I prepare to preach them...

17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Matthew 5:17-20, ESV

But how do I really handle it?  I think we have to go back to some of the other ancients of the early centuries.  As Dr. Roberta Bondi, who has written extensively on the Desert Fathers and Mothers, “they saw judgementalism as just about the greatest sin.”  Bringing the ideas of cancel culture into the church is so deadly.  There is no justification for it in the Church and both the so-called “left” and “right” should be listening.  Classical Christianity as John Wesley saw it, could not pick sides in these arguments. The idea such division was abhorrent to Jesus in his mind. 

Like the mother crab, it starts with me - I cannot tell another to do something unless I can set the example.  And, we must also listen to the words from the mouths, even from Balaam’s donkeys (those unlikely prophetic voices) that challenge us to “rend our hearts,” for you and I are sinners.