The man answered, “This is incredible! You don’t know where he is from, yet he healed my eyes! We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners. God listens to anyone who is devout and does God’s will. No one has ever heard of a healing of the eyes of someone born blind. If this man wasn’t from God, he couldn’t do this.”
They responded, “You were born completely in sin! How is it that you dare to teach us?” Then they expelled him. John 9:30-34 (CEB)
There’s a tricky fact about the Holy Spirit. To quote someone who knows a thing or two about it, “God’s Spirit[ blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). God has this funny way of bringing sheep into the fold that we knew nothing about. We thought you had to be just like us to follow God. But God keeps finding the lost and letting them know they’ve been loved this whole time. God keeps breaking his own rules, healing people on the sabbath, fellowshipping with the unclean, praising the great faith of pagans (remember that centurion?), and removing the key laws God made with his covenant people (circumcision, food restrictions) to swing those doors wide for everyone. The first Christian convert in Acts was an African sexual minority (remember that Ethiopian eunuch?). Heck, God even took one of his biggest enemies (Paul) and found a key role for him in the church.
That Holy Spirit just keeps on blowing right through the pages of history, swinging those church doors wide open.
So why do so many Christians get so up in arms when the Holy Spirit does something new again? When you question the way things are because it doesn’t line up with your experience with the love of God, why do others put you in your place and accuse you of having no faith?
As United Methodists, “we follow Wesley’s practice of examining experience, both individual and corporate, for confirmations of the realities of God’s grace attested in Scripture” (see our Theological Guidelines in the BOD). Specifically, we believe that Christians can experience an assurance of their salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, and that experience enlightens our interpretation of scripture, even as scripture provides the norms for how we explain our experience. The truth is, many of us search the scripture because we have encountered the living God, and we want to know more.
There’s a disturbing trend in many church circles that silences the questioning believer. Black voices cry out against their experience of racism, only to be silenced by white believers who just don’t see it. Women and children cry out against rape and harassment, only to be silenced for bringing it on to themselves, or not wanting to ruin a good man’s reputation. Queer Christians cry out “We’re real! God made us this way! Give us paths to holiness that allow our full inclusion!” only to be told they are giving into the lies and temptation of the devil and the liberal agenda. I know so many Christians who grew up in an environment where questions were threats to the faith community. They now live unable to trust their own judgment, afraid that their every thought is deceitful and their feelings and experiences are designed to trick them away from pure faith. “The heart is deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9) is a clobber verse wielded by those who need to control the narrative, and apparently everyone else’s heart is deceitful, but these guys seem to be above that.
But that pesky Holy Spirit lives in you, too. In fact, there’s not a soul out there, Christian or not, who doesn’t have some spark of the Holy Spirit of God helping them navigate those experiences. It just may be the Holy Spirit sparking them to question those very things they see in the church that don’t seem to line up with our experiences of God’s love. It’s called prevenient grace, God’s presence with you, nudging you towards the truth. Your experience matters.
For John Wesley, experience played a HUGE role in how he read the Bible. His experience of love called him to question and speak out against the belief that God eternally predestines masses of humanity to damnation. His experience of abuse against black lives led to him writing the most widespread tract on abolition at the time. He didn’t have to re-define the scripture people used to clobber others. He didn’t even bother defending verses about predestination or slavery. No, he elevated the verses about God’s love and mercy and justice for all.
This week’s villain is designed after Spiderman’s nemesis, Mysterio, who uses special effects and holograms to confuse his opponents and get away with his crimes. He represents the spiritual gaslighting that many of us have experienced in the church when our experience of the Holy Spirit’s transformative presence doesn’t line up with those in power. Honestly, I don’t want to play their games anymore. I’m over it. It’s the same old boring rhetoric and I think the best comeback is to be a living witness the our experience with God. We don’t have to play by their rules. We don’t have to defend their verses used to silence. Like the man born blind in John 9, we must tell the truth about God: I was blind but now I see. That’s right, even me.