Introspection: Waiting for Aldersgate

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

Waiting for Aldersgate

Why, O LORD, do You stand far off?

Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?

Psalm 10:1 (NRSV)

You always said we'd meet again

You always said You'd be here

Where are You now?

You touch the deepest part of me

The places I could not save

Just tell me why I'm so dark inside

From "Mystery of You" by RED

To say that Saul was a religious man would be an understatement; he was so zealous about his beliefs he would do anything to keep his religion pure.  When people in Jerusalem started claiming that some dead rabbi was the Son of God, he knew that he had to put a stop to the heresy through any means necessary.  He began having the followers of this rabbi incarcerated.  When the heretics started fleeing the city, he received permission from the high priest to pursue the heretics in other cities and bring them back.

While Saul was on the way to the city of Damascus, a light from heaven fell upon him and brought him to his knees.  A loud voice called out from heaven saying, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"  When Saul asked who was speaking, the voice called out to him again and said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."  Saul remained blind for three days during which he had nothing to eat or drink.¹

Saul was the man who would someday be remembered as St. Paul.

Episcopal priest and professor Barry Taylor points out that, while most of us would be tempted to say that Saul "saw the light" that day, Saul actually had a "revelation of darkness."  Saul was confronted with the monstrosity of his own actions and blinded.  He was left in the dark, closed up within himself for three days to face what he had done.²

In the past few months, I have experienced my own revelation of darkness.  I have gazed into the darkness of my own heart, and it has stopped me in my tracks.  I have been confronted with my arrogance.  Though I often speak with self-deprecation, in reality, I think I'm really damn important.  I have been confronted with my judgmentalism.  I have demonized people in the past, only to discover that I make the same choices as the people I condemned when placed in the same situation.  I have been confronted with my self-centeredness.  I always want my own way, and, though I'll occasionally do some easy token gestures of kindness for people, the moment somebody wants more from me than I want to give, I'll bail out.

Theologian G.K. Chesterton once wrote, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.  It has been found difficult and left untried."  In other words, people abandon Christianity because the life Christ calls us to live is just too hard.  I can resonate with this sentiment, because most of the time I feel like an utter failure as a Christian.  And if you dared to tell me that following Christ is not all that difficult, then I would suggest that you're probably doing it wrong.

I originally started this blog because I had been preaching at my church on occasion and wanted to share my sermons with the world, and I started preaching because I hated my job and was considering a new vocation in the ministry.  Because of the aforementioned reasons, becoming a pastor seems to be less and less of an option for me.  I still find a sense of joy in teaching Sunday School, in preaching, and in sharing my journey of faith through my writing, so, if I do go into the ministry in some way, I will likely seek out some sort of teaching role.  After all, "Those who can't do, teach."

Recently, I was venting about these things to someone, and he asked me why I am still involved with the Church.

In early 1738, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, was going through a dark time in his own life.  He had just returned to England after a seemingly unsuccessful ministry in colonial America which ended in scandal and litigation.  On May 24 of that same year, he was dragged to a gathering at a Moravian church.  What happened to him that evening impacted him profoundly.  In fact, it is still considered a pivotal moment in Methodist history.

Wesley wrote the following in his journal about the experience:
In the evening I went unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans.  About a quarter to nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.  I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine and saved me from the law of sin and death.³

I am still involved with the Church because I am waiting for an "Aldersgate moment."  I am waiting for Christ to show up for me in the same way that He showed up for John Wesley.  I am waiting for a moment when it "clicks" - a moment when everything makes sense to me.  Usually, when Christians speak about being "saved," they mean that they are going to heaven when they die because they believe a certain set of beliefs or because they have prayed a certain prayer.  Once upon a time, I "got saved" because I was afraid of going to hell, but this is not the kind of salvation I desire right now.  If Christ truly is our Savior, then I want Him to ride into my life on a white horse and save me from my darkness, not when I die, but while I'm still alive.

Sometimes the life of faith might seem like a walk on the beach in which we contemplate the number of trails of footprints in the sand.  At other times, the life of faith might seem more like a wrestling match.  Though I have experienced a good deal of the former in my life, lately I have been experiencing more of the latter.  I am wrestling with who I am, wrestling with what I have done, and wrestling with what God wants from me.

The phrase wrestling with God originates from an Old Testament story in which Jacob spends the night locked in combat with - well - someone.  The other wrestler knocks Jacob's hip out of joint and demands that Jacob let him go.  Jacob replies, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me."  The other wrestler then blesses him, saying, "Your name won’t be Jacob any longer, but Israel, because you struggled with God and with men and won."  Jacob walks away, limping.⁴

Wrestling with God is not necessarily a sign of a lack of faith: it just might be a sign that one believes in a God loving enough to meet people right where they are, even if that means wrestling with them.  In the same way that Jacob wouldn't let go of the other wrestler until he received a blessing, I am not letting go of God until God shows up in my life again.  I believe that God showed up heroically in my life in the past, and I believe that God can and will do it again.


Notes:

1. Acts 8:1-3,9:1-9 (NRSV)
2. Barry Taylor, Tripp Fuller, Peter Rollins, and Bo Sanders.  "Revelation of Darkness LIVE Event: Taylor’s F-it Theology, Rollins reaches behind the curtain."  Homebrewed Christianity Podcast, 05/08/13.  (Warning: This podcast episode contains coarse language.)
3. Wikipedia: Aldersgate
4. Genesis 32:22-32 (CEB)

The illustration of Jacob wrestling with the angel was drawn by Gustave Doré in 1855.