Messy Spirituality

July 17, 2005 (Ninth Sunday after Pentecost)

by The Rev. Jerry Kolb

- Wisdom 12:13,16-19
- Psalm 86 or 86:11-17
- Romans 8:18-25
- Matthew 13:24-30,36-43

(From The Lectionary Page)

“Dear God, I’m doing the best I can. Frank.” I think many of you can remember a wonderful very small book entitled “Children’s Letters to God.” If you haven’t read it, I certainly encourage you to do so. The letters will both amuse you but also help you to realize that much of our understanding of God is still very "childlike."

But I took this particular “Letter to God” from the opening pages of Michael Yaconelli’s book “Messy Spirituality: God’s Annoying Love for Imperfect People.” I think it speaks a great deal to most of the Christians I know.  And to the other Christians I know, I wish they would read it! It reflects much of what I find in my own spiritual life and since preachers primarily preach to themselves, I thought that I’d like to with share you some of the ideas that Michael presents in his book. (I might also point out to you that at his death in 2003, Michael Yaconelli was a lay pastor of Grace Community Church in Yreka, California, and spent 42 years in pastoring and providing ministry to students. But enough about my source!)

Why preach about “Messy Spirituality?” Because it reflects what I believe most of our spiritual lives are – messy! That doesn’t mean our spirituality is ‘bad’ – just that it is messy! Let me use another quote that Michael has offered to open his book: “I go into churches and everyone seems to feel so good about themselves. Everyone calls themselves a Christian nowadays. How dare we call ourselves Christians? It’s only for Jesus to decide whether we are Christian or not. I don’t think He’s made a decision in my case, and I’m sure that when He does, I am going to be sent straight to Hell. I don’t feel I can call myself a Christian. I can’t be satisfied with myself. We all seem to be pretty contented with ourselves in church and that makes me sick. I think all this contentment makes Jesus nervous.” [Robert Coles, Wittenburg Door.]

Now, I’m not saying that I am going to Hell because my spiritual life is messy but I really resonated with the author's statement about his own spiritual life: “I have been trying to follow Christ most of my life, and the best I can do is a stumbling, bumbling, clumsy kind of following. I wake up most days with the humiliating awareness that I have no clue where Jesus is. Even though I am a minister, even though I think about Jesus every day, my following is….uh…. meandering.” Now here is a person that I can relate to and I suspect that I’m not alone.

He goes on to suggest that how in the world can a person whose life is obviously ‘unspiritual’ write a book about spirituality? What do you think about when you hear the word ‘spiritual?’ Many of us relate that to people who pray all day long. I’m not sure that I know any of those kind of people. Even monks and sisters who commit themselves to the Rule of Saint Benedict don’t pray all the time. His tradition calls for times of prayer, times of work, recreation, and times of study. But isn’t that the image we tend to think of when we think about someone who is ‘spiritual?’ What about others who have to live in the business community, or work at home doing the dishes, taking care of three kids and trying to find the cat that has escaped out the door for the third time? Huh, what about those kind of people. Or people who are single, who spend much of their time working, having parents wondering why we are not married, and have friends that are making a lot more money than we do. Or what about people who are divorced, trying to take care of the kids as a single parent and wondering why this has happened to you. Is there a ‘spirituality’ for the rest of us who are not secluded in a monastery, who don’t have it all together – and probably never will?

Michael Yaconelli says “The answer is yes!” He goes on to say that what landed Jesus Christ on the cross was the preposterous idea that common, ordinary, broken, screwed up people could be godly! What drove Jesus' enemies crazy were his criticisms of the ‘perfect’ religious people and his acceptance of the imperfect non-religious people. The shocking implication of Jesus’ ministry is that anyone can be spiritual. And he goes on to point out that ‘messy spirituality’ does not sound very spiritual, in fact it even sounds ‘unspiritual.’ But he suggests that spirituality is not a formula; it is not a test. It is a relationship. Spirituality is not about competency: it is about intimacy. It is not about perfection: it is about connection. Spirituality is not about being fixed, it is about God being present in the mess of our unfixedness.

Look at the Bible. Its page overflow with messy people. The biblical writers did not edit out the flaws of its heroes. Lets start with Adam and Eve. Certainly they were not any great tower of ‘following the word of God.’ Or Noah. Everyone thought he was crazy. He certainly was a little strange, but he was courteous, a man of great faith and strong will. He was ridiculed but he built the Ark and after the flood he got drunk and got naked! Now I don’t remember my bible teachers focusing on that aspect of Noah! (Genesis 9:20ff)

The New Testament characters weren’t much better. Look at who Jesus hung out with; prostitutes, tax collectors, adulterers, mental cases, penniless riffraff and losers of all kinds. His disciples were hardly models of saintliness. While they were faithful to him and would follow him anywhere, they were always infighting, always jockeying for position, suspicious of each other. Most of the time they did not even understand what Jesus was talking about, and when he died, they had no clue what to do next. All this sounds something like ‘messy discipleship.’ So perhaps we are in better company than we thought!

Michael points out that perhaps messiness is a workshop of authentic spirituality: the greenhouse of faith, the place where the real Jesus meets the real us. Messy Spirituality is the scandalous assertion that following Jesus is anything but tidy and neat.

Some people seem to believe that once you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior, it is a straight line pointing up! But I believe that the reality is that a spiritual life is more of a ‘zig-zag,’ a roller coaster ride of ups and downs, filled with unexpected turns and crashes – with Jesus Christ riding with you all the way. In fact, it is much like planting a garden and being very careful to plant all the right flowers to make your garden beautiful: all the right colors in the right place, the tall ones to the rear and enough space to give proper emphasis to each plant. But when things began to grow, there were weeds all over the place – messing up your fine plans, disturbing the beauty that you had dreamed about. Now whether or not an ‘enemy’ came and planted the weed seeds during the night, I have no idea. I do know that they are there and I have to deal with them! One suggestion from this morning's gospel is that we go in and pull them up!

But part of my problem is that I don’t always know, or least I’m not sure, what is ‘weed’ and what are the flowers! So lets quickly look at what may be some of the ‘weeds’ in our spiritual lives. Michael suggests that the first one may well be ‘pretending.’ He points out that in many religious circles there exists an unwritten rule: pretend. Act like God is in control when you don’t believe he is. Give the impression that everything is okay in your life when it is not. Pretend you believe when you doubt. Hide your imperfections; pretend that your family is perfect when it is like any other normal dysfunctional family! And certainly don’t admit you sin! Pretending is the grease of modern non-relationships. Pretending perpetuates the illusion of relationships by connecting us on the basis of who we aren’t. People who pretend, have pretend relationships – even with God. Spiritual people tell the truth.

Another ‘weed’ in our spiritual life is the idea that we are somehow ‘finished’ in our spiritual development; that we have put it all together and we know the answers. Personally, I’m not even sure what the questions are! To be unfinished means incomplete, imperfect, in process, under construction. Spiritual describes someone who is incomplete, imperfectly living his or her life for God. When we seek God, Jesus begins to shape our lives. He begins a good work in us, he starts changing us, but finishing the work is a life long project. The work of God will never be done until we meet Jesus face to face.

Declaring our ‘Competence’ in our spiritual lives is another ‘weed’ that needs to be cleared. No one does holy living very well. Spirituality is the humiliating recognition that I don’t know how to pray well. I don’t understand God’s Word or know how to navigate it properly, and I know how to competently live out my commitment to Christ.

Messy spirituality affirms our clumsiness. It recognizes the weeds in our spiritual lives and it begins to cultivate our life. Small groups are places where we can be honest about our spiritual lives, where we can struggle with others that are wrestling with similar issues and together, we can begin to walk with Christ – honestly. Bible classes are not just for those who are trying to be biblical scholars. They are to help you find the power and hope and conviction that has helped so many people from the earliest times that the biblical stories were told right up to today – when we struggle with different issues, different problems – but the ‘truth’ of our faith is still to be found within the pages of that Holy book.

But Jesus suggests that disturbing the weeds may well bother the roots of the ‘good’ plants. “Let them both grow together until the harvest…” I would suggest that like any good farmer (or gardener) it is important that you cultivate the soil, that you loosen the ‘ideas’ in your spiritual lives. Just like with plants, loosening the soil in the garden allows the roots to expand and grow. So too, loosening some of our ideas about what the spiritual life is all about, may allow our spiritual lives to ‘bloom’ in ways that they haven’t in the past.

And perhaps it is good advice for our own spiritual lives: do not worry about what you may perceive in your spiritual lives to be ‘weeds.’ Any good gardener knows that some of the ‘flowers’ that we have in our gardens today, are, in fact, what others consider to be ‘weeds.’ Perhaps those very ‘weeds’ in our spiritual lives are part of the very thing that God has planned for you. It is what you are: what God has made you and what he plans to use for spreading his love! Remember, God doesn’t call us because we are ‘perfect,’ he calls us because he can use what we bring to the table.

Michael Yaconelli outlines what Messy Spirituality looks like. He describes the characteristics that suggest that life is not always what it seems. He offers some ‘unprinciples’ that he feels may help in our unspiritual growth. At the end, you will know that regardless of how you may feel about your spiritual life, God loves you and walks with you in every step of your life. Don’t be too quick to say that some part of your life is a ‘spiritual weed’ but be willing to live with it, look at it, learn from it and see how God may use it to ‘grow’ your spiritual life. Until then, know that whoever you are, however you tend to experience God or even if you believe that you have never experienced God at all, God is walking with you!

Amen!