There is a God…

…and he is like Jesus.

Neither statement is to be taken for granted, and both are very significant for life in this generation.

The knowledge/sense/preference/belief that there is a God is a choice.  That is to say, there is no absolutely compelling evidence in the same way that you could say, for example, “There is a mosquito.” God is not a physical being created and encountered, and therefore his existence can be ignored at the physical level.

It is at the spiritual level that a decision ultimately is made about God.  God is spirit.  So are we.  We are amphibious creatures – creatures of spirit with a physical presence in the world of things and feelings.  And therefore, we may choose to live only in the physical world.  But we cannot live only as spirit.

God is not the only spirit there is.  Spirits are within things and situations.  People are thrown around by spirit.  Spirits imprison and release, oppress and encourage, awaken and depress.  A spirit is not primarily disembodied, however.   It is helpful to think of “the spirit of a thing,” “the spirit of a place,” “the spirit in which he acts,” when we are using the word.  Otherwise, we get off track and are unreal, irrelevant, and spooky.  Spirit is intention. Spirit is meaning.  Spirit is purpose.

Spirits are diverse and most are partial by definition.  There is a spirit of greed, a spirit of violence, a spirit of lust, a spirit of affection, a spirit of pride, a spirit of competition, a spirit of jealousy.  All of these represent aspects of the human soul/psyche – individually and collectively.  But these spirits cannot make it on their own.  They will immediately, or ultimately, distort or mislead or destroy.

There is, however, a “holy spirit” which relates all spirits together properly.  This “holy spirit” is also the spirit of God.  That is, to say, when the holy spirit is present there is no separation between us and God, nor between those joined in the spirit.  The spirit is a spirit of right, respectful, righteous, and loving relationship.  It matters what spirit you think represents the true God.  One is worth believing in.  Many aren’t.  The key question is the nature and character of God.

The holy spirit gives purpose and meaning to life.  Things on the surface of life can only give purpose and meaning for awhile – we learn that quickly.  If there is to be meaning, it must relate to something that is deeper, that is cumulative, that can deal with change and disappointment and above all, with death.  When that spirit is found, when that spirit is present, it all makes sense. — deeply, even if it sometimes does not seem to make sense to our minds.  The sense it makes compels new thoughts.

These things are true, and I cannot lie about them.  There is no other reason for existence, no other hope.

There is a God…   And he is like Jesus.

To say that Jesus is “the son of God,” is more a statement about God than it is about Jesus.  Herein lies so much of the confusion and distortion of the church and of Christianity.  As Jesus said directly, “no one has seen God at any time.”  Really.

So much of Christian teaching appears over and over again to be trying to prove that the man Jesus was like our idea of what God is.  But we do better to try to see what God is like by paying attention to what Jesus is like.  What we are saying is that the holy spirit of God was fully active in Jesus, defining, directing, healing, encouraging, preaching, teaching, living, praying; and that we can see in him the nature of his Father.

We believe God is like Jesus.

This is a quite distinct statement.  Incidentally, if God is like Jesus, he is partial to everybody, and not just to Christians.  Religion is not a condition of his love or healing.  Wherever God’s spirit is, there is God.  If God is like Jesus, he is absolutely not in the damnation business.  He is in the healing business.  Healing is no joke.  There is surrender involved.  But it’s great to love God, and it’s great to follow Jesus!

The gender of God is not an issue.  If some people find God through a feminine or even neuter pronoun that makes God just as happy as through a masculine pronoun.  But what is an issue is the personhood of God.  God is not some kind of vague force.  He is, ultimately, a person.  God is a person like Jesus, a person like Mary.  God has thoughts, feelings, intentions, and purposes.   They’re good, thank God.

If we say that Jesus is the messiah (in Greek, “the christ,”) we are saying that he was here (and is here in spirit) to organize and lead the bringing of proper order – “righteousness and justice” – to human society.  One of the ways he does this is by enlisting others to be a part of the healing and transformation of the world – what Paul calls “the mystery hidden throughout the ages and generations: Messiah in you.”  Here is the seed of divine democracy – the alteration of the world through the  indiscriminate and democratic operation of the holy spirit in human beings, orchestrated by the humble, servant messiah.

Prayer is the track of God’s spirit in the psyche.  It is a place where God’s spirit and our spirits meet.  The spirit of God is praying in all of us from the beginning, lifting our deepest desires into the divine conversation and filling us with the longing of God for the healing of all things.  God prays in us, and invites us to be a part of his prayer.

As that prayer continues in us, there is also the instruction of God in us. The gifts of the spirit include consolation, and direction, and purpose and meaning.   Without God, it’s hard sometimes to find meaning and purpose that make real sense.

And unless you long for God and life, unless you seek hope or purpose, meaning or love, direction or truth, wholeness or contemplation, recovery or justice, there may not be a lot of reason you should waste your time trying to believe in God.  The need for God does not create God; but God is an idle, distorted speculation for those who do not know their need of him, I think.  If the question of whether there is a God is not ultimately significant to you, you have no need of the answer.

The Rev. Ben Campbell
Pastoral Director