“In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street…About a quarter before nine, while [the preacher] 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.’ (John Wesley)

This past week, May 24, besides being Queen Victoria’s birthday, it is also ‘Aldersgate Day’.  It’s a pretty obscure church history reference so I totally understand why you wouldn’t get it.  The Coles Notes version is that John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Movement (which author Pete Grieg calls ‘the greatest British spiritual awakening for a thousand years’) on May 24 in 1738 had his own personal encounter with the Holy Spirit the changed the course of his life in quite remarkable ways.

Its also the day that we get the phrase “My heart was strangely warmed”.  A phrase that seminarians have used in particularly irreverent ways basically since John Wesley spoke them.  If John had been part of my class at Queens Theological College we would’ve likely rolled our eyes at him and accused him of getting a little too Holy Roller-ish.

I think all of us who have been raised in the mainstream Liberal church are skeptical of the Holy Spirit.  We’re much more comfortable in the cerebral, the reasonable and the practical.  Faith doesn’t need ‘heart-warming’ or even worse, raised hands and out loud ‘hallelujahs’.  That’s just a little, well, primitive, maybe?   Or too invested in things that are magical and the object of skepticism?

Except maybe it isn’t.

When I read about John Wesley, I see a lot of myself in him.  You see, Wesley was an Anglican Priest, and I don’t think had any intention whatsoever of spawning a whole new religious movement.  He was kind of a failed Anglican Priest at that.  He was deeply invested in following rules and doing the right thing.  He writes about compulsively ranking and grading his own spiritual performance in an attempt to get on God’s good side.  He was really bound by being ‘good’; being ‘religious’; being the best priest that God ever called to the church.

He came over to what he called the ‘Colonies’ as a missionary trying to do the right thing even more self-sacrificially, and ended up burning out and immobilized by the pressure he put on himself.  He returned to England in a bit of a disgrace because of his failure, and was nurturing a severe depression when he reluctantly went to a Moravian group meeting and had his life changing encounter with the Holy Spirit.

And it was only after this experience, that Wesley became the effective minister that he was trying so hard to be.  It was only after his own encounter with God, in a way that meant he could rise above all of his rule-following, his obsessive self evaluation and his own depression and despair and become the person he was known for: the champion for the poor and a campaigner for the slave trade.  A person who held no regard for class and gender and trained men and women to function as leaders in the church.  A man who preached 40,000 sermons and travelled over 250,000 miles to teach and plant radical communities of prayer, mission and justice.

It was only when he encountered the Holy Spirit in a way that meant he could rise above himself, that he could let go of his own expectations of faithfulness, and become the person he so desperately tried to order himself into being.

He had to encounter God to become fully himself.

I think there’s something in this all, right.  I think that when we finally let go of our own expectations of what we think being ‘faithful’ requires us to do, and let God speak into the secret places of brokenness in our lives that we become fully ourselves.  Its only when we face that we can’t order ourselves into holiness, and instead ask God to make us holy that we can be whole.  (See what I did there?  Riff on Holy and Wholly.  Lol sometimes I’m way too pleased with my own writing).

So, my dear Bethel friends – today, maybe, just give God a little inch in your lives.  It doesn’t need to be threatening.  It doesn’t even need to make you look weird and bizarre or even (gasp) Holy Roller-ish.  Because maybe, just maybe – if you let God give you your own ‘strange warming’ then you too might experience the Holy.  Or maybe just the Wholly.  Wholly you.

Blessings today and remember you are Loved.

~ Rev. Lynne