I was 15 years old when I first stood in a charismatic prayer line. For those of you who have never experienced one, let me paint a picture of that night.
When the guest preacher concluded his sermon and subsequent remarks, he would carefully close his Bible, place it on the pulpit, straightening it as though it were a picture hanging on a wall, and bow his head to pray.
The cue was given.
A mechanism clicked to life as the piano player would sneak up to the keyboard and begin massaging a melodramatic tune that soaked into the thick spiritual fabric that hung in the atmosphere of the room.
It’s one of my all-time favorite moments.
Everyone knew what came next in their disheveled—but welcomingly familiar—liturgy of the charismatic church.
Almost without invitation, people would begin to shuffle out of the pews and make their way forward. Ushers would meet them at the front and direct them into a single file line that paralleled the front of the stage. A few old ladies, the truest of saints, with their backs permanently arched in piety, would float along the perimeter of the sanctuary and gather the linens that will lay—and I don’t want to give too much away at this point—but they will lay across the lower extremity of every female who has fallen under the persuasion and weight of the Spirit. These elderly ladies, clutching their folded linens with crooked fingers, quietly shrink back to the periphery.
Hope is palpable. Cynicism is holding it’s breath. Joy is tucked into a shirt pocket like a wadded tissue. The pea soup of God’s presence is being stirred in the room.
By this point the senior pastor has taken the mic, holding it like a scepter, and is a few minutes into a brief commentary on the special guest’s sermon. He carefully and calmly translates what the speaker said into the vernacular of his people. He knows how to pull the heart strings, to push the buttons. As he is giving these words, the man-a-god has descended the stairs of the stage. He eyeballs the line looking down and back.
Pause the scene.
I’m fascinated with these moments. Let’s walk to where the man-a-god is standing between the stage and these people. Most of these people are standing where they have stood many times before. They know this liturgy well. There are holes in their lives that need to be filled with whatever this man-a-god has to offer. And what he is offering is a transferable commodity known as the glory-power-light of Jesus. We all need it. He’s got it.
Sick? Here’s healing.
Overwhelming sin in your life? Here’s grace.
Oppressed by a demon? Here’s deliverance.
Got your 3rd DUI in 2 years? Here’s a slap of exhortation.
Thirsty for God? Here’s some spring water.
But the reason I think most people are standing shoulder to shoulder with eyes pooling with tears is simply put; they want to feel known.
And this is what we hope we get to experience through the man-a-god. We hope his heart is attuned enough that as he approaches each person in this line, the love and words of Jesus flow through him in specific and tender ways.
So like a tall pine tree in the gentle breeze of the Spirit, this man-a-god confronts this line of aching humanity carrying their deep hunger, a hopeless need, a far-flinging desperation to be known.
And like Elisha pleading with the prophet Elijah, they want their portion.
Unpause.
And so, as a 15 year old, fresh and emotionally raw off my parents’ divorce and my father’s absence at home, wading into new spiritual experiences unwelcome by my faith tradition, I took my place in this prayer line of desperate souls.
The man-a-god stepped up the first person and the piano player began teasing out a playful and prayerful line.
“We are hungry for more of you…”
From my vantage point I couldn’t hear the intimate conversation that was going on. I could see in my peripheral vision, him laying his large hand on the person’s head.
“Send your fire, send your rain…”
Shaking of limbs and shuddering of hands commence as the person’s legs buckle and they fell into a heap of sobs. A few characters who always show up at this moment in the story are the two or so able-bodied men who mirror the movements of the man-a-god behind the person being prayed for. When man-a-god would step up to the front of the person, they would move directly behind the prayee with arms outstretched as though they were about to catch a corpse. And once the body fell, they would unfold it and stretch it upon the floor like an undertaker into a invisible coffin. The only thing they didn’t do was to place fresh lilies into their limp folded hands. But this is no funeral.
“River of life flood my marrow and bone…”
Then the saintly ladies with the folded linens would come and with angelic grace, cover the lower extremity of the fallen.
“We cry for more of you, more of you…”
As a side note, I would encourage you to not be put off by theological cynicism in this moment. I know it’s there. It never goes away.
“I want to see your glory…”
Are there problems? Yes. But an alter, and the very real God who makes himself present there, pays no respect to your theological presuppositions. Or mine. Maybe the divine simply accommodates this pageantry. This is, as facts would have it, the God who caused water to burst from a rock.
After a person fell, the man-a-god would side step to the next person and the next. One by one, each person would be gazed upon with the compassionate eyes of the man-a-god, spoken to, and prayed for. Some would fall. Some wouldn’t. There seemed no rhyme or reason to it.
The closer he got, I could begin hearing the intimate conversations.
“God saw you as you wept on your bed.”
“Jesus is opening a new season for you. The struggle of the past few months will pale in comparison to the glory that is coming.”
“God placed a call on you when you were young, didn’t he? But you’ve resisted. He’s calling you again. Be faithful.”
My heart was screaming in anticipation, “Yes!” This is what my soul has needed. What will God say in response to the pain I’ve been carrying with the divorce, with all the shifting in my faith and my tradition’s response to it, with all the changes in my friendships…ah! I need to know God sees me.
I need to be validated.
I need to know what to do next.
I need to know and hear that God sees me.
I need insight for my future.
I need empowered to live.
I need to hear the God cares about my pain.
Do you see me?
The man-a-god was finishing up with the person standing at my shoulder. And I was next. This was it.
He stepped directly in front of me. I could sense the shuffle of feet behind me as the catchers got into position. Alien hands began to touch my shoulders.
I opened my eyes and tears escaped down my cheeks.
I lifted my gaze to meet his.
His eyes were dark and jovial, traced with compassion.
There was an effervescent quality to the air. Tingles ran up my neck and around to my tear-stung cheeks
If ever I were to have a moment like Jesus did when we was being baptized, a moment when heaven would open up and a voice would speak, “This is my beloved, in whom I am well pleased,” this was that moment.
He looked at me.
His kind eyes reached into me as though he was measuring my soul.
Then he blinked.
And without so much as a wink, he turned away stepping to the next person, never saying a word.
The hands on my shoulders grew limp and fell away and I heard the sound of feet shuffling on to the next person.
This ethereal dream-state was shattered like a pile of dishes on a marble floor. The effervescent atmosphere turned into stale cellar air. My senses snapped back to attention and I was acutely aware that there I was.
God had skipped me.
Standing awkwardly among a pile of corpses like a man who had just survived a firing squad without being hit once. Do I fall? It’s too late.
“Shoot me!” my heart wanted to scream.
I turned to take the lonely walk back to my seat and looked down at the bodies lying on the ground. I could hear some John Wayne-esque voice in my head grumble, “Lucky bastards.”
Finding my chair, I sat down, put my elbows on my knees and my face into my hands.
“Please speak, your servant is listening…”
I was flush with disappointment and embarrassment.
If ever I were to have a moment like Jesus did when we was being crucified, a moment when heaven would turn it’s back to this suffering son and a voice would cry out, “Why? Why have you forsaken me?!” this was that moment.
Then, in the way the prophet Elijah bore witness to, there was a still small voice that arose like a pin prick of light in the darkness. And this is what it spoke so tenderly to me, “Jared, you do not need a prophet to hear my voice.”
///
When I tell this story from a stage, I usually get a muffled guttural sound from a few of the listeners after offering that last line. I interpret this as meaning they “felt that”, or something landed into their soul like a slow moving cushiony lighting strike. “Mmm.” Some of the old timers would offer an “amen” under their breath. I envision God throwing marshmallows into people’s mouths.
Can I be honest with you?
That last line?
I added it later.
I’m not sure it happened that night. I’m not sure it ever happened.
Maybe in reflection and contemplation I heard it. Maybe I wanted to hear it so bad, it appeared.
Maybe it just made for good storytelling.
Does that change it for you?
I add that line because the people I’ve shared this story with would not be able to stomach a God who is silent or absent. Most people need encouraged to know that God is a God who is imminent and touchable. One who calls us into intimate union with the Trinity. That’s rich. That preaches. That can evoke passionate “amens” from the congregation.
A story that ends with a 15 year old not experiencing the God he so longs for makes for a unpalatable story.
Or maybe I’m just too cowardly to tell the truth. The truth that maybe silence and absence is a place called home and you had better start painting its walls a color you can stomach, because, baby, we might be here longer than we ever thought.
///
I visit that disappointed teenager often. I furrow my brow with him when he is confounded by God’s silence. I put my hand on his shoulder when he is disillusioned by God’s absence. I carry him still.
And together, maybe we are learning that there is something buried deep in silence and absence.
Maybe it was our dad who taught us, when he left our home when we were 14, that absence doesn’t mean abandonment. Silence doesn’t mean rejection.
And sometimes, if you listen closely to the quiet stillness that is so neatly knitted into the tapestry that is God, there is invitation.
I wonder if you have felt it, too. Maybe.
A small bird calling from within a thicket. A tender sound scarcely breaking through the whipping of wind and the humming of tires on asphalt. Maybe.
An unidentifiable thud in the night that shakes you from slumber and as you, half-asleep, crane your ear to hear more, there is nothing. Maybe.
A surest sense that while sitting on the bank of the Mississippi, that slow force of a giant, you hear its power vibrating through rock and soil. Maybe.
///
25 years later, I know that man-a-god by name now.
We bump into each other often at the coffee shop on Main Street.
When I see him from across the room, I lift my head and greet him, “Bishop!”
He sees me, smiles, and bellows back, “Revered, how ya doin!”
I’ve never told him that story.
I’m tempted to someday approach him and request that if he ever finds me standing in his charismatic prayer line—and I pray to God he does—that when it’s my turn and he stands in front of me with those kind and discerning eyes, to please unfold and read this little note I have handwritten:
“Jared, God sees you. He sees your ache. The Spirit is speaking and saying that you are not in process. You have arrived and you are here. Being here is all that has been asked of you to this point. Well done. All requirements are over. Nothing more is needed. You needn’t try harder. Take a breath. Breathe deeply for that is where the voice will meet you. When you close your eyes, I am there. When your heart aches, I am there. When you tumble into the abyss of hell, I will be the one holding you. You worry about your future? Your future is as unformed and open as the morning sky. You will be there, but now you are here. And here is where I am with you.”
And then, I promise, I’ll fall backwards.
-Jared
Painting; Christo Alla Porta by Antonio Martinotti
“I’m walking away from the church.” As somewhat of a misfit pastor, I find people sharing this story with me more and more these days. And although the character names change each time, the story nearly always includes these plot points; crosses draped with the American flag, controlling/abusive behavior by church leaders, inconsistent teaching on who’s “in” and who’s “out”, questionable use of Scripture, the unholy alliance between church and partisan politics, and/or a refusal to have any conversation on how to lovingly and gracefully include our female and LGBTQ+ sisters and brothers into the inner circle of the faith community. Did I check all the boxes for you?
It’s the first week of Lent. For the first 35 years of my life, I had nothing to do with the Church Calendar. I had nothing against it, it just wasn’t a part of my upbringing in my particular Christian tradition. NBD.