Getting Out of God’s Way: Let God be God in You

By: Rev. Christina Miller

I was living in Philadelphia, and while I loved a lot of things about my life there, I was starting to feel a disconnect between my mind, body, and spirit. I was a full time writer so I worked in an office, sat at a desk, and spent most of my working hours thinking. I also lived in Center City, which meant I was surrounded by more buildings than trees, and during the winter I had to spend months at a time inside. My body would get stiff and the cold would get trapped in my bones.

I tried therapy and even antidepressants, which helped, but there was something deeper I just couldn’t access that was longing for healing. The longing became so persistent I couldn’t ignore it. So, when San Diego started calling to me from across the country, inviting me to come home to warm weather and the expansive ocean, I accepted the proverbial invitation, with the hope of finding new ways of becoming more whole.

In my first few months in San Diego my path synchronistically crossed with a Reiki Energy Healer. Reiki is a form of healing that developed in Japan and is administered by the laying on of hands. I had never really thought about energy or what role it played inside of me, and while I wasn’t really sure about trying a practice like this that wasn’t explicitly Christian, I decided to give it a chance.

The first time I received Reiki, my practitioner placed her hands on the top of my head and I felt a rush of energy forcefully flow through my body all the way to the bottoms of my feet, then rush back up into my lungs making me lose my breath. She then placed her hands over my eyes and I felt something like a big soapy bubble release in the inside of my left knee. At the end of the session I had a new awareness of being in my body and felt like I had released burdens I had been carrying. What was this force of life that had awakened inside of me?

Jesus says in John’s Gospel: We don’t know where the wind comes from or where it goes; in the same way, the wind of the Spirit blows wherever she chooses. Through Reiki, the Spirit had moved in me with a precision and depth and presence of love I couldn’t have imagined. In the years that followed this wind of energy went on to blow open my theology, making God and Jesus bigger than my limited experiences or limited understanding. Now Reiki is one of my main spiritual practices. It is a way that I turn inward and surrender to God’s Spirit at work in me. As Meister Eckhart, the 13th century priest and mystic, said: “God asks only that you get out of God’s way and let God be God in you.”

I think this getting out of God’s way and letting God’s Spirit blow where she will, moving and healing however and whenever and whomever she pleases, reaching the deeper spiritual needs that no one else can access, is what our Gospel reading this morning is about.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus has been traveling all over the seaport villages of Galilee, teaching crowds of people, healing illnesses, and casting out demons. Jesus is tending to people’s hearts and minds and bodies, bringing every part of who they are back into God’s wholeness. And Jesus’ methods are unconventional. He heals people on the Sabbath, even though that goes against his religious laws. Just before this account he rubs saliva in a man’s eyes to heal his blindness. Later he heals a deaf and mute man by sticking his fingers in the man’s ears then spitting and touching his tongue. And instead of just physically healing people, again and again, Jesus addresses their deeper spiritual need. He speaks to the evil spirits inhabiting people’s bodies, and he calls forward and commends people’s faith, saying: “Your faith has made you well.”

All the while, Jesus’ disciples closely accompany him, listening to his teachings and witnessing his miracles. They know that Jesus is the real deal. So, when John sees someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name who is not actually following Jesus it raises concern. After all, in Mark’s Gospel Jesus is the Son of God. He is the Messiah or the Christos, meaning: the anointed one. Who is this other healer? Do they even know Jesus? What power is this healer really drawing from?

So, John and the other disciples try to stop him, but when they tell Jesus, Jesus surprises them by saying: “Don’t stop him! Whoever is not against us is for us.” Or in the words of Eugene Peterson in the Message translation: “If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally.” While this other healer isn’t following Jesus like the disciples, he is still working towards the same goal; not working against Jesus’ mission. Like Jesus, he is bringing God’s kingdom to earth through bringing people back into wholeness. The same source of healing love working through Jesus is working through this unknown man.

Jesus warns John and his other disciples against putting stumbling blocks before him or other healers like him. Jesus calls them “little ones who believe in me.” “Little ones” meaning people who have little importance or are small in numbers. Likely referencing the people who are following Jesus from the fringes like this unknown healer. These followers of Jesus could be considered insignificant by his other followers as they are working on their own and there certainly aren’t many of them. In this case Jesus is saying: Don’t make it difficult for people who are furthering my work, but doing it differently than you are. Don’t get in their way or in the way of what God is doing. If you want to tell them to stop because you feel threatened, don’t! Instead, stop looking at other people as the problem and take responsibility for yourself.

When Jesus talks about cutting off your hand, or foot, or tearing out your eye if it causes you to stumble, he is shifting the focus from blaming others to looking at ourselves. In essence his teaching is asking: What about you is causing you to stumble? In other words: Deal with your own fears and doubts, envy, and pride. Remove all of your own inner obstacles. Let God burn them away like a refining fire. Then your authentic self can be preserved. Just like salt, you can become someone who doesn’t diminish but enhances God’s love at work in the world. And if your salt has lost its saltiness? As Meister Eckhart said: Get out of God’s way and let God be God in you.

There are many ways to practice getting out of God’s way and many ways to access deeper levels of healing. For me an effective way has been through Reiki energy healing. For you it may be a 12 step program, or serving at our food pantry, or coming to our contemplative prayer group. It may be trying something you haven’t tried before like an alternative healing modality, or something with eastern origins.

My invitation to each of us this morning is to let God’s Spirit blow where she will, moving and healing and bringing freedom in whatever way she pleases, reaching your deeper spiritual needs that no one else has been able to access, and reunifying your heart and mind and spirit. Know that you bear the name of Christ and when you seek healing in Jesus’ name he will be present as the real healer. He will burn away whatever doesn’t belong and will preserve whatever is meant to last.

So, may you have the audacity to let God’s love and Jesus’ presence become bigger than any of the limitations you have created around how the Divine exists or moves or works in the world. May God remove the obstacles within you that are preventing the Spirit from flowing freely. And may you practice getting out of God’s way so that God can be God in you.