World Quaker Day – George Fox 400
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
October 6, 2024
Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. The supportive scripture I have chosen for this Sunday is John 16:12-15 from The Message version.
“I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t handle them now. But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won’t draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said. He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver it to you. Everything the Father has is also mine. That is why I’ve said, ‘He takes from me and delivers to you.’
Today is our day – it is world Quaker Day! Friends World Committee on Consultation is responsible for us having a day to celebrate. If you are unfamiliar with FWCC, they represent Quakers around the world. They formed to answer the call from God for universal love by bringing together Friends of varying traditions and cultural experiences through worship, communications, and consultation – all to express our common heritage and Quaker message to the world.
This past August, FWCC helped 500 Quakers from 53 countries come together for a World Plenary Meeting in South Africa. At this gathering, they met to reaffirm that,
“God has no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no lips but ours, so we keep imagining a better world. I am because you are. I am because we are. I see you. We belong to each other. We are still here. We are one!”
I encourage you to go to the FWCC website and watch some of the gathering because it beautifully represents global Quakerism and shows that Friends are still here, alive and well.
Part of the World Plenary Meeting was also a celebration of the 400th birthday of our founder George Fox. Since, I was on Sabbatical when the celebration began in July, I decided to move our celebration to World Quaker Day, as it seemed appropriate with our current “Speak Truth to Power” series. As you might remember before I left, I had a part in kicking off the celebration over the summer by designing the cover of the special 2-edition, George Fox 400, Friends Journal.
As we have in each of the sermons in this series, I want to share a little of George Fox’s story, so that we can not only remember our roots and who we are celebrating, but also what we still can glean from the legacy of George Fox, today. I will be sharing his story from the Quakers in the World website.
George Fox was born and grew up in Fenny Drayton in Leicestershire in the turbulent times leading up to the [English] Civil War. At 12, he was apprenticed to a local tradesman, but he left home in 1643 to seek ‘the truth’, through listening to preachers and others, and developing his own ideas. He knew the Bible intimately, and it was central to his life, but he looked for other sources of inspiration too.
He came to believe that everyone, men and women alike, could encounter God themselves, through Jesus, so that priests were not needed. This experience need not be in a church: these ‘steeple houses’, and the tithes that supported them, were therefore unnecessary. Those who believed this became known as ‘Friends of Truth’.
He began talking to everyone he met about his ideas. He was soon in trouble with the authorities, and was imprisoned for the first time in Nottingham in 1649. According to Fox, the term ‘Quaker’ originated from a sarcastic remark by the judge in Fox’s second trial, in Derby, in 1650. in 1651, he was offered a commission in the army, but refused saying that 'he lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion for all wars'.
In 1652, he climbed Pendle Hill in Lancashire, where he had a vision of a “great people to be gathered” waiting for him. The beginning of the Society of Friends is usually dated from the day, soon afterwards, when Fox preached to large crowds on Firbank Fell, near Sedbergh, in Cumbria. Some days later, he was at Swarthmoor Hall, near Ulverston, home of Judge Fell, Margaret Fell and their family. His ideas were warmly received, and Swarthmoor became a vital hub for the Society of Friends, in Margaret’s capable hands.
Soon he and other Friends, the ‘Valiant Sixty’ or ‘Publishers of Truth’, were travelling all over the country, reporting back to Margaret Fell. Fox went to Cornwall, Wales and Scotland. There was a constant threat of persecution, but Judge Fell, though never a Friend himself, did a lot to protect them until he died in 1658. It was easy to find a Quaker guilty if you wanted to, as they wouldn’t swear oaths (explaining they always told the truth) they refused to pay tithes, and didn’t show proper respect to their ‘betters’ by bowing and doffing their hats (because people are all equal).
In 1660 Quakers and other dissidents were suspected of plotting against the new king. Fox responded with the first formulation of the Peace Testimony, stressing the commitment to nonviolence. Nevertheless, in 1664, Fox was imprisoned for over two years. He wrote a journal, covering his life so far, and kept it up until he died. He also made plans to organize the growing Society of Friends, devising a framework of local, monthly and yearly meetings that persists, more or less, to the present day.
In May 1669, Fox visited meetings in Ireland. On October 27th, he and Margaret Fell were married, after a round of “clearness” meetings to check whether they should. More than ninety Friends witnessed the marriage certificate. Their close partnership continued, but they could rarely spend much time together during their 20 years of marriage, due to Fox’s continued travels, much persecution, and periods of imprisonment for them both.
By now, there were many Friends in the Caribbean and in the colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America. In August 1671, after attending the first Yearly Meeting, in London, Fox and 12 companions set sail for Barbados, arriving in October. The Barbadian economy was slave-based, and some Friends were slave-owners. Fox protested at the poor treatment of slaves, and said they should be released after thirty years service.
In January 1672, they sailed to North America, via Jamaica. After seven weeks, they landed at Patuxent, in Chesapeake Bay, south of what is now Baltimore. Here there was a large Meeting – the forerunner of Baltimore Yearly Meeting. George and some others then went to a large Meeting on Long Island, before sailing to Rhode Island, where the Governor was a Friend. In June some of the party went north to Boston, while Fox and others went south, first to New Jersey, and then back to Chesapeake Bay before going on to Virginia and Carolina. In January 1673 they were back in Patuxent, where Fox spent the next four months meeting the local “Indian” tribes, an experience he found very productive. They returned home, to Bristol, in May.
After the 1675 Yearly Meeting, unwell, and tired, he made a slow coach journey north to Swarthmoor Hall. He spent the next two years there, the longest time he was ever at home. He rested some of the time but was also very busy with his journal and other writing. He never went north again, but Margaret came south when she could.
In 1677, Fox went with Robert Barclay, William Penn and others to Holland and Germany, where they saw the effects of the religious wars in other parts of Europe. In the 1680s he spent much time lobbying Parliament against persecution and went again to Holland in 1684. He lived to see the fruit of his labors, when the 1687 Declaration of Indulgence, confirmed by the 1689 Act of Toleration, finally enabled dissenters to worship freely.
Several meetinghouses were built before he died, in London, in January 1691. He was buried at Bunhill Fields, a non-conformist burial ground on the edge of the City of London.
Clearly, we would not be here today if there were not take-aways from the life of George Fox and his vision. Yet, I believe it is worth noting that Quakerism has never been about one man. Many Friends enjoy reading the works of George Fox, but Quakers are not “Foxists.”
Fox did not claim to be a theologian in the traditional sense, but rather alongside Margaret Fell, Elizabeth Hooten, James Naylor, and many others, was a preacher and organizer, who encouraged all to share the experience of the divine as revealed to them.
The Society of Friends was born of the coming together of people who were questioning conventional Christianity, as they gathered and journeyed on their spiritual paths. I find this fascinating because while being interviewed for Thee Quaker Podcast a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that First Friends has become a gathering of people, who many found themselves questioning the faith they grew up within or had been traveling with and seeking a new journey or spiritual path.
I remember when Megan Alderman and Andrew Hoff wrote their letter to Ministry and Counsel to seek membership. They wrote these words that were read at Monthly Meeting:
[Megan says,] I couldn't reconcile myself with much of the fundamental tenets of Catholicism--the patriarchy, the hierarchical power structure, the anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ foundation. During COVID we floundered a bit spiritually and it wasn't until we came out of COVID that we decided we wanted to try to find a spiritual community that felt more like home. In all honesty, I was bracing myself for the energy required for church-hopping, meeting new people, and trying to get the kids excited about a new church. Andrew, eager to return to his Quaker roots, suggested we start off at First Friends to see if Quakerism at this community felt like the right fit…
[A little later she goes on to explain feeling led to speak out of the silence on her first Sunday with us saying,] It was beautiful. I didn't even know the history of quaking or feeling called to speak out of the silence, but I was physically shaking and tearfully shared what was on my heart and it was such an affirmation and release…The decision to stay at FF was (almost embarrassingly) seamless!
I am so glad, Megan, Andrew and their kids Maeve and Abram found us and are now members, because I believe we at First Friends are continuing this very important Quaker legacy of being a gathering place for spiritual wanderers and seekers. And like George Fox and Margaret Fell, and the Valiant Sixty, we are providing a space for people to come together and explore their faith, ask questions, worship, and serve alongside one another.
It is the way of Quakers, as spiritual people in community, to exist in dialogue with one another and our forebears. And this also means, there is no need to always agree with every word that George Fox – or any other early Friend – spoke.
We have to remember his context and the breadth of his understanding and theology at the time. This is part of our evolution as Quakers and part of the fluidity of our Faith and Practice.
I will be the first to admit that we have veered away from some of the original beliefs of George Fox and even early Quakers, but that is probably for the best. Yet on occasion we may want to use it to help “reign us in” so we do not get too far away from our original vision and intent.
Take for example what I spoke of last week. We at First friends have embraced music and the arts and they play a much larger part in our Meeting than the first generation of Quakers and many Quaker meetings, still today. I don’t know how many Quakers I have met that are surprised we have an organ or even a large choir.
Early Quakers rejected music as a part of worship because they believed it was non-spontaneous and not in line with their values of simplicity and integrity. They also believed that singing together was often just parroting words, rather than expressing true beliefs. And not only is an organ, not a simple instrument, it can be very loud.
As well, Early Quakers also rejected art, including having one's portrait painted, because they believed it was an act of vanity that put the focus on oneself above God. The irony that I painted a modern art portrait of George Fox for the cover of Friends Journal.
Or take for example our celebration of religious holidays, especially Christmas for us at First Friends. George Fox would not have celebrated any special day; holidays, birthdays, Hallmark holidays, all on the basis that he believed every day to be the Lord’s Day, thus none were set apart or special but all equal. Again, I find it extremely ironic that I am saying this as we are celebrating World Quaker Day and George Fox’s 400th birthday!
Clearly, as you heard in Fox’s story, he dealt with mostly religious persecution and slavery, yet today we have expanded that and the top two things modern Quakers focus on are racial justice and environmental sustainability.
Probably one of the biggest ways we have evolved is in technology. And it has been fax machine-&-pager-slow coming… Yet thanks to the Pandemic, we jumped up to the late 90’s and now offer hybrid committee meetings and worship experiences, we offer Light Reflections of our worship in video, podcast, and email form each week. We connect through three social media sites on a daily basis with hundreds of people. Most of our correspondence is done through email. You probably even have a phone in your pocket that allows you to do all the above. This was unthinkable in George Fox’s day.
And I am quite fond of this one…Many Quakers today employ pastors and music directors, and children’s ministry directors. As well, I know many Unprogrammed or Silent Meetings who also have paid administrators or program directors, this probably has George Fox rolling in his grave because he believed there was no need for pastors, that we all had direct access to God – and we do, but we also believe in pastoral care and education that George Fox often fulfilled for the gathering communities.
Due to First Friends seeing our Faith and Practice as fluid, and always open for question and debate, we have gone to some major lengths to expand our view of marriage and sexuality to include our LGBTQ+ Friends because we believe in equality of all people. Other than equality, I am pretty sure George Fox did not address LGBTQ+ issues of his day.
And probably the most controversial issue for First Friends would have to be that we have a steeple. Yes, George Fox would have called our building a “steeple house” and said it was unnecessary.
But besides all of these changes, probably the most important legacy that George Fox left us and that we are still working to uphold are these words offered by George Fox in the mid-17th century.
“…be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone.”
I believe that sums up well our takeaway of George Fox. He was a pattern, an example, his carriage and life preached to an oppressed religious world, and yet he found a way to walk cheerfully and truly answer that of God in everyone he met. That is what we need again today in our world.
And since then, many generations have answered that call – we would not be meeting currently if this was not the case.
Now, it is First Friends’ turn to pick up the mantle and Speak our Truth to Power as George Fox did to his world, cheerfully, and with passion, utilizing our gifts as I said last week, among all sorts of people. And may First Friends be a place where spiritual wanderers and seekers, together hear the call that may change our world.
As we contemplate how we will answer this call, take a moment to consider the following queries:
1. Which aspects of early Quaker tradition still speak to me, today?
2. What aspects of Quaker tradition are most important to pass on to the next generation?
3. If early Friend’s actions were seen as radical and even cutting edge in their time, how am I responding to the challenges I face in the 21st century in a way that builds on Quaker insights?