5-27-18 - Taking the Turns: A Labyrinth Journey

Taking the Turns: A Labyrinth Journey

Indianapolis First Friends
Pastor Bob Henry
May 27, 2018

Psalm 25:4-10

4 Show me how you work, God;
School me in your ways.

5 Take me by the hand;
Lead me down the path of truth.
You are my Savior, aren’t you?

6 Mark the milestones of your mercy and love, God;
Rebuild the ancient landmarks!

7 Forget that I sowed wild oats;
Mark me with your sign of love.
Plan only the best for me, God!

8 God is fair and just;
He corrects the misdirected,
Sends them in the right direction.

9 He gives the rejects his hand,
And leads them step-by-step.

10 From now on every road you travel
Will take you to God.
Follow the Covenant signs;
Read the charted directions.

This morning, not only are we in the “oval” (I guess you could say it is more of a round), we are also gathered around an ancient symbol of the Church.  Now, I know that we, Quakers, are not typically fond of symbolism, but this is not the typical Church symbol, instead it is a tool or aid which allows us to experience our spiritual journeys in a new way. 

I want to thank Warren Lynn a pastor with the Disciples of Christ who provided our labyrinth. One of his ministries and passions are labyrinths and he allowed us to borrow this beautiful canvas labyrinth for our experience.  Please respect it by taking off your shoes when walking on it.  I will remind us again before we begin the experience.  

To help us better understand what is before us, let me give you some history, especially if you are not familiar with labyrinths.  Labyrinths seemed to develop around the twelfth century as a substitute for making a pilgrimage to a holy site.  Labyrinths are not mazes or race courses, even though kids often think of them in this way, nor are they something magical. 

As well, please understand, walking the labyrinth is not a newfangled technique to automatically jumpstart your spiritual life or find a specific answer to a problem or issue in your journey. 

Rather, experiencing the labyrinth is a slow, quiet, meditative, practice that has historically attended to the desire to make a journey toward God.  Dr. Ian Bradley, a pilgrimage leader for people of all faiths, describes it as a departure from daily life on a journey in search of a spiritual well-being.

The early church connected it with the early pilgrimages to Jerusalem – thus many old Christian churches have them built into the mosaic floors or their sacred places of worship. 

A few years back, my family had the opportunity to visit Grace Cathedral in San Francisco – a grand space with both a labyrinth as you enter the sanctuary, and one outside for those not interested in the journey within the church building.  I also have experienced labyrinths at hospitals, retreat centers, on the beach, and in public parks.

 Often on or around labyrinths you will see the latin phrase, “Solvitur Ambulando” which in Latin means "it is solved by walking" and is used to refer to a problem which is solved by a practical experiment.  This past year in Seeking Friends, we have been studying Brian McLaren’s book, “We Make the Road by Walking.” Brian describes this process this way, he says,

“The title suggests that faith was never intended to be a destination, a status, a holding tank, or a warehouse. Instead it was to be a road, a path, a way out of old and destructive patterns into new and creative ones. As a road or way, it is always being extended into the future. If a spiritual community only points back to where it has been or if it only digs in its heels where it is now, it is a dead end or a parking lot, not a way. To be a living tradition, a living way, it must forever open itself forward and forever remain unfinished – even as it forever cherishes and learns from the growing treasury of the path.”   

The imagery of “the way,” “the road,” “the light unto my path” are all biblical in nature, yet how do we translate the labyrinth experience into our Quaker tradition. 

My friend and fellow Quaker poet, Nancy Thomas, from the Pacific Northwest, wrote of her experience with the Labyrinth at North Valley Friends Meeting in Newberg, OR. (another labyrinth I have enjoyed journeying).  

She says this: 

In some senses a labyrinth seems antithetical to Quakerism, with its formal path to the center and its high symbolism of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It makes me think of Anglican or Catholic spirituality, or, more lately, of New Age practices. But here sits a classical labyrinth on Quaker ground. And I’m one Quaker who uses it regularly.

As I draw on the Quaker conviction of the light of Christ in every person or culture, the adaptation and use of other spiritualities, when appropriate, seems entirely a Quaker thing to do. It certainly fits in with another conviction, that Christ is here among us and speaks to us in the gathered meeting and through any medium the Spirit chooses.

What I love about the practice of walking the labyrinth is that it engages my whole person. The physicality of walking, the sensuality of the beautiful setting, the spiritual focus on drawing near to God, these all combine to help me worship and pray.

I agree with Nancy’s experience. I find walking and praying through a labyrinth very Quakerly in nature.  In walking the labyrinth you leave behind the noise and hurry of life – what we Quakers call simplifying.   Just as you would pack simply for a pilgrimage, you offer your load to God as you begin your prayer journey. 

One of things that I hear most often in conversations, appointments, spontaneous meetings is the burdens of the baggage that people of faith are carrying. This experience allows one to begin to lay those burden down. 

Also, the prayer-path structure moves you slowly (now that is Quaker), toward the center and toward God.  This is again symbolic of what we Quakers call “centering down.”  Quaker Rich Lewis says that “centering down” in the Quaker tradition could be considered a contemplative prayer practice. He says it consists of three steps: release, receive and rest.   In the same way, the labyrinth allows for each of those steps to manifest at your own pace.  As you center down and begin to release your burdens and allow God to speak into your life you enter a journey (it can happen anywhere – in your chair, in a garden, in your car, or even on the labyrinth before you this morning).

With the Labyrinth, as in life, at times you sense you are close to the center and at other times along your journey you may be farther from the center.  This represents the reality of the spiritual journey.  As we keep moving through, we are always getting closer to the center and to God, no matter how far away it looks in real space. 

At the center of the labyrinth journey you can stop and rest in the presence of the Spirit, listening for a word for you from the Spirit (this is just like we do during waiting worship). The difference is that with the Labyrinth we are physically on a journey. 

So once you arrive at the center you must listen and rest and then begin to make your way out into the world with what you have received from God on your journey.

On many occasions, I have heard very clearly from the Spirit on my journeys of the Labyrinth, and on other occasions, I have simply had to discipline myself to stay the course without any special word from the Spirit. 

Either way, the journey has been important to my discipline of taking time to release some burden, being expectant and open to receiving from God, and learning to rest and slow down. Something I believe we all need in our day and age.

Now, to get us started in this, I want to ask us some queries (which you will find on the back of the bulletin for this morning).  These are to help you center down and begin your experience.  As well, there is a cheat sheet in your bulletin labeled, “A Guide for Walking the Labyrinth” to give you prompts as your journey.  

In a few moments, I will ask you to take a couple deep breathes and relax your mind so you can clearly begin to process and I will read the queries.  After some silence to ponder those queries and begin your centering, Eric will play some instrumental music to set the tone for you to start your journey or waiting worship. 

Please note: If you do not feel led to experience the labyrinth, please use this time as waiting worship in silence as others journey.  When you feel led or nudged to begin, please come to the entrance of the labyrinth (point it out) and remember to remove your shoes before you begin.  Be courteous and respectful of fellow travelers.  When the Labyrinth is clear, Eric will close us in song. 

Now, let us take some deep breaths and calm our hearts.

I will now read the queries for us to ponder as we prepare for our journey this morning.   

·        Where are you in your current spiritual journey?

·        Have you traveled a long way?

·        Do you feel close to God or far away?

·        If you go on a journey this morning – what things will you need to leave behind?

·        How might you leave these burdens behind you here and now?

5-20-18 - Tapping a Viral Energy

Tapping a Viral Energy
Indianapolis First Friends
Pastor Robert Henry
May 20, 2018

This morning, I am going share with you something a little different – I am not simply going to preach or exegete the passage Eric just read, but rather share from my heart about my understanding of the current condition of Quakerism in our world. Karla Jay from our fellow Friend’s Meeting, Iglesia Amigos asked me to give the keynote address at a small conference she was putting together a couple weeks ago. Some of you were there – I was grateful for your attendance and your encouragement to share this with our Meeting.

Karla wanted me to talk about the grounding of social justice in our Quaker tradition and in scripture, but I sensed a deeper call.  In preparing to speak I had already begun thinking through my own personal experience within the universal church and among Friends. You may not know that for 20+ years, I have been dedicated to ministry and taking action in cities like Chicago, IL, Detroit, MI, Portland, OR, and now here in our great city of Indianapolis. I have not only been involved in activism, advocacy, and teaching, but, I have learned the importance of the behind-the-scenes daily grunt work of learning to become a faithful presence in the communities and neighborhoods in which I have and currently live. This morning, my hope is that you will get a sense of potential, maybe some challenge, and hopefully a clearer vision of who we are and where we are going as a peculiar people called Quakers.    

Let me start this way….

I have been there – no hope, no vision, no sense of purpose – ready to give up. Ironically, this was also how I felt about Quakers at one time. Please understand, it is not the way I feel anymore. This revived confidence was sparked in the midst of great challenges and personal weakness. As one who became a Friend after much study and experience in a variety of faith traditions, I realized that Friends have a great deal to offer our world today, but many are missing out because of a lack of energy. Let me explain.

Most of us know that Quakers across our country have been embroiled in battles over a multitude of issues, many relating directly to our action and the people we serve, and the lasting effects cause everything from exhaustion to some actually giving up. I guess we all could sit around arguing to get our way or hoping for a better outcome someday, but, let’s be honest, that is not going to get us far.

Quakers come from a long history of passionate people who not only argued and hoped, but passionately and confidently lived out what they believed. History records them as fearless in their pursuits and trailblazing new paths. From women’s rights to the abolition of slavery to becoming sanctuaries for refugees…whether we were marching with Dr. King for civil rights, protesting war through sit-ins, or simply inviting our neighbors over for dinner, we have had an active, prominent Quaker voice that has made way for change and drew people to be that change.

Those voices came forth from enthusiastic and willing women and men who went the extra mile and lived against the grain of society.  People like Elizabeth Abegg the German educator who rescued Jews during the holocaust, or John Woolman who campaigned for years against slavery until it was abolished. Or Bayard Rustin the gay, African-American civil rights and LGBTQ leader who stood with Dr. King, or Elizabeth Fry who reformed English prisons. These are just to name a few.  They possessed an energy that is rarely seen in Quakerism, today.

What I would label a “viral energy” – one that spreads rapidly through a population by being enthusiastically shared with a number of individuals.

[Repeat]

Not only have religious niceties, worldly comforts, overt busyness, and mass consumerism taken a toll on our viral energy, many Quakers today find themselves defaulting to religious conformity and simply wanting to be right.

What happened to being different?

What happened to being radical?

What happened to seeking a truth that can make things happen in the world?

What has happened to our action?

In my lowest moments when I began to give up, I realized my viral energy was starting to wane. As I preached and spoke of looking for “that of God in my neighbor,” I had stopped looking for that of God in myself. I no longer had confidence in the message I had been given, nor did I have the energy to live differently. I had become disconnected, broken, and useless to myself, and thus to Quakerism as well. I was no longer enjoying what had drawn me to the Quaker Way in the beginning. The light within had dimmed, and survival had set in.

Everything became about arguing my position and others being my enemy, and I’ll have to be honest, I began lacking personal awareness. Things became rather myopic and all about salvaging me – no longer a positive viral energy, but rather more like a negative virus to my system.  

Where was the gathered meeting?

Who was discerning with me?  

What happened to me bearing witness to life together with my community?  

That is just it.  I became, what I believe much of Quakerism currently finds itself, caught up in -- bondage.  

Many Quakers are in bondage to traditions, to the glory days, to a specific experience, set of beliefs, ministry, or even leader. Often, I have found well-meaning Quakers telling stories from 40-50 years ago and thinking somehow things will magically change in the present. There is clearly a disconnect. The energy surrounding those stories are not translated into finding new ways to go viral and take action in the present. Probably because we have chosen to tell the same stories for so long that we began worshipping the traditions and the past instead of rendering it for a new generation. This leaves us in bondage to our past and little hope for going viral and taking action in the present.  

The darkness of bondage can be overwhelming, but it also can make the light seem much more brilliant.

Even though I, personally, had hit bottom, I had not been completely destroyed. As I climbed out of my pit of despair, I began to notice my energy increase. I not only rediscovered myself, I began to rediscover my love for the Quaker Way.  I laid aside the arguing, the reveling in the past, and the comforts and went on a new search for Truth. 

What I didn’t realize at the time was that my journey was very Quaker in nature. Our Quaker ancestors found themselves feeling empty within the church of their day and learned to live with viral energy the foundational virtues of simplicity, peace, integrity, community and equality. The early Quakers found these virtues in the teachings of Jesus’ apostles and the life and ministry of Jesus, himself.  Early on, our Quaker ancestors wanted us to return to living out these virtues. 

Jesus in his very first sermon outlined this ministry of action.  Luke 4:18-19 records Jesus’ words - he says:

8 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

    because he has anointed me

    to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

    and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

19     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[a]

This is what he taught his disciples and they lived out.  This is what we are to do as well. 

Even Jesus’ own mother sang prophetically in her Magnificat of Jesus’ life and ministry and how it would affect us.  As you know from back at Christmas, I love Joy Crowley’s translation of Mary’s words, she says,

This goes deeper than human thinking.

I am filled with awe

at Love whose only condition

is to be received.

The gift is not for the proud,

for they have no room for it.

The strong and self-sufficient ones

don’t have this awareness.

But those who know their emptiness

can rejoice in Love’s fullness.

It’s the Love that we are made for,

the reason for our being.

It fills our inmost heart space

and brings to birth in us, the Holy One.

It’s the Love that we are made for!

Or as Bishop Michael Curry said in the sermon at the Royal Wedding just yesterday.

“When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook. When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the Earth will be a sanctuary. When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields, down by the riverside to study war no more. When love is the way, there's plenty good room — plenty good room — for all God's children. And when love is the way, we actually treat each other, well, like we are actually family. When love is the way, we know that God is the source of us all, and we are brothers and sisters, children of God.”

I realized that if I was to find that resurrection and hope for the future which the bible so clearly speaks of, or if Quakerism was to be resurrected, it was going to first take learning to truly live again and embrace this love.

The most profound thing I was learning was that Quakerism

was not going to change until I did.

Our presence or the way we live in this world is the key to what I believe will revive Quakerism, break the bondage, and engage our active life. When we, Quakers, awaken to this reality, we start to realize that we are integral to creating a more just, loving, and peaceable world - just as Jesus did.  We are to build healthy communities, not arguing, divisive, proof-seeking, unwelcoming places of fear.  The Bible is clear that Jesus was opening the door to ALL people. 

Our viral energy should be put into creating spaces where differences are appreciated, cultures are celebrated, and where the process of life and living is explored together.  When this happens, new stories begin to emerge, new energy flows, the bondage of our past is broken, and the message goes viral in our world.  And folks that means lives are changed now and forever! 

For several years now, a personal revival has been taking place in my own life. Not only am I seeing young and old (even in my own family) being drawn again to the Quaker Way because new stories, new possibilities, and new people are working together to build the type of community that our ancestors wanted and lived out, but I am excited and filled again with a viral energy about what Quakerism has to offer my neighbors, community, and First Friends.

It is clear that our world has been desperately crying out for a new way to translate life and find hope. Don’t you feel or sense it?

Because I have seen the impact the Quaker way is having in the eyes of youth, college students, young adults, I have full faith that our future is ripe. These next generations are not in bondage to their past, but easily could be if we don’t, with a viral energy, embrace hope and possibility for their future.

A while back, I was watching the Disney movie “Tomorrowland” with my youngest son.  As I was pondering the future of Quakerism, I could not help myself be moved by this quote,  

"In every moment there's a possibility of a better future, but you people won't believe it. And because you won't believe it you won't do what is necessary to make it a reality."

[Repeat]

I have wondered at times, could it be that Quakerism has lost its belief of a better future?  

Folks, please hear me on this - I DO NOT believe this. I sense now, more than ever, it is time to do whatever is necessary to lift the bondage, embrace the future, gather the people of ALL cultures, nationalities, and races, and make Quakerism a viable reality with a viral impact in our world, again.  

I believe strongly, that it is going to take embracing new ways of coming together, new uses of social media, new teaching methods, new art and music, new activism, and a new translation of those biblical and Quakerly distinctives for today’s society. I think you would agree that we need to simplify our lives, be a more peaceful people, act with more integrity, gather and know our community, seek equality on a multitude of levels, and work for sustainability while being good stewards of our resources.  

We will need to explore all the possibilities, not just those that worked in the past. It is going to take us living new stories and inviting others to join us. People we may not even be comfortable with or who we have rejected in the past.

It is going to take a willingness to get-up-and-go and get out of our boxes and experience new things. That means it is going to take RISK, which means it will take a new you and me, full of viral energy, possibility, and belief and attitude that this can be a reality, NOW!  

Friends, it is time to make Quakerism go viral. It is time to believe, again! It’s time for action!

As we enter our time of waiting worship, take a moment to ponder the query in your bulletin:

What am I doing to lift the bondage, embrace the future, and make Quakerism a viable reality with a viral impact in our world, again?

5-13-18 - Of Wild Grace and Swiftness

Of Wild Grace and Swiftness

Indianapolis First Friends

Pastor Bob Henry

May 13, 2013

Acts 9:36-43 (MSG)

36-37 Down the road a way in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha, “Gazelle” in our language. She was well-known for doing good and helping out. During the time Peter was in the area she became sick and died. Her friends prepared her body for burial and put her in a cool room.

38-40 Some of the disciples had heard that Peter was visiting in nearby Lydda and sent two men to ask if he would be so kind as to come over. Peter got right up and went with them. They took him into the room where Tabitha’s body was laid out. Her old friends, most of them widows, were in the room mourning. They showed Peter pieces of clothing the Gazelle had made while she was with them. Peter put the widows all out of the room. He knelt and prayed. Then he spoke directly to the body: “Tabitha, get up.”

40-41 She opened her eyes. When she saw Peter, she sat up. He took her hand and helped her up. Then he called in the believers and widows, and presented her to them alive.

42-43 When this became known all over Joppa, many put their trust in the Master. Peter stayed on a long time in Joppa as a guest of Simon the Tanner.

I love that Eugene Peterson in his translation of the story of Tabitha takes us one step further and gives us the what Tabitha’s name actually means in her language.  I think it brings a bigger picture to the story.  Names have such meaning in the Bible. On “gotquestions.org” they point out that often when God changed a person’s name and gave him or her a new name, it was usually to establish a new identity.

God changed Abram’s "high father" name to “Abraham,” which now means "father of a multitude" and his wife’s name from “Sarai,” “my princess,” to “Sarah,” “mother of nations”.  Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter meaning Rock – “a foundation to build on.” And the examples go on and on throughout scripture.  

Our text for this morning, was not one of these type of name changes as I just explained.  Instead the meaning of Tabitha’s name, I believe gives us a deeper meaning to the text.  Like Adam meaning literally Earth Man or from the earth.  Tabitha in our text has a Greek name – also known as – Dorcas.  

Now, we can all understand, in our day, why she might want to change her name.  But Dorcas was really a derivative of the Greek word Eudorcas – literally a species of gazelle.  

Eugene Peterson points this out for some reason.  Some may say it only confuses things.  First it is Tabitha, then Dorcas, now Gazelle…this could get confusing. 

Well, all this would not have even phased me or had me thinking any deeper, until a couple of summers ago.  As the boys and I made our trek across the country to meet up with Sue for her father’s funeral, we took in a lot of America’s scenery – 8 states in three days.  

And with that scenery came wildlife.  As Alex and I took turns driving, I began spotting wildlife that I never noticed while focused on the road.  Please understand, one of the reasons I love my wife is for her adventurous spirit. Often the boys roll their eyes as their mother has our family driving several miles out of our way just in hopes of seeing a wild animal  that we have possibly never seen before (in Oregon it was always whales or elk).  Yet, going across the country and through Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons and all the terrain of the states between Oregon and Michigan we checked off a ton of new animals – from bears, to moose, to yes, gazelles.  

The first gazelles we saw were along the road in Nebraska of all places. I believe it was a deer and gazelle wildlife park.  At first, I thought they were just small deer, but the antlers and color patterns gave them away.  We saw more while in Yellowstone, but most of the time when we got closer they were just mule deer. 

I tried to take pictures of the gazelle, but they liked hiding in the tall grass.  Often they were so still they looked like statues or sticks coming out of the ground with their distinct antlers.  I remember watching them while Alex drove and remember them seeming almost so still they looked dead.  Actually, if they were lying down with their heads low they looked like rocks or they just blended into the scenery.  We probably saw many more, but never noticed them. 

One website says that gazelles are considered to be an animal of “wild grace and swiftness.” At times they can seem statuesque with very little movement only to come alive and bound across the plains.  This was my experience.  As I watched, this seemingly lifeless animal would go from complete stillness to a full leap and all out run across the fields.  It was with such grace and beauty.  One minute seemingly dead and the next minute alive and full of vigor! 

There could not be a better word to describe Tabitha – especially in our story for this morning. 

Peter said, “Tabitha, get up!”  You are no longer dead but alive to continue to do good and help out.  Like a gazelle she goes from what seems complete death to aliveness.  Tabitha experiences what I like to call the “resurrection life” in the present.

I don’t know about you, but I often catch myself kind of walking dead through life – and I so need a resurrection in the present moment. 

Theologian NT Wright points out what this looks like for us. Often we are taught, 

“…one day you will go to be with him [Jesus]” but he says, “No, you already possess life in him [Jesus]. This new life, which the Christian possesses secretly, invisible to the world, will burst forth into full bodily reality and visibility.” 

Just like a gazelle bursts forth into wild grace swiftness.”  Just like Tabitha as Peter asks her to “get up!” 

So where is our hope of this “bursting forth” in our lives.  Let’s look at Romans 8:9-11 (MSG). 

9-11 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!

Tabitha the Gazelle experienced that in its fullest form. As Quakers we can understand this – we too would say the Spirit of Christ was still embodying her.  She was known for embodying the Spirit of Christ and living it out in her life. Our text said she was well-known for doing good and helping out – living the life of Christ in her world.  

And Peter calls out to that Spirit within her – even though she seemed physically dead – there was life in her. This is what we need to recognize in our world – that the resurrection life can awaken in anyone, it can burst forth from our dead lives, it can burst forth from dead institutions, it can burst forth from dead ways – because resurrection life – ALWAYS FINDS A WAY, folks! 

Tabitha’s story is a picture of what we have to hope for – what we can look forward to in the present– what we as Quakers want to experience in our world. 

NT Wright concludes that 

“…all this relates directly to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:58:

“58 With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.”

…the resurrection means that what you do in the present, in working hard to bring hope, is not wasted. It is not in vain. It will be completed, will have its fulfillment, in God’s future.” 

So you and I are called to live like Tabitha the Gazelle. 

May we be well-known for doing good and helping out – living the resurrection life now – the Jesus way in our world.   

Let’s not waste our lives, or our time, but rather work hard in the present. 

Nothing should get in our way – not even death.  But instead, we may actually find ourselves coming through the death experiences and finding ourselves getting up with wild grace and swiftness and fulfilling the resurrected life in the present moment!  

First Friends, I believe we are on the verge of great things.  God is calling to us to “GET UP, because WE ARE ALIVE!” 

I want to close this morning with pondering the words of Eugene Peterson from his book “Living the Resurrection.” He says,

“In this resurrection-created world, we find ourselves as allies and companions to friends, bound to one another not out of need or liking or usefulness but because there are common operations taking place among and within us. We are part of something larger and other than ourselves that we cannot adequately be part of by ourselves.”

That something larger is the resurrection life God wants for us. To experience it we need each other.  We need to, like Peter did for Tabitha, help each other get up and be presented as ALIVE. 

Take a moment and look around this room.  We each have been through a lot, we have experienced death in many forms, and for some we are experiencing it as we speak. 

Yet, the query for today is…

How can you and I be allies, companions, and friends and help each other turn the death around us into life? 

With wild grace and swiftness may we come alive to our world, TODAY!

4-29-18 - Blessed is Mr. Rogers

Blessed is Mister Rogers

By Daniel Lee

I’ve always loved that one of the names that the early Quakers gave to themselves was “Children of the Light.” The experiences of our childhood follow us through all the days of our lives. Yet even as adults, we still in many ways remain children – we have the same basic need, to love and to be loved, as children.

In 2016, I went to London on a work trip. The one day I had some free time was Sunday, so I went to Westminster Quaker Meeting for worship. The theme for worship that day was children. At the beginning of the hour long silent worship someone read this following passage from the London Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice book. The passage was written in 1980 by Elizabeth Watson. I found it to be beautiful and power.

I wanted to read it to you this morning to set the tone for today’s message on Mister Rogers. I believe this passage speaks to us as adults who interact with the children around us, but also speaks to us ourselves as children of God:

“Our children are given to us for a time to cherish, to protect, to nurture, and then to salute as they go their separate ways. They too have the light of God within, and a family should be a learning community in which children not only learn skills and values from parents, but in which adults learn new ways of experiencing things and seeing things through young eyes. From their birth on, let us cultivate the habit of dialogue and receptive listening. We should respect their right to grow into their own wholeness, not just the wholeness we may wish for them. If we lead fulfilling lives ourselves, we can avoid overprotecting them or trying to live through them… The family is a place to practice being ‘valiant for the truth’. We can live lives of integrity, letting both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ come out of the depth of truth within us, careful of the truth in all our dealings, so that our words and our lives speak the same message. We cannot expect our children to be honest with us or anyone else if they hear us stretching the truth for convenience or personal gain. They are quick to catch such discrepancies. Moreover, we should trust them enough to be honest with them about family problems – disasters, serious illness, impending death. It is far harder on children not to know what is wrong.”

Back in the 1980s, my dad was a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and was a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. He’d go swimming at the Pitt pool and sometimes he’d see Fred Rogers swimming there. Mister Rogers’ TV show originated from WQED in Pittsburgh. As a pediatric endocrinologist, my dad saw very young patients were very complex growth issues, some were extremely small for their age, making them easy targets at school. Others had conditions with how they were developing as boys or girls, issues that made them look different than other children in the most fundamental of ways.

So, my dad asked if he could come to Mister Rogers office and talk with him about his work and about helping to reduce anxiety and stress in young patients. Mister Rogers made time for him, and they had a nice meeting.

At some point during their meeting, my dad asked Fred Rogers about one of the song’s he had sung on his Mister Rogers Neighborhood PBS TV show. The song is entitled, “Everybody’s Fancy.”

The song opens with these lyrics:

“Some are fancy on the outside.
Some are fancy on the inside.
Everybody's fancy.
Everybody's fine.
Your body's fancy and so is mine.”

My dad, the pediatrician, asked Mister Rogers if this song was written to help both boys and girls, no matter who they are, to feel good about themselves as they grow and develop.

Mister Rogers said, yes, it was.

Awhile after that, when I was about 20, I was home from college and went in with my dad to work at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. In the parking garage we saw Mister Rogers. My dad introduced us. “It’s very nice to meet you, Daniel,” he said.

He friendly welcoming tone was the exact same in person as it was in TV. He seemed to genuinely happy to see me. I’ll never forget that chance encounter! I was a college student, not a little boy, but Mister Rogers made me feel special.

Actually, it still makes me feel special!

I was born in 1968, the same year Mister Rogers Neighborhood debuted on PBS. That was a pretty scary year, with war, social turmoil, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. These are scary times now, too, aren’t they?

Maybe that’s why now, with the 50th anniversary of the show, Mister Rogers is getting so much attention. I was in a gift store recently and saw a coffee mug with Mister Rogers coffee mug where his cardigan would change colors when you poured in hot tea or coffee. There’s a new documentary about Mister Rogers set for release in June. Tom Hanks is set to play Mister Rogers in another upcoming movie.

Fred McFeely Rogers, born in 1928 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, was a composer, writer, puppeteer, an ordained Presbyterian minister, and an expert in children development. He was a man deeply in touch and deeply influenced by the loving people of his own childhood. His grandfather, Fred McFeely, was the special person in his life who made young Fred Rogers feel loved and special.

People are hungry for this sort of love -- love in its most simple form. They’re so hungry for honesty – honesty in its most simple form. People are also hungry for integrity – integrity in its most simple form. 

Mister Rogers lived his life in the spirit of Christ beautiful commandment, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them…” His life’s work reflected a sincere love, compassion, and integrity that it touches the human soul deeply.

Throughout our lives we all have the same basic needs as children – we need to be loved, we need to feel valued, we need a community, and we need to be dealt with honestly.

Today I was to focus on three areas in which we can learn from and be inspired by Mister Rogers. These also happen to be three areas at the core of the Quaker way of living:

1.      Mister Rogers’ speech was plain and honest

2.      Mister Rogers’ inner life was disciplined and consistent with his outer life

3.      Mister Rogers’ life shined the love of Christ

First, Mister Rogers’ speech was plain and honest.

He told children that it was a natural thing to be sad or to be angry just as it was natural to be happy and joyful. We must learn to accept and handle all emotions and situations in life.

Mister Rogers talked with children about how he coped with the death of his dog Mitzi and talk with children whose parents were going through divorce. He would have on his show people with disabilities and in a straight forward and sensitive way ask them about their wheelchair and about their lives. The children could see they too were special people with challenges but also with great talents and abilities. 

As I began work on this message several weeks ago my wife, Jennifer, gave me this book, “The World According to Mister Rogers.” It’s a collection of short quotes, essays, and song lyrics. I want to read several to you today.

This first excerpt illustrates Mister Rogers ability to talk plainly to adults as well as children:

“I received a letter from a parent who wrote: ‘Mister Rogers, how do you do it? I wish I were like you. I want to be patient and quiet and even-tempered, and always speak respectfully to my children. But that just isn’t my personality. I often lose my patience and even scream at my children. I want to change from an impatient person into a patient person, from an angry person into a gentle one.’

Responding to this, Mister Rogers wrote: “Just as it takes time for children to understand what real love is, it takes time for parents to understand that being always patient, quiet, even-tempered, and respectful isn’t necessarily what ‘good’ parents are. In fact, parents help children by expressing a wide range of feelings – including appropriate anger. All children need to see that the adults in their lives can feel anger and not hurt themselves or anyone else when they feel that way.”

Mister Rogers’ speech was plain and honest.

Second, Mister Rogers’ inner life was disciplined and consistent with his outer life.

I once told someone I know about meeting Mister Rogers. That person then told me that he had heard that Mister Rogers had been a military sniper before starting his children’s TV show. Of course, this was a complete lie. If you look on the Internet, you will find that Mister Rogers is the subject to numerous Urban legends and lies.

There’s another image around the Internet of Mister Rogers appearing to give the middle finger to the camera. They think it’s funny. In reality, Mister Rogers was singing Where is Thumpkin… There’s Thumkin the thumb, pointer the first finger, and “tall man,” the middle figure.

We live in a cynical world in which all too often we see that prominent people have very real flaws and do great harm to others. But from everything we know, Mister Rogers was exactly who he purported to be. His inner life was consistent with his outer life.

Mister Rogers shows us we can be that same way! Mister Rogers constructed this consistent inner and outer world through a life of faith and discipline.

Writing about her husband, Joanne Rogers said this: “If I were asked for three words to describe him, I think those words would be courage, love, and discipline – perhaps in that very order.”

I mentioned earlier that my dad used to see Mister Rogers on his daily swim. Mister Rogers wrote this of his daily workout:

“I live to swim, but there are some days I just don’t feel much like doing it – but I do it anyway! I know it’s good for me and I promised myself I’d do it every day, and I like to keep my promises. That’s one of my disciplines. And it’s a good feeling after you’ve tried and done something well. Inside you think, ‘I’ve kept at this and I’ve really learned it – not by magic, but by my own work.”

A life of love is a life of discipline.

In his song, “You’ve Got to Do It,” Mister Rogers wrote these words:

“You can make believe it happens.

Or you can pretend that something’s true.

You can wish or hope or contemplate

A thing you’d like to do.

But until you start to do it,

You will never see it through

‘Cause that make-believe pretending

Just won’t do it for you.

Mister Rogers’ inner life was disciplined and consistent with his outer life.

Third, Mister Rogers’ life shined the love of Christ.

Mister Rogers found so many ways to tell people they were special. On the front of my autographed photo of Mister Rogers I received all those years ago in Pittsburgh he wrote, “For Dan – with kindest personal regards I’ve glad to have met you.” On the back of the photo, he wrote a second short note that simply read: “Kindness of your dad.” He wanted us both to feel special.

On his TV show in 1969, amid racial tensions and strife, he invited the character Officer Clemmons, an African American, on his show. It was a hot summer day and Mister Rogers was resting his feet in a plastic pool of water. He invited Officer Clemmons to join him, helping him to dry his feet.

This was Mister Rogers humble and world changing ministry. This ministry is a good feeling, and it’s open to all of us, in the smallest of ways every day.

I want to send us into silent worship by reading these words from Fred McFeely Rogers:

“The purpose of life is to listen – to yourself, to your neighbor, to your world, and to God and, when the time comes, to respond in as helpful a way as you can find… from within and without.”

Blessed is Mister Rogers!

4-22-18 - The Gift of Place

The Gift of Place

Indianapolis First Friends

Pastor Bob Henry

April 22, 2018

Job 12:7-10 (NRSV)

7 “But ask the animals, and they will teach you;
    the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8 ask the plants of the earth,[a] and they will teach you;
    and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
9 Who among all these does not know
    that the hand of the Lord has done this?
10 In his hand is the life of every living thing
    and the breath of every human being.

I want to begin this Earth Day message with a spiritual exercise and some queries to focus our attention on this morning.  I have barrowed these thoughts from Ignatian Spirituality.  If you are not familiar with Ignatius of Antioch (who lived 35-107AD) – he was considered one of the Early Church Fathers, a disciple of the Apostle John, one of the first Bishops of the Church, and ended up a martyr for the faith.

Often when Quakers have sought to return to the “faith of the apostles” (as our history notes) they find great commonality and connection with Ignatius’ profound words in his writings on, what he labels, “Spiritual Exercises.” This is because his work is foundational in the mystical tradition – a tradition that Quakers find themselves categorized in often. 

If you have ever read any of the work of Quaker Richard Foster or even the Renovaré curriculum it is heavily influenced by Ignatius’ work. It was Richard Foster who taught (and I believe heavily borrowed from Ignatius) that there are three great books that guide our lives, 1) the book of scripture, 2) the book of experience, and 3) the book of nature. 

As well, Ignatius was one of the first theologians to connect our spiritual exercises with ecology and creation. So, it seems natural or fitting to utilize his work this morning on Earth Day.  

As most Ignatian Exercises begin, I would like for us to begin this morning with taking a deep breath.  (Notice how your whole body relaxes as you breathe in and exhale.) 

Take another deep breath.  (This time notice that the air coming into your lungs through your nose is free and plentiful: even in this meetingroom, there is more than enough air for everyone.

Finally, take another deep breath.  The atoms of air that you breath in and out are a shared gift – shared both with other humans and with the creatures and plants of the Earth.

This air constitutes a radical physical connectedness with all other living beings. 

Because of our intricate interconnectedness with each other in and through the natural world, what has been called environmentalism – concern for that which is around us becomes ecological awareness. 

Trileigh Tucker speaking on this says,

“The word ‘ecology’ comes from two Greek roots: oikos meaning ‘house’ and logos, meaning ‘reason’ or ‘discourse’.  When we shift from speaking of the environment (that which is around us but does not include us) to speaking of ecology, then, we are thinking in a new way: not about a distant object, but rather about the network of relationships within which we live: our own house, our home.

Or as we say this morning – EARTH.  

To help you connect with your experience of this place – earth, I want to help you make that connection this morning through a simple Ignatian exercise.  

Take a moment to allow your mind to travel to the first natural place (or place in nature) to which you felt connected as a child, or another natural place to which you’ve felt a strong connection.  (You may need to close your eyes to really travel back to this place.)

Imagine you’re in that place again this morning. 

What do you notice with your senses?

What does it look like?

What does it smell like?

What does it feel like?

What does it sound like?

Maybe what do you taste there?

Is there something particular in that place – a tree or a stream or an animal – to which you have a special attachment? 

How do you feel as you return there?

What feelings does it invoke?

What good memories are associated with this place?

The reason I wanted you to think about these things is because much of our connectedness in this world is understood and driven by landscapes or what I will call, place.  Ignatius believed that our psychology and spirituality are intimately connected with place.  Also, we have a physical connection to our geography as well as the psychological and spiritual. 

Yet, many people today feel misplaced – and no longer comfortable in their changing surroundings.  Some would go as far as saying they lack a sense of place because they no longer know their neighbors. 

Ask yourself?  Do you know the neighbors that live on either side of you?

How far down the street do you have to go before you do not know them at all? 

Who, if you needed help, would be the neighbor you would call on? 

If someone in your neighborhood needed help, would they call on you?

We in our world today, do what the authors of “The New Parrish” call “Living above Place” which is “the tendency to develop structures that keep cause-and-effect relationships far apart in space and time where we cannot have firsthand experience of them.”  

What happens when a society, like ours, lives above place for long enough is that we begin to live a cocooned way of life, unaware of others and how we effect each other. 

You can see this happening first hand with the way we create online communities and only associate with people that support our own views.  It is what is dividing us politically as a country and creating fear-based organizations, biased media, and country club religions. 

And I believe “Living Above Place” is not only talking about our human neighbors but also those that we may not even consider neighbors - for instance our neighbors of water, energy, food. 

Again, ask yourselves?  Do you know where your water, energy, food comes from?  What kind of relationship and first-hand experience do you have with them?

We must admit that we have a very intimate, survival-based relationships with these basic essential needs, but many people cannot identify from where they come, because again we have cocooned ourselves from knowing. 

What if we did not know where our life partners, spouses, or closest friends came from? (Honestly, they probably wouldn’t have a prominent place in our lives.)

To know that my wife comes from North of Detroit, MI, that she grew up on a farm, that her family raised cattle, is rather important to my understanding of her, today – and knowing where our water, energy, food come from is vitally important as well. 

Ignatius says that becoming aware of this background knowledge is essential to us “living in the flesh” or what I have been talking about the last few Sundays – personal incarnation.  We must admit that we are creatures of the flesh – that we are dwellers in a specific place, and that we express that of God’s creation in our own beings. 

Knowing our place is key to understanding our incarnated lives and what God is doing among us and through us in our neighborhood and world.

Chris Smith and my friend John Pattison in their book, “Slow Church” expound on this by saying,

“Cultivation of our communities involves attentiveness not only to the rhythms of our specific places but also to the day-to-day sorts of choices we make and the sort of rhythmic order we impose on those places. As our roots grow deeper in a place, we can’t help but want to see that place thrive. Seeking the flourishing of our places not only involves caring for them – keeping them clean, planting gardens, living lightly on the land – but also caring for the people who live here with us, of course.”

To cultivate our communities, we will first need to examine our places and those we engage with in that space.  Ignatius encouraged this as part of his spiritual exercises, because he knew that the natural world and our human co-habitants affect us psychologically, physically, and spiritually.  In Exercise 60 and 160 of his Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius asks,

“Going through all creatures, how have they left me in life and preserved me in it…the heavens, sun, moon, stars and elements, fruits, birds, fishes and animals.”

“…the various persons: and first those on the surface of the earth, in such variety, in dress as in actions: some white and others black: some in peace and others in war: some weeping and others laughing, some well, others ill, some being born and others dying, etc...”

See, when we start to see the way all of creation takes care of, preserves, and sustains us, then we must ask ourselves how we in-turn are taking care of all of creation – animals, plants, our neighbors of all walks of life, beliefs, cultures, etc... Because, to cut out any of these would be detrimental to our own growth. This is a connection to creation relationship that must be acknowledged and continually worked through.

The modern day farmer-prophet, Wendell Berry, wrote about this very thing in his essay, “Christianity and the Survival of Creation” which can be found in his book, “The Art of the Commonplace.” Berry says this,

“We will discover that for these reasons our destruction of nature is not just bad stewardship, or stupid economics, or a betrayal of family responsibility; it is the most horrid blasphemy. It is flinging God’s gifts into His face, as if they were of no worth beyond that assigned to them by our destruction of them…We have no entitlement from the Bible to exterminate or permanently destroy or hold in contempt anything on the earth or in the heavens above it or in the waters beneath it. We have the right to use the gifts of nature but not to ruin or waste them…The Bible leaves no doubt at all about the sanctity of the act of world making, or the world that was made, or of creaturely or bodily life in this world. We are holy creatures living among other holy creatures in a world that is holy.”  

(repeat the final line)

This reminds me of a poem by Quaker Laurent A. Parks Daloz, a Peace Corps Volunteer, educator and environmental activist.  He writes,

Stop for moment beside a young cedar to listen

 And breathe in the life swarming around you.

A soft breeze brushes your cheek;

You can feel the silence.

For a thrumming instant you are one with it –

At such moments, we don’t simply believe,

We know that we are woven into the mat of interdependent life.

This is not sacred belief;

It is sacred knowledge.

We know in our bones that we are an intimate part of all life,

Not simply what surrounds us in the present,

But of all life in all time.

The oxygen we breathe,

The nourishment from the plants beside us,

The elements beneath our feet –

All come to us from the most distant past

And will endure in some form into the unimaginable future..

We are ineluctably a part of all space and time.

So the first thing, we are called to do on this Earth Sunday is to become aware of our PLACE and the sacredness of it. We need to take time to allow ourselves to get out of our cocoons and to descend from “living above place” to living in the present moment with our neighbors in which we have been given as gift – this place we call the earth.     

To help you ponder more this week, I have included some detailed queries on the back of the bulletin – you may want to ponder them as we enter waiting worship this morning.

·        What have I learned from listening to God in the earth, rocks, trees, water, and animals?  How has this learning affected or changed my life?

·        In what ways does my daily life exemplify, reflect, or belie my respect for the oneness of Creation and my care for the environment?

·        Am I willing to change the way I live and make sacrifices in my lifestyle in order to preserve the earth, air, and water for future generations? What changes am I willing to make now?

(From Practicing Peace by Catherine Whitmire)   

4-15-18 - New Life, Inside!

New Life, Inside!

Indianapolis First Friends

Pastor Bob Henry

April 15, 2018

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:5 (MSG)

13-15 We’re not keeping this quiet, not on your life. Just like the psalmist who wrote, “I believed it, so I said it,” we say what we believe. And what we believe is that the One who raised up the Master Jesus will just as certainly raise us up with you, alive. Every detail works to your advantage and to God’s glory: more and more grace, more and more people, more and more praise!

16-18 So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.

5 1-5 For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our “tents” again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.

I love Paul’s giddiness this morning in our text.  I chose the Message version to emphasize this point:

“We’re not keeping this quiet, not on your life.”

When the message is this exciting, there is no containing oneself.  I think we all can relate to this at one time or another.  The news is so good,

·        the announcement of the birth of a child, our a grandchild,

·        that promotion at work or new job,

·        that unexpected grade or comment,

·        that visit or phone call with exciting news,

·        you name it, it cannot be contained!   

But what specifically was Paul not able to “keep quiet” about?  To understand that we need to go back to verse 6 just prior to our text where Paul explains:

“It started when God said, “Light up the darkness.” And our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful.”

Paul realized that something had happened inside of his heart – a Light had been lit!  A healing had taken place.  An inner change had occurred. 

What Paul had experienced was very similar to someone we are very familiar with in Quakerdom – and that is George Fox, the founder of our society of Friends.  Here is his experience in his own words,

“Christ it was who had enlightened me, that gave me his light to believe in, and gave me hope…revealed himself in me, and gave me his spirit and his grace, which I found in the depths and in weakness.”

Fox’s experience was very similar to Paul’s.  And let’s be honest, with all these “aha” moments and enlightenments there must be a back story. 

Fox said, “I found” this “in the depths and in weakness.” If you have ever taken the opportunity to read George Fox’s Journal you will find it paints a picture of struggle, development, and slow painstaking growth.  Fox says this in his journal,

“But my troubles continued, and I was often under great temptations, and I fasted much, and walked abroad in solitary places many days, and often took my Bible and went and sat in hollow trees and lonesome places till night came in; and frequently in the night I walked mournfully about by myself, for I was a man of sorrows in the times of the first working of the Lord in me.”

Paul described a similar experience just before our text today in 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 (again let me read it from the Message).

7-12 If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!

Folks, in this world there is going to be suffering.

·        For some of us it is going to be physical suffering.

·        For others of us it is going to be mental/spiritual anguish (the sorrowful life that George Fox described).

·        And still others it may be persecution for what we believe and think. 

Yet, I don’t want to dwell on this aspect very long, because the HOPE is so evident in each of these stories. 

The HOPE that the Apostle Paul and George Fox experienced is the very life God is working to bring to fruition in our lives!

George Fox was enlightened – and found grace and the revelation of God’s own spirit within him and it moved him to change his world. 

Paul and the people of Corinth realized that God had not left them, even though they were broken completely. They were coming ALIVE from the inside and it moved them to change their world. 

The good news in all of this is that it is coming alive in each of us, as well!

Our suffering in this world is being transformed into vibrant LIFE – if we are willing to see it and go through it. 

When God breaks through – when the light comes on in our hearts – when brokenness starts to heal – we become like Paul exclaiming “I can’t keep quiet!” 

That may sound a bit weird for us quiet, contemplative, silence-loving Quakers.  I rather like to think that Paul was beginning to quake in the spirit (as we say).  He was being nudged to speak out to allow what God had put in his heart to be spoken aloud.  Much like when you or I are in waiting worship and we begin to feel uncomfortable – you know that feeling – when God has put something on your heart to say, and you begin to kind of quake inside – until finally you have to stand and share what God has put on your heart with the gathered meeting.  Often those moments are life giving and life altering and filled with hope! 

This is what Paul and George Fox and many since them have experienced. 

When our faith is bolstered, our life has meaning, it is then that our light begins to burn brightly!  As our text said for this morning…

“Every detail works to your advantage and to God’s glory: more and more grace, more and more people, more and more praise!”

Folks, this is what I sense and believe is happening right here at First Friends!

Because when you and I see it begin inside ourselves – soon we realize that we cannot contain what God is doing.  The light that goes out of this place each week in the lives of each of you is making a difference in Greater Indianapolis.

Yet, please understand, as our examples have shown us, this is always a process to get to that place.  I’ll be honest, sometimes my Inner Light is rather dim – it seems at times to have even gone out.  Maybe that is because life is often harder than we expect or that we allow our life to snuff out the joy building up in our hearts. 

Life throws us troubles, brokenness, sorrow, and pain…you know what it is for you.

And Paul knows we at times just want to give up.  Listen again to what he said,

“…we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace.”

·        Maybe you feel like you are getting too old, that you are worn out, that life is just not working out the way it used to.

·        Maybe you feel like you are falling apart emotionally or spiritually, and you can’t seem to keep it together.

·        Maybe the plight of struggling people in our world, our current political situation, the onslaught of 24/7 media has you feeling down and defeated. 

·        Maybe you are failing at work, or desperately in need of a new job or career, and simply just trying to make it.

·        Maybe life makes no sense right now from the outside.

Paul and George Fox both say that no matter what is happening on the outside,  God is still at work – working on you from the inside to make new life come forth.

The text says, “Not a day goes by without God’s unfolding grace.” Do we notice it?  

Folks, let’s be honest…that is something to be excited about.  That is something to proclaim. 

·        God is still at work in your heart.

·        God is preparing you right now – in this present moment – for all that God has in store for you.

·        God is birthing NEW LIFE inside of you at all times.  This is what our personal incarnation looks like!

The question that we have to ask ourselves is…

Will we recognize God making that new life in us…or will we ignore it, suppress it, neglect it, even stifle it…by not responding to that of God inside ourselves?

We are so concerned as Quakers about seeing that of God in others – but have we seen that of God in ourselves, first?

We may not be able to see all that God is doing – or has been doing – right now.  But as God works in our hearts, incarnates himself inside of us, and turns on that light within us, we begin to see the eternal being birthed inside us.  This isn’t something for when we die, no this is the life we have been called to now.  This life God is working inside us to bring us alive so that others can come alive as well. 

It is what I believe Paul grasped when he wrote the words in 1 Corinthians 13:12:

“We don’t yet see things clearly.  We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright!  We’ll see it all then, see it all clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!” 

Most people take those words to mean someday – or in heaven.  But I think God is incarnating himself in us as we speak.  Right now, things that were unclear are being worked out.  The fog is lifting, the hope is shining inside of you!  And as we share that light inside each of us – others begin to see God more clearly as well!  

Looking back on my own life (something I suggest you do every once and a while – like, at least once a year), I always find how much I have changed and grown.  I see the places where God has turned on a light inside of me and it could not be contained. 

I remember a conversation with a friend in my driveway during high school that changed my view of the role of women in leadership in the church.  God was turning on a light inside of me.  It took several more years for me to acknowledge it – but I had to make some changes in my life to be a voice for women in leadership.

I remember reading “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” by Dee Brown on vacation one summer and weeping as God enlightened me to the plight of the Native people’s in our country.  That was only the beginning of an ongoing discovery of the plight of other people groups in our history that are still suffering from genocide, racism, misogyny, and lack of basic civil rights.

I remember when my views began to change on LGBTQ rights and I found the light inside guiding me to stand with, instead of against -- and beginning to understand because of the persecution I, myself, endured in welcoming and affirming these friends.

And these are just a few of the many times God has turned on the light inside my heart and I could not, like Paul keep quiet!  NOT ON MY LIFE! 

So to conclude this morning, I want to share with you a favorite poem by Rumi, the 13th-century Persian Sunni Muslim theologian and Sufi mystic (which many consider the Quakers of the Muslim faith).  In this poem Rumi shares a dialog with Love (who I believe we could call God). The interaction illustrates well all I have pointed out this morning.  May you sense what Paul, George Fox and Rumi sensed inside of them – coming alive this morning!

i was dead
i came alive
i was tears
i became laughter
all because of love
when it arrived
my temporal life
from then on
changed to eternal

love said to me
you are not
crazy enough
you don’t
fit this house

i went and
became crazy
crazy enough
to be in chains
love said
you are not
intoxicated enough
you don’t
fit the group

i went and
got drunk
drunk enough
to overflow
with light-headedness
love said
you are still
too clever
filled with
imagination and skepticism

i went and
became gullible
and in fright
pulled away
from it all
love said
you are a candle
attracting everyone
gathering every one
around you

i am no more
a candle spreading light
i gather no more crowds
and like smoke
i am all scattered now

love said
you are a teacher
you are a head
and for everyone
you are a leader
i am no more
not a teacher
not a leader
just a servant
to your wishes

love said
you already have
your own wings
i will not give you
more feathers
and then my heart
pulled itself apart
and filled to the brim
with a new light
overflowed with fresh life

now even the heavens
are thankful that
because of love
i have become
the giver of light”

― Rumi

4-8-18 - Now, What Are We to Do?

Now, what are we to do? 

Indianapolis First Friends

Pastor Bob Henry

April 8, 2018

John 20:19-29

19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin[a]), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

“Now, what are we to do?”  That must have been the question running through the disciples and followers of Christ’s minds. 

“Now, what are we to do?”

Much like last week’s text of Mary meeting the gardener, we again have a mix of emotions and experiences.  Today, we have the disciples cowering in fear behind locked doors.  Fearing not only the Roman Empire, but also the religious leaders of the day.  No one was safe at this time. I believe the disciples were in fear just as many of the people in Gaza are today. The disciples knew that the religious and state authorities had found a way to have Jesus crucified, and they knew they were already on the trail to find and do the same thing to them and the other followers of Christ.

Let’s be honest, religious and state authorities don’t often like the followers of blasphemous, rogue teachers, who want to make their leaders out to be martyrs. 

No, they would want to eliminate any possibility of this happening and do everything to keep their religion and state pure. This is sadly true of many religious and governmental groups in our world, still today.

Change is hard, and prophetic voices are those usually rallying for change.

It is one thing to watch someone die for a cause, but when you find out that the attention has turned on you because of your followership of this person, ANXIETY, FEAR, the NEED TO HIDE quickly overcome you. Your mind flashes with visions of you being tortured by the authorities, carrying your own cross through the city of Jerusalem, and being hung to suffer the agony of public execution on a cross. These would have been vivid images in the minds of the followers of Christ.

The process the disciples were running through in their minds was, what I would call, a personal incarnation.  They were beginning to incarnate (becoming a living embodiment of) what Christ had just gone through.  And the disciples were left to answer that big question,

“Now, what are we to do?”

Jesus never really taught about Part B…and let’s be honest, the disciples hardly understood Part A – let alone having a plan for after Jesus was gone from their presence.

You may be thinking this is hard to relate to – but just ask yourself:

·        When have you said, “Now, what are we to do?” or “Now, what am I to do?” in your own life.  

·        What was your difficult situation?

·        Have you ever been gripped by fear wondering what was going to happen?

·        Have you ever felt like you had no plan B – that life was at a dead end?

Just like where we find the disciples this morning, it is often in our lowest moments, when our plans, our ideas, our hopes, our beliefs are stripped away, this is often when the presence of Jesus is felt and made known – or maybe it is in these times we finally recognize that God has been with us all along.

The text says that Jesus was literally “standing among them” and they didn’t even realize it.  How long was he standing there before someone noticed? 

Isn’t that how it is for us, often? The presence of God is in our midst, or even in our own hearts, and we don’t recognize him or acknowledge Him. Folks, we are Quakers, the ones who are always to look for that of God in those around us.  How often has the presence of God been in our midst in the likes of a friend, a parent, a child, at teacher, even a complete stranger, and we totally missed it?

And then comes those famous first words from Jesus, “PEACE BE WITH YOU.” The scriptures have recorded for us several other times when Jesus used those same words. Each time the disciples heard them he was using them to calm their lives. 

If you remember, it was these words that Jesus used to calm the storms on the water as their boat was violently shaken by the storm and everyone was in fear.  The disciples would have known these words to be an acknowledgment and reassurance of God’s presence in the storms of their lives. Yet, with all that they had been through during the last several days leading up to their best friend being executed in front of them, they still showed doubt this time.  This time they had been so shaken that he had to prove to them who he was so that their joy and peace would return. 

The disciple, Thomas, even has to go one step further – I think I might have been the same.  Thomas needed a hands-on-experience before he could believe.  Sometimes our lives are in such tumult that we need something a bit more tangible – a real-time, real-life experience. (see the modern version of this moment on the cover of the bulletin this morning).

Sometimes we need a physical – incarnate – experience.  We need to hear a parent’s voice, sometimes we need a hug, sometimes we need a physical connection. I think Thomas has been shafted by history.  Beyond needing proof, beyond assurance, beyond even finding inner peace, Thomas needed a physical connection as he tried to wrap his mind around that question, “Now, what are we to do?” 

And that physical connection again takes the shape of incarnation – embodying flesh or taking on flesh. Thomas was understanding the deep need for incarnation at this moment – he needed flesh to come to grips with what was going on.

I think too often the reason we cannot relate to Jesus, is because we cannot truly see him as a human being – with flesh. He was no different than any of us in this meetinghouse.  He had skin and bones, aches and pains, he bled…no different.  And what we need to realize is that Jesus showed us how with these fully human, fleshly bodies to truly live!  He taught us how to forgive, how to bring hope, how to reconcile, how to “incarnate” his life and ministry to our neighbors and to our world in this present moment. 

Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said it so well, “What Jesus wants from us is not admiration, but rather imitation.” 

It wasn’t just about the incarnation of Jesus, folks – no, it’s also about our incarnation. This is what Jesus was getting at in our text.

“Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you!’ As the Father has sent me, I am sending YOU!”

You and I are now the incarnated Christ to our world.  We are the light-bearers being sent into our world. (Just like we heard last week with Mary.)  

Have you ever thought about the fact that the gathered meeting (or the universal church) was considered or called “The Body of Christ.”   We are the official incarnation of Christ to our world.  Let that sink in for a moment.

Ronald Rolheiser addresses this realization in his book, “The Holy Longing: The Search for Christian Spiritualty,” where he writes,

“If it is true that we are the Body of Christ, and it is, then God’s presence in the world today depends very much on us.  We have to keep God present in the world in the same way Jesus did.”

Or as St. Teresa of Avila prayed:

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands but yours,

No feet but yours,

Yours are the eyes through which

Christ’s compassion must look out on the world.

Yours are the feet with which

He is to go about doing good.

Yours are the hands with which

He is to bless us now.

We are the incarnation of Christ – We are the light bearers.

What we are called, sent to do is be Jesus and live as he did in our world.  We are filled with his light and love.  We are to take our inner light into our world and become the presence of Christ to our neighbors. 

Or as Ronald Rolheiser says,

“As God once acted through Christ, so he now acts through those who are conformed to the image of His son, and whose behavior-pattern is in imitation of his.”

To sense God’s peace, forgiveness, his love  - we must embody and live it in our world.  We must take on the attributes of Christ. 

As I watched the 50 Anniversary Celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Death this week, I could not help but notice the fact that Martin Luther King Jr., though often in fear, embodied and lived out the attributes of Jesus. Many including a Muslim leader acknowledged his Christ-like legacy. This is the impact we each could have if we were willing to live a life of purpose grounded on the attributes of Christ.

As the life of Martin Luther King Jr. can attest, to be God’s presence in our world, isn’t always easy and may lead us to our own death – laying our life down for others.    

Along with this call naturally comes fear, as is illustrated well by the disciples cowering in the upper room in our text this morning. Fear is real for most of us. 

Being a peacemaker, standing up for what you believe, seeking justice and mercy, even asking or giving forgiveness are not always easy and often they cause us to fear living out the life God is calling us to. 

Fear translates to hiding and worrying about what others think of us.  It leads us to cower, to isolate, and even build walls. [Pause for reflection].  

Sadly, a great deal of our politics, our military, our economics, our sports, our parenting styles, even much of our religiosity is based on fear and fear tactics.

But God is sending us into a world – not in fear – but rather in peace.  Filled with God’s spirit and light to offer forgiveness, to reconcile, to heal and bring harmony.  We are to offer the attributes of Jesus Christ – Grace, Mercy, Justice and Peace.  But sadly, it is our own fears that get in the way...

It’s like what Quaker Gene Knudsen-Hoffman wrote,

Fear which lingers,

Fear which lives on in us,

Fear which does not prompt us to wise remedial action,

Becomes engraved upon our hearts,

Becomes an addiction, becomes an armor which encases us.

This fear guards and guides us and determines our action.

It leads us directly toward that which we fear.

We can’t let our fear keep us in a tomb of death.  We can’t let fear keep us worried or fretting about what is going to happen.  We can’t let fear keep us hiding and avoiding and not acting. That I believe is the case too often with the church, today. 

People who take up the mantle of Jesus Christ – people who incarnate Christ in their own lives.  People who live out of peace, forgiveness, grace, mercy and love have learned to embrace their fears and step out in faith.

[Pause]

Fear is a major issue, but I think there is another. Let’s be honest, many people have given up on Jesus and his ways in our world.  For many the followers of Jesus that the world sees portrayed in the media and on T.V. no longer represent Christianity or for that matter Jesus – and many see them as an embarrassment and have a real fear of being misrepresented. Blogger and commentator, John Pavolitz, addressed this in a recent blog.  Let me read a part of his blog post this morning:  

The Jesus I knew as a child and came to aspire to in adulthood is still here, and it is the heretics who are preserving him.

It is the maligned backsliders, the Godless heathens, and the derided social justice warriors who are replicating his compassion for hurting people, his welcome for foreigners, his generosity toward the hungry, his gentleness for the marginalized.

I’ve been visiting these local Progressive faith communities every week, and they are doing joy-giving, life-affirming, wall-leveling work—alongside people of every color, orientation, and nation of origin.

They are providing Sanctuary for refugees, making meals for multitudes, offering embrace to the estranged, standing between the vulnerable people and the opportunistic predators around them—you know, like Jesus would.

And in our gatherings, Atheists and Muslims and Jews and Agnostics have stepped into these communities and found something they have not found in the counterfeit Christianity so loud in this country: they have found welcome.

It’s all been fully and beautifully surprising, to see this Jesus still alive here in these people.

You may have given up on a Christianity that resembles Jesus, and I can’t blame you. The people claiming his name right now who have the microphone, the platform, the headlines, and the legislative pull—are providing good reason to lose hope, ample cause to imagine Jesus’ extinction, great evidence that this thing is devoid of goodness.

But there is a quieter, more loving, less self-seeking, less headline grabbing expression of faith in this country, that is everything Jesus said he would be: good news to the poor and the disenfranchised, hope for those feeling tossed by the storms of this life, refuge for the oppressed—and trouble for the wolves who come to devour them.

In these progressive Christian communities all over this country, the peacemaking, neighbor loving, foot washing, leper-embracing Jesus is not only still present, but being multiplied by kind people determined to perpetuate him here.

There is a Jesus here who invites women into ministry, who feels compassion and not contempt for the poor; one who calls disparate people to join him, one who destroys all barriers.

There is a Jesus here of justice and mercy; one championing diversity and equality, one committed to altering the planet in a way that gives voice to the voiceless and resistance to the hateful.

This Jesus is here, and he will never be driven to extinction so long as there are heretics, heathens, and backsliders who refuse to let him die simply because religious people have no use for him.

These people are still reaching out a hand to this hurting world because they are compelled by their faith to do so.

If you are a person of faith and you’re exhausted from a Christianity of cruelty and malice; if you’ve given up on finding anything more redemptive or anything worthy of your presence and time, seek out a Progressive faith community this week—and allow yourself to be beautifully surprised by a radically loving, lavishly welcoming, compassionate activist Jesus you thought was gone for good.

Be encouraged.

So…Now, what are we to do? 

My hope is that we here at First Friends would be considered one of those Progressive Faith Communities that radically love, lavishly welcome, and are compassionately activist.  That we would be known by incarnating the true Jesus that the world needs.  That is what we are to do! 

How are you incarnating Jesus to your neighbor?

What fears are getting in your way? 

4-1-18 - Easter Sunday - The Gardener and Reoccurring Resurrection!

The Gardener and Reoccurring Resurrection!

Indianapolis First Friends

Pastor Bob Henry

April 1, 2018

On Easter the focus at most churches is Jesus. We are familiar with Jesus the Good Shepherd, the King of Kings, the Lord, the Savior and, especially for us Quakers, the Friend.

As well, many have considered him the Messiah, the Christ, the Great Teacher, the Prophet, the Way, our Inner Light, and yes, even the Truth and Life.  These are just a few of the many names we Quakers and fellow Christians, as well as, people of other faiths and even various scriptures including the Bible have given to the man known as Jesus. 

But there is one more name worth reflecting upon this morning, especially as we celebrate this Easter morning, and that is the name we seldom use for Jesus – THE GARDENER.  Just ask yourself, when was the last time you thought of Jesus as the gardener? Maybe we wish Jesus would do some gardening around our home or meeting.   

It seems like the other names hold so much more weight, theological significance, mystery, and have such a greater importance to the faith of the individual, while the name “Gardener” seems too common and simple.  But this morning, I want to look at the significance of what Mary saw that first Easter morning and its meaning for us today.

To understand the title, Gardener, we must go back to that first Easter morning.  The place was the Garden at Golgotha.  Mary Magdalene had come to the tomb.  She leans down into the opening of the dark tomb and sees it empty and begins to weep.  One of the texts says that what looked like two angels tried to console her.  As she explains her reasoning for weeping she turns and sees a figure through her tear-filled eyes. 

Now, there are many theories about why Mary did not recognize Jesus, but I am going to go with two simple physical ones.  First, Mary is crying her eyes out (weeping heavily) for her beloved friend who was gone – executed, hung naked before her very eyes on a cross.  I don’t think we take into consideration the horror and emotional anxiety seeing this would cause. We in our day have been numbed by mass shootings weekly on our news and violence on TV and in the movies.  

Yet at some point, most of us can relate – at some time, we too have cried so hard over the loss of someone very close. 

I remember after the funeral of my college roommate’s mother, who lost an ugly battle with cancer, I was crying so hard that a police officer pulled me over as I left the funeral to make sure I was ok, because I was swerving and driving way too slow. He was probably right to pull me over and have me pull myself together, because I really couldn’t see what was going on.

Through heavy tears it is hard to see anything. 

Also, it was sunrise on that first Easter morning, tombs were set facing the East in Jerusalem – as it was a symbol of hope of a resurrection with the sun’s rising – a new day dawning.  As Mary would emerge from that dark tomb she would have been blinded by the light of dawn breaking forth.  

So as Mary turns to address the figure outside the tomb in the garden all she probably saw was a black outline or a shadowed figure like the painting I painted on the cover of our bulletin this morning. 

And let’s be honest, who else would be in the garden that early in the morning addressing her?  It had to have been the gardener, she thought.   

Scriptures say Mary “supposed he was the gardener” (John 20:15).  Weeping, she explains that she is seeking the body of Jesus.  Then “Jesus says to her, “Mary” (20:16). (This is the official April Fools Moment!) From just the sound of his voice saying her name, Mary immediately recognizes that it is Jesus and in that moment everything changes. 

The artist Albrecht Durer captures this scene in his print entitled, “Christ as Gardener.” which I had put on the back of the bulletin.  I love this image of Jesus looking more like Captain Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean.  With his large gardening hat, carrying a shovel, looking as though he has put in some time weeding or tilling the soil. 

I think it is very fitting that Jesus would be mistaken by Mary as the Gardener outside the tomb.  Some may disagree and just say, oh it is coincidence.  But I believe to picture and see Jesus as the Gardener very much agrees with one of the themes of the entire Bible – that being the importance of the symbolism of gardens. 

Let me give you a quick overview:  In the book of Genesis, we are introduced to the Creator God placing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where one of the first tasks was to be stewards/caretakers of the garden. It says in Genesis 2:15,

“The Lord God took Adam and put him in the garden of Eden to till and to keep it.”

That garden was not just for Adam and Eve, the story tells us it was also where God was found. God actually was known to walk in that Garden with Adam and Eve and had a relationship with them.

I always remember those signs that I thought were rather cliché or cheesy that read, “One is closer to God in a Garden, than anywhere on Earth.”

As one who has grown to appreciate gardening (and like I said last week – have a passion for it) I have found spending time in my garden an important way to connect to my Inner Light and bask in the beauty of creation.  It also is like therapy for me – pulling weeds, pruning, planting and watering all give new life to the spaces that surround me – and for that matter, to me as well.

Even though Adam and Eve in the creation story chose a different path than what God intended which led them out of that beautiful original garden, God promised he would never abandoned his creation.

Instead God sent people to be light-bearers, people like the patriarchs and matriarchs of our faith, the prophets, faithful kings and judges of justice to teach, admonish, correct and gather the people of Israel, encourage them, and ultimately send them out into the world to be hope and beauty and bring peace to everyone.  This is played out over and over throughout our Old Testament – there is so much more there than just a wrathful God if we are willing to look.    

And then as the New Testament opens, we are introduced to Jesus, the next in this long line of individuals who God has sent to try to point to a better way.  Jesus is raised in Nazareth and begins his ministry of doing good, healing and teaching, gathering a new community of disciples that he too would send into the world to be hope and beauty and bring peace.  But before we get to that sending…

We must not miss the end of his public ministry, what this week leading to Easter has been all about. Here Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem the place where he was rejected, suffered, and died at the hands of the Roman Empire who did not want his way of peace but rather wanted power and control.

Since Jesus walked this earth 2000 some years ago, people have joined Jesus on remembering his journey to Jerusalem. Some faith traditions have journeyed to the cross by taking the actual Via Dolorosa in the old part of Jerusalem - following what is believed to be the actual way Jesus journeyed to the cross.

Others have marked specific events leading up to Jesus’ death to pause and remember: The triumphal entry into Jerusalem (which we celebrated last week and ironically also started in a garden - the Mount of Olives), the clearing of the temple, the Seder Meal or Last Supper with his disciples, and then the biggest turn of events – which goes down in another garden at the base of the Mount of Olives – the Garden of Gethsemane.

As the gospel of John explains, “After the discourse, Jesus went out with the disciples across the Kidron Valley.  There was a garden there, and he and his disciples entered it (John 18:1).  John adds that it was familiar, “because Jesus had often met there with his disciples” (John 18:2).  In this garden, not only had Jesus been preparing and teaching his disciples, but now Jesus would show us his human vulnerability and fear. He would pray in great agony, and courageously commit himself to do his Father’s will of laying down his life for others.

Later that evening again in this garden, the soldiers would come, Judas would betray Jesus, and they would arrest Jesus to be ushered off to imprisonment and put on trial.

You may have never noticed, but even on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion there is another garden. After Jesus is condemned to death he proceeds in agony to carry his cross on the Via Dolorosa to Golgotha.  John again notes, “In the place where he had been crucified, there was a garden.” Golgotha, the actually place of Jesus’ death is a garden place. Very interesting.

And the story doesn’t end there. Jesus is taken down from the cross and buried in a borrowed tomb, actually in that garden. 

Three days later, Jesus begins to appear to his friends.  He meets Mary and she confuses him for the gardener – catching us up to our text for this morning.   

As is evident by the gardens we have looked at, the garden throughout scripture is the place where God has been revealed and new life has begun!   

We can understand this – gardens are to be places of new and recurrent life, where plants, flowers, shrubs, vegetables come to life - Spring Time after Spring Time.

It’s like when you were a kid and you planted seeds for the first time, it was an exciting day when you started to see life bursting forth out of the Dixie cups in the window soon to be planted in the garden box or back yard to fully flourish in the soil!             

And the gardener is one who oversees and does their part to ensure the cycle of life reoccurs.  The gardener plants and prunes, digs, fertilizes and waters so that trees and plants can bear fruit and beauty in abundance. This is what Jesus did and continues to do in our lives.

So just as the creation story states, God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, so now Jesus walks with Mary in the gardens of Golgotha as the gardener.

I remember learning in 8th grade in my Christians school another name for Jesus that I didn’t mention at the beginning, and that is “The New Adam.”  Here Jesus is the new Adam seen as the gardener in a new garden of hope.   

Jesus shares this hope with Mary.  He instructs her, “Do not cling to me…rather go to my brothers and tell them I am going to my father and your father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17).  Mary, a woman, would be the first person in which Jesus would send to share his message of hope.  She is sent to bear fruit and beauty to her world beginning with those closest to Jesus who were hiding in fear of the Roman authorities.  I can’t even imagine Mary’s enthusiasm as she went to share this good news.  What Beth read was so appropriate, when Mary states, “Simon, dance with me!  Hug me and spin me around, because I have just seen the Lord!”

And folks, it didn’t stop on that first Easter morning with Mary, no, the work of Jesus the gardener continues today. Walking with our God in this world, we too, like Mary are sent to bear good fruit and bring hope and peace.  We are called to blossom, and color, and bring fragrance to our world of darkness and death.  We are being sent with a message of hope and peace to our American Empire that is clearly at war with itself.  

This is what it means to be resurrection people.

There is one last garden described in scripture.

In the 21st chapter of John’s vision or revelation at the end of the Bible, John describes heaven in wildly symbolic ways.  He calls heaven the New Jerusalem – a city with mighty walls and ornate gates.  And in that city is a LIGHT or lamp which is Christ. And then lastly he speaks of a Garden, with a river of life-giving water…which flowed down the middle of the streets.”  On either side of the river grew the trees of life” Rev. 22:1-2).  This was to show that God, from the beginning to the end, was about bringing life and light, and beauty into our world. 

We are part of that beauty.  We are part of that NEW LIFE.  Resurrection means to give something that once had life – NEW LIFE. 

This is what happens in gardens, especially here in Indiana.  We plant seeds or small plants, and then they grow, some give beauty through buds and flowers and brightly colored leaves, some give off seeds and give the opportunity for new life, some die and go into the ground, and in several months give new life again.  The garden is the perfect example of reoccurring resurrection.

No wonder gardens are throughout scripture.  No wonder the story says it all began in a garden and will end in a garden. 

Mary was called by the Gardener that first Easter morning to be life to those around her in that Garden of death.  And that is what we are called to this Easter morning.  You and I are called to blossom, to flower, to bear fruit, to bring beauty and joy and peace to a world who is often dead or almost there.  That is living the reoccurring resurrection!

Will you pray with me before we enter our time of waiting worship?

God, we come to you this morning with a deep sense of gratitude, care, concern, devotion, love for you, and desire to live responsively to you.  We sense that we’re with friends in your company of followers – friends who share the life of resurrection and want others to get in on it, notice it, and begin participating at the center of what you’re doing rather than on the periphery.  We pray for strength and discernment to understand the culture we are in – the deadening effects the seductive lures.  We pray that whatever has been said this morning will sharpen what we are doing.  We ask your blessing on this meeting and all places of worship – scattered and dispersed and many in despair.  We pray that wherever we are and whatever places we go back into – work, home, or play – we may be part of this reoccurring resurrection life, knowing that you are present and doing your work. You’re not anxious about what is going to work or not.  It’s worked a long, long time and will continue working.  Mostly, keep us faithful, attentive, sacrificial, and personal. And finally help us to bloom, bear fruit, and give beauty and peace to our world.  Amen.      (Adapted from Eugene Peterson’s book, “Living the Resurrection.”)    

How am I blossoming, bearing fruit, and giving beauty and peace to my world?

3-25-18 - Entering in with Compassion

Entering In with Compassion

Indianapolis First Friends

Pastor Bob Henry

March 25, 2018

Mark 11:1-11 (NRSV)

When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” 4 They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, 5 some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. 7 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. 9 Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,

“Hosanna!
    Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
10     Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

We make a big deal about “entrances” these days.  From inaugural parties to red carpet events, to movie premiers.  We still at most wedding receptions continue the tradition of announcing the parties as they enter just like those grand entrances on one of Sue and I’s favorite shows, Downton Abby.  If you watched Downton Abby you will remember Mr. Carson strolling into the room and announcing,

“Lord Grantham accompanied by...”

Yet this morning in our text we have one of those grand entrances for Jesus.  It seems completely out of place – or at least uncharacteristic of Jesus. Even though I have always loved the Palm Sunday story, it has always made me wonder what was behind this grand entrance into Jerusalem. 

The gospel of Mark which we heard read gives a shorter version of this story and then in Luke’s gospel he seems to fill in the details. 

What Luke adds is very important when looking at Jesus “entering in.”  Let me read some additional verses from Luke 19.

Vs. 41-42.

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.”

This is a picture of someone with great “compassion” for the people.  This was becoming way more than a grand entrance. This was way more than a sign of the arrival of some sort of king or new leader.  Jesus knew this entrance entailed much more and was going to ask much more of him.  But then, if you have ever studied Jesus, you know this was Jesus’ way.  Throughout scripture as Jesus enters a town or looks at a gathered crowd approaching it states,

“…he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Matthew in his gospel even says, that Jesus states this about Jerusalem specifically,

“I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.”

For Jesus to “Enter In” took much more than we see at first glance.  Scripture is clear that part of his preparation was to have compassion on the people – he knew what he was getting into because he knew the people in which he was serving. These people had great issues and there was great suffering because they had no direction and were being harassed by the Roman Empire. Thus Jesus had a deep sense of compassion for all the people both Jew and Gentile, follower or Roman soldier, friend or enemy.  

In the book, “The Rebirthing of God” by John Philip Newell, he describes this compassion in the following way, he says…

“The word compassion simply means “being with suffering.” “…compassion is about honoring the relationship between two people or between one group and another, and remembering those who suffer. It is about making the connection between the heart of my being and the heart of yours.”

Before Jesus “enters in” to any situation he considers the suffering of the people.  And he “enters into” it before actually getting involved.

Before healing.

Before teaching or preaching.

Before making a point.

Before arriving…                Jesus is found leading with compassion.

Jesus makes a connection between the heart of His being and the Heart of the suffering person or people.

I believe this may be why too often when the presence of Christ enters our situations – we seem surprised or shocked or even confused.  The presence of Christ brings to light, illumines those things that we may not be expecting – because God is connecting with us on such a personal level.

We too often are like the people in our text making Jesus out to be what we want him to be.  They turned his simple donkey ride into Jerusalem into a political event.  The signs were all there – palms or foliage put down on the road, even laying down their cloaks to make a path, the singing of “Hosanna,” Even the processional and the specific East gate in which he entered --- all were political and would have seemed very out of place and even radical in Jesus’ day.

Jesus had known for quite some time what they really wanted – but he was focused on what they really needed. 

Jesus wasn’t connecting to their political need for a king – in reality he was looking at

·        their division,

·        their lack of peace,

·        their anger at their enemies

He was connecting at a heart level and by doing that he was allowing himself to enter their suffering.

Actually, I would go one step further…Jesus was BECOMING THEIR SUFFERING.

His compassion for the people of this world went SO DEEP that it became his passion.

It is not ironic that this week is often termed “The Passion of Christ.” Just like the Mel Gibson directed movie.  Some call this week “Holy Week” but it is also interestingly called “Passion Week.”

The dictionary actually notes that “Passion” means suffering.  Not only is it a strong and barely controllable emotion, but it also can mean suffering, agony, even martyrdom.

 This week leading to Easter was a week of suffering for Jesus.  Including sufferings of 

·        betrayal,

·        physical exhaustion and pain,

·        emotional anguish,

·        torture and exhaustion,

·        and ultimately capital punishment and execution.       

Henri Nouwen and his co-authors, Donald McNeill and Douglas Morrison in the book, “Compassion: A Reflection of the Christian Life,” point out this connection between the passion of Jesus and his compassion when they write:

“Not only did he [Jesus] taste fully the dependent and fearful condition of being human, but he also experienced the most despicable, and horrifying form of death – death on a cross…he also became human in the most dejected and rejected way.  Not only did he know human uncertainties and fears, but he also experienced the agony, pain and total degredation of the bloody torture and death of a convicted criminal. In this humiliation, Jesus lived out the full implications of emptying himself to be with us in compassion.  He not only suffered our painful human condition in all its concrete-ness but he also suffered death with us in one of its rawest, ugliest, and most degrading forms.”   

This was Jesus’ compassionate way of becoming the suffering – this was his passion. He was laying down his own life for all those suffering in this world.

Yet, I hear people today almost flippantly use that term “passion” – do we really mean that we will “enter into” the suffering of something when we state….

·        I have a passion for gardening.

·        I have a passion for hats.

·        I have a passion for good coffee. 

That is honestly not giving this word the credit it is due. Especially, in light of what Jesus went through.  

Maybe we need to look behind our “passions” like Jesus did. 

When I start to think about this….I begin to ask myself some questions.. Just take for instance my three, kind of, flippant examples I gave of having passion. 

I have a passion for gardening. But…

·        What about the land, our animals, the natural resources, migrant workers and slave labor, organic and natural foods, people with cancer because of pesticides, maybe I do have a passion for gardening? 

I have a passion for hats. (I wear caps much of the time) But…

·        Where are my hats made?  Who makes them?  What are they made of? Maybe I do have a passion for hats?

I have a passion for coffee. But…

·        Is my coffee “fair trade”?  What big business owns my coffee?  What environmental suffering is caused by my K-cups?  Maybe I have a passion for coffee.

And that is just the start.

I believe God is calling us to ask these questions of ourselves, but then comes the hard part – actually “entering in” to the suffering as Jesus did.  Are we willing to lay our lives down for our friends and family?  Are we even willing to suffer with someone, alongside them, through a difficult time? Are we willing educate ourselves, so that we can stand against something that is causing suffering in this world, or to lobby, or to refuse to eat, drink, or wear, or shop or purchase specific items from specific stores?   

[Pause]

Jesus in most religions is known for COMPASSION.  It is often his most recognized attribute.  If we are to follow and live a life in the manner of Jesus – then before we “enter into” any situation – we will need to begin with having compassion on those suffering in our world – and that means in both our feeling and acting. 

Again I return to the book “The Rebirthing of God” where John Philip Newell says,

“There is a direct relationship between allowing ourselves to truly feel and the decision to act.  Compassionate action is sustained by the courage to feel.”

Jesus felt and out of that acted!  He wept over Jerusalem before he entered in to give his life.   

What does this look like for us?  Again, I turn to the book, “Compassion”

“Often, our lives get so overburdened that it takes every bit of energy to survive the day. Then it becomes hard to value the present moment, and we can only dream about a future time and place where everything will be different.  We want to move away from the present moment as quickly as possible and create a new situation in which present pains are absent.  But such impatient action prevent us from recognizing the possibilities of the moment and thus easily leads us to an intolerant fanaticism.  Action as a discipline of compassion requires the willingness to respond to the very concrete needs of the moment.”

And that is our call this Palm Sunday morning.  Let our feelings, our passions, the suffering in this world move us to respond with compassion and action!

As we enter into waiting worship consider the following queries.

·        Who are the suffering in your life?  Around you?

·        How will you “enter into” their suffering as Jesus did?

·        What is your “passion” really?

3-18-18 - It Begins in the Heart Where God Put It!

It Begins in the Heart Where God Put It!

Indianapolis First Friends

Pastor Bob Henry

March 18, 2018

Jeremiah 31:31-33 (NRSV)

31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband,[a] says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

I found myself on several occasions this week talking about how to be a nonviolent presence in our world. With students walking out of schools and plans being made for marches it seemed to be on many people’s mind. Sadly, too often the nonviolent efforts don’t make the news because they often are hard to sensationalize. This week’s walk outs and the continued marches across our country are a continuation of a long history of nonviolent ways to speak to injustices and violence in our country and world.  

It has been 11 years since a good friend of mine and a pacifist-progressive-Mennonite introduced me to this nonviolent way through two life-changing books by John H. Yoder. Sadly, John Yoder was disgraced over sexual harassment allegations and passed away at the age of 70, but his work in the area of nonviolence and what he coined “The Politics of Jesus” (the title of one of the books) are still classics on the subject and transcend his personal life. 

Yoder’s book, “If a Violent Person Threatened to Harm a Loved One…What Would You Do?” (which is a compilation of answers to that question from the likes of Leo Tolstoy to Joan Baez) stopped me in my tracks.  For the first time, I was challenged to see the issue of violence and nonviolence as not just an outward reaction, but something that was happening within my own heart. I realized I needed to ask some serious queries of myself in relation to my own views and what I actually believed.  This in many ways started a crisis of faith in my own understanding.    

It was in this crisis and discovery that I headed into a year of diversity training at Huntington University and my first classes as a doctoral student at George Fox Evangelical Seminary. I found myself reading the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Merton, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, John Woolman, and many more.  All people who found the benefit of nonviolence and have taught on its value. 

Yet, it was specifically in my study for a paper about Gandhi’s influence on Martin Luther King Jr.’s spirituality where I began to hone my understanding of nonviolence and its importance at the core of my life. Since this time, I have come to learn that Gandhi and King are essential reads in understanding nonviolence and its impact on our world.

It was the following quote from Gandhi, in a book edited by Thomas Merton titled, “On Non-Violence” which first grabbed my attention. Mahatma Gandhi says,

Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our very being. . . . If love or non-violence be not the law of our being, the whole of my argument falls to pieces. . . . Belief in non-violence is based on the assumption that human nature in its essence is one and therefore unfailingly responds to the advances of love. . . . If one does not practice non-violence in one’s personal relations with others and hopes to use it in bigger affairs, one is vastly mistaken.

To begin seeing the seat of nonviolence as my heart, started an evolution in my soul. In many ways, I was learning that the condition of my heart was key to how I respond to my world. This was a little different than just saying I had the love of Jesus down in my heart, like I was taught in the Sunday School song. This was saying that it was more than an acknowledgement or belief. For the first time, I sensed the need to take care of nurturing my heart, finding inner peace, and connecting to my inner light (as we practiced last week) to help me become a more peaceful and non-violent presence in this world.  I had to admit that some of the violence I experienced in this world – I actually caused – and it stemmed from my own soul. 

Gandhi wrestled with this as well. Not only did he begin to see non-violence (or as he named it Satyagraha) as inseperable from our being, he also saw it as desperately important to the future and shalom (peace) of humankind. Unless we found the seeds of nonviolence in our own lives, the world was not going to get any better.

Ironically, many people do not know this, but in my research I learned that Gandhi said many times that he developed his ideas about Satyagraha (nonviolence) in large part from the New Testament teachings of Jesus.

Gandhi considered Satyagraha a way to synthesize Jesus’ teaching about peace and non-violence into the life of the individual. He believed that non-violence came through embracing the qualities Jesus lived out in his life – such as:  

n  loving our enemies,

n  seeking truth,

n  experiencing personal transformation,

n  being people of virtue,

n  and having a religious faith

 all things that Jesus had lived out in his life and had said should flow from our hearts.

If you remember, on one occasion, Jesus goes out of his way to make a point about where our thoughts, beliefs, actions, and what we say stem from with the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. Jesus said,  

“You have minds like a snake pit! How do you suppose what you say is worth anything when you are so foul-minded? It’s your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words. A good person produces good deeds and words season after season.” (MSG)

The importance of the condition of the heart was something that Martin Luther King Jr. learned from Jesus but allowed to be nurtured by studying Gandhi during the difficult days of the Civil Rights movement. King knew that retaliation or violent means were not what should flow from the heart and if they did it would only make things worse. Gandhi was leading sit-ins, walk-outs, and marches in India with non-violent methods and King adopted the same perspectives for his movement.  The key for both of them was to make sure their heart was centered and in the right place.  This is exactly what I saw many students do this week across the country as they walked out in the same non-violent tradition. King learned that nonviolence and nonviolent resistance as Gandhi taught were better responses to what he was facing just like the students in Parkland, FL.  King also realized that to do this work meant to go deeper and see what was behind the outward violence – something many people are calling our politicians, administrators, and leaders on today.

For Martin Luther King Jr. going deeper and seeing behind the violence meant to start within himself.  King said this,    

“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.”

King’s views changed dramatically as he internalized an ethos of nonviolence and allowed his responses to flow from that centered-space.

I believe, King and Gandhi both realized that nonviolence transcends our outward actions and must be rooted in our hearts where true love is found and nonviolence has it’s beginnings. 

Gandhi said,  

“Nonviolence which is a quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.”

Nonviolence was not simply a body of knowledge to learn or be taught – it was something that (as I said in this week’s “As Way Opens” in Friend to Friend) is  planted deep within each of us and must be cultivated and nurtured by actually living it out through our love for God and others.  

Just inside the door of my office, I have hanging the Six Principles of Nonviolence  which I purchased at the King Center in Atlanta on one of my visits. These are a summary of Kings thoughts on nonviolence which he compiled after learning from Gandhi.  They show just how nonviolence must stem from our depths. Just listen as I read these 6 principles to you:

Principle 1: Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.

Principle 2: Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.

Principle 3: Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice not people.

Principle 4: Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform.

Principle 5: Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.

Principle 6: Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.

And this takes me back to our text for this morning which Eric read. God says the new covenant is 

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

What did that look like?  What was God writing on our hearts?  The prophet Micah gets to the details when he writes,

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?

What God wants of us resonates with Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Merton and many more.  It sounds simple, but it is the foundation for building an “ethos of peace” in our world.  Our hearts should be filled with the desire to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with our God – and that, I believe describes a nonviolent spirit.   

Folks, love is nonviolent. Love is peaceful. Love is kind. Love is what binds us to one another.  And when that is what is found in our hearts we can understand better Martin Luther King Jr.’s words,

“Love is a force by which God binds man to Himself and man to man.  Such love goes to the extreme; it remains loving and forgiving even in the midst of hostility. It matches the capacity of evil to inflict suffering with an even more enduring capacity to absorb evil, all the while persisting in love.”

I want to end this sermon with reading what we as Quakers say about being people of peace and nonviolence.  This is from the American Friends Service Committee webpage under Quaker Testimonies.

In renouncing war and violence, Friends embrace the transforming power of love and the power of nonviolence, striving for peace in daily interactions with family, neighbors, fellow community members, and those from every corner of the world.

This is who we are – people who embrace the transforming power of love and the power of nonviolence.  When we live this out – we too have the ability to change our world like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. before us.  Let’s join our children and take up that mantle of nonviolence and march forward with love and nonviolence in our hearts!

American Friends Service Committee has offered some queries for us to ponder regarding nonviolence (I have included them on the back of your bulletin). As we enter waiting worship, take some time to ponder these as we wait and listen.

How can I nurture the seeds of peace within myself, my community, and the world?

How can I work to eliminate hatred, injustice, and both physical and institutional violence?

How can I be more open to seeking the goodness in people who act with violence

and hatred?

How can I increase my understanding of nonviolence and use it in all my interactions?