03-14-21 - The Shadow Side of Peace

The Shadow Side of Peace

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

March 14, 2021

Hebrews 12:14-17 (The Voice)

14 Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness, since no one will see God without it. 15 Watch carefully that no one falls short of God’s favor, that no well of bitterness springs up to trouble you and throw many others off the path. 16 Watch that no one becomes wicked and vile like Esau, the son of Isaac, who for a single meal sold his invaluable birthright. 17 You know from the stories of the patriarchs that later, when he wished to claim his blessing, he was turned away. He could not reverse his action even though he shed bitter tears over it.

Good morning Friends, I hope this finds you well, as we are beginning to see the Light at the end of the tunnel of this pandemic. I am happy to say that I received my second vaccine this past week and I join many of you who are in the process of helping us get back together in-person.  Keep getting those vaccines and stay patient. We are making great strides to end this difficult time!

A couple Sunday’s ago, I began having us look at bearing one another’s burdens or what I labeled being “Burden Bearers.”  In that first sermon I concluded by rooting my thoughts in the Quaker Testimonies or what we call S.P.I.C.E.S.  I also said we would spend the time leading up to our Easter Celebration exploring in more depth each of the SPICES and how they speak to carrying one another’s burdens. 

Last week, we started by looking at the gift of simplicity.  We were reminded by Quaker Richard Foster that Simplicity points us toward a way of living in which everything we have we receive as a gift, and everything we have is cared for by God, and everything we have is available to others when it is right and good.

The conversation around Simplicity continued last week in a beautiful way in our Fellowship Hour, where we discussed the challenges of “stripping off the excess” and acknowledging our efforts and behaviors and getting to the root – the gifts that simplicity offers – that deeper relationship with the Divine and a deeper concern and love for our neighbor and self.

This week, as I began to prepare for looking at Peace, I continued many of these same thoughts.  I believe peace too is a gift bestowed upon us from the Divine, but it is also a gift we are to offer our neighbors and ourselves.

In the Quaker’s Peace Testimony from the United Kingdom their concluding paragraph points to how peace is not only foundational for Quakers, but how it should be part of our daily and ordinary lives.  Just listen to how well they articulated this final paragraph of their peace testimony.    

The peace testimony is not something Quakers take down from a shelf and dust off only in wartime or in times of personal or political crisis. Living out a witness to peace has to do with everyday choices about the work we do, the relationships we build, what part we take in politics, what we buy, how we raise our children. It is a matter of fostering relationships and structures - from personal to international - which are strong and healthy enough to contain conflict when it arises and allow its creative resolution. It is a matter of withdrawing our co-operation from structures and relationships which are unjust and explorative. It is a matter of finding creative ways of dealing with conflict when it does arise, with the aim of freeing all concerned to find a just and loving solution.

Keep these thoughts in mind as we continue on. 

I think I have said this before, but when I was out in the Northwest, I was invited to write curriculum for our annual Peace Month.  Each January, we took the time to focus our attention on unique aspects of our testimony of peace. We focused on topics such as:

·        Sabbath as Peace-making,

·        Conflict Resolution as Peace

·        Locally Aware Meetings for Peace

·        We even looked at Making Peace through Lament.

·        And one of the final times I worked on a Peace Month curriculum, we actually looked at how each of the S.P.I.C.E.S drew us back to Peace.

I always enjoyed delving into the study, writing, and development of this curriculum.  But…the implementation and the actual teaching and preaching about Peace at the local Meeting level was another thing all together. 

My fellow pastors in the Northwest (including myself), would often comment on the fact that Peace Month often brought anything but peace. We even started to label it as “Non-Peace Month.”  

Just talking about Peace was disruptive to people. Weirdly, it caused them to feel uncomfortable. I even had a person come to me once and ask if we could end Peace Month early because it was causing people unrest. 

Now, I believe, the reason this is the case is that when we begin to explore peace and enter into the process of how peace is achieved or discovered we must again do some soul searching. 

Often this involves asking ourselves why we and our neighbors experience a lack of peace in our world.  

This question immediately draws us to examine the shadow side of peace.  We cannot have peace, if we are not addressing first what causes the lack of peace in our lives.   

A few years ago, as I was consuming anything and everything Quaker Parker Palmer wrote, I came across his book

“A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life.”  A book I would highly recommend.

This week, I went to my shelf to look for the book and realized I had given it to a friend.  It is one that I recommend often to people because, in it, Parker Palmer speaks to our yearning to live undivided lives―lives that are congruent with our inner truth in a world filled with the forces of fragmentation.

As I consumed Parker Palmer’s words and wisdom, I came across a section that has forever changed me.  When I first read it, I had a mix of emotions and feelings well up inside of me. Parker Palmer was taking me into a deeper, more robust perspective of peace, BUT not by introducing me to silence or centering, but, of all things, through VIOLENCE. 

Immediately upon reading Palmer’s words, I understood why Peace Month was so difficult for so many people. Peace Month would throw open the door to our physical, spiritual, and emotional lives and expose the world’s ways and the ways of our own hearts.

If the opposite of peace or the lack of peace is what is labeled violence, we immediately have some physical, spiritual, and definitely emotional responses. 

So, as I READ Parker Palmer’s words this morning, please listen carefully to how he describes violence and allow these words to speak deeply. Do not feel as though you need to reconcile them or even respond to them immediately. Just let them speak to your condition, to your soul, to your inner life, and to your lack of peace.

Palmer begins by quoting Deuteronomy 30:19.

'I have set before you, life and death, blessing and curse: therefore, choose life.'

He then goes on to say,

“Yet when we 'choose life', we quickly confront the reality of a culture riddled with violence. By violence I mean more than the physical savagery that gets much of the press. Far more common are those assaults on the human spirit so endemic to our lives that we may or may not even recognize them as acts of violence.”

“Violence is done when parents insult children, when teachers demean students, when supervisors treat employees as disposable means to economic ends, when physicians treat patients as objects, when people condemn gays and lesbians 'in the name of God', when racists live by the belief that people with a different skin color are less than human.

And just as physical violence may lead to bodily death, spiritual violence causes death in other guises – the death of a sense of self, of trust in others, of risk taking on behalf of creativity, of commitment to the common good. If obituaries were written for deaths of this kind, every daily newspaper would be a tome.”

“By violence I mean any way we have of violating the identity and integrity of another person.

I find this definition helpful because it reveals the critical connections between violent acts large and small from dropping bombs on civilians halfway around the world to demeaning a child in a classroom.”

“Even if we do no more than acquiesce to small daily doses of violence, we become desensitized to it, embracing the popular insanity that violence is 'only normal' and passively assenting to its dominance.”

Now, because this was so profound for me, I needed some time to sit with what Parker Palmer was implying about peace and it’s shadow side, violence. Also, this week as I reflected on bearing one another’s burdens, I found this speaking to the need for peace and some of the foundational causes of our lack of peace.   

I think to allow these words of Parker Palmer to engage our inner lives and spiritual journeys, I want to read his words to you again. 

This time, I want to read it in what I would call a Lectio Divina style. If you are not familiar with Lectio Divina, it is Latin for Divine Reading. It is usually considered a monastic practice that was done with scripture and other spiritual texts. The hope is that the text would become seen as a living text and even ultimately become part of the reader’s life and action.   

To do this Lectio Divina style, I will read a section and then pause – allowing the words to settle into our hearts.  You may want to grab a piece of paper or take notes on your phone or other devise.  Before I read it again, I ask you to consider the following queries as you listen…

·        What words or phrases grab my attention or speak to my condition?

·        What surprises me?

·        What causes me to have an emotional response? 

·        Do these words cause me to want to make any changes, reconcile, or make amends? 

·        What is God teaching me about the need for peace and bearing one another’s burdens in this text?

After I READ Parker Palmer’s words again, we will put these queries up for you to ponder as we enter into waiting worship.

I do not want us to simply wrap these thoughts up and move on, instead I would like us to wrestle with these thoughts and take time to ponder them, digest them, and allow ourselves to have a spiritual, physical, emotional, even intellectual response or responses to these words.

Let me read again, taking intentional pauses this time for reflection, these words from Parker Palmer. Once again, he begins with Deuteronomy 30:19…

'I have set before you, life and death, blessing and curse: therefore, choose life'

[Pause]

“Yet when we 'choose life', we quickly confront the reality of a culture riddled with violence. By violence I mean more than the physical savagery that gets much of the press. Far more common are those assaults on the human spirit so endemic to our lives that we may or may not even recognize them as acts of violence.”

[Pause]

“Violence is done when parents insult children, when teachers demean students, when supervisors treat employees as disposable means to economic ends, when physicians treat patients as objects, when people condemn gays and lesbians 'in the name of God', when racists live by the belief that people with a different skin color are less than human.

[Pause]

And just as physical violence may lead to bodily death, spiritual violence causes death in other guises – the death of a sense of self, of trust in others, of risk taking on behalf of creativity, of commitment to the common good. If obituaries were written for deaths of this kind, every daily newspaper would be a tome.”

[Pause]

“By violence I mean any way we have of violating the identity and integrity of another person.

[Pause]

I find this definition helpful because it reveals the critical connections between violent acts large and small from dropping bombs on civilians halfway around the world to demeaning a child in a classroom.”

[Pause]

“Even if we do no more than acquiesce to small daily doses of violence, we become desensitized to it, embracing the popular insanity that violence is 'only normal' and passively assenting to its dominance.”

[Pause]

Let us now ponder the queries from before:

• What words or phrases grab my attention or speak to my condition?

• What surprises me?

• What causes me to have an emotional response? 

• Do these words cause me to want to make any changes, reconcile, or make amends? 

• What is God teaching me about the need for peace and bearing one another’s burdens in this text?

03-07-21 - The Gift of Simplicity

The Gift of Simplicity

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Bob Henry

March 7, 2021

I Thessalonians 4:6-8

6-7 Don’t run roughshod over the concerns of your brothers and sisters. Their concerns are God’s concerns, and he will take care of them. We’ve warned you about this before. God hasn’t invited us into a disorderly, grungy life but into something holy and beautiful—as beautiful on the inside as the outside.

8 If you disregard this advice, you’re not offending your neighbors; you’re rejecting God, who is making you a gift of his Holy Spirit.

Good morning Friends, it is good to be with you once again in the comfort of your own homes.  I pray this finds you safe and well. 

Last week, we looked at what It means to become burden bearers for our neighbors and loved ones.  At the end of the sermon, I took a moment to highlight our Quaker Testimonies (or what we call our S.P.I.C.E.S.) which speak to this burden bearing. I also mentioned that for the weeks leading up to our Easter Celebration, I would take time to unpack a little more about each testimony or S.P.I.C.E. 

Today, we are going to look at the first “S” in our S.P.I.C.E.S – Simplicity.

I was first introduced to Simplicity ironically by a Quaker, before I ever even had considered becoming a convinced Friend.

It was Quaker Richard Foster who introduced me to Simplicity in his book, Freedom of Simplicity: Finding Harmony in a Complex World from 1991. The book is not that long, but it really packs a punch.  I was in my Masters’ Program in an introductory class on Spirituality when I was assigned this book.

I have to be honest, until this time, I had never contemplated simplicity.  I was raised in a country, and for that matter, a church which rarely spoke of or highlighted simplicity. 

I never heard it preached from a pulpit, no one taught it to me in school, and when I really thought about, much of what I was taught was just the opposite of simplicity.  Yet, my professor was clear it was foundational to our spirituality and life of faith. 

Well, as I cracked open the book and began to read, Richard Foster explained it this way.

“Jesus Christ and all the writers of the New Testament call us to break free of mammon lust and live in joyous trust...They point us toward a way of living in which everything we have we receive as a gift, and everything we have is cared for by God, and everything we have is available to others when it is right and good. This reality frames the heart of Christian simplicity. It is the means of liberation and power to do what is right and to overcome the forces of fear and avarice.” 

He goes on to say,

“God's blessing is not for personal aggrandizement, but to benefit and bless all the peoples of the earth. To understand the distinction makes all the difference in the world. The theology of wealth says, 'I give so that I can get.' Christian simplicity says, 'I get so that I can give.' The difference is profound.” 

We in America have wrestled for a long time with the “prosperity gospel” invading our spirituality and religious life. 

After the Civil War we saw a rise in the prosperity gospel linked together with revivalism. 

Tent Revivals were as much about money as saving souls and quickly God’s blessing had become about prospering and wealth while trying to live a pure life.

When we failed at our purity, money became the way to buy our freedom (sounds very similar to the Reformation Days with indulgences). This would continue to evolve in America and creep into the nooks and crannies of many faiths (including Friends) without realizing it. 

As media became more and more involved, televangelism became the way so-called religious leaders and organizations found their way into the pockets of their watchers. 

As Richard Foster was writing “Freedom of Simplicity,” America was watching the fall of Televangelist Jim Bakker and his PTL Empire and many other religious con artists who had merged prosperity theology with the American Dream while making a rather large profit for themselves.

It seems only appropriate that it would be a Quaker who would write a book to remind us of our roots and invite us to find freedom again from this bondage to money and idealism. 

Another Quaker, Lloyd Lee Wilson also described simplicity in terms of freedom. He said,

“Simplicity is the name we give to our effort to free ourselves to give full attention to God's still, small voice: the sum of our efforts to subtract from our lives everything that competes with God for our attention and clear hearing.”

So why is it that Quakers have made Simplicity one of our distinctives and testimonies all along?

In my research, I turned to the words of Quaker Fran Irene Taber, who said that

“…the first generation of Friends did not have a testimony for simplicity. Instead, they came upon a faith which cut to the root of the way they saw life, radically reorienting it.

They saw that all they did must flow directly from what they experienced as true, and that if it did not, both the knowing and the doing became false.

In order to keep the knowledge clear and the doing true, they stripped away anything which seemed to get in the way. They called those things superfluities, and it is this radical process of stripping for clear-seeing which we now term simplicity.”

Now, if you have ever read any history book that mentions Quakers, one thing you most likely will read about are the three aspects of our testimony of simplicity: dress, speech, and material possessions.

The First we almost always read or hear about is Simplicity of Dress.

On the surface, you may think plain dress is pretty straightforward (right this second, maybe you’re mentally picturing what you think Quaker dress may look like). Quakers in gray and subdued colors, almost Amish in appearance.

Yet “simplicity of dress” is actually subjective.

Modern Quakers simply dress simple. It doesn’t sound like this is too different from what you may see with some of the minimalist leaders today: consistency, timelessness, maybe similar, coordinating colors.

Yet why would anyone willingly (and gladly) choose this type of dress?

First of all, this approach to fashion and style is timeless. You don’t have to spend time and money on the latest trends, effectively giving back time and money—and energy and mental bandwidth—to spend on the most important things in your life (which typically aren’t things at all).  

It is widely known that Albert Einstein bought several variations of the same gray suit so that he wouldn't have to waste time deciding what to wear each morning, and so he could give more time to his research and study to impact his world.

Actually, when I was an Anglican Priest, I had a similar experience. I wore a clerical collar and mostly black clothing every day, which helped me not even think about what I was to wear and simply focus on the task at hand.

Actually, I have found it hard to get out of that mentality, my closet is made up of mostly black and simple items. I rarely get new clothing until they actually wear out, I need something, or I receive a gift.  I must confess, one of my vices is my collection of fun socks – which would have been most likely frowned upon by many early Quakers.

Overall, you could say that there is a personal aspect here where one needs to overcome their ego and identity since this is voluntary simplicity.  Let’s be honest, this would have been much harder back in junior high or high school, then it is, at least for me, today. 

Another aspect of valuing plain dress was intended to eliminate an aspect of social inequality. If everyone dressed in a simple way, it would put people on more of an even (visual/physical) playing field.  We see this in schools today that require uniforms for students.  It is also why I do not like wearing a suit to lead worship.

Lastly, there’s now an ecological aspect when you think of the wastefulness of trend-based clothing and fast fashion. Every day, we have more and more options for sustainable, ethical, and slow fashion.  

Author, Activist, and New Monastic Community founder, Shane Claiborne, shared in an interview that he makes his own clothing. He shared that he caught the vision while living in Calcutta in a village of people with leprosy. Since they were completely cut off from the rest of society, they had to make their own clothes and shoes, grow their own food and be a fully self-sustaining community. Shane found himself mesmerized with the way of life that they had created, “a new society in the shell of the old.” Shane went on to explain that in Gandhi’s movement making one’s own clothing was a sign of resistance against British rule. The central symbol of the independence movement was the spinning wheel and one could recognize those who were part of it by their homespun clothing, whether poor or in Parliament.

Let’s now, move on to the second aspect of simplicity – Speech.

Plain or simple speech for early friends also worked to illuminate social inequality.  One example of this was not using titles and calling everyone sister or brother.   

As well, this aspect is often paired with a “simplicity of behavior.”  Here’s is how we Quakers/Friends describe it:

“Simplicity does not mean being simplistic. We value nuance and choose words carefully when we speak. We may speak passionately, but we avoid distortion and exaggeration.”8

“Honesty, avoiding class distinction (titles)…and the speaking of truth.”

Sadly, we live in a world of exaggerations and distortions – marketing and the media has often invaded our religious world – so much that “Church Growth” is a degree option in many seminaries these days.  As well, our titles, or what may be  labeled our “degrees” or “family lineage,” also may be complicating things and putting us in positions of authority or privilege.  

If the Quaker faith is going to be counter cultural and make a difference in our world and especially with our neighbors, we may want to again find ways to put aside our titles and degrees, and embrace a simplicity that creates equality among one another.  Seeking again our authentic voices by speaking Truth to Power in our world with passion rather than distortion and exaggeration.

Folks, I hope when people join us at First Friends for worship, small groups, fellowship experiences, service work, etc., they find us genuine and speaking to their condition. That what draws them to us is not our degrees, titles, or family heritage, but that we are speaking to the condition of the world and our neighbors – becoming equals and burden bearers on this journey called life.  

And that leads us to the most contentious of the three aspects of simplicity- Material Possessions.

Again, here is how some Quakers/Friends have described the simplicity of material possessions.

“Believe that one should use one’s resources, including money and time, deliberately in ways that are most likely to make life truly better for oneself and others.”

“Believe that a person’s spiritual life and character are more important than the quantity of goods he possesses or his monetary worth.”

The reality is that this testimony is not just about the nature of our possessions or what goods we have to offer, but rather also about our attitude toward these possessions and goods.

Way before Richard Foster wrote “Freedom of Simplicity” he wrote the following about plain living. He said,  

“We plunge ourselves into enormous debt and then take two and three jobs to stay afloat. We uproot our families with unnecessary moves just so we can have a more prestigious house. We grasp and grab and never have enough. And most destructive of all, our flashy cars and sports spectaculars and backyard pools have a way of crowding out much interest in civil rights or inner city poverty or the starved masses of India. Greed has a way of SEVERING the cords of compassion.

I will be honest with you. At times, Sue and I have struggled living in Fishers, Indiana. We have wrestled with the size of our home and the cost of living in relation to many we serve. (I am glad we have the space currently to provide for all three of our boys – but when they move out it will be time to simplify again). 

I too can easily become wrapped up in a-less-than-simple life that so quickly crowds out the civil rights of my neighbor, the poverty they can’t seem to arise from, the starving in their stomachs, the struggles, abuse, and oppression they face daily.  Too often I just look away and hope that I didn’t see it, but each time I neglect these nudges of the Spirit, I embrace the greed in my heart. 

If there is one thing that reviewing our testimony of Simplicity should do is help remind us of those words I opened with from Richard Foster…that simplicity is all about pointing us toward a way of living in which everything we have we receive as a gift, and everything we have is cared for by God, and everything we have is available to others when it is right and good.

I pray we will see these gifts of God and share them with our neighbors, starting today!

Now, let us continue to ponder these thoughts as we enter into waiting worship and simple silence. Here are some queries to help you reflect during this time.

• How can I apply the Testimony of Simplicity to my own life?

• Are there ways I can simplify my dress, speech/behavior, or overall quantity (and relationship with) my material possessions for the benefit of my neighbors and world?

02-28-21 - Burden Bearers

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

February 28, 2021

Good morning friends, it is good to be with you again this week. I pray this finds you safe and well this morning.

I started this week off on Monday morning in Greenwood, celebrating the life of our dear Friend and dedicated choir member, Jenny Morgan. 

Before the brief service with family and friends, I was asked to meet with the Funeral Director. Usually, this is just a formality that all clergy go through to nail down logistics for the service. 

As I entered the tech room, just outside the area we were gathering, I heard the funeral director sigh deeply as she sat down to run through her spiel.

I commented on their advanced technology set-up and said how impressed I was at how they had kept up with the demanding changes during this pandemic.  Not knowing that this was solely her doing, she immediately changed her tone and began to share with me the difficult paradigm shift that her funeral business has undergone in the last year. 

As she spoke, she shared of the challenges, the enormous weight she felt in helping people through such sensitive and important moments of life transition. I was now in full pastoral care mode. I took a listening posture and gave her this moment to share freely.  The flood gates burst-open and she began to share the behind the-scenes stories that none of us would ever know about - what she has experienced this past year and its deep effect on her. My heart broke as I let her share. 

And then with tears welling up in her eyes, over the mask obstructing the emotions of the rest of her face, she explained that in less than a year, she has directed 400+ funerals for Covid deaths alone (that does not include all the other deaths that have occurred that were not Covid related) – a few of those funerals  have been in person, many on Zoom, and the most recent a beloved local teacher who died of Covid just a couple of weeks ago which she was still trying to process. 

She sighed again heavily and said, “I am not sure why I am telling you this – you understand this. Pastors carry this same burden.” I realized in that moment she needed someone who could empathize with her burden to make it seem just a bit lighter.  

Well, as I drove home from the gravesite service for Jenny, I deeply began processing that word the Funeral Director used – burden. The dictionary says a burden is a load, typically a heavy one or a duty or misfortune that causes hardship, anxiety, and grief.  I think you can see just by the definition that her choice of this descriptive word was right on. 

After returning home and settling into my chair after dinner, I decided to work on the self-led guide for this week.  I sensed I was being nudged by the Spirit to look at that word, burden. But as I sat there, listening to my family busily working around me, struggling with the ongoing pandemic and daily challenges of virtual work and school, I began to have a spiritual awaking. 

Not only did I ponder all the burdens that face me and my family, I also reflected on the people’s burdens I am privy to in our Meeting, our community, my neighborhood, my friend networks and pastoral groups.

I thought of the burdens of our nation, the burdens of Black, Indigenous and people of color, and specifically the Asian community, the elderly, the people with disabilities, the LGBTQ community, and how could I forget the current burden on healthcare works, teachers, front-line heroes and the families and friends of the now 500,000+ people who have lost their lives to COVID. 

I sat there in silence overwhelmed by the burdens surrounding me on so many levels.

Now, I must be honest, even though as a pastor, I usually I am drawn to scripture, meditation, or prayer in these moments and I often guide others in this same path - in THIS moment, I just wanted to throw up my hands and cry out, saying “enough is enough.”  I wanted to literally “cast these burdens upon God” – “cast” in the true sense of throwing them with great force at God.

I also know that if anyone would have known I was considering casting those burdens at God, they would quickly recite me another verse from bible like “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden (burdened) and I will give you rest…for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

But let’s be really honest, that all sounds wonderful, easy and quickly resolved, but I have never found it happens that way.    

Burdens often abide – our casting them off may be better described by a fisherman’s line that is sent far across the water and then slowly comes back to us as we reel it in.

Yet, as I continued to ponder, I noticed again that line from the text from Matthew – his yoke is easy and his burden is light – it may be easy and light, but did you notice, IT IS STILL THERE?  

Even Christ has a yoke and a burden!  I think we miss that, but it helps greatly to feel a sense of connection with Christ.  Even in scripture we too often write off the fact that Jesus was greatly burdened, he held such a heavy load that at one point he breaks down in tears looking out at Jerusalem and realizing their bad decisions, and on another occasion even runs away to the Garden of Gethsemane and with great force throws his burdens back at God.  I can relate to this Jesus.

Folks, please hear me on this, we must get past the sugar-coated Christianity that leaves us with useless taglines and scripture soundbites, which we too often translate as “hope and possibility” - yet often leave us feeling empty or even more burdened. 

Imagine, if I had simply said to that Funeral Director, “As a pastor, I think you should just cast your burdens on Christ or leave that at the feet of Jesus for him to take care of, or well, Jesus’ yoke is easy and his burden is light.”

Folks, that would have been so out of place and inappropriate, yet sadly on occasion I have done just that. I have also heard good meaning Christians and Friends throw out flippant verses, taglines or soundbites with no context or explanation – often just filler for neglecting the deeper work.

But if this is how we respond, we have missed an opportunity – we have missed how God handles those burdens THROUGH US.

The author of the epistle to Galatians was having a hard time explaining this to the people. So, they wrote a letter to clarify, saying, “Carry one another’s burdens, and when you do this you are fulfilling the law of Christ.”

Wait a minute…I thought we could just send those off to Jesus and magically the burdens will be lifted, made lighter, made easier. 

Sadly, too many people miss the fact that Jesus was clear that when he left this earth, we, his followers, were going to become his hands and feet and even do greater things than he did. 

If we take this seriously, we are going to be the burden bearers. 

Now, before we go to much further, we better take a moment and find out what the “law of Christ” is, in which the author of Galatians is referring?

If you remember, Jesus summed up his Law this way – starting with the Great Shema in Deuteronomy 6 and then adding his own spin…

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the law and prophets hang on these two commandments.”

When you begin to put this together, it is not hard to see why God would ask us to carry or bear the burdens of our neighbors. By doing so, we are loving our neighbors as ourselves. We are becoming the incarnate Christ to those around us.

I don’t know about you, but when I am facing a burden, I want some tangible help, I want someone to sit with me and listen, to understand, to give advice at times, to just be present with me, to empathize, to even be willing to help me lighten or even carry that load.   

God is saying to each of us (and we Quakers know this), “I am in you and it is your job as my church to carry one another’s burdens so that you will fulfill what is the essence of our very nature – Love”

I find it interesting, have you ever noticed that often when a neighbor or friend is burdened, you seem to be able to help them carry that burden easier than the burdens you are carrying yourself?  Some of the most burdened people I know are also the people who are able to lift the burdens of those around them. 

I sense that is a part of our essence, the image of God within us. I believe humanity is divinely wired this way so we can take care of each other.

Folks, this shows how much we need one another.  That our lives are not just dependent on our relationship with God, but they also are dependent on our relationship with one another.  

Sadly, many of us, including myself, have too often woefully neglected the call to love our neighbor and carry their burden.  We have looked the other way, given excuses, even blamed them for their own burdens. That is not living by the Law of Love.

We may celebrate our independence in this country, but it is going to be our dependence, love and willingness to carry one another’s burdens that is really going to bring us freedom and hope.    

Folks, I will be the first to say that it is easier to seek comfort and lean on my own privilege, even point a finger at someone else instead of myself and focus on my own needs before helping carry someone else’s burden. But the reality is that for many of us, God has given us an abundance of resources to begin to lighten the loads of our neighbors.

I think it might be time to return to our Quaker Spices for a couple quick reminders. Our spices or testimonies speak directly to why we are called to carry one another’s burdens – let me point a little something out from each one:

Simplicity

Quakers have always felt they should live simply, tending to basic needs and avoiding luxuries. They were aware of the poverty around them, and that resources needed to be shared.

Peace and Nonviolence

Since most conflicts do not escalate to war...pursuit of peaceful approaches to conflict resolution in our personal lives and in the wider world is seen as a constant obligation.

Integrity and Truth

A manifestation of this testimony is often called “speaking truth to power.” Quakers are exhorted not to stand by, but to speak out about injustices they see.

Community

Quakers commit themselves to responding to the needs of others, and to the flourishing of local and global communities in all their diversity.

Equality

Also following from the principle that there is that of God in everyone is the notion that all people must be treated and cared for equally regardless of gender, ability, race, socio-economic status, sexuality and any number of other identifying characteristics for which people may be privileged or disadvantaged.

Stewardship

Stewardship is a not a choice it is a responsibility, it is what we owe the future. Three phrases used by Quakers to describe how we should take care of the Earth are “right sharing, right ordering and good stewardship”

Please remember these Spices or Quaker testimonies are the way we, Quakers, work for a connection between our inner and outer lives. They are the way Quakers take their relationship with the divine spirit and turn it into action.

They are also the foundation for why we, Friends, tangibly carry one another’s burdens and lighten each other’s load.

For the next few Sundays leading to Easter, I plan to unpack a little more each week just how these Spices speak to our condition and help us lift the burdens we each face.

For now, let us enter into waiting worship and ponder or meditate on the following queries:

Who are the people in my life that help carry my burdens, how have I connected with and thanked them lately?

How well am I living out my call as a “burden bearer”? Is there someone in my life currently that I am neglecting being the incarnate Christ to in their daily struggle?  

Which of the S.P.I.C.E.S. challenge me the most and draw me to further exploration this week? 

02-14-21 - A Love Supreme: Our True Essence

A Love Supreme: Our True Essence

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

February 14, 2021

Good morning, Friends! I hope you are feeling the love this morning on this Valentine’s Day!

A couple weeks ago, I was watching a new documentary produced by Jazz Night in America on NPR Online. The documentary introduced the viewer to a, not so ordinary, church in San Francisco, CA.

On the first Sunday of every month at this church, they turn off the lights and get silent much like Quakers entering waiting worship, but then in reverent and expecting waiting they play the music of their patron saint, John Coltrane.

Yes, the famous Jazz saxophonist, John Coltrane. And the album they listen to is what some consider one of the most sacred and divinely inspired Jazz albums of all time, A Love Supreme from 1964.  For jazz musicians, today, it is so sacred and personal that some refuse to perform the songs from the album.     

The Reverends Franzo and Marina King founded St. John Coltrane Church after attending a Coltrane performance at a club called the Jazz Workshop in 1965. This was soon after Coltrane had openly shared that he had experienced a spiritual awakening. Franzo and Marina say that during the performance the Holy Spirit spoke to them and they knew what they were to do - start a church that focused on the spiritual experience of John Coltrane. 

Now, some may consider this far out, idol worship, or even heretical, but as a lover of Jazz, as one who owns a copy of “A Love Supreme” and considers it uniquely holy and exceptional, I found this a fascinating concept.  

On the inside cover of the album Coltrane writes a letter to the listener that explains the project and a long prayer, or what some consider a psalm called, “A Love Supreme.”

Michael Cuscuna, Coltrane’s producer said of the album that it projects “a spiritual serenity and inner peace that belies the turbulence that would enter his music the following year” when Coltrane would be diagnosed with liver cancer and then decline and die at the young age of 40.

Coltrane wrote to his listener,

I would like to tell you that no matter what…It is with God. He is gracious and merciful. His way is in Love. Through which we all are. It is truly A Love Supreme.

And he closes his letter almost prophetically saying,

May we never forget that in the sunshine of our lives, through the storm and after the rain – it is all with God – in all always and forever. ALL PRAISE TO GOD.

With love to all, I thank you.

 John Coltrane.

Because of copyright laws, I cannot have us silence ourselves right now and listen to “A Love Supreme.” But I encourage you to go download the album or purchase the vinyl, or borrow it from the library or a friend and simply be still in the darkness of a comfortable room in your home and allow yourself to worship and feel the love that John Coltrane so passionately conveyed through this album. It also would make a wonderful Valentine’s gift to yourself or that special someone.

Now, obviously I shared about John Coltrane for more than giving you music recommendations or Valentine gift ideas.  Actually, as I have learned more about Coltrane’s spiritual awakening, and study spiritual awakenings both in myself and others, it has helped me understand more about the many layers of God’s Love – that love is more than an action, more than a feeling, more than so much of what we have made it in our day and age. 

In preparation for this sermon I turned to one of Richard Rohr’s Daily Devotions, one that has helped me articulate a better understanding of Love. Rohr says that,

Love is not really an action that you do. Love is what and who you are, in your deepest essence.

Love is a place that already exists inside of you, but is also greater than you.

That’s the paradox. It’s within you and yet beyond you. This creates a sense of abundance and more-than-enoughness, which is precisely the satisfaction and deep peace of the True Self.

You know you’ve found a well that will never go dry, as Jesus says (see John 4:13-14). Your True Self, God’s Love in you, cannot be exhausted.

I think that is the Love that John Coltrane found – a love that was both beyond him and also flowing within and from him.  A love that Coltrane described as leading him to a richer, fuller, and more productive life, a sense of inner peace, and a gift he must share with the world. 

I find it interesting that when you read the stories of people’s spiritual awakenings often you find them describing being overwhelmed by God’s love. 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was overwhelmed by the creative and transforming nature of love, so much that it changed his entire approach to life, ministry and activism and left him exclaiming, “Love is the only way!”

Or Mother Teresa who after a dark night of the soul proclaimed,

It is not how much we do,

But home much love we put in the doing.

It is not how much we give,

But how much love we put in the giving.

Even our own, George Fox would describe his awakening by saying,

I cried to the Lord, “Why should I be thus, seeing I was never addicted to commit those evils? And the Lord answered, “That it was needful I should have a sense of all conditions, how else should I speak to all conditions!” and in this I saw the infinite love of God. I saw, also, that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and LOVE, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. In that also I saw the infinite love of God, and I had great openings.

Each of these examples speak to a similar experience and awakening to an new understanding of love. 

This is what Richard Rohr articulates so well.  

You get more love by letting it flow through you…If you love, you will become more loving. If you practice patience, you will become more patient. If you stop the Divine Flow, you will be stopped up...Love is not something you can bargain for, nor is it something you can attain or work up to—because love is your very structural and essential identity...

When you are living in conscious connection with this Loving Inner Presence, you are in your True Self. God is forever united to this love within you; it is your soul, the part of you that always says yes to God. God always sees God in you—and “cannot disown God’s own self” (2 Timothy 2:13).

Last week, in my sermon I introduced the idea of “Radical Metanoia” which I described as going beyond our own minds and into the mind of God.  Part of that metanoia is this living in conscious connection with this Loving Inner Presence.

What we as Quakers call our Inner Light or Inner Christ, what theologians have described as the Imago Dei or the Image of God, or what Richard Rohr went as far as to say is our True Self. 

It has been said and sung – They will know we are Christian by our love – by our deepest essence.  It has existed within us from our beginning, but sadly we struggle too often with embracing, recognizing, and living in to it.

Returning to our text for this morning from the first epistle of John, it seems the author may have been writing to the Greater Church instead of a specific church like many of the other epistles – or at least he was writing to a larger region of churches, possibly the Persians. Hearing it again moments ago, it is clear that the author’s words are relevant to us today. 

LOVE, what this Valentine’s Day is all about, is also the essence of our life and faith. In the summary of 1 John the author makes that so clear.

Let me read it again, and I ask that you listen very carefully for all 15 times in only 6 verses that LOVE is emphasized:

7-10 My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.

11-12 My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!

It is hard not to hear the importance of love in this summary - whether it is God’s love for us, our love for one another, or the love that dwells deeply within each of us.  

So, on this day, let us celebrate this perfect love – our essence, or essential identity – that Love Supreme…and may our lives become an incarnate – life-giving, and so needed Valentine to our world, today!

Now, as we enter this time of waiting worship, take a moment to consider the following queries:

1.     How has love impacted my spiritual awakening?

2.     Who do I struggle to love and share the love of God with? How might I show love to them, today?

3.     Would others say my essential identity is love? If not, what could I do about that?

02-07-21 - Radical Metanoia

Philippians 2:1-5 (NRSV)

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was[a] in Christ Jesus.

Good morning, Friends. It is good to be with you in the comfort of your own homes again this week.  I pray you are safe and well – and getting those vaccines so we can be back together in person again.

If there is one word that has been used a great deal more, lately, in our world, it has to be the word “radical.” 

Just this week, I had back-to-back conversations with two different people who used that word to describe two opposing groups of people.

It seems easy these days to attach the word “radical” as a descriptor and assume everyone understands. It has almost become a “buzz” word for our day and age.

So earlier this week, I decided to take note and write down when someone I connected with or in the media used the word “radical.” I will be honest. It became rather overwhelming. Here is a list of what I heard:

Radical Extremists

Radical Right

Radical Left

Radical Insurrectionists

Radical Black Lives Matters Protesters

Radical Militias

Radical Conservatives

Radical Liberals

Radical White Supremacists

Radical Religious

Radical Administrators

Radical Agendas

Radical Police

Radical Initiatives

Radical Reconstructionists

Radical Centrists

Radical Change

And the list could go on…

But what does it really mean when we use the world radical?

What lines do we draw using the word radical?  

Who is radical and who is just passionate about what they believe?  

Just maybe the word radical itself has lost its descriptive power for us today. I don’t even know if we would want to include “Radical Quakers” in that list I just read. 

But, if we, Quakers, believe we are a people who are alive and have meaning and purpose in this world, then we will have to admit that there is a relationship, as Quaker Jeffrey Dudiak states, between “what is” and “what is not, but should be, between the past and the future, between, on the one hand, the grounding practices, and on the other hand, the aspirations of a living tradition.” 

This is why Jeffery describes Quakers as a people with a “radicalizing spirit.” From the earliest of days, they went beyond the law, following the Spirit, and opening the faith to new possibilities.

The early Quakers embraced an often mysterious concept – in Greek it is called metanoia – and it means going beyond their own minds and into the mind of God. 

Even though we may be a bit concerned with the descriptor, our Quaker ancestors definitely had a “radicalizing spirit” and were even defined as a “radical faith” by other Christians, faith traditions, and even the government of their day.

This was all based on their beliefs around “what is” and “what is not, but should be” in the early days of their formation. 

If you are not familiar with some of those beliefs, here are just a few beliefs “considered radical” that early Quakers professed: 

●        The social and political equality of the sexes.

●        The abolition of slavery, which they saw as evil.

●        That no lands should be obtained from indigenous peoples except through negotiation and mutual agreement.

●        Complete pacifism.

●        No class distinctions.

●        Complete tolerance of other religious views. 

Some people, other faith traditions, even governments still would consider many of those beliefs “radical” in our day. Actually, we even have Quakers/Friends who believe this is too radical and don’t even profess this these any more.

But we must be careful with how we use the word, “radical” currently, especially with all that is going on in our world and nation at the moment. If we are going to say we are a “Radical Faith” or even “Radical Quakers” we better know how to explain that.

What does it really mean to be radical in the manner of Friends - let’s take a moment to explore this idea. 

Jeffrey Dudiak shed some light for me on the word radical and how it is used.  He says, 

“Indeed the term ‘radical’ harbors a wonderful ambiguity.  The etymological origin of the term radical is the Latin radix, which means root. 

Among the dictionary meanings of radical is the following: ‘forming an inherent or fundamental part of the nature of someone or something.’

Here, then, something is at its most radical when it is rooted most securely in what it is. 

But the term also has taken on another meaning, obviously related to, but seemingly contradictory to the first.

On this meaning, radical refers to a change or action “relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something,” and it is this meaning that gives us radical in the sense of something “characterized by departure from tradition; innovative or progressive,’ and as ‘advocating a thorough or complete political or social reform. 

So, this means that…

The term radical can mean either being deeply rooted, or tearing something up from the roots. It can mean either being bound firmly and securely to its ground, or being liberated from such an attachment altogether. 

Most people would say we have to pick one or the other, but the word radical actually is the perfect word to describe the paradox that we find in Quakerism.

This is not an either/or but rather a both/and scenario. Quakers are radical in both ways. 

1.   We are rooted and secure in who and what we are... and

2.   We are characterized by change or action and a departure from tradition while being innovative and progressive.

It is probably because of what Quaker Rufus Jones identified as “The Beyond Within” - how he described the two minds (our own mind and the mind of the Spirit or Christ) which must learn to cooperate. 

Rufus Jones said,

,

“Through cooperation with God they [the two minds] build a new stage of the Kingdom of God in the world. We are in that respect not dreamers; we are actual builders...We become organs of a spiritual kingdom and stand in vital relations to an Eternal Mind and Heart and Will with whom to cooperate.” 

Even George Fox wrestled with connecting and cooperating with the Mind of God, he said it well,

“Be still and cool in your own mind and spirit from your own thoughts, and then you will feel the principle of God to turn your mind to the Lord God, whereby you will receive his strength and power from where it comes from...therefore be still a while from your own thoughts, searching, seeking desires and imaginations, and stay in the principle of God in you, to keep your mind upon God, and what he is up to.” 

This truly is radical in our day and age.  

1.   Be still and cool in your mind and spirit. 

2.   Be still a while so your thoughts, searching, seeking desires and imaginations can focus on what God’s mind wants. 

Just maybe during this pandemic we have learned to slow down a bit and found new ways to be still.  But it is clear, that our world wants action, we want response. We want to do anything but be still. Our impatience has turned into endurance and we are ready for the stillness to end. 

If we at First Friends are going to be considered “Radical Quakers” or at least people with a “radicalizing spirit” like our ancestors before us, we may need to pause and actually notice that the current pandemic we have become impatient with, may be the catalyst for returning to our roots.   

On many occasions, I have quoted from Rex Ambler’s book, “The Quaker Way: A Rediscovery.” I continue to find this book a breath of fresh air. I believe Rex is giving new life to the way we understand our Quaker faith - and his definition speaks to our condition this Sunday.  Take a listen once again: 

Quakers sit in silence because they want to know something that words cannot tell them. They want to feel something or become aware of something so that they can really make a connection with it. It is something fundamental to their life, they know that, indeed it is the underlying reality of their life, but they are not normally aware of it.

They are preoccupied with other things. They are taken up, like others, with the relatively shallow things of life, encouraged by the media and contemporary culture generally, and they hardly feel the depth of it all. So, they feel the loss, the distance, and want somehow to get close to this deeper reality. They want to become ‘the Friends of Truth,’ as they liked to call themselves at the beginning.

Not any truth, but a truth that relates specifically to their deepest felt needs, and to the needs of world. They are looking for a truth by which to live, that is, a sense of reality that tells them who they are and how they should live. They want the truth in this sense because that is the only basis on which they could expect to enjoy life to the full and to contribute to life. 

Part of the reality of their life, of course, is their relationship with one another and with other people, both near and far. So, they want to ‘discern’ what happens between people, what makes for a good life together, and what makes for a bad one. They want to learn in their own experience how relationships that are broken can be mended, how conflicts can be resolved, and how ‘the Friends of Truth’ can work together to make these things happen in the world. 

I know that many of you just said, “Amen, preach it, Rex!” but others may describe this as radical. 

Yes, it is radical because as Quakers we must embody being still and connecting to the mind of God so that we can impact our world. 

It is that radical mysterious concept -- metanoia - going beyond our own minds and into the mind of God.  It is exactly what Paul described Jesus experiencing in our text from Philippians, today. Just listen again at Paul’s words to us:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

When we, Quakers, embrace this “radical metanoia” and go beyond our own minds and get into the mind of God we begin to see with new eyes. 

No longer is it about us or my selfish needs, but it is more about our neighbors, more about their interests. It truly is radical in our American culture and consumerist society.

This was Christ’s example, this was the early Quakers legacy, and this continues to be our calling today. 

Let us embrace this radical metanoia today, even amidst this pandemic, so that we can begin to make our world a better place.

Now, as we enter a time of waiting worship, please take a moment to consider the following queries:

●       What is my current perception of the word “radical”? Do I consider myself a radical?

●       Am I preoccupied and taken up with the relatively shallow things of life, encouraged by the media and contemporary culture generally and hardly feeling the depth of it all?

●       How might I embrace “radical metanoia” this week?

01-31-21 - Learning to Endure the Darkness

Luke 21: 18-19

But whatever happens, not a single hair of your heads will be harmed.

By enduring all of these things, you will find not loss but gain – not death but authentic life.

I have always been a fan of Sir Kenneth Branagh the Northern Irish actor and filmmaker.  I’ll never forget being introduced to his work in William Shakespeare’s Henry V. 

His rendition of the famous St. Crispin Day Speech where we were introduced to those now famous words “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers” had me riveted, hanging on every word and almost wanting to go into battle for England.

Obviously, that was much before I was a Quaker. 

And who could forget Branagh as Professor Gilderoy Lockhart in the Harry Potter series. Making the character absolutely come off the pages and onto the screen. 

Branagh is such a versatile and skilled actor.

Yet, it was part of a TV Mini-series where Branagh played the legendary explorer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton that I want to focus our attention this morning.

Branagh was almost born to play this role - as Shackleton was also of Irish decent and had very similar physical features to Branagh.

Through this series, Branagh’s acting brought history alive – and an incredible story that is hard to forget.  If you are not familiar with this historic adventure, let me give you a bit of background.

After concluding a race to the South Pole in December 1911, the adventurous Shackleton turned his attention to the crossing of Antarctica from sea to sea, via the pole.

To this end, he made preparations for what became the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition from 1914–1917.

Sadly though, disaster struck this expedition when its ship, the Endurance, became trapped in pack ice and was slowly crushed before the shore parties could be landed.

The crew escaped by literally camping on the sea ice until the ship completely disintegrated. When the ice began to thaw enough for travel in the spring, they launched the saved lifeboats to reach Elephant Island and ultimately South Georgia Island, a stormy ocean voyage of 720 nautical miles (830 miles by car). This would become Shackleton's most famous adventure.

Now, there is an entire sermon series that could be crafted on Shackleton’s adventure alone, but Branagh and many others who have told this story have found the idea of endurance more than the name of the boat. 

Interesting enough, this week as I was listening to the news, I overheard a conversation about whether Americans have the endurance to make it through the pandemic. 

Sometimes, like Shackleton and his crew, our “endurance” seems to be trapped in pack ice and being crushed. Whether it is another stay-at-home order, waiting on a vaccine, or making it through another Zoom meeting – our endurance is waning – being crushed.  We just want to get in our life boats and sail to safety where we can be with people again. 

I find the most ironic part of this story is that they named the boat “Endurance” – only to be taught the lesson-of-all-lessons about endurance.

Which reminds me the song “Ironic” - Alanis Morissette’s song which actually released on my birthday in 1996. 

An old man turned 98,

He won the lottery and died the next day.

It’s a black fly in your Chardonnay

It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late.

It’s like rain on your wedding day

It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid.

It’s good advice that you just didn’t take…

And it’s like being stranded on pack ice in the ocean with a ship named Endurance. 

Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think? Ha.

As I have been pondering endurance this week, I have found many of us trying to articulate and understand what all it entails.  I too have wondered if I have the endurance to make it through this pandemic and its constant evolving.

Like many of you, when I am internally wrestling, I seek help – often from writers and authors I consider mentors.  One that I go to often is Richard Rohr. 

Richard Rohr has another way of looking at endurance and for him it has to do with Light and Darkness.  Endurance to Rohr is about holding the darkness of our lives. 

As Quakers we talk about the Light a great deal, but we don’t dwell long in the darkness. Actually, in our western perspectives, darkness is almost always considered bad and we are to fear it – definitely not taught to hold the darkness.

I personally believe this is one of the understandings Christianity has failed to teach correctly in our culture.

We do not know how to truly endure – to suffer (something painful or difficult) in a patient manner - standing strong so that we will last and continue to exist. 

Instead, we have been taught to escape, flee, even ignore the darkness and what it can teach us.  Just maybe this is why the pandemic has been so important for our lives – it is a darkness that we cannot control and must patiently endure.

Richard Rohr says,

“Darkness is always present alongside the light. Pure light blinds; shadows are required for our seeing. We know the light most fully in contrast with its opposite—the dark. There is something that can only be known by going through ‘the night sea journey’ into the belly of the whale, from which we are spit up on an utterly new shore.”

Even though we are encouraged to seek the Light, embrace the Light, even surrender to the Light, we also must not ignore the darkness as a teacher.  Just maybe, Simon and Garfunkel were on to something singing, “Hello Darkness, my old friend.”

When we only want to focus on the Light or where the Divine dwells, we miss the opportunities presented to us by the shadows of our human reality.  Rohr says this is the struggle with being whole.  

Currently, many people are being drawn in by the darkness around them.  They are fighting it.  They have become impatient, resentful, even judgmental. 

In our scripture that Beth read today, it says,

By enduring all of these things, you will find not loss but gain – not death but authentic life.

I did not have Beth read what came before that last verse to make my point here.  Here is what it says just before the encouragement to endure.

10 Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.

12 “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. 13 And so you will bear testimony to me. 14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. 15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 Everyone will hate you because of me.

For several months now, people have been trying hard to give testimony to the Gospel – the good news.

·        Whether it was as simple as wearing a mask – for your own safety and the safety of those around you.

·        Speaking up for our Black, Indigenous, people of color and LGBTQ neighbors who have been made less than. 

·        Refusing to argue or lie to be seen as better or correct.

·        And I could go on…

Sadly, the rest of that scripture rings true.  In the last several months, families have split over politics or party lines. Friends have been lost over not wearing masks or following the scientists recommendations. Long standing church goers have given up on church and even God because of the melding of power and politics within the church. People have been thrown in jail, persecuted, beaten in the streets, and even killed for standing up for the rights of those less fortunate…

I guess you could say we have been in a darkness for quite some time – but are we enduring?   

When we embrace the struggles and difficulties, when we do not allow darkness to be a surprise but rather our partner in life it actually can become an opportunity. 

The darkness helps build patience and insight.

The darkness helps teach new perspectives and helps us seek new opportunities.

The darkness can actually lead us to the Light because in the darkness the Light can be seen more clearly.  

I believe folks, that this is our time to testify to the possibilities, embrace the hope of reconciliation, and by enduring all of these things, the scriptures says we will find not loss but gain – not death but authentic life.

I believe we still have a lot to do, to work on, to endure…but there is hope that as we come through, we will be a better and more hopeful, a people who are living more authentic lives – or as the scripture said last week – living life that is TRULY LIFE.

Now, as we enter a time of waiting worship, please take a moment to consider the following queries:

1.     How has the darkness of this time affected me and my relationships?

2.     Where am I struggling to allow the darkness to teach me?

3.     This week, how might I begin to turn my darkness into opportunities?

01-24-21 - Truly Living in 2021

Truly Living in 2021

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Bob Henry, Minister

January 24, 2021

1 Timothy 6:6-19 (MSG)

A devout life does bring wealth, but it’s the rich simplicity of being yourself before God. Since we entered the world penniless and will leave it penniless, if we have bread on the table and shoes on our feet, that’s enough.

But if it’s only money these leaders are after, they’ll self-destruct in no time. Lust for money brings trouble and nothing but trouble. Going down that path, some lose their footing in the faith completely and live to regret it bitterly ever after.

But you, Timothy, man of God: Run for your life from all this. Pursue a righteous life—a life of wonder, faith, love, steadiness, courtesy. Run hard and fast in the faith. Seize the eternal life, the life you were called to, the life you so fervently embraced in the presence of so many witnesses.

I’m charging you before the life-giving God and before Christ, who took his stand before Pontius Pilate and didn’t give an inch: Keep this command to the letter, and don’t slack off. Our Master, Jesus Christ, is on his way. He’ll show up right on time, his arrival guaranteed by the Blessed and Undisputed Ruler, High King, High God. He’s the only one death can’t touch, his light so bright no one can get close. He’s never been seen by human eyes—human eyes can’t take him in! Honor to him, and eternal rule! Oh, yes.

Tell those rich in this world’s wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they’ll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life.

Good Morning Friends. It is good to be with you in the comfort of your own homes. Remember, we are recording this meeting for worship on a historic day and we do not know yet all that will transpire in the coming days. I have been blessed by those who have joined us in praying for peace in our country throughout this week. Thank you.      

Now, with all that has happened in our nation and world the last few weeks, and as we have begun another new year and another new administration, I continue to find myself pondering some difficult queries. 

Much of what has taken place has had me shaking my head and asking “why?”

While also at times unable to articulate or vocalize my questions as the atrocities, the division, the vitriol, the white supremacy, and the blindness to see and respect one another in this nation and world continue to unfold. 

As I have tried hard to reflect and ponder all that is being presented to me each and every day, I resigned myself to focus my reflection on three queries: 

·        What can I do?

·        What can we do?

·        And specifically…What can Quakers do?” 

Maybe you have found yourself during this pandemic sitting on your couch staring out your window asking those same queries.

Sadly, I am beginning to realize that people throughout our nation, and even around the world are asking these same questions. The struggles and unrest we have experienced are universal and have a global impact that affects our planet as a whole.

This is why every January, I find myself returning to the wisdom of leadership and organizational expert, Margaret Wheatley. I was introduced to her in my doctoral program and she continues to ask poignant questions for our condition.

In the beginning of her book, “Turning to One Another” which has shaped much of my thinking for the last decade and helped me expand my views outside my own “boxes”, she says the following…

“As I listen to many people, in many countries, I’m convinced we are disturbed by similar things, I’ve listened carefully to many comments, and included some of them here. Taken as a whole, they paint a picture of people everywhere troubled by these times, questioning, what the future holds. Here are some of the comments and feelings I’ve heard expressed:”

See if what Margaret Wheatley has heard resonates with your own feelings deep down…

• Problems keep getting bigger; they’re never solved. We solve one and it only creates more.

• I never learn why something happened. Maybe nobody knows, maybe it’s a conspiracy to keep us from knowing.

• There’s more violence now, and it’s affecting people I love.

• Who can I believe? Who will tell me what’s really going on?

• Things are out of control and only getting worse.

• I have no time for my family anymore. I’m living a life I don’t like.

• I worry about my children. What will the world be like for them?

“Confronted with so much uncertainty and irrationality, how can we feel hopeful about the future? And this degree of uncertainty is affecting us personally.  It’s changing how we act and feel. I notice in myself and others. We’re more cynical, impatient, fearful, angry, defensive, anxious; more likely to hurt those we love.”

If this is true and resonates with how the world is feeling currently, our scripture text may get down to the fundamentals of how to begin making a positive shift.  Something I want us to consider as we continue on in 2021.

In our scripture text that Beth read…we find Paul writing to Timothy to advise and counsel him on ministry. Right alongside Margret Wheatley’s “Turning to One Another”, I also return to these words from Paul each January as I prepare for a new year.

As you may already know, Paul's epistles were written to churches in specific locations (thus the names Corinthians Ephesians, Philippians, etc..), but 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon were all written to individuals.

In this first letter to Timothy, Paul focuses his attention on several main subjects. 

• Law

• Prayer

• Bishops and Deacons

• Advice to young pastors

• And finally, a word to us all on…Faithful Living.

Please note, I sense Paul was often more radical than we allow him to be. And too often his writings have been more studied, debated, and even followed than the actual life and ministry of Jesus. 

Yet, I think for this morning, we need to take a look at what Paul is presenting us from three different vantage points. 

1.     What is Paul telling Timothy about how he should live?

2.     What is Paul telling Timothy about God/Jesus?

3.     What are we to glean from this last part of Paul’s letter for our questioning condition?

Before we break this down, I want to share something with you that may help put this into perspective. 

Just before we left Oregon, Sue and I had the opportunity to hear author and speaker, Brian McLaren at Trinity Cathedral in Portland. We have had the opportunity to hear Brian on many occasions, but on this occasion he was speaking about his book, “The Great Spiritual Migration” – a book I have quoted often in my time hear at First Friends. 

In one part of his talk he shared the following…

“Founders are typically generous, visionary, bold, and creative, but the religions that ostensibly carry on their work often become the opposite: constricted, change-averse, nostalgic, fearful, obsessed with boundary maintenance, turf battles, and money.

Instead of greeting the world with open arms as their founders did, their successors stand guard with clenched fists. 

Instead of empowering others as their founder did, they hoard power.

Instead of defying tradition and unleashing moral imagination as their founders did, they impose tradition and refuse to think outside the lines. 

A religion that cuts itself off from the example of its founder while still bearing the founder’s name often becomes little more than a chaplaincy for other ideologies, offering its services to the highest bidder.

No wonder so many religious folks today wear down, burn out, and opt out“.

As I read again those world from Brian this week, I was immediately taken to our text for this morning. 

Much like Jesus and the disciples, Paul (also considered a founder of the Christian faith) was bestowing on his apprentice, Timothy, the fundamentals of pastoral ministry, but even more a warning on how one is to live the faithful life with integrity and impact.

Paul told Timothy…

Remember to be yourself (who God created you to be!)  – a universal struggle for people throughout the world. 

Too often we want to be anyone but ourselves.  And when we are not living our life out of the Imago Dei or the image of God within us – we live a life that creates anything but what Paul describes as a “Righteous life”.

Instead, we too often become what Brian described, “constricted, change-averse, nostalgic, fearful, obsessed with boundary maintenance, turf battles, and [yes] money.” 

Paul warned Timothy and all of us who claim to follow Christ to head his warning…

“Lust for money brings trouble and nothing but trouble. Going down that path, some lose their footing in the faith completely and live to regret it bitterly ever after.”

Money as well as its partners…power and control are far from the life that Jesus modeled…and Paul wants Timothy to know that going down that path leads to destruction.

Instead, Paul encourages Timothy to “Run for your life from all of this.”

This is coming from a man who was a living example of this very phrase. 

Paul himself had to turn from the money, power, control, manipulation and law-oriented nature of being a leader in the Sanhedrin. 

Paul understood the sacrificial nature of becoming a leader in the birthing church. And his example was Jesus Christ himself.  And so, he gives a charge to Timothy…

13-16 I’m charging you before the life-giving God and before Christ, who took his stand before Pontius Pilate and didn’t give an inch: Keep this command to the letter, and don’t slack off.

Our Master, Jesus Christ, is on his way. He’ll show up right on time, his arrival guaranteed by the Blessed and Undisputed Ruler, High King, High God. He’s the only one death can’t touch, his light so bright no one can get close. He’s never been seen by human eyes—human eyes can’t take him in!

Honor to him, and eternal rule! Oh, yes. Only a man who has stood his ground on what he believes.  A man who embraced the wonder, was faithful, who loved beyond explanation, who set a steady course and did it all with honor and courtesy – this was a Righteous and Holy Man – this was Jesus folks!  

And what Paul is saying is that when we live like Jesus - what Paul calls the eternal life, it brings the eternal into the NOW.

Paul’s warning seems rather simple. 

• Don’t be full of yourself.

• Don’t be obsessed with money or __________ (fill in the blank).

Rather be like Jesus…live with

• Wonder

• Faith

• Love

• Steadiness

• Courtesy

And as Paul finishes his first letter to Timothy, he says…

“Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they’ll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life.”

Margaret Wheatley, who I spoke of earlier in my sermon, realized that life, comes from us making a change in how we act and feel and how we respond to those around us. 

After she asked “What can we do now to restore hope to the future?” she said this…

“I’ve found that I can only change how I act if I stay aware of my beliefs and assumptions. Thoughts always reveal themselves in behavior. 

As humans, we often contradict ourselves – we say one thing and do another. We state who we are, but then act contrary to that.  We say we’re open minded, but then judge someone for their appearance. We say we’re a team, but then gossip about a colleague. If we want to change our behavior, we need to notice our actions, and see if we can uncover the belief that led to that response.”

I think as Quakers in our world today, we need to get honest and ask ourselves some tough queries:

• Are we contradicting ourselves? Do we act contrary to that in which we are called by God?

• Are we truly being ourselves?

• Are we trying to do good?

• Are we being rich in helping others?

• Are we extravagantly generous?

These are the queries I want us to ponder as we continue on into 2021. 

Just maybe if we were doing those things well, we would not have so much worry and fear in our lives. 

·        Maybe those problems and all that unrest wouldn’t seem so disturbing. 

·        Maybe there would be less violence and more love and people would be valued above the color of their skin, their political power, or marketable influence in our world.

·        Maybe there would be less conspiracy and more trust among us. 

·        And just maybe we would find more time for what really matters – like our family, friends, and community. 

Or better yet, as Paul (through the eyes of Eugene Peterson) put it,

Just maybe we will gain a “life that is truly life.”

As we now enter waiting worship, I ask you to ponder the queries I just shared in a manner of expectant waiting.

01-17-21 - Embracing the Force of Love

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Bob Henry, Minister

January 17, 2021

Matthew 5:43-48 (New Revised Standard Version)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Good Morning Friends!  After a brief vacation to regroup and refresh after the busy holiday season, I am so glad to be back with you this morning as we celebrate the legacy and prophetic voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Three summers ago, on our way home from our family vacation, we made plans to travel to Montgomery, Alabama. Our goal was to visit the newly opened National Memorial for Peace and Justice. After visiting the memorial, we took a short drive around downtown Montgomery.  It had just rained and most of the town seemed like a ghost town.  Driving right up Dexter Avenue we parked directly in front of the Alabama State Capital. 

In front of us were the very steps where Dr. King had concluded the 5 day – 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery and where he gave his now famous, How Long, Not Long speech on March 25, 1965.

As I turned to look out from the Capital steps, I imagined the many people who had gathered on that spot 53 years prior to stand up for voting rights and the pain and hardship they had endured making their stand.

Then into focus came a small red brick church which seemed almost out of place among the modern city architecture just a couple blocks from the Capital steps. 

Sue and I walked down to the church, only to find it was Dexter Avenue Baptist Church where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had served as pastor from 1954-1960. In my mind, I had never put it so close to the steps of the Alabama Capital.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave many sermons from that church’s pulpit and some even consider it the place where the Civil Rights Movement was birthed, but this morning I want to focus on one important sermon given within the sacred walls of this historic church. 

I was reminded of this sermon over my vacation as I was reading Rob Bell’s latest book, “Everything is Spiritual.”  If you read my “As Way Opens” article this week in our weekly Friend to Friend newsletter, you read how sometimes the unexpected person in our lives can become a teacher or gift to us – helping us more fully participate in the wonder and mystery and vitality of our lives. 

This was something Dr. King had spoken of often in the biblical context of “loving our enemies.” I had incorporated his teaching throughout my doctoral dissertation as a foundational concept in understanding the conflict in our daily lives and the world.  But as I have returned to the words of Dr. King, I have found his words so crucial to the current condition of our nation. 

Much like when Jesus came to his home town of Nazareth and stood up in the temple to read from the prophets, I want to follow this tradition this morning and read from the modern-day prophet Martin Luther King Jr.  The sermon I plan to read from is one that King preached on many occasions, yet this version from the pulpit of Dexter Ave. Baptist Church on November 17, 1957 is considered his most beloved version.   

I am not going to read this sermon in its entirety, but I will draw out sections that speak to our current condition. I would recommend, this week, “Googling” the entire sermon and reading it in its entirety.

Here now, are segments of Martin Luther King Jr.’s sermon “Loving Your Enemies.”

So, I want to turn your attention to this subject: “Loving Your Enemies.” It’s so basic to me because it is a part of my basic philosophical and theological orientation: the whole idea of love, the whole philosophy of love.

In the fifth chapter of the gospel as recorded by Saint Matthew, we read these very arresting words flowing from the lips of our Lord and Master:

“Ye have heard that it has been said, ‘Thou shall love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.’ But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven…”

…Now let me hasten to say that Jesus was very serious when he gave this command; he wasn’t playing. He realized that it’s hard to love your enemies. He realized that it’s difficult to love those persons who seek to defeat you, those persons who say evil things about you. He realized that it was painfully hard, pressingly hard. But he wasn’t playing…

…How do you go about loving your enemies?

I think the first thing is this: In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self. And I’m sure that seems strange to you, that I start out telling you this morning that you love your enemies by beginning with a look at self. It seems to me that that is the first and foremost way to come to an adequate discovery to the how of this situation.

Now, I’m aware of the fact that some people will not like you, not because of something you have done to them, but they just won’t like you. I’m quite aware of that. Some people aren’t going to like the way you walk; some people aren’t going to like the way you talk. Some people aren’t going to like you because you can do your job better than they can do theirs. Some people aren’t going to like you because other people like you, and because you’re popular, and because you’re well-liked, they aren’t going to like you.

Some people aren’t going to like you because your hair is a little shorter than theirs or your hair is a little longer than theirs. Some people aren’t going to like you because your skin is a little brighter than theirs; and others aren’t going to like you because your skin is a little darker than theirs. So that some people aren’t going to like you.

They’re going to dislike you, not because of something that you’ve done to them, but because of various jealous reactions and other reactions that are so prevalent in human nature.

But after looking at these things and admitting these things, we must face the fact that an individual might dislike us because of something that we’ve done deep down in the past, some personality attribute that we possess, something that we’ve done deep down in the past and we’ve forgotten about it; but it was that something that aroused the hate response within the individual. That is why I say, begin with yourself. There might be something within you that arouses the tragic hate response in the other individual.

And this is what Jesus means when he said: “How is it that you can see the mote in your brother’s eye and not see the beam in your own eye?” Or to put it in Moffatt’s translation: “How is it that you see the splinter in your brother’s eye and fail to see the plank in your own eye?”3 And this is one of the tragedies of human nature. So, we begin to love our enemies and love those persons that hate us whether in collective life or individual life by looking at ourselves.

A second thing that an individual must do in seeking to love his enemy is to discover the element of good in his enemy, and every time you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over-balance the bad points.

I’ve said to you on many occasions that each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality. We’re split up and divided against ourselves. And there is something of a civil war going on within all of our lives. There is a recalcitrant South of our soul revolting against the North of our soul. And there is this continual struggle within the very structure of every individual life…

…And this simply means this: That within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals. The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it.

And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls “the image of God,” you begin to love him in spite of. No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never slough off.

Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.

Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it.

There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person.

It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about.

It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems.

Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system…

…And this is what Jesus means, I think, in this very passage when he says, “Love your enemy.” And it’s significant that he does not say, “Like your enemy.”

Like is a sentimental something, an affectionate something. There are a lot of people that I find it difficult to like. I don’t like what they do to me. I don’t like what they say about me and other people. I don’t like their attitudes. I don’t like some of the things they’re doing. I don’t like them.

But Jesus says love them. And love is greater than like. Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them.

You refuse to do anything that will defeat an individual, because you have agape in your soul…

…There’s another reason why you should love your enemies, and that is because hate distorts the personality of the hater.

We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates.

You just begin hating somebody, and you will begin to do irrational things. You can’t see straight when you hate. You can’t walk straight when you hate. You can’t stand upright. Your vision is distorted. There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate.

He comes to the point that he becomes a pathological case. For the person who hates, you can stand up and see a person and that person can be beautiful, and you will call them ugly. For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful.

For the person who hates, the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That’s what hate does. You can’t see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost. Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater.

And this is why Jesus says hate, that you want to be integrated with yourself, and the way to be integrated with yourself is be sure that you meet every situation of life with an abounding love. Never hate, because it ends up in tragic, neurotic responses…

Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals.

That’s why Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption.

You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they’re mistreating you. Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long.

Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load.

That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. “love your enemies…”

…There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet. Jesus discovered it centuries ago. Mahatma Gandhi of India discovered it a few years ago, but most men and most women never discover it. For they believe in hitting for hitting; they believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they believe in hating for hating; but Jesus comes to us and says, “This isn’t the way…”

…History unfortunately leaves some people oppressed and some people oppressors. And there are three ways that individuals who are oppressed can deal with their oppression.

One of them is to rise up against their oppressors with physical violence and corroding hatred. But oh, this isn’t the way.  For the danger and the weakness of this method is its futility. Violence creates many more social problems than it solves…Violence isn’t the way.

Another way is to acquiesce and to give in, to resign yourself to the oppression. Some people do that. They discover the difficulties of the wilderness moving into the promised land, and they would rather go back to the despots of Egypt because it’s difficult to get in the promised land.

And so, they resign themselves to the fate of oppression; they somehow acquiesce to this thing. But that too isn’t the way because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.

But there is another way. And that is to organize mass non-violent resistance based on the principle of love. It seems to me that this is the only way as our eyes look to the future. As we look out across the years and across the generations, let us develop and move right here. We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world…

…Yes, I can see Jesus walking around the hills and the valleys of Palestine. And I can see him looking out at the Roman Empire with all of her fascinating and intricate military machinery. But in the midst of that, I can hear him saying: “I will not use this method. Neither will I hate the Roman Empire…”

And our civilization must discover that. Individuals must discover that as they deal with other individuals. There is a little tree planted on a little hill and on that tree hangs the most influential character that ever came in this world. But never feel that that tree is a meaningless drama that took place on the stages of history. Oh no, it is a telescope through which we look out into the long vista of eternity and see the love of God breaking forth into time. It is an eternal reminder to a power-drunk generation that love is the only way. It is an eternal reminder to a generation depending on nuclear and atomic energy, a generation depending on physical violence, that love is the only creative, redemptive, transforming power in the universe.

So, this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, “I love you. I would rather die than hate you.” And I’m foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed. And then we will be in God’s kingdom. We will be able to matriculate into the university of eternal life because we had the power to love our enemies, to bless those persons that cursed us, to even decide to be good to those persons who hated us, and we even prayed for those persons who despitefully used us.

Oh God, help us in our lives and in all of our attitudes, to work out this controlling force of love, this controlling power that can solve every problem that we confront in all areas. Oh, we talk about politics; we talk about the problems facing our atomic civilization. Grant that all men will come together and discover that as we solve the crisis and solve these problems—the international problems, the problems of atomic energy, the problems of nuclear energy, and yes, even the race problem—let us join together in a great fellowship of love and bow down at the feet of Jesus. Give us this strong determination. In the name and spirit of this Christ, we pray. Amen.

In response to this message this morning we will enter a time of Waiting Worship. In honor of Dr. King’s life and the present condition of our nation, we will do this in silence and expectant waiting. May our prayers rise for our enemies and for peace in this land.

01-10-21 - Lavish, Extravagant Grace

Lavish, Extravagant Grace

Matthew 13:1-9

What in the world is God doing?

If the farmer in this parable is supposed to be God – and it is! - this God goes against almost every economic principle we most highly value. This farmer-God throws seed around like the wealthiest among us throw money around. Not only that, but this God is utterly incompetent at marketing and farming, recklessly tossing valuable seed in no particular direction ending up where most of it has almost no chance of taking root and growing. This God is wasteful. The Return on Investment of God's enterprise is far less than it could be. God sure didn't get his Master of Business Administration from Kelly School of Business or his Doctorate of Agricultural Science from Purdue University.

So it is fair to ask, “What in the world is God doing?”

We know better than to be reckless and wasteful. Many of us were brought up in families where we weren’t allowed to get up from the table until we’d finished every last scrap of food on our plate. My mother used to remind us kids that there were starving children in India who would love to have the food we were wasting. So I offered to help her pack it up and put it in the mail to India. But my mother was not amused and she was not budging. Food was NOT to be wasted.

And that kind of frugality applies to other things, too. During these times of environmental sensitivity, some socially conscious folks have bumper stickers that ask, “What Would Jesus Drive?” It’s not really a question that seeks an answer because they're answering it by the kind of vehicles they drive and put these bumper stickers on! You never see one of those bumper stickers on a Cadillac Escalade. Those bumper stickers are found on a Toyota Prius, or a little SmartForTwo three-cylinder shoebox of a car, or a car that our beloved Dan Mitchell might drive, or maybe Jesus would have no car at all – maybe Jesus would just ride a bike to church to reduce our dependence upon foreign oil and to keep the planet from hydrocarbon disaster. Jesus would conserve natural resources and live more frugally to SAVE Mother Earth because, as we all know, “We have heard the joyful sound, Jesus saves, Jesus saves!”

Well, maybe that's true for Jesus, but it's not true for Jesus' Holy Father! Not God – not the wasteful, spendthrift, throw-seed-around-like-its-going-out-of-style farmer in today’s parable! Oh no! If Jesus is putt-in' around town on a little Vespa motor scooter in order to conserve, God is zooming down the street with the pedal to the metal in a gas-guzzling 5.0 Liter V8 Supercharged Land Rover Mega-sized Range Rover SUV! Look at God in this story recklessly tossing that seed around without any concern whatsoever about waste!

What in the world is God doing? “Some seed fell upon the path. Some fell on rocky places. Some seed fell among thorns. And luckily, some seed fell on good soil where it produced a crop.”

What a thought-provoking parable! What is Jesus getting at here? Maybe Jesus is telling us this parable of the wasteful farmer to jar our sensibilities and create some tension around the values we hold so dear. Maybe Jesus is showing us that there is more to life than the bottom line – that life is not measured in terms of “Return on Investment”, or in terms of dollars and cents. Maybe Jesus is teaching us that the central issue for us should not be our sense of economy, but rather our sense of humanity . . . not even our Quaker frugality but our Godly generosity

Or maybe the parable is simply asking, “What is the worth of one single human soul?”

“A farmer went out to sow. Some seed feel upon the path. Some fell on rocky places. Other seed fell among thorns. And some seed fell on good soil where it produced a crop.”

I wonder why God would throw so much seed into so many hopeless places? Wouldn’t God be more responsible and wise to just cut the losses and stopped throwing good seed away after bad? Wouldn’t the number crunchers on Wall Street give God a raise and a pat on the back if God stopped being wasteful and produced bigger harvests with less seed?

Those are the kind of folks currently managing my Brussels Sprouts packages. I love Brussels Sprouts with balsamic vinegar and sea salt on top. I have them for lunch at least once every week. But over the years those wicked number crunchers at the Brussels Sprouts home office keep raising the price of my Brussels Sprouts while lowering the number of Brussels Sprouts inside. And I'm mad and imagining the day I open up my Brussels Sprouts package to discover only three puny, little Brussels Sprouts inside. When Brussels Sprouts have yielded to pure capitalism you know the world has gone to pot, or instead of a pot, more succinctly a very small pan.

This is one of the deepest struggles we Christians face. In a world of capitalism that measures value in terms of economic efficiency, God calls us to take up an entirely different value system. The question God asks is not, “How much does it cost?” but rather “What is the worth of one human soul?”

The parable of the sower tells us about a God who is absolutely unafraid to waste resources in the effort to bring life to others. So this God of the Bible that Jesus teaches us is the true nature of God. God, just like the imprudent farmer in this parable, intentionally scatters the seed of his Word east and west and north and south. God sows among believers and doubters, good people and bad, those who are ready to receive the Word and those whose hearts are hardened. God spreads the seed on the pathway, and on rocky soil, among the thorns, and every once in awhile, that seed finds fertile ground, and it takes root, and grows, and produces fruit . . . fruit like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

While we secular human beings might consider this a waste, it is not a waste at all! It is the very definition of God. It is the very definition of GRACE! Grace is always a “my cup is full and overflowing” kind of generosity. It is the very essence of our faith. It is lavish, extravagant, unmerited love poured out for family, friends, enemies, neighbors, strangers, poor, immigrants, sick, diseased, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Agnostics, Atheists, as well as for all creation!

If you ever wonder what God is like, look no further than this parable. This is what God is like. And this is exactly the same nature we are called to exemplify as Christians!

Lavish, extravagant, wasteful love! Surprise of surprises, when it comes to “Grace” God is no Toyota Prius, Smart-for-Two, Vespa driver or bicycle rider. God is driving an absolute unashamed, unabashed “grace-guzzler”!

And the tipping point that makes the difference between our human values and God’s values is simply this: Economics produces a faith that is all about us and our personal well-being and can be quantified, analyzed, and justified to bless us and our kind. However, God's grace is something entirely different. At times it won't even make common sense because Grace produces a faith that is totally about loving everyone and concerned about everyone's well-being. I realize common sense is like deodorant . . . those who need it most don't use it. But whether it makes sense or not, God's grace is there for all.

What in the world is God doing? What in the world does the Church think it’s doing? What in the world do Christians think they’re doing? Saving the world. That’s what. And how can the world and our country and ourselves be saved? With “Grace” and a whole lot of it.

Any so-called Christian who is in the business of dogmatizing the faith and creating rules and regulations and forms and rituals and hoops to jump through and judging others day in and day out and scaring people with damnation and satanically preaching a prosperity gospel and failing to see that of God in everyone and proclaiming themselves purer than others and becoming a religious prude is NO Christian at all. To be a true Christian your one and ONLY focus should be a GRATEFUL GRACE RECEIVER who is equally focused on being a GENEROUS GRACE DISTRIBUTOR

Jesus taught, and Paul put on the exclamation point later on, we are saved by grace and grace alone. God is extravagant. God is generous beyond belief. God is seemingly wasteful. God doesn't care how much it costs because God knows how much each and every soul, each and every person is worth regardless of all the barriers society and religions might add into the equation, stuff such as race, nationality, gender, religion, sexual orientation, political views. If you really want to describe God in a few words, here it is: God is love. God is grace. If you and I are to follow the witness of our God then we ought to be equally extravagant, wasteful and grace-guzzling in our lives. Extravagant in extending our love and God's love to everyone without any thought that such grace will ever run dry. It won't.

So it’s about time, it's about time all of us start feeling a nudge to live on the wild, lavish and extravagant side of faith. We need to go right on ahead and place absolutely no limits on God's generosity. So if you are serious about your Christian and Quaker faith, here's your one-and-only job this week and every week for the rest of your life: Go spread some grace! And be downright generous when you go to do. Don't judge, assume or build walls. Just go out and spread God's grace far and wide.

As we enter into a time of listening and sensing God's presence among us, let us consider these three queries:

1. Are there any persons, ways and areas I am currently placing limits on God's grace?

2. How can I distribute God's grace to myself, my loved ones, my friends, my faith community, and my world?

3. How may I need to adjust my soul, my words, my attitudes, and my actions in order to fully offer God's love without limit? 

01-03-21 - The Journey from Lament to Hope

January 3rd, 2020 

Rachel’s Cry Prayer of Lament Rebirth of Hope

Kathleen D. Billman and Daniel L. Migliore

Jeremiah 31:10-15, 21-23

Good morning friends, Bob is taking a couple of weeks of well-deserved vacation with his family and I am sharing the message with all of you this morning.

 We are gathering together after celebrating a Christmas holiday like none other in our collective experience.  It did seem strange  to not be at a church on Christmas Eve. 

That’s been a staple of my life.  Bob said it’s only the second time in his life that he has not been at church on Christmas Eve. So many alterations and adjustments from our traditions.

Many folks that  I talk with speak of some level of depression.  We are weary, tired, isolated, desiring physical touch and connection, missing our families and friends. 

We know that at some point in 2021 we will all have access to a vaccine, but we still have months to go in our current activities.

And then there are so many other things going on: political unrest, divisions between family and friends, significant hunger for many, concerns about evictions,  etc.  

It sometimes feels like we have become numb to all the challenges and might say to ourselves that there is nothing we can do about this.

We have a lot of things to lament.  I am thinking about the concept of lament and how our Jewish sisters and brothers embrace this and practice it well while many Christians look at lament as complaining and that our only prayers of lament should be penitential prayers to ask for forgiveness of our sins.

In the book Rachel’s Cry by Kathleen D Billman and Daniel L Migliore, there is an examination and affirmation of the value of prayers of lament both personally and in a societal way. 

We are all familiar with the character of Rachel in the Old Testament.  She is the favorite wife of Jacob  and a matriarch of the nation of Israel and the mother of the most beloved sons Joseph and Benjamin.

 But I don’t ever remember reading this verse in Jeremiah that Phil shared with us that says in verse 15 “Rachel is weeping  for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” 

 Rachel experienced the loss of her children to exile back in Genesis and she refused to be consoled.  She was crying out for the pain and sorrow of this deepest loss.

 In their book Billman and Migliore share that , “Rachel’s bold, disturbing and prophetic cry has made her a revered figure of the Jewish community. 

The prophet Jeremiah and later Jewish tradition clearly understand her crying and her resistance as expressions of faithfulness…..

In refusing to accept easy consolation, Rachel does what is right.  Her resistance is both a protest to and a waiting on God. 

In her own Rachel holds open the possibility of again praising the God of justice and new life.” 

Jeremiah is remembering Rachel’s cry because Judah is now under the rule of the Babylonians and they have destroyed Jerusalem and most of the Jewish folks have been exiled. 

Maybe Jeremiah brings up Rachel’s lament as one for their community to embrace at that moment – how can they be possibly be consoled as they face destruction and the scattering of the Jewish people. 

Having grown up in a Christian home with quite a bit of study of the Bible, I never heard a teaching, a lesson or a sermon based on this passage. 

And yet in the Jewish community this is a very important passage and Rachel is one of the revered characters of their collective story. 

 It seems like too often in our Christian tradition the idea of lament  should only be concerned  with a lament of our personal sins and a petition for forgiveness. 

And there certainly is a role for this within our prayer life.  But sometimes the loss is so big, the suffering is so significant that we need to cry out in lament and say God, where are you? 

When we see injustice like we saw  for so long in  South Africa, we lament and weep and shout out God, why aren’t you doing something about this? 

When we grieve over 330,000 people dead from covid, millions of people sick with it,  our seniors often living in isolation, we lament and wonder how God could let this happen.

The Christian tradition looks more to Mary for our model of prayer.  While Rachel weeps, Mary accepts.  Rachel is angry and Mary is calm.  

But is not Mary’s response based on the faith tradition of Rachel?  Mary understands the lament of Rachel and all that pain and suffering.

 If not for Rachel, can Mary experience the promise of something new?    Mary does not know where the path of Jesus life will take him, but she deeply understands the cries of Rachel and labors within them.

That is the importance of the lament – we recognize, honor and open our hearts to the prayers of lament before we can ever move forward to healing and to hope.

Yesterday I watched the movie about Ma Rainey the blues singer on Netflix. The performance by Chadwick Boseman, his last movie before his death was magnificent.  He gives an anti-god rant that will go down through the ages – a lament that speaks to his incredible pain and suffering from his personal experience. 

He rages at God asking where was God during this horrific event that happened in his early life.  Where is God as he faces the prejudice, the hatred, the dismissive treatment that he and all black folk experienced in the 1920’s?  He challenges God to come at him, to show God’s face to him right now  as he wields a knife, and answer these questions.   My heart was aching as I watched this scene and all I could think of was the lament of Rachel refusing to be consoled.

The Old Testament has many prayers of lament.  The book of Psalms in particular are chock are full of prayers of lament. 

Psalms 22 is the epitome of a prayer of lament but also brings with it the promise of hope and I share it with you here:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

 Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?

2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;

    and by night, but find no rest.

3 Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.

4 In you our ancestors trusted;

    they trusted, and you delivered them.

5 To you they cried, and were saved;

    in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.

6  But I am a worm, and not human;

    scorned by others, and despised by the people.

7 All who see me mock at me;   they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;

8 “Commit your cause to the LORD; let him deliver—

    let him rescue the one in whom he delights!”

9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb;  you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.

10 On you I was cast from my birth,  and since my mother bore me you have been my God.

11 Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

12 Many bulls encircle me,  strong bulls of Bashan surround me;

13 they open wide their mouths at me,

    like a ravening and roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint;

my heart is like wax;  it is melted within my breast;

15 my mouth[a] is dried up like a potsherd;  and my tongue sticks to my jaws;

    you lay me in the dust of death.

16 For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me.My hands and feet have shriveled;[b]

17 I can count all my bones.

18 they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.

19 But you, O LORD, do not be far away!

    O my help, come quickly to my aid!

20 Deliver my soul from the sword, my life[c] from the power of the dog!

21     Save me from the mouth of the lion!

From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued[d] me.

22 I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters;[e]

    in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:

23 You who fear the LORD, praise him!

    All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;  stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!

24 For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted;

he did not hide his face from me,  but heard when I[g] cried to him.

25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;

    my vows I will pay before those who fear him.

26 The poor[h] shall eat and be satisfied;  those who seek him shall praise the LORD.

    May your hearts live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD and all the families of the nations  shall worship before him.[i]

28 For dominion belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations.

29 To him,[j] indeed, shall all who sleep in[k] the earth bow down;

    before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.[l]

30 Posterity will serve him;  future generations will be told about the Lord,

31 and[m] proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,  saying that he has done it.

The writer of this Psalm has seen Israel experience unbelievable desolation, they have lived much of their existence under foreign rule – and they are asking where is God and why is God ignoring the pleas of his chosen people? 

There is a lot packed into this prayer.  We hear the cries of anguish and lament.  But there is also a faith and a hope that the Lord will bring deliverance and has done so in the past. 

It feels like we are living in times such as the Israelites.  We share our laments to God.  We might be angry, feel desolate, unnerved, and maybe reject any consolation.

We are living through a hell that no one could have imagined.  Does a Psalm like Psalm 22 speak to our condition?  Even Jesus cried a prayer of lament on the cross, borrowing from this Psalm, My God My God, why hast thou forsaken me?

 Emily Dickinson says, “Pain is missed in Praise”  Victims need to be heard and validated. 

Our pain can’t be swept under the rug of praise but must be acknowledged.  If we don’t embrace these emotions, they will go underground and work on our foundations and wreak havoc on our souls.

But the lament does not end there.  Otherwise, we will live our existence in bitterness, resentment and anger.  Walter Brueggemann’s says – “Only grief permits newness.  Without lament, hope is stillborn.”   Only through the lament will we find a chance for healing, a hope of something new something fresh and different. 

Maybe something we could not have imagined.  While Psalm 22 is a song of lament it also gives hope – every lament can provide a way for us to see the possibility of a future that will honor our past but recognize the hope from God. 

I wish we would embrace the Jewish tradition of prayers of lament that reflect our personal loss, the societal sorrow of oppression, rejection and prejudice and we could honor this idea. 

This recognition and embrace of sorrow will lead to hope.  Billman and Miglore  say  that “ the prayer of lament and protest must find its place in Christian prayer if it is to be honest and robust…..

Without the prayer of lament  the other important elements of prayer – praise, thanksgiving, confession, intercession – atrophy and ring hollow.”

As we enter our time of waiting worship, I ask you to consider the following queries:

What is my prayer of lament today?

Do I listen and honor the prayer of lament of others?

What hope do I see arising out of my prayers of lament?