3-12-23 - "A Theologically Progressive View of the Bible"

A Theologically Progressive View of the Bible

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

March 12, 2023

I John 3:16-19 (New Revised Standard Version)  

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.  And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him 

As we continue this series on looking at the Bible, I wanted to take a moment and return to a past series titled, “To Be Thriving & Progressive Quakers in 2022” In the first sermon in that series I described our meeting as “Thriving and Progressive.” Thriving meaning “to grow or develop well or vigorously” and progressive meaning “happening or developing gradually or in stages – step by step.”

Over the last three Sundays I have explained how diverse our Quaker, and for that matter, the world’s understanding of the Bible is. I have tried to be vulnerable in sharing how I have come to understand the Bible.  And how we, Quakers, embrace a more progressive view of our praxis and look at the Bible through more theologically progressive eyes than most of our Christian siblings.  

This morning, I want to delve into what exactly in the Bible took me from a very conservative and fundamental view of the Bible to a Thriving and Progressive view that I believe as Quakers we embrace and live.  Since I identify as a Thriving and Progressive Quaker, I believe there are some specific things that the Bible has taught me that speak to this understanding. And the reason I am sharing this today, is because as I have more and more conversations with each of you, I continue to find lots of pain in your faith stories. Many of you made a shift from your fundamental, ridged, conservative churches only to find yourself on a journey to a more welcoming, progressive, and loving branch of the Christian faith. 

I too have been on this journey now for over 20+ years. I will be honest, at times, I have wanted to throw it all out the window and simply walk away from religion and the Bible. The damage has at times been too great to friends, to my family, and to myself. 

And please understand, just because I am sharing a part of my story, today, this does not mean I have it all figured out or that spiritual abuse is not an ongoing part of being a pastor that I must deal with. 

As a pastor, I am often asked questions about the Bible. And with any answer often comes reactions, responses, and accusations. I have been called a heretic, a liar, unsaved, unsavable, lacking faith, stupid, and even unworthy of being a pastor – and almost all of those were bestowed upon me because of how I tried to answer questions about the Bible. 

So just to attempt to preach this series on the Bible is opening me up for critic, question, and disagreement.  And I will be honest…I am willing to do this for the sake of us growing and wrestling with our faith – because I believe First Friends as a Meeting is better than some of the individual people, I have encountered in my 27 years of ministry. To wrestle with my faith is exactly how I came to my current progressive view of the Bible. 

Benjamin L. Corey, a cultural anthropologist and public theologian, that I have found has a similar story to mine, says,

“We became Christian progressives because we read our Bibles, not because we put them away. It’s okay if you’re not there yet or if you never will be, but it’s important to understand the truth about how and why we arrived here.”

Corey then listed 10 things that he has learned from the Bible that has shaped his progressive understanding. Since they are so similar to my faith trajectory, I want to share them with you, only giving my own personal explanation of each and how Quakerism has grounded me in a progressive view of scripture and praxis of my Quaker faith.  So, let’s begin…

1. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize that I don’t have it all together.

I started to read the Bible when I was young – in grade school, sometime.  Back then, I was searching it for answers – where I would go if I died, what sins would get me in the most trouble, how much would God punish me if I was bad?  It was clear growing up in the church, how I was to view scripture was with a lens that simply focused on sin and getting to heaven (oh, and a lot of guilt). 

But as I continued to read the Bible over the years, I began to identify with many of the characters. I began to realize they too did not have everything figured out, they made mistakes, they doubted, they even failed, yet their lives were not all about punishment or consequences.

Instead, the more I read my Bible, the more I saw examples of love, tolerance, and learning to judge less – both my own situation and that of my neighbors. What I realized was the characters in the Bible were no different than you and me.  They struggled with life in their day, much like I struggle in mine.  They didn’t have it all together and God still used them. For example:

• Abraham -Was old.

• Elijah – Was suicidal.

• Joseph – Was abused.

• Job – Went bankrupt.

• Moses – Had a speech impediment.

• Gideon – Was afraid.

• Samson – Was a womanizer.

• Rahab – Was a prostitute.

• The Samaritan Woman – Was Divorced.

• Noah – Was a Drunk.

• Jeremiah – Was young.

• Jacob – Was a cheater.

• David – Was a murderer.

• Jonah – Ran from God.

• Naomi – Was a widow.

• Peter – Denied Christ

• Martha – Worried about everything.

• Zacchaeus – Was physically small and money hungry.

• Paul – Was A Pharisee who persecuted Christians before becoming one himself.

The more I read my Bible the more I realized how flawed I am and how much I related to the characters – that is if I took the time to really see them and their stories - which in turn helps me see others more compassionately. And when I begin to see others as being just like me, the more I gravitate toward a trajectory of love, tolerance, and I am way less likely to pronounce judgment on someone.

2. The more I read my Bible, the more I develop humility.

If you take time to really look at the stories, characters, and life situations in the Bible, you begin to be humbled by what you read. Jesus’ life alone is overwhelming in regard to humility.

I will never forget my first time reading the Book of Philippians in a study with a group of friends at our church back when our oldest was a baby.  I was moved to tears when I read:

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

The Apostle Paul says that we should view ourselves as walking examples of how patient God is with people who can’t get it together.  The Bible teaches a humbling and equalizing servant nature – not an oppressive, dominant and domineering faith that puts people in their place and forces them to change. The change comes in our hearts and minds and is to assume a humble servant  posture.    

3. The more I read my Bible, the more I discover that justice for the poor and oppressed is at the heart of it.

Part of my doctoral dissertation I studied the concept of shalom (or peace) from Genesis to Revelation. As I began an almost year-long exploration I was overwhelmed with what all peace entailed. 

As a historical peace church, Quakers, have done a lot of study on this. It was in this deep study that I realized justice for the poor and oppressed is not only at the heart of the Bible, but at the heart of bringing true peace to our world.

The commands to care for the poor and oppressed in our world are throughout the Bible, from the Old Testament to the end of the New. You cannot escape it or explain it away.  If you read it, you must wrestle with what it is saying to you.

And to care for the poor and oppressed was not a matter of salvation for the purpose of getting them to heaven, but for the real meaning of the word salvation in the scriptures – to preserve or deliver them from harm, ruin, or loss. To give them hope for another day. To help them truly live and thrive in the present.  I think we do a disservice when it is all about getting to heaven.  And this leads directly to the next one…

4. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize “redistribution of wealth” was God’s idea.

Yes, it’s clearly in the Bible and the more you read the more you realize it was God’s idea. It all begins in the Old Testament with the years of Jubilee and restrictions on gleaning your garden more than once, a command from God that there should be “no poor among you,” and prophets who came to denounce the nation when the rich grew richer and the poor grew poorer.

“Redistribution of Wealth” is throughout the Bible, and some try and dismiss it, but it was a foundation that the early church built upon. That leads to the next point…

5. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize that the early Christians actually practiced this redistribution of wealth.

If you were listening last week to our scripture, it described the early developing church and addressed this directly:

All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.

The Bible goes on to point out that the early followers of Jesus rejected individual ownership and gave their wealth to leadership who in turn redistributed it according to need. There weren’t any mandatory drug testing programs, standardized tests, or pre-existing conditions - just assistance according to need.

Even though this probably seems radical today for many of us, including me, it makes me have to take a deep look at the Bible with much more progressive eyes – we need to admit that the early Christians were radical in how they lived and ministered.

Now, on to a very relevant point as we enter tax season…

6. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize Jesus taught we need to pay our taxes.

Jesus is often emphasizing the need to pay taxes.  Today, we seem to have lost the why behind paying taxes.  Even though I don’t like giving up the money, taxes provide revenue for federal, local, and state governments to fund essential services—from highways, police, justice, defense, and our education system—which are to benefit ALL citizens, who could not provide such services very effectively for themselves.  I wish we could include healthcare to that list as well – because I consider it biblical.

In the Bible we see Jesus tell someone that he should “sell everything and give it to the poor” while also commanding us to pay our taxes. So, it looks like we’re not getting off the hook either way—we need to pay our taxes and give private charity. It’s not an either/or proposition.

Jesus was about finding ways to help all people in an equal manner. One big reason I believe Quaker’s value equality in ALL areas of life.

7. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize that God wants us to be people who are quick to show mercy.

The prophet Micah says that “loving mercy” is actually something God “requires” of us. Micah 6:8 reads:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.

Jesus tells us that justice and mercy are the “more important” parts of God’s law. This means that when it comes to issues of justice, economics, poverty, the death penalty, etc., we should be quick to show mercy, first. It is much easier to punish or hurt someone than it is to embrace a compassionate, forgiving and merciful stance.  But this is what the Bible has teaches us.

8. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize that God cares how we treat immigrants.

Whenever God lists people who he wants his children to take care of, immigrants make the cut.  Ironically, immigrants in our day don’t look much different than in Jesus’ day.  

I have been so pleased with your response over the last couple of years with the Afghan Refugees and more recently with Muhammad’s Family. These are just a couple of the ways I see us responding in a biblical manner to the heart of God. 

Like I said last week, the church needs diversity to see the greater picture of God.  After I left our celebratory luncheon for raising the funds for Muhammad’s Family a few weeks ago, I thought how what we had accomplished was a beautiful and biblical example of this. 

9. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize that God will hold us accountable for how we care for the environment.

If you read the Bible carefully it is hard not to see that God’s original mandate for humanity was to care for creation. We were designed and called to be environmental conservationists before anything else. I am so pleased that Mary Blackburn has pulled back together our Creation Care Team and is reigniting this work in our midst. 

Several years ago, I was given a “Green Bible.” In this version of scripture instead of Jesus’ words being in red letters, each time the scriptures spoke of something to do with our environment or stewardship of the earth the text was in green.  I spent a full year utilizing that Bible for my daily devotions.  There is so much in scripture about our environment and the importance and beauty of the earth that it must be included as essential to our faith and worship. 

And probably the most important point…

10. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize that God isn’t judging us by whether or not we get all of our doctrines right. He’s judging us by whether or not we get the “love one another” part right.

As Benjamin L. Corey stated so well,

“This aspect wasn’t a major player in my faith before, but the more I read the Bible the more I realize that God is less concerned with us all sharing the same doctrines than God is heavily concerned with whether or not we love each other. In fact, Jesus said this would be the calling card of his followers -- that we love one another. The more I read my Bible, the more I want to defer my position or preference and instead side with what is in the best interest of others, because that’s the loving thing to do.”

Now that I have shared some of my person thoughts, I want to close my message with something John Pavlovitz wrote on one of my favorite and challenging blogs “Stuff that Needs to Be Said.” I think it will be clear why I am ending with John’s words, but his words could easily be mine.  He says, 

Every day I invariably end up in some form of the same conversation.

I encounter a more conservative Christian, who takes issue with my stance on the Bible or sexuality or sin or salvation or politics, and once they realize that I’m neither embarrassed of these stances nor easily moved from them—they offer a similar solution to the diagnosed “problem” of my Progressive theology:

“You should try reading the Bible and asking God to reveal the truth to you.”—as if these are things I’d never considered. 

The words are sometimes delivered as unintended insult, other times as judgmental scolding, and still other times as a poorly concealed middle finger. Either way, there’s an inherent arrogance in the suggestion itself, assuming that unless the conclusions I’ve come to match their conclusions, I must not have done the work. I must be rebelling against God. I must be darkened in my understanding; clouded by the Devil—or maybe Rob Bell.

My reply is always the same: “Reading the Bible and praying over it—is precisely how I became Progressive.”

For more than forty years as a Christian and two decades as a pastor in the local church, I’ve lived with the Bible:

I’ve read it for inspiration and for information.

I’ve studied it in seminary and in small groups and in solitude. 

I’ve done hundreds of Bible studies and sat through months of sermons.

I’ve taught it and preached it and reflected on it for hours upon hours upon hours. 

I’ve sat with it in silence and prayed over the words, listening intently for the voice of God.

And all of this has yielded the faith perspective I have today. This has been my long, purposeful path to Progressive Christianity.

The more I excavated the Scriptures and reflected on what I’d learned, the more I felt a shift in my understanding. Little by little, through this continual process of study and prayer and living, I found myself unable to believe things I once believed. Old sureties became unstable and new things became my bedrock. Over time, I gradually but quite surely began to see the Bible differently, and it has led me to this place and to the convictions I now hold.

No longer some perfect, leather-bound divine transcript, dictated by God and downloaded into a few men’s heads or dropped from the sky—the Bible for me became an expansive library written by flawed, failing human beings at a particular place and time in the history of humanity, recording their experience of God as best they could comprehend it. 

In that library I could find wisdom and meaning, and through those words I could seek God and understand humanity, and craft a working religion to live within. But I could also bring other things to bear upon this journey; things like Science and History, things like nature and community and other faith traditions—and yes, my personal experience living as a never-to-be-repeated human being.

This is the path of all people of faith, if they’re honest; however conservative or progressive their theology. And this is the point.

None of us has the market cornered on the Truth, and we all bring the same things to our study and prayer and to our religion—we bring ourselves. We bring the sum total of the families we’ve lived in and the place we were born and the faith tradition we were raised in. We carry the teachers and pastors and writers who inspired us, the experiences we’ve had, and even our specific personalities. In other words: we all find our way—in the way we find our way. 

When a fundamentalist Christian instructs someone else to “read the Bible,” or “take it to prayer,” or to “ask God to reveal the truth to you,” they usually mean, “Do all of these things until you get it right—until you agree with me.” They are assuming their version of study and reflection are more valid than another’s.

And this is the beauty of Progressive Christianity: it doesn’t insist that others agree with it, it doesn’t claim superiority, and it holds its conclusions loosely. That doesn’t mean it has arrived at its present place impulsively, lazily, or ignorantly.

Quite the contrary. I’ve met thousands of Christians who hold more liberal positions on all sorts of topics, who didn’t begin that way. They have come to those positions after years or even decades of careful, prayerful, faithful exploration. They are as intelligent, invested, and earnestly seeking as their more orthodox brethren.

And this is perhaps the conservative Christian’s greatest challenge, which was fittingly, the same one the Pharisees faced in the Gospels: to believe that others could have a genuine, real, and beautiful experience of God that didn’t match their own.

People can read the Bible and pray and do everything they do as honestly and lovingly as they do it—and wind up believing differently.

Christian, the next time you’re tempted to flippantly tell someone who doesn’t share your religious convictions or mirror your theology, that they should “try reading the Bible and going to God,” it might be helpful to seek a humility about your own beliefs and a respect of theirs; to entertain the idea that maybe their reading of the Bible and their prayerful life surrounding it—are the very reason they now hold those beliefs.

Maybe they have studied and prayed and listened.

Maybe God has revealed the Truth to them. 

Maybe God doesn’t need your consent to do that.

(“The Bible and Prayer” Won’t Fix My Progressive Theology—They Created it. - MAY 20, 2017 by John Pavlovitz)

So, now as we enter waiting worship. Take a moment to center down and consider the following queries:

·        Has a teaching from the Bible positively or negatively impacted your spiritual growth?

·        How might reading the Bible with more progressive eyes help me care for my neighbor?

·        Do I struggle with people not believing the way I believe? And why? 

3-5-23 - "In Conversation with Everything and Everyone"

In Conversation with Everything and Everyone

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

March 5, 2023

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections.  This week we continue our series on the Bible.  Our text is from Acts 2:42-47a from the New International Version.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.

In 2014 I remember reading a brief article by Brian McLaren in Christianity Today titled, We've entered a new era of Bible reading.

In the article he described three different eras of Bible reading which he labeled, Bible 1.0, Bible 2.0, and Bible 3.0.

We are currently in a new era, which he calls Bible 3.0. McLaren characterizes it, as an approach that sees the Bible less as inerrant and more as being "in conversation with everything and everyone.” I love that concept.

Actually, I found this approach rather inviting. To think of the Bible “in conversation with everything and everyone” meant it would no longer be just through my specific denomination’s eyes or for that matter my personal faith community’s eyes. 

I remember being taught about the great fear of the Early Catholic Church that the Bible would get into the hands of common people or peasants, and they would try and interpret the Bible for themselves and find they disagreed with the Catholic Church. 

The reason Luther’s reformation was so successful – and other reformations after his – including the peace church reformation which Quakers, Mennonites and Brethren are included in, is because of the printing press coming into existence and common people getting their hands on the Bible for the first time. 

This reformation or what we might call today, deconstruction and reconstruction has continued because of the unprecedented access we now have to the Bible. 

Now, more than ever we have a broad range of readings, interpretations, and commentaries of the Bible at our fingertips just by opening an app on our phone or on our computer.

Whereas in the past, Christians might have had to go to another denomination's church or a completely different part of the world to hear a different take on Scripture. Today, the internet allows us to immediately access a myriad of different interpretations and understandings of the same text.

Brian McLaren says, "Now everybody can hear how everybody else is interpreting the Bible.” And the result is that we can no longer assume that all smart, good people interpret it the way our pastor, fellowship or denomination does. "Mastering one way of dealing with the Bible is not going to carry the weight it used to. We're going to have to deal with the fact that this book is contested."

Throughout history, McLaren says, the Bible has been contested – by biology, history, psychology, genetics and other intellectual movements.

What is different about this era, that is key to Bible 3.0, is the fact that everyone can now be involved in challenging not just what the Bible says, but the way we have traditionally understood what it says. "It's not just that it's being challenged and contested, it's that everybody knows it is being challenged and contested."

So, let me take a moment to define the three eras McLaren describes - Bible 1.0, 2.0, and our current era 3.0.  I think this will help you understand how we have evolved in our approaches over the years.

Bible 1.0

McLaren describes Bible 1.0 in terms of the medieval Catholic approach to Scripture, when most Christians were illiterate and had never held a Bible, much less read one. "Bible 1.0 was read and controlled by the religious elite," he says, and used at times to entrench or exert authority. Bible 1.0 relied on inerrant leaders, the Church elite, to interpret Scripture and explain to ordinary Christians how they should understand the portions of it they had heard.

And then we moved into a new era - Bible 2.0.

In Bible 2.0, the emphasis shifted from religious leaders to the Bible itself. Situating this era of biblical understanding in the Protestant reformation and the Christian world since then, McLaren says that, "Reading the Bible became a way to challenge the power of those religious leaders," and that the Bible itself was viewed as inerrant.

In most evangelical and fundamentalist churches today, Bible 2.0 is very much still in force and, as a result, he says we have "started sorting ourselves based on how a certain set of scholars interpreted the Bible." This is most obvious in the fact that, depending on which Bible school or theological seminary a pastor goes to, there will be certain scholars that one simply could not quote. "There still is a control over the Bible's interpretation," he says, even if we have unprecedented access to Scripture itself.

An then we arrive at Bible 3.0 – our current era.

McLaren believes since there are so many people now aware of how many different interpretations there are of single passages or entire books of the Bible, it is helping us move into the era of Bible 3.0. Under Bible 3.0, he says, it doesn't matter that the Bible is inerrant, because so many of us derive completely different meanings from the same inspired, inerrant texts.

McLaren doesn't see the world of Bible 3.0 as a threat to Christianity or to respect and reverence for the Bible, though. While he acknowledges that some people will simply go to the Bible for encouraging quotes, without looking for context, broader or deeper meaning, he is confident that Bible 3.0, with its "emerging, collective intelligence" about the Bible, will not mean giving up the idea of inspiration, just "an openness to inspiration coming to you in fresh and different ways."

McLaren concludes very optimistic.

"If we are ready, we are going to discover the Bible as better, deeper and richer than before."

I find this this new era approaching the Bible both freeing, as well as linked directly to our faith community.  Seeing the Bible become more conversational with everything and everyone…then means it will have to be read, wrestled with, questioned, and studied within the context of community!

I believe this was also important to the fallible and human writers of the Bible. We probably could actually look to their approach to help us understand our approach and application, today. 

(dot) Bible: For All Things Bible Online in a blog about “Reading the Bible in Community” points out that, “If a culture is a community of people who converse (or argue) about the same things across many generations, it makes sense to learn the contours of the main players in the conversation.”

To understand how we approach the Bible, we should probably take some time to explore the various groups of Quakers and how they have approached the Bible throughout the years.  Interestingly, early Quakers looked specifically at how Jesus and his disciples lived it. Often demanding that we return to the teaching and ministry of Jesus and the apostles.    

If you take a quick look through the gospels, you will find Jesus entering ongoing conversations among Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Herodians, priests, scribes, prophets, Roman authorities, excluded sinners, and the poor.

Jesus is always seeing a communal context.  He desires to understand and often push back against the main players in the conversation – the cultures, the leaders, even the laws and norms of his day. And yes, his own Jewish faith was not above questioning or wrestling with.

Quaker Henry J. Cadbury in his second book on Jesus said,

“There is much in the gospels as they stand to suggest that the kind of knowledge Jesus looked for was not so much imparted information as insight achieved. There is in fact reason to suppose that he did not refer so often to what his followers were to be told as to what they were to recognize and to discover. “   

That discovery and insight clearly came through interaction with community and the cultures of his day.  The diversity was huge for Jesus’ day. 

Pharisees and Sadducees would come to debate him in public discourses.

Zealots were drawn to him.  Judas was a Zealot he let into his inner circle of 12.   

He conversed with the priests in the temple, and even took to gorilla theater – flipping the tables - to get the priest’s and the money-changer’s attention.  

He challenged the scribes of his day with the words, “You have heard that it was said…but I say.” 

He not only challenged the prophets of his day, but he also spoke as one of them.

He pushed back on Roman Authority but also had an audience with the highest officials in the land.

He befriended, healed, and spoke to the outcast, unclean, poor, unhealthy, and destitute.

Jesus, yes, even addressed and dialogued with his own enemies.

The reality is that Jesus’ own ministry, life, and teaching was an example of conversation within community and culture.

Back when I was working on my doctoral degree, I had a one-on-one session with my psychological director.  He had asked me what I was wrestling with currently in my ministry.  Since I was in campus ministries and were in a year of studying diversity at Huntington University, I decided to share with him my personal struggle with how some of my colleagues thought diversity was simply a black and white race issue. I asked him what he thought of diversity and its roll in our lives and ministry. 

I will never forget the answer he gave.  He said, “Well, Bob, that is an interesting question. Do you fear diversity?”  I said I wasn’t sure what he meant by that.  He then gave me an example.  He said,

“My church in North Carolina just went through this difficult conversation.  We talked about Black and White race issues, same sex marriage, and even inter-faith issues.  He said, people quickly laid down lines and began to take sides.  So, our pastors decided to look at Jesus’ approach. We started by making a list of all the diverse people Jesus talked with, used in illustrations, and even who he allowed to attend his lectures and teachings. 

In a weird conclusion we found that he refused no one. Prostitutes, religious zealots, rich, poor, sick, mentally ill, people confused, people in leadership, and the list could go on and on.  Only once does he refuse people – and that is his own family – and that was probably for their own protection. 

So, instead of refusing anyone or fearing diversity, we embraced it.  To be like Jesus was to invite everyone in.  Soon, same-sex couples were sitting in the same row as people who had renounced their sexual orientation. A mixed race couple opened up about their relationship and started dating in public – and remember this was in the South.  A family with an autistic child was embraced by a single woman that considered herself a Buddhist but fell in love with the community at our church.  He said, once we began to look at Jesus’ approach, we stopped fearing diversity and began to see it blossom. 

He concluded,

“Bob, I think we need all kinds of people around us, I want people who have different experiences and perspectives on life around me.  I think the church needs them too.  We grow so much with diversity around us. 

The church needs LGBTQIA people.  We desperately need people of color.  We need the poor and rich, democrats and republicans, academics and trades people, and I could go on – but we need to all be in the same room sharing our perspectives – because when we do, we are empowered to see a bigger picture of God. 

That conversation changed me in a big way. 

Quaker Carole Spencer, who we had here for our inaugural Linda Lee Spiritual Retreat, taught my first class in my doctoral program and she made us read a variety of spiritual writers, feminists, First Nations people, African-Americans, Asians, and even atheists. 

As I read them, I realized how enlightening it was to read their views of the Bible. It was so inspiring I found myself writing a paper on the influence of Gandhi on Martin Luther King’s Spiritually During the Civil Rights Movement that became a major part of my dissertation. And amazingly Gandhi had a lot to say about the Bible – especially the Beatitudes.

And I will never forget when I taught a class on the Bible at the Chicago Bible Institute for 20 some African American Women leaders in the Cabrini Green Community.  We were reading through the book of Psalms and I began the class by reading Psalm 51:7

“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”

After reading the text, I paused to begin my lesson. That is when I noticed a hand raised. I asked if there was a question.  The woman proceeded to ask the entire class, “Is that how your Bible reads?”

All 20 or so woman were quick to shake their heads and say, “not mine.”

I found this interesting since we were all working from the same Bible. So, I went over to the woman and read it from her Bible.  Again, I read,

“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”

It was in this second reading that I realized that this verse was loaded and full of pain for this woman. I sat the Bible down and simply asked for those in the room to share their experience.  Immediately another woman said,

“Our ancestors were quoted this verse over and over by white people who abused, enslaved, and killed them.”

Another said,

“Professor, you said there may be better metaphors

to use than what we read in the Bible, why do we have

to use such a painful one like being “whiter than snow?”

For the rest of the class we looked at almost 40 references in the Bible to being “whiter than snow.” We shed tears as they told their stories, and shared what their ancestors had passed on to them. They even wrote their own versions of the text and in an almost sacred ceremony we crossed out those words in their bibles and replaced them with the words that came through their experience and stories. 

For an idealistic white boy working on a master’s degree in the Chicago suburbs, I was getting a real education this night.  Again, it changed me and how I read my Bible.

At one point during our conversation, one of the woman stood up and began to sing “Amazing Grace.”  There wasn’t a dry eye in the room as all our voices joined her.  She held on to the notes as she sang, “I was blind but now I see.” 

I think those words were for me – and maybe us this morning. 

This, folks is the power of allowing the Bible to be in conversation with everything and everyone.  Anytime we read the Bible within community, we have an opportunity to learn, grow, be corrected, and even delve deeper into our lives together and our relationship with God.

And every week, we have that same opportunity right here in this Meetinghouse when we enter waiting worship – it opens us up to a conversation with everything and everyone and the diversity within this room. 

Let’s open that conversation to everything and everyone this morning.  If you need something to prompt you, take a moment to ponder the following queries.

1.     Is there an openness in me for inspiration to come in fresh and different ways and through a diversity of people?

2.     Do I fear diversity within my faith community?

3.     How might I experience a more diverse reading of the Bible within my community? 

2-26-23 - "How Are We to Take the Bible Seriously?"

How Are We to Take the Bible Seriously?

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

February 26, 2023

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. This week we continue our Bible Gifting for our children and youth, and I have decided to continue my message from last week. The text this week is from Colossians 3:12-14 from the New Revised Standard Version.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

On various occasions, I have had people ask me,

“Bob, how can you take the Bible seriously?”

And last week I alluded to several of the reasons they may ask this – things such as contradictions, myths, wrong history, confusing science, miracles, even the resurrection of Jesus. But as I prepare for my answer to that challenging question – I must first consider that the person I am talking with must NOT take the Bible too seriously – thus the reason for their asking.

And if I could take a moment to jump into their mind and unpack why they don’t take the Bible seriously, I am sure I would find at the root a problem with interpretation. Rob Bell in his book, “What is the Bible?” which I mentioned last week in part one of this series, says,

“First, the Bible has to be interpreted. When someone says they’re just doing what the Bible says to do, they didn’t greet you with a holy kiss, they’re probably wearing two kinds of fabric sewn together, and there’s a good chance they don’t have tassels sewn on the corners of their garments, all things commanded in the Bible. They don’t do those things because they don’t believe those commands are binding on them today. And they don’t believe that or practice those things because they’ve interpreted the Bible in a particular way. Or more likely, they’ve been influenced by someone who told them that is how the Bible is to be interpreted.”

Take a moment and ponder who it was that influenced you in your interpretation of the Bible? 

Was it a parent, grandparent, distant relative, guardian, spouse? 

Was it a teacher or a coach?

Was it a pastor or a Sunday School teacher?

Was it through a college course or in school?

I know for me; my interpretation of the Bible began in my home with my parents.  Since attending church was very important to my family, my pastors and church also had a big influence on my interpretation.  And at different steps along my life’s journey, I can name specific people who taught me how to interpret the Bible – some that I found easy to buy into and others I reluctantly questioned. 

I remember in my undergrad college, dropping a class by a professor who I found outside of my comfort zone in how he interpreted scripture. Much of the reason was because my friends considered him a heretic and some were trying to get him fired. Ironically, today, I would probably consider myself much more progressive than that professor. 

At times, my interpretation of the Bible evolved unexpectantly. When I was working at Huntington University, a fellow colleague invited me to attend a lecture at Goshen College.  There I was to hear a new voice in Christianity at the time, Brian McLaren, speak on a topic that was very close to my heart – spiritual formation.  I remember being challenged and changed when Brian stated,

Our interpretations reveal less about God or the Bible than they do about ourselves. They reveal what we want to defend, what we want to attack, what we want to ignore, what we're unwilling to question.

As a student of spiritual formation, one of my biggest hang-ups was my unwillingness to question what I believed - probably because many of the people who had a part in forming me spiritually, up to that point, had considered questioning – out of bounds. 

The church I grew up in specifically taught me to defend one interpretation, attack other religious views, denominations, as well as faiths, and ultimately ignore them for the sake of my eternal soul.  There was a deep-seated fear in me about questioning or possibly interpreting the Bible wrong. 

But that lecture at Goshen College came at just the right time in my life.  I needed to be challenged to engage the questions I was unwilling to face.  That night a spark ignited in me, and over the coming years it would be fanned into an inner flame.

Or as Brian McLaren put it so well,

“Whatever ember of love for goodness flickers within us, however feeble or small… that's what the Spirit works with, until that spark glows warmer and brighter. From the tiniest beginning, our whole lives—our whole hearts, minds, souls, and strength—can be set aflame with love for God.”

Looking back, it is almost obvious how I would end up becoming a convinced Quaker.

So, this morning, I am going to be even more vulnerable about my experience and share with you my current approach to interpreting the Bible and taking it seriously.

Last week, I spoke about how I have evolved from looking at the Bible from a literal perspective.  And that alone can be hugely problematic for some people, but as you will see as I explain my approach (much like Karl Barth once said), “I take it serious enough, to not read it literally.” 

First, through three degrees in Christian Education and Spiritual Formation, many times reading through the Bible, and reading a plethora of Christian and Non-Christian writers on their views of the Bible, I have come to embrace a variety of views and perspectives.  Kind of taking bits and pieces from many different places. 

Two people and their books influenced me greatly in this direction - Quaker Richard Foster and his book “Streams of Living Water” and Brian McLaren’s “A Generous Orthodoxy” helped me process what I know like to call being a “Theological Mutt.” 

Being raised Conservative Lutheran, then becoming an Anglican Priest, and spending some time among Mennonites before finally landing among Quakers – I am about as theologically a mutt as one can be. But there is strength in that as well. It has helped me both interpret and question things from multiple perspectives. 

Secondly, one of the things I had to let go of early on was that God did not write the Bible. Just spending time reading the Bible with an open mind can help you see this. 

Rather it was people like you and me - fallible human beings who were inspired by (not dictated to by) the Spirit of God. I think it was the artist in me that first realized this. When I paint a picture, or for that matter write a sermon, I believe there is an aspect of God’s Spirit inspiring my work. Or as Rob Bell put it so well in “What is the Bible?”,

“The Bible is not an argument. It is a record of human experience. The point is not to prove that it’s the word of God or it’s inspired or it’s whatever the current word is that people are using. The point is to enter into its stories with such intention and vitality that you find what it is that inspired people to write these books.” 

Thirdly, as I mentioned last week, with all the inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible, the numerous instances of questionable theology, the angry and wrathful pictures of God, the condoning of slavery, and even “ordering” rape and genocide, amazingly I am not quick to reject the Bible, but to actually look deeper and ask more questions. 

Progressive Christian writer, Roger Woolsey said this should,

“…endear us to the Bible. Not because we agree with those passages, but because we recognize that they are fully human – they’re authentic, they’re down to earth, and they flat out convey the desperate and very real frustration, lament, and anger that are part of the human condition. The fact that such passages were allowed to be written into our holy scriptures are evidence of a mature people who realize that it’s best not to hide our dirty laundry or to deny our very real human feelings and passions. If the Bible were all about PR propaganda, they would have edited out those passages. We view those passages as exceptions to the over-arching message of the Bible of promoting unconditional love and the full inclusion and acceptance of all of God’s children.”

Fourthly, I read the Bible meditationally or prayerfully. Before becoming a Quaker and being introduced to Unprogrammed Worship or Waiting Worship, I was introduced to Lectio Divina – which means “divine reading” in Latin. It is a fitting name for this prayer practice of listening to Scripture with the ear of the heart.

Lectio Divina is a dialogue with God through Scripture that includes the whole self: thoughts, images, memories, desires, yet leaves you wrestling with the Spirit of God to interpret the meaning.  Often when I am struggling with a text or how to present it in a sermon, I will spend time meditating on the scripture and allow the Spirit to enlighten me.  Sometimes it will only be a word or short phrase that begins to speak to my condition and then begins to blossom.  

This leads to the fifth way I approach interpretation. I have realized over the years (as I described last week with the example from Matthew about “If your right eye causes you to sin – tear it out and throw it away” that there is no “objective, one, right way” to interpret a passage. 

Just by having conversations with fellow Quakers and Christians, it is clear that each individual person interprets the Bible through their own personal experiences, education, upbringing, socio-political context, sexual orientation, and much, much more.

Again, some would call this an extremely ecumenical approach, but it is necessary to fully see how the “Body of Christ” as a whole understands and interprets the Bible.  It helps me shape my understanding and take into considerations things that I may have missed. 

The same is true about different translations of the Bible. I know there are those who think Jesus actually used the King James Version – but all that, is their personal preference rising to the occasion.  They probably like the Shakespearian Poetry or maybe they say, “It doesn’t sound right in any other version” – both are preferences. 

I have a large collection of bibles. I don’t see any one as the “correct” translation.  That is why I might use the New Revised Standard Version or the Message or the even a narrative version like “The Book of God” by Walter Wangrin Jr.  Different versions help convey the message, highlight a concept or point, or even give us a context or ambiance that may be hard to comprehend. 

I remember before the book “The Shack” was released, I was attending a Campus Ministry retreat in California and the speaker said, he just had been asked to read a draft from the book. As he shared about his experience, he said he was moved both by the biblical scholarship of the book, yet overshadowing that was something that many people were going to have a problem with.  As we all leaned-in to hear of what it may be – he said, “William Paul Young presents God as a nurturing and loving black woman in The Shack.”  There were literal gasps heard in the room.  

Even though The Shack is not liked by everyone (what book is), I found this one concept of God being a nurturing and loving black woman causing me to see the scriptures in a different light.  Actually, it was what inspired me to see Mary’s Magnificat as more of a slam poetry session by a young vulnerable person of color.  It changed my way of seeing the Bible.     

As well, I believe it is extremely important to take the time to read the scriptures in context – that means not utilizing them simply to make a point.  Understanding Genesis chapter 1 as a poetry and not a literal re-telling of the events changes everything.

I remember, I had a professor once who before class posted around the room about 20 or so different creation stories from a variety of religions.  None were marked as to where they came from.  We were to read each of them and try and guess.  What we began to notice was that some were in narrative/story format, others poetry, and some historical retelling. 

It was clear that all the accounts had similarities – characters, events, order, god or divine figures, etc… So, what was the outcome of this exercise? 

There was a clear empathy in the room that we were not alone in our understanding and that other religions may have something to say  – or even had something already to say to help shape our narrative and what we believe.

Noticing the empathy in that exercise, I believe it is also key to employ a hermeneutic of compassion, love, and justice when interpreting and reading scripture (which I believe Jesus clearly utilized).  

Roger Woosley describes a hermeneutic as “an interpretive lens” and “intentional filter.” To have an empathetic hermeneutic of love means we seek to see the forest for the trees and allows the spirit of the law to trump the letter of the law (again which Jesus modeled).

In many ways, Jesus was trying to help us learn how to interpret this world, the scriptures, even his life and example for our world, today.  And for Jesus that meant at times rejecting certain scriptures, teachings, even theologies and seeking a more empathetic hermeneutic of love.

Or as the writer of our scriptures for this morning described what it meant to live as people made alive in Christ,

And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Well, I think that is enough for this week.  To quickly recap…

·        Embrace a variety of views and perspectives about scripture.

·        Remember inspired but fallible human beings wrote the Bible.

·        Look deeper and ask more questions.

·        Try reading the Bible meditationally or prayerfully (or try Lectio Divina)

·        Remember, there is no “objective, one, right way” to interpret scripture.

·        Have conversations with others about what they think about the Bible – what I would call the ecumenical approach.

·        Read from various versions and styles of scripture and always try to read in the original context, and…

·        Adopt an empathetic hermeneutic of love like Jesus.

Next week, we will bring this conversation into another very important aspect – community!

Now, as we enter waiting worship, I ask you to ponder the following queries:

·        Who is influencing my interpretation of the Bible?

·        What might I need to let go of or hold on to in my interpretation?

·        How might I employ a hermeneutic of compassion, love, and justice when interpreting and reading scripture?

2-19-23 - "What Would Jesus Say About What the Bible Says?"

What Would Jesus Say About What the Bible Says?

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

February 19, 2023

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. This morning at the Meeting we are having a special Gifting of Bibles for our children and young people. This message alludes to this special event.  Our scripture for today is Isaiah 55:11 from the New Revised Standard Version.

…so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

    it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose

    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Throughout this school year, Seeking Friends (which meets before worship each Sunday at 9am) has been discussing the book, The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It by Peter Enns.

Seeking Friends has been an ongoing discussion and study for many years at First Friends, but since I began facilitating it, I have tried to have us study books about the Bible that explore deeper and even alternative ways to view it – including books I would highly recommend such as Brian McLaren’s We Make the Road by Walking and Rob Bell’s What Is the Bible? How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything.

Obviously, I have always had a love for the Bible and thus have found it formational, instructive, and even at times prophetic to my own life. 

Yet…over the years I have changed my understanding and view of the Bible. 

Probably because the more I have studied the book, the more problems I have run into, everything from contradictions, myths, wrong history to struggling with specific issues such as its role in the genocide of the First Nation’s people and the enslavement of African blacks in our own country, to the oppression of women and their rights, and most definitely the anger or wrath of God – which gets really complicated as a Quaker when it comes to war, genocide, and even nihilation of people on the earth. 

So why, would we teach or especially give our young people a copy of such a controversial book? Some, maybe even some of you, in this Meetingroom or online, may be asking why? 

My answer to that question may need to be accompanied by a good cup of coffee and a comfortable chair to fully unpack. 

Yet, this morning, I will unpack a couple of points to help us consider how we might each approach it and possibly help teach it to our children. 

I want to start by returning to an article I read a few years ago that really helped me. The article was titled, “What Questions Might Jesus Ask of Scripture?” written by Progressive Christian Chuck Queen – a Baptist minister, teacher, and author who has authored five books on Progressive Christian themes. His most recent book is titled: “Being a Progressive Christian (is not) for Dummies (nor for know-it-alls). 

The article really had me contemplating not only what Jesus thought of Scripture, but how Jesus handled scripture. 

Obviously, I have spent a great deal of time talking in this Meeting about following the ministry and example of Jesus, but I have never really preached on or helped us consider how Jesus would look at scripture.

We must remember that the historic Jesus was a man who was part of a religious society and often did some things that many Jews and Christians, today, would find questionable – if not heresy.

To open his article, Chuck Queen quotes another article from the Washington Post by E.J. Dionne which speaks of our imperfect quest for the truth. Quoting Dionne he says,

“Christians need to humbly acknowledge how imperfectly human beings understand the divine and how over the history of faith, there have been occasions when ‘a supposedly changeless truth has changed.” 

This I could understand and even easily prove by simply asking Christians to explain how their view of Matthew 5:29-30 had changed over the years. How one viewed this verse in grade school, versus high school, college, or even today, is often wildly different.  If you haven’t begun to look up Matthew 5:29-30 let me read it to you. Consider how you have viewed it at different times in your life:  

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

The reason I often ask Christians to do this little exercise is because when I was in 6th grade I often watched Little House on the Prairie after school. One very memorable – even haunting - episode had Caroline Ingalls dealing with a cut on her leg that become a bacterial infection.  Ironically the episode was called “A Matter of Faith” and throughout she contemplated actually cutting off her leg because of that scripture from Matthew 5.  Just thinking about that episode gives me all kinds of weird feelings because as a junior higher – I was having a hard time with these scriptures myself because I hadn’t really formed abstract thinking skills and was taking the verse literally.

Today, I am far from taking a literal perspective of these verses, but over the years my understanding evolved.  

Not only do we see “truths” change over time. Queen goes on to say that truth exists, but our experience of it is limited and fallible, just like the limits and fallibility in our sacred texts. 

This was something that took a long time for me to finally embrace – but it was because as Queen says, “Jesus did. According to the Gospels, Jesus had no problem dismissing, rejecting, and reinterpreting the sacred texts within his Jewish tradition.”

I remember reading that and almost being able to see the proverbial cartoon light bulb lighting up over the top of my head.

Let’s look at this for a moment: 

Deuteronomy 24:1 says,

“Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house;

Some religious authorities in Jesus’ day abusively used Deut. 24:1 to justify divorcing a wife for any reason whatsoever, very much the same way religious authorities today abusively use Scripture to condemn the LGBTQIA community, condone violence, and subjugate women in the home and in the church.

Did you know that Jesus actually dismissed Deut. 24:1 by offering a critical reading of it. Jesus said that this law did not come from God (as the Scripture claimed), but from Moses himself, who made the concession due to the hardness of their hearts (Mark 10:2-5).

Or consider Deut. 22:21 which reads: “…then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house, and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So, you shall purge the evil from your midst.”

This means Joseph disobeyed Deut. 22:21 by deciding to divorce Mary quietly without bringing public shame upon her. Matthew wrote that Joseph did this because he was a “righteous man.” Obviously from Matthew’s perspective, being “righteous” may involve refusing to do what the Bible says.

Those are just two examples, but as I have studied – there are many more.

Queen then gets to the queries that made me really contemplate how I understood and looked at the Bible. He says, 

“When it comes to the Christian’s sacred texts the critical question is not: What does the Bible say? The key question is: What would Jesus say about what the Bible says? Would Jesus give it a critical reading and dismiss it? Would Jesus offer a new reading and fresh interpretation?

For many years, I wore a bracelet that had the letters WWJD on it.  What would Jesus do?  In some ways, that was a good question to ask, but maybe that popular question did not go far enough.

Queen then goes further and suggests that we ask three more queries of any biblical text to determine its redemptive value – he thinks these are the queries Jesus might have asked.  

The first one is: Does the text make God look good?

If God is good; if God is always better than our best. If the God depicted in a text is not as loving, just, good, reliable, forgiving, compassionate, etc. as the best person you know, then that text cannot possibly be giving us an authentic depiction of God.

I remember contemplating this query for quite some time. While I was contemplating it, I had the opportunity to hear Brian McLaren speak on his respect for the work of Philosopher Renè Giard who specifically studied how God is viewed in the Old Testament and concluded that it is man’s flawed interpretation of God that we read in the Old Testament.  

Our focus always should be on a God who is good, loving, reliable, forgiving, compassionate.  This is why, I do not teach the idea of atonement where “God killed his son for our sake.” I do not believe a loving God would do that. The people who were threatened by Jesus and his messaged killed him.  There is another entire conversation over coffee and probably over several days that we could have.   

For now, let’s move on to the second query Jesus may ask: Does it make me want to be good?

Does the text in some way offer a vision of God or human possibility that inspires me to deal with my false attachments and strive through God’s grace to be a better person?

The Bible is filled with negative examples, failures, and stories of real people with real problems. There are many stories where we can relate.  They may need to be translated to our situations or day, but many of the stories, morals, and virtues that the Bible shares are good for us to wrestle with and allow to inspire us to be better humans.  Yet another good reason to give our young people Bibles, as I said last week, to have better conversations and learn to offer gestures of love.

The third query Jesus might ask: Is it reasonable?

Not, “Is it provable?” or “Is it without inconsistencies?” which many Christians obsess over.  If you really read the scriptures, you will find that authentic spiritual truth is filled with paradox and many on-the-surface contradictions.

What Queen means is, “Does it make sense and does it reflect common sense?” Does it align with the deepest truth I intuitively know in my heart about what is good and true?

Sure, some of the stories in the bible are great myths and narratives – but Jesus often told myths and stories – which he called parables to help make sense of the world.  Often his parables reflected common sense and led to a deeper truth about his life and ministry. 

Teaching and allowing our young people, and ourselves for that matter, to learn and explore the depths of the stories help us relate to our world and those we are called to love. 

Folks, Chuck Queen helped me realize that the Bible, while central to our faith, argues with itself on almost every issue of any importance.  And I think there are reasons for that.  One of the biggest is the biblical writers and communities that gave us our sacred texts brought their biases, cultural conditioning, beliefs, worldviews, and presuppositions into the process of discovering God’s will. 

Just as we should continue to do, today.

What amazes me is that Quakers have been doing this since our very beginning.

Retired Earlham School of Religion Professor Michael Birkel points this out, saying,

“The relationship that early Friends had with scripture was rich and complex. They read the Bible in terms of their own particular inward experiences, yet they perceived their world in profound Biblical terms. Their spiritual experiences shaped their reading of the Bible, and the Bible shaped their understanding of their experiences.  They did not simply read the scriptures.  They lived them. For them, the Bible was not just an exercise in information. It was an invitation to transformation.”

That I believe sums up exactly why it is important to give our young people Bibles and why we too should take another look.  Just maybe it will inspire us to live them out and transform both us and our world!  

So, this week, I challenge you to go grab your bible off your shelf or open it up in an app on your phone and try reading it again.  But this time read it while considering how Jesus might have answered these queries:   

Does the text make God look good?

Does it make me want to be good?

Is it reasonable?

Let us now enter a time of waiting worship.  You may want open a bible and begin reading in the silence while considering those queries.

2-12-23 - "Gestures of Love"

Gestures of Love

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

February 12, 2023

Good morning and welcome to Light Reflections. Our scripture reading for this morning is one you have probably heard many times. I Corinthians 13:4-7 from the New Revised Standard Version.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This coming week, we will celebrate St. Valentine’s Day - a day that celebrates the many facets of love, and has several very interesting origin stories.

One of the most popular origin stories or legends contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. 

If you read any of the Valentine legends – all of them end in Valentine being put to death or martyred. 

Whatever the legend, the feast day and celebration continue in modern times, thankfully much different than how the legends end. Obviously, the day has been transformed into a day to share “gestures of love” with that someone special – everything from cards, chocolate, roses, poetry, and the like. 

But this morning, I want to expand that idea of “gestures of love.” In one of my favorite books, Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future, by Margaret Wheatly she closes her book with a chapter ironically titled, “Gestures of Love.”

She defines “Gestures of Love” in this way, saying:

“I think of a gesture of love as anything we do that helps others discover their humanity. Any act where we turn to one another. Open our hearts. Extend ourselves. Listen. Any time we’re patient. Curious. Quiet. Engaged.”

I am sure if you took a moment, you could make a list of all the gestures of love that you have received over the years and who gave them to you.  

When someone helped you discover your humanity.

When someone turned to you, opened their heart, extended themselves, and listened to you.

Maybe it was someone in this very Meetingroom or if you are watching online – someone in your home. 

One of the most important things about people sharing a “gesture of love” is where it all begins – a conversation. 

Margaret Wheatly says,

“Conversation does this – it requires that we extend ourselves, that we open our minds and heart a bit more, that we turn to someone, curious about how they live their life.”

Sadly, in our over-tech focused world, these conversations are becoming more and more rare. Today, a text or an email replace that initial conversation and the depth of life is missed or simply assumed. 

As a pastor, I am blessed to have daily conversations with people within in our meeting. These conversations whether over the phone, on Facebook Messenger, accompanied by a cup of coffee or lunch lead to opportunities to offer “gestures of love.”  

As well, I believe First Friends is getting more and more intentional about offering opportunities where conversations can take place. Every week, I am blessed by the conversations that take place in Seeking Friends before worship. Our men and women have opportunities to have meaningful conversations at Threshing Together and Soul Sisters. We also have small groups, book and study groups, new attender dinners, and the list could go on where conversations are encouraged among Friends.

Margret Wheatley says we need these opportunities, especially today, because,

“Speaking to each other involves risk. It’s often difficult to extend ourselves, to let down our guard, especially with those we fear or avoid.  When we are willing to overcome our fear and speak to them, that is a gesture of love. Strangely what we say is not that important. We have ended the silence that keeps us apart.”

Paulo Friere (Fray-ray) the Brazillian educator and philosopher would have agreed with Wheatley, he described love, “as an act of courage, not of fear.”

For that matter, the apostle Paul makes this point as well, his description of love is detailed in our scripture for today, and Paul points out that offering these gestures of love is not always easy and at times risky. Paul says,

"Love is patient, love is kind, it isn't jealous, it doesn't brag, it isn't arrogant, it isn't rude, it doesn't seek its own advantage, it isn't irritable, it doesn't keep a record of complaints."

When you and I are brave enough to risk opening ourselves up through a loving conversation, we must also be aware of why we are opening that conversation, and how we are approaching it.  Our words hold great meaning and depth and often reveal a lot about ourselves. 

This is what Paul is getting at by warning about being jealous, arrogant, rude, bragging, or taking advantage of people. 

The world is schooled in these, but when we begin the conversation as a gesture of love, we start by being patient and kind and having courage to continue. This then can lead to us rediscovering what it means to be human.

It is by having conversations that we practice good human behaviors as Paul in 1 Corinthians described.  And as Margaret Wheatly points out. She says by doing this…

“We become visible to one another. We gain insights and new understandings. And as we stay in conversation, we may discover that we want to be activists in our world. We get interested in what we can do to change things. Conversation wakes us up… Conversation helps us reclaim these very human capacities and experience. That is a gesture of love.”

As Quakers we often focus a great deal on silence, but I believe if that is all we have, we are missing so much and even our opportunity to help. Don’t get me wrong - there is a time for silence, but there is equally a need and time for dialogue.

Each week I pose queries at the end of my messages, as well we send them out in our Friend-to-Friend newsletter. The reason for the queries is two-fold. 

1. They are for you to personally contemplate and consider and

2. They are for you to begin a conversation with a neighbor or friend. 

Some of the best conversations I have during the week happen around our queries. 

Often those conversations inspire conviction and a desire to help, seek and answer, or make a change. Often those conversations produce gestures of love.  Maybe it is the need for prayer, meals, companionship, a drive to an appointment, even meeting a financial need. 

As well, every week, I overhear or am engaged in a conversation in our meeting where people take a risk and share, and most of the time they are met with a gesture of love.  

This I believe is because as Quakers we value equality. True conversation can only take place among equals. If anyone feels superior, it destroys conversation.

Let’s be honest, this is why many people completely avoid conversations or choose to be passive aggressive. 

Margaret Wheatley says,

“Those who act superior can’t help but treat others as objects to accomplish their causes and plans. When we see each other as equals we stop misusing them…Acknowledging you as my equal is a gesture of love.”

I don’t know if you noticed, but the distinctives that afford us the opportunity to offer gestures of love meld well with our S.P.I.C.E.S. of Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship.

Quaker Isaac Pennington in his letter from 1667 summed it up so well, saying:

Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying one for another and helping one another up with a tender hand.

So, this morning, as part of waiting worship, I want you all to take a risk and maybe even extend yourself and begin a conversation with someone around you. 

Since you are watching online, you may want to have a conversation with a family member or make a phone call to a friend or someone you know in the Meeting.

Instead of contemplating in silence, you can make some noise and dialogue about this query:

What do I love about First Friends? and why? 

Go find someone and start a conversation – and find ways to share gestures of love with those around you, today!

2-5-23 - "The Scouting of God"

The Scouting of God

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

February 5, 2023

Good morning Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. This week at the Meeting we are celebrating Scout Sunday. We will acknowledge all our children and young adults who are currently scouts and adults who have served as leaders as well as being scouts themselves.  Our scripture for this morning is Jeremiah 1:4-10 from the New Revised Standard Version of scripture:

4 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,

5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born, I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

6 Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” 

7 But the Lord said to me,

“Do not say, ‘I am only a boy,’
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you.
8 Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
            says the Lord.”

9 Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me,

“Now I have put my words in your mouth.
10 See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.”

When I think of the word “SCOUT,” several things come to mind. I remember fondly my many years as a Cub Scout, and helping our oldest son, Alex, work on badges, pinewood derby cars, and serving the community as a Cub Scout.

Yet, when I hear the word scouting these days, I am often reminded of sports. With next week being Super Bowl Sunday, March Madness just a month away, and for baseball fans, Spring Training just around the corner.  There’s a lot of “scouting” going on out there. If you are not a sport’s person,

A scout in sports is one who actively and intentionally seeks talented players that may develop into star athletes to benefit a team for years.

Quite often, scouts do their work largely behind the scenes. Unlike the players, coaches, managers, agents, and owners, we rarely see their faces or hear their names.

Chances are, you still can conjure up an image of former Colt’s quarterback, Andrew Luck, pretty easily. But I bet you would have a hard time picturing his scout, Mel Kiper Jr., who realized his potential and placed him at the number two spot of top 10 quarterback prospects that he scouted. 

Still, it is good for us to remember it is the scouts who combine methodical approaches with sheer gut instincts to discern which players to pick, and which to ignore.

The great ones have a knack for sensing which athletes have not only the physical skills to perform, but also those qualities of temperament, character, and grit that we might call “intangibles.”

This image of a scout, as one who identifies something special - that “diamond in the rough” – is helpful as we reflect on today’s passage near the beginning of the book of the prophet Jeremiah.

We think we know some things about this perhaps unlikely prophet. The consensus is that his father was among the priestly class, so Jeremiah was a PK and probably like my three children, he knew a thing or two about matters of faith and the church.

Yet his times were wrought with trouble. Talk about a guy under stress, like I spoke about last week.

The people had been led by several inept and corrupt and morally bankrupt kings. Interspersed among these was Josiah, perhaps a lone voice of justice and faithfulness, trying desperately to steer God’s people back to the faithful living demanded by their covenant with God.

Like Jeremiah, King Josiah saw the relationship between the political and religious, but his efforts at reform and repentance fell largely on deaf ears. Sounds very familiar to the political and religious still today.

Through those years, the people chose idolatry, directing their worship elsewhere besides the God who created and would save them. The people chose to forge political alliances at odds with God’s purposes. The people turned from the covenant call to practice social justice, failing to provide compassion to those on the margins: the widow, the orphan, and the stranger among them.

Looming on the horizon were the suffering and those in exile... Through all of it, God had a purpose, a vision, an intention... a promise to love and hope for this people.

God already knew the one to deliver the difficult truth to the people. God selected Jeremiah for what was to be among the most awful and stressful of tasks. God had scouted Jeremiah to be the voice confronting the people with God’s message. Jeremiah’s mission was to preach faithfulness to a people who had long lost their way.

This PK was not scouted to tend to worship planning or being the youth minister. There would be nothing pretty or delicate about Jeremiah’s calling. Jeremiah’s ministry would actually not be in the church but out in the streets.

Jeremiah would be consecrated by God (now, there is a big churchy word). In more familiar language, to be consecrated is to be: set apart as sacred / not allowed for some other profane use / designated, or dedicated, for a holy purpose.

So, the God of the Universe scouted, selected, and set apart Jeremiah for this job. And how does Jeremiah initially respond?  He says, “Ah, Lord!”

That’s not, “Ah, I see...” but rather a complaint, a lament, more like “Uh, are you kidding me, Lord?”

We guess Jeremiah to be anywhere from his late teens to early twenties at the time of his call.

(We are not sure whether he has earned his Eagle Scout rank like Jack here), but at any rate, he protests and he questions his call.

Notice God does not deny there are valid reasons to have anxiety. He has all the right to be skeptical, anxious, even stressed over this calling.

The message Jeremiah was given to deliver would not be well received. He would actually face a hostile audience. Throughout much of his ministry, Jeremiah would know little but frustration and failure.

Carrying out his mission, Jeremiah would often be mocked, beaten, and incarcerated.

Jeremiah wrote the book of his prophetic ministry only to have King Josiah’s successor destroy it, prompting Jeremiah to rewrite the whole thing! (Just checking, is it too late to find another vocation?)

Seriously, all Jeremiah’s fears were valid, but God says,

“Jeremiah, I know all that, but here’s the thing. I scouted you. That means I have always been and I will always be with you. Through the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

And God is saying that to each of us this morning.  “I know you, I scouted you, and I will always be with you – through the good, the bad, the stressful, the ugly.”

We must remember that what God commands, God empowers. Like the prophets, each and everyone of us would do well to remember the courage of our convictions: the courage to speak truth to power (as we Quakers say).  

Of all the prophets of the Hebrew Testament, Jeremiah may be most like Jesus in his selfless, sacrificing, daring, and committed dedication to the call for which he had been scouted, set apart, chosen.

So, I ask each of our scouts this morning, each person in the pews, or watching online…

What is your calling?

And what is our shared prophetic mission in this time and place?

God has scouted each and all of us to carry and share the love of God into the midst of a broken and troubled world. I pray we would respond with humility and hope.

As we enter waiting worship, I ask you to ponder those two queries:

1.    What is my calling?

2.    What is my shared prophetic mission in this time and place?

1-29-23 - "Handling Stress the Jesus Way"

Handling Stress the Jesus Way

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

January 29, 2023

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. Our scripture reading for today is Matthew 3:16-4:11 from the New Revised Standard Version.

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him.  And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,

‘One does not live by bread alone,

    but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,

‘He will command his angels concerning you,’

    and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,

so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”  Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,

‘Worship the Lord your God,

    and serve only him.’”

Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Last week we looked at a specific aspect of Jesus’ water baptism – that being “fire” and the qualities that fire presents to the reader, 1. illumination, 2. warmth, and 3. purification – This was also something that the early Quakers focused a great deal on, calling it the Refiner’s Fire.

This morning, we continue on in the biblical story and look at what happen immediately following Jesus’ baptism. Often this story is known as the Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness.  Some call it “The Great Testing,” and still others name it “The Calling of Christ.”

As I did last week by focusing on the refiner’s fire, this week I want to take another angle and not look so much at Satan or Temptation – but really hone in on an area that I think is extremely applicable for us, today – that being STRESS. 

It seems in our hurry-up, no-time-for breaks, “I have too many things to do” society – we all know something about stress. 

Just in the last week, I noticed that many people – even some of you – have been posting quotes or memes on social media about stress.  I decided to compile them and as David Letterman used to do, here is my top ten list (and since we are in Meeting for Worship, I only chose mostly clean ones:

10.Everyone thinks I’m overly dramatic when I am stressed. When an octopus    is stressed, it eats itself. Now that’s overdramatic.

9.    Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness.

8.    When I get a headache, I take two aspirin and keep away from children just like the bottle says.

7.    My stress stresses me out to the point where I’m too stressed to deal with stress.

6. So, you mean a stress ball is not for throwing at people who stress me out?

5.    Can’t decide if I need a hug, an XL coffee, 6 shots of vodka, or 2 weeks of sleep.

4.    I am going to put an “Out of Order” sticker on my head and call it a day.

3.    I deserve a medal for making it through this week without stabbing someone with a fork.

2.    Some people manage stress with yoga, meditation, and long walks. I manage stress with food, sarcasm and swearing. 

1.    Did you know “stressed” spelled backwards is desserts? Coincidence? I think not!

Obviously, we are experiencing a lot of pressure in our world. This pressure comes from so many different places, people, and experiences and each place a different demand on us. At times, it almost feel like the stress of life is going to literally pull us apart.

When I was studying the many nuances of conflict in ministry and the impact it has on ministry professionals for my doctoral dissertation, I spent some time looking specifically at how Jesus addressed the stresses in his life and ministry. 

Obviously, Jesus was under a variety of pressures and stressors. 

·      There was growing up in Nazareth (a place known for being where “nothing good could come from.”

·      There was also his family’s economic and social status in their community after that wild start to parenthood.

·      There was the fact that Jesus was seen as different, odd, at times the teacher’s pet, and at other times an annoyance. 

·      As he grew older, he gathered crowds for his teachings, but he also drew trolls and protesters – some his own family and his own religious leaders. 

·      The stress would continue to build until the gospel writers find him sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

Sure, there were the breaks Jesus took on the hill side to be alone or the nap on the boat, but honestly – by our standards, Jesus life was kind of a living hell.

And finally, there was the pursuit and public trial where his own people turned their back and chose a criminal to be released and proceeded to shout for him to be crucified – until they got what they wanted. 

In many ways – this could play out in our news today – just add social media, the news sources, tabloids, and the paparazzi and you have Jesus headlining the news and heading to a rehab facility for help.   

So, what can we learn from Jesus in our day and age. Here are some of the insights I want to highlight that may be helpful to you.

This is where we pick up the story from last week. No sooner had God confirmed Jesus’ identity and mission at his water baptism than the Adversary or devil calls it into question in the wilderness - as we heard read in our scripture for this morning.

Temptation and testing can be seductive stress. However, it is Jesus’ response that is very important.  He returns to history, the scriptures, and even the law of the land to support him and help give him strength in his rebuttal of the Adversary’s temptations. 

Jesus was being put on trial, but he had done his homework. He didn’t make assumptions or listen to those around him, instead he studied and knew what he was talking about.

Too often our stress comes from being ill prepared or making assumptions about what we believe.  Jesus was able to be confident and stand strong because he was prepared. He had mediated on the Scriptures, studied his history, and knew the law and how to combat the temptations. 

As Jesus returns from the wilderness he enters a ministry of teaching, healing, and seeking to meet the needs and demands of others placed on him which grew and grew every day. 

This became a stress of overwhelming demands – something many of us can relate to - too much to do and too little time to do it.

Jesus again faced this stressful situation without despair by moving forward and seeking ways to serve. He dealt with one situation or person at a time – because he knew his limits. This kept him calm and in control and able to see the path ahead.    

When the tasks seemed too enormous to bear, he prioritized his actions. In Jesus’ most important sermon he shows the significance of this by proclaiming, “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.”  He did not let trivial things obscure the vital things that he was doing in the present moment. 

For us, stress can come from an overactive mind and an underactive body. God has promised to guide us each step of the way and gives us strength for each challenge confronting us, but we must prioritize, make wise choices, and stay focused on the task at hand.  

Some cities which saw Jesus the most refused to follow his lead or do what he had encouraged them to do. This is considered the stress of disappointing results.

Yet, Jesus' response was a joy-filled heart and a prayer to God.

When our agenda crashes, our hopes wither and our plans fail, we must rest in the knowledge that the work in not finished, it just may not be our work anymore.  Sometimes we need to move on and seek places where people will respond to the challenge.

Jesus often moved on and even encouraged us to “dust off our sandals” and continue the journey. Often, this type of stress builds over time because we get stagnant and do not seek fresh perspectives. 

Later, when word came that John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin, forerunner, and friend, had been beheaded, Jesus went out in a boat to a lonely place by himself, apart from all human company. He needed some space to clear his head and grieve. 

To cope with the stress of tragedy, Jesus made time for meditation, solitude, and silence before God. He drew strength, direction, and discernment in this time.

Also, when the clamoring crowds tried to make Jesus a political king, Jesus refused the stress of popular pressure by going "on the mountain by Himself to pray and meditate".

This same powerful resource of prayer and meditation is ours today. Prayer and meditation can relieve the stress we face and soothe our soul. It can also give us an opportunity to reflect and rest.

But folks, let’s be honest, often life reveals no quick answers, no simple solutions, no ready escapes from the stresses of life.

Yet, I believe God is always faithful. What we may forget is that that faithfulness may come through the lives of those around us.

As Quakers who believe there is that of God in each person we meet, God works through the lives and relationships we have with others. God’s care comes through those we love and trust, and on occasion people we may not even expect.  

That means, you and I may be the ones being called to be God-in-the-flesh to our neighbors and to help relieve them of their stress. Now, there is a thought.

Instead of pointing out the stress in others – maybe we should see how we can help them, encourage them, even relieve their stress.   

Jesus spoke to this in a bold way when he added to the Great Shema of the Hebrew Faith saying,

“Love your neighbor…as you love yourself.”   

From both a spiritual and psychological perspective, it may be helpful to sometimes observe your own internal narrative and the ways that you tend to speak to yourself. 

How do I do that, you ask?  Maybe start by asking yourself a couple personal queries before engaging others:

“Would I be speaking in a loving or charitable way and not creating more stress for my neighbor, if I were I to say this to my neighbor?” 

or “Would I feel more stressed if someone said or did this to me?” 

The more we learn to effectively do this, the more likely we are to mature both psychologically and spiritually. By doing this we become more aware. I believe it will help us feel less stressed in our relationships and conversations, as well as helping our neighbor feel less stressed.

So, to close this sermon on dealing with stress, I want to share with you a blessing by John O’Donohue. Rebecca Liming gave me a copy of blessings by John that I love and this one seems appropriate to conclude with this morning.  It is called “For Presence.”

Awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path.
Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.
May anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.

Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.

With those words on our hearts and minds, let us center down into waiting worship. To help us process some of what I have said this morning, I have provided the following queries:

·      How am I responding to the stresses of overwhelming demands, disappointing results, and tragedy?

·      Who helps me relieve the stress in my life? How might I help a neighbor relieve stress in their life?

·      Where might it be time for me to move on? 

1-22-23 - "Igniting and Refining Our Inner Fire"

Igniting and Refining Our Inner Fire

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

January 22, 2023

Good morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. Our scriptures for today at the story of Jesus’ water baptism from Matthew 3:10-17 from the New Revised Standard Version.

Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him, and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

If I was a betting man, I would bet that most of us could not read our text for this morning without thinking a little bit about FIRE.

Ironically, there are several references to fire in this text about Jesus’ water baptism, if you did not notice we heard about…

• Being cut down and thrown into the fire

• baptizing not in water but in fire, and...

• burning the chaff with a fire

Too often Christians these days simply jump to hell or eternal damnation when thinking about fire in the scriptures and sadly miss what I believe John had been preparing the people in the wilderness for – that being what Quakers especially would acknowledge as the coming of the Light (the Fire) into their lives. 

I sense the reason we move quickly to hell is that the word pictures John paints for us are messages that, as William Barclay in his commentary notes, seem to combine both “promise and threat.”

Before anyone get’s cut down and thrown into the fire, I think we first must remember what John says,

John says that the baptism of the one who is to come will be with fire.

William Barclay helped shed some important light on his ideas of what this coming fire would entail – and with many things in scripture it is three-fold.  He sees the fire in three ways:

1. Illumination,

2. Warmth, and

3. Purification.  

Let’s explore what Barclay said in his own words on this subject.

1.     There is the idea of illumination. The blaze of a flame sends a light through the night and illuminates the darkest corners. The flame of the beacon guides the sailor to the harbor and the traveller to their goal. In fire there is light and guidance. 

2.     There is also the idea of warmth. A great and a kindly person was described as one who lit fires in cold rooms...God kindles within our hearts the warmth of love towards God and towards our neighbor.  

And finally…

3.     There is the idea of purification. In this sense purification involves destruction (or deconstruction); for the purifying flame burns away the false and leaves the true. The flame tempers and strengthens and purifies the metal. 

For you and me, this often happens through painful or challenging  experiences, but, if a person throughout all the experiences of life believes that God is working together all things for good, they will emerge from them with a character which is cleansed and purified, until, being pure in heart, they can see God within themselves.

We must remember that for us, what John the Baptist has described is a present reality.  When you and I realize the Light of God is in our present lives – as John realized on the shore that day when Jesus came and dipped into the water – our eyes and hearts are not only open, but even more our entire lives (physically, mentally, spiritually) are opened up to God’s fire and light to enter into our very souls.  

Thus becoming, as Quakers have always professed and testified, “THE LIGHT WITHIN” 

·        A fire in our souls that lights and guides our journey.

·        A fire in our souls that kindles in our hearts the warmth of love towards God and towards our neighbor.

·        A fire in our souls that burns away the false and leaves the true

In the original Greek the word for cleansed, washed, or even baptized meant to be literally immersed - which meant... 

• To be thrust, plunged, or thrown into

• To be consumed by – surrounded by or overwhelmed with.

John’s Baptismal cleansing was for repentance and people were immersed in the water of the Jordan river as a symbol of that cleansing. 

But when Jesus comes, the immersion that takes places is one of being thrust, plunged into, consumed, surrounded and overwhelmed by the Spirit or refining fire of God. 

Did you know that when the first Quakers introduced their faith to others, the Refiner’s Fire was often the first element of the spiritual journey they described?

They were quick to tell people how to discover the Light of Christ within. Look into your conscience, they counseled.  If you pay attention to what makes your conscience uneasy, you will discover that the Light within your conscience illuminates how, inwardly, you resist God. 

If you persist in looking at what is revealed, you’ll see more and more clearly–possibly to your surprise–how thoroughly you have been under the sway of fear, uncontrolled desires, negative emotions, distracting mental processes, deceitful manners, unjust social practices, greed, and pride. 

When you and I truly experience the Light Within – that Refiner’s Fire – the simple truth is that we cannot stay the same. 

Folks, I think one of the greatest things I have learned over the last several years is that fire is not always bad but rather transformational, and it definitely doesn’t translate to hell. 

A few years ago, when we were at Yosemite National Park and taking a tour over the valley floor, they told us how descendants of the Ahwahneechee people (the first settlers of the area) taught park rangers the importance of burning parts of the valley floor each year.  Doing this brings about new life - seeds that could not open without the intense heat of the fires would instead lay dormant.  The dry brush and overgrowth would naturally overtake the forest without the cleansing quality of the fires.  And if there were no little fires, an all-consuming fire could take the entire park. 

If we would have done what the Ahwahneechee people had learned by living close to the earth and learning from it, instead of abusing, distressing, and overworking it as we too often do, we may have been doing what they have are doing in Yosemite – lighting small controllable fires on a rotating cycle for the benefit of the forest and wildlife.    

I think this may be closer to what John was trying to teach us about Jesus’ baptism of fire.  We need more than immersion in water.  We need more than repentance (even though I believe that is part of it). 

We need transformation.

It reminds me again of the words of Martin Luther King Jr (a man who understood the need for transformation and has speaking to my condition throughout this week). He said,

"By opening our lives to God in Christ, we become new creatures. This experience, which Jesus spoke of as the new birth, is essential if we are to be transformed nonconformists ... Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit." 

We need to be thrust, plunged, thrown into, consumed, surrounded, and overwhelmed by the Light/Fire of God on a regular basis.

Not just a once-and-done kind of thing, but a daily refining so that new life can come forth. So that cleansing can take place. So that we can prevent our own bad choices, destructive desires, and offensive ways from destroying those around us and making us useless chaff or non-fruit bearing trees.

As we enter our time of waiting worship this morning - take some time to ponder how your Inner Light radiates the Love of God.

Ask yourself...

How am I allowing the Refiner’s Fire to change and ignite me?

How is the fire/light in me illuminating my path and directing me in the darkness? 

How is the fire/light in me kindling the warmth of God’s love to my neighbors?

How is the fire/light in me purifying my world and speaking Truth to power? 

1-15-23 - "Revisiting A Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

Revisiting A Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

January 15, 2023

Good morning friends and welcome to Light Reflections. Today, we are celebrating the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Our scripture text is Ephesians 3:1-6 from the Message version.  

This is why I, Paul, am in jail for Christ, having taken up the cause of you outsiders, so-called. I take it that you’re familiar with the part I was given in God’s plan for including everybody. I got the inside story on this from God himself, as I just wrote you in brief.

As you read over what I have written to you, you’ll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God’s Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order. The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I’ve been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.

On April 12, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sat in a small, solitary jail cell in Birmingham, reading a newspaper article written by several white clergymen. These men urged Dr. King (and others) to abandon their nonviolent protests in the fight for racial reconciliation. They wrote,

“We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.” 

Dr. King immediately began composing a response in the margins of the newspaper itself. And four days later, having gotten some paper from his lawyer, he finished and sent the now famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

Dr. King’s letter confronted inaction and passivity with the authority he believed came from the scriptures, particularly the gospels of Jesus. We often talk about Dr. King’s vision of racial equality. But the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” reminds us that this wasn’t Dr. King’s vision, but rather it was God’s vision. 

Dr. King called for an end to racial injustice, not by appealing to current laws or even to the will of the majority (both of those, at the time, were against him!), but to a Higher Law. He said that God had created all races of one blood and, thus, all men of all races were brothers. A belief that still is debated and challenged in our world, today.

For Dr. King, what was ultimate, what he appealed to in the face of political opposition, and even a majority that opposed him, was the justice of God. 

King’s letter kindles the conscience, exhorting us to peaceful action. He challenges well-meaning citizens who advocate patience to look carefully at the pattern of racial injustice, oppression, pain and hurt that have gone unattended.

The “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” was a thunderbolt in the battle for racial justice, and it remains a powerful wake-up call to this day.

Though much has changed in five decades, racism and racial injustice is still evident in our world, today. The names and deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and countless others before them, who for centuries have lost their lives because of the color of their skin, are grim reminders.

Still, as we heard in our scripture for today, God has declared that multi-racial unity is his intention for the church, and he has given the Spirit with the promise that he will make it happen. My hope is that our Meeting would reflect the unity of the Kingdom of God, or what Dr. King called the Beloved Community, by being places where people of different ethnicities, backgrounds, political affiliations, sexual orientations, income levels, and even languages come together in unity.

This kind of multi-racial unity was one of the distinguishing marks of the gospel proclamation in the ancient world, and today’s world needs to see it more than ever.

So, this morning, I would like us to return to April 12, 1963, and I ask that you imagine that I have received this letter as a member of the white clergy, and the pastor of Indianapolis First Friends.  

Remember, not many pastors would have read this to their congregations because it probably would have stirred things up and even may have insighted a call for the resignation of the pastor – especially if he was to agree or seek ways to respond in agreement with Dr. King.

I read this letter today as both an opportunity for continued education (as some people want this removed from schools and our history books), and as a challenge to draw strength and wisdom for the cause of racial inequalities and injustices still prevalent in our society, today.  I have chosen this morning to read a slightly abridged version of the Letter prepared by the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

My Dear Fellow Clergymen,

While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas ... But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the argument of “outsiders coming in.”

I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some 85 affiliate organizations all across the South

... Several months ago our local affiliate here in Birmingham invited us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented...

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their hometowns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds...

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1) collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive; 2) negotiation; 3) self-purification; and 4) direct action. We have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham...

Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of the country. Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any city in this nation. These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts. On the basis of these conditions Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the political leaders consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.

Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the economic community. In these negotiating sessions certain promises were made by the merchants—such as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the stores. On the basis of these promises Reverend Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to call a moratorium on any type of demonstrations. As the weeks and months unfolded, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs remained. As in so many experiences in the past, we were confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark shadow of a deep disappointment settled upon us.

So, we had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community. We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved. So, we decided to go through the process of self-purification. We started having workshops on nonviolence and repeatedly asked ourselves the questions, “are you able to accept the blows without retaliating?” “Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?...

You may well ask, “Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue....

Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood....

My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without legal and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was “well timed,” according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.

For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This “wait” has almost always meant “never.” It has been a tranquilizing Thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see the tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking in agonizing pathos: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?” when you take a cross country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” men and “colored” when your first name becomes “nigger” and your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title of “Mrs.” when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the Brat to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.

Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an “I-it” relationship for an “I-thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful...

I hope you are able to ace the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in German at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White citizens’ “Councilor” or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direst action” who paternistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection....

You spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first, I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I started thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency made up of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, have been so completely drained of self-respect and a sense of “somebodiness” that they have adjusted to segregation, and a few Negroes in the middle class who, because of a degree of academic and economic security, and at points they profit from segregation, have unconsciously become insensitive to the problems of the masses.

The other force is one of bitterness and hatred and comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up over the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad’s Muslim movement. This movement is nourished by the contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination. It is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man in an incurable “devil.”...

The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations. He has to get them out. So let him march sometime; let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; understand why he must have sit-ins and freedom rides. If his repressed emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous expressions of violence. This is not a threat; it is a fact of history.

So, I have not said to my people, “Get rid of your discontent.” But I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled through the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action....

In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership in the community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, serve as the channel through which our just grievances could get to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshippers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: “Follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother.” In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, “Those are social issues with which the Gospel has no real concern,” and I have watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely other-worldly religion which made a strange distinction between body and soul, the sacred and the secular....

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader, but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother.

Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all of their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Now that I have concluded the reading of the Letter, I would like us to enter into waiting worship.  Maybe start by sitting with what you just heard and allowing it to dwell in your hearts. Then when you are ready, take a moment to a moment to ponder the following queries:

Do I believe that ““Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”? 

Are there aspects of my culture or society that I love, but that also disappoint me?

How may I take action, today, and not just wait for someone else to do the hard work?

1-8-23 - "A New Epiphany"

A New Epiphany

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

January 8, 2023

Matthew 2:1-12 (NRSV)

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
    who is to shepherd my people, Israel.’”

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Before Christmas, my son overheard me talking about how people do not understand the 12 days of Christmas and thus uttered, “Don’t they know that Christmas is celebrated through Epiphany?” My first thought was that most people don’t even know what Epiphany is – especially among Quakers who rarely celebrate holy days.

This year, if you noticed, our Jewish friends celebrated their “Festival of Lights” an 8-day holiday which is known as Hanukkah at almost the same time we began celebrating Christmas. What you may not have known is that Christians have a similar celebration that goes back to the traditions of the Middle Ages. 

This past Friday, January 6th was 12 days from Christmas Day.  I am sure most of us are aware of the Christmas Carol – The 12 Days of Christmas.  It seemed to be a nonsensical song for kids, but it too is directly related to these 12 days. Some believe the song has a hidden message that teaches children the Christian Faith. Either way, few people today celebrate these 12 days in which the song speaks.

For most of us, Christmas is one day with lots and lots of prior build-up, and then as soon as it is over, we roll it back up into boxes and stick it in our attic until next December, when we do it all again. In the Henry household no one even thinks of taking down the Christmas Tree until January 6th.

In our day and age, the 12 Days of Christmas have become a time to finally rest after the exhaustion of Christmas.  Mainly because our lives and schedules dictate so much during the holiday season. History shows that these 12 days were supposed to be a way for Christians to Celebrate and even “break the cycle” of the secular world’s busyness.

Many Christians would take the 12 days of Christmas off from work. Many would even wait until Christmas Eve to put up their Christmas Tree and would plan decorating events for each day. Many traditions were created during this time.

It was a time of celebration, a time of family and community, and it all was to focus on the incarnation of Jesus in our world.  Some even believed it to be a time to center down and allow Christ to be revealed in us again each year. It was a brief season of revealing or manifestation.

It is no coincidence then that these 12 days would end with an “Epiphany.”  If you grew up in a more liturgical church or you have friends who are Orthodox Christians (who consider this day their Christmas) you would know that January 6th was an important day. After 12 days of celebrating, centering down, and reflecting, now it is time for an epiphany. 

In ancient times, an epiphany was considered a manifestation of a god (or goddess). The god would finally be recognized, made manifest, or would reveal him, her, or themselves to ordinary people.

Early Christians used the word “epiphany” to describe the story that was just read about the visitation of the wise men. Jesus had been revealed to local shepherds, but to be made manifest to worldly men, star gazers, people most likely outside the Jewish faith was a true epiphany or revealing.

This is why, I believe the story of the wise men cannot be missed or trivialized. It is important in understanding why the message of Jesus is for everyone not just Christians.

Author and Biblical Commentator, Sea Raven, says that Matthew, the writer of our text this morning about the epiphany to the wise men, may have been a liturgist and worship leader in the Jewish Community. 

She says Matthew followed a format that honored the Jewish Sabbath and would be understandable for those knowing the stories about Jesus.

The Jewish people have a long tradition of retelling the great stories of the faith. What she says Matthew was doing was interpreting the birth of Jesus to be the new symbol of the Exodus of the Hebrew people from Egypt.

Matthew went as far as pointing out that Isaiah and Jeremiah both prophesied about the Messiah coming to liberate his people from bondage.

In technical jargon or in theological circles this retelling is called, “midrash.”

“Midrash means retelling a sacred story in a way that has special meaning  for the current time, to fit a new occasion, and a different context, and from a different point of view.” 

In this same tradition, I want us to think about “epiphany” in our current context.  In our postmodern world today, epiphany has come to mean a revelation of a truth about one’s self.

Just maybe, like Matthew interpreted the epiphany for his day and age through the lens of Jesus, we too are being called to reflect, center down, and again reinterpret the epiphany in our context. 

As Quakers, we believe the Light of Christ resides within us and thus we are the hands and feet of Christ being revealed to our world.  That means, you and I are the manifestation to our neighbors, communities, workplaces, and even our own families.   

Again, Sea Raven talks about Christ (or in Matthew’s story what she calls the “Divine Child”)  being an archetype in our world.

As you know in our world today, archetypes get associated with great leaders both spiritual and political.  She points out that this Divine Child archetype is very much prevalent in our world. We are always looking for a “messiah” or Divine Child to be born or be revealed to save us from our bondages.

Just listen to the news or politics, we will make just about anyone a “messiah” for our need to be saved.  We are so obsessed with creating and projecting the “next messiah” we miss the fact that the Divine Child (or Christ) lives within us.  

Folks, let me be frank…you and I are the next epiphany – the next manifestation of God in our world.  We are the incarnation of the gospel to our hurting world. 

Just maybe those Christians in the Middle Ages understood the need to reflect and center down on the incarnation of Christ for those 12 days so they could have a new epiphany in and through their own lives.   

I love what Sea Raven says about this Christ or inner-Divine Child within each of us.  She says,

“The Divine Child is the one who brings something new into the world. The Divine Child challenges the way things are. The Divine Child overturns the kind of injustice that results from the mindless indifference of social systems. The Divine Child overturns everything we think we know about what makes life safe and secure and predictable and under our control. The Divine Child puts us in touch with what we don’t want to be in touch with.  The Divine Child is the wild part of ourselves that isn’t constrained by rules about what’s proper or possible or practical. That wildness is rooted in passionate, radical, inclusive, non-violent, self-defying justice.”

I don’t know about you, but I believe Sea Raven just described living the Quaker Way.  Imagine the difference we might make in our current world – in 2023 – if we were to live out, reveal, make manifest these “Divine Child” attributes and attitudes, today. 

It all sounds great, but it isn’t easy – just as it wasn’t easy for Jesus.

Let’s be honest, the reality of this, is that when we live out this “Divine Child” within us, like Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus, we find Herod coming after us – wanting to kill us.  

Herod too is a metaphor. Herod is the people in our lives or sometimes our own ego saying that the predictable and normal are simply ok.

We are surrounded by “Herods,” and they want to kill creativity, suppress change, prevent life from flourishing and growing.

“Herod” is that voice inside of you saying you are not good enough, or you can’t do that, or you don’t have time.  Herod is the voice of oppression and injustice.

So, it makes sense then at this time of the year, we take a personal inventory of ourselves.  We write out New Year’s resolutions, we join gyms and go on diets and make changes to our bodies and minds.  And when we make changes and work to live and manifest the Quaker Way in our life, I believe the world benefits.  

One of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, summarized this call to reflect, center down, and reinterpret the epiphany in our context through introspection in her poem, The Journey, which I would like to close with this morning.  

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voice behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life that you could save.

Now, may we reflect on the words of that poem and the following queries as we head into waiting worship this morning. 

·        How are you allowing the “Divine Child” to be revealed in and through you?

·        Who are the “wise men” to whom you need to reveal your message?

·        Who are the personal “Herods” you need to keep at bay?