4-23-23 - "Connected Planet"

Connected Planet

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

April 23, 2023

Good morning and welcome to Light Reflections from First Friends.  This morning we are celebrating Earth Sunday.  Our scriptures are from Luke 12: 13-31 from the New Revised Standard Version.  

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”  But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?  Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,  yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, you of little faith!  And do not keep seeking what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying.  For it is the nations of the world that seek all these things, and your Father knows that you need them.  Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

This morning we are celebrating Earth Sunday, a day when we give thanks for the beauty and abundance of the earth, and when we reflect on our call to care for the earth. Or as one of our Quaker Advices on Environmental Sustainability reads:

“Friends have connected with the earth and all it holds as part of our spiritual development. From George Fox walking throughout England searching for his spiritual identity to current times, we are aware that we are only stewards, not owners of the Earth. We need to be constantly aware of how our actions affect the rest of the world. By not using more than we need and by sharing with others, we help ensure that the earth will continue to support everyone.”

As Quakers on this Earth Sunday I would like to begin by posing a query for us to ponder,

“What is becoming of this small, fragile planet drifting through space, we call the Earth?”

Let’s be honest, the argument about climate change is over. Science has proved that the earth is warming at an alarming rate, and all but a very few are convinced that the polluting of our planet will only get worse as new economies such as China and India strive to achieve the standard of living, we have in the U.S.

We are already seeing ominous consequences—melting ice caps, glaciers shrinking at an increasingly fast rate, intensifying storms, fires, and droughts, and just this week a study was released on rising coastal waters being way worse than imagined.

James Hansen of NASA, probably the world’s most significant climate modeler, has said that the earth has ten years to start producing less carbon dioxide instead of more. If it fails, we will have a “different planet.”

The British scientist James Lovelock, who built the equipment that allows us to measure deterioration of the ozone layer, said that he believed the “tipping point” had already passed and that the earth is careening toward a worse disaster and on a faster time scale than almost anyone realizes.

New reports trickle out in the news almost every day of water supplies, animal species, and habitats at risk. But so far, it is still by and large business as usual in this country.

It seems that there are two great issues humanity must face if it is ultimately to survive and thrive and they are two of the top concerns historically for Quakers.

·        The first is, can we learn to deal with our differences without turning to violence and war? - from our testimony of peace.

·        And the second is, can we muster the vision and courage to stop the destruction of the earth before it is too late? – from our testimony of stewardship and sustainability.

We Quakers begin our thinking about our life on this planet with the simple affirmation of Psalm 24: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” Everything is God’s first.

In our scripture for this morning, we heard the implications of that sweeping claim. In the first part, Jesus tells a simple parable of a rich man who is bringing in large crops. The man decides to build larger barns to store everything he’s producing, and says to himself,

“Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”

But then God says to him,

“You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you.’ What good will all that do you?”

And then Jesus turns around and talks not about farmers and barns, but about nature:

“Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them… Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these…”

What we are being presented in our scriptures are two views of life.

In one, the solitary person accumulates for themself.

In the other, Jesus describes life in an interconnected world where there is enough for everyone.

Your life, Jesus is saying, is part of a single great economy, the Economy of God, in which all of nature, all of life is held in God’s love, and there is enough for everyone. Again, seen in our testimonies of simplicity and community.

There are enough resources, enough food and clothing for everyone—but only if we take our place in God’s economy and not just our own.  Folks, this shows how everything is connected.

I strongly believe and have taught for many years now that Christianity has made the mistake of narrowing its focus to personal salvation.

“My faith is about ME and MY own well-being and private spiritual life, and above all about MY own going to heaven.”

But if you really read the scriptures, they tell us that God creates and loves the WHOLE world of oceans and rocks, plants and animals, and that human beings are created to be part of that great harmony.

It’s God’s world, God’s house, after all, not ours. And too often we humans have been rude and self-centered guests in someone else’s house.

Dean Lloyd at the National Cathedral in Washington helped me process these ideas and reminded me that the greatest spiritual leaders of the past and present from St. Francis to Mahatma Gandhi to the Dalai Lama to Desmond Tutu have believed that God’s universal love knows no bounds of race or faith or nation, or even of species.

They each have taught that All OF LIFE is connected.

Even scientists now tell us that All life participates in a seamless web of connection.  Reminding me of the great metaphor of Indra’s Net from the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, which symbolizes the universe as a web of connections and interdependencies among all its members, wherein every member is both a manifestation of the whole and inseparable from the whole.

But let’s get more scientific and “down to earth” -- this means that it is possible that the flap of a butterfly wing in Japan can set off a hurricane in the Caribbean. And the driving of a gas guzzler in Washington can melt an iceberg in Greenland.

There is science to prove these things.

The spiritual teacher Father Zosima, in the book The Brother’s Karamazov described our connectedness this way:

“All is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world… Love all of God’s creation, both the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love animals, love plants, love each thing. If you love each thing you will perceive the mystery of God in things.”

That vision is what moved St. Francis to write one of my favorite poems celebrating “brother sun and sister moon.” Everything is made of the same star dust—the elements and molecules unleashed by the first Big Bang.

So that makes us cousins to a granite rock, a polar bear struggling to stay alive in the Arctic, or a grand sequoia along the coast of California. Just let that sink in.

By contrast, many of us have been taught in churches and schools a radical individualism in our religion, politics, economics, and business. The only questions we learned to ask were,

“What’s in this for me? What can maximize my prosperity, what will make me happy, what politicians will improve my own life and pocketbook?”

Thus, we have become consumers above all.

Of course, as Quakers, who love and are called to be stewards of this earth, we have to ask, What then shall we do? How can humanity pull back from the brink we are racing toward?

Of course, ultimately the answers will have to be technological—finding new, sustainable ways to generate the energy a growing, increasingly demanding world will need.

But folks, we ALL have work to do.

I know that it can be daunting to imagine how the likes of you and me can make any difference at all. Maybe we should begin with the wise advice of Nellie McClung, an early 20th century Canadian environmentalist:

Let us do our little bit with cheerfulness and not take the responsibility that belongs to God. None of us can turn the earth around. All we can ever hope to do is to hit it a few whacks in the right direction.

I like that concept – “a few whacks in the right direction.” What might that look like?  Let me suggest a couple possible “whacks” each of us might deliver.

First, we can begin to see ourselves as a part of God’s world. We can see our health and our destiny in relationship to ALL that exists. Clean water and air must be seen as spiritual issues.

“God so loved the world,” Jesus said. We must learn to do the same.

We need fellow Friends and even our Meeting to help challenge us to see through the phony consumerism and individualism that leaves us more anxious and lonely.

And we need to stay connected to nature—through walks and bike rides, through watching the birds carry out their daily dance, through strolling around our neighborhoods, in local parks and hiking on trails, or just taking time in our Meditational Woods.

Second, you and I need to evaluate the lives we are living—the cars we drive, the trips we take, the size of our homes, the light bulbs we burn, the ways we get to and from work, the amount of meat we consume.

Some Quaker Meetings are beginning to have two pledge campaigns during the year—one where people pledge their financial resources for the church’s ministries, and the second is a pledge of what they intend to do in the coming year to be less of a burden on the earth.  I like that idea because it makes us stay conscious of what we are doing.

And finally, with the guidance of our national organization - Friends Council on National Legislation and our local organization - Indiana Friends Council on Legislation, we can support candidates and leaders who are committed to addressing this crisis in our nation and right here in Indiana.  If you want to know more talk to Phil Goodchild or Mary Blackburn – and if you do not know them – come see me and I will introduce you to them. 

So, to close, I cannot reiterate enough that the stakes couldn’t be higher for the human race, and in fact for the entire planet. Either we will learn new ways beyond a self-centered individualism or millions will suffer and our children and their children will inherit a critically ill world.

The main query for us on this Earth Sunday is,

Will we deliver a few whacks in the right direction—for God’s sake, for the sake of human lives already at risk, for our children’s sake, and for the sake of the earth itself and our fellow creatures?

May that query weigh on our hearts during Waiting Worship this morning.  And may we ponder opportunities for possibility, healing, and change!

4-16-23 - "Questions, Fear, and Incarnation!"

Questions, Fear, and Incarnation!

Indianapolis First Friends

Pastor Bob Henry

April 16, 2023

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections.  Our scripture text for this week comes from John 20:19-29 from the New Revised Standard Version.

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

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

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

“What do we do, now?” That must have been the query being discussed by the disciples and followers of Christ’s after Jesus’ crucifixion. 

“What do we do, now?”  

Our text for this morning describes the disciples cowering in fear behind locked doors. Fearing not only the Roman Empire, but also the religious leaders of the day. The reality was that no one was safe at this time. The disciples knew that the religious and state authorities had found a way to have Jesus crucified, and they knew they were already on the trail to find and do the same thing to them and the other followers of Christ.

The truth is that religious and state authorities don’t often like the followers of blasphemous, rogue teachers, who want to make their leaders out to be martyrs. 

Instead, they would want to eliminate any possibility of this happening and do everything to keep their religion and/or state pure. This is sadly true of many religious and governmental groups in our world, still today.

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

It is one thing to watch someone die for a cause, but when you find out that the attention has turned on you because of your followership of this person, ANXIETY, FEAR, the NEED TO HIDE quickly overcome you.

Your mind flashes with visions of you being tortured by the authorities, carrying your own cross through the city of Jerusalem, and being hung to suffer the agony of public execution on a cross. These would have been vivid images in the minds of the followers of Christ.

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

“What do we do, now?”  

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

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

·        When have you found yourself asking, “What do I do, now?” 

·        What was your difficult situation?

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

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

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

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

Isn’t that how it is for us, often? The Divine presence is in our midst, or even in our own hearts, and we don’t recognize it or acknowledge it.

Folks, we are Quakers, the ones who are always to look for that of God in those around us. How often has the presence of the Divine or God been in our midst in the likes of a friend, a parent, a child, a teacher, even a complete stranger, and we totally missed it?

And then comes those famous first words from Jesus, “PEACE BE WITH YOU.”

The scriptures have recorded for us several other times when Jesus used those same words. Each time the disciples heard them he was using them to calm their lives. 

If you remember, it was these words that Jesus used to calm the storms on the water as their boat was violently shaken by the storm and everyone was in fear.

The disciples would have known these words to be an acknowledgment and reassurance of God’s presence in the storms of their lives.  

Yet, with all that they had been through during the last several days leading up to their best friend being executed in front of them, they still showed doubt this time. 

This time they had been so shaken that he had to prove to them who he was so that their joy and peace would return. 

The disciple, Thomas, even has to go one step further – I think I might have been the same.  Thomas needed a hands-on-experience before he could believe.

Sometimes our lives are in such tumult that we need something a bit more tangible – a real-time, real-life experience.

Sometimes we need a physical – incarnate – experience.  We need to hear a parent’s voice, sometimes we need a hug, sometimes we need a physical connection.

I think Thomas has been shafted by history.  Beyond needing proof, beyond assurance, beyond even finding inner peace, Thomas needed a physical connection as he tried to wrap his mind around that question, “What do we do, now?”  

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

I have said this many times, but again I believe too often the reason we cannot relate to Jesus, is because we cannot truly see him as a human being – with flesh.

He was no different than any of us in this meetinghouse.  He had skin and bones, aches and pains, he bled…no different.  

And what we need to realize is that Jesus showed us how with these fully human, fleshly bodies to truly live!  

He taught us how to forgive, how to bring hope, how to reconcile, how to “incarnate” his life and ministry to our neighbors and to our world in this present moment.  He showed you and me how to be the Light in our world, today. Just like I said last week after waiting worship.  

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

It wasn’t just about the incarnation of Jesus, folks – it’s also about our incarnation. This is what Jesus was getting at in our text.

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

You and I are now the incarnated Christ to our world.  We are the light-bearers being sent into our world.

Last week at the end of my sermon, I mentioned the “Body of Christ” metaphor that several used in the bible. You and I are the official incarnation of Christ to our neighbors and world.  Let that sink in for a moment.

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

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

Or as St. Teresa of Avila prayed:

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands but yours,

No feet but yours,

Yours are the eyes through which

Christ’s compassion must look out on the world.

Yours are the feet with which

He is to go about doing good.

Yours are the hands with which

He is to bless us now.

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

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

And to sense God’s peace, forgiveness, his love  - we must embody and live it in and with and among our neighbors. This is what it means to live the “Jesus Legacy.”

And along with this call will naturally come fear, as is illustrated well by the disciples cowering in the upper room in our text this morning.

The reality is that fear is real for most of us. 

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

Fear translates to hiding and worrying about what others think of us. 

It leads us to cower, to isolate, and even build walls.  

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

But God is sending us into a world – not in fear – but rather in peace.  Filled with God’s spirit and light - to offer forgiveness, to reconcile, to heal and bring harmony and hope. 

We are to offer our neighbors and world the attributes of Jesus Christ – grace, mercy, justice, and peace.  But sadly, too often our fear gets in the way...

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

Fear which lingers,

Fear which lives on in us,

Fear which does not prompt us to wise remedial action,

Becomes engraved upon our hearts,

Becomes an addiction, becomes an armor which encases us.

This fear guards and guides us and determines our action.

It leads us directly toward that which we fear.

We can’t let our fear keep us in a tomb of death.  Barbara Brown Taylor said it so well,

"Fear is a small cell with no air in it and no light. It is suffocating inside and dark. There is no room to turn around inside it. You can only face in one direction, but it hardly matters since you cannot see anyhow. There is no future in the dark. Everything is over. Everything is past. When you are locked up like that, tomorrow is as far away as the moon."

And that is exactly where Jesus shows up for the disciples – in that cell of fear. 

We can’t let that same fear keep us worried or fretting about what is going to happen.  We can’t let fear keep us hiding and avoiding and not acting. That I believe is the case too often with the church, today. We make the walls of our Meetinghouse the walls of our cell of fear.

Instead, I want to be, and I want us to be, people who take up the mantle of Jesus Christ – people who incarnate Christ in their daily lives – to be people who live out of peace, forgiveness, grace, mercy and love and have learned to embrace their fears and step out of the cells they are in. 

People who become Lights-bearers in a dark world.

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

·        When have I found myself asking, “What do I do, now?” 

·        What traps me in a “cell of fear”?

·        How can I embrace the Peace of Christ and become a light-bearer in the world? 

4-9-23 - "Raised Up & Awakened to Live the Jesus Legacy"

Raised Up & Awakened to Live the Jesus Legacy

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

April 9, 2023

Happy Easter and welcome to Light Reflections from First Friends. Our scriptures for this Easter morning are from Ephesians 2:4-7 from The Voice version.

But God, with the unfathomable richness of His love and mercy focused on us, united us with the Anointed One and infused our lifeless souls with life—even though we were buried under mountains of sin—and saved us by His grace. He raised us up with Him and seated us in the heavenly realms with our beloved Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King. He did this for a reason: so that for all eternity we will stand as a living testimony to the incredible riches of His grace and kindness that He freely gives to us by uniting us with Jesus the Anointed.

As most of you know, the last couple of weeks, Sue and I have been helping our oldest child, Alex, prepare to move to Austin, TX.  We found it ironic that Alex would move to Texas at the age of 25, which was the same age Sue and I were when we moved to serve a Christian Camp in Pottsborro, Texas. It was also while in Texas that we found out we were pregnant with Alex, our first child.

On Good Friday we returned from moving Alex into their new apartment. It has been an emotional several weeks and we have not had time to fully realize that they now live over 1000 miles away.  Thankfully, these days technology allows us to stay in easy contact from this far of a distance. 

During these last several weeks together, we have been preparing Alex for this big move. Sue and I have stepped up the parenting and have tried hard to instill in Alex some of the wisdom we have gained over our years of life. Obviously, some wisdom will stick, and other wisdom will be forgotten - needing reminders or reeducation, but all of this is part of us passing on a legacy to our children.

I guess turning 50 amidst all this transition has had me really thinking about giving our children something that will be valued and treasured after we are gone and to ensure that the things that have meaning to Sue and I will also have meaning to our children. That is what a legacy truly is.

There is nothing like seeing your child take the wisdom you have learned and living it out in the present moment. On many occasions over the last several weeks, I have watched as Alex has taken our advice, or simply lived out the wisdom that we have taught through living our lives with them.  It has made us proud.  We have shed some tears.  But all-in-all we have realized that Alex and their creative spirit give us hope for our frustrating world.

It almost seems a bit ironic that what we have been going through is also very similar to what I want to share with you this morning as we celebrate Easter.  As you know, a couple weeks ago, I ended my sermon series on the Bible, but this morning, I want to return one more time to look at what I will call Jesus’ legacy.    

To do that, I need to go back and help us get a fuller picture of what “resurrection” meant to the people of Jesus’ day.  It may surprise you, frustrate you, even confuse you, but I hope in the end it will inspire you as it did the people who came after Jesus, who lived out his legacy.

 To help understand this, I am going to share some wisdom of James Adams from his book “From Literal to Literary.”

So, let’s go back to when Jesus came on the scene in Nazareth. At that time, Jews had adopted a vision of the future that dealt with a nagging query they were wrestling with,

“How could a just God allow his people to suffer endlessly at the hands of their enemies and to be scattered over the face of the earth?” (A question many of us still ponder today.)

Well, the Jews of Jesus day found an exciting and hopeful answer in a vision attributed to the prophet of Ezekiel which reads,

Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole of the house of Israel.  They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely. Therefore prophesy, and say to them, thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.  (That was Ezekiel 37:11-12.)

The Religious Leaders of the day were kind of split on this idea of resurrection or resuscitation. It was not a doctrine of the Jewish faith. The Priestly Party, the Sadducees, did not find it particularly popular, but it was beginning to appeal more strongly to some Pharisees in Jesus’ day.

Obviously, Jesus and his followers favored this resurrection imagery, because in three of the gospels we have stories of the Sadducees trying to trap Jesus with questions about the resurrection, specifically. 

Now, before we go any deeper, we need to have a short Greek lesson. Some Greek lessons are rather boring, but not so much when looking at the word “resurrection.” Here we find that there are two Greek nouns translated “resurrection” within the scriptures.

Each evolved from a verb rendered in English as “raise.”  The first noun, anastasis, comes from the verb anistemi, which meant to stand up from a reclining or crouching position. 

The other noun, egersis, is from the verb egeiro, which originally had to do with collecting or gathering one’s faculties, especially in the act of rousing oneself from rest or sleep.

It is pretty clear that some may have embraced resurrection imagery to help them with their fear of physical death. I think many of us still today do the same. This allows us to die in peace with the confidence that we would someday get another life.  

Yet, what we need to take into consideration here is the Greek notion of immortality at the time. James Adams points out that Immortality for the Greeks was not an arbitrary act of God, rather life on the other side of the grave was assured by the persistence of personality, that is, the indestructibility of the soul.  

That is slightly different from what many Christians today ascribe to. 

As well, on several occasions we see the resurrection metaphor used to identify a present reality. Take for instance James 5:15:

The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up. (in Greek that is the word for resurrection.)

Even Paul (who is historically considered the founder of the Christian faith) in his letters or epistles is often using the metaphor of resurrection to mean a variety of things. Which honestly complicates things even more.

In Romans Paul uses the metaphor to talk about living up to the best that is within each person.

In another letter, Paul talks about Jesus’ followers being “raised to new life in the here and now,” a life free from the death-dealing tendency to avoid responsibility and accountability.

These different definitions seem to complicate things for the early followers of Christ. At different times and in different places we get a variety of understandings of what was meant by “Christ being raised from death.” 

·        Some thought it was a fact of history – a resuscitation of Jesus’ corpse.

·        Others thought God had intervened in history by giving the dead Jesus a new body, that looked something like the old one but was not easily recognized even to his closest friends.

·        Still others who read the final chapters of the gospels (once they were written down) with a critical eye, came to the conclusion that these stories about the risen Christ were originally understood as hymns of praise, poetic expressions of the faithful whose lives had been transformed by their encounter with the Jesus story.

It seems this last view may have been supported by Paul. I find it interesting that Paul never mentions an empty tomb, but insists that his encounter with the risen Lord was no different than the first disciples. Just listen to his words from 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 carefully.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

James Adams points out that in using the word “appeared,” Paul has employed the language of vision and subjective experience rather than the language of objective reporting and facts. 

So, it is clear there were multiple understandings of the word “resurrection” in the early church, but it is also clear that the early followers embraced this metaphor as part of their vocabulary in describing their experience.

As I studied this further, I could not but be reminded of the early Quakers utilizing the Bible and Biblical metaphors to describe their present experiences.

I have quoted Michael Birkel before saying that early Friends “did not simply read the scriptures.” They lived them. For them, reading the Bible was not just an exercise in information. It was an invitation to transformation (like I talked about in my sermon two Sundays ago). Birkel goes on to say,

“To read scripture is to realize that we are participants in the great ongoing story of God’s people. This suggests a great richness of the inward life and a profound sense of connectedness. The lives of our forebears continue in us, offering us wisdom.”

And that goes for Jesus as well. If we look at the gospels with the original meaning of the raised-resurrection metaphors in mind, who was it that was lifted up from a crouching or cowering position and who boldly proclaimed what they had learned from Jesus?

Who was it that finally got themselves together and got on with the business begun by Jesus? 

Just think of how the first followers of Jesus talked about themselves,

Romans 12:5 says – We who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members of one another.

Or how about 1 Corinthians 12:27 – Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

What may be happening here is a merging of these two powerful metaphors – “raised up” and “body of Christ.”

Just maybe the early Christians and even the early Quakers were proclaiming that death did not have the last word in the Jesus story BECAUSE his followers were raised up to be his new body. 

That is definitely something interesting to think about.

Or as John Shelby Spong put it,

“He [Jesus] was alive. He gave life to others. His life was expansive. It was not bound by traditional limits. Thus, those who were touched by his spirit also came alive and began the expanding process of entering the limitless dimensions of their own lives.”

For us today, the call of resurrection is again resounding.  And the queries must be asked:

Will we arise?  Will we rouse ourselves from this rest or sleep and truly be transformed? 

Do we believe that death did not have the last word, and that we are being raised to be Christ’s new body in this world? 

Or as Meister Eckard once said,

"The important question is not whether Jesus was born in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, but whether Jesus is born in my heart today."

That is also the most important question about Easter. What does it matter if Jesus was resurrected two thousand years ago if we are not resurrected today?

May you and I this Easter embrace this resurrection imagery and allow Christ’s spirit to touch our lives and prompt us to live out Christ’s legacy in our world.

Happy Easter, Friends! 

4-2-23 - "How Do We Understand Palm Sunday?"

How Do We Understand Palm Sunday?

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Beth Henricks

April 2, 2023

Scriptures:

John 2:23-25  “When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing.  But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.”

Luke 19:35-40  “Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.  As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road.  As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!  Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.”  He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Palm Sunday has been one of my favorite Sundays of the year as I was growing up.  It’ a joy each year here at First Friends to gather palm leaves and have our children wave their branches shouting hosanna as we sing together Hosanna, Loud Hosanna.  There is a sense of joy, thanksgiving, honor, and praise to Jesus as he rides into Jerusalem on the donkey.  The people are rejoicing and recognizing Jesus as a man from God who has performed many miracles including recently raising Lazarus from the dead.  

3 of the 4 gospels report that Jesus told the disciples to go ahead and bring him a donkey as his means of transportation as he enters the city.  Much has been written about the symbolism of this ride on a donkey and this symbolism would be familiar to  many of the Jewish people in the crowd as Zechariah wrote in the Old Testament chapter 9 verses 9-10 “ Rejoice greatly,  O daughter Zion!  Shout aloud , O daughter Jerusalem!  Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.  He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.”   

We get a sense from the crowd that they are beginning to recognize that this might be the promised Messiah from God.  They remember when Solomon became their King and he was presented to them on the donkey of his father, David.  They are shouting hosanna (often translated as please save us), blessed be the king who comes in the Lord’s name, peace, and glory in the highest heaven.  This seems like the proper welcome and ceremony for a man such as Jesus.    Maybe this is Israel’s king that will save them from their oppressors, and they are filled with hope and promise.        

In the Gospel of John, we read that, Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead.  He looked up to God saying “Father, I thank you for having heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here so that they may believe that you sent me.” (John 11:41-43).  I am sure this helped to build the crowd that gathered outside Jerusalem.  The people came to see Jesus and Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. 

What I have never understood about this story and his glorious entrance into Jerusalem for Passover, is why the adoring crowd so turned against Jesus (I do think this change took place in a longer timeframe than less than a week from Palm Sunday to  his arrest and crucifixion based on all that he still shared with the crowd after his ride on the donkey).  Were they just worshipping this man who performed miracles and were whipped into an idolatrous frenzy to see Jesus and Lazarus?  Were they really embracing the messages of Jesus that required sacrifice and rejection of power or were they just taken with his star quality and wanted to see him in the flesh?  Jesus knew how weak we can be and how easily manipulated a crowd can become for both good and bad.    We have seen many examples of this in our history where people might not consider doing something on their own but will take part in unthinkable acts when brought together like a mob.

I think many of the Pharisees understood this principle of the mob and I am sure there was a lot going on underground while the crowd was going crazy about Jesus.    The Pharisees had been concerned about Jesus for some time and seeing this crowd had to raise their desire to do something about him.  John 12:19 reports the Pharisees said to each other,  “You see, you can do nothing.  Look; the world has gone after him.”  As Jeff read to us in Luke  “some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, Teacher, order your disciples to stop.”  He answered , I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”  The temperature is rising, and more Pharisees are saying that they must do something about this situation. They see that they must turn this crowd around.

While there were Pharisees out to eliminate the threat of Jesus, the Gospel of John tells us many authorities did believe in him but because of these Pharisees they did not confess it  for fear they would be put out of the synagogue.  They loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God.   That is also part of the mob mentality.  We are too afraid to stand up against the majority, the folks in charge, the ones that tell us what to do because we don’t want to be set apart from our tribe. 

Oh goodness, is this not our human tendency?  We want some human glory, we don’t want to stand up against others  and we find it easier to talk about God’s glory, to talk about our belief system as opposed to living it when there are consequences.  It’s a difficult path to follow the path of Jesus.  And that is why I had us read John 2:23-25.   Jesus  would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people, he knew what was in everyone.  Jesus knows us and while he may have appreciated the praise and honor showered upon him on Palm Sunday, Jesus knows our hearts, he knows we are broken, he wasn’t going to believe in the adulation being given him on his ride into Jerusalem because he knows how difficult it will be for us to take up a cross and sacrifice ourselves.  We love the highs of miracles and the celebrity status of a charismatic leader but are we ready to sacrifice and take up our cross like Jesus will be doing?

Some of Jesus teachings after Palm Sunday are hard for the crowd to accept.  The crowd is still trying to figure out who exactly this Jesus really is?  Jesus is willing to bring some turmoil into their lives (and our lives) and turmoil is not something that anyone purposefully seeks.  Jesus cleanses the temple in Matthew after his entry into Jerusalem. Jesus curses the fig tree, shared the parable of the two sons,  the parable of the wicked tenants, the parable of the wedding banquet, the question about paying taxes, questions about resurrection, giving the greatest commandments (to love God with all your heart, soul and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself), he denounces the Scribes and Pharisees, he laments over Jerusalem and foretells about the destruction of the Temple.   These are some tough stories to embrace and commandments to live by.  And this potential Messiah is talking about the destruction of the Temple?  The Messiah is the one to uphold the Temple and to be Israel’s leader.

So what is the crowd to do about this Jesus?  Walter Wangerin Jr states in his book about Jesus Reliving the Passion, “Always the threat of this man is manifested in those whom his presence excites.  Look how volatile the people are now!  Worse than that, he is questioning religious laws developed over the centuries, the very forms by which we order ourselves and know ourselves and name ourselves.  If order is lost, so am I….What then?  Why, then I must destroy before I am destroyed.  Self-preservation is a law of nature.  I will arrest this Jesus by stealth and kill him.  Because if I do nothing, I will be nothing.”

It is clear that the crowd started having second thoughts about this commitment to Jesus’s way.

The crowd heard  Jesus say “Now is the judgement of this world, now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”    The crowd said “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever.  How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up?  Who is this Son of man?

The group thinking of the mob is changing.  They wanted a Messiah that would become their King and bring justice and defeat to the Romans. They wanted judgement now and wanted their rulers (the Romans)  to be driven out.  But Jesus is talking about a later time when he would be lifted from the earth – how does that fit into their desire for a King in the here and now?

So many of Jesus parables talk about  sacrifice, putting others before ourselves, seeking justice, and aligning with the poor and marginalized people.  Jesus was  talking about a power that is not what the world idolizes as power.  As John Caputo, theologian and philosopher writes in his book Cross and Cosmos,   “Theology must get over its love of power in favor of the powerless power of love, weakening the strong metaphysics of omnipotence into the soft power of the coming Kingdom’s call.”   “God’s power is constituted by powerlessness and nonsovereignty, God’s eminence by being what is least and lowest among us.”  God is revealed in the defeat.  God chose  the weak to shame the strong, the foolish to shame the wise, the nothings and nobodies to confound the powers that be.

Wow, if I am part of the crowd, the mob, this is not the vision I have of a Messiah.  I want a real leader that will change my life now, will deliver on promises made, will be strong, decisive and take action on my enemies.  How do I support someone that suggests that the way of God is to abandon the desire for power and to choose the weak, the nothings and nobodies and pursue a way that tells me to love my neighbors, my enemies, that values justice over my self interest and understands power in a very different way.    This is the hard way, the road less traveled, the way of the cross where we are willing to give up much for others.   

During a class in seminary on philosophy and religion, we studied the writings of  philosopher and theologian John Caputo (that I just previously quoted), and he became my favorite theologian.  He writes that it is when Jesus freely gives up his life that he became Christ.   It is through the free sacrifice of Jesus life that we defy death.  This is how we move from Palm Sunday to Jesus crucifixion, death, and resurrection. 

Jesus knows us, gets us (as we have been seeing in ads on TV) and understands our nature of light and shadow.  Jesus has never been about the short term but always has the long term in mind.  He knew what was coming even during the adulation he was receiving on Palm Sunday.  And he was in for the long term. 

My prayer for us today is that we not become completely discouraged by the short term all around us but continue to listen to God’s voice and God’s call for each of us for the long term.

As we enter our time of unprogrammed worship, which is our communion, I encourage you to quiet your heart and mind and listen to God’s voice.  If God is speaking to you directly,  please hold this in your heart to ponder.  If God is speaking to you and you sense that we all need to hear this message, please stand, and come to a microphone.   Here are a few queries to consider.

How willing am I to take  up my cross and follow Jesus in the difficult path?

Do I sometimes follow the crowd or mob and am afraid to stand up for what is right?

Do I seek ways for power in this world?  Do I seek the glory of power more than the glory of God?

Do I follow the path of the long term versus seeking short term desires?

3-26-23 - "Transformed to Help Put the World Right Again"

Transformed to Help Put the World Right Again

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

March 26, 2023

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. This morning I conclude my series on the Bible.  Our text for this morning is from John 3:1-18 from the Message Version:  

There was a man of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus, a prominent leader among the Jews. Late one night he visited Jesus and said, “Rabbi, we all know you’re a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren’t in on it.”

Jesus said, “You’re absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it’s not possible to see what I’m pointing to—to God’s kingdom.”

“How can anyone,” said Nicodemus, “be born who has already been born and grown up? You can’t re-enter your mother’s womb and be born again. What are you saying with this ‘born-from-above’ talk?”

Jesus said, “You’re not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the ‘wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom. When you look at a baby, it’s just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can’t see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit.

“So don’t be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be ‘born from above’—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s headed next. That’s the way it is with everyone ‘born from above’ by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.”

Nicodemus asked, “What do you mean by this? How does this happen?”

 Jesus said, “You’re a respected teacher of Israel and you don’t know these basics? Listen carefully. I’m speaking sober truth to you. I speak only of what I know by experience; I give witness only to what I have seen with my own eyes. There is nothing secondhand here, no hearsay. Yet instead of facing the evidence and accepting it, you procrastinate with questions. If I tell you things that are plain as the hand before your face and you don’t believe me, what use is there in telling you of things you can’t see, the things of God?

 “No one has ever gone up into the presence of God except the One who came down from that Presence, the Son of Man. In the same way that Moses lifted the serpent in the desert so people could have something to see and then believe, it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up—and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and expectant, will gain a real life, eternal life.

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.

Before we head into Palm Sunday and Easter, I wanted to conclude my sermon series on the Bible by looking at what some Christians consider one of the most important dialogues in the Bible, the dialogue we just heard in our text for today.  

As an impressionable teen, I spent many weekends attending Christian concerts in my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Often, they took place at the Embassy Theater downtown Fort Wayne, which was literally right around the corner from where my mom worked. Since she worked for our church’s denominational office, the band promoters would come by, the day of the concerts, and offer her free tickets, and she would pass them on to me.  

Since, Christian concerts seemed a safe bet for me compared to the many other things I could get into, my parents were fine with me going. I often went with a friend or two and had a lot of fun. 

Thinking about our text for day, I was reminded of one concert that went very late, due to what is commonly known as an “altar call.” Most of these concerts were heavy on altar calls - sometimes taking up almost half the concert. This specific concert, I recall, was an exception and went much longer. 

If you are not familiar with altar calls, this is where the band would slow down the set, the lead singer would come out and sit on a stool at the mic and tell a moving story about coming to faith in Christ, and then an invitation was given to the audience to come forward and accept Christ and be “born again.”  

Back then, there were always those two words: “Born Again.”  

The pull to go forward was like a tractor beam pulling people in. I watched as tearful people were led almost zombie-like to the front. Other people came from the side exits to pray with those coming forward.  

Ironically, I never found myself led to go forward. See, I grew up in a church that focused on being baptized as a child – and so I felt I was already “in” and did not need to go through this unusual ritual. Also, I found myself skeptical of all the theatrics, the seeming manipulation, and the tears. 

That night, as I was taking it all in, I watched one of my friends get caught in the tractor beam. All of a sudden, He was standing and going forward without saying anything. He came back when they released everyone back to their seats and said, “Well, I have been born again.”  

I looked at him and asked, “What do you mean?” And all he could say was, “I am not sure, but I think it was what I was supposed to do.”  

The rest of the night we talked about it. He described deep feelings of guilt and not living up to God’s standards.  He talked a lot about his sin and the many mistakes he had made. He often cried as he shared.  

Then, for the next several weeks he was a miserable wreck. Soon he began to judge people, even me. Nothing was good enough for him and our friendship dissolved. To this day, I believe he is still searching for something…but he seems to always come up short. 

That is why I feel this sermon in very important for us this morning. I want to look at the dialogue in our text for today between Jesus and the Pharisee leader, Nicodemus. 

In that text, you heard some of the most quoted and misused scriptures and theological concepts in Christianity, today.  

Not only does it talk about one of the most controversial terms in Christianity – that of being “born again” it also closes with the most quoted verse from the New Testament – John 3:16.  

I chose to have our text read from the Messsage, for several reasons. Eugene Peterson titled this section of John 3, “Born from Above” – notice not Born Again.  That title is more than simply a title. It is actually a correction. 

Most modern texts translate the words “born again” but the reality is that John actually said something more in line with being “born from above” or “born of the Spirit from above.”  

This is key to our understanding and helps us manage these verses in light of the whole of scripture.  

I don’t know if you have noticed how the term “born again” has evolved over the last 40 or so years, but back in the 80’s when I was a kid, everything seemed to be about being “born again.”  

People have used the term to describe an event or process in which they “gave themselves to Jesus,” (much like the altar call story I shared), which was supposed to cause a positive change in their lives and often give them a sense of meaning.  But that was not always the case – as with my friend. 

Many of you in this room, may have this as part of your faith journey.  For some it may be comforting and for others it could hold a lot of baggage. 

Today, in the world we live in, being “born again” or using that tern is primarily negative. Actually, I have dropped it from my conversations as a pastor – especially with people in the public sector.  Plus, since it continues to be misused it is not helpful. 

The term is often associated with an extreme Christian perspective. It also carries with it a specific set of beliefs or theologies, a political stance, even a legality that gives us a way to divide people, groups, beliefs, and thoughts. This new perspective of the term is far from what I would call Quaker or possibly even Christian.  

This is because being “born again” has always been linked with a more “Conservative Christianity.” Yet that might be a bit misleading. Let me explain: 

In “Speaking Christian,” Marcus Borg says, 

“A conservative is one who seeks to conserve the wisdom of the past. But much of “conservative” Christianity in our time is a modern creation, not a conservation of the riches of the Christian past.” 

By this definition, Quakers by their very nature are “conservative” in their desire to return to the way and teachings of Christ and his apostles. What I find interesting is that there are “progressive Quakers” like us, that could be described in this way as well.  This is where utilizing “conservative and progressive” descriptors are not that helpful. 

I would say that one of the aspects that has confused or convoluted this theological understanding in America is our obsession with heaven and the afterlife, and its connection to escaping this earthly dwelling for a better place.  

For many people, being “born again” has been linked simply to going to heaven, (what some label) “fire insurance”, or a way out of this messed-up world’s hurt and pain. 

And that leads to another problem. In the text for today, many, throughout history, have turned the phrase or even translated the “kingdom of God” into simply heaven and then claim that unless one has a new birth experience, which they usually associate with believing the right doctrines, one cannot enter heaven or sometimes even know God or the Divine in a personal way. 

Chuck Queen, who I have quoted before in this series, shed some light on this in his reflection on this text.  He says, 

“Actually, to “see the kingdom of God” is just another way of talking about experiencing and participating in the dynamic reality of God’s life and will.  John also calls this “eternal life,” which he contends is the present possession of disciples of Christ. (3:15-16). Scholars of John call this “realized eschatology,” which is just a fancy way of saying that John puts the emphasis on interacting and engaging in God’s life and work right now – in this world – rather than in the afterlife….the emphasis is on being in relationship and partnership with God in the present.” 

We might understand the “Kingdom of God” better if we saw it as Martin Luther King Jr. did – as a Beloved Community, which he described as “the experience of God’s kingdom in our lives today.”  People of this beloved community recognize the intrinsic worth of all people. Prejudice, cruelty, and greed are replaced with an all-inclusive spirit of friendship and goodwill. And because members of the beloved community are to prioritize love, kindness, compassion, peace, and service, societal ills such as homelessness, hunger, war, violence, poverty, and prejudice can be addressed in the present.

Another issue that needs addressed, which I warned of earlier in this series, is taking the Bible literally.  Nicodemus is a literalist. He evens struggles with ACTUAL RE-ENTRY into his mother’s womb (that is about as literal as one can get.) He doesn’t get the symbolic nature of the language Jesus uses – and I would say many Christians struggle with this as well.  

Remember Jesus’ response to Nicodemus, though? 

“You’re a respected teacher of Israel and you don’t know these basics?” 

I may be a bit bold in saying this, but I wonder if God isn’t asking this of us – do we know our basics?  

As Quakers we talk about being “born of the Spirit” or being “born from above.” We speak of one “Turning Within” which is an essential element of the Quaker spiritual journey, where at some point, one discovers God, Christ, the Inner Light, the Spirit or Divine (whatever name you give it) has been dwelling within them all along. Inwardly present in a quiet and humble way that was often easy to dismiss or ignore. 

I wonder if we, Quakers, have forgotten the basics to connecting with the Divine?   

Being “born of the Spirit” is obviously the work and revelation of the Spirit or the Inner Light in our life. Here is what we actually say in our Western Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice about this working:  

“It…inspires one to live, struggle, and suffer for the achievement of what ought to be…It is the spiritual endowment that enables one to advance beyond the narrow bounds of self toward the Christian ideals of goodness and love, and to respond to the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit…It is “that something we cannot call less than divine and universal, for it links us with the eternal realities, and with our fellow siblings of whatever race or creed. It may be hidden or warped by ignorance or pride or self-will or prejudice, but it cannot be wholly lost, for it is part of that which makes us essentially human, made in the divine image, and having within us boundless possibilities of life in God.” 

So, being “born of the Spirit” is about being inspired to live, struggle, and suffer for the achievement of what ought to be (in the present)…it links us to the divine and to our neighbor…and even though at times we may get in the way…with God there are boundless possibilities of life, now!  

Or as Chuck Queen articulated,

“One can think of being born again as a clearing away of all the debris and obstacles so that the dynamic energy, love, compassion, and nonviolent power of God (the Spirit) can flow unhindered in us and through us into the world.” 

I sure wish that is what I would have heard when I went to those concerts when I was a kid.  That there was dynamic energy, love, compassion, and nonviolent power available to me that I could utilize to change my world – instead of fearing my sin, hell, and all that guilt. 

I think as Quakers we need to reclaim this language and teach it in the right way. Instead of spending so much time trying to figure out who is in or out in this world or the next, what if we actually worked on being personally or corporately “transformed” in the present moment? 

Isn’t that the message Jesus is giving to the “rule-obsessed Pharisee, Nicodemus? 

Being “born of the Spirit” implies that we are transformed from the inside by the work of our Inner Light or Spirit of God – so that we will be able to in turn transform the world around us – to demonstrate the Jesus life – to share in the work of our creator…unhindered, with dynamic energy, love, compassion, nonviolent and transforming power. 

That sounds a lot more Quakerly, doesn’t it?  

I love Eugene Peterson’s translations of Jesus’ words to Nicodemus after he shared John 3:16…just listen once again…

“God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.” 

Folks, that I believe is exactly what God is calling us to this morning.  

You and I are to be transformed. Born from above. Born of the Spirit. Transformed from the inside out! To help put the world right again! Not with accusing fingers or by telling others how bad they are – but by joining God in living, struggling, and suffering for the achievement of what ought to be! 

As we enter waiting worship this mornings, take a moment to ask yourself the following queries. 

• How might “turning within” re-connect me to my Inner Light, the Divine, Spirit, God or Jesus and transform me from the inside out? 

• What do I need to clean away from my life so I can experience the dynamic energy, love, compassion, and nonviolent power available to me? 

3-19-23 - "To Not Get Caged In"

To Not Get Caged In

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

March 19, 2023

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. This week we are continuing our series on the Bible. Our scriptures for today are Matthew 15:10-20 from the New Revised Standard Version.

Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

Some might say the text for today is a post-covid nightmare. To have Jesus suggest that “eating with unwashed hands does not defile” could be both words of heresy and a public health crisis, today.

Now, I know there are studies that show both good and bad aspects of washing our hands and using hand sanitizer all the time, but that is not really the point that Jesus is addressing this morning. 

Actually, this was more about defilement and law-keeping which kept those, the Pharisees and Religious Leaders of Jesus’ day considered unfit to associate or fellowship with, away from their contact.

Yes, you heard that correctly - washing hands and eating the proper food kept at distance the people the Pharisees did not want to associate with. This was what we call today - discrimination. 

Sometimes, I am surprised at what all one can find in the Bible, but it is important to explore these things to help us get a better picture of how we are to live like Jesus.

As I said a few sermons ago, Jesus often is found reexplaining or even reinterpreting the understanding of scriptures or teachings of the religious leaders of his day.

This is just one great example of Jesus shifting the understanding and exposing the problem with what the religious leaders of his day were doing.  

Hear what Jesus says…

“Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” 

In one of the commentaries, I read about this text it said that in Jesus’ day “defilement meant being unfit for fellowship with God and his people.”

Instead, Jesus points out that true (deep down) “evil” defiles a person - not the food they eat.

Boy...I think that had the disciples kinda freakin’ out.  So much so, they thought it was time to pull Jesus aside and let him know that he was offending the religious leaders.  I am sure they thought they were doing the right thing.  Maybe it sounded like this. 

Peter under his breath says, “Oh goodness, we better warn Jesus” because...well, I don’t want to be in trouble by association” (an issue I believe Peter actually deep-down struggled with). 

Peter then leans over to James and says, “Jesus knows that he needs to soften his message, right? or maybe we need to help “spin” his words to make them say more of what the Pharisees want to hear. At this rate he is gonna get crucified. We better tell him.”   

So, they proceed to interrupt his message and warn him, but Jesus is hard-pressed to continue. 

Folks, even though often the church can be bold and not willing to back down, there is still a part of the church which is notorious for what is labeled “nicing things over” and simply not wanting to offend someone or cause trouble.

By softening our message or not challenging one another, we can easily find that we struggle to have a message of hope for our world. 

Quakers have been accused of moving in this way over time, and I will be honest, I think it is having an impact, today.  The great things our Quaker ancestors did seem like great history…back then…but what are we doing today?   

Hugh Osgood wrote a book around the query, “Is Niceness Killing the Church?” He wrote that the church was never designed to be held together with polite optimism. And then asks, could a greater biblical awareness help uncover the true, and robust unity Jesus spoke of? 

I think he is making a good point - it is important for us to allow the ministry and life of Jesus we read in scripture to teach us and even change us. 

So, back to our story.  Yes, the pharisees were probably just a bit taken aback by Jesus’ words. They were challenging, not polite optimism. The Pharisees knew what Jesus was implying by speaking of removing these unnecessary laws and prohibitions. 

The food laws were actually in the Torah - the scriptures. So, some may say, Jesus already had committed theological suicide. He told them that something in their Sacred text didn’t apply anymore – and that was a no-no. Obviously the disciples had reason to be concerned. 

Yet Jesus’ response is kind of multi-layered - and we must remember the crowd which was still gathered around most likely included the religious leaders, followers, naysayers, as well as the disciples. 

Boldly and shockingly, Jesus quickly dismissed the religious leaders and said their work was not God’s work - actually he even went further, and translators put in a derogatory label of the time (probably from a poem by Horace), saying they were just “blind leading the blind.” 

Jesus was definitely not “nicing it over,” especially if translators chose that phrase. Those listening must have been asking “What are you talking about Jesus? He just slammed the religious leaders at the core of their being.”

In another version of this text it is translated that Jesus said, “Just forget them - or let them go.”  

And he didn’t stop there, he implies that they should let them go but also FORGIVE THEM, because really “they are just the blind leading the blind.” That may actually have been the biggest insult to the religious leaders – to ask his followers to forgive them for their sins. 

I believe by this point Jesus has offended just about everyone in the room with his words. 

No longer can Peter stay quiet and proceeds to ask, “Jesus, you have some explainin’ to do.” 

So, Jesus addresses Peter by talking specifically about the mouth (something I believe Peter could again understand). Jesus says, 

“Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.””  

One commentary says that Jesus appears to anticipate Sigmund Freud's formulation of the id by about 1800 years in this one statement. 

Yet, more likely what Jesus was doing for us was reinterpreting the Ten Commandments in the list he gives – evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander – all things that brew down deep in our hearts, and when they surface, break our fellowship with God and our neighbors. 

If you notice, what Jesus is doing is prepping his listeners for an even more radical summary of the Ten Commandments – when he takes them down to simply two - Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.  A summary that he not only simplified, but added to.  He adds “as yourself” to emphasize how hard it truly is and how it must come for a change within us. 

Jesus makes it clear that all these silly laws are simply keeping one from fellowship and acceptance of their neighbors.

Jesus is saying...Eat what you want and if you don’t want to wash your hands - then so be it, but don’t use it to discriminate against your neighbor - know what is in your heart and share it through loving one another. 

Now, let’s be honest. “Niceness” can be a huge problem within the church, but the church has been kind of notorious for creating another problem – making hoops to jump through to be accepted by the church.

I don’t think it was ever Jesus’ intent to use the Bible or his teachings to keep people away or to create barriers to knowledge or growth.  I believe Jesus wanted diversity - he wanted everyone at the table.  He did not want a country club or gated community – but rather a community where everyone was seen, heard, accepted, and loved as you would want to be seen, heard, accepted and loved. 

Or as the late, Rachel Held Evans put it:

“This is what God's kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there's always room for more.” 

As I have been hearing your stories, many of you gave up on jumping through hoops, breaking down barriers, and not being accepted by other churches. You realized the niceness was a cover up or you were never being invited into the conversation. Some of you even saw the way the church discriminated in history and said enough is enough.  

In 27 years of ministry I have encountered, and sadly participated many times unaware, in all kinds of this isolation and discrimination in the church. Often utilizing a specific understanding of the Bible or doctrines to keep certain people away.  And it disturbs me deep down, because I have been challenged to look deep by Jesus at how I have discriminated and still discriminate.   

A few years ago, James Watkins put together a “Top Ten” list of the discriminations he found in the church – sadly, I have seen every one of these in the church and I am fully dedicated to working on breaking down any of these barriers and hoops that still exist for us at First Friends. I challenge you to ask yourself, as I read these, how many have been part of your journey or how many have you seen.   

10 - Age discrimination.

9 - Tastes or preferences (especially musical) discrimination.  

8 - Physical, developmental, intellectual, congenital, and invisible disabilities discrimination.

7 - Levels of education discrimination.

6 - Denominational affiliation and/or doctrinal beliefs discrimination.

5 - Gender and Sexuality discrimination.

4 - Married, Divorced, Single, or Celibate discrimination.

3 - Politics and Ideology discrimination.

2 - Economics discrimination - as well as what we often think of first….

1 - Race and Nationality discrimination.

It was Brian McLaren who put this all into perspective. He said,

“As a committed Christian, I have always struggled with locked doors—doors by which we on the inside lock out "the others"—Jews, Muslims, Mormons, liberals, doubters, agnostics, gay folks, whomever. The more we insiders succeed in shutting others out, the more I tend to feel locked in, caged, trapped.”

I think that is exactly what Jesus was trying help his followers and the religious leaders of his day to understand. But this also means if we are going to stand up to locking doors, discrimination, and unacceptance – and not get caged in ourselves - we will need to start by taking a deep look inside ourselves and our Meeting. This will take some work...so I will simply leave us with two queries to ponder this morning as we enter waiting worship: 

• In what ways do I discriminate in my daily life, my family, my workplaces, my school, my neighborhood, and my Meeting?  

• In what ways do we at First Friends’ (spoken or unspoken) discriminate to keep ourselves comfortable as a meeting? 

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.