12-10-23 - A Season of Re-Enlightenment

A Season of Re-Enlightenment

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

December 10, 2023

Good morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. Our scripture reading for this morning is the Magnificat from Luke 1:46-55 from the New Revised Standard Version.

And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
    and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant.
    Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
    and holy is his name;
indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him
    from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
    he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
    and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things
    and sent the rich away empty.
He has come to the aid of his child Israel,
    in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
    to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

As I continue down the journey of life, I have come to appreciate more and more the nighttime or early morning hours before the sun rises. Sometimes, I wonder if I am dreaming or if my mind finally has time to download the thoughts I have had during the day. 

I find that if I am struggling with a message or with a conversation, I need to have with someone, I will go to bed thinking about it or even dwelling on it. 

Then suddenly in the dark hours, I am awakened with a new clarity.  Sometimes, I get up and begin to write and other times I find that the clarity is so intense, I cannot forget it – or even think about anything else. 

As I have done some research, I learned that some of the most important ideas have come to people in the middle of the night or during sleep.  They even have put them in a kind of top ten list of importance.  Just listen to what all has come to people in the middle of the night.  

10. The discovery of the structure of the benzene molecule by Michael Faraday

9. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the novella by Robert Louis

Stevenson

8.  I Can’t Get No Satisfaction, the Rolling Stones song by Keith Richards

7.  Frankenstein, the novel by Mary Shelley (I think that might have been a

nightmare)

6.  Terminator, the movie(s) and movie characters by James Cameron

5. Yesterday, the Beatles song by Paul McCartney

4. The model of the atom, conceived by physicist Neils Bohr

3. The invention of the sewing machine by Thimonnier

2. The periodic table of chemical elements, by Mendeleev

1. The theory of relativity, by Einstein

In the bible times this physical and human experience was often consider having a vision, yet I think I might label it enlightenment. 

I do find it ironic that it often comes in the darkness of night, almost like an inner light gets switched on.  That seems so Quakerly, doesn’t it.  God is switching on our inner light.  

Can any of you relate to this? 

When have you been enlightened? 

When has the light bulb in your head switched on suddenly, illuminating fresh insight or wisdom? 

We are in what some consider a season of light, and I would add a season of enlightenment.

Hanukkah which started on this past Thursday is the Jewish festival of lights – remembering the story of the Jewish people reclaiming their temple after occupation by a Syrian-Greek dynasty. 

In haste to re-establish temple customs, they lit a lamp, thinking it would only have enough oil to burn for a day – but it miraculously remained lit for 8 days. Hence the eight crazy nights of menorah-lighting during Hanukkah.

Like Hanukkah, Christmas is a season of lights, as well.  Jesus is identified in the scripture as the “light of the world.”  The three wise men were led to the site of his birth by the light of a brilliant star.  

It’s a season of candles and colorful lights glowing on our houses.  This season is almost better in the dark.  Even mother nature follows suite and shortens the day, so it is darker longer.  We get up in the dark and go to bed in the dark. 

And I believe it is a season to become enlightened. To notice and amplify or magnify the light that shines within us all, revealing inner wisdom and guidance for our lives. 

Not that long ago, the world was dark at night. No light bulbs, to say nothing of computer and television and smart phone screens.  Candles were dim by comparison.  The second the sun went down, it was a very, very dark world.  

Our family once went to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and after descending into the bowels of the cave, the guide had us all gather and put our hands in front of our faces. Then he turned off the lights.  It was so dark we could not even see our hand inches from our face.  The guide then explained that before light pollution that is how dark the world was for everyone, and how important it was to live by the sun rising and setting. Today, we must go deep into the bowels of a cave just to get away from all the light from our many screens. There are very few places not effected by light pollution anymore. This is why some children in big cities tell their teachers they have never seen stars. 

But for all the light we’re able to produce and enjoy today, are we much more enlightened than people were a century or two ago? 

It’s a brighter world, but are we that much brighter as a result? 

In some ways, perhaps we’re dimmer…. Cutting ourselves off from direct human contact by our focus on those screens… obsessing about unimportant stuff… lost in consumerism… out of touch with nature and the outdoors…. so many people not caring about their neighbors, not even knowing their names…

Our eyes are open, but do we really see? 

We need to be re-enlightened, so that we can appreciate the world with awe and wonder again.  And that’s the promise of both Hanukkah and Christmas. 

In her poem and our scripture text for today, the Magnificat, Mary, the mother of Jesus, said that her soul magnified the Lord. 

 A little flicker of divine inner light, amplified by our attention, is enough to reveal what is going on inside of us, and guide us toward our best and highest aims. A little bit of oil in the lamp goes a long way.

The 14th century Christian mystic and priest, Meister Eckhart, used the image of sparks in an outdoor fire that yearn to return to their source in the pure divine light of the highest heaven.  The sparks are so intent on returning that they extinguish themselves on the way up. 

Eckhart believed that in the same way, all of us yearn to connect the spark of light within us with the divine source of that light. Thus, we Quakers gravitate toward Eckhart’s enlightenment (some even consider him a Quaker mystic.) 

But to get there, he says we must do what campfire sparks do as they disappear on their way upward – we must release our egos and our selfish ways to enter a higher level of consciousness.

I remember just a few weeks ago struggling with my talk for the Spirit and Place event on Silence. For two days straight, I had written, re-written, deleted, wrote again, tried physically writing instead of typing on a computer, yet nothing was coming. So, ironically, I entered complete silence and went to bed rather frustrated. Yet in going to bed, I was forcing myself, what I wanted to accomplish, and even my ego of sounding educated and prepared, aside. At 3 am, I awoke as though it was time to get up for my day.  I went downstairs, opened my computer and what I was going to say just poured out of me.  It was as if during the darkness each thought I had been wrestling with found its place and a clarity had appeared without me in the way. 

This has happened on other occasions, but I sometimes wonder what other forms of enlightenment await me. 

As well, I am wondering what enlightenment might come to you and me this Christmas – in this season of re-enlightenment?  Because let’s be honest, it is not just about what happened on the first Christmas, but what God is birthing anew right now in the present moment.

Back when I was in the process of becoming an Anglican priest, I was studying the liturgy of the Christmas Mass.  At the time our pastor’s wife was helping start a church in Mexico.  As we were discussing the Christmas Mass, she opened my eyes to something very interesting. She said that the Spanish word for “birth” is “dar la luz” – which literally means to “give light”. 

So, on Christmas day in Churches within Spanish speaking cultures they say that Mary gave light instead of birth.  Thus, Mary was enlightened.

At Christmas, each of us are delivered into the light of Christ-consciousness once again.  A birth, and a re-birth.  We celebrate a profoundly beautiful myth that takes hold of our souls, and leads us into deep compassion toward ourselves, toward those near and dear to us, toward the whole human family, and toward our precious earth and its ecosystem. It is a holistic re-enlightenment.

This all brings new meaning to those words we sang at the Blue Christmas Meeting for Worship a few weeks ago…

O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,
And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Or as a visual person, I love at our Christmas Vespers watching the warm glow of candlelight fill the Meetinghouse as we prepare to sing Silent Night.  The act of sharing our light with our neighbor and seeing the impact it has on the darkness is a visual representation of God’s enlightenment in our lives and how we are to share it with the world.  

And lastly, considering all this, it reminds me of a favorite poem, “Our Greatest Fear” by Marianne Williamson.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,

talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other

people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of

God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people

permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.

So, this morning as we enter waiting worship, take a moment to ponder the following queries:

1.     When have I been enlightened to a new insight or wisdom?

2.     In this season, how might I prepare myself to be enlightened?

3.     How might I “give light” to my world as Mary did the First Christmas? 

12-3-23 - The Way Things Are Supposed to Be

The Way Things Are Supposed to Be

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

December 3, 2023

Matthew 3:1-12 (MSG)

While Jesus was living in the Galilean hills, John, called “the Baptizer,” was preaching in the desert country of Judea. His message was simple and austere, like his desert surroundings: “Change your life. God’s kingdom is here.”

 John and his message were authorized by Isaiah’s prophecy:

            Thunder in the desert!
            Prepare for God’s arrival!
            Make the road smooth and straight!

John dressed in a camel-hair habit tied at the waist by a leather strap. He lived on a diet of locusts and wild field honey. People poured out of Jerusalem, Judea, and the Jordanian countryside to hear and see him in action. There at the Jordan River those who came to confess their sins were baptized into a changed life.

When John realized that a lot of Pharisees and Sadducees were showing up for a baptismal experience because it was becoming the popular thing to do, he exploded: “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference? It’s your life that must change, not your skin! And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as father. Being a descendant of Abraham is neither here nor there. Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.

“I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The main character in this drama—compared to him I’m a mere stagehand—will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”

This week, I responded to an email from a person who was looking for some answers from a Quaker perspective about the war between Israel and Hamas. Now, I am not an expert and I definitely do not assume I understand all that is going on.  As I told the person, war is a complicated subject and not easy to simply diagnose or understand from listening to the news or social media. I sent the person some really good resources put together by American Friends Service Committee which helped give perspective and a greater understanding of what all is behind this longstanding war. 

But I sensed in their questions that they just couldn’t understand why? I perceived in their words that this is not the way things are supposed to be. I could not agree more.

It was theologian Cornelius Platinga who said, “Shalom is the way things are supposed to be.”  

We might say as Quakers that “Peace is the Way” but how do we get there?  Obviously, most of us are not going to magically change the views in Israel or Palestine and bring the war to a close from here in Indianapolis.  

So, what can we do?

Most of the time when I ask that question, it means that I need to do some personal work by turning inward and asking myself what I think about peace and how I am preparing my own heart. And for me, when I do this, it helps me see the wars and conflicts in the world from a different light.

Many times, we talk about the lack of peace, or how we are in a moment of chaos or peace-less times, but very seldom do we stop and take time to really consider how we, ourselves, manifest peace in our daily lives. We may not feel we are able to fix what is happening across the seas or even in our own county, but we can make inroads to peace right where we are at.

Ironically, I have found some help on this from an unexpected place – the life and story of John the Baptist. A perfect person to discuss as we prepare for Christmas and a person that I think can speak to the underlining questions of the wars and conflicts in our world.

Eugene Peterson in our text for this morning labeled John, “The Thunder in the Dessert.”  With that label, he may not seem to be the most likely character to be considered for talking about shalom.

In many ways, his life seemed less than peaceful just from the bible’s description - crazy uncomfortable wardrobe, bug eating, nomad living – all of which can easily become diversions from his ministry of peace.

You and I live in a time full of power and political struggles, the draw of materialism, the challenge of the poor and needy, and an overall sense of uneasiness and lack of peace in our world.  And this chaos of life is constantly heralding an inner and outer cry for peace in our own daily lives.

The same was true for the days of John the Baptist and for that matter, Jesus.  The world under Roman rule was struggling with many of the same issues I just outlined, and we still see in our news, today.  Life in John and Jesus’ day was a bit chaotic as well as it was heralding a cry for peace to come to the world. 

For many, especially the Hebrew people, that peace was to come in the form of a messiah – a ruler who would set things right (which is the definition of shalom). Yet, the chaos of life in that day distracted the people from watching, expecting, or even seeing what was right before them – very much like it still is in our day. 

So, the bible says that a prophet had to be sent – one that would herald a cry and remind the people what TRUE peace would look like in this world – and that prophet was John the Baptist.

One of the things you may have heard is that John’s task was to “prepare the way.” But what did that really mean in biblical times. 

“To “prepare the way” in the bible meant to create a favorable environment or to make it easy for one to come to you and operate in your life.” 

Apparently, John the Baptist, was creating a favorable environment and making it easy for Jesus’ Peace to enter into and operate in the lives of people. And that is his cry for us still today. We are to be people who create favorable environments for our neighbors to live fully. 

Is that what we are attempting? 

Having this in mind, I want to point out five different areas in our text that point to how John taught us to prepare the way.  And please note, I believe what John is talking about speaks directly to how we can ultimately make a difference in the wars and conflicts in our world.

1.     Change your life (or in more religious terms - repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand).

To allow God to convict us and bring true Peace means we are probably going to need to make some changes in our lives.

This means we may need to admit where we have thwarted peace and done something that has caused a lack of peace.  We often think first of the outward acts (that rude Facebook post, that off-color comment at the dinner table, the rolling of my eyes while listening to that person who drives us nuts, etc…), but it will be the inward acts that are the hardest to change. 

Don’t get me wrong – outwardly living in peace takes respecting and loving each other despite our many differences (which isn’t always easy), but inwardly, we must search our hearts and minds and understand the fear and wrongs that have caused our own lack of peace.  Just take a moment to ask yourself this morning…

What fear or wrongdoing do I struggle with that causes a lack of true peace in my life? [Pause]

I believe finding peace also has to do with surrendering to God those parts of our lives where we seek to control.  I read recently in an article titled, “Living in Peace” the following…

“Ceasing to seek power over people and outcomes in your life is the first major step to living peacefully.  Trying to control people is about seeking to impose your will and reality on others without ever trying to see their side of things.  A controlling approach to relationships will keep you in conflict with others. Replacing a will to control with a broad approach of loving others instead, including their faults and differences, is the way to a peaceful life.”

And even a step further, we sometimes try and control who God is and what God says – which has us needing a change.  Yet, we must remember that loving God and our neighbor is the beginning of the change – thus, Jesus emphasized it as the most important. 

This leads us to the second point I want to highlight from John.

2.      Make the roads smooth and straight.

What I believe John is conveying is that we must fill in the potholes and level the walls or barriers for others to receive true peace in their lives.

What are some of the potholes or barriers in our present day for people to find that true peace? 

What about thinking in narrow ways and holding convictions without ever considering the viewpoints and perspectives of others?  This is an important question for any two groups or people in conflict or war with each other.  Are we considering the other’s perspectives?  Do we care? Do we think everyone should think like us? 

Or what about accepting others different than ourselves and appreciating our diversity?

When we fail to see from other’s perspectives or opinions, the end result can be building walls and making potholes of discrimination, repression, dehumanization, and ultimately violence (all which are the opposite of peace).  This is exactly what I believe is happening in Israel and Palestine, or in our polarized country, as well. 

And let’s be honest, this is probably because we have a hard time identifying with those different than us. 

That leads to the third point I want us to consider.

3.     John dressed in a camel-hair habit tied at the waist by a leather strap.

Some thought John was just crazy, but in reality he was going all out in trying to identifying with the folks on the fringe.  He went as far as to become one of them – literally moving outside the city gates – in the wilderness where the poor, the sick, the lame, were forced to live.  Some of us may think this is crazy, but this is how we break through our comfort zones and begin to make inroads to relationships and better understanding.

For you and me this might mean finding things to do in our lives where we engage different groups of people than we normally associate with. It’s harder to be discriminative, repressive, even dehumanizing when you’re interacting with people from different walks of life.  If you want to understand the pain and difficulties of war – spend some time with a refuge.  If you want to understand the impact of racism – spend some time with a person of color or indigenous person.

Studies show that most people who the world would consider racist, never have had experience with people different than themselves. I find it interesting that American Friends Service Committee points out that the war is Israel and Palestine is deeply rooted in racism.  And many of our own conflicts in our country revolve around racism.  Just maybe we have a problem with identifying with those different than us. 

It might be time to build a relationship, have a conversation, even engage a group that might be outside your “comfort zone.” This could be the impetus to making a greater change.

John’s wilderness journey was just that, he grew up with the elite of society and would have had a hard time identifying with those outside the city walls – he would have been taught that they were unclean by his own dad – Rabbi Zechariah.  Thus, John became a radical.

This is the reason I believe John comes down so hard on the religious leaders who come out to see him in the wilderness. He knew they wanted control because of their positions – listen to what he says (it is number four in my list)…

4.     Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference? It’s your life that must change, not your skin! And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as Father.

John is being an advocate for those who had been taken advantage of – the actual people who lived in the wilderness where he made his home - I have a feeling John would have been living in Gaza, today.  

Now, this action of John may seem out of place, since most peace and conflict teachings say when communicating with others, seek to avoid being ordering, moralizing, demanding, or threatening.  Because these forms of communication can give rise to conflict with others who feel that you’re trying to control them rather than speak with them as an equal. Simply because it can lead to further conflict and does not put the two sides on common ground.

But we must remember that John was one of them.  In this case, he wants to bring peace through accountability and calling out his brothers. 

And that leads right into what I consider John’s most important point in all of this…If you want peace in the world, if you want to prepare your heart for the peace of Christ, if you want to change,  it starts with YOUR life. He says…

5.     What counts is your life.  Is it green and blossoming? …ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.

Now, that sounds very Quaker like, doesn’t it? Bringing peace in this world begins with your life. 

Gandhi said it so well,

“BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD.”

We need to ask ourselves, “Is our life green and blossoming?” That may mean we will need to stop and listen to our lives – what I would call doing some personal reflection.

When was the last time you stopped to reflect on your life in regard to peace?

When we go inside ourselves – we engage our inner light.  This engages an opportunity for God to speak truth into our action – meaning when we find peace then we have the possibility of changing our world for the better.

This Christmas season, I believe God is calling us to be part of the solution first and foremost right where we are, just as he was through John in his day.  He is calling us to a life of peace – where we love God and love our neighbor for the sake of the greater community around us. And ultimately, our work of bringing peace in our daily lives will overtime translate into a more global peace. 

As we enter our time of waiting worship this mornings,  I would like us to center down by pondering some words and queries from our Faith and Practice on peace.  It states,

“…be peaceful yourselves in words and actions, and pray to the Father of the universe that He would breathe the spirit of reconciliation into the hearts of His erring and
contending creatures.”

Then it asks us to consider the following queries:

·        Do I consistently practice the Christian principles of love and good will toward all people?

·        Do I work actively for peace and for the removal of the causes of war?

·        Do I endeavor to make clear to all whom I can influence, that war is inconsistent with the spirit and teaching of Jesus?

11-19-23 - Holistic Gratitude

Holistic Gratitude

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

November 19, 2023

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections.  This morning our scripture is from Colossians 3:12-17 from the New Revised Standard Version.

Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

And be thankful…and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.  I hope this is our posture this morning and as we begin preparing for our Thanksgiving holiday this week.  

On the first week of the month, I have the opportunity to read to the children at the Maple Seeds Preschool Co-op that meets in our Meeting.  If anything gives me a grateful heart it is those kiddos.

Usually, we have about 4 weeks between readings, but due to schedule conflicts this month I was returning in two weeks and just after the Halloween holiday.  The kids were still thinking about Trick or Treating and probably still on a bit of a sugar high, so it was hard to make the transition to November. 

Sue helps me pick a book that fits for each month. So, for November, Sue gave me a really funny book called 10 Fat Turkeys. I asked the kids before showing them the book, what special holiday comes in November. They looked around and then one kid said, “Christmas!”  No, I said, and then another shouted, “Halloween.” No, we just had Halloween.  Finally, one of the boys in the front row lit up and yelled out, “It’s Turkey Day!”

With that answer, I needed to ask for more clarification, “What is Turkey Day about?” Then a girl decided to correct him by saying, “It is not Turkey Day, it’s called Thanksgiving.” 

Now, we were getting somewhere.  I asked, “What is Thanksgiving about?” And the boy said, “Having Turkey!”  The teachers and parents just shook their heads.  So, I took a moment to talk about the meaning of thanksgiving and then ironically read a book about Turkeys.

Sometimes, this is how hard gratitude and thanksgiving are for adults as well.  Very rarely do I turn on my T.V. or radio anymore and hear people sharing moments of gratitude.  Actually, if I am completely honest, I don’t hear much of what Brenda read in the scripture for today.  Very little if any…

compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiving each other…and especially thankfulness and gratitude.

These are almost radical beliefs and actions in our world today. 

For many, just the idea of the Thanksgiving holiday and getting together with family, seems a burden or a chore.  And then add to that politics, religion, mass shootings, wars, family issues, and all that is going on in our world, and Thanksgiving Holidays can become anything but a time of gratitude and thanksgiving.

For example, here are some real-life descriptions of past family thanksgivings that were a bit more than thankful.  

From MPaug on Twitter: “When I was a little kid, I asked to say the prayer. It was a big honor to get to say it. My family was notorious for fighting so I said my little prayer all nice and cute then ended with a smart-alecky, "God please let my family act normal today and not fight". Before I could blink my German grandmother slapped me across the face really hard which ticked off my mother. Lots of yelling ensued and we all ended up leaving.

From Taylor on Facebook: "One year, two of my aunts had a heated argument over who wanted the last bit of turkey skin more. Long story short, one stabbed the other in the hand with a carving knife and had to leave to be treated at the hospital. They're cool now, though."

From Bill on Twitter: “I was around 5-6 years old. Us kids were playing hide-n-seek and I hid way in the back of Grandma's closet. While I was hiding back there, I found this beautiful deep red robe, I assumed it belonged to my grandfather who [passed] just after I was born. I tried it on, and it was huge on me, but the silk felt really smooth and cool, so I decided to go ask my grandma if I could have it to grow into.

Turns out granddad was a Grand Dragon in the Carolina KKK, and it was his ceremonial robe. The family members who didn’t know about this already were highly upset, the ones who knew were embarrassed. There was a small riot when I walked into the kitchen wearing it. That was an awkward Thanksgiving.”

Now, these real-life stories may make us laugh a bit – but the reality is that this is how it is for some families. 

Sadly, too often it is trivial things that can lead us away from gratitude and missing all that our families and friends can offer us.  

My friend John Pattison describes gratitude, so well, in his book, Slow Church. He sees gratitude…

“…as the vital bridge that connects abundance and generosity. As a spiritual discipline–one that requires time and intentionality, both on our own and in community–gratitude is how we practice recognizing the abundant gifts God has given us. It’s how we praise God for those gifts. And it is the energy that compels us to want to share those gifts.”

From the earliest days of our faith, the Hebrew people have considered gratitude foundational.  The Hebrew Torah (or the first five books of the Old of First Testament) instructed people to make offerings of thanksgiving or peace offerings.  Some English translations even call them fellowship offerings. 

The reason for so many different variations (thanksgiving, peace, and fellowship) is that it reminds us that the posture of gratitude occurs in community and by coming together peacefully in fellowship with one another. This is why the word we translate shalom has such a wealth of meaning.  Quakers are quick to make it solely about peace, but it is so much more.

Rabbi Rick Schechter says,

“More than peace, shalom means well-being, health, wholeness, and prosperity…Using a Jewish lens to explore each path may help us realize shalom in our lives.

The Positive emotions it includes are “joy, love, gratitude, hope, and awe…” and “…are vital to Jewish living….” and… “enhance energy and creativity, strengthen the immune system, build better relationships, promote higher productivity, and even contribute to a longer life.”

This concept and belief continue throughout our New or Second Testament as well as the Hebrew scriptures.

Author David Pao says that some scholars believe that Paul mentions this shalom – what he considers a mix of thanksgiving and grace more frequently per page than any other Hellenistic writer of his time. 

Judao-Christian faith is steeped in shalom or thanksgiving and grace which happens within community. 

Did you know research shows that gratitude or being thankful can…

Help you make friends.

One study found that thanking a new acquaintance makes them more likely to seek a more lasting relationship with you.

It can help Improve your physical health.

People who exhibit gratitude report fewer aches and pains, a general feeling of health, more regular exercise, and more frequent checkups with their doctor than those who don’t.

It can improve your psychological health.

Grateful people enjoy higher wellbeing and happiness and suffer from reduced symptoms of depression.

It can enhance empathy and reduces aggression.

Those who show their gratitude are less likely to seek revenge against others and more likely to behave in a prosocial manner, with sensitivity and empathy.

It can improve your sleep.

Practicing gratitude regularly can help you sleep longer and better.

It can enhance your self-esteem.

People who are grateful have increased self-esteem, partly due to their ability to appreciate other peoples’ accomplishments.

It can increase our mental strength.

Grateful people have an advantage in overcoming trauma and enhanced resilience, helping them to bounce back from highly stressful situations.

What this shows is that gratitude is essential to our well-being, to our livelihood, even to our health.  It is how we are wired and a needed aspect of our daily lives.  But the reality is that we in the United States are often lacking in gratitude. 

Scientist Robert Emmons says,

We live in a nation where everyone is on the pursuit of happiness. Each individual has their own path this journey takes. For some, the search begins in books; for others it comes through service. 

But perhaps the most popular form of seeking happiness is through the accumulation of “things.” Materialism, though, is bought at a cost. A society that feels entitled to what it receives does not adequately express gratitude. Seen through the lens of buying and selling, relationships as well as things are viewed as disposable, and gratitude cannot survive this materialistic onslaught. The lack of gratitude is contagious and is passed from one generation to the next. 

Conversely, the act of gratitude is also viral and has been found to greatly and positively influence not just relationships, but one’s own emotional status.

And it isn’t just materialism and our own entitlement that gets in the way, even the bible addresses barriers to Gratitude.  Things like

Doubting

Ignorance

Pride

Anger or Disappointment

Self-Centeredness

Pursuit of Pleasure

A Critical Spirit

That is why in our scripture this morning, Paul reminded them to be thankful. 

Be compassionate, kind, humble, meek, patient. Bear with one another, forgive each other, but above all, clothe yourselves with love, and be thankful.  

So, this morning, as we enter waiting worship, we are going to put up on the screen several Gratitude queries for you to ponder. Take some time to think about them and then find ways to express and share your gratitude this week. 

Gratitude Queries:

1.     What aspects of your city or neighborhood are you grateful for?

2.     What have others done in your life that you’re grateful for?

3.     Who is someone that really listens when you talk, and how does that affect you?

4.     What’s a stressor you’re grateful to have put behind you this year?

5.     How many of your basic needs do you not have to worry about meeting today?

6.     What’s the best thing about your home, and have you taken the time to enjoy it recently?

7.     Have you had a chance to help someone recently, and how did that make you feel?

8.     What’s something you look forward to in the future?

9.     What’s something enjoyable you get to experience every day that you’ve come to take for granted?

10.What’s a hard lesson that you were grateful to learn?

11.What about today has been better than yesterday?

12.What’s an aspect of your physical health that you feel grateful for?

13.What happened today/yesterday/this week/this month/this year that you’re grateful for?

14.What’s an aspect of your personality that you’re grateful for?

15.How have you used your talents recently, and what have you enjoyed about doing that?

16.What relationships are you grateful for?

17.What’s one thoughtful thing someone did for you recently?

18.What’s an aspect of how you were parented for which you feel grateful?

19.What’s one thing you’ve enjoyed about doing your job recently?

20.What made you laugh or smile today?

11-12-23 - Quiet as a Gateway (Spirit & Place: Nourish)

Quiet as a Gateway

Spirit and Place – Nourish

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

November 11, 2023

Good afternoon, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. This morning at the Meetinghouse we are having a guest speaker, so I have decided to share the talk I gave at the Spirit and Place Event on Saturday.

When Christy Tidwell from the Senior Academy at IUPUI first came to my office to share the idea of this Spirit and Place event, she said something that I have quoted often since. She said, “Quakers are kind of on the cutting edge of silence.” I had never heard anyone put it that way, but it is true. At least that has been my experience.

A few years ago, I began describing myself as a “spiritual mutt.”  I was born a Hoosier and a Lutheran outside of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Since then, I have been on an adventurous spiritual journey. I have served Lutheran churches, a Mennonite church, and was even ordained and served as an Anglican Priest, but in 2008 I began a doctoral program at a Quaker university on the west coast that changed everything for me.

To my knowledge, up until this time, I had only met one Quaker. And that was Richard Foster who wrote the classic book, Celebration of Discipline. At the time, I was studying to be an Anglican Priest and attended a Renovaré Conference where after being introduced to Richard Foster (remember a Quaker) he asked if my wife and I would help serve communion with elements. Looking back that was an odd experience since Quakers do not observe rituals like communion with the elements of bread and wine. Well, more on that in a minute.

Back in 2008 My doctoral program with George Fox University met on Cannon Beach in Oregon. Each morning for our two-week intensive, I would get up early, take a walk on the beach, stop for a cup of coffee, and then head to a small chapel on the campus of Ecola Bible College. 

The first time attending this intensive was not only my first time in Oregon, it would also be my introduction to Quaker silent worship. That first morning, I awoke to thick fog and was startled by the bugle calls of a herd of Elk heading to the beach crossing my path on my way to get coffee. I was in another world all together and this was not Indiana.

There was a line at the coffee shop, so I was running late when I entered the small chapel. As I opened the door, I stopped in my tracks because I found my cohort circled up and sitting in silence. 

I immediately assumed they were beginning to pray. So, I stopped and stood at the door waiting for the silence to break.  The silence would not break for almost 25 more minutes.  I stood there a long time, uncomfortable and wondering what was going on. 

Did something happen?

Were we waiting for our leader?

Did I miss something?

After standing at the door for several minutes, I decided to silence my phone and capture the moment by taking a photo of this scene.  I still have the photo of this moment which I keep in my office to remind me of this monumental experience in my spiritual life.

As I continued to stand in the door of that chapel, I soon realized I was going through a deep transformation. The quiet of this sacred space was becoming a gateway for me to finding something I was deeply missing in my crazy busy life and my spiritual journey.

For the first time in a long time, I could hear my breathe and even my heartbeat. I stopped rushing, even put down my coffee and slipped into a chair in the circle – no one moved or even acknowledged me.  I began to wrestle in my soul with the silence and realized my jetlag made it harder to keep my body and mind awake.

In just 5 minutes my mind had been all over the place from wondering what the rest of the day would be like, who are the people in the circle, and moments of dozing off.  I often opened my eyes to look around to see if anyone else was struggling.  

Just as I began to sense a centering experience with the silence, the facilitator, who would become my spiritual director for my entire doctoral program finally broke the silence by reading a poem. This continued to be a completely new worship experience for me. At this point, people began to share out of the silence their experiences, what spoke to them in the poem, even words which the Divine had put on their heart as they waited expectantly in silence. 

Soon, I was welcomed by our facilitator and told, “It will get easier as you experience sitting in the silence every day over the next two weeks. In our world today, he said, silence must be a discipline that you practice. Don’t worry, it will come over time.”  

How did he know what I was experiencing?

I started to realize I might have been showing a little of my lack of comfort and experience with the silence.  

Richard Foster explained this well, when he wrote in the Celebration of Disciplines,

One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that it makes us feel so helpless. We are so accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others. If we are silent, who will take control? God will take control, but we will never let him take control until we trust him. Silence is intimately related to trust.

So let me return to communion.  As I said earlier, Quakers do not celebrate the Lord’s Supper or Communion with elements like bread and wine.  Rather they commune with the Divine through silence. It becomes the gateway, the sacrament, the opening to the Divine. Quaker Rufus Jones explains it this way,

“[The Early Quakers/Friends] made the discovery that silence is one of the best preparations for communion [with God] and for the reception of inspiration and guidance. Silence itself, of course, has no magic. It may be just sheer emptiness, absence of words or noise or music. It may be a dead form. But it may be an intensified pause, a vitalized hush, a creative quiet, an actual moment of mutual and reciprocal correspondence with God.”

Take for instance, when we have our first snow fall of the year that covers the ground with a white blanket. I love to run outside and simply experience the silence it produces. Or last week when the fog was so thick, I love to drive through it with my windows down and the radio in my car off because it produces a special silence that our noisy world does not offer us anymore.  

Just before I discovered Quaker silence in that chapel in Oregon, I heard of a man named Matt Mikkelsen on NPR who was travelling the west coast looking for the quietest places in the United States. He works for a non-profit called Square Inch of Silence that promotes the preservation of quiet places – those without human-made sounds. He says there are only about 10 such places in the United States left, one being in the rainforests of the Olympic National Forest in Washington.

I had the privilege before moving my family back to Indiana to go to this rainforest and experience the silence. It is breath-taking.

Yet, Matt’s research has found that noise has negatively affected the ecosystem, just as noise negatively effects our social and emotional systems.  He points out that the world needs silence to thrive and live to its full potential and the more we recognize this the more it changes our lives.  

Thus, like snow, fog, or in the depths of a rainforest, I believe the same can happen gathered in a circle in a chapel or meetinghouse for worship.

Ever since my first experience in 2008 with silent worship, I have come to not only appreciate, but long for it in my life. 

Let’s be honest, since 2008 our world has been through a lot, whether it was a recession, a pandemic, four years of insane politics, racial upheaval, wars, you name it, I and many others have been seeking a place to reconnect with something greater than us, something that can make sense of the world, something that can bring peace, clarity and a sense of community again – and I believe silence or as we are saying quiet is the gateway.   

At First Friends, we have seen extensive growth coming out of the pandemic and the tumultuous political season of the last several years. When talking with our new attenders, the one thing that is always a huge attractor is our emphasis on silence whether in our Unprogrammed or Programmed Worship. [For those not familiar with those terms Unprogrammed Worship is simply sitting in silence for about an hour and waiting expectantly for the Divine to speak in the midst. Some may be moved by the Spirit to give vocal ministry or speak out of the silence.  As for programmed worship, there we include music, choirs, prayers, scriptures, and a sermon, but we always have a significant amount of silence or what we call waiting worship, as well. 

Like me, our new attenders may not know when they first attend worship that they needed silence in their lives, yet overtime they come to value it and choose to find ways to incorporate it into their daily lives. 

Richard Foster’s son, Nathan said this so well in his book, The Making of an Ordinary Saint: My Journey from Frustration to Joy with the Spiritual Disciplines.  He says this,

“Today silence is one of the most essential disciplines of the Spirit simply because it puts a stopper on all this mindless chatter and clatter. It enables us to step aside from the noise and hurry and crowds of modern life long enough to allow God to create in us attitudes and habits that will hold us constantly in the loving presence of God.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when solitude and silence were available to people by the normal conditions of everyday life. Not any longer! In our day we have to choose solitude and silence and plan our lives accordingly. It can be done, of course, especially as we catch a vision of their liberating qualities.

Thomas Merton wrote, “It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love [others]… Solitude and silence teach me to love [others] for what they are, not for what they say.”

Just maybe quiet or silence can be the gateway for those of us struggling in our world, today.  Just maybe as we center down and enter a time or place of silence, we will begin to connect as Quakers say, “to that of God in every person” around us.

Just a few weeks ago in one of our new attender dinners, I heard one of the best descriptions of waiting worship among Friends.  The person said something to the effect that during waiting worship, she senses that even with all the diversity of people and thought in our Meeting, at some point during silent worship she imagines all our hearts unite and begin to beat in rhythm together.  That has stuck with me – because so much is happening in the silence and often it is our words that get in the way.  We need to let the silence be the gateway again to greater moments with the Divine and with each other.

So, this morning, as I do every Sunday at the close of my sermon here at

First Friends, I would like us to enter a time of what we label “waiting worship.” To help us center down in a Quaker tradition, I am providing a couple queries for you to ponder in the brief silence. The queries are from a book I highly recommend, “Holy Silence” by fellow Quaker and Hoosier, J. Brent Bill.

1.     How could taking time for silence enlarge my day?

2.     Which takes a bigger place in my life – silence or noise? Which of the two do I feel more comfortable with.

11-5-23 - Learning to Look in Each Other’s Direction

Learning to Look in Each Other’s Direction

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

November 5, 2023

Good morning Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. Our scripture reading for this morning is from Philippians 2:2-4 from the Voice translation.  

…here is one thing that would complete my joy—come together as one in mind and spirit and purpose, sharing in the same love. Don’t let selfishness and prideful agendas take over. Embrace true humility, and lift your heads to extend love to others. Get beyond yourselves and protecting your own interests; be sincere, and secure your neighbors’ interests first.

If you knew me back in high school, you would have known me as the kid who spent most of his day in the art room. Since I lived just a couple blocks from my high school, I was able to be in the art room before school, after school until my art teacher left for the day, and often I would have 1 or 2 art classes during the day or a study hall that I would spend in the art room as well.  I took every art class my high school offered. 

It was clear that my passion was art. During my junior year, I began visiting colleges. My dad was a graduate of Purdue, so I almost felt obligated to at least check out the campus. I had heard they had an art program, but it was focused at the time on interior design. Honestly, interior design has always fascinated me. 

Once on our anniversary about 10 years ago, Sue and I were staying with friends in San Rafael, California. They had moved into a house that they were having a hard time decorating. As we talked that afternoon, they showed us some pieces they wanted to utilize for decorating in their home, but also told us that they had some funds set aside to purchase other items to make their living space come together. That sparked my creativity, and I began sharing all kinds of ideas. At one point we all jumped into the car and headed to a store in San Rafael to purchase the other needed items. The rest of the afternoon and into the evening, I helped them decorate their home.

I know Sue wasn’t too happy with me, because I got so in my element with the designing, I forgot we were going to go out for an anniversary dinner while our friends watched our kids. I love creating and designing and helping people see the possibilities.  

And if you are wondering, Sue and I did get to have our anniversary dinner, even though it was rather late that night.  And yes, I think I was a bit in trouble. 

Anyway, back to Purdue. We went and visited and took the tour.  In 1990, the art buildings were brand new, as were the dorms, and I was impressed. Actually, I was kind of beginning to see myself staying in Indiana and going to my father’s alma mater. 

That is until they told me that there was only one male student in the art program. That shocked me, but then our guide said something that a conservative Christian teen like me (at that time) found even more shocking. She openly said the one male student was gay and that I would probably have to room with him.  Remember the world was quite different in the early 90’s and Aids and anything LGBTQ was feared by many across the country.

If only, I could go back with all I know and believe now. I think I would have made a lot of different choices. The fear and anxiety of people different than us that the church I grew up in dealt out, created so much of an “us vs. them” mentality that I believe it may have gotten in the way of me seeing my full potential and the full potential of those around me. 

Well, that is all history as they say. So, why am I telling you this…well…a few weeks ago, we visited our oldest child, Alex in Austin Texas. On one of the days when Alex was working, my mom asked if we could go to Waco, Texas and visit The Silos.

Now, if you are familiar with the enterprise that Chip and Joanna Gaines has made with their Magnolia brand coming from their hit show on HGTV called, “Fixer Upper,” then you probably know what I am talking about. If not, you were like me when I stepped onto their property in downtown Waco which ironically does have two huge rusty old silos – thus the name.

The truth is, I have never seen one episode of Fixer Upper, still today – and now Chip and Joanna Gaines have their own TV network. I am still crying through reruns of Extreme Home Makeover from the early 2000’s.

Well, as we walked around the shops at the Silos, something arose inside of me. My creativity was sparked in a weird kind of way.  I began to think about those days when I considered doing something like what Chip and Joanna were doing. 

Well, as with most things, after we got in the car to drive back to Alex, I tried quickly to move on from the experience.  But something at The Silos and walking through the shops and Magnolia Market sparked my interest and I needed to know more.  It wasn’t just the product or the novelty of the Gaines taking over a couple city blocks to build a destination in Waco, Texas (a place that desperately needed a destination). Rather for me it was about wanting to know the story behind all of this. 

So, after I got home, I began to do some research on the Magnolia brand and Chip and Joanna Gaines. And like anything on the internet, they had their many followers and their critics. Everything from them being narrow-minded because of their Christian upbringing to people predicting when they would divorce. In one of the articles I read, a woman encouraged everyone to not make any judgements until they had read their story – because she said it isn’t what you think. 

I have had many mentors who’ve said don’t judge a person by what others say, take the time to hear their story, first. I will have to say, I was a bit skeptical. But I download The Magnolia Story on Hoopla and began listening while I was working out at the gym.  After I plowed through that book, I decided to listen to Chip Gaines latest book, No Pain, No Gaines. And finally, just this week, I finished Chip’s other book, Capital Gaines: Smart Things I Learned Doing Stupid Stuff.

Now, these books seemed way outside my norm and even Chip or Joanna are not the kind of people I would at first be drawn to. But as I listened, I found myself laughing at times, pondering some deep thoughts on occasion, and even stopping and rewinding to see if I heard what was being said. 

And this is where this all intersects with this week’s message. Last week we talked about those we make “witches” out of – and often celebrities are the easiest targets. Chip and Joanna Gaines clearly have been and will continue to be targets because of their popularity. And even though I probably would never have listened to their books or visited Waco to see The Silos if it weren’t for my mom, I could have easily joined in with the critics or naysayers, assumed what I thought I knew about them, and simply not taken the time to hear them out. 

Well, this week, as I was finishing Capital Gaines (Chip’s first book) while on the treadmill, I literally stopped my exercise, because Chip Gaines, unexpectedly began to speak to my condition. Remember, in my series on prophets, how I talked about the unexpected and surprising people that become prophets in our lives?  

Well, in chapter 14, Chip began to be an unexpected prophet. It’s true, most of Chip’s stories are engaging, some really funny, but also interspersed with what I would label “cliché Christian writing.” Yet for some reason this chapter was different. 

If I would have paid money for the book, instead of downloading from Hoopla, what Chip says in the 14th chapter of Capital Gaines would be worth the price of the book. And not only does it flow out of the teaching from last week, what he states includes some important queries for us to ponder.  Instead of trying to paraphrase, I want you to hear what I heard.

Here is what Chip Gaines’ says.

“Some people show enormous resistance to modifying even a fraction of themselves.  They’re not about to shift the way they think or what they think they know.  They simply expect others to get with the program and – to adjust their mindset and fall into their way of thinking.  How ignorant for any one of us to assume that we have a monopoly on right perspectives and no one else even holds a piece of the puzzle. And how arrogant to just demand that people change for us without ever making the effort to know them as human beings or understand where they are coming from.

Wow, what Chip is getting at was exactly what Eric Baker had pointed out during Waiting Worship last week, when he talked about the phrase, I used in my message about making people into “witches” when “we lack an interest in hearing or knowing their story.”

Chip goes on to ask some important queries for us to ponder:

·      I wonder if being angrily shouted at or arrogantly debated with has ever swayed a single person?

·      Are human hearts moved by being ridiculed and mocked?

·      When people fling accusations with the presumption of knowing another person’s intentions, what possible outcome could they be hoping for?

·      Who would ever move to their enemy’s camp under such treatment?

Those are some really, really important universal queries to ponder in our world today. And with the polarization we see happening within Christianity, politics, the media, and even our own families, these might just be where we need to start.   

But Chip wasn’t done, he was just “priming the pump” for what he really wanted to say.  He continues,

“I believe we won’t get anywhere, that no healing or breakthrough can occur apart from developing actual relationships with one another. As much as I love Twitter, Twitter feuds aren’t going to work. Actually, connecting requires true face-to-face time…

I believe with all my heart that it’s only after working side by side with another person that you earn the right to speak into that person’s life.  It’s a basis of friendship that can forge a path toward common ground…

…Then it’s at the dining room table, laden with lovingly prepared food, that walls come down. It’s around the table that you discover you might, in fact, love the person you were pretty sure you were supposed to hate. It’s here that both sides are heard, and hearts begin to change. Maybe not wholly. This isn’t some manipulative act where the goal is to win someone over to your side. The goal is listening and truly hearing. It’s letting your guard down and letting your heart open up. The goal is to leave the table no longer as strangers or enemies, but as fellow travelers on the journey of life. Maybe you leave as friends who have chosen to agree-to-disagree on some things. This is where fear and hate begin to lose their grip.  This is where you begin to have each other’s back even when you can’t fully embrace each other’s cause.”

Some of you may be thinking as I was, “Chip, I don’t even know if we can get around the table in the first place.” Is it that bad? Maybe this is where the church could help. Maybe we need to provide opportunities for people with different perspectives to come together around a meal. Kind of like we do at our new attender dinners. At least, it would be a place to start.

Yet before we even get to this, Chip thinks there is another issue we need to address. He says,

“The truth is, we don’t have to agree on everything to be friends, but a lot of people – a lot of people – seem to think we do. That popular and toxic lie has taken our beautiful planet and turned it into a battleground.  The assumption is, if you don’t think like me, not only are you wrong, but you are bad and possibly even evil.” 

Chip went from preaching to meddlin’ right here. It starts with me. Is this how I feel about others?  That if they don’t think like me, then they are simply wrong.  That would quickly isolate me from over half of our society. 

Now, PLEASE understand there are people who are abusive, who are intentionally out to harm people, who are bad and possibly even evil.  They need professional help, maybe even jail time to be reformed, rather than an invite to your table. We must be careful and not put ourselves in harms way.  Some of these people could be mentally disturbed, needing medication, or needing removed from society for the safety of others and even themselves.

If anything, I believe Chip is talking about people that we allow in our community that we may have differences with that are not posing a personal threat to us.

Well, Chip ends up wrapping things up with a couple last thoughts (maybe even a warning) that I believe speaks to us personally and as a Meeting. He says,

“There is no chance for any of us to see eye to eye if we are unwilling to even look in each other’s direction. Hate masquerading as righteousness can sit in church every Sunday and no one bats an eye. Contempt and judgement clothed in concern says more about “the concerned” than “the concerning,” if you catch my drift…

…I believe we are all children of God, the whole lot of us. This means that we are all inherently beautiful, flawed as we are. We all have truth and goodness within us, and our lives were created with intentionality…Every person that you happen upon in your lifetime has a story to tell. Every person on the planet has the ability to teach us, if we will only be willing to listen.”

So, I am glad that I took the time to explore someone’s story and not just write them off or judge them as a celebrity.  Doing so allowed me to hear a deeper message for us all.  And if all we do is take a moment this week to look in someone’s direction that we haven’t before, we might just find the world a better place.

So, as we enter waiting worship this morning, I want us to ponder some of Chip’s thoughts through the following queries.

1.    How often do I think I have the right and only perspectives on issues? 

2.    Where am I building actual relationships and working side-by-side with people who may think different than me?

3.    Who might I need to invite to join me at my table to hear more of their story?

10-29-23 - Returning to Thomas Maule and the Witches

Returning to Thomas Maule and the Witches

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

October 29, 2023

Good Morning Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. Our scripture for this morning is from Luke 6:27-28 from The Voice translation.  

If you’re listening, here’s My message: Keep loving your enemies no matter what they do. Keep doing good to those who hate you.  Keep speaking blessings on those who curse you. Keep praying for those who mistreat you. 

A year ago, we planned a unique worship service which started some fun traditions at First Friends like wearing Witch hats and having our kids come in costumes. That Meeting for Worship dealt with the response of Quaker Thomas Maule to witches during the Salem Witch Trial. 

If you remember, Thomas Maule was an outspoken Quaker living in Salem, Massachusetts, who went to prison five times, was whipped publicly three times, and fined on numerous occasions for criticizing Puritans and advocating for witches during the Salem Witch Trials.

All because Thomas Maule saw witches as both real people, who had that of God in them, and not much different than everyone else. He also believed God would punish the Salem Witch Trial prosecutors for miscarrying justice. Maule was known to say,

“[F]or it were better that one hundred Witches should live,

than that one person be put to death for a Witch, which is not a Witch.”

After preaching that sermon, I quickly found how the radical nature of early Quakers is still debated today. 

Before I even thought about getting out of bed, the Monday after that sermon, I was contacted by our Superintendent Shawn McConaughey about a disturbance on the Friends United Meeting WhatsApp for our ministry leaders in Africa. 

Quickly, I found many of our Quaker leaders in Africa had seen some photos of people in our meeting wearing Witch hats during worship and made some quick assumptions of what was going on.

This led to condemning us, saying we were not worthy of being called Quakers, and some even asking us to be removed from Friends United Meeting.  Even our Facebook page had leaders writing condemning remarks on our playful photos from that Sunday.

I will have to say, I was not expecting to wake up on Monday to the entire continent of African Quakers upset at our Meeting, as well as, me for my message – which ironically, they had not heard. 

With our Superintendent’s help, by the end of the day we had things calmed down. Yet still, it left me thinking a lot about the tensions that being a radical Quaker can create when people do not understand the context or are not part of the community. 

Actually, in my further research after giving this message, I learned that a hundred years after the Salem Witch Trials, Quakers were still struggling with the Puritans and their differing views on “witches.”  Sue Friday of Berkley Friends Meeting in California points out that Friends during this time,

“…exhibited some diversity, though their distaste for theological speculation and argument allowed for greater unity.”

She goes on to point out that,

“The lay conception of magic and the occult in the 17th century was typically pragmatic. It was concerned with the ends achieved by ritual rather than the source of the power and ignored the potential conflicts with religion. Their conception of witchcraft was ambiguous since they were likely aware of an association with the Devil. But only when it was believed that magic was used to hurt, rather than divine the future or heal, did people demand that the perpetrators be punished for their malevolent actions.”

Since this was the conception of many, and Quakers were more diverse and seeking greater unity, the Puritans began to consider Quakers to also be witches. 

I sense if we did not take the time to clarify the context of our worship and my message from last year to the Africans, we too might have been labeled as witches for our advocacy and seeking unity.

Well, during the summer, after all of this was out of my mind and I was not thinking much about Thomas Maule, the Salem Witch Trials, or even the Quaker’s response, we received an email on our First Friends Webpage.  We often get inquiries through this page, and Beth and I work hard at responding to each of them. 

Many of the contacts are people who happened upon Quakers through our website or social media and simply want to know more. I have met people who have become regular attenders of First Friends, film directors, business people, academic researchers, and a variety of other interesting people. 

But on this occasion, Rebecca passed on an email from what seemed a familiar name – James Maule.  James wrote,

“I found Pastor Henry’s words when doing some family history research.  As you can tell from my surname, I have a particular interest in Thomas Maule, as he is my 7th – great-grandfather. I have written a biography about him, and your summary of his life is well done.”

He then asked me about some of my research and wanted to know what my sources were. This led to an entire day of correspondence with James Maule.  We shared several emails where I explained my research only to find that the works that I quoted were actually James’ research which he had done for the New England Historic Society.  Soon, James was sending me a bibliography of books and insights to other resources. He said there was a growing interest in Thomas Maule because of a renewed interest among Americans to understand the Salem Witch Trials. 

I was in research-nerd heaven. 

Then James shared with me that in 1996 he had written a biography of Thomas Maule, which included most of his known writings.  He told me that the biography was a response to requests from various relatives for reprints of Thomas Maule’s writing (this was back when the only way to see a copy was to go to one of a handful of libraries). 

This project grew and grew into a rather compressive book which James said he would send me when he returned to his home after a trip he was planning in the coming days. In a complete surprise, just before I went to bed that night, I received a message that James had put a copy of his book in the mail for me and I should receive it on Monday. 

Here is the copy of the book titled, “Better That 100 Witches Should Live” by James Edward Maule.

I have been slowly digesting this well-researched book and have found it so insightful.  James does an amazing job with documenting Thomas Maule’s original words and then summarizing them for a more modern reader.

In this book, James includes a chapter on Thomas Maule’s most controversial book, which happened to be titled (are you ready for this),

Truth Held Forth and Maintained According to the Testimony of the Holy Prophets, Christ, and His Apostles Recorded in the Holy Scriptures.

Now, that is a title, and how ironic since we have just spent several weeks looking at prophets. The book is actually a thorough defense of the Quaker Faith against the Puritan Faith in Thomas Maule’s time.  In 260 pages and 38 chapters Maule wrote his controversial treatise. He was clearly aiming his words at the Puritans and showing how his theological assertions as a Quaker contradicted their beliefs. For a Quaker this is a wildly doctrinal and dogmatic book. He went at everything from Sabbath to Baptism. 

But in chapter 29, he finally hits a sore spot for the Puritans as he decides to discuss witchcraft.  At the time, It was considered “the most interesting chapter of the book” and probably still is today. 

In this chapter James says that Thomas

“Maule then questions what would happen if sins other than witchcraft, such as false worship, adultery, and children’s rebellion were punished in the same manner. He concludes that the execution of two-thirds of the people would be required under Spiritual prescriptions, but cautions that none of the accused including those accused of witchcraft, should be executed, relying on Christ’s command to love one’s enemies.”

Yes, you heard that right, Thomas Maule compared witchcraft to children’s rebellion.  Think about that one. 

James goes on to explain that Thomas

“Maule suggest that perhaps some of those called witches were in trouble from other circumstances, things they might not otherwise believe, even to the extent of deluding themselves that they were witches and permitting themselves to be executed. He even suggests that persons who wanted to die but who faced the prohibitions against suicide would confess to being witches in order to be killed by others…

Maule even relates that some of the accused told him ‘that they were in trouble of mind’ and after being accused by the Specter, or Devil turned Informer, they felt ‘beside themselves’ and ‘out of their natural Understanding.’ After hearing that those who did not confess were executed, these accused were urged to confess themselves as witches and did so. 

Finally, Thomas Maule askes the big question,

“…how does one distinguish a witch from someone not a witch. His response is that divine wisdom is the key.”

I find it very interesting, that at this point Thomas Maule turns his treatise on considering the mistreatment of the Native people of the land. Which he labeled the “judgement after judgement” that befell New England. 

From what all we have learned in the past couple of months, Thomas Maule was a prophet in his time.  He sought kindness, justice, righteousness, and truth in our land and brought a message of warning, guidance, and social justice for all humanity.  And reading his book, he was both a radical and devout Quaker.

He also believed and taught that,

“A true church acknowledges its weaknesses and inabilities, but rather than remaining in a constant state of confessing sinfulness, its members accept God’s grace and do what is required of them by God.”

Returning to Thomas Maule with the help of his great-grandson to the 7th generation, I am still hearing his prophetic message for our time. 

I think we still have “witches” today and I am not talking about those who may use the term “witch” to express their interest in a Spirit realm or the many facets of a healing eco-spirituality which they acknowledge to be a sacred spring coming from Earth herself.  I know Quakers who also consider themselves witches in this sense, but I am not talking about them.

I am talking about the people we make out to be “witches” today.  That we torture, that we ridicule, that we make our enemy, that we lack an interest in hearing or knowing their story, and instead want to rid ourselves of their presence. We must ask ourselves, who are those people for us, today?

I think if Thomas Maule was around today, he might say the same thing he said to the Puritans to us about how we treat people from political parties we do not support. Could it be that we are just making a “witch” out of someone who votes different than us?  Just ponder our words and actions about our leaders, they too sound familiar.  I think I have heard the name Nancy Pelosi or Hilary Clinton given the label “witch” and in the same sentence a hope for them to be burnt at the stake. As well, on January 6th we saw some folks bring a lynching stand to the capitol to hang Mike Pence. So, not only do we do this to each other, but we do this to our leaders as well.

Or maybe we make the disabled, the neuro-diverse, the elderly, the homeless, the foreigner into our “witches” – wishing they would simply be removed from us or at least out of our site to make us more comfortable and even more successful.   

I KNOW we have made witches of the LGBTQ community. That is a fact. A couple of weeks ago, my family and I visited the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. There I was reminded of what happened back on Oct. 6, 1998, which I believe began to get our attention in this nation regarding LGBTQ people. That was the night Matthew Wayne Shepherd, a gay American student at the University of Wyoming was beaten, tortured, and left to die. I remember watching the news and being horrified by this act of violence.

Or let’s go a little further back to December of 1984 when 13-year-old Ryan White was diagnosed with Aids here in Indiana. The outcome had many turning Ryan, in our state and around the world, into a “witch” on national television. Some literally wanted him to die because they did not understand what was going on, that Aids was not just a gay disease or God’s judgement. Ryan White was the lightening rod of Puritans who completely missed what was going on.    

39 years later Friends Abby and Dr. Jason White here at First Friends are still trying to get our attention so that we don’t make the LGBTQ community into our modern-day “witches” by helping us be more aware, welcoming, knowledgable and ultimately allies instead of destructive in our word and actions.  

And like Thomas Maule who was realizing this about the mistreatment of Native Peoples, we must look at our xenophobia, our racism, our misogyny and ask ourselves how we are still making “witches” of people that are no different than us.   

I am sure I have missed some grouping in this, but I think you get the point. Thomas Maule is still speaking to our condition on this day, Oct. 29, 2023.

We need to consider our Puritan ways and ask ourselves who we make out to be “witches” in our lives. 

So, as we enter waiting worship this morning. I ask you to ponder the following queries:

1.     Who are the people I treat like “witches” in my life?

2.     How could or does my prophetic voice or action speak up for someone being treated as a “witch” in our society, today?

3.     How might I accept God’s grace and do what the Divine requires of me? 

10-22-23 - Surprising People in Unexpected Times and Places

Surprising People in Unexpected Times and Places

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

October 22, 2023

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections.  Our scripture for this morning is more of a summary of my message and is used to support what I am saying.  The scripture comes from 1 Peter 4:10-11a in The Voice translation.  

Use whatever gift you’ve received for the good of one another so that you can show yourselves to be good stewards of God’s grace in all its varieties. 11 If you’re called upon to talk, speak as though God put the words in your mouth; if you’re called upon to serve others, serve as though you had the strength of God behind you.

This morning, I am concluding my series of messages on the biblical prophets that were inspired by my Friend Howard Macy’s book, “Befriending the Prophets.”  Let me quickly do a recap of where we have been over the last 6 weeks.

On Kick Off Sunday we began by looking at some of the misconceptions we have of the biblical prophets, as well as, how we ALL share an identity with the prophets. Realizing that in the end,

The world needs more disturbing people who can envision the wonders of life together that God intends for us, people who can see through and call out the ways we corrupt that life, people who can teach us how to walk in God’s ways. 

Week two, I brought my big and little “stir sticks” and we discussed “stirring appropriately.” That when we feel lead to speak, act, or engage prophetically in our circles of influence, and as we become visible signs that God is here, that God cares, and that God is actively working to renew wholeness (shalom) in all of creation, we must remember to season all things with patience, kindness and love, then listen deeply to the Spirit within us, finally stirring appropriately (sometimes it will be in small ways and other times it will be in much bigger ways) – but most importantly we must remember to stir it up!

In week three, I shared about my grandfather’s prophetic influence on me, and we pondered how often our ventures in this world are not prophetic because we have simply bought into boasting about correct knowledge, might, and wealth instead of becoming God-enthralled and delighting in kindness, justice, and moral (righteous) living.

In week four, we looked at the biblical prophets’ similar vision of living together in ways that make for peace (shalom). And to live as a community of peace means we would need to turn from our ways and learn the ways of God which again are righteousness, social justice, loving kindness, and truth.

In week six, Beth had us looking at the prophet Jonah about how he ran from the call because he did not want God to save Ninevah. The reality was that the people of Ninveah were enemies of Israel and God was going to save them. Beth then had us wrestle with how we embrace a God of ultimate inclusiveness?

Finally last week, I had us look at how we are to be experienced listeners AND speakers of the “word of God” within our hearts in our own unique and special ways.

So, this morning, I want to conclude these messages by trying to help us see how God often chooses surprising people in unexpected times and places to speak to our condition and even change our world. 

Friend Craig Barnett from Britain Yearly Meeting points out that as modern Quakers, we are still drawing on the deep spiritual visions of prophets such as George Fox, Lucretia Mott, and John Woolman, and we could name several more from our past. And often we expand those historical prophets to include people of the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, and I could name many more. 

But I too probably am at fault for spending too much time looking at our past and missing what is happening in the present moment. 

Think about who are the prophets among Quakers today. I did a google search – it took me a couple of times to get the algorithm to work for me, but even then my search resulted in 20 people who were dead and 5 that were alive.  And you have probably heard of many of these 25, but the ones you can experience in-person or in the flesh, today, you could count on one hand.

The five included 2 people alive in our actual yearly meeting – Brent Bill and Phil Gulley.  And there was also a couple other alive Quakers like theologian Pink Dandelion, Actress Judi Dench (which I wasn’t sure should be on this list), and for the first time Quaker YouTube sensation, Jessica Kellgren-Fozard who a couple of our new people here at First Friends found before exploring us as their community of faith. 

Otherwise, the other 20 people were dead and a huge majority of them have been dead for many years.  Not saying their prophetic voices have died, just that they were speaking to a past generation of Quakers.

As American Quakers we have been and continue to be nourished by the prophetic ministry and witness of many Friends, not just in the 17th Century but throughout our history. I think we clearly have contemporary prophets among us today (and as good Quakers they probably would not agree with being given that label) but I think they have been voices that have spoken to our condition and helped return us to what delights God. I am thinking of people that I hope to one day get a chance of introducing you to, like Noah Baker, Ashley Wilcox, C. Wess Daniels, Emily Provance, and I would include Cherice Bock, Max Carter, and Colin Saxton who you may have met at our Yearly Meeting Sessions.

But still, all these people I mentioned are part of the greater gathering of Friends, but they are not always those closest to us or who can speak into our life, directly.

Actually, none of the people I mentioned so far are or were part of Indianapolis First Friends – our community of faith. 

Maybe we should begin to look around, be more aware, and identify who are the prophets in our midst right here at First Friends? 

I agree with Friend Craig Barnett that,  

“Each generation needs new prophetic voices, to speak to its condition, both to criticize and to energize their community and the wider society with a 'prophetic imagination' that opens up new possibilities.”

If we are genuinely called to be a prophetic community perhaps we need to ask ourselves how we can become more receptive to the prophetic voices in our Meeting. How we can nurture and support Friends who are being led to minister the message of the Spirit for our times - especially younger Friends.

Do you know some of the most prophetic voices in our Meeting are heard during the children’s message?

Our children, with their simple but often profound, honest, even at times bold but authentic words speak to the depth of our condition. I know they often speak to mine. They remind us as Christ did that our faith should be like that of a child.  Sometimes, I don’t even think my message is necessary after they speak because their words have said what was needed to be said.

The kids are a prime example of how God can use surprising people at unexpected times to be prophetic in our community. 

I know I have mentioned Stella before, but she is a prophet in our midst as she dances in the aisle and reminds us how everyone is welcome in this place – and she uses no words to share her prophetic voice in our midst.   

At the end of the summer when Shelby Nation shared her saxophone talents with us during worship, she chose the song, “Oh Happy Day” not knowing that during the previous week that fires in Maui would consume an entire community and that I would be talking about sitting with the darkness of life. Again, I sensed that instrumental version of the song Shelby played and Eric accompanied was a prophetic song of comfort and healing – it even became our benediction that Sunday to send us out. 

I remember on many occasions when our dear Friend Linda Lee shared a poem in Meeting for Worship, often it spoke a universal message to each of us about our spiritual journeys – and today her partner, Ed, has continued that prophetic voice of hers through our Linda Lee Spiritual Retreat. 

How many of you have been told “I love you” by Liam (formerly Erin) Tinsley.  Almost every Sunday, Liam comes in and gives me a big hug and tells me that they love me.  That is persistence, and we could easily dismiss it, but I believe it is a prophetic voice in our midst reminding us to see and love everyone.

Even though it can be, the prophetic in our midst does not have to take the typical form of a message or of speaking out of the silence.  It can also come in a variety of unexpected and surprising ways - a child’s honesty, a dance of joy, an instrumental song with deep healing power, a poem or retreat, even a simple hug and the words “I love you.”  

Howard Macy concludes his book “Befriending the Prophets” with a chapter titled, “Beyond Cranky” which alludes to the fact that many think prophets to be loud, cranky and even curmudgeonly, but folks that is not the case.  It reminds me of when Eric Baker spoke out of the silence earlier in this series and said his view of a prophet was a loud person holding a sign on the corner warning of the end times. Maybe that is what the movies have taught us to see or what we have come to expect because we weren’t looking deep enough.

I believe God is using surprising people in unexpected ways in our lives all the time to speak into our lives.  The question is are our eyes open to see them, to hear them, to receive their prophetic messages. 

If there is one thing Howard has taught me through his book, and hopefully, I have conveyed it in this series is that we ALL have the potential of being prophetic voices in our community of faith and in a plethora of ways. 

Whether it is a prophetic warning or teaching, an opportunity for guidance, or stirring words or actions of hope, comfort, and even restoration – each of us in our own unique way has something to offer this community.

So, in conclusion, the poet Mary Oliver may have written the best definition of what it means to be a prophet in our time. She writes simply,

“Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.”

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

1.     How often have I looked to the past for prophetic guidance while missing the prophets in my midst?

2.     Who are the prophets at First Friends that have spoken to my condition?

3.     How am I utilizing my unique prophetic voice for the benefit of my community?  Are there reasons I have not shared? 

10-15-23 - Experienced Listening and Speaking

Experienced Listening and Speaking

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

October 15, 2023

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. This morning I am continuing my sermon series on the biblical prophets based on Howard Macy’s book, “Befriending the Prophets.”  The scripture I have chosen this week is Amos 7:14-15 from the New Revised Standard Version.  

Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet nor a prophet’s son, but I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”

Sue and I spent a few years among folks who used the term charismatic to describe themselves when we were just starting our family.  That terminology was difficult to define, and I had a plethora of people who always wanted to define it for me.  Interestingly, one of the definitions in the Merriam-Webster dictionary for charismatic (in the religious sense) is “one who is inspired by God.” Ironically, this is also how one often describes a prophet.

Looking back over my life and especially my 28 years in professional ministry, I have had a lot of people who were sure that they were inspired by God, or as we might say among Friends, “moved by the Spirit” to share some word or call to action.  I too have felt this leading on occasion.

Some of the people who have spoken into my life have been spot on and others have been way off.  Some I would say were prophetic in my life, and others not so much.  Some people have shared words that were for a moment or time in my life and others became a wild goose chase or dead-end street – or they seemed so preposterous that in my heart I knew there was something wrong.

Sue and I had a person once give us a word from God in a time of prayer. She said that while she was praying, she saw “French Doors.” She did not know what it meant, but that when we saw the “French Doors” we would know we were in the right place. We have lived in quite a few  places since that time, and we have never owned a house with “French Doors.” Does that mean we are not in the right place? Should we look for a house with French Doors? 

Sue and I have also had fellow pastors and their spouses tell us that God told them we were following the devil because we were leaving their church and ministry to pursue a new ministry.  Was that the case, or did they just want to make us feel bad for leaving? 

Even my best man at our wedding said God told him that I was entering a slippery slope when I decided to head back to get my master’s degree at a school that was not a part of our denomination. He even said that I was bound to lose my faith if I went there and would probably no longer be his friend.  Since that day, I can count the times I have heard from him on one hand.

I was even told by a person in my last Quaker Meeting that God told them I needed to be saved – that person even tried to lay hands on me and pray for my salvation during waiting worship and it was shut down by the others gathered that morning.

Or there was that time, I was caught unaware by a complete stranger at a coffee house in Silverton, Oregon.

Upon entering, I grabbed a cup of coffee and proceeded to set up my computer and get out a couple books that I wanted to work through on this early morning.  And then, out of the blue, the man sitting next to me asked about the book I was reading and proceeded to question if it taught people about “Alternative Lifestyles.”

“What? I thought that was a kind of odd thing to ask. What a weird turn of events and an unusual question. I was even more taken aback since the book had nothing to do with that topic. I stood there, kind of holding the book and saying, “This one?”  I tried to laugh it off, and move on, but the person became persistent and began to raise his voice.

He then dropped a word he said he had received from God for me. He looked me in the eye and not knowing me from Adam said, “God has shown me that you and your church are an abomination to this community.” 

Wow, now there is a loaded theological word. I asked him if he knew what that word meant.  I had been called a heretic, a follower of the devil, even unbiblical, but not an abomination. Once I realized I was not going to get anywhere with this guy, who continued to preach at me what he called the “word of God,” I decided to gather my stuff, ask for my coffee to go, and head back to my office. He followed me out the door in the utter shock of the coffee house manager and customers.  

Later, I would find that he was meeting with a group of men for a study at the same coffee shop on Fridays, my day off.  A man from my meeting who was struggling with the same-sex debate was a part of this group and decided to share his anger and assumed it was my teaching that had brought this division in our Meeting and Yearly Meeting. I found out later, that the man that engaged me was sent by this group to let me know I was going to ruin the community of Silverton -- because clearly, I and my church was an abomination to God for loving ALL people. 

This God of Love that I believed in, the one that the prophets believed embodied kindness, justice, righteousness, and truth, I was pretty sure, was not the God who had sent this message through this angry man.   

Actually, when I think about it, the strongest messages from God that I have received were ones that did not have someone start with the words, “God has given me a word for you…”.

And most of the ones that have panned out and have been legit have come through people who have invested in me, who have known me, and who were part of my context and community. 

Last week I met someone for coffee who wanted to talk about Quakerism, and in our conversation, he mentioned that he often heard from God. At one point he stopped and clarified saying, “But I would not say that it was God or Jesus speaking to me to just anyone.” He felt safe with me as a pastor, but for most people, he said he would not explain his leading in this way, because it might turn someone off or not allow them to hear what God was doing through him. 

Just think about Jesus, after speaking in his own hometown, he is run out by his own neighbors, family, and friends. Why did they get so upset, because a prophet lives within and with a  community and is able to speak to their condition.

In the south they have a phrase when a preacher does just this.  They say, “He stopped preaching and went to meddlin’”.  He could push their buttons. When you know people intimately, it is much easier to get to the core issues, address the problems, or also see the opportunities and callings.  

Some churches catch on to this and begin to say, “I think the pastor has run his/her course at our church. He/she might want to move on or consider retiring.”  And that might be true, or it might be that the pastor has begun speaking more directly to their condition.   

Some say today with our mega-churches and entertainment-based ministries we are creating live entertainment worship venues that have no depth, meaning, or real community.  As one of my neighbors said who attends the mega-church right behind my neighborhood, “I like to slip in, listen to the music, hear a good word from the pastor, and get out before the traffic jam – oh, and it’s great I don’t even have to talk to anyone.”  This is exactly why churches like this have seen lower attendance since Covid.  Since it is mainly entertainment value, anyway, why not stay home in your pajamas and watch it on your couch. 

Folks, this is what is different for us at First Friends. We value community – it is one of our testimonies and S.P.I.C.E.S, it is important for us to gather together, to listen to each other, to laugh, cry, experience life together, share responsibility and accountability, let our kids play with each other, and hear what God is speaking to our condition as a community. 

Something that Howard Macy points out in “Befriending the Prophets” is that the prophets were experienced listeners. Not only did they seek to know what God desired and delighted in, but they waited expectantly and listened intently for what was of God. And they did this within the community in which they lived. 

This is why I chose the scripture reading from Amos this morning.  It shows that Amos was just a member of the community – he was a herdsman and dresser of sycamore trees. But the Lord told him to go prophesy to his own faith community.  He was part of the community or family of Israel. 

This is very much the model for us here at First Friends – we too are a community or family of faith. And this is what we do when we gather in waiting or unprogrammed worship. We silence and center ourselves, entering a time of waiting worship, to intentionally listen to what God is speaking to our condition.

That is why every Meeting for Worship at First Friends has a good amount of waiting worship or is completely unprogrammed. And during this time, we listen to our Inner Christ and that of God in our neighbors, that is if they decide to share in a vocal ministry. And then we test or act upon what is being said within our community. 

What comes forth out of these times of expectant waiting should be things that delight the Lord – things that are kind, seeking justice for ALL people, righteous or moral in nature, and grounded in truth. And when they do, great things happen, bonds are formed, action is taken, community is built, and our world is changed. 

So, when we come together, and a person among us senses the “quaking” bubbling up from within them. Our role is to be like the prophets and be experienced listeners.  

Sometimes people are nervous when sharing and even have a hard time sharing, or they share in an awkward way, or in a tone or from a perspective we may find confusing or just don’t like. 

Again, we must become experienced listeners. It may not be clear at the moment. We may even question this is the word of God for us all. We may even be quick to say, “Well, that is just that person’s agenda or soapbox.”  But if we are not listening, we may miss the message. 

Howard makes a clarification that I feel is very important about what the “word” means in the phrase, the “word of God.”  He says,

The Hebrew word dabar is very ordinary and is typically used to mean “word, thing, affair, something,” subject to its particular context.  So, we might rightly think of the phrase “word of God” in a particular oracle as referring to the content, the message, the expression of what God is doing.  But we need not read it “words of God” in the narrow sense that each word is spoken exactly by God, which leads mistakenly to seeing this process as dictation. Some find comfort in the narrower reading, but most interpreters recognize that various prophetic writers/speakers had different literary styles, vocabulary, and more.  That is, they reveal individuality and craft.

I think that is what we see within our community of faith at First Friends.  People are not simply getting up and saying, “I have a word from the Lord for you.” But they may be helping us get a better picture of it through their own perspectives and life experiences. 

And as we listen, instead of writing off people or discounting them because of what we may know about them, we should be listening intently to what the Spirit has moved in them to say. 

Howard goes on to explain this further by explaining the phrase, “mystery of collaboration.”  He says,

God is involved guiding a message (perhaps you prefer “inspiring a message”) and the writer [speaker] is listening and crafting that message.  It might flow, it might resist, it might come in bits or all at once.  And in the process, there may well be moments when the writer [speaker] wonders, where did that word/phrase/image/tune come from? Yet in the attention and struggle along with the surprises of it, a message to share comes clear.

Folks, we are human vessels of this “word of God” within our context and community – just like the prophets we read of in the Bible.  And that means we have a two-fold calling as Friends in this community.  We must become experienced listeners to both that of God in us and in our neighbor, and also be willing to speak up or act upon that word for the sake of our community.   

I don’t know how many times, people tell me after worship, “I really felt led to speak out of the silence, today, but I didn’t?”

·        What if what they were going to say would be a prophetic word to this community – and we missed that opportunity? 

·        What if what they were going to say would give us a greater vision of what God is doing or could be doing in our midst? 

·        What if what they were going to say would spark the call or change the course of someone else’ life? 

I could go on, but I think you get the gist of what I am saying. So today, as we enter waiting worship, I want us to really listen both to that of God within us, and if someone speaks out of the silence, to that of God in them.  And remember if you feel you are being led by the Spirit to share a word of God – consider the community in which you are sharing it.  Don’t be like those people who just want to throw their judgements or God words around, but rather share it so we can be challenged and drawn into a better relationship with that of God within us and our fellow Friends.  Ask yourself this morning:

·        How might I become a more experienced listener in my community?

·        Have I ever felt I had a “word of God,” but I did not share it?  Why?

10-8-23 - Jonah – The Successful Prophet that is Disappointed in God’s Grace - Beth Henricks

Jonah – The Successful Prophet that is Disappointed in God’s Grace

Jonah 3:1-10, 4:1-2

Rediscovering Jonah by Timothy Keller

A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament by Bruce, Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terrence Fretheim, David Peterson

Jonah The Reluctant Prophet Monologue by Rabbi Brett Krichiver

Friends, I am here with you today as Bob and Sue are traveling to Austin Texas this weekend to visit their son Alex.  Over the last few weeks, Bob has been speaking and we have been hearing and reflecting on the role of prophets and our challenge to respond to a call from God when we hear it.  Today, I want to delve more deeply into one of the prophets in the Old Testament, Jonah.  I think most of us have heard some version of this story as Jonah is the prophet that was swallowed by a whale, spent 3 days in the whale’s belly and was finally spit out onto the shore.  All this because Jonah didn’t want to be this prophet to go to Ninevah with the word of God to repent. 

A few years ago, I heard Brett Krichiver, Rabbi at the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation.  He shared a message about the prophet Jonah and I was taken by his words.  He mentioned the story of the prophet Jonah as a sacred text read during Yom Kippur every year that focuses on repentance.  Brett talked about Jonah as a fascinating character in the Old Testament who was afraid of God’s call and ran away because he didn’t want to be successful in his message of prophecy to the people of Ninevah.   This was not what I remembered from this story as I always thought Jonah ran away and was swallowed by a fish because he knew how difficult the call was from God and didn’t want to face it and was afraid.  So, this idea that Jonah ran because he was afraid of being successful intrigued me and I was interested in digging deeper to understand its message.

Most of you have heard the story of Jonah from Sunday School.  How God told Jonah to go to the people of Ninevah and tell them to repent and turn towards God.  Jonah doesn’t want to do this and instead gets on a ship with other sailors, and they experience a tremendous storm on the sea.  The sailors have a meeting to figure out who on this ship is causing this storm and all eyes are on Jonah.  They don’t know him, where he comes from or what God he serves.  Jonah says he is a Hebrew and worships the Lord God.  He knows his disobedience is the cause of the storm and he tells the sailors to throw him overboard.  The sailors are scared to death of dying at the sea and yet they also don’t want the blood of an innocent man on their hands.  They begin to franticly row to shore but the storm is too intense, and they make no progress.  At this point, Jonah either jumps in or is thrown into the storming seas.

A whale swallows Jonah whole and he stays in the belly of the fish for 3 days.  The fish then vomits Jonah onto dry land.  God calls out again to Jonah to get up and go to Ninevah and speak repentence to the people.  Jonah reluctantly makes the journey and declares Ninevah will be destroyed if they don’t repent. His prophecy is undoubtedly the most efficient prophecy on record, if we measure the amount of behavior change based on the number of words spoken.  Jonah’s prophecy, in Hebrew, is only five words long: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be destroyed.

 Surprisingly all the people and the leaders and the King ask for repentance and turn to God.  And God decides to spare Ninevah.  Jonah is not happy about this decision and is mad at God and sits at the edge of town waiting to see what happens to the city.  God made a bush to come over to shade Jonah and he was thankful to be out of the hot sun.  But then God sent a worm that attacks the bush, and it withers and dies.  Jonah just wants to die.   God says to Jonah in the last verse of the book, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night.  And should I not be concerned about Ninevah, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left.”

To give some context to help us better understand this story, most scholars believe this book was written in the post-exile period (after 539 BCE).  In the book A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament authors Bruce Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terrence Fretheim and David Peterson agree with the description of post-exile period because the people of Yahweh could return to places they had been forced to leave earlier in the century.  But the post exile period has never ended because the Jewish community had been spread out to so many places after the Babylonian exile far outside of their original land.  The diaspora of the community was far reaching.  There were many questions they were asking themselves.   Who are God’s people when they live in such disparate places?   How should Israel organize itself to be Israel?  Does Israel desire a King (or submit to the authorities in the places they live) or a Messiah, a spiritual leader to be anointed?  Must they worship only Yaheweh as they lived among many communities with multiple Gods.  Do they have to be born into the community or can they convert to it?  The Jonah story appears within the context of this wrestling with identity in the Jewish community.

Jonah is a great example of satire, and the writer identifies Jonah as an anti-hero, a reluctant prophet, a prophet that did not follow God’s leadings, ran away from the call, became angry at God with the outcome and yet God still is able to use him. 

The book of Jonah is very different than the other prophetic books which focused on repentance of Israel and Judah. Most of them had little success to turn the Hebrews away from their wickedness and back to their covenantal obligation to God.  Jonah on the other hand is sent to the people of Ninevah, non-Hebrews, who were known to be evil and ruthless and enemies of Israel.  He was able with few words to turn the entire community and leaders to God. What a contrast to see Jonah’s success with the people of Ninevah versus the other prophets and their failure to change the hearts and minds of the kings of Jerusalem.

This is a book about God’s justice and mercy and mystery. God would save the wicked city of Gentiles in Ninevah and yet allow the temple to be destroyed in Jerusalem.  In the NRSV commentary it says, “ In this story we encounter a God who is indeed concerned about social justice but who, in the mystery of God’s ways, permits the sovereignty of the divine heart to overrule the requirements of divine justice.”

 Jonah is such an unlikely prophet – most prophets offer insight, foresight, predictions, compassion and courage.  Jonah does not encompass any of these characteristics.  He also operates without energy and without initiative, he seems passive and willing to die when things don’t go his way. 

It also seems like Jonah’s faith is not as deep as his allegiance to his race and nationality.  This story leaves us with so many more questions than answers.  But it seems to speak at its deepest level that God is a God of mercy and compassion and embraces individuals and communities beyond what is comfortable with us.  Some of these people and communities we don’t like, we don’t agree with, are different than we are, not part of our tribe, and we believe are evil.  And God saves them!

Jesus references Jonah in Matthew 12:38-41 when scribes and Pharisees asked for a sign from Jesus. He says the sign given is from the prophet Jonah.  Jesus connected the 3 days Jonah spent in the belly of the fish with the 3 days that the Son of man will be in the heart of the earth.  And the people of Ninevah repented at the prophecy of Jonah and Jesus then tells the scribes and Pharisees that they are seeing something greater than Jonah in front of them.  Jesus is connecting his ministry to those that are not Jewish and revealing the immense reach of God’s love and mercy.

I like what Tim Keller says in his book, Discovering Jonah, “Is this book about race and nationalism, since Jonah seems to be more concerned over his nation’s military security than over a city of spiritually lost people?  Is it about God’s call to mission, since Jonah at first flees from the call and later goes but regrets it?  Is it about the struggles believers have to obey and trust in God?  Yes, to all of those – and more.  A mountain of scholarship exists about the book of Jonah that reveals the richness of the story, the many layers of meaning, and the varied applicability of it to so much of human life and thought.”  “The book of Jonah yields many insights about God’s love for societies and people beyond the community of believers; about God’s opposition to toxic nationalism and disdain for other races; and about how to be in mission in the world despite the subtle and unavoidable power of idolatry in our own lives and hearts.”

I want to close by reading a part of a monologue that Rabbi Brett gave several years ago taking on the role of this complex and multidimensional character Jonah,

At first, I ran.  For the centuries that followed I have asked myself this single question – what was I running from?  Did I honestly believe that God could not follow?  Could not see?  Did I imagine it was possible to hide?  But I ran.  Perhaps I ran to something more than I was running from God.  Away from the Land of Israel, certainly, but towards the sea, towards freedom, justice?  I don’t know what.

But I knew in that moment it was justice I sought.  Not talk or sermons or explanations or riddles.  I wanted cold, hard and deserved justice.  The hatred swelled up inside of me like a stone, heavy and cold until I could not contain it.

Here’s the thing.  Last night I had a strange dream.  I dreamt the future.  I saw that these Assyrians who rule Nineveh now,
will one day destroy my people and take the Temple.  And God asks me to give those people the same chance of redemption that Israel would receive?   Something inside me just broke.  As a young man I tried to follow the commandments as best I could.  I heard the passion of the prophets and I wished to be as strong and courageous and clear.  I waited patiently when the day would come, I would be called myself, as the prophets of old were called, to fulfill my destiny and speak in God’s name.

So, when this dream came, I knew it was time.  I knew that God would not let this terrible tragedy come upon God’s beloved people.  I knew that Nineveh would be punished.  Could it be, I thought, that I would have the great honor of saving my people by cursing the Ninevites?

“The word of God came to Jonah  and said, ‘Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim judgement upon it; for their wickedness has come before Me.”

          I started to pack almost immediately.  I knew this journey would be difficult, Nineveh is a very large city, the King not known for treating guests politely.  I would likely be captured, even tortured.   These are not Israelites, I reminded myself.  They do not have the same, special relationship with God, the same ritual of Teshuvah, I doubted they would even be smart enough to hear God’s word if I shouted it at them.

          But something stopped me suddenly. My half-packed bag dropped from my hand.   Suspicion grew in my head and suddenly I grew dizzy.  If God wanted to destroy a city, certainly he would not send a prophet at all.  I know the Torah; I have studied it my entire life.  I remember the tale of Abraham and his cousin Lot.  I know that God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and stopped only to inform Abraham of his Divine plan.  There was no announcement, no way for them to escape justice.  Only Lot in his righteousness was spared.  And even then, they had to sneak him out moments before Judgement Day arrived.

          Why would God give these non-Chosen, temple destroying, Assyrians even a moment’s notice before wiping them off the earth?  And why must I be there when it happens?  Something just didn’t add up, and before I knew it, my bag still only half-packed, my feet took me away from Nineveh, away from Jerusalem, away from my homeland and God’s special chosen place, running towards the sea, running away from God.

          Sometime along the way these words formed in my head, “I will not stand by and watch Jerusalem’s captors kneel and bow down before my God.  I will not offer them a chance to repent and be forgiven.  I will protect my people.  I will show God that He can’t just go around forgiving everyone.  I will remind God that there is true evil in the world, and it deserves to be punished.  This is the justice I demand of God; I deserve that much!”

Friends, we enter our time of unprogrammed worship which is our Quaker communion.  We enter in silence to quiet our hearts and minds to listen to God’s voice.  If God is speaking to you directly, please hold this in your heart and ponder its meaning.  If God is placing a message that we all need to hear, please come to a microphone here in the front or back and share with us.  As we reflect, I ask you to consider this story and your place in the narrative with these queries. 

Are we like the Ninevites, ready to listen to God’s word and change our ways?

Or are we like Jonah, demanding justice for others even as we plead for mercy for ourselves.

What prophecy is God calling to you today?

10-1-23 - They All Had the Same Vision – Peace

They All Had the Same Vision – Peace

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

October 1, 2023

Good morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. This week I continue my series on the biblical prophets.  The scripture I have chosen is from Romans 12:9-18 from the Common English Bible.

Love should be shown without pretending. Hate evil and hold on to what is good. Love each other like the members of your family. Be the best at showing honor to each other. Don’t hesitate to be enthusiastic—be on fire in the Spirit as you serve the Lord! Be happy in your hope, stand your ground when you’re in trouble, and devote yourselves to prayer. Contribute to the needs of God’s people, and welcome strangers into your home. Bless people who harass you—bless and don’t curse them. Be happy with those who are happy, and cry with those who are crying. Consider everyone as equal, and don’t think that you’re better than anyone else. Instead, associate with people who have no status. Don’t think that you’re so smart. Don’t pay back anyone for their evil actions with evil actions, but show respect for what everyone else believes is good. If possible, to the best of your ability, live at peace with all people.

In February of 2009, I was attending a campus ministries conference in Los Angeles. The conference was held at Rancho Capistrano, at the time this was the Retreat Center for the Crystal Cathedral – yes, the mega-church television ministry that hosted Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power each Sunday while I was growing up.  Today, the retreat center is owned by another mega-church ministry, Saddleback Church, where Rick Warren and his bestselling “Purpose Driven Life” books were birthed.

At the conference, I was sitting at a table at dinner time sharing pleasantries with other campus ministers from across the United States, when we broke out into a discussion on theology. This was a common theme among ministers serving a variety of denominational colleges and universities. I had recently begun my doctoral program at George Fox Evangelical Seminary (now Portland Seminary) and was talking about my exploration in African American spirituality and the theologies we saw during the Civil Rights Movement in America. I shared that I had written a paper on Gandhi’s influence on Martin Luther King Jr.’s Spirituality during the Civil Rights movement which brought a lot of questions and discussion. 

It was out of this conversation that the rest of my night changed course. Sitting across from me was Terry McGonigal, a veteran campus minister from Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. I did not know Terry that well, but he was hanging on every word I shared.  Finally, he could not contain himself anymore and shared that he was working on his PhD and thought I should read part of his dissertation which he titled, “If You Only Knew What Would Bring Peace: Shalom Theology as the Biblical Foundation for Diversity.”

Wow, that title piqued my interest, but since we weren’t as tech savvy as we are today, he actually had to send it to me when he returned to his office after the conference. Wanting to glean as much as I could from Terry, for the rest of the night and into the early hours of the morning, me and a couple other interested theology nerds talked Shalom Theology with Terry.  It was clear that he considered Shalom the nucleus of the Bible. He drew me in when he spent about 5 minutes showing us how everything in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation was pointing to Peace or Shalom.

Terry was the one to first show me how each of the prophets, even though they talked of destruction and God’s disappointment in the people, would ultimately find their way to Shalom. That once you get through the poetic rhetoric of repentance, destruction, and God’s wrath, the final outcome they were presenting was a world at peace with God and one another. 

A few years later, Terry’s work on Shalom Theology would find a prominent place in my doctoral dissertation’s biblical chapter.  There I would spend an entire section on what I called “Shalom Prophesied.”  I even opened the section by saying,

“Often we think of the minor prophets of the Old Testament as harbingers of judgment and gloom…[BUT]…If you are careful in your reading, you will see in each a prophetic word of God’s desire to restore this world and his people to shalom.”

I then went through the prophets one by one and showed this common focus on peace, something that was foreign to me and actually would, later down the road, change the course of my theological thinking.  When you make the outcome peace in the present, instead of heaven or hell later, the Bible opens up in new ways. It also paints a different picture of Jesus – who we interestingly title the “Prince of Peace.” 

Much of this is due to what Howard Macy labels the “world God intends.”  Listen to what Howard says in “Befriending the Prophets.” 

The prophets offer soaring images of the world God intends. Isaiah describes a reign of peace without limit, where justice and righteousness prevail. He also looks to a time when nations will stream to hear God’s teaching and will beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning tools.  Amos calls on Israel to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an over-flowing stream. Israel’s singers join in the vision, using words that often accompany each other in the prophets: “Faithful love and truth have met; righteousness and peace have kissed. Truth springs up from the ground; righteousness gazes down from heaven. Such grand words encourage us and inspire hope.

The prophets warned of what the people of their day were making of the world, and they made it clear they were destroying or getting in the way of what God intended.  Thus, they packaged their messages in big words like repentance, redemption, and restoration. 

Instead of using big religious words, we might say it a little “more frank,” today.   

·        What the hell are you doing?

·        Do you realize the consequences of your actions?

·        Do you notice how this is affecting you and those around you? Do you care?

·        What are you going to do about this?

·        How is this going to bring peace? 

I am sure as I just read those “more frank” ways of saying what the prophets were trying to convey that you heard those words through someone in your life?

Maybe a parent or relative, a teacher or mentor, even a close friend.  I bet it even possibly churned up an emotional response.  Maybe you even had an image of a finger pointing in your direction or a disappointed face staring you down.  And I bet you could feel your reluctance to answering or responding in the core of your being. These types of messages are very difficult to hear and respond to, because they speak to the depths of our condition.  

Now, you can understand why the prophets were run out of town.  Take away all the religious words and put it in plain language and this was tough stuff. 

On that note, let me take you on a brief walk through some of the prophets and what they were trying to say.

The prophet Hosea was calling for people to turn from their ways that had gotten way out of control, so far that people had begun to sacrifice humans and follow false idols.  Hosea cries out, “What are you doing? You have got to stop this.”  And while Hosea is freaking out, God reminds him to tell them about the promise.  And Hosea comes around to reminding them that God wants to free them, that death is not the answer, but that he wants them to return to shalom and peace with one another.  

The prophet Joel also wants his people to turn from their ways, but reminds them that if they do, they will see restoration, renewal, blessing and ultimately peace.

The prophet Amos took a slightly different approach by emphasizing social justice as the true expression of piety and says the change that needs to come is to turn from your ways and turn to simpler living and being mindful of social justice. God’s word in Amos 5:11-25 reads,

Seek me and live....You trample on the poor and force them to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them...You deprive the poor of justice in the courts.... Seek good, not evil, that you may live.... Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-falling stream...

Through Amos, God decries those who make a practice of skimping on the measure of goods for sale to the poor, “cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat...” (Amos 8:6).

The prophets are calling for their siblings in the faith to turn from these ways – this is not turning to faith in God, but it is a call to stop cheating people and treating them dishonest and start caring for one another, especially those in need.  And when they start doing that, then Amos says they will restore shalom (Peace) and be transformed.

The prophet Obadiah, much like Jeremiah, states boldly,  “As you have done, it will be done to you.” But if they realize what they are doing, they too can find the peace that God intends.

After running from God, the prophet Jonah goes to Nineveh where, as a result of his preaching, the people and their king actually turn from their ways and peace is restored to the land. This becomes a perfect example of what God intends.  And in this example, we all can probably relate to Jonah in not wanting to be the one to speak up and say what needed to be said. In the end he answered the call and Jonah was shocked at the outcome of shalom in Nineveh.

The prophet Micah spoke directly to the people about having a new attitude and lifestyle of peace…where they will stop their fighting and wars and actually beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.   

The prophet Nahum prophesies as a contemporary of Zephaniah and the young Jeremiah. He, like Jonah addressed Nineveh, saying it would fall if it did not change its ways. Yet he too in the end gives hope for a restoration to shalom.

The prophet Habakkuk begs for shalom in his cries to the Lord;

“How long, O Lord, must I call for help but you do not listen?... Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?...” (Habakkuk 1:3).

“Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?...” (1:13).  

I can relate to Habakkuk – those are queries I too have asked, but in the end he too shares God’s plan not only to restore peace, but to teach the people to know the Lord’s ways – which as I showed last week were, kindness, justice, and righteousness (or moral living).

The prophet Zephaniah points out that the chosen people of God, Israel, were not exempt from this.  It may end up being a small remnant in the end, but there will be some who turn and embrace the way of shalom – Zephaniah says that remnant of people will be those who are meek and humble and who trust the Lord’s ways. 

The prophet Haggai’s words show the personal consequences of obedience and disobedience. Yet amid his cautions and chastisements, Haggai says that “The Lord will fill the temple with glory” and bless them in the end with a restoration of peace.

Like Haggai, Zechariah says the Lord calls for true social justice, mercy, and compassion rather than just insincere fasting. He also speaks of a king who will come to restore the peace - some consider the description to be of Jesus, but it may just be coincidence.

“Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!... See your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey.... He will proclaim peace to the nations.... His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.” (Zechariah 9:10).

Thus, the people of the northern and southern kingdoms will be reunited and there will be peace again. More than anything this was to be a beautiful picture of global shalom.

The prophet Malachi brought a message of hope to the people of God’s restored community who had begun to lose hope.

What each of the Minor Prophets were prophetically arriving at was the fact that God was going to bring shalom to the lives of his people and ultimately the world; through the obedient and transformed lives of those same people.

That same prophetic voice was evident in Jeremiah as he responded with a vision to rekindle God’s shalom to the people of Israel:

“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.”

And finally, Jeremiah prophesies further about God’s plan to restore shalom by making a new covenant with his people:

“The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.

“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 31:31-33)

So, I think it is clear the ultimate intention of the prophets were to urge the people to live together in ways that made for peace (shalom). To live as a community of peace, they would need to turn from their ways and learn the ways of God – righteousness, justice, loving kindness, and this week I will add truth.

We talked briefly about those last week, but to bring them more into focus. Howard says,

“The prophets see righteousness as practical living.” Meaning “They point to daily ethical behavior, often with special attention to the poor and needy, the widow and orphan, and the foreign resident (“strangers”).

For the prophets, it wasn’t all turn and burn, but rather turn and see your neighbor and those who you are living with.  Are you treating them honestly, kindly, and generously? This right living together is what brings shalom to our world.

How about you and me?  Do we see our neighbors – those who we are living with, working with, worshipping with?  Do we treat them honestly, kindly, and generously? 

Thus, Howard says, “So to be righteous, maybe a bit oversimply, is to do the right thing, steadily, habitually, daily, in our ordinary rounds.” 

Then there is justice, which often is overlapped by righteousness and this is where we get the concept of Social Justice.  Please folks, if someone says to you that Social Justice is not biblical – they are downright wrong.  It is directly linked to who God is and what God intends.  Howard points out that for the prophets the idea of justice was connected to God’s character, actions, and guidance.

Sometimes our laws and government and even our own personal wants get in the way of helping our neighbors. Dishonesty, cheating, and exploiting people for gain is not what God intends. 

How about you and me? Who do we take advantage of with our privileges or who are we not willing to defend? 

And then there is love/kindness which Howard says is maybe the most difficult to discuss because we do not have an adequate word in English to express the word we find in Hebrew – hesed.  It can be translated love kindness, love mercy, love goodness, or better than most, “embrace faithful love.”  Many just use the translation of “steadfast love.” But Howard points out that it is the character of God’s love that should guide us.  He says,

“This challenges us to imagine how our love toward our neighbor can be generous and attentive, how it can persist and never give up, how it can be kind and compassionate, not just tolerant and polite. This love is not about feeling or about what one earns or discerns. Instead, it is a love of presence, desiring and working toward the best for the other.”

How about you and me?  Are we aware of our love toward our neighbor?  Is it generous, attentive, persistent, kind and compassionate?  Are we working toward the best in our neighbors?

Finally, the fourth word that prophets often use is truth – which Howard says points to reliability, dependability, of things being firmly established.  We are taught that we can always depend on God, but the bigger question, especially if there is that of God in us is, are we reliable and trustworthy as well?

When the prophets called the people to turn from their ways, it was clear that they had become unreliable and not trustworthy to each other.  When we undercut our trust with one another we create as Howard points out chaos, confusion, and we damage our life together. 

How about for you and me?  How reliable and dependable are we to our neighbors?  Can our neighbors trust us?  Where might we be damaging our life together?

Once we strip away the cry of the prophets and get to their root message – we find it about living ordinary lives with our neighbors. Their words were and are disturbing because they meet us in our present moments and call us to take the high road – to be better people. To see our neighbors and want what’s best for them.  And when we begin to do that – then we will begin to see that peace (shalom) that God intends for us! 

Now, let us enter waiting worship.  As we center down, take a moment to review the queries I just presented to us.  Here they are again.

·        Do we see our neighbors – those who we are living with, working with, worshipping with? Do we treat them honestly, kindly, and generously? 

·        Who do we take advantage of with our privileges or who are we not willing to defend? 

·        Are we aware of our love toward our neighbor?  Is it generous, attentive, persistent, kind, and compassionate?  Are we working toward the best in our neighbors?

·        How reliable and dependable are we to our neighbors?  Can our neighbors trust us?  Where might we be damaging our life together?