1-14-24 - Answering the Call of Love

Answering the Call of Love

MLK Jr. Sunday

Pastor Bob Henry

January 14, 2024

Good morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections.  This morning we are celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday.  The scripture I have chosen is Matthew 5:43-48 from the New Revised Standard Version.  

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

I believe last year on Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday, I took a moment to read to you the Letter from the Birmingham Jail which King addressed to the white churches of his day. This morning, I want to emphasize only one of the points he makes in that letter.  It is not one that we can quickly unpack or respond to, but rather it is a call and a hope. Listen to King’s words, 

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

As I unpack this, I am going to borrow some thoughts from Jeremy Lallier who in many ways echo’s Kings call. He says,  

“Bigotry mars the pages of history, and it’s still alive and well today. But God calls us to rise above prejudice and promises a world where it CAN’T exist.”

The calendar turned another year and we are again ramping up to another crazy political season. It is clear we live in an extremely polarized world where bigotry and prejudice runs rampant, and often I am not as optimistic as King or Lallier and continue to question if we can ever really rise above our prejudices.

But what if I told you that every form of social injustice birthed from our prejudices could be solved by answering a single query?

You might think I’m nuts or watering things down to make my point —and understandably so.

Folks, the world is filled with injustices, many of which are deep and complex, with roots stretching back hundreds or even thousands of years. And yes, even if you read your bibles, you will find these struggles with prejudice and bigotry throughout.

It seems almost impossible that a single query could untangle and solve all those issues in one fell swoop. But I believe it might be able to begin a needed process.

Racism. Sexism. Nationalism. Xenophobia, Homophobia, Transphobia…Bigotry in all its shapes and forms, every last scrap of prejudice in the world—it could all be ancient history if we all agreed and acted on the answer to one short query:

What determines our worth?

Ponder that for a moment.  What determines our worth?

It’s not exactly a new query—philosophers and common people have been trying to sort it out for ages, and everyone seems to have their own answer.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. answered that question in his most famous speech saying,

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Yet sadly, for many people, especially right here in America, the answer to what determines our worth is not character but rather money, possessions, stuff. 

The more we have, the better we are—and right there, we can see the start of a prejudice.

“I have more than you, which makes me better than you.” Or, on the other end of the spectrum, “I have less than this person, and that makes me less than this person.”

Folks, wrong answers create prejudices.

And money isn’t the only answer that causes trouble. There are thousands of variables we could plug into this equation, and the result would be a thousand different prejudices.

At best, that approach can leave us with a false sense of superiority around others. We might judge them by the clothes they wear, the brands they buy, the teams they cheer for, the subdivision or retirement community they live in, the car they drive, or even the people they vote for or the party they proclaim.

Maybe these are some of the issues you are fearing to discuss as we enter this year.

Yet the ugliest, most dangerous prejudices happen when we answer the question of worth with traits people are powerless to change.  Things like,

Race

Sexual Orientation

Age

Country of birth.

When we make those things the measure of human worth, when we start believing that others have less worth because of the color of their skin or the place they were born or some other trait, that’s how we create some of the most horrifying moments of history:

The Nazis and the Holocaust.  

The Hutus and the Rwandan genocide.

Sudan and Darfur.  

Israel and Palestine.

But also, right here in America –

The genocide of the First Nations people,

African slavery, Jim Crow, and reconstruction.

The Tulsa Race Riot (or what we call the Black Wall Street Massacre).

Or more recent events like Charlottesville or the Killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Even when prejudice is fueling something other than genocide and death, the resulting injustice can leave marks that take generations—even centuries—to fade.

Folks, slavery in the United States didn’t “officially end” until a little over a century and a half ago (and some would question if it ever ended in our country but rather just evolved) - its impact through the years is unmistakable:

The Three-Fifths Compromise.

The Jim Crow laws.

The Ku Klux Klan.

Police brutality

And I could go on…

Let’s be honest, the prejudice remains, and we are setting ourselves up, if we think it best not to teach these atrocities to future generations. Because this will ensure that we will make the same mistakes again. 

That’s what bigotry does. It becomes a catalyst, an excuse, a justification for every kind of injustice.

“The other side deserves it,” prejudice says.

“They’re inferior. They’re not as important. They’re the problem.”

That’s not what I read in my Bible.  Galatians 3:28 reads,

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ.”

As Quakers, we believe that there is that of God in EVERYONE we meet. It’s a radical idea. At one time, people thought it was so radical that they hung and burnt Quakers at the stake for believing it.

But when we take a moment to try and see that of God in our neighbor, what we are really doing is trying to see their worth. It changes things when we can see our equal worth because of 'that of God' in each of us.

No longer are our neighbors, relatives, and friends, inferior, less important, or the problem. Actually, “that of God in them” makes them no different than you and me.

What determines their worth is the potential of the Divine or the Imago Dei (image of God) within them. Not the color of their skin or the arrangement of their chromosomes or the place of their birth - no, it is the simple and irrefutable fact that there is that of God within them.

A long time ago, a prophet named Samuel recognized this very truth. He said,  

“…the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

Bigotry and prejudice cannot survive under the weight of our worth in God’s eyes. One day all the people of the world will come to understand this truth—but until then, it’s our job to begin seeing “that of God in our friends, relatives, and neighbors.”

Consider that throughout this year – I guarantee at times it will be really difficult and challenging. The people sitting around you this morning, the people you work with, your neighbors, your relatives, your friends are worth being thankful for, simply because there is that of God in them, and then all the other things that make them unique.  

Dr. King speaking on the Image of God said it gives each person a uniqueness, a worth, a dignity. And he declared that we must never forget this as a nation: there are not gradations in the image of God…We will know one day that God made us to live together as [siblings] and to respect the dignity and worth of every [person].”

But folks, we all have that one neighbor, or relative, or co-worker that drives us nuts or that we work hard to avoid – or maybe is someone we would consider an enemy. 

Jesus addressed this, too. In our text for this morning. He said,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

On that note, I want to close this morning with the words of Martin Luther King Jr.  on “loving your enemies.” Like Jesus, King spoke on this subject more than any other. In a sermon to the Council of Churches in Detroit, Michigan in 1961 King said the following. 

I would say the first reason, and I’m sure Jesus had this in mind, we should love our enemies is this: to return evil for evil only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. And somewhere along the way of life, somebody must have sense enough, somebody must have morality enough, somebody must have religion enough, to cut off the chain of hate and evil. And this can only be done by meeting hate with love. For you see in a real sense, if we return hate for hate, violence for violence, and all of that, it just ends up destroying everybody. And nobody wins in the long run. And it is the strong man who stands up in the midst of violence and refuses to return it. It is the strong man, not the weak man, who stands up in the midst of hate and returns love.

Some time ago, my brother and I were driving from Atlanta, Georgia, to Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was driving the car, and it was late at night, and for some reason most of the drivers were discourteous that night. They just didn’t dim their lights as they approached our car. Everybody was forgetting to dim lights that night. And my brother got angry, and he said, “I know what I’m going to do. The next car that comes along this highway and fails to dim its lights, I’m going to refuse to dim mine, and I’m going to keep these lights on in all of their glaring outpour.” And I looked up and I said, “Wait a minute. Don’t you do that. For if you refuse to dim your lights, there will be a little too much light on this highway [laughter], and may end up in destruction for all of us. Somebody will have to have sense enough on this highway to dim their lights.” [laughter] And maybe here we find an analogy to the whole struggle of life. Somebody must have sense enough to dim their lights. (Right) Hate begets hate. Force begets force. Violence begets violence. Toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral ending in destruction for everybody.

And so Jesus is right. (Yes) Love is the answer. The other point is this: that we should love our enemies because hate damages the personality and injures the soul.

I think it is ironic that psychologists have coined the term - “Social/Political Road Rage” to describe the hostile interactions we see in the media and in politics today. It continues to be the struggle of life and we still are seeking people to answer the call of love.  It starts with us – let us answer Jesus and King’s call once again to love our neighbors and enemies and change our world for the better!

As we enter waiting worship this morning.  I would like us to take a moment to ponder those words of Dr. King and reflect on how we would answer that important query from earlier.

What determines my worth and the worth of those around me?

1-7-24 - Becoming the Magi

Becoming the Magi

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

January 7, 2024

Good morning, Friends. and Happy New Year.  Thank you for joining us for Light Reflections.  This morning our scripture reading is the story of the Wise Men who came from East taken from Matthew 2:1-12 and I will be reading it from the New International Reader's Version.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea. This happened while Herod was king of Judea. After Jesus’ birth, Wise Men from the east came to Jerusalem. They asked, “Where is the child who has been born to be king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose. Now we have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard about it, he was very upset. Everyone in Jerusalem was troubled too. So, Herod called together all the chief priests of the people. He also called the teachers of the law. He asked them where the Messiah was going to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied. “This is what the prophet has written. He said, “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are certainly not the least important among the towns of Judah. A ruler will come out of you. He will rule my people Israel like a shepherd.’”

Then Herod secretly called for the Wise Men. He found out from them exactly when the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem. He said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report it to me. Then I can go and worship him too.”

After the Wise Men had listened to the king, they went on their way. The star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them. It finally stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with joy. The Wise Men went to the house. There they saw the child with his mother Mary. They bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures. They gave him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But God warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod. So, they returned to their country on a different road.

Yesterday, was the 12th day of Christmas – Did you hear the 12 drummers drumming? All kidding aside, throughout Christian history, January 6th, has been considered Epiphany. It often even shows up on our calendars and makes people wonder what it is all about.

If you did not know, the word epiphany comes from a Greek word that means “to reveal.” Thus, this time always has been considered a time when the Divine revealed itself to us in new and powerful ways.

I am sure that most of us have had what we would call epiphanies in your lives, be they great or small moments when we felt the presence and power of God right within us in very strong and real ways.

Overtime and with education, I have come to believe the story of the Magi and the First Epiphany should probably be considered more of a parable or story. This is solely due to its highly symbolic nature.

Some may be surprised by this, but the story isn't really about the Magi, or the baby Jesus, but rather it is about us – you and me. The epiphany is our story and not only is it our story, but it is also deeply Quaker in nature.  Maybe one of the most Quaker stories in the Bible.

It's a reminder for us, especially as we begin a New Year, to keep our focus on the Light, and to allow ourselves to be guided by that Light, just as the Magi were.

Now, the story of the Epiphany, the story of the Magi is only told to us in Matthew's Gospel. All we know about the Magi is just those couple paragraphs that we read from our scripture for this morning. So, we don't really know a lot about who the Magi were.

But notice that the writer of Matthew's Gospel described them as “wise men from the East.” He never said that there were three of them, there could have been more. And he never said that they were kings.

I think the problem has arisen because of that Christmas carol that we sing, “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” but it's nowhere to be found in the Bible.

What the writer of Matthew's gospel tells us is that they were wise men, which means that they possessed wisdom. And folks, wisdom is very different from knowledge.

Sure, there are a lot of smart people who know a lot of facts, that's knowledge. But the Magi possessed wisdom - a deep inner-knowing or intuition is what they possessed.

Rev. Salvatore Sapienza gives more insight into what it meant to be a Magi. He says,

“It's where we get our word magic, from that same root word. The Magi were magicians, but not magicians the way we understand magicians today. Because magicians today are trying to fool us. They're trying to fool us with sleight of hand and with illusion.

But the actual root of that word magical, if you go back, it was more in line with “mystical” Magical meant mystical. The Magi were mystics, they weren't trying to fool us with illusion. They were trying to reveal the truth of our being to us. They were truth-tellers. They were seers. Maybe they were clairvoyants, or shamans, or astronomers. They could see into the stars, see into the spiritual realm.

And one of my favorite things about the Magi is that they were from “the east,” which means they were from the eastern spiritual traditions. They were foreigners. They looked different from Jesus. I remember when I was a kid, I would love putting out the nativity set and putting out the Magi because they looked so different from everyone else in the scene. There was something mystical about them. They spoke a different language. They practiced different traditions.”

I agree with Salvatore, the Magi bring a new twist to the story, a multicultural and multidimensional spirituality that opens the story of Jesus to the greater world. 

It shows us that the light of the world is for all people. Not just for Christians, but for ALL people and even ALL faiths. Let that sink in for a moment. 

So, the greatest epiphany that you and I can have is the discovery of that light within us, when you discover that the light of the world is within you, just as Jesus said it was. And when you begin to see that same light in every single person, that's the greatest epiphany that we can have.

Once more and more of us begin to discover that light within ourselves and within one another, we will begin to heal the world. We will begin to transform ourselves and then the world around us.

And that is why the Magi brought those three gifts, because that's what they symbolically represent: transformation and healing - gold, frankincense and myrrh.

The Magi bring gold which must be refined through fire. The impurities must be removed in this process so it can be turned into its purest form.  Thus, this precious metal symbolizes transformation.

Then the Magi bring frankincense. Frankincense is an incense. It's an incense that our eastern brothers and sisters use in their meditation and prayer practice. When I was an Anglican Priest, we used Frankincense in our worship during Christmas. It is a pungent, but beautiful incense that is known to open the nasal passages – in a similar way, Frankincense symbolically opens our senses to the spiritual realm, representing intuition.

And the third gift is myrrh. Myrrh comes from nature or creation, it's a tree resin that is made into a balm for healing.

So, it is not too hard to see how these gifts symbolize transformation, intuition, and healing.

And again, when we put our focus on the Light, and allow ourselves to be guided by our inner Light, we too, may experience transformation, insight, and healing in our lives.

Now there's one person from the story that I haven't talked about yet. And that's King Herod.

King Herod was someone who was all about power and wealth. He wanted control. He was actually fearful of the light, because the Light threatens his power and control.

Again, Rev. Salvatore Sapienza helped me see a deeper symbolism in Herod. He says,

“Herod represents our ego. It's the part of ourselves that is threatened by the light. Notice, the Magi, once they discover the Christ light, they don't go back to Herod. It says that they took another road home… when we stop listening to the commands and the voice of our ego, the worldly self, the self that wants to control things, and we begin to listen more fully to the voice of the Spirit, and let that guide us, we're following another road. We're not following the way of the world. We're following the way of the Lord, the way of the Christ.”

So, Friends, on this day, let us not just remember and celebrate the Magi. But rather, let us recommit ourselves to being the Magi, to becoming the Magi, to be people whose focus is on the Light. As Quakers it seems befitting, since early on we even called ourselves “Children of the Light.”

And when we allow ourselves to be guided by our inner Light, to receive a new epiphany that will help us heal and transform, not just ourselves, but also the hurting world around us.

So let us keep watch and be aware of all the epiphanies, be they great or small that God has in store for us in 2024. Remembering what Scripture says that God's plans for us are not plans of harm, but plans of fullness, to give us a future and a hope. Happy New Year First Friends!

Now, as we center down and enter waiting worship, take some time to ponder the following queries:

1.     When is the last time I felt the presence and power of God within me in a strong and real way?

2.     Who am I having a hard time seeing the Light of God within? Why?

3.     In 2024, how will I prepare myself and respond to the new epiphanies of the Divine?

12-24-23 - Let's Go Tell It on the Mountain

Let’s Go Tell It On the Mountain

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

December 24, 2023

Good Christmas Eve morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. This morning at the Meetinghouse we are gathering for a Christmas Carol Sing-a-long to begin our Christmas celebration.

The scripture for this morning is Isaiah 52:7 from the New Revised Standard Version.  

How beautiful upon the mountains
    are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news,
    who announces salvation,
    who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

With singing all the Christmas Carols at this time of year, I have realized that there’s something about “that Christmas feeling” that words can’t describe, but the music can capture. There’s a feeling associated with the whole Christmas season, a feeling of warmth, love, and joy that wonderfully counterbalances the frigid December cold. Christmas music captures that feeling with a few beautifully pieced together melodies, harmonies, accompaniment, and (often) lyrics.

Some Christmas songs capture the feeling of old English Christmas caroling with wassail, holly, and mistletoe. Others capture the feeling of that first ever Christmas where shepherds and wise men came to worship at the manger in Bethlehem. Some Christmas carols capture the childlike joy of anticipating Santa’s arrival, opening presents, and playing in the snow. Others capture the feeling of sitting by the fire with a blanket and a cup of hot cocoa. Still others, such as those written during wartime, capture the feeling of appreciating every Christmas as though it is your last. Whatever that Christmas feeling is for you, it is alive in this Meetinghouse this morning.

When I was in high school and undergrad college, at Christmas time, I couldn’t get enough Christmas music. I loved and collected everything from Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas to Amy Grant’s A Christmas Album with a favorite song, Tennessee Christmas on it.  But I also loved to pick up rare Christmas albums from Swing to Blues.

One of the rarest albums I own to this day is this album which is titled, “Christmas On the Border: A Spicy Holiday Recipe of Texas Blues, Hot Country, and Mexican Salsa.” It took Christmas music to another entire level. For quite some time it was my go-to Christmas album. I bought the album in 1994 and have it still today as part of my collection. 

My favorite song from this unique collection is “Go Tell it on the Mountain” sung by Southern Gospel singer, Greg Gordon. Often when Eric plays his jazzy version at the end of worship, I get sent back to different times in my life playing this album in my dorm room, my car, even at parties where my friends would ask me to bring the CD.

Back then, I just thought “Go Tell it on the Mountain” was one of the classic Christmas songs, but if you do the research that is far from the case. Sadly, the catalogue of classic or traditional Christmas songs is almost unanimously European in origin.

It’s ironically quite far outside the European borders that we find “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”

“Go Tell it on the Mountain” is considered in the African American Spiritual or Folk song category, and it has a pretty murky origin. The song likely dates back to the mid-19th century.  Yet, you have to remember, African American Spirituals were passed from plantation to plantation orally, disseminating the songs without sheet music, let alone recordings, making them difficult to date accurately.

C Michael Hawn points out that the person responsible for making a Christmas classic out of “Go Tell It on the Mountain” is a Nashville-born collector of spirituals named John Wesley Work, Jr. 

Work’s life-long love for music started at a young age. His father was the director of their church’s choir. Though Work Jr. studied Latin and history at the historically black college, Fisk University, he ended up organizing singing groups at Fisk.

Work Jr. combined his passions for history and music into his search for African-American spirituals, and with the help of his brother Frederick Jerome Work and wife Agnes Haynes, he compiled their findings and published them in New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1901, and New Jubilee Songs and Folk Songs of the American Negro in 1907, which actually featured the first publication of “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”  The earliest version of the spiritual appeared in in Religious Folk Songs of The Negro, as Sung on The Plantations, new edition (1909) with the heading “Christmas Plantation Song” with different stanzas and in slave dialect.

Take for instance this verse:

When I was a seeker
I sought both night and day.
I ask de Lord to help me,
An’ He show me de way.

He made me a watchman
Upon the city wall, [a reference to Isaiah 21:11-12]
An’ if I am a Christian
I am the least of all.

Chorus:

Go tell it on de mountain,
Over de hills and everywhere.
Go tell it on de mountain,
Dat Jesus Christ is born.

This is where the importance of the Fisk Jubilee Singers directed by John Wesley Work Jr and his brother Frederick Jerome Work comes into the story. The Fisk Jubilee Singers (which drew their name from Leviticus 25—the year of jubilee) took the entire contents of the University treasury with them on tour for their expenses, they departed on October 6, 1871, from Nashville on their difficult, but ultimately successful eighteen-month tour, a triumph that is still celebrated annually as Jubilee Day on the campus.

Though not the original repertoire of the group, by the time they reached New York in December of that year, their concerts grew to include more and more spirituals, until their program consisted primarily of choral arrangements of spirituals or, according to African American scholars C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya, “anthemized spirituals.”

Actually, the Fisk Jubilee Singers have been credited with keeping the Negro spiritual alive.

Spirituals scholar Sandra Jean Graham places this development in context: “The students were at first reluctant ambassadors for the songs of their ancestors. As [Jubilee] singer Ella Sheppard recalled,

“The slave songs were never used by us then in public. They were associated with slavery and the dark past and represented the things to be forgotten. Then, too, they were sacred to our parents, who used them in their religious worship…”

It was only through persuasion that the students sang their spirituals privately for the University’s treasurer, George L. White, who was a white man, and through White’s coercion that they sang them in concert.”

Taking the spiritual to white and black audiences in the United States and Europe earned the school and the spiritual an international reputation. The small ensemble of two quartets and a pianist grew to a full choral ensemble. Other historically black colleges eventually followed the same pattern, including Howard University (Washington, D.C.) and Tuskegee Institute (now University in Tuskegee, Alabama).

Folks, this was so important that we even owe the death of blackface and minstrel shows to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, because their performances were the first time many people heard spirituals, having been unaware of their existence before, and the first time many white audiences were exposed to black music actually sung by black people, putting a dent in the whole minstrel-shows-with-white-people-in-blackface thing people were so into at the time.

Talk about taking literal, “Go, tell it on the Mountain” that is exactly how their songs spread across our nation and ultimately the world.  Today, almost every hymnal includes “Go, Tell it on the Mountain.”

In an article by Peter Sanfilippo, he tells the rest of the story. 

Though the song’s pre-recording success can be credited to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the recorded renditions took on a life of their own.

The first recording by a major singer was from gospel and jazz singer Mahalia Jackson in the 50s, and this version is more or less the one we know today. It has a little gospel swing to it with a little piano and a choir setting the stage for Jackson’s insanely powerful voice.

It was Jesus himself in the synagogue who said,

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[a]

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus exemplified what it meant to “Go, Tell it on the Mountain.”

Proclaim the Good News to the poor

Proclaim freedom to prisoners.

Proclaim recovery of sight to the blind.

And set the oppressed free.

And proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor – or what was known as the year of  Jubilee!

This is what John Wesley Work Jr. and the Fisk Jubillee Singers did as they sang across this nation setting the oppressed free, proclaiming freedom with their songs, and working to end the oppression of racisim and misrepresentation.

As Friends/Quakers we too are called this Christmas to go.  To go to our places and confront the oppression, to offer freedom, new insights, and Good News.  Christmas is our time of Jubilee.  Let’s go tell it on the Mountain for all the world to here! 

As we enter waiting worship, take a moment to ponder the following queries:

·        What Christmas music speaks to my condition, and why?

·        Who might I need to go and tell the good news this Christmas?  

·        What efforts that I am part of help proclaim freedom, recovery of sight, and set the oppressed free?

12-17-23 - A Christmas Meditation

A Christmas Meditation

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

December 17, 2023

Good morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections.  This morning at the Meetinghouse we are having our annual Children’s Christmas Pageant.  That means our children are sharing the story of Christmas through dressing up as the characters as we join in with singing the carols of Christmas.  On this Sunday, I usually give a brief meditation, and this year I am sharing one that speaks to our condition.  Often, I get people who ask me why we continue to tell the Christmas Story and often they ask questions about its relevance. So, this year, I came across a meditation that I feel addresses this very issue.

Back in 2016, a woman named Kathrine from Richmond, Virginia wrote to the theologian John Shelby Spong asking some of these same questions that we have at Christmas and throughout the year.  Kathrine’s queries were straight forward. She asked:

What is it about this Jesus that you find so compelling? When I hear the Christmas story from the Bible, I believe that I am listening to fairy tales. Stars do not announce the birth of a human being. Angels do not sing to hillside shepherds. Virgins do not conceive and give birth.

Is there something behind the old mythology that I am missing?

Can you still, with any integrity, refer to Jesus as “the son of God?”

Yes, those were some loaded queries. And ones we all wrestle with.

John Shelby Spong decided not only to respond to Katherine, but also to turn his response into a Christmas Meditation. So, this morning, I want to share that Christmas Mediation for us to ponder.  Please note, these are not my words, but when I first read them several years ago, they gave me a new way to explain my ever-evolving faith. Now, here is Spong’s response and mediation:

It was more than two thousand years ago that the historic figure we call Jesus lived. It was a life of relatively short duration, only thirty-three years. At most only three of those years were devoted to a public career. Yet, that life appears to have been a source of wonder and power to those who knew him.

Tales of miraculous power surrounded him. Words of insight and wisdom were believed to have flowed from his lips. Love and freedom seemed to be qualities that marked his existence. Men and women found themselves called into being by him. Those laden with guilt discovered, somehow, the joy of forgiveness in him. The alone, the insecure, the warped and twisted found him to be a source of peace. He possessed the courage to be who he was. He is described in terms that portray him as an incredibly free man.

Jesus seems to have had no internal needs that drove him to prove himself – no anxieties that centered his attention on himself. He rather appears to have had an uncanny capacity to give his life away. He gave love, he gave selfhood, he gave freedom, and he gave them abundantly – wastefully, extravagantly.

Lives touched by his life were never the same. Somehow life’s secret, its very purpose, seemed to be revealed in him. When people looked at him, they were somehow able to see beyond him, and even through him. They saw in his life the Source of all life that expanded them. They saw in his love the Source of love and the hope of their own fulfillment. This kind of transforming power was something they had not known before.

Freedom is always scary. People seek security in rules that curb freedom. So, his enemies conspired to remove him and his threat to them. From one perspective it might be said that they killed him.

When one looks more closely at the story, however, it might be more accurate to say that he found in himself the freedom to give his life away and to do so quite deliberately. He died caring for those who took his life from him.

In that moment he revealed a love that could embrace all the hostilities of human life without allowing those hostilities to compromise his ability to love. He demonstrated rather dramatically that there is nothing a person can do and nothing a person can be that will finally render any of us either unlovable or unforgivable. Even when a person destroys the giver of life and love, that person does not cease to be loved by the Source of love or called into life by the Source of life.

That was his message or at least that is what people believed they had met in this Jesus. Such a life could not help but transcend human limits. For this kind of love can never be overwhelmed by hatred; this life can never finally be destroyed by death.

Is it any wonder that people had to break the barriers of language when they sought to make rational sense out of this Jesus experience? They called him the Son of God. They said that somehow God was in him. So deeply did people believe these things that the way they perceived history was changed by him. To this day we still date the birth of our civilization from the birth of this Jesus.

They believed that he was able to give love and forgiveness, acceptance and courage. They believed that he had the power to fill life full. Since people tended to define God as the Source of life and love, they began to say that in this human Jesus they had engaged the holy God.

When they began to write about this transforming experience they confronted a problem. How could the human mind, which can only think using human vocabulary, stretch far enough to embrace the God presence they had experienced in this life? How could mere words be big enough to capture this divine meaning?

Inevitably, as they wrote they lapsed into poetry and imagery. When this life entered human history, they said, even the heavens rejoiced. A star appeared in the sky. A heavenly host of angels sang hosanna. Judean shepherds came to view him. Eastern Magi journeyed from the ends of the earth to worship him. Since they were certain that they had met the presence of God in him, they reasoned that God must have been his father in some unique way. It was certainly a human reference but that is all we human beings have to use.

Life as we know it, they said, could never have produced what we have found in him. That is why they created birth traditions capable of accounting for the adult power that they found in him.

Our modern and much less mysterious world reads these birth narratives and, assuming a literalness of human language that the biblical writers never intended, say “How ridiculous! How unbelievable! Things like that just do not happen. Stars don’t suddenly appear in the night to announce a human birth. Angels do not entertain hillside shepherds with heavenly songs. Virgins do not conceive. These things cannot be true.”

On one level those criticisms are accurate. Things like that do not happen in any literal sense. But does that mean that the experience this ecstatic language was created to communicate was not real. I do not think so.

The time has come for Christians, when we try to talk about God, to face without being defensive, the inadequacy of human language.

These stories were never meant to be read literally. They were written by those who had been touched by this Jesus. That is why they challenge our imaginations and sound so fanciful and unreal. Our minds are so earthbound that our imaginations have become impoverished.

Literal truth has given way to interpretive images. When life meets God and finds fulfillment one sees sights never before seen, one knows joy never before experienced, and one expects the heavens to sing and dance in celebration.

The story of Christmas, as told by the gospel writers, has a meaning beyond the rational and a truth beyond the scientific.

It points to a reality that no life touched by this Jesus could ever deny. The beauty of our Christmas story is bigger than our rational minds can embrace. For when this Jesus is known, when love, acceptance, and forgiveness are experienced, when we become whole, free and affirmed people, the heavens do sing “Glory to God in the Highest,” and on earth there is “Peace and Good Will among Us All.”

Hence, we Christians rejoice in the transcendent beauty and wonder of this Christmas story. To those who have never stepped inside this experience we issue an invitation to come stand where we stand and look through our eyes at this babe of Bethlehem. Then perhaps they too will join those of us who read these Christmas stories year after year for one purpose only: to worship the Lord of life who still sets us free and who calls us to live, to love and to be all that we can be.

That is why the Christmas invitation is so simple: Come, come, let us adore him.

How do we adore him? In my mind the answer to that query is clear.

I adore him not by becoming religious or by becoming a missionary who seeks to convert the world to my understanding of Jesus. I do it rather by dedicating my energies to the task of building a world where everyone in this world might have an opportunity to live more fully, love more wastefully and have the courage to be all that they were created to be.

This is the only way I know how to acknowledge the Source of Life, the Source of Love and the Ground of Being that I believe that I have experienced in this Jesus.

How can one adore the Source of Life except by living?

How can one adore the Source of Love except by loving?

How can one adore the Ground of all Being except by having the courage to be all that one can be.

It is not possible to seek these gifts for oneself and then deny them to every other life.

So, our task as disciples of Jesus is to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that we can be while we seek to enable every other person, in the infinite variety of our humanity, to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that each person can be.

That also means that we can brook no prejudice that would hurt or reject another based on any external characteristic, be it race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.

It all seems so simple to me. God was in Christ. That is the essence of what I believe about this Jesus.

Have a blessed and holy Christmas.

John Shelby Spong

This morning as we enter waiting worship, I want us to take a moment to center down into the silence as the stir of the Holidays presses on around us.  Take a deep breath and allow this place in God’s presence to be a respite. Then ponder those queries we just heard.

·         What can I do in my living to adore the Source of Life this season?

·         How can I love so that I adore the Source of Love this season?

·         Do I have the courage to be all that I can be to adore the Ground of all Being this season?  

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?