2-11-24 - Embracing Compassion Through Patience

Embracing Compassion Through Patience

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

February 11, 2024

Good morning, friends and welcome to Light Reflections. This morning our scriptures are from John 14:5-11 from the New Revised Standard Version.  

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.

I want to begin my message this morning, by sharing a story a New York City taxi driver wrote:

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes, I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift, I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.

'Just a minute', answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90's stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940's movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.

There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks, or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said.

I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.

She took my arm, and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. 'It's nothing', I told her. 'I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.'

'Oh, you're such a good boy, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, 'Could you drive through downtown?'

'It's not the shortest way,' I answered quickly…

'Oh, I don't mind,' she said. 'I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice.

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. 'I don't have any family left,' she continued in a soft voice. 'The doctor says I don't have very long.'

I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

'What route would you like me to take?' I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.

We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, 'I'm tired. Let's go now'. We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.

Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

'How much do I owe you?' She asked, reaching into her purse.

'Nothing,' I said.

'You have to make a living,' she answered.

'There are other passengers,' I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly.

'You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,' she said. 'Thank you.'

I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.

Behind me, a door shut, it was the sound of the closing of a life…

I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life.  We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

I love that story. Well, after talking about integrity last week, I found myself pondering another aspect of integrity which was illustrated beautifully in the Taxi Driver’s story – that being patience and its link to compassion.  

Dr. Judith Orloff of Psychology Today’s in an article titled “The Power of Patience” speaks of this link. She says,

Patience doesn’t mean passivity or resignation, but power. It’s an emotionally freeing practice of waiting, watching, and knowing when to act. I want to give patience a twenty-first-century makeover, so you’ll appreciate its worth. Patience has gotten a bad rap for the wrong reasons. Too many people, when you say, “Have patience,” it feels unreasonable and inhibiting, an unfair stalling of aspirations, some Victorian hang-up or hangover. Is this what you’re thinking?

Well, reconsider. I’m presenting patience as a form of compassion, a re-attuning to intuition, a way to emotionally redeem your center in a world filled with frustration.

I like what she is getting at. If we were to look at patience as a form of compassion, a re-attuning to intuition, a way to emotionally redeem one’s center, it would be beneficial, and I can see it immediately making a difference in our personal and corporate lives. And I don’t know about you, but what Dr. Orloff is talking about seems very much Quaker in orientation and process.

See, early Quakers discovered a third way to respond to, what they labeled, “the presence of darkness” within their own hearts and in the surrounding society.

They embraced what they called patient waiting, to help them be more compassionate to their neighbors, to help re-focus themselves on seeking after truth, and to ultimately center themselves before making decisions. This is why we have a time of waiting worship each Sunday during worship. Or if you attend our unprogrammed worship on Sunday, Monday, or Wednesday this is the center of the worship experience.

If you notice, Dr. Orloff’s makeover is simply taking us back to our Quaker roots.    In Barclay’s Apology, he describes two important aspects of Quaker waiting, by saying,

One type of waiting is the sense of being patient, listening to the Inward Guide in this case. The other type of waiting is an active verb, concerned with giving service to God and other people. 

Instead of getting caught up in “darkness,” frustration, and the externals pressures of this world, waiting in patience is what Dr. Orloff says, “draws us inward to a greater wisdom….”

It connects us to our Inward Guide, as Barclay said, and to how we are to respond and give service to the world around us.

Dr. Orloff concludes by saying,

“…patience doesn’t make you a doormat or unable to set boundaries with people…Rather, it lets you intuit the situations to get a larger more loving view to determine right action.”

Just like we heard in the taxi driver’s story at the beginning of my sermon.

Folks, patience is what helps us love and act in ways that are beneficial to our community. 

Let’s be honest, the reality is that most of us are wrestling in our busy lives and world with our impatience and its negative effects on that needed love and action that Dr. Orloff is speaking about.  

Let’s take a moment to ponder some of this as it relates to impatience:

·        In what sort of situations do you find yourself most impatient?

·        Why are you impatient, and how do you deal with your impatience?

·        What groups, people, organizations, etc. cause you to be impatient?  

[Pause and reflect]

When we start to address the “darkness” around us, the frustration that seems to grip us, the external pressures that we, our work, our families, the news, our world put on us, we begin to notice the impatience that is or has been growing. 

We begin to notice the lack of compassion we have for our neighbors and their situations (as well as compassion for ourselves).  We begin to have “short fuses” and become irritated by little things.   

We notice that we are no longer as intuitive and willing to try and reason or understand or work to see what is actually going on (or take time to understand the back story).  Instead we are quick to make assumptions and think our view is the right and only way.

And then as part of our struggle and impatience, we may even go as far as losing control of our emotions.  Some may go inward in a negative way and become depressed emotionally while others may become outwardly expressive emotionally. There are many ways we express our struggle.

If you noticed in today’s scripture, we are given a picture of the disciples’ impatience with Jesus. 

Thomas is frustrated because he doesn’t know where Jesus is going.  And isn’t sure he knows the way?

Philip wants to see fully or clearly – and only when he does will he be satisfied. 

Now, these two disciples I think we can relate to. Thomas and Philip remind me of the children in the back seat asking their parent driving,

“Are we there yet?” “How much longer?” “Do we need a map?” “Are we lost?” “How much further?” “Are we going to run out of gas?”

 And Jesus is simply saying, “Trust me.” 

And then over the years, the conversation continues to develop into the parents saying to the child, “Be aware, watch, notice your surroundings – check the street signs, know the neighborhoods you are in, someday soon you will be driving.” The parent is trying to bestow on the child “the way,” “the truth” and “the life.”  

Jesus is being the patient example and teacher. He is teaching the disciples to follow his way, to be truth, and to live life to the fullest - all while asking them to be patient.

Yet Jesus goes even one step further in saying, if you can’t believe me in this, let the works speak for themselves.  Let what I have shown you and done among you speak for itself.    

In the book, The Jesus Way, Eugene Peterson says,

“A Christian congregation, the church in your neighborhood, has always been the primary location for getting this way and truth and life of Jesus believed and embodied.”  

If Peterson is right, what might this mean for you and me and First Friends?   

Just think about that for a moment.  Are we willing to be patient and slow down so we can embody the way, the truth, and the life among our neighbors, our families, our world?  Like the taxi driver’s story at the beginning of my message.

To close, I would like to leave you with this thought from my friends John Pattison and Chris Smith in their book, Slow Church.  They say,

“The local church is the crucible in which we are forged as the patient people of God… Just as marriage vows serve as a covenant bond that holds a couple together in difficult times, our commitment to our faith community is essential if we are to learn patience and practice stability.  Patience can hold us together when other forces conspire to rip us asunder.”

That last quote should be written everywhere as a reminder for us as we continue this journey of life. “Patience can hold us together when other forces conspire to rip us asunder.”

So now as we intentionally embrace some patient or waiting worship, take a moment to return to those three queries I shared earlier:  

·        In what sort of situations do I find myself most impatient?

·        Why am I impatient, and how do I deal with my impatience?

·        What groups, people, organizations, etc. cause me to be impatient? 

2-4-24 - Bringing Back Integrity

Bringing Back Integrity

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

February 4, 2024

Good morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections.  This morning at the Meetinghouse we are celebrating Scout Sunday, and the impact that Scouting has had on our young people and society.  The scripture I have chosen is from Ephesians 4:20-32 from the Message version. 

But that’s no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.

What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.

Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.

Did you use to make ends meet by stealing? Well, no more! Get an honest job so that you can help others who can’t work.

Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.

Don’t grieve God. Don’t break his heart. His Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for himself. Don’t take such a gift for granted.

Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.

Scout Sunday always brings back good memories for me. I remember going to my friend, Andy’s basement in New Haven, Indiana, where his dad had a workshop full of fascinating things for a grade school boy to experience and learn at Cub Scouts each week.

It was in that basement where I learned not only how to hammer a nail properly but also more importantly how to be a decent human being and a good citizen of our county.

I remember the excitement and anticipation of participating in the annual Pine Wood Derby, which happened to take place in our church basement. Our scout leader, Mr. Schumm (Andy’s dad) was a gentle soul who had a lot of patience with our adventurous exuberance. God bless that man.

Since I am still friends on Facebook with Andy, every once and a while I see photos of Mr. Schumm still influencing his family and grandkids. I was lucky to have a good role model, a person of integrity, and a good example to influence my younger years. But that is the beauty of scouting at its best. 

I agree with Tom Beeman, CEO of Lancaster General who said the following about scouting in 2009,

"Scouting prepares an individual to live a just and wholesome life, with integrity, as a member of civil society…The living out of these values in a virtuous way leads to a life of integrity, which forms character. I like to define integrity as saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Someone who lives a life of integrity is a person whose spoken words are integrated with the way they act."

It is clear that integrity is a founding and underlying principle of scouting.  And sadly in many ways, scouting is one of the only places that integrity is taught in our world today, other than in the church.

Many consider integrity to be lost in the public sector or in society, and most especially in our government (no matter your political preferences). Yet, as it is defined, 

“[Public] integrity is a cornerstone of a system of sound public governance. It assures citizens that the government is working in their interest, not just for the select few, and is vital for the economic prosperity and well-being of society as a whole.

I find it ironic that statistics show that Ten of the 80 male senators in the current U.S. Congress are Eagle Scouts. At 12.5 percent, that’s higher than most professions. It’s two times higher than the percentage of Boy Scouts who become Eagle Scouts.

And not to leave out the women.

Seventy-two percent of female U.S. senators are Girl Scout alums. Fifty-eight percent of women serving in the U.S. House of Representatives are Girl Scout alums. Five of nine current female governors are Girl Scout alums.

So just maybe it is time to send them all back to be scout leaders or at least to review what should have been instilled in them at a young age.

Oh….and if you were wondering about Presidents: Donald Trump was never a member of the scouts, but Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy (who was the first President to be a scout as a youth) were all scouts.

From early on, Quakers have seen integrity as an integral part of both society and faith. Thus, we included it within our testimonies or S.P.I.C.E.S.

To help one learn more about the Testimonies, the Quaker organization, American Friends Service Committee in conjunction with the San Francisco Friends School put together a wonderful resource on the Quaker Testimonies or S.P.I.C.E.S, which is on their website to utilize and download.

I often reference and share it with individuals wanting to learn more about our Quaker values and how they influence and are practiced among Friends. 

Under the title Integrity: Consistency in Word and Deed it describes a Quaker view of integrity. Listen to what it says:  

The need to deal honestly with all others and with oneself has long been a foundational belief among Friends, summarized by the old injunction: “Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay.” For Friends, having integrity means being authentic and having consistency between one’s values and one’s actions. Lack of integrity separates us from our own soul, from the Light within, and from our community.

Quakers try to live according to the deepest truth they know, which they believe comes from God. This means speaking the truth to all, including people in positions of power. Friends did not take oaths when appearing in a court of law, rejecting the idea that there is one standard of truth for daily living and another for the court….

We “speak truth to power” – and to each other – even when it is difficult, and our message may be unpopular.  We deal honestly and fairly with colleagues and partners.  We take responsibility for our actions and their results.  We fulfill our commitments, and we give credit to others for their contributions.

While acting on our deepest beliefs and values, we are also open to new ideas, new solutions, and new paths. We know that our understanding at any moment is incomplete, at best an approximation of the truth that may be improved by new insights. 

Again, I cannot hear this without thinking about my scout experience.  Much of what I learned in scouts was very Quaker in its roots.

·        Speaking Truth

·        Deal honestly and fairly with others.

·        Fulfill your commitments.

·        Give credit to other for their contributions.

·        Explore new ideas, new solutions, new paths, new insights.

Something I found interesting is that the Scouts are beginning to see the importance of mindfulness in their programs and its effects on building quality relationships and seeing change in the world. 

Luis A. Faliciano, the Scouts BSA Chair, wrote that he is incorporating mindfulness into his teachings and practice by focusing on four main areas. These areas are a great place for us to start as well.

1.     Prioritize Relationships. Be intentional and set a priority in building relationships and get to know the people you are interacting with.

2.     Visualize positive interactions: Being mindful is a journey that will take some practice. Before jumping in, take a moment and picture what will be a successful outcome and visualize in your mind what little actions can be impactful to achieving them.

3.     Create micro-moments of connection: When heading into a meeting or interaction with someone take a moment to remember that you want to be intentional about creating a genuine bond with others. Greet everyone warmly and be present in the moment.

4.     Reflect: After every meaningful interaction take a moment to think how that made you feel. Ask yourself: Was I effectively connecting with the people I met? Do I feel more motivated?

These are a great place to start for those who want to really work on engaging their own integrity in our circles of influence. 

Along these same lines and in response to this lack of integrity seen around us in our world, today, Psychology Today recently spent some time focusing on integrity.  In many ways they have wrapped the ideas of integrity seen in the Scouts, among Friends, and in psychology together, and developed 5 ways to help us live with integrity. 

Consider the below queries for you to reflect on and work through in the coming weeks and months.  As you do this for yourself, take time to reflect on the world and culture around you, and see where you can “Speak Truth to Power” and live lives of integrity in hopes of changing this world for the better.  Along with each of the five ways, I have added a query for us to ponder.

1.     Self-reflection: Spend time reflecting on your values and beliefs to better understand what is important to you. By identifying your core values, you can make more informed decisions that align with your principles.

Ask yourself: When this week will I take some time to self-reflect on my core values?

2.     Accountability: Take responsibility for your actions, both successes and failures. Own up to it when you make a mistake and learn from the experience. Demonstrating accountability increases trust and credibility with others, strengthening your integrity.

Ask yourself: Who do I need to admit to that I made a mistake?

3.     Consistency: Strive to be consistent in your words and actions. Ensure that your behavior aligns with your values and principles, even when no one is watching. Consistency is critical to building a solid foundation of integrity.

Ask yourself: Where am I not being consistent in my life?

4.     Honesty and transparency: Be honest and transparent in your communication with others. Share your thoughts and feelings openly and be willing to listen and consider different perspectives. Practicing honesty and transparency helps cultivate trust and fosters strong relationships.

Ask yourself: With whom have I not been honest or transparent? And why?

5.     Ethical decision-making: When faced with difficult decisions, consider your choices' ethical implications and potential consequences. Seek guidance from trusted friends, family, or mentors to determine the best action.

Ask yourself: Who might I need to consult this week for help in making a difficult decision?

As we ponder those 5 ways to live with integrity and ask of ourselves those queries, may we find a path forward for growing the integrity of our lives and communities. Let’s take this time.

1-28-24 - The Love That We Call God

 The Love That We Call God

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

January 28, 2024

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections.  This morning the scripture I have chosen is from 1 John 4:7-8 from the New Revised Standard Version.  

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Probably, over 75 percent of the weddings I have officiated in my 28 years of professional ministry have found the couple choosing 1 Corinthians 13 the famous love chapter for their ceremony.  It is beautiful and almost poetic, and at a basic level is clearly about love between people, but I sense the Apostle Paul when he wrote it was not thinking about giving the message at a couple’s wedding.

Rather, Paul is writing to a community in Corinth that has been engaged in, and even worse, locked in conflict over a whole slew of issues. They were extremely polarized on many of these issues and disagreed on just about everything. In many ways you could say they were not too different than the condition of America, currently.

The last thing that would help the people of Corinth would be a love poem that could be used in their wedding or in an intimate moment between lovers.

In reality, what the Apostle Paul gave them was a piece of Ancient Jewish wisdom mixed with a dash of Ancient Greek wisdom about what, in Greek, is labeled, “agape.”

We are quick to translate the word “agape” simply as love. But the word love in English is insufficient in and of itself to carry the full meaning of “agape”.  

In Greek, the English word love can be translated in multiple ways:

·        Eros (or intimate love) which has to do with the romance and passion between lovers.

·        Phila (or deep friendship) which refers to the affection between friends, or the ethics that foster harmony between people. Phila is considered necessary to foster peace among people. Thus, Quaker William Penn named his city Phila-delphia (the city of brotherly love).  

·        Storge (or parental love) which refers to the affection of parents and children, or empathy of the strong for the weak, or the healthy for the sick, or even the love of an enemy, it is an affection or kindness based on the other’s need.

·        Ludus (or playful love) describes the situation of having a crush and acting on it, or the affection between young lovers.

·        Pragma (or enduring love) is a love that has aged, matured and is about making compromises to help the relationship work overtime, also showing patience and tolerance.

·        Philautia (or love of self) is the idea that if you like yourself and feel secure in yourself, you will have plenty of love to give others (as is reflected in the Buddhist-inspired concept of “self-compassion”).

So, there you have it, there are multiple different kinds of love before you even get to the kind of love that the Apostle Paul is talking about.

Agape, the type of love most spoken about in the Bible is a kind of unconditional love; the kind of love that is not concerned with the lover’s needs, or wants, or status, but only concerned with the needs of the other.

One definition says that agape is a kind of love that seeks the best for the other without regard to one’s own standing in the relationship. In other words, agape is a love that expects nothing in return. Agape is a love that is beyond emotion. 

Agape is beyond emotion because it has become compassion, or empathy. Agape is the kind of love that we only catch glimmers of in this life. Agape must be embodied in order to be.

Agape is embodied compassion, embodied empathy, embodied love.

Agape is beyond description, impossible to fully define and yet we would all recognize agape when we experience it. Agape is a dream; a dream embodied and enacted.

And this brings us back to waiting worship the last two weeks. Two weeks ago, Wolff shared a quote by Bishop Michael Curry (if you remember Bishop Curry officiated the Royal Wedding of Megan Markle and Prince Harry and actually talked about this love in his message – and oh the irony of that, in how I started this message).

Then last week in waiting worship, Megan Alderman was moved to repeat this same quote. And here is that quote:

“If it's not about love, it's not about God.”

And that is exactly what I believe the Apostle Paul was trying to get at by focusing on Agape Love.

Folks, Agape is the LOVE that we call God.

Let that sink in for a moment. 

·        It’s beyond emotion.

·        It must be embodied compassion, embodied empathy, embodied love.

·        It’s beyond description and must be experienced.

·        It is a dream (this is why I believe Dr. King’s Dream endures because he was not just talking about the love between people, but his dream was about Agape love. He was actually talking about God!

And that is because, Agape is the LOVE that we call God embodied and enacted in the world.

Folks, Agape is the LOVE that we, Quakers, see when we recognize that of God in our neighbor.

Agape encompasses eros, philia, storge, ludas, pragma, philautia and all the emotions that go along with these loves and is more than the sum of these parts.

Agape is Beyond the Beyond, for Agape is God.

God is LOVE.

When I am working out at the gym during the week, I often listen to audio books and I enjoy biographies of interesting people. The last couple weeks I have been reading the biography titled, “Karma” by the 80’s pop icon, Boy George.  About half way through his biography, Boy George briefly pauses and says this,

“Jesus loves you, loves me, loves us all.

God is only love and love is God explained.”

I paused my workout for a moment to rewind and listen to that again.  This is a person who was ridiculed, abused, and rejected publicly by his own church.  But after 60 years of searching comes to the realization that “God is only love and love is God explained.” 

This is almost exactly what the Apostle John comes to understand in our text for today.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

I had a professor who taught us that instead of replacing the word “love” in 1 Corinthians 13, with marriage, my wife or husband, etc. It should be replaced with the word God. 

            God is patient

            God is kind

            God is not jealous

            God does not brag

            God is not arrogant

            God does not take into account a wrong suffered

            God does not rejoice in unrighteousness

            God rejoices with the truth

            God bears all things

            God hopes all things

            God endures all things

            God never fails!

And here is the kicker folks, when we, Quakers, say that we see that of God in our neighbor, it should be because we see these attributes embodied in their lives. 

That of God in my neighbor is patient

That of God in my neighbor is kind

That of God in my neighbor is not jealous

            That of God in my neighbor does not brag

            That of God in my neighbor is not arrogant

            That of God in my neighbor does not take into account a wrong suffered

            That of God in my neighbor does not rejoice in unrighteousness

            That of God in my neighbor rejoices with the truth

            That of God in my neighbor bears all things

            That of God in my neighbor hopes all things

            That of God in my neighbor endures all things

            That of God in my neighbor never fails!

When I was working on my Master’s Degree at Wheaton College, I was asked to be a presenter at the Christian Higher Education Conference in Chicago. For the first time I would not only be speaking among my peers, in attendance would actually be some of my own professors from my undergrad and graduate programs. I opened up my session, by talking about the work of

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He wrote that,

“Love is the very physical structure of the universe.”

Teilhard believed that at the very heart, at the core of all reality was God who is Love, the source of all that is, the core of everything is LOVE.

Last week in Seeking Friends we talked about the importance of continuing to evolve in our theology, our understanding of our world, how we need to progress and move away from the structures that hinder us as a people, finally moving us to embrace who we are becoming. 

Progressive Christian Theologian and author, Michael Morwood said that, “after 13.8 billion years of evolution, the divine is at work in the universe, coming into expression in us.”  

Just maybe us Quakers were on the cutting edge and before our time in thinking that there was that of God in every person.   

If we are created in the image of God and there is that of God within us, then Love is what we were made for because love is who we are.

Is it any wonder then that love becomes known when we see ourselves in our neighbor?

The embodiment of LOVE is achieved when, we who are made of LOVE, recognize ourselves in our neighbor, because LOVE is not something that we do, LOVE is who we are.

And as it states in Paul’s love chapter…

LOVE bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, LOVE never ends. Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face.

When we recognize ourselves in our neighbors, we are the embodiment of love. Now we know only in part, then we will know fully, even as we have been fully known. When we recognize ourselves in the other, faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is LOVE.

I want to close by taking us back to Bishop Michael Curry’s Royal Wedding message, where he challenged the millions watching that day to imagine a world where Love is the way.  He said,

Imagine our homes and families where love is the way. Imagine neighborhoods and communities where love is the way.

Imagine governments and nations where love is the way. Imagine business and commerce where this love is the way.

Imagine this tired old world where love is the way. When love is the way - unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive.

When love is the way, then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again.

When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook.

When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary.

When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields, down by the riverside, to study war no more.

When love is the way, there's plenty good room - plenty good room - for all of God's children.

Because when love is the way, we actually treat each other, well... like we are actually family.

When love is the way, we know that God is the source of us all, and we are brothers and sisters, children of God.

My brothers and sisters, that's a new heaven, a new earth, a new world, a new human family.

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

1.     How might I embody compassion, empathy, and love more in my life?

2.     Do we see ourselves in our neighbor? Do we see God?

3.     Where do I see love being the way in our world, today?

1-21-24 - The Light of Our Love

The Light of Our Love

Indianapolis First Friends

Pastor Bob Henry

January 21, 2024

Good morning Friends and welcome to Light Reflections.  This morning our text is from John 3:19-21 from the New Revised Standard Version.  

 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Last Sunday, I found it interesting that Kevin Francis opened our Meeting for Worship by sharing a favorite quote from Dr. King and then during waiting worship our organist Wolff Von Roos, shared the exact same quote out of the silence. 

Sometimes we say, that is the Spirit moving in our midst or even coincidence, but as the day continued several other people, I believe worthy to follow on social media, decided to share that same quote. And on Monday the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, this same quote appeared in the service commemorating Dr. King at Cross and Crown. 

Even though later in the day, Wolff warned and challenged us with the following post on Facebook,

“May the MLK quote you post today align with the words and actions you choose over the next 364 days,”

I sense there was something deeper going on, that so many found this quote so alluring. 

The quote is very simple, but also loaded with a deeper meaning.  And clearly it is speaking to people in the present moment, thus so many people quoting it. 

So, do you remember what Dr. King quote was shared?

It was from one of King’s “Love Your Enemies” sermons in Strength to Love, a volume of his most well-known homilies from 1963. Kevin and Wolff both quoted the second half, but the longer quote is this,

“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

As I thought about the reason so many people were sharing this quote, I realized many of us are experiencing darkness in our world on so many levels. Hate speech is rising and continues to incite violence and intolerance, and social media has only made it easier to spread the hate. A lot of this darkness is wrapped in hate specifically toward our neighbors or those different than us. But I also believe many of us are trying hard to turn once again to the Light and seek ways to love those around us better. 

So, what is the deeper meaning of this quote for us, today?

Reading on philosiblog, I found this explanation:

[Speaking of this quote by King it states] “This is a fundamental truth of the universe, and the corresponding relationship in the human heart. It starts out stating the obvious. Darkness is a lack of light. More darkness cannot make it less dark, which is something only bringing light can accomplish.

Similarly, the quote tells us that hate cannot drive hate from your heart or the hearts of others. The only thing which can do that, according to the quote, is love. While the analogy breaks down a little with hate not being exactly equal to the absence of love, the premise is spot on.

In the end, hate will continue if left unopposed. The question is how to best oppose it. The quote states what I believe is one of the best and simplest methods. While no method is fool-proof or without risk, it is the best and most effective method I have seen or experienced.”

Embracing the Light of Love is essential in a world of hateful darkness.

Here is a story from Matma Sehgal, co-founder of the Joy Story Foundation, that I believe beautifully illustrates this reality, as well I think you will find it very Quaker in nature.

There were two very close friends who symbolized these two scenarios of darkness and light aptly: the sun and the cave.

The sun, we all know, signifies light. The darkness of night fades with the first ray of light. Isn’t it wonderful to see how it takes only a single ray of light to illuminate the surroundings?

The cave, on the other hand, denotes total darkness and probably is unaware of the phenomenon called light.

One day, the sun and the cave got into a conversation. The sun said it didn’t know what darkness meant and had trouble understanding how it looked.

The cave confessed it didn’t equally understand what light meant.

So, in order to make each other understand the two expressions, they decided to switch places.

The cave went up to the sun and was overwhelmed with the brightness of the shining natural light. But, at the same time, the cave became morose at the kind of condition she lived in. So, she invited the sun to come to her abode to see the condition she was in.

The sun went down to the cave and saw no difference. Everything was illuminated with its light and that is why the sun could not see any darkness in the cave. The cave, too, was astonished to see how all the darkness was gone on the arrival of her friend.

Matma Sehgal says, this story explains a simple truth that the enlightened ones take their light wherever they go and illuminate the entire atmosphere with their positivity and brightness. They can never be pushed to darkness, because they carry their light on their shoulders. 

On the other hand, someone full of negativity, fear, insecurities, doubt, [and yes, hatred,] unknowingly becomes a cave, which sees no light. It’s a hell within and no matter how much knowledge one accumulates, one remains hollow and is surrounded by complete darkness.

Therefore, it is very crucial that we keep ourselves illuminated by burning the light within. By realizing we have everything ― all the light within ― we don’t have to fear the darkness. If we get to know the light within and are illuminated with its brightness, like the sun, then the darkness of the cave would never matter.

Despite being in the worst situations, we will still be able to find our light or blessings in things around us and we will be carrying our heaven within us. Darkness and the situations people bring in, would vanish and all that we will see is light.

It is thus nothing but a matter of clear perspective in life. Life sometimes throws us into many dark scenarios, but it is for us to keep the light within shining, so that it removes the darkness and gloom of our life and always keeps us bright and shiny.

Thus, a person who learns to find the light within will always shine like the sun and the darkness of the cave will be a stranger. So, let’s see the light within and let us be guided by it to brighten our life and the lives of those stuck in caves around us.

Even though this is a rudimentary illustration, I think it is exactly what not only King was trying to say, but also John in his gospel for this morning were trying to say,

…people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light [thus, they end up living in a cave], so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light [and shine like the sun], so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

So, looking back at King’s quote, if you’re going to try to drive out hate, you need to bring the Light of Love. It won’t always be pleasant, but it’s the truth. Bringing the light of love doesn’t mean you believe as they do, or even that you like them. It simply means that you consider the human bond to be stronger than their hate.

As I read last week from Dr. King’s sermon from Detroit, if we match them hate for hate, the world will not be a better place for our effort. The reality is that the little satisfaction we gain will be temporary at best and will eventually be to the detriment of everyone.

That’s neither a good plan, nor is it much of a legacy for our children to inherit, a world filled with more hate than ever. And I think this is exactly why this quote was on so many hearts this week. The darkness is growing and the call to be the Light of Love is growing stronger and stronger. Are we going to be like the sun on stuck in our cave?    

I found it interesting that Philosoblog says that most hatred is based on inaccurate information, or on stories told about injustices of old.  Our world today, loves to perpetuate inaccurate information and tell stories that makes us look good – while others continue to suffer. 

When reality is, that our hate can only be kept alive if the recipients of the hate act according to the script. This is why we often see hate as brainwashing and creating cookie-cutter beliefs. What ultimately creates us vs. them mentalities that enforce and breed hatred. 

So, the most disruptive thing we can do to the script is to show them light, love and compassion, and blow the narrative apart.

The query of the day then is, are we willing to try?

As we contemplate that query, let me close with a brief Punjabi folktale from the prologue of the book, “The Light We Give” by Simran Jeet Singh:

There is an old tale about when the sun was first setting. As her distance narrowed toward the horizon, the light on earth slowly diminished.  This made way for darkness to creep over the land. The people were afraid that when the sun finally set, darkness would be permanent. “What will happen to us?” they said.

Far, far across the land in a smaller hut, a little lantern lifted its wick. It said, “I challenge the darkness. In my small corner, I will not let the darkness itself settle around me.” With this example many other little lanterns in other small huts lifted their wicks to the darkness.  And the people watched in amazement as so many little lanterns illuminated the earth, preventing the mask of darkness from taking over. 

The lantern in... [the] parable did not seek to end darkness entirely. It was humble enough to recognize that this was not a reasonable objective, and instead it focused on its own small corner. By doing its part, the lantern’s flicker of light inspired those around it to do the same.  It modeled a way forward that could be emulated, collectivized, and scaled. As other lanterns followed, it became apparent that the little lantern’s humble action effected meaningful change.

This is our calling to be the Light - right where we are - to end the darkness in our world and inspire those around us to do the same. 

Now, as we enter waiting worship, consider some of the queries we have been pondering already this morning:

1.     Am I willing to blow the narrative of hate apart by sharing the light of my love?

2.     Who around me is stuck in a “cave” and might need to experience the Light, today?

3.     How am I lighting my lamp in my small corner of the world, and inspiring others to do the same?

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?