Whose Fault Is It? (Intro to Rene Girard, Part I) by Lois Kieffaber, February 4, 2024

Posted on February 27, 2024 by bpemery

I thought of calling this talk “Us and Them”, but that seemed pretty worn out – and did you ever notice how even trying to label this idea, we NEVER say “Them and Us” – we are always first – “Us and Them”.  But I think this idea is very popular these days – the idea that our problems stem from our tribalism – its always “our side” against “their side” and both of these are so far apart and there are no shades of gray, no spectrum in between, and that’s what we call “polarization”, a term taken from physics, from the two poles of electric charge, positive and negative, although in that case there IS a middle position, Neutral.  But our culture does not seem to have any NEUTRAL when dividing people up into camps.  And we (we Quakers, at least) understand that demonizing your enemy is not a way to live peaceably together.  Is there anything new to say about this idea?

I want to talk about another aspect of this problem – a “theological” aspect, maybe, about HOW we got this way, and WHY we got this way, from a RELIGIOUS point of view, since I think we are a community of, if not “‘religious” people, at least “ethical” people who believe there is a spectrum of behaviors between “right” and “wrong” actions, and we try to move in the direction of “right”, wherever we now are on that spectrum. 

These ideas are a distillation of a study our Meeting community did not too long ago.  This was during COVID, so we were all online.  It was a study of the French philosopher and anthropologist Rene Girard.  His ideas spread out among us – LaVerne Biel told me afterwards that she was basing her material for Childrens Church on these ideas.  And then there is that “Seventh Story” group that meets here on Thursdays – their material references Rene Girard.

So what does Rene Girand have for us?? He starts with the idea that we are who we are because of the people around us.  We are a species that takes a long time to gestate and a long time growing up. Some species are born knowing instinctively how to survive.  The baby sea turtle never knows its parents, it just knows to head for the sea.  We, however, would die after birth without someone taking care of us – our only survival skill is to cry and hope someone hears us and takes pity on us – and sometimes someone has to slap up on the back before we can even cry.  How do WE learn to survive?  To grow up?  By copying what other people do.  We learn to walk, we learn to talk, we learn to use a spoon and fork.  Girard would say that we imitate other people.  Of course some of the things we want to copy are GOOD– we want to crawl on the floor rather than lie on our back, we want to run after we learn to walk, so mimicking others to satisfy our needs is sometimes has a GOOD result,  a necessary result for us to mature.  As toddlers  we  WANTED to feed ourselves, we WANTED to drink out of the big glass. And those were good desires that helped us live together more successfully.

BUT…

Rene Girard says that SOMETIMES we copy behaviors we DO NOT WANT and DO NOT NEED. In other words we can also copy BAD desires that lead to violence. Even from very early ages we do this – when very young children are playing together, no one cared about the red ball until one child noticed the red ball and started playing with it; then another child suddenly gets interested in the red ball also and tries to take it away.  In high school, Joe starts dating a girl no one paid much attention to, and suddenly other guys want to date her also and she becomes a popular girl.  Rene Girard says we copy even the DESIRES of others, and THAT is what leads to violence – that is why another child suddenly wants the red ball, that is why another guy is hitting on your girlfriend, and all the violence in the world comes from wanting what someone else has.  When you think about it, that’s what all of modern advertising is about – to make you want something because someone else has it.  You never even thought about a red  Corvette or even a cold beer —  until you saw this cool guy on TV and he was with a beautiful girl.  Hopefully you don’t go out and steal a red Corvette or rob a liquor store, but some people do, and violence ensues.  In fact, it seems to be legal now to kill someone who threatens your property — it’s called “standing your ground,”  and that guy just wanted the same thing you wanted. 

No one wanted to live in that desert land – until someone else wanted to live there – and now we copy their desire to live there, and now there is a war.   Rene Girard’s starting point is that violence happens because we want what someone else wanted. They got it and now you must have it also.   We call it “keeping up with the Jones”.  Or we call it envy or jealousy.  God calls it the last 5 of the 10 commandments – they are all aimed to stop us from wanting what someone else wants or has.  Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not tell lies about others, thou shalt not covet. They are all there to curb our violent streak, our original sin.  

SO . . . how are we going to curb our violence?  How can we ever live together in relative peace and harmony?  Rene Girard’s answer is SCAPEGOATING.  Remember that Old Testament practice of “scapegoating”?   It was when the Israelites, out in their desert wanderings, confessed their sins and got forgiveness by metaphorically placing them on a goat and driving that goat out of camp, never to be seen or heard from again (because no living creatures do well in an environment where there is no food or water.)   And the word became part of our vocabulary – we “scapegoat” someone by putting all the blame for something bad on someone else, or we “scapegoat” without even saying who the goat is, except to say “It’s all THEIR fault”.   We see it today in practically every political speech we hear, in letters to the Editor, and (“Oh, no!”) on social media, which sometimes seems like a viper pit, if you take an opinion not held by one side — a viper pit, I might add, that drives some teenagers to suicide.

So WHY do we “scapegoat”?  Girard’s answer is that we do it to OVERCOME OUR VIOLENCE.   Violence and scapegoating are right there in our creation stories.  In the very first family one brother kills another one (reason enough to call violence our “original” sin??) and when called to account he says “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  Translation:  Why are you asking me?  It’s not my fault . . .  it’s his fault for his offering being more acceptable to God, or it’s God’s fault for appreciating his offering more than mine . .  whatever, but don’t blame me.

So, then, how do we keep from killing each other?  Or more broadly, how do we keep from behaving violently toward others, even our own family members or tribal group?  Girard’s answer is that we do it by blaming it on someone else.  Basically, we do it for our own protection, so we can “take sides” – so there are some people in the world we can feel safe with, and we can project all our violent thoughts and actions on someone else, the “other” side, and thus we can live with some sense of safety against violence from our own neighbors.  It is easy to incite men to war (I say men, because I think politics would be much less dangerous in the hands of women, but then we have never had a chance to try that out, have we?)  If you are not willing to die for your country, you are “unpatriotic”, a “draft-dodger”, a “coward”.  We still have the same old impulse toward violence, but we can now direct it outward, against THEM.  True, we do retain some of those violent thoughts/actions in our own culture – toward, say, the homeless, or people of color, or those corporate CEOs, those economic “fat cats”, LBGTQ folks, etc.  But generally, we can feel relatively safe and comfortable in our own culture, because the majority of our violence is directed toward “them” – we scapegoat them, both BLAMING THEM for our problems and DIRECTING OUR VIOLENT TENDENCIES toward them, not our next door neighbors.

Has this worked?  Has it proved successful in its mission of curbing our violence?  I think the answer is found in our experience during the two thousand years since Jesus said “Love your enemies.”   Maybe we banished violence from our everyday lives, but certainly not from society at large, mothers still send their sons and daughters to be devastated or even sacrificed to the violence of war.  That’s called “serving your nation” or “patriotic” or “defending our way of life”.

So this is Girard’s formula

  •  We copy wanting something because someone else wants it or has it.  That can lead to
  • Violence within the small circle of our nearest and dearest.
  • We can keep the peace among ourselves by BLAMING SOMEONE ELSE for our problems.

Leading to  “us” versus “them” – or shifting our violence outward so the inner circle can remain comfortable.

Did it work?  Sort of – we pushed our violence as far away as possible by scapegoating other people – them, and we get to be the crowd cheering our protectors on, while remaining relatively safe ourselves.

But – particularly as Quakers – we would say “no”, it didn’t work,  because how does supporting the destruction of “them” exist alongside “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God”?  Jesus has not “saved” us from our violence as a species, we have not seen “the war to end all wars”,  we have seen weapons of mass destruction, economic policies meant to crush our “enemies”, and local politics which end up with members of one side seeking out the houses of members of the “other” side with weapons of individual destruction.

Now why should any of us good, non-violent people care about this?  I think Rene Girard – and other theologians – want to understand why Jesus died, and they are not happy with the theories of atonement they were taught as children.  Not only did some of us leave the churches we grew up in, but we did not want to return to them as adults to find out if they now tell another story.

We heard about fire and brimstone and eternal suffering and a mean and stern God  to whom justice was more important than love and mercy, and that he could only be satisfied with the death of his own Son; nothing else would satisfy his thirst for vengeance.  And that God piles all our sins on him – he was the scapegoat for all of us.   I imagine this worked pretty well in the Middle Ages, when people couldn’t read the Bible for themselves.  And remnants of that harsh God are alive and well today, and that God is called upon by those who want to get rid of “the other side”.   And some people that call themselves Christian are very angry and violent toward “the other side,” who happens to be us.  Thomas Gates (Friends Journal, December 2022) said  “ In my view, the satisfaction theory of the atonement and its variants have done more than any other church teaching to discredit Christianity in the eyes of thoughtful seekers.”

But many of us read the Bible for ourselves and we learn about the life of Jesus and he gives us an entirely different picture of God.  God is a loving father, who runs out to forgive his son before he even has time to apologize.  He says God hates religious leaders who make people follow many religious rituals and who run away from travelers lying half-dead in the road and demand animal sacrifices in the Temple.   So we want to turn away from churches that teach anything other than what Jesus taught.   And we don’t want to be told that God is a divine child abuser.  So we need to make sense of the death of Jesus in some other way.  I think that is why Girard and many other people have turned to different understandings of Jesus death and resurrection.  So that’s where we are headed:

 How does Jesus save us?

Girard’s theory says that our violence arises from our scapegoating others.  He says that everyone around Jesus did “throw him out of society,” so to speak.  The Romans washed their hands of  him, the Jews hated him because he mocked the teachings of their scribes and pharisees, even the disciples betrayed him at the end.  It DOES seem like Jesus is cast out by the rest of society, and maybe that’s where the idea of Jesus being the scapegoat for our sins came from. 

But now we have a different story –From Girard’s perspective, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus brought an entirely new conception of the human condition and of the character of God. Violence and victimization were shown to be the very basis of human culture and God was revealed to be entirely without violence (Hardin 2013, p.181). By removing judgement and retribution from the work and character of God — “someone has to pay” — the God revealed in Jesus was utterly nonviolent  What a radical change – instead of God judging us, we are valued as beloved children of God.  The person that everyone rejected doesn’t play the game.  He doesn’t return violence with violence.  He shows us what God is really like – he isn’t interested in violence, he does not hate us, he loves us.  If Jesus shows us what God is like (and he said, Whoever has seen me has seen the Father), no price has to be paid, we don’t need a scapegoat to take our sins away. 

When God raised Jesus, the scars and wounds of his victimization were still visible in his resurrected flesh. The resurrection is a victory over the scapegoat mechanism and sacred violence.

Forgiveness abolishes the sacrificial principle because it is simply, freely and profusely given us by God.  Forgiveness is the only way that the cycle of retributive violence can be ended. This is what we see in the way of Jesus; in his life and in his death.

We have someone new to imitate.  Jesus imitates his Father’s desire, making it his own.   God, as the transcendent one, is not in rivalry with us,  and so Jesus, as an imitator of ‘the Father’, is not in rivalry with us. Jesus’ relationship with God becomes the foundation of a new community of disciples (Warren 2013, pp.71-72). This new imitation of Jesus  is not acquisitive; it contains no rivalry, no covetousness, no scandal  (Warren 2013, p.73). We can become like Jesus by imitating him and in doing this, we can break out of the imitation of each other which leads  to violence,

 A new way of being human

If the cross shows us how humans really are in all their violence, then the resurrection offers the possibility of a radically new life, a life of  nonviolent compassion, servanthood, humility, generosity and love.  Jesus becomes the model for a new humanity (Warren 2013, p.73). Allowing Jesus to be one’s model generates the desire to do the will of God and seek the good of the other, rather than the covetous desire to acquire from the other.  To imitate Jesus is to imitate his own imitation of the Father. This is a radical reorientation of life that frees us from the perpetual cycles of violence. In this sense, salvation is not an intellectual matter of confessing certain dogmatic beliefs, but an experience grounded in the same desire to copy others, but now modelled on Jesus (Warren 2013, p.115). The imitation of Christ rewires our violent neuro-circuitry, linking us together as a community and reconciling us to the nonviolent God, 

And THAT is the way Jesus saves us.

The good news is that the Spirit of Christ is at work within the world in an organic way. It does not need a systematic body of doctrine or the institution of the church to have an effect. It is like a virus working within the hard drive of human culture

So the nonviolent, forgiving, compassionate and self-giving Christ represents the only life-giving alternative to violent destruction (Warren 2013, p.340). If we imitate him rather than each other, Christ offers the real power to break the hold of humanity’s bondage to wanting what others want and the escalation of reciprocal violence that it produces. Will we accept the offer to follow Christ?

This message was given to Spokane Friends by Lois Kieffaber during Sunday morning worship on February 4, 2024.

References:

Stuart Masters, A Quaker Stew   https://aquakerstew.blogspot.com/2015/09/r-is-for-rene-girard-human-violence-and.html

Thomas Gates, New Light on Atonement; No More Scapegoating, Friends Journal, Dec 2022.

Hardin, Michael (2013) The Jesus-Driven Life: Reconnecting Humanity with Jesus (JDL Press)

Warren, James (2012) Compassion or Apocalypse? A Comprehensible Guide to the Thought of Rene Girard (Christian Alternative)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Girard

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Building the Beloved Community by Brianna Wilts, January 7, 2024

Posted on January 17, 2024 by bpemery

Good morning, it’s great to be here with you all! I am so glad your church is a part of Faith Action Network. Thanks for inviting me to speak today.

I thought I’d begin with sharing a little bit about myself and what brings me here today. My name is Brianna Dilts, I’m a regional organizer for the Eastern Washington area with Faith Action Network (FAN). We are a multi-faith network of over 165 faith communities across Washington state — including the Spokane Friends Meeting — together we advocate for a more just, sustainable, and compassionate world. We do so through state legislative advocacy, which fun fact the legislative session begins tomorrow, and this year is a short session, meaning it is only 60 days long. We have a lot to accomplish in this short time. Each year FAN adopts a legislative agenda with key advocacy areas a few which are affordable housing, healthcare, criminal justice, environmental justice, immigrant and refugee rights, and economic justice.

This will be my first legislative session with FAN, and I am excited to advocate alongside leaders of faith and conscience from across the state. I want to underscore the importance of bringing together diverse voices of faith to tell our elected officials what we care about. We all share similar values such as peace, justice, and compassion and often times faith communities are on the front lines doing work like providing shelter for families experiencing homelessness, serving meals to folks experiencing food insecurity, and many other forms of direct service. Connecting our values to the work we do and emphasizing that we want to see policies that align with our values can be moving for officials, especially when we are able to use our institutional power to say that we have a block of people that are behind us demanding the same things.

So now that you have all that information on who I am and what brings me to this work I want to share a bit about what I find most powerful and fulfilling about advocacy and organizing, and that is the power of relationships.

I attended a service here last month and at that point I was still pondering about what I wanted to talk about and something in the message struck me and inspired me to talk about relationships. The speakertalked about helping the poor and sick, specifically inviting others to the table, and it struck me that we can’t do that without building relationships with others. Charity is a staple of most religious institutions—helping the poor, the sick, and the hungry. But I would argue that there is a distinction between helping and inviting to the table.

It’s one thing to give someone food and it’s another to invite someone to dine with you at your own table.

There is a story I read, from a larger book called Going Public, where a Baltimore pastor at a church that distributed free lunches to folks in need decided to sit down and talk with one of the clients each day. He asked a man, after some initial conversation, why he didn’t have a job. And the man replied that he did indeed have a job but didn’t make enough money to eat. Very soon after he started doing this his assumptions were challenged, and his perceptions changed. The author writes “The people on the line ceased being clients of the congregation’s soup kitchen. They became names, histories, faiths, tragedies—full and complex human beings, with sometimes beautiful, sometimes painful, and sometimes frustrating stories.”

Truly, it’s building relationships that allows us to go from seeing someone as “the other” to seeing them as people, as someone whom we care about the well-being of. For people of faith, I think that a large part of that is seeing each other as children of God, though that alone does not develop a relationship, it may make us more willing to develop relationships and it is a framework that allows us to see the dignity and worth of all people. It pushes us, perhaps out of our comfort zone, to ensure that all people are treated with dignity and justice.

I think of quote that is attributed to Dr. Lila Watson, an aboriginal activist and scholar from Australia. Though the quote originated out of a collective conversation between aboriginal activists in the 1970s. Watson says:

‘If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together’.

Unless we have relationships or are ready to step into authentic relationships with others, especially with others who might be different than us, it’s hard to see our liberation as bound up together.

This distinction of “our liberation being bound up together” is so crucial because if our liberation is bound up together, I’m going to work hard and continue to work hard to ensure that you are liberated because my liberation is also at stake. Whereas, if I’m helping you and I don’t really see our liberation as being bound up together, I might be an ally but I’m not an accomplice, so to speak, which limits how far I’m willing to step up and stand up for you.

Now let’s take a step back for a second and talk about what relationships can do in terms of promoting the common good. In community organizing, we talk a lot about relational power. Power sometimes gets a bad rap, but power isn’t alone a bad thing—it’s actually pretty neutral. It is, however, how you exercise power that moves it along the axis. In the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) style of organizing there are two concepts pretty central to this relational power:

Power Over vs. Power With vs. Power for AND
The world as it is vs. the world as it should be

“The world as it is” is run by power. The “world as it should be is run by love” Love and power are actually very intertwined. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said:

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

Power WITH is what we strive for. It’s dignifying, it is not dominant and it builds relationships. Central to this power is love. Love is what makes us act, love is what pushes us to build relationships and to advocate for our fellow human beings when we witness injustice.

Romans 12 verses 10,13, 16 speak of Love in Action: “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality” “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.”

As we approach Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday next week it dawned on me that King’s “Beloved Community” is related to many of these topics: of relationships, of liberation bound up together, of mutuality and of course, of love. Romans 12 verses 10, 13, 16 speak of Love in Action:

“Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality” “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.”

The Beloved Community as a concept was first coined by philosopher and theologian Josiah Royce, a founder of the Fellowship of Reconciliation which King later became a part of. In 1913 Royce wrote “My life means nothing, either theoretically or practically, unless I am a member of a community.” Dr. King then expanded on and popularized the Beloved Community even more so, rooting it in love and nonviolence.

The King Center describes it further:

“the core value of the quest for Dr. King’s Beloved Community was agape love. Dr. King distinguished between three kinds of love: eros, “a sort of aesthetic or romantic love”; philia, “affection between friends” and agape, which he described as “understanding, redeeming goodwill for all,” an “overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless and creative”…”the love of God operating in the human heart.” He said that “Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people…It begins by loving others for their sakes” and “makes no distinction between a friend and enemy; it is directed toward both…Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community.”

The Beloved Community isn’t just a theoretical ideal or optimistic hope, it was a destination where King believed we could arrive. In a 1966, article in Christian Century Magazine, Dr. King affirmed the ultimate goal inherent in the quest for the Beloved Community: “I do not think of political power as an end. Neither do I think of economic power as an end. They are ingredients in the objective that we seek in life. And I think that end of that objective is a truly brotherly society, the creation of the beloved community”

Each year, as we take to the streets and march and reflect on Dr. King’s dream and legacy, I always feel a bit somber. We have certainly seen much change and progress since the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak, but we still have so much more work to do. I often reflect on the almost 56 years since Dr. King’s assassination (of course I haven’t been alive for most of those years, but one can still reflect on our recent history) and I regretfully think of the many ways our society has strayed or moved backwards from approaching the Beloved Community. I titled this message “Building the Beloved Community” and it’s not because I have the roadmap on how to get to King’s Beloved Community or even have the fullest understanding of it—but I do know that a foundational component of Building the Beloved Community is relationships, and understanding the power of relationships to change the world into a better place.

I am currently reading The Purpose of Power: How we come together when we fall apart by Alicia Garza, one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement. I’m not terribly far into it, but I wanted to bring some of her perspective. Garza reflects on her experience as a Black woman in America growing up in the 1980s during the conservative consensus. After many Civil Rights and Black Power leaders had either been killed or surveilled, harassed, and labeled a communist by the Federal government—much like King was — stifling and leaving somewhat of a void in leadership of the movements that shaped the 1960s and 1970s. Fast forward to today, when we have suffered through a long and dis-unifying pandemic and each year our country seems to grow more and more polarized, sometimes it kind of does feel like things are falling apart. But Garza finds hope in her community and in organizing. In her book she defines organizing as

“the process of coming together with other people who share your concerns and values to work towards a change in some kind of policy.” That coming together, “building relationships with our neighbors and others to accomplish things in the world is embedded in all of our lives: it’s part of all the things we do every day to survive, to feed ourselves, to express ourselves, to restore ourselves… It’s connecting with a purpose” (p. 47)

For her, that purpose was to find others experiencing similar things, asking similar questions, people who saw the world as it is — but it didn’t stop there— people who could also envision the world as it should (and could) be.

As people of faith, for me as a Christian, for you all as Quakers, for people across our city who may be people of faith or conscience, I believe we all see the world as it should be—a world full of the Spirit, the Divine, full of God’s love—and we work to shape the world closer to that. As I was researching and writing this message, I learned that Dr. King and Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh were friends. Their shared values of nonviolence, love, and justice led them both to a friendship that crossed the globe and led each of them to stand in solidarity with each other’s struggles for justice as they both worked towards the Beloved Community.

FAN is full of thousands of people who look at the world and see it as it should be. I feel that one of the most important jobs we staff have to do at FAN is connecting all of these people who hold that vision. These interfaith relationships I believe are so vital to our message and in standing in true solidarity, a theme that we at FAN have been focusing a lot on in the last year or so. When the world is sending such divisive messages, especially when it comes to things like politics and religion, our unified public voice across a broad coalition of classes, races, and faiths calling for justice and love for our fellow humans, is very powerful. To quote our Executive Director, Elise, “I think amazing things happen when our love for a group of people moves us to take action for justice with them. When we so care for our neighbors’ wellbeing that we are moved to take risks for them, that is countercultural in this “me first” culture, and it is transformative.”

As I close, I want to come back to the quote from Lila Watson’s group: ‘If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together’. At the basis of King’s Beloved Community is the interrelatedness of human existence. The mutuality of this experience means that “In a real sense,” he wrote, “all life is interrelated. The agony of the poor enriches the rich. We are inevitably our brother’s keeper because we are our brother’s brother. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

My liberation is bound up with yours. I believe that King and Watson share the same message. This is evident in a note King wrote to Cesar Chavez, who was leading farmworkers that were largely undocumented, King said, “Our separate struggles are really one—a struggle for freedom, for dignity and for humanity.”

Relationships. They’re our power. Obviously, there is strength in numbers…but when those individuals in a larger group — even in just a small group of people (like this group here) — see their struggles as intertwined and are working together towards justice and liberation for each other. That’s love. And as Cornell West said, “justice is what love looks like in public.” Public relationships formed around love and justice, that’s powerful.

This message was given to Spokane Friends by Brianna Dilts, representing Faith Action Network, during Sunday worship service on January 7, 2024.

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We Are What We Worship by Sarah Scott, January 31, 2023

Posted on January 17, 2024 by bpemery

Scripture: 1 Samuel 8

This holiday season has felt incredibly dismal.

Something in the collective ether has shifted. My family, who was once excited about Christmas traditions and festivities was exhausted by the prospect of baking, wrapping gifts, and decorating.

It all just feels sort of grossly wasteful, performative, and capitalistic – it all feels sort of exhausting… shameful and gross, in fact. There is nothing more jarring than walking through a TJMaxx on December 24th having it look like Christmas village only to make a return on the 26th and see everything out for Valentines day and to have the sudden realization that all of the pretty stuff just ends up in a landfill or the ocean eventually. All of that hard work for it all to end up in an abyss somewhere to never decompose.

I walked with my best friend through the Garland district and we chatted about this – America’s excellence at capitalizing on the season. We walked passed quiet local businesses and mourned the loss of Advent season. I talked about how I wish Christmas cold return to what it once was, sometime long before either of us were born. Something more local and intimate – a time for reflection, service, wonder, stewardship, hospitality, and community.

My friend stopped to point on that the burden of creating a holiday experience like that will always be on us because it seems our culture doesn’t worship the Christ-child, our culture worships the profit. 

Consider now the eighth chapter of I Samuel:

Israel wants to be like the other nations

In this section of 1 Samuel, the Israelites are concerned with conforming to the standards of other nations and having a worldly king to protect and provide for them. After a period of political turmoil and conflict with the surrounding nations, the leaders of the community get together with Samuel. And the elders put it pretty frankly – “you are old and no longer capable of leading us in the ways that we need. And your sons are acting in ways that are completely inappropriate to be considered for this position – we need a king.” Not just any king to rule over them, not like the judges that came before or a prophet like Samuel. Israel wants a king that is “like the other nations.” Under military threat, Israel wants a worldly king.

Samuel is frustrated by this. He is Israel’s appointed leader – the prophet. He is supposed to be the one that is looked to for guidance – he acts as the mediator between the people and God. And the folks in leadership basically said without saying that Samuel’s time is coming to an end – they need a plan.

I can recognize the elder’s thought process here. It makes sense: “We are facing military pressure. We are unorganized. We aren’t protected. In order to compete with the other nations, we must be like them.”

            “Give us a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”

So Samuel goes to the presence of the Lord…

This is a rejection of God, because God is their king – his kingdom politics are different…

Samuel speaks his anxieties about Israel asking for a king. And God offers him this:

“Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done since I brought them up out of Egypt until now, forsaking and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Listen to them, but warn them about what this earthly king will claim as his rights.”

Israel once again has rejected God’s sovereignty over them and God instructs Samuel – go warn them.

​​Israel submits to this worldly desire for a king, at their own expense

I can hear Samuel saying this:

“This is the reality of what will happen under this worldly king. Your sons? They will die in battle, they will be forced to lead charges against enemy nations. And your daughters? They will toil in the bakery until their hands are numb, they will make perfume until the smell of balsam and frankincense becomes nauseating to them. This king will take a portion of your harvest – he will call your perfectly-ranch-broke-quarter-horse, your prime steer, your best hunting dog, and a tenth of your garden his. He will take your wine and the fruits of your labor for himself and his friends. The land and it’s workers – He will take. HE. WILL. TAKE.””This is the reality of what will happen under this worldly king. Your sons? They will die in battle, they will be forced to lead charges against enemy nations. And your daughters? They will toil in the bakery until their hands are numb, they will make perfume until the smell of balsam and frankincense becomes nauseating to them. This king will take a portion of your harvest – he will call your perfectly-ranch-broke-quarter-horse, your prime steer, your best hunting dog, and a tenth of your garden his. He will take your wine and the fruits of your labor for himself and his friends. The land and it’s workers – He will take. HE. WILL. TAKE.”

The phrase “he will take” occurs six times in 1 Samuel 8.

Juxtapose this with the law that occurs under God’s rule.

He says in Genesis: “I give you every seed-bearing plant, all the beasts of the earth and of the sky and ground, I give every green plant for food.”

He says in Exodus “Three times a year celebrate festivals to me. I will take away your sickness – you won’t be barren, you won’t miscarry, you will be healed.”

He says in Leviticus, “let the land itself rest on the seventh year – let the land fallow.” In his law, in his Jubilee, debts are forgiven, slaves are made free, and property is given back to its rightful owners.

He says in his law, which is the rule of his kingdom, “Worship me and me alone, and I will give you everything.”

God grants them their wish, knowing that they are consenting to their own enslavement, warping God’s previous gift

Israel asking for a king isn’t just a little dis at God or something to frustrate Samuel – it’s the insane suggestion that Israel would rather re-subject themselves to slavery. They would rather be ensnared to a system that keeps them dependent on an earthly king – just like they were before in Egypt. They will trade the King who fights their battles with pillars of fire and walls of water for an earthly one who only has chariots and horses.

God’s vision for Israel’s servanthood under his kingship looked like rest, order, and right-relationships. His vision for their culture and society was one who was submissive and obedient to his perfect Law. That Israel wouldn’t be like neighboring nations, but that they would be different. This, this friends, was their freedom: Freedom from the systems of the neighboring nations that enslave them.

We become what we worship. Israel in this story is doomed to become what they strived so hard to be different from. Same goes for the two twenty-somethings walking through Garland–they are exhausted by the capitalist system that exploits them as consumers around the holiday season. And yet, we continue with the same yearly traditions, worshiping the same worldly king that exhausts us.

And this goes for much more than holidays.

I had a close friend from Whitworth reach out to me about my experience with the pain and numbness from carpal tunnel syndrome that I have developed over the last handful of  years working with my hands at the bar, farm, and brewery. She, like me, is a full-time graduate student who works as a baker. I told her about the wrist braces I wear to bed, Advil, and ice. She asked me, “Well, what about rest?” “What about it?” I responded, “I’m just mad because why would God make our hands like this if they don’t work for working.” She replied, “Well, I think he’d answer by asking why we choose to work so much.” My tired hands, the reason why I had to turn down the offer to play cello for campus chapel. My tired hands that are braced by 7:55pm on school nights because I have to be up by 4:45 am tomorrow. My tired hands, too busy to journal. My tired hands, too tired to lift up the friends in my seminary who are mourning, poor, and sick. My tired hands, for you a quippy sermon metaphor – for me the actualized reality of continuously misdirected worship.

C.S. Lewis published an essay in 1963 about, amusingly, space-travel, in which he said this:

“How, then, it may be asked, can we either reach or avoid God?. . . in our own time and place, [avoiding God] is extremely easy. Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) on your own grievances. Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedation.”

In submission to the culture of my surroundings, in trying to be like the other nations, I have ensnared myself in the classic sense of Hustle-and-Bustle culture of busyness and hurry that is concerned solely with capital gain at the expense of my embodiment and relationships. In serving another master, in wanting to assimilate to the culture around me, I tarnish the gifts of the gentle King who gave me them. Much like Israel, instead of receiving the blessing of God’s provision, of his just kingship over my life, I turn around to submit to the master who takes.

And that’s exactly the point that Samuel makes, too. “And you yourselves will become his slaves.”

So what?

What else do you worship? What do you let rule you? What do we willingly submit ourselves to in the world, in order to be part of the culture we deem better than God’s? What do we consciously ensnare ourselves to with the expectation that somehow, someway, it will be better than the provision given to us by God? That by our assimilation to a culture and kingship that is not the one we are called that we will be better off.

Friends, this was never his plan – for us to worship worldly kings who enslave us. To bow down to the culture. God’s greatest desire is to be the only King over and above all the noise we hear from the world.

The reality is this – the simple remedy for misdirected worship is to redirect it. 

To reuse Lewis’s quote:

Engage silence.

Find solitude.

Follow the train of thought that leads off the beaten track.

Forget about money, sex, status, health and (above all) on your own grievances.

Turn the radio off. Live in a small-ish community. Use no sedation.

Benediction

Brothers and sisters, receive this good news: we need not live as people ensnared to the world,

For we have a King who is merciful and just, mighty and powerful

– we have a King who rose from the dead.

His Lordship covers us – go from here and live, for you are free. Amen.

This message was given to Spokane Friends by Sarah Scott during Sunday morning worship on December 31, 2023.

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ACTS PART III by Johan Maurer, November 27, 2023 

Posted on December 30, 2023 by bpemery

It has been a good holiday weekend. The last time I spoke with you, we were in London, and I set up my camera in our son Luke’s living room. This Thanksgiving weekend we’ve been enjoying having our family, including Luke, all together here in Portland. 

I’m calling this message ACTS, Part three, and in choosing this title, I’m admittedly being a bit sly. Maybe some of you already suspected that ACTS is an acronym, and I’ll explain where it came from. Some of you may remember my first visit with you this year, which was on January first. It was part of a series you had about Quaker folks who’ve had a big impact on us, and I chose to tell you about my Quaker mentor, Deborah Haight, the scientist around whom Ottawa Friends Meeting gathered—which became the second largest meeting in Canadian Yearly Meeting, and the meeting where I first became a Friend. 

When Deborah first arrived in Ottawa, there was no Friends Meeting close enough to attend regularly, so she began attending an Anglican church. As she explained to me, she was listed on their rolls as “a Quaker in the Anglican Church.” She learned to practice an internal liturgy as a form of prayer shaped by her experience there, and she brought that inward liturgy into her practice as a Quaker. 

Drawing on Anglican and Catholic spirituality, her inward liturgy at its most basic level was summarized by the initials A, C, T, and S. I bet some of you already know where I’m going. “A” stands for “adoration,” “C” stands for “contrition” (or in some traditions, for “Confession”), “T” for “Thanksgiving,” and “S” for “Supplication.” Each one of these elements of the inward prayer liturgy is worth at least one Sunday morning message. Since this is the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I’m skipping “A” and “C” of that potential series, and jumping to part three, looking at prayers of Thanksgiving. 

So … I began searching for a Scriptural anchor for a second Thanksgiving message. (Second message, because Ruthie Tippin touched on the theme last Sunday, based on Psalm 89.)  I admit that I even resorted to a Google search to view recommended Bible verses for Thanksgiving. Here’s what I found: they were all about giving thanks to God. 

Giving thanks to God the Creator is never wrong, even in the face of the utter agony of the Israelites’ Babylonian captivity which dominates the second half of Psalm 89. There is nothing about the tradition of giving thanks to God which requires us to pretend everything is OK when it isn’t. I can’t help thinking of the pastor of the Lutheran church in Bethlehem, who recently gave a message about the events in Gaza, including the bombing of Gaza’s oldest Christian church. His sermon was entitled “God Under the Rubble.” On his way to his ultimate point about persistent faith, he said: 

We prayed. We prayed for their protection … and God did not answer us, not even in the “house of God” were church buildings able to protect them. Our children die before the silence of the world, and before the silence of God. How difficult is God’s silence! 

I want to pause and acknowledge this pain, even as we might be giving thanks today for the brief cease-fire in Gaza. As for the war in Ukraine, I’ve touched on that sad theme many times since my message on “Russians, Ukrainians, and Zombies,” back in January 2022, so I won’t go there today. 

In any case, the theme of giving thanks to God in the midst of suffering is an important subject for another message. What I was looking for was some Biblical evidence that God wants us to thank, not only God, but also each other. I couldn’t find any clear directions to do so, but I did find several Scriptures that seem to imply that we ought to have a thankful attitude toward each other. Many of Paul’s letters have this implication. For example, in First Thessalonians, in his opening greetings, Paul writes: 

We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Paul expresses similar sentiments in many of his letters. He’s thanking God, but he is specifically thankful for the believers he’s writing to. I don’t think it is a big stretch to say that he’s also thanking them for their labor and their endurance. When he writes to individuals, he’s more direct. For example, in writing to Philemon, Paul says,  

I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people. 

This reminds me of a funny counter-example in my own life. The very first time I gave a message in a programmed Friends meeting happened shortly after Judy and I arrived in Richmond, Indiana, so that I could begin my studies at Earlham School of Religion. I got a job at Quaker Hill Bookstore, whose manager, Fred Boots, also pastored a little country Friends Church in south central Indiana. One day he asked me to substitute for him at the meeting on a Sunday he had to be elsewhere. He had mentioned that this church had a problem with people gossipping about each other— surely that never happens in most churches! — and so, when I prepared my sermon, I mentioned the importance of the Queries in Indiana Yearly Meeting’s book of Faith and Practice, specifically these: “Do you love one another as becomes the followers of Christ? Are you careful of the reputation of others? When differences arise, do you make earnest effort to end them speedily?” 

It didn’t take long for me to find out how my message landed. The following Sunday, Fred Boots was back at his church and heard about my sermon. One of the Elders informed him tartly that Fred’s absence that previous Sunday morning was not appreciated, and she accused him of not giving adequate notice. She went on to say, “And not only that, but SOME BOY came and preached at us.” After enjoying my discomfort at this description of my debut performance, Fred did go on to thank me by saying, in effect, “Apparently you said what they needed to hear.” 

You know that this happened a long time ago … nobody has called me “SOME BOY” in recent decades. 

Here’s another passage from Paul that hints to me about the importance of thanking each other. It comes from Ephesians, Chapter 1, starting in the middle of verse 15 and ending in the middle of verse 19:

Ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.  I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ … may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know [God] better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which [God] has called you, the riches of your glorious inheritance in [God’s] holy people, and [God’s] incomparably great power for us who believe. 

So, as we’ve seen before, Paul starts out by implying his own thankfulness to his audience for their faith and love. By the way, we’re not sure who that audience was, because this letter was apparently intended for several churches. Unlike most of Paul’s letters, this doesn’t have any personal greetings at the beginning, nor at the end, so some commentators theorize that we just happened to have the copy intended for Ephesus. Maybe we can call this Paul’s letter to Spokane, for the principles still apply. 

One of the things that stands out for me in this letter is the point about the eyes of our hearts being enlightened. Among other things, this should result in our awareness of “the riches of our glorious inheritance in God’s holy people.” I love this! We are each other’s wealth, we are each other’s glorious inheritance. There are so many wonderful implications of this, of which I’ll just name two: 

First, the church’s wealth is not measured in property or budgets, but in relationships. I got a great example of this back when I was working at Friends United Meeting. We had a doctor appointed to the Friends Lugulu Hospital in Webuye, Kenya, and that doctor’s term in Kenya was coming to an end. We thought that the enlightened option was not to offer to send another North American doctor to take their place, but to offer to fund the salary of a Kenyan doctor. No sooner had we finished congratulating ourselves on our wise and sensitive approach, than we got a reply from the hospital: they didn’t want money, they wanted another North American doctor. As we probed for the reasoning, we got the message: Kenyan doctors and nurses were available, and on call at the nearby government hospital in Webuye, but for our hospital, the relationships, the fellowship with us in the international family of Friends United Meeting, were more important than money. It was the relationships that formed our glorious inheritance. 

I’m not pretending that money isn’t part of the picture. We still had to pay that doctor that we sent to Lugulu. And all of this became even more real to us during our nearly ten years in Russia, and you Spokane Friends helped support us there. But again, money wasn’t everything. A huge part of your care for us was Dwaine and Becky Williams serving on our support committee, and all of you who hosted and fed us when we visited, and Jonas Cox’s fabulous resources on educational methodology. Once again, thank you so very much, Spokane Friends Meeting! 

The second implication of having the eyes of our heart open to the wealth we have in each other, is to realize that our diverse gifts and temperaments are part of this wealth. A few days ago on a social network, I read a moving story of a compassionate response to poverty. As was utterly predictable, someone commented that compassionate responses miss the point: an unjust system requires systemic change. But why do we have to choose? I’m sure Spokane Friends Meeting has people particularly gifted to act compassionately in specific circumstances, kindly and competently providing resources to those in need. Maybe in reality that’s all of you! Other Friends are particularly gifted prophets, analyzing the systems that cause pain and telling us what God has to say about those systems. No doubt, the prophets and the helpers get on each other’s nerves sometimes, but if they remember to pray for each other and support each other, the whole community becomes available to serve as the answers to God’s promises of justice and reconciliation. 

Queries: 

What do Paul’s words “I always thank my God…” mean to you? Paul sometimes wrote these words from prison; what does that context do to their meaning? 

If Paul were to write an epistle to Spokane Friends Meeting, what would he thank God for concerning your community? 

Think of the Quaker you know who is most unlike you in temperament or gifting. What might you thank that person for, as their contribution to the Friends community? 

This message was given to Spokane Friends by Johan Maurer during Meeting for Worship on Sunday, November 27, 2023.  

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Counterculture Guest List by John Kinney, December 10, 2023

Posted on December 10, 2023 by bpemery

Many Christian denominations follow a liturgical calendar.  Last Sunday was the first Sunday of the calendar and the first Sunday of the four-Sunday season called Advent.  The theme of Advent is to get ready to celebrate the incarnation, Christmas, and to think about the 2nd coming of Christ.  The gospel reading last Sunday was the parable about the master leaving the servants in charge of the house.  The servants need to make sure they are not caught off guard because the master might return at midnight, noon etc.  It is all well and good but the master never left.  Christ is fully present right now, right here always and everywhere.  It is impossible to not be in the presence of Christ.  God is at home.  We are the ones out for a stroll.  We fail to be present to the Presence.  It is a matter of consciousness.  We will encounter the divine in the now.  Unfortunately our thoughts are either focused on the past or the future.  Anywhere but the now.  For me the objective of unguided worship is to be in the now.  To turn off your thinking.  Better said than done.  But I have wandered from my main topic.

Luke 14: 7-11

He then told the guests a parable, because he had noticed how they picked the places of honor. He said this, ‘When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take your seat in the place of honor. A more distinguished person than you may have been invited, and the person who invited you both may come and say, “Give up your place to this man.” And then, to your embarrassment, you will have to go and take the lowest place. No; when you are a guest, make your way to the lowest place and sit there, so that, when your host comes, he may say, “My friend, move up higher.” Then, everyone with you at the table will see you honored. For everyone who raises himself up will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be raised up.’

Then he said to his host, ‘When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relations or rich neighbors, in case they invite you back and so repay you. No; when you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; then you will be blessed, for they have no means to repay you and so you will be repaid when the upright rise again.'”

I picked the gospel text from Luke because it is appropriate for December, the month of giving.

“So they cannot repay you.” That is crazy.

Two basic tenets of capitalism:

  1. You can’t get something for nothing .
  2. You dang well better get more for your something than your something. Profits, dividends, interest.

“So they cannot repay you”.  The First National Bank of Jesus would have gone bust. So they can’t repay you is lousy financial advice but wise spiritual advice. Jesus is talking about not only a meal in return but social recognition, praise, accolades and honors.  That emphasis ties in nicely with the first part of the parable which is all about humility.  Picture a humble person running for political office.  They would not have a snowball’s chance in hell. 

Imagine this scenario. There is a bad storm, golf ball sized hail, horizontal wind and all the windows on the east side of the meeting house are damaged. I come forward and say that I will pay for window replacement. I want my name prominently featured in the bulletin and a plaque displayed in the meeting house that says, “Windows the generous gift of John Kinney”.

I would be doing a good thing for Spokane friends but a hurtful thing for myself. I would be taking my false self, my ego self, to an all-it-can-eat buffet. My need to get praise and my inflated ego would be running the show. “Look at me! I am totally awesome, aren’t I?” 

At the plaque placement ceremony which I insisted on taking place: , ME “ Thank you.  It really wasn’t that big a deal.”  Presenter “You are very humble.” ME ”Yes, humility is just one of my amazing attributes.”

I am feeding the false notion that my validation is dependent on external factors. We don’t need that. We are beloved sons and daughters of that through which we live move and have our being, the ground of all being, that which we name God. Our names are written on the palms of the great mystery’s hands. We are the apples of the divine’s eye.  What could ever top that? A noble prize? In physics?  Lois, I know you are thinking about it. Presidential medal of freedom? An Oscar? Recognition is not bad in and of itself. I want to repeat that. Recognition is not bad in and of itself. It is bad if you seek it or feel hurt if you don’t get it.

But not feeling hurt is easier said than done. I am sure that at one time you worked very hard on a group project. Maybe your role was not prominent, in the background but nevertheless essential. The endeavor is a stunning success. Thanks from the person in charge go out to all except you. You want to shout, “What about me?” Worse than that, some slacker gets the credit for what you did. We need to let it go. Letting go might be half the battle for spiritual growth.  [One exception, this does not apply to youngsters. They need to build a well-grounded positive self-image.] The time to let go of the false self will be later. The false self is not the bad self. It just isn’t your true self.  [Note: Just don’t overdo it where everybody gets a trophy.] 

What about inviting the poor, crippled and lame to dinner?  Is the text saying that inviting friends for dinner who will reciprocate is bad? No. We all do that. It is saying that to grow spiritually we need to get out of our comfort zones.

  • I have choices and options. I need to witness the anger of those who don’t.
  • The system is working quit well for me, thank you very much. Actually the system during COVID worked really well for the wealthy.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, billionaires in the United States became unfathomably richer to the tune of $637 billion total.  Compensation for CEOs is now 278 times greater than for ordinary workers. That’s a stratospherically larger income gap than the 20-to-1 ratio in 1965.” To understand flaws in the system I need to spend time with those oppressed by the system.
  • Did you know that the poor donate more per capita than individuals in higher income brackets and that their generosity tends to remain higher during economic downturns? 

It is easy to think hey, I started with nothing and worked hard to get what I have.  I am entitled to what I have. But think about it.  It is all a gift.  The fact that I got up this morning is a gift.  The fact that I was born in Metaline Falls and not inner city Detroit is a gift.  The fact that my father had a good job and I was able to go to college is a gift.  The fact that my mom was not a single parent, with no education, working two minimum wage jobs to just survive is a gift.  IT IS ALL A GIFT! It is all grace within grace within grace. All we can do is re-gift. All we can do is let the inexhaustible supply of grace flow through us and carry it to others.  We do not need repayment because we never run out.

It is all gift. This community has gifted me in many ways. Thank you. God bless you. Merry Christmas.

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Going to the Dogs by John Kinney, November 11, 2023

Posted on November 14, 2023 by bpemery

It is always good to be with you in person.  Let us start with this simple prayer: Breathe in “Thank.” Breathe out “You.” Several moments of silence.

This meeting house is at 1612 W Dalke. I had no clue where that was.  I have lived in Metaline Falls for most of my life but it wasn’t until I was in my 30’s that I knew exactly where I was.  Let me explain………

Matthew 15:21-28

21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 And he answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Hmm?.  I imagine that listening to the reading made you a bit uncomfortable.  The all merciful and compassionate Jesus ignores the woman’s pleading, tells her she isn’t in the right group and then calls her a dog. 

At a Catholic Sunday service there is a part called the liturgy of the word during which there are 4 scripture readings, one from an Old Testament book, a Psalm, a reading from one of the apostolic letters (usually of Paul’s), and the last reading is from one of the gospels.  It is a three-year cycle.  Year A uses readings from Matthew; B, Mark; and year C, Luke.  Readings from the gospel of John are interspersed. The cycle then repeats.  You would think that Catholics would know the Bible well.  Not so.  Most Catholics don’t bother to read or ponder the Bible on their own.  Several weeks ago the reading was the one I read about the Canaanite woman.  After the gospel reading the priest gives a homily, a commentary on the readings.  So I have heard at least 20 homilies about that gospel.  I went online and looked at many commentaries on that reading.  They all have this general theme.  Jesus was testing the woman.  Jesus wanted to see if she really believed he could help her.  Did she really have faith/trust in Jesus?  The commentary will then continue talking about how we need to be persistent in prayer, etc.

I could end my message right now, be done and go into unguided worship.  However there is a problem for me.  If you look at all of Jesus’ healings, the person to be healed never has to pass any kind of test.  They do not have to fill out an application, pass an interview, or be worthy.  Jesus’s terms are unconditional.  The synagogue official, Jarius, comes to Jesus and asks him to help his sick daughter.  Jesus says, “Let’s go.”  Jesus is with his apostles and they come across the man born blind.  The apostles wonder what sin he or his parents committed. Jesus says that is baloney, goes to the man, puts a mud paste on his eyes and tells him to go wash.  The man hadn’t even asked to be healed.  Jesus just did it.  A Roman Centurion, a high official in the brutal Roman army of occupation asks Jesus to heal his servant.  If Jesus should have tested anyone, it should have been him, but he doesn’t.  Amazing, unconditional compassion.

So what is going on?  I am going to ask several rhetorical questions.  If you make a mistake, is that a sin?  No.  If you don’t know everything, is that a sin? No.  If you were taught something over and over again by people you trusted and you realize it needs to be altered, is that a sin? No.  Hebrews 4: 15 ”For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”

So have you ever thought of it this way?  Jesus was fully human. He wasn’t God walking around pretending to be human. He did not know everything and he made honest mistakes. Example.  Luke 2: 21-52 41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. A 91 mile trip on foot.  Imagine Nazareth is Ione and Jerusalem is Spokane.42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. 43 After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem (20 miles on foot) to look for him. In a huge city still packed with Passover pilgrims). 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 

Stop and ponder the situation.  Jesus and Mary are poor.  Days spent on the road are costly.  Joseph isn’t working, so lost wages during that time.  What about food and lodging?  Think of the worry and anxiety.

47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this?  Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”[a] 50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them.51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

Mary and Joseph had every right to be upset.  Mary: “Why have you treated us like this?”  Talk about an understatement. I can imagine Joseph holding his temper, saying, “Jesus, it is good that you love the Torah and being in the temple but in your zeal, you forgot the Fifth Commandment, ‘Honor your father and mother.’  You don’t understand perspective, but some day you will.”  If Jesus knew everything, why would he need to grow in wisdom and stature?  Jesus was not omniscient.  Jesus had to learn how to walk.  Jesus hit his thumb with a hammer. 

How conscious was Jesus of his divine nature? Many scholars believe that it was only at the Resurrection that Jesus’ human mind and divine consciousness became one as the Christ. Until then, he “was like us in all ways, except sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

If Jesus was walking around fully conscious of his divinity, then Mark 10: 17-18 doesn’t make any sense. “As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.”  Shouldn’t Jesus have said, “Good teacher? Really?  I am the source of all goodness.  I am who am.  How about most awesome, magnificent, knower-of-all teacher.  I am God.”

Or why this? Matthew 26:39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

And above all, why this? Matt 27: 46 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Was he pleading to himself??

Jesus was fully human. That is the point of the incarnation.  But what about when Jesus was baptized by John?  Matt 3: 16-17 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.   And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.

There you go, the Spirit of God said, “This is my son.”  Proof and validation to Jesus of his divinity by God. But I am a son of God. You are sons and daughters of God. So what is the difference between us and Jesus?  We don’t believe it. We think we have to earn it or aren’t worthy of it.  Jesus in the fullness of his humanity knew it to his core.  Jesus did not come to show us how to be Godly.  He came to show us what it would be like if we lived our humanity to its fullest.   Jesus is the architype, the blueprint, the model for us.  In no way does what I have said diminish the divinity of Jesus the Christ.

I have been fumbling around trying to say what Father Sean ÓLaoire nails when writes this about Jesus being perfect.

That is what it was like for Jesus to grow in wisdom and grace. At no stage of his life was there a discrepancy between his potential and his actualizing of it. There was no ‘empty space’ in him; no gap between what, on the one hand, God and life was teaching him and, on the other hand, his instant willingness to embrace it. That’s what perfection really means; to be radically committed to the mission for which one has volunteered and incarnated. Perfection is not about not making mistakes. It is about the radical devotion to one’s life purpose. It is the acorn hell-bent on becoming an oak tree.

Part of Jesus’ growth was to, initially, buy into the 613 precepts of Torah but to, eventually, reinterpret the meaning of these laws. In his own words, he came not to abolish the Law but to bring it to fulfillment. But look at what ‘fulfillment’ meant to him. Again, and again, almost like a mantra, he would proclaim, “You have heard that it was said to the people of old…but I say to you…”  Then he would go on to take issue with some of the most important precepts e.g., an eye for an eye, the uneven field of divorce, the Sabbath rest, the death penalty for adultery. In conclusion, he would say that the Law was made to serve humans not the other way around.

We have done the believing community a major disservice by so emphasizing his divinity that his humanity was all but overridden. “He did not really have to live faith or darkness as we do, he knew everything from his youngest years,” most Christians naively assume. Yet Hebrews beautifully calls Jesus the “pioneer and perfector of our faith” (12:2).

But I have digressed a bunch.  Back to the Canaanite woman.  From his childhood Jesus was taught the law and learned to cherish it. He knew that his people were chosen, special.  His people were not like “those people” the gentiles.  Gentiles were profane, morally suspect and to be avoided.  Take that attitude and ramp it up 100 times in relation to Canaanites.  Historically, Canaanite culture was debauched and cruel, embracing such practices as ritual prostitution and even child sacrifice. 

So Jesus’s reaction to the woman makes sense.  He was doing what he was taught.  But the woman’s perseverance and last response threw him for a loop.  In Jesus’s mind the boundaries of inclusion suddenly expanded exponentially.  The laws regarding “those people” were meant to help the Jews protect their social identity, but Jesus saw that they needed to be broadened.  All people were cherished by God. 

So which is it?  Jesus was testing the woman or Jesus grew in wisdom?  Believe that which enables and encourages you to walk the talk.  To follow.  To persevere in prayer.  To expand your circle of inclusion.  To question long held beliefs and prejudices.  To let go.

Queries:

What long held beliefs do you need to reexamine and let go of? 

Who are the Canaanites to you? Who do you want to exclude?

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Everyone Belongs to God by Lois Kieffaber, October 29, 2023

Posted on October 25, 2023 by bpemery

Some weeks ago I read a paragraph in a magazine (Plough, which is in our magazine rack) that struck me profoundly – I’ll share it with you now.

“When you meet people of other faiths, don’t hopelessly think to yourself that they are damned.  Even when you see people who are involved in wrong dealings, in behavior you want nothing to do with, don’t condemn them.  Be careful!  Watch out that you don’t destroy what heaven has in store.  Your neighbors, no matter how pagan they may appear to be, can change, but you must show that you trust them.  Yes, if you really believe that they belong to God, then Jesus can overcome any darkness, fill any heart with joy, and turn any person to the Father in heaven.  Always trust that those you meet belong to God; they will come to him one day.  The Savior wants to help all people (2 Pet. 3:9).  If God can change you, then when others see what your life is like, they will also change.  When God’s power is seen working in us, it will have an effect far beyond our immediately spheres of influence.  In this way the whole world will receive the Savior’s help.” (pp. 72-3))

Then I saw where the quote had come from – from a book called Everyone Belongs to God. So I went online to look up the book, and I found it.

And when I saw a picture of it, I thought, “I don’t believe it – I think I own that book.”   So I looked in my bookcase of unread books, and there it was!   I remembered buying it at a conference – whether it was a Quaker Yearly Meeting or a Church of the Brethren Annual Conference, I can’t remember – they both have great book displays.  I also remembered that at the time I bought it, I was concerned about LBGTQ issues, and I thought this book would speak to those issues.

Well, I read the book and it did not discuss LBGTQ issues – that would be much too narrow a focus for this author.  He meant EVERYONE, not some subset of people whom our culture treats very badly.  He began by  calling attention to what kind of people Jesus spent most of his life with.  And that was those living in miserable poverty, oppressed by the upper classes, barely able to eke out a living.  Jesus was born into the lower classes – that’s where he grew up.  And that is the kind of people who flocked to hear Jesus.

He  chose his disciples from among the working class – uneducated fishermen, or those cast out of society, like tax collectors — because these people are the ones who cry out for justice, who are longing for a better life, who have less than their share of the world’s resources. 

And do you remember his first sermon in the temple?

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim release to the captives,
recovering of sight to the blind,
to deliver those who are crushed,
and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. (Luke 4:18-19)

Jesus spent a lot of time talking about the Kingdom of God.  And he spoke of it as being here, on earth, a treasure buried in a field, a mustard seed, a lost coin. I’d like to spend the rest of our time together, sharing the ideas I found in this book. For example:

The Kingdom of God seems to have very little to do with the world’s religions.    Recall Jesus’ words: “ And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”  The risen Christ wants to draw all people to himself . So one particular church or confession of faith is no concern of his.  We need to represent the gospel of the Kingdom that shines for all people no matter who they are. (p.3)

Some religions and some Christians teach resignation, that we should accept things as they are because this is somehow God’s will.  Jesus didn’t resign himself to anything.  He calls us to seek God’s justice in the world.  So we are to look for God’s justice, right where we are, where people suffer and fight for their rights. As Blumhardt puts it:

“Seek justice, but do so through love. Jesus needs a people who, in the power of he Spirit, will transform everything out of love. All things in heaven and on earth must become new through love.

“If you find it difficult to believe in God’s new creation, then love those whom you can love. Just give your love to everyone you meet. Most people are unable to express themselves about formal faith or deep spiritual matters, but everyone understands what love is. Let love surge up in your heart and you will be one with God’s great missions on earth. If you want to find your way forward, if you want to represent the kindgom of God in anticipation of a new heaven and a new earth, then commit yourself first and foremost to love.” (p. 94)

Here is a passage which makes us understand that when Blumhardt says everyone belongs to God, he really means everyone.

“Fallen human beings lie in the dirt  — yet they are precious stones.  A diamond that lies in the dirt cannot glitter.  But because it is a jewel, it cannot be spoiled by the dirt.   It can be picked up and polished again and sparkle as before.  Therefore, when you encounter those who are lying in the dirt, don’t think that they are rotten.  It is a crime against God’s love to think of anybody as being lost or bad.  What God has created is never bad.  But people can find themselves in the wrong place, and because of this, can give a completely wrong impression.  If a jewel is to sparkle, it must be brought into the light somewhere.  That is why you should not just tell the unbeliever that he is a sinner.  No, first tell him, “God loves you!” . . . 

We are never permitted to trash anyone, least of all ourselves.  No person is evil at the core; they are merely entangled in evil  . . . ” (pp. 75-76)

“God has promised to re-create heaven and earth and bring the whole world into the light of the Savior….  This is our heart’s deepest longing , that Christ reconciles the whole cosmos.  He is the ruler over all, and his light will fill the entire universe.” (pp. 76-77)

“Therefore, avoid dividing the world into “us” and “them.”  If you do, you will harden your heart.  There are not two worlds, one in God’s hands and the other one not.  There are not two species of people either, one totally under God’s rule and the other completely outside of it. . .(p.77) There is just one Lord, one God, one Father of all, “who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6)  All things are God’s because Christ is all in all (Col. 3:11). . .” (pp. 77-78)

As I tried to pick out which passages I wanted to share with  you, time and again I just kept on reading.   So much of what he said sounded like Quaker understanding of the gospel: that you live the gospel message of love, as Quakers try to live it, through their testimonies of community, equality, simplicity, integrity, and peace, rather than just “believe” cetain ideas about God (which can never contain the whole of God and are like the proverbial blind men trying to understand an elephant). Our thoughts are never big enough to understand God, but we can try to live the way Jesus told us to live. Quakers are also suspicious of religious rituals which often seem to have little with how people live their lives. 

.For example, Blumhardt says: Take heart, and may God give his Spirit to all you meet!” Isn’t this pretty much exactly what George Fox said when he said, “Walk cheerfully over the world and answer that of God in everyone”. Surely he must be a Quaker. Hear it once more: ”Take heart, and may God give his Spirit to all you meet!  This author continues to say: 

“Remember they don’t need to become “Christians” like us. This designation need not come up at all. Whoever does the will of God is a child of the kingdom of heaven, whether he takes his cue from Confucuis, Buddha, Muhammad, or the Church Fathers. Christ is the only one who brings truth and life into people’s lives. Everything is in his hands.

“Every nation is equal before God. Before him, unbelievers and pagans count just as much as Christians. People of all descriptions are entering God’s kingdom. They are coming to Christ, but not to Christians. The vision of the Son of Man — representing compassion, social responsibility, and equality through the works of peace — is catching on among the so-called irreligious. Here is the entry point for Christ’s spirit, which will encompass the whole earth.”. . (pp.45-6)

Does this author have anything to say about using violence (e.g., the Crusades) or fear of hell as methods of evangelism? Yes, he does. I quote him:

“The gospel is a power, not merely a message. Therefore you must keep it pure. To combine the gospel with threats or pressure makes it unclean; light and darkness get mixed.

“This is why it is so important that you keep telling those you meet, “You belong to God.” God defends the rights of humanity. God is love and cannot abide the thought of a single person not belonging to him. Right now millions of people live in darkness, but they will all be freed. That is why we, too, must defend this right for every person. To condemn anyone upholds the power of sin and death. As soon as you or I or anyone else writes someone off, God is denied a certain right. You must instead commit each soul to God’s care and keep that soul in mind as one for whom God’s right will also come to light. Otherwise, you are not a faithful witness of Jesus. And you must believe the same for yourself. That is the gospel.” (p. 95)

And shortly before I got to the end of the book, I found this quote:

“Jesus came into the world — yes, into our wretchedness and filth — for God loves the whole world, incluing all that has become diabolical and godless. ”The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light” (Matt. 4:16). It was to the desperate, the condemned, the murderous, and those who no longer had any consolation or hope that Jesus came. To them it was given to see the God who loves them. Base everything you say and do on this fact: light has come into the darkness and can shine into every pit of despair. This light is love. The gospel is God’s love in our darkness. With every word of the gospel, God lays claim to the darkness — to sin, death, and hell, — through his love. He loves each person, no matter how lost, as his child. You and I and those around us may be sinnders. Yet from the cross God says to all of us, “I lay claim to you, not to judge you or condemn you, but to help you” (John 12:47). This is the light of the gospel and the darkness cannot overcome it (John 1:5).” (pp.129-30)

But my biggest surprise was discovering who the author of this book was and when it was written.  In fact the author is not a Quaker.  His name is Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, he was a Lutheran pastor in Germany, and he lived from 1842 to 1919 – this book is over a hundred years old!   I am so grateful that those who heard him speak or read his letters (on which this book is based) preserved them for us to read and be challenged by more than a century later! This book was published in 2015, compiled and edited by one Charles E. Moore. Thank you, Charles E. Moore, for your faithfulness in preserving the prophetic voice of Christoph Blumhardt. 

In the foreword of this book, written by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, we find these words, “In every age, God’s people need prophets to help us see beyond our blind spots — to expand our vision of what God is about.” The prophet Jeremiah had to reassure the captives living in Babylon that God had not deserted them, but also to tell them that God was not going to destroy Babylon. To quote directly,  

A salvation that requires someone else’s destruction is too small a salvation, Jeremiah proclaimed. To a people in exile, he wrote, “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jer: 29:7) You will not be saved apart from your neighbors, the prophet says. Everyone belongs to God. . . [And when Jesus] “pointed out that a Syrian soldier and a Gentile woman had more faith than anyone else in their day, the hometown crowd tried to throw him off a cliff. Your gospel is too small, Jesus said.” (pp. x-xi)

And here is the final quote I will read to you (also from the Foreward):

Our gospel is too small. It is, indeed, too small a thing to think that the hope of the world rests in our ability to recruit others into a religion [Christianity[ which has too often made us morally worse. 

To confess that the hope of the world is Jesus Christ is to open ourselves to a kingdom beyond our control — beyond our imagination, even. It is to embrace the revolutionary notion that everyone belongs to God.” (p. xiii)

Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove (from Forward to Everyone Belongs to God)

Reference: Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Everyone Belongs to God, Plough Publishing House, 2015.

This message was given to Spokane Friends by Lois Kieffaber during Sunday morning worship on October 29, 2023.

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Spiritualty . . .a sanctuary of mind by Walter Simon, October 1, 2023

Posted on October 3, 2023 by bpemery

It occurred to me most recent, having octogenarian credentials, as well having outlived my worst critics, that I have a responsibility to open my heart beyond writing poetry, an obligation to add voice to our community, given we share common values on Sundays, so I’m going to have a Quaker moment, attempting to translate spirituality into helpful words.

No less than now, my wife years past, accused me of “thinking in too much”, a self-communication –but I explain it as a constant aspect of a creative mind. You’re there, but yourself is somewhere else.  You can’t help it –a self-interested creature whipped by a greater Muse.   

That’s why I feel comfortable and grounded with a silent service, a house cleaning of the mind, a moral polestar, a balance between the hardship of reality also an unabated healing aspect of the soul when forced to search for answers.  

My spiritual guide considers David’s biblical Psalm: (46-10) “Be still and know that I am the voice of God.”  I hope to consider today the personal value of spiritual thought…a feeling without words.

My religious values are reached through meditation, and as any Quaker would suggest hoping to see the light without illusion, blinders, or dampened by ego. 

Before I tapped into Quaker thought at Seattle Friends in 1962 –over 60-years past- was more than satisfied with a stoic position as to organized religion, though trying to understand that with all the gods available and claimed through history, how war and petulance, greed and deception is a part of life, also led to a career as a critic of social discourse, as well spiritual guides considering a long search for peace-of-mind.

How we manifest our religious beliefs is a clear example of seeking a moral structure that satisfies something within, do I dare suggest justifies our conduct, as you wrestle with present realities. For me the Ten Commandments proved ethical, a tremendous social lesson.

There are many approaches to spirituality. Consider this: spirituality is a feeling: can’t cup it in your hand, or tightly grasp it in a fist… only feel. Can’t hug it, but sense it clearly exists in mind and body. You can’t touch it, only sense it. I consider it as a presence, a manifestation of a guiding spirit in search of clarity, guidance and discovery. It’s the motor -I mean energy- that will keep us grounded.

Clearly not a theory, or a haunting specter, but an intimate understanding –a private acceptance of faith where feelings are fortified by moral judgement.

The only way to achieve this insight is through quiet contemplation, and for reinforcement social interaction with the Society of Friends.  Consider these beneficial and positive thoughts, an understanding. I suggest this comes through meditation, equally it’s prudent to understand the way we act defines the presence of a willing spirit. 

For me “silent service” is therapy, private and personal questions answered, a grounding that has led me through many complex social issues.  Please understand we are part of compound societies, a sometimes-confusing interactive process; and I hope for satisfaction to honor convictions being motivated by seemingly thoughtful inherent judgements.

I started reading the monk, Thomas Merton, decades past, to seek a spiritual message. Went through two of his books, found much of the thinking defined me, a path offered as reference, to seek a better, and clear, creative and moral path.

In this light I truly can’t fully communicate to you spiritual healing, but believe it’s in you, waiting for discovery, if not already achieved. Spirituality has no voice but offers an elated focus. I do understand the hours spent downstairs honoring a practice –I’ve observed for decades– hopefully helps me continue to absorb positive sensations, and let me add…and fully appreciate the good in you for honoring this tradition.   

In a moment of whimsy allow me to offer another form of therapeutic discovery, a lifting if you will. When issues of life get ya’ down, watch Walker Texas Ranger on TV for a gymnastic and vicarious exercise; or better recall the words of Vanna White, a media pundit, who wisely observed “When you spin the wheel you never know what you’ll get!”

This message was given to Spokane Friends by Walter Simon during Sunday morning worship on October 1, 2023.

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Salt, Light, and Tough Choices (A Silver Age of Evangelism?) … Part 2 by Johan Maurer, September 24, 2023

Posted on September 24, 2023 by spokanefriends

I want to start with a story from our Friends meeting in Russia. Some of you may remember us telling this story when we visited you about ten years ago. And Stas, a member of Moscow Meeting who’s online with us today, may remember this, too.

Here is the outside of the Building where Moscow Friends Meeting met.

After entering from the street, you came to another door

Then you went down a stairway and turned to the right.

Our unprogrammed, silent meeting for worship had been going for about half an hour. As usual, there was a candle and a Bible on the table around which we had gathered. Suddenly a man burst into our meeting room and loudly demanded to know what gave us the right to have and display “sectarian” literature. He demanded, “Remove this stuff immediately and stop your sectarian activities.”

The word “sect” in Russian has overtones close to the word “cult,” and this identification could spell political or even legal trouble for us. I couldn’t help thinking about the seriousness of his charge and its possible consequences. But I realized that my only choice was to trust that it was all in God’s hands.

Our assistant clerk, Misha Roshchin, stood up and led our unexpected visitor out to the kitchen for a conversation about his concerns, while the rest of us tried to settle back into worship. We could hear their animated conversation going on for quite a while. As we found out later, our visitor’s worries began when he made a summertime visit to the community center we were using, in his role as one of the managers of the center. In those years, we didn’t meet during the summer, but he saw some of our booklets and leaflets on a bookshelf and decided he needed to check on us.

This is our kitchen and the man in the middle is Misha.

While Misha and the visitor talked, our worship time came to an end and we had a chance to meet our guest in a calmer setting. After that conversation and some tea, we were able to do what we’d planned to do for our education hour: we watched a beautiful documentary film about the great Russian Orthodox priest and bishop Anthony Bloom, and our visitor actually stayed to watch it with us.

Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh was a prominent writer and broadcaster on prayer and the Christian life, as well as the founder and leader of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Sourozh.

Judy and I were the only foreigners there, and for whatever reasons, he was especially eager to get to know us. We certainly had not planned in advance to show a film about a famous Orthodox priest in order to disarm a suspicious visitor. Nor did we, looking back on it, try to impress him with how wonderful we were as Quakers. We were just being who we were.

We came out of that incident apparently unscathed, but it wasn’t the end of our story with that community center. Our arrangement for the meeting room came to an end when the owners of the building decided to rent the space out, for far more money than we could have afforded, to a pet food store. We were promised another meeting place in the same complex, but it never came about. But we soon found another place to meet, and this too is a remarkable story. The room was in the offices of a nonprofit organization—but here’s the interesting twist. This nonprofit was far larger than we were, and it was getting its funding from a variety of official and non-official sources, local and international, but its seed money, years earlier, had come from Friends, through Friends House Moscow. We had helped them begin, and now they were the ones giving us shelter.

Last month, I began speaking about the qualities of our lives as people of faith, and how those qualities communicate our faith. I mentioned the apostle Paul in Athens, and then went on to generalize about how the Christian faith spread in the Roman world.

I said, “comparing today’s USA with the Roman empire of Paul’s day, we have a similar mix of anger and polarization on the one hand, the kind that drove Paul and his friends from more than one Mediterranean town, and, on the other hand, an overall tolerance that welcomes all sorts of faiths and, at the same time, trivializes them. Nowadays there’s some evidence that the more militant versions of Christianity have driven young people into the ranks of the ‘nones,’ … but what we share with most of the Roman empire in its first two centuries is that there is no one religion that demands total loyalty. The tacit American assumption that being Christian meant being part of the establishment has weakened almost to the vanishing point. If being publicly identified as church people once carried a social advantage, apparently it doesn’t do so any longer.”

I went on to ask, “What openings does this provide us Friends? We have very little investment in promoting ourselves as defenders of Christian respectability, or promoters of the religion industry in general. Our whole approach to evangelism is similar to what Paul said to the Athenians, ‘… God is not far from any one of us. For in God we live and move and have our being.’ And our invitation is to look inward and see that witness that God has put into each of God’s beloved, and to join us in learning how to live by that witness and its ethical consequences. This invitation can be as fresh for someone who’s spent a lifetime in the church, as it might be for someone who has never had any church experience at all.”

I referred to the Mennonite historian Alan Kreider, and his book, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. His two central words, “patient,” and “ferment,” are very fertile ideas for thinking about how our life as followers of Jesus can express hope and freedom to those around us who need precisely those things.

Kreider says that the patience of early Christians meant that they did not seek to control outcomes or people. This quality shaped an approach to life that, without those motives of control, had a power of its own. In Kreider’s words, “The sources rarely indicate that the early Christians grew in number because they won arguments; instead they grew because their habitual behavior (rooted in patience) was distinctive and intriguing. … When challenged about their ideas, Christians pointed to their actions.”

Kreider went on to describe how the educational and mentoring patterns of the early church helped people form and maintain these habits. The cumulative effect was that ferment that led the Christian movement to grow rapidly, without hype, theatrics, or pressure. They didn’t seem to be telling the world, “Look how wonderful we are—especially compared to those fill-in-the-blanks who are corrupting our nation.” (In today’s times, you can fill in the blank with your favorite left-wing or right-wing villains.) If the engine that powered their communication wasn’t their own specialness or their own irresistible arguments, what was it? And is it still available to us today?

Kreider’s description of the virtue of patience in the ferment of the early church is that it entirely rested on trust. As the hymn says, “The Lord hath promised good to me, His word my hope secures.” The more I thought about it, the more I saw that one way to look at this motivating core of our faith, that communicates to others through our habits and practices is to see it as faith in the promises of God.

There’s nothing particularly abstract or pious about the promises of God. The Scripture that I proposed for today comes out of a messy case study of the church, a case study we know as First and Second Corinthians. And those two books are composed of letters from Paul to the Christians in the city of Corinth, in the same Greek province as Athens. These letters are just two of several that went back and forth in both directions, and some scholars say Second Corinthians actually draws from several different letters. And in those six or so years between Paul’s first visit to Corinth and the last letter, he may have made several visits, and we know that at least some of them were confrontational. The church was dealing with internal controversies and disciplinary cases, and they also had awkward questions for Paul himself. His leadership wasn’t taken for granted. So: the church at Corinth may have been part of Alan Kreider’s “patient ferment,” but it certainly wasn’t all peace and calm.

Let me read just a sample of Paul’s mentoring of a church in conflict. For context, Paul is trying to explain why he changed his travel plans, and if we read between the lines, we can detect some other controversies in the background. In the beginning of this letter, Paul also refers to the persecutions that Paul AND the Corinthians had to endure as a consequence of their faith, and as a setting for their exercises in trust.

2 Corinthians 1:12 Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity. We have done so, relying not on worldly wisdom but on God’s grace. 13 For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that, 14 as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.

15 Because I was confident of this, I wanted to visit you first so that you might benefit twice. 16 I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia, and then to have you send me on my way to Judea. 17 Was I fickle when I intended to do this? Or do I make my plans in a worldly manner so that in the same breath I say both “Yes, yes” and “No, no”?

18 But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silas and Timothy—was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.” 20 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.”

By the way, I like the interpretation of the word “amen” that has the sense of “this is reliable, worthy of commitment.” It has a hint of “promise” about it.

This morning, I’m suggesting that it’s trust in the promises of God that shapes and empowers our faith, and the community that we visibly form in the larger world.

I admit that I’m talking aspirationally here. I don’t think that we actually always live in that trust. I make this confession on two levels.

First, on an individual level, we are not always in a place where trust comes easily. In the first moments of that confrontation with the angry visitor to Moscow Meeting, I wasn’t thinking about the Lamb upon his throne; I was thinking about what might happen if this guy began spreading the word about a cult operating in their community center. What if next time we were surrounded by a mob of angry anti-sectarian campaigners? It’s happened many times in Russia.

The peace came later, as together we pooled our anxieties and our prayers, and settled back into worship. One of the best things about a beloved community like this one I’m speaking to, is that we don’t all have to be at the same level of trust at the same time; we support each other as Paul and the Corinthians supported each other, even boasted of each other, in their ups and downs.

Secondly, let’s be realistic about the cultural context we’re in. The world’s messages that surround us, and inevitably influence us, are not messages of trust and promises. I’m reminded of something that the philosopher Os Guinness said a few years ago in an interview.

I remember when I was in Australia, speaking on modernity, a visiting Japanese CEO came up to me and said, “When I meet a Buddhist monk, I meet a holy man in touch with another world. When I meet a Western missionary, I meet a manager who is only in touch with the world I know.” You could say today that many, many Christians are atheists unawares; they are implicit, practicing atheists because they are so secular in their consciousness. So we have words like prayer, supernatural, revival, but we don’t actually operate in the world named by those words. To live with the spiritual disciplines opening us up to another reality, to other powers and other dimensions, cracks secularization very powerfully.

We should not be surprised that trusting and living in God’s promises doesn’t come automatically. It’s like Kreider says: it’s a matter of formation, mentorship, discipline, and practice, but not only that—we begin to experience God’s promises for ourselves.

What are God’s promises? God makes promises to us, and through us. Throughout the various biblical covenants—to Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the promises recorded in Jeremiah (“I will write my law on their hearts”) and in Second Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14 (“…If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land”) … in all these and many other places, a picture forms of a people formed by God’s promises: a people reconciled with God, living in anticipation of peace and hope, and a people formed to bless others. You and your descendants will be a blessing to the whole world, God promises Abraham. “I will heal their land,” God promises Solomon. And in times of trouble, Jesus promises in Luke chapter 12, “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.”

Speaking of the Holy Spirit teaching us what to say, there’s a PS to the story of our angry guest in Moscow. One of our elderly members responded to his opening outburst by saying, with her face shining with kindness, “What’s wrong? We’re just studying English.” I do not claim that she was acting under the immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit, but we all realized that she had spent most of her many decades learning how to cope with life in the anti-religious Soviet Union.

What does it mean for us as a community to see ourselves as people receiving God’s promises, trusting in them, and living them out? Here are some suggestions. Maybe more suggestions, or better ways to express these, will come to you in the open worship.

First of all, I have a new appreciation for that ancient virtue of patience. I don’t ever mean to shame natural responses of fear or anger or pain. I just mean that we don’t stop there, and beyond that, we don’t simply react. We do what we can to move, maybe even to stumble and blunder, toward that space where we can turn our situation over to God, and we ask our community to walk with us.

Secondly, we ourselves become agents of God’s promises. I think this comes naturally to Spokane Friends. Some of us may be especially gifted in direct help to others, to meeting the needs of people who are suffering, or in prison, or targets of discrimination, or in some kind of bondage. Others are gifted to ask the prophet’s question, “Why is this happening?” and propose systemic solutions. Still others pray for the community within which these gifts emerge, and educate its newcomers and children. Nobody wastes time fighting over which approach is more righteous.

Finally, we are a learning community. We’re bound to blunder. Sometimes we do end up wasting time in conflicts. Maybe we overlook opportunities for service. We rightly cherish our three and a half centuries of experience in discipleship, but sometimes there’s too much Quaker and not enough God. And sometimes we gloriously get it right, and our unforced, patient kindness to each other and our neighbors adds to the sum total of joy in the universe. In any case, we watch and learn. After all, what is a church if it’s not people who are gathered around the Living God, learning what it means to live that way, including its ethical consequences, and helping each other in that lifelong process, through all the ups and downs?

What does it mean to you to be people formed and empowered by the promises of God … promises made to you, and promises made through you to the world?

This message was given to Spokane Friends by Johan Maurer during Sunday worship service on September 24, 2023.

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Inside Outside Upside Down  by LaVerne Biel, September 17, 2023

Posted on September 22, 2023 by bpemery

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak with you today.  For some of you that don’t know me, I thought I’d give you a little background on who I am.  I was the middle child of five.  I was raised in California, and I also spent my summers on a farm in Amity, Oregon, with my grandparents. 

I asked my husband Kent to define me personally in a few sentences.  (Thankfully he was kind.)  The first thing he mentioned was that I like to think outside the box and approach things/problems creatively.  His second attribute was that I was driven and determined (like the character in this story).  I like to see things through.   I agree.   

When I sat down to craft this message, I started in one direction and ended up in another.  This happens to me a lot!  It’s how my brain works and for some of you that don’t know me ………my brain never stops.  I believe that I landed where the Holy Spirit was directing me to the story of Zacchaeus.  Zacchaeus is a great short story (pun intended), but it is not a children’s story.  In this story, I believe that Jesus is showing me the importance of mentorship.  I looked up “mentorship” online, and there were anywhere from 5 to 15 traits describing what a mentor is.  In Zacchaeus’ story I found two: to be present and to listen.   Sometimes to do that you have to look at things inside, outside, and upside down. 

My mentoring jumping-board topic sprang from something that happened this summer.  Kent was working with his siblings for a recent family reunion.  The reunion was going to take place in a town where none of them had lived.  The siblings were texting back and forth to come up with things to do and interesting places to visit.  One of Kent’s sisters came up with the idea to visit the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota.  Kent’s brother Mark replied that he was not interested in going and would do something else.  No one said anything in the group text, and they continued making plans and arrangements.  Then a text showed up from Mark which said, “Pam and I were talking and apparently, I was mistaken.  I would love to go the Spam Museum.”  Sometimes a mentor nudges you in the right direction. 

Since mentoring was my topic, I began looking at great mentors in the Bible.  I looked at Jethro and Moses, Samuel and David, Priscilla and Aquila, and came up dry.   I then turned my attention on Luke because he’s my favorite gospel writer.  I looked over all the stories that were told, parables explained, and miracles performed by Jesus.  Since Luke was a physician, he loves to encompass body, mind, and spirit in his writings.  In Luke we find that Jesus addressed body issues by cleansing ten lepers.  He outlined dedication and persistence through the Parable of the Persistent Widow.  With a surgeon’s precision Jesus dissected the heart of the Pharisees and the Tax Collector.  Jesus recovered a blind beggar’s sight.  And then, he enters Jericho and befriends Zacchaeus.    

I found it interesting that Luke’s gospel is the only one who recounts Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus.   This story must have struck a chord with Luke’s inclusion of body, mind, and spirit.  Jesus was showing Luke (and me) how to mentor others.  Let’s read Luke 19:1- 10:

 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short, he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now, I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

What do we know about this passage?  Jericho was a pivotal point throughout Biblical history.  Moses died near Jericho.  It was home to Rahab.  We know about the falling walls of Jericho.  The rebuilding of its walls was cursed by Joshua.  The prophet Elisha visited Jericho.  A Babylonian king was captured in Jericho.  It is safe to say that Jericho had an extensive history with a colorful past.  I surmise that Zacchaeus had a colorful past as well.   

My title gave me license to explore this topic inside, outside and upside down.  Be warned that I’ve taken some creative liberties with this passage.  Let’s look inside Zacchaeus first. 

Inside the character of Zacchaeus: 

You know that I’m Jewish and work as a Roman tax collector.  Because of this, I am despised by the entire Jewish community of Jericho.  The Romans know this and use my position against me.  I have no friends. 

What you may not realize was that I was an only child.  My parents didn’t have much money, but they provided me with food, shelter, and love.  For some reason I didn’t grow as tall as my friends and classmates.  No matter what I did, I received scorn and ridicule.  Then it turned physical.  I couldn’t defend myself and would constantly find myself bruised and battered.  These beatings crushed me and my confidence and spirit.  I grew resentful and angry. 

When my parents passed away,  I had to find a way to support myself.  I had to take a job that no one else wanted and the only job that I was qualified for.  I had no choice.  I knew that a good Jew would not work for Rome.  I was not loyal to my people because they could care less about me.  So, I became a tax collector.  I convinced myself that way I would gain stature through my money and my influence.  The people of Jericho couldn’t hurt me anymore than they already had.  I would show them! 

Here I am years later, and I feel lonely and deserted.  My money has no value.  It’s cold and unfeeling.  I’ve learned that influence is fleeting.  Then I heard about Jesus.  He sounds amazing.  I’ve heard that he is a great teacher and counselor.  There is talk that he sees through people’s physical and emotional limitations.  He’s a miracle worker that heals them.  I need healing.  I need to repair my relationship with my people.  I don’t know where to start.  I believe that Jesus can help me show others that I really need them.  I need companions.  I need a sense of family. 

When I heard that Jesus was coming to Jericho, I knew I had to make a change.  I had to see and talk with him at all costs.   I ran out to meet him without my security guards.  I ran back and forth up and down the street.  People were lined up in front of me.  I couldn’t see anything.  I jumped as high as I could.  I weaved between people, but they would close ranks and block me at every turn.  They knew it was me.  They turned and looked down on me and pulled their children to their shoulders to make it more difficult to see Jesus.  Then they closed ranks and stepped closer together to block me. 

How can I gain height?  How can I see Jesus?  A sycamore tree.  Sycamore trees are plentiful.  I can climb up to see him that way!  It sounded like a great plan.  I just need to find one where I can reach the first limb.  I ran until I found one!  People are watching me, and no one offered to help!  They turn their back on me again.  It’s okay.  I must do this!  The first limb was almost beyond my reach.  I jumped up and managed to grab it.  I used my sandaled feet to climb up, straddle, and finally sit on the branch.  I know that if I’m able to glance at him that everything will change and change it did. 

Next let’s examine who was on the Outside: the people of Jericho:

Oh no, can you believe it?  Look who decided to show up to see Jesus!  What could Zaccheaus possibly want?  Is he planning on selling tickets to make more money?  Jesus is all about healing and lifting people up.  He’s rich.  He doesn’t need Jesus’ help.  People are shouting out loud, “Jesus can’t make you taller, Zaccheaus”.  There was laughter throughout the crowd.  “Go away, Jesus is Jewish not Roman.  He’ll want nothing to do with you”.    “Hey everyone, block Zaccheaus’ path!   There was lots of jostling and sniggering.  Wait, what is he doing?  Zaccheaus is running around looking for something.  Look, he’s attempting to climb a tree.  This is hilarious.  This is not his best look no matter who he is.  He’s hanging on to that tree for his life.  With his weight I’m not sure it will hold him.  What!  He caught his cloak on a branch.  More laughter from the crowd.  Not good.  I must look away.  After all, I came to see Jesus, not Zacchaeus!

Where is he?  Oh, I see him.  He looks like one of us.  That’s a surprise.  Jesus is coming and I have a front row view of him.  I wonder who he’ll heal today?   Wait.  Did I hear that right?  There must be something wrong with my ears!  What did he say to Zaccheaus?  That can’t be right.  Why would Jesus go to a self-glorified, money-hungry traitor’s home?   What about us?  I thought he came to seek and to save the lost.  Why is he wasting his time with Zaccheaus?  The crowd starts booing and shouting.    

The Upside/down of Jesus and Zaccheaus:

Zaccheaus was perched high above the crowd when Jesus spotted him in the sycamore tree.  Zaccheaus had tuned out the crowd.  He only had his ears and eyes on Jesus.  Zaccheaus thought, What?  Is he talking to me?  I’ve never met him and yet he knows my name.  The Lord said, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”  The crowd witnessed Zacchaeus almost falling to the ground in front of the Lord’s feet.  He collected himself and uttered, “Look, Lord! Here and now, I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”  A gasp came across the crowd!  People cheered.  They approached Zacchaeus and slapped him on the back.   Maybe we were wrong about him after all. 

9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

This Biblical story is upside down and backwards from what we experience in our everyday  lives.  Jesus stated clearly for all to hear that Zacchaeus was one of them, a son of Abraham.  Zacchaeus needed them as much as they needed Zacchaeus.  Jesus gave him salvation because of his faith and fortitude, not because of his position or money.  He had been lost and Jesus found him.    

Today people openly and freely tell you when you’re wrong.  I don’t believe it’s any different today than it was 2,000 + years ago.  They don’t expect you to change.  It’s easier to talk at each other than to each other. 

In conclusion:  I know that I need to be more Christ-like .  Jesus exposed Zaccheaus to the crowd.   He mentored him with laser focus.  He didn’t admonish, condemn, or criticize what he had done or why.  Jesus knew that Zacchaeus was broken and off-track but willing to change.  Why else would he have shown up sitting in a sycamore tree?  Jesus’ mentoring style was to be present and listen.   I purposely didn’t write any queries, I thought I would leave that open.   Remember, sometimes you must look at things inside, outside, and upside down to figure it out.  It wasn’t about where he was but where Zacchaeus needed to be.  After all Zacchaeus name means pure heart.  Jesus had to come to Jericho to remind him of that.   

This message was given to Spokane Friends by LaVerne Biel during Sunday worship service on September 17, 2023

Note: My title taken from a Berenstain Bears children’s story.

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