Spokane Friends Meeting

As the comforter comforts us, abides with us, accompanies us, comes beside us in our times of peril so we are called to accompany and comfort others. This is the result of what God has done for us.

II Corinthians 1:1-12

The Scholarly dissection of II Corinthians has resulted in it being seen as a compilation of more than one letter of Paul to the church at Corinth. The beginning section has been described as a ‘letter of reconciliation’ written after the successfully resuming good relations with the church following his having written what Paul referred to as his ‘painful’ letter. Paul tells that in Asia he was pushed to the limits, beyond his ability to endure and expecting to die yet, by the grace of God was delivered and he chalks some of it up to the prayers offered on his behalf by the faith community in Corinth.

The pressure he experienced on his missionary journeys in Asia caused him to despair. He all but gave up. Reflecting on his experience he praises God who cares about that which unsettles our lives. His pain was emotional pain and the comfort he received from God is of a different character than mere sympathy. It gave him help and hope.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all his holy people throughout Achaia: 2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

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.

Embedded several places in the Greek text is a compound word along with several of its linguistic cousins that is anglicized as Paraclete. Usually when we hear the word we hear it as an appellation or name for the Holy Spirit. A straight forward translation is “the one called to our side” – para meaning ‘along side’, like parallel and kale-o is ‘to be called’. It also shows up in the Gospel of John (14:16-17) where Jesus is quoted to say “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. Here the same Greek word that we found in II Corinthians as Paraclete is translated as Advocate. Other translations use words like helper, counselor or comforter. But the image caught up in the Greek is one who is the one who is called to come along beside you.

In the New Revised Standard Version we read this translation of II Corinthians 1:4-5. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

This is my attempt: “Blessed by God; the Father of the anointed master of us, Jesus; the Father of mercies and the God who has been called to stand beside us and comfort us. The one who is with us to comfort us in every difficulty enables us to be the one called to stand beside others in their difficulties through the same one who has been called to stand beside us”.

Para kaleo – the one called to come along side us is the comforter, the counselor, the advocate. And, at the request of Jesus, God has sent the Spirit to accompany us and be with us in the difficult times of our lives.

Easily to be missed in verse four of the New Revised Standard Version’s translation of the first chapter of II Corinthians is the tiny word ‘so’. Actually it’s part of the phrase “so that”. It is a connective conjunction. Of course the common day Greek used by the Apostle Paul didn’t have conjunctions, the meaning is caught up in the linguistics. It says that by the same God who provides one to be our comforter, who comes along side us we are called and empowered to be the Paraclete to others, called to stand beside them to provide consolation to others in their time of affliction by the one who has been called to come beside us.

As the comforter comforts us, abides with us, accompanies us, comes beside us in our times of peril so we are called to accompany and comfort others. This is the result of what God has done for us. For us then to share the pains of Christ means we stand with the other in the perils they face as we follow the path Christ lays out for us. Paul’s pain helped him to give comfort to others. As Paul received comfort and passed it on to others, it falls to us, as it did to the Corinthians to pass it on to other people.

So you ask “So what?”

The gender of three tenths of one percent of children is ambiguous at birth. It’s only as these people mature that who they are sexually becomes known. However, birth certificates embrace a simplistic binary mythology of gender – that is, through physical examination a child is determined to be either male or female and in many situations surgery is done on the infant to remove all doubt. As a child matures the truth of the matter becomes self evident. These children, certifiably of one gender and maturing emotionally and physically live with the confusing ambiguity of their own sexuality, are all too often the targets of bullying and abuse, and, statistics reveal are at a much higher risk of suicide. Recently politicians have added to the emotional abuse by politicizing what has been a matter of reality since time before time. Gender identity is how a person sees themselves. Gender certification is how they appeared at birth.

And, to add to it, the grave peril faced by these people has been exacerbated by the voices of the church community. Are we not called to come along side persons experiencing peril and offer safety, comfort and protection? I’m struggling with what has happened to the church in this country.

One does not exercise spiritual authority in the Religious Society of Friends. One is exercised by spiritual authority, if one is humble enough to follow the Guide closely.

Acts 1; I Corinthians 12:

Luke, in the first paragraphs of his second book, the Book of Acts, relates the last conversation Jesus had with his followers before he ascended. “This,” he (Jesus) said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

Not unlike us, Jesus’ disciples didn’t get it – as Luke illustrates in continuing to tell the story: So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.

That’s pretty clear – it was none of his disciples business when Caesar’s soldiers would be sent packing back to Rome just like it’s none of our business, all this discussion about end times. That’s not what we are supposed to be about. What is important is grasping that upon which is the church’s foundation.

8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

There is a lot Jesus doesn’t say and in the vacuum we’ve been tempted over the centuries to fill in the blanks. One thing that Jesus does say is that you will or shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. It’s fascinating to me the hurdles that some groups want to put on this promise. You can find all kinds of theories of what you have to do to get the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. What Jesus said, according to Luke, is that when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. How about that, it’s not something we control, not something we can acquire.

The next thing Jesus says, also with the same kind of determination: you will be my witnesses. Not may be, or could be but that those upon whom the Holy Spirit has come upon are witnesses – literally to the ends of the earth.

In the next chapter Luke describes what Jesus promised would happen “not many days hence”. Pentecost isn’t a first century Christian thing. According to the Jewish calendar the day God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses occurred 49 days after the Exodus, the day after the Passover – thus the holy day of Shavuot occurs 49 days after the first day of Passover. Jews of the Greek culture named it the fiftieth day or Pentecost.

Luke sets the scene by writing in Acts 2: that: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

I saw a great Pentecost cartoon this week. It portrayed a group of people in the back ground with flames above their heads and in the foreground was a man telling a smiling youngster with a marshmallow on a stick “Don’t even think about it.”

When we read Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth we learn that the experience of the Holy Spirit coming upon persons wasn’t restricted to those who had gathered in Jerusalem with the Apostles on Pentecost. The experience of that Pentecost continues and it falls to Paul to help the church know how to understand this phenomena. In the twelfth chapter he read this to clarify the source of it:

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. 2You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. 3Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit invades a life what the life emits is consistent with the words “Jesus is Lord”. He develops that further when he writes:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

First Paul helps us to understand that from the Spirit of Christ different people receive different gifts, different people receive different callings to service and different people are motivated to take different courses of action. This is for certain not a one size fits all kind of faith tradition. All these gifts, ministries and activities – every manifestation of the Spirit is for the common good. Acknowledging that is something of struggle for some – and I guess that has always been the case or Paul wouldn’t have found it necessary to address it. It can be hard to make room for something different from our own experience. The commentator on this passage in the old Interpreter’s Bible says that Paul is eager to say that spirituality is not one uniform experience which is separate from all other areas of life. The spiritual is not in contrast to the material and the intellectual. Manifestations of the Spirit are to be found in wide varieties of conduct, because spirituality exists wherever the living, acting God works through capacities of any type. Spirituality is not a separate compartment of life, but a divine relationship which may ennoble all aspects of experience.

To all this diversity that seems to befuddle us there is actually an intrinsic unity.  It’s more than just “God’s plan for your life” or your personal purpose. This idea that every manifestation of the Spirit is for the common good calls us into that kind of communal life.

What might these gifts, calling to ministry or action look like? Paul says the gift of utterance of wisdom or knowledge may come to one, another may be gifted with a healing touch or some other miracle. Some may be prophets and other the gift of discernment another speaking in other languages and when that’s the case another will be gifted in interpretation – that list isn’t all inclusive – and what is most important is the all these gifts, calls to ministries and actions come from the same Spirit who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

The foundation of the church is not found in carefully articulated statements of faith to which everyone subscribes. It’s not grounded in scripture, which requires reinterpretation generation after generation. It’s grounded in the work of the Holy Spirit, a Spirit that is the Spirit of Jesus that has come upon us to teach us, lead us, call us to ministry and motivates us to action. Putting limits on the work of the Spirit isn’t ours to do. The quest to articulate one’s spiritual gifts (or to find one’s purpose, or to learn God’s plan for your life, etc.) often results in a spiritual navel gazing that, undoubtedly, leads to despair – for when we gaze into ourselves, how can we not despair?

What seems appropriate for us to do is to make ourselves available to one another as we seek to make sense of the call of the Holy Spirit on our lives. As we listen to this very present yet mystical presence in our lives we might find ourselves finding it necessary to council another that listen more intently when the call they sense doesn’t seem to fit. In other situations we may find it important to challenge another to risk taking the action or engaging in a ministry to which they have a sense of call.

The Religious Society of Friends is at heart a corporate spiritual journey. As Lloyd Lee Wilson said, it’s not a place where each individual gets to have their own self-designed spiritual growth charter. It is only in our joint practice, in our joint experience, and our joint testimonies that we have communities of believers who can do the work that God has set us out to do. God’s project, as understood by Friends, is not so much the sanctification of myriads of individuals, as it is the transformation of all creation.

What we do as we worship and live and do our business together, is we learn those skills and abilities jointly that enable us to model the Kingdom of God to the rest of the world. This is our testimony as a gathered people. And we do so by taking the seeds of that learning out beyond the confines of our monthly meetings and begin to transform the world outside the Religious Society of Friends.

And the measure of our faithfulness is not how many hearts we have won to Jesus to God or to the Divine power or the Inner Light. It is how real we have made the Kingdom of God.

This is the Lamb’s War. It is no walk in the park. It takes all of our effort, jointly together, and we’ve got to be lifting one another, encouraging one another, and occasionally saying ‘look out, there’s a hole there.’

Spiritual authority among Friends rests in the Gospel, the Good News. If it is not Good News for everyone, it is not the Gospel. And if it is not the Gospel, it doesn’t have authority over us.

The baptizing power of the spirit of Truth is the true evidence. It is not true because I said it, or because it is eloquent or because it is four-syllable words. It is true because you can taste the Gospel. It baptizes you.

One does not exercise spiritual authority in the Religious Society of Friends. One is exercised by spiritual authority, if one is humble enough to follow the Guide closely.

The Holy Spirit is being invitational, not coercive. If you don’t want to participate in the life, you don’t have to. But if you decide that that is what you really want, then God will use you, and God will use you in words or deeds or symbolic actions or whatever, but it will, in fact, be authoritative to those who have ears to hear

A plaque hangs over the changing table in the nursery of a church that quotes I Corinthians 15:51 We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed. How true, one more than one level. That is what it’s all about, isn’t it, change, spiritual change. And though we can learn a lot from them, spiritual experiences are not reserved for some spiritual elite, such as St. Teresa of Avila and St. John’s of the Cross. The promise is to all of us. The challenge is making it a reality.

Forty years ago, or so, when a church fitted out a nursery one of the requirements was a screen that could provide privacy for a mother who breast fed her child – because a father was just as likely to be there caring for his child. The function of a nursery changed. There are an unlimited number of things a father can do in caring for an infant but, biologically, there are some things that are just outside his network.

John Wimberly, in a recent post, wrote that he kept hearing complaints from people in leadership in the church that people weren’t responding to their planned programs. His response was that the church shouldn’t try to compete with secular offerings. He says that there is still a need for programming by the local church, but it needs to be focused on deepening our members’ spiritual lives, creating small, intimate communities, and offering hands-on mission opportunities. He concludes that secular competition to our programs forces us to do what religious congregations can do best—focus on spirituality and mission. Seen in those terms the changes in our world liberates us to focus on deepening the spiritual lives of the members of our community of faith, sharing the truths on which our theological tradition is built. No secular group can do a better job.

In the 19th Chapter of Revelation we read these words.

When I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God  the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself  with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.

The love of God for humanity and in particular God’s ‘chosen’ people, whether the Children of Israel in the Old Testament or the nascent church in the New Testament is presented in the form of relationship between husband and wife, bride and bridegroom. The image is allegorical, and its a real struggle for us to wrap our minds around it, especially those of us of the male persuasion.

Thinking about Mother’s Day – I started wondering about what the role of the Bride of Christ in terms of that of Mother would mean, especially for those of us the male persuasion within the Church. We might think that the process of gestation, delivery and nursing another to the point of self hood for a male was out of the question, but that is to trip over our limitations as humans rather than seeing this as a spiritual opportunity. In our day and time we have difficulty getting over several hurdles before the beauty of this imagery can be embraced. The first challenge is to free the concept of marriage from gender – can we allow for a relationship that is rich, rewarding and fulfilling that is non-sexual? We find ourselves repeating the line that “God has no personal plumbing.”

Jesus must have something of this in mind when he challenged his closest followers to become fishers of men. I think the metaphor of bringing to spiritual birth is a much richer image than spreading nets and then drawing them to shore.

Don Lamb would stand in the pulpit on Mother’s Day and with tears in his eyes and his voice quivering sing M is for the many things she gave me, O means only that she’s growing Old. T is for the tears she shed to save me, H is for her Heart of purest gold. E is for her eyes with love light shining, R means right and right she’ll always be. Put them all together, they spell Mother. A word that means the world to me. I know, it’s too saccharine for most of us today but it causes us to consider the many motherly functions of one who might be identified as a part of the Bride of Christ.

This notion of being “the Bride of Christ” has application on several levels. There is The Church – the world wide body of followers of Jesus; there are the congregations, Friends Meetings if you please – and also, just as important, is the spiritual life of each individual.

In Matthew 25:1-13 we have this story:

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut.

At the risk of being misunderstood and accused of supporting polygamy or polyandry on the physical level – in the context of this New Testament story polygamy was acceptable among the Jews and the bridegroom, in making his late night arrival, came to take his bride, not the bride’s servants, to his home. In the first verse the Greek word is that for virgins, marriageable daughters. Our social sensibilities caused the translators to avoid an uncomfortable but straight forward translation into a more politically correct ‘brides maids’. There are no bridesmaids, as we understand them, in this story, only brides. So half of the marriageable daughters, waiting to taken to the home of the groom were ready – half were not and, excuse the expression, were left behind. This story, when read from a spiritual perspective, suggests that there is one groom, Jesus, and innumerable brides of Christ.

In the sixteenth century writings of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross such a relationship is characterized as “mystical marriage”. It is a mystical union with God which is the most exalted condition attainable by a human soul in this life. Others describe these kinds of spiritual relationships as “transforming unions”, “consummate unions” and even “deification”. St. Teresa in her classic of Christian Spirituality The Interior Castle elevates it to what she calls “the seventh resting-place”. The refrain is from Revelation 19:  Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready;…

We are talking about being a prepared bride for the groom. The first element of such a Spiritual marriage has been described by some as an almost continual sense of the presence of God, even in the midst of external occupations. Such a sense of God’s presence doesn’t separate us from our senses, matter of fact enhances them. That’s clearly analogous to human marriage.

One writer describes their experience as being fully conscious during what felt to be supernatural acts of intellect and will as they sensed themselves being participants in the Divine life. One way to wrap our minds around this is to recall that it is thought that in the next life we are not only to enjoy the vision of God but to feel our participation in God’s nature. That’s analogous to human marriage where in the ideal there is a fusion of two lives.

Another authors hold that in the transforming union there is produced a union with the Divine Word, Christ’s Spirit, that is spoken of in the very beginnings of Acts. Luke writes of this: But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

This is very important to a Quaker understanding of living in relationship with an ever present Christ, the very Word of God. Both here in Acts and in the beginning of the Gospel of John we are introduced to Christ the Word – both with God as a participant in creation and in Jesus, the Word made flesh and now, the ever present promised comforter, the Holy Spirit, the divine groom who comes upon us as marriageable daughters and consummating a divine union.

How does that impact our lives? What’s analogous from the human relationship we know as marriage that is instructive to us in our spiritual quest? Discussions of the Apostle Paul’s view of marriage continues to produce more heat than light but when looked at through the lens of mystical marriage it is truly informative. It’s a concept that Paul thinks would be good to engender in human marriages of is day. We may choose to disagree with the extent of its applicability.

Most of us don’t like it, but here is what he wrote to the Ephesians: Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her  that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. … This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.  

Paul admits that the mystery is profound and refers to Christ and the Church. When we mine his understanding of this mystery from the perspective of a spiritual experience we can learn a great deal about mystical marriage. The Groom desires his bride to be clean, washed in the water and the word because that’s the way he wants to see her, holy, pure, without spot or wrinkle – that is humanly impossible – however, it is the way couples deeply in love idealize their mates. The bride is loved – as much as the groom loves himself. That we ‘brides’ are loved is important to know. We brides are called to be pure – unadulterated – which sets a standard for how we live.

It’s an analogy that describes our relationship with an ever present Christ, how we live in that relationship of trust and love. It isn’t static, it is, like a human marriage full of surprises because it is alive. We are called to make ourselves ready – what do we put in our hope chest, our trousseau? We scrub ourselves clean from any impurity, we dispense with all other relationships and we put a wee bit of oil in our lamp to illumine our hopeful continence declaring our desire to be joined in marriage with Christ.

Back to the nursery’s changing table and the plaque that quotes I Corinthians 15:51 We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed. That is what it’s all about, isn’t it, Change, spiritual change. And the change isn’t what we lose but what we gain in our relationship with a spiritual spouse who comes for us and brings us to our new home to always live in our Grooms presence. So we pray “Come Lord Jesus.”

Gifts of the Living Presence – Written in preparation for the June Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference

Reflection Paper by Amber Joplin “This is my story and I am sticking by it!”

Note: I am attempting to use gender neutral terms for God in this reflection as God is neither male nor female, however referring to God as “he” diminishes the image of god that women carry as well as men. Where I need to use a pronoun, I alternate between using he and she.

For some time after my husband died, I wondered where God was, and where he had been through those devastating loss filled days. At that time I was a self-identified Evangelical Christian attending a Pentecostal – type independent church. The God that was taught there was a daddy who wanted to give his children gifts. “Just ask!” the preacher said. But the preacher wouldn’t ask to raise my husband from the dead, and my impassioned pleas were denied. All I was capable of doing for weeks was to lay in the hammock on my front porch and watch the changing patterns of leaves against the sky.

After I exhausted thinking about where I had gone wrong, and the events I had not been able to forestall. I thought about God and why He didn’t help me this time. He had seemed to help so many times before. Why hadn’t God intervened? Warned me? God knew what loss felt like, after all it must have been awful standing back and letting Jesus get killed. None of this fit with the loving daddy version of God. And I thought about prophesies that Jesus would be a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Then one day in my grief, I had an insight. I comprehended that God was in fact right there with me in my grief, sharing it as only someone who understands can.

This was a huge comfort to me as I badly needed to know that I was not being punished for a mistake or being abandoned by a capricious deity. However, it was much more than a comfort because it began to redirect my understanding of how God was interacting with me. God and I were not locked into merely a father/ child relationship of discipline and dependence. We were actually in a relationship of togetherness. I could see at that point that the loss of my husband was not the result of my failures – or of God’s failures. Rather David’s death was a life shattering event that God understood and share with me.

I don’t know how it was that in the preceding fifty plus years I had not experienced the Presence. I had certainly heard of the concept – and read entire books of the Bible that celebrated it! Perhaps I was too busy working hard to do and be good. Perhaps I had given up on being good. Perhaps I was satisfied with deep human friendships. Perhaps I just didn’t think to ask for more. But after having the experience of the Presence, I continued to sense this Presence and began to look for a spiritual home that was safer for my shattered self. I could not relax again in a place that saw suffering as failure and lack of faith.

What I like about the Presence is that I feel safely attached to Spirit. I don’t have to worry about making a mistake or sinning and losing my way. I cannot lose my salvation. I cannot miss God’s Plan for my life. God is with me. Sure, I had to give up the Sugar Daddy in the Sky, but that god had broken too many big promises. The God of Presence was a totally different sort of character.

Presence is with me. Presence enfolds me. Presence waits for me, not running ahead. Presence doesn’t take over when I try something new. Presence goes to bed and keeps me company when I can’t sleep. Is waiting calmly when I wake up. Presence doesn’t judge what I eat or drink – or wear. Presence is willing to stay home or go out. Presence sticks by me when I fall apart and doesn’t point out how silly my reaction was. Presence will hang around if I chose to just lay on the couch for a few hours. Presence comes along when I go out to have fun and isn’t jealous if I enjoy the company of others. Actually, Presence gives me some of her patience and kindness to share with others.

And Presence calls me. “Let’s be close,” he says. “Be still and feel me with you.” “Let’s see how close we can be now.” And then a promise that “we will be closer yet.”

Sometimes Presence seems to nudge me to sit quietly for others. Maybe like another sort of presence for them. I get the idea that I should just listen to the little neighbor girl across the street who is telling me how afraid she used to be and how she now has self-confidence. Listen to the needy person at the food bank telling me why they cannot pay their water bill. Listen again to a meaningful story. Listen for the apology cleverly concealed behind banter. Listen and attend, listen for the connection.

When I moved to Spokane I was free to find a new Faith Community. I knew I needed the community for spiritual support and I also wanted to learn more about the God of Presence. I had only been taught about Angry, Jealous God and Sugar Daddy God, although I had briefly been exposed to a Forgiving, Inclusive God, whom I found very confusing. At Spokane Friends, experiencing God was described as experiencing the Inner Light. We sought Light and held one another in the Light.

I was challenged at Spokane Friends by what felt like sleight of hand Bible teaching, where familiar texts were re-analyzed and common interpretations side stepped. Tiny story elements were investigated and intents were re-framed. This questioning was intriguing and somewhat alarming as it raised questions about foundational theological concepts I had been taught. Outside of church I was also being challenged to adopt a more rigorous approach to knowledge. In my graduate program I learned how finite the limits of human knowledge were. I studied, read, and researched a tiny segment of a topic for seven years, and became a leading expert on that fragment of knowledge for possibly as long as one year. And no one knew better than I did how much I still hadn’t learned about the subject.

These limits on what I can know lend credence to a mystical/ experiential approach to Spirit. In the past I had been taught that study and beliefs and obedience were key to relating to God. But life and reason have taught me that I can study endlessly and know very little. I can believe what I am told, but those beliefs can be very disappointing and destructive. And I have to be careful in obedience to not obey my culture or what people tell me to do, because my culture and community often approve hurtful behaviors and limit what God is trying to do.

This week, the Journal of George Fox, literally and without provocation, leapt off the book shelf and hit my boyfriend on the head. Consistent with his habit and nature, he did not put it back on the shelf, so the next day I picked it up to see what I would find on the topic of Presence. Henry Cadbury’s introduction to the book frames the religious context of Fox’s spiritual development identifying four different religious movements that were active in England in the early 1600’s. Cadbury suggests that these sects expressed the human search for meaningful connection with God, writing, “…there is something in a man as real as his intellect, which is not satisfied with this clamping of eternal truth into inflexible propositions. Personal soul-hunger and the necessity which many individuals feel for spiritual quest must always be reckoned with.”

Fox, describing his spiritual searching prior to his experience of Jesus being the one who could speak to his condition, describes many unsatisfying interactions with those he identifies as “professors.” Interestingly these professors are not college teachers, but those who profess a religion. Fox distinguishes between those who profess faith and those who experience and live in relation to Spirit. I find it stunning that back in the 1600’s the earliest Friends set themselves on the path of freedom through the experience of God’s presence, yet here we are in 2016 struggling with those who wish to make us “profess” a certain set of beliefs.

Another duck tail. This week six fuzzy, chirpy, little brown ducklings hatched out from under the broody hen. Boyfriend Bob gathered them into the house, provided heat and water, and then brought them to town into my care. The little chirpers have no idea that Bob collected the eggs from those moms that don’t want to set, and gave them to the broody chicken who really wanted to, or that every day he checked the nest and removed competing eggs, or even how hard he had to look for a few of them when he heard the chirping but couldn’t see the sources. They came to town in a cereal box and went into a tub on a heating pad, with lights for added warmth. Every hour or so when I check their food and water, they run away hiding with their fellows as though I present a great danger. As soon as I leave, they run to the dishes eagerly dipping tiny bills.

After a day or so I see a few of them eyeing me, turning little heads sideways for a clear view as I walk through the room. What is that big thing? Now what is it doing? Is it going to get me? I could. After all this morning I took away the warmest light, the glass cover, and the littlest duckling who was soaking wet from a morning bath in the drinking bowl. All of those items were needed by the newest batch of yellow ducklings who had just arrived from the farm and were quite limp and lethargic. These little yellow ducks needed the extra warmth from the lamp, and also the good example of little wet Brownie in learning how to eat and drink. Interestingly it took only a few quick glances for the yellow bunch to allow Brownie to join the fluffy pile under the heat lamp. Somehow these distant cousins were comfortable with each other in moments.

It is not a flaw or failure that these ducklings do not understand who I am. I am not upset at their instinctual fear, but as their caregiver I find it amusing that they are so fearful of me and so instantly trusting of their fellows. (I wonder how often Spirit has to smile at how silly we are in our understanding.) Learning to relate is a developmental process. Part of growing up for some. Some ducks will value interactions and seek out our company. Most only come running when we are bringing out food (just call me sugar daddy). A few seem to seek to be with us as companions. To share our presence. Why so few? What would it take for more of them to do so? Would it be worth it?

It is also not a flaw or failure that humans struggle with relating to Spirit. Although it is the Spirit who gives life, many of us require developmental processes and life events in order to experience the Presence. Actually it is not surprising that it can take many years or extreme events for some of us to experience Presence. Presence is subtle, a still small voice in a very noisy world. And Presence is so unlike what we are taught to expect by well-meaning parents and Sunday School teachers. It does not manifest itself because I am being nice, fitting in, following the rules, memorizing Bible verses, or having excellent manners. Rather, I suspect some folks who discover Presence early are the people who follow their heart rather than their head or cultural norms. And people who come to the end of their strength.

Before I had my experience of God’s Presence in my life I was just as much God’s beloved, and had just as much of her love and light. I have not moved to a higher plain or to greater knowledge or more benefits. I am not a better person. I do have more comfort and less struggle in my relationship with Spirit and more hope for my future. This informs my approach to others who do not share my views. Spirit is equally giving life to each of these individuals, sharing her love and Presence with them. Offering full acceptance. In as much as I am able to share Presence with others, I can do so, by sharing my experience and calling out the best in those I know are committed to Love. I am also challenged to work for the good of all these others who my best friend, Spirit, loves so intensely.

Luke writes that the claim is “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here…” It is how the early Christians saw themselves at work in the world. That the name of Jesus is invoked by Paul and Silas is sufficient to cause concern among the civil authorities. And, my friends, that hasn’t changed in two thousand years. The church is the church when it is stirring the pot.

Risky Business, Acts 17; 1^st Thessalonians

So, here we are at the third Sunday after Easter. As a place to begin I’ve chosen the seventeenth chapter of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. That requires that we skip over thirteen whole chapters of the activities of the early Church.  Those chapters relate many significant events in the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. For our purposes I’m going suggest that when Paul and Silas get to Thessalonica it is the end of the earth. Luke portrays Paul as traveling the Via Egnatia, a major Roman highway connecting the eastern and western parts of the empire. He stops at urban centers along the way, preaching the gospel in the synagogues “as was his custom.”

But this is no back water undeveloped place. First Century Macedonia was a thriving metropolitan area, and Thessalonica was the second largest city in Greece. It had a diverse population that along with the majority of Greeks, or Gentiles, as they are called, included a well established community of Jews

After Paul and Silas had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. ²And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three sabbath days argued with them from the scriptures, ³explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you.” ⁴Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. ⁵But the Jews became jealous, and with the help of some ruffians in the marketplaces they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar. While they were searching for Paul and Silas to bring them out to the assembly, they attacked Jason’s house. ⁶When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, ⁷and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.” ⁸The people and the city officials were disturbed when they heard this, ⁹and after they had taken bail from Jason and the others, they let them go.

As the story begins Paul, as is usual, making a beeline for the local synagogue where for three successive Sabbaths he “argues” the cause of Jesus Christ. This comment about arguing sounds a bit more contemporary than it was.  Some Christians today have evidently concluded that you can argue people into the Kingdom of God.  The Greek word translated as “Argument” means formal reasoning, lecturing, and even preaching. A better translation is that he is “explaining and proving from the Scriptures common to Judaism and Christianity that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you”.  In other words, Paul’s argumentation starts with that which his hearers in the Synagogues consider to be an accepted authority — the Scriptures — and then applies it to that which is radically new and difficult to accept — Jesus as the Christ.

The good news that Luke reports is that Paul has some success, and welcomes some synagogue leaders as well as some devout men and women from the community to the faith.

Success comes at a cost. For some in this Roman community the word “messiah” is too provocative. Their accusation is that “They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.” The Acts passage relates that other religious leaders are “jealous” of Paul’s success, and make mischief in the city with the help of some hooligans. The fall guy isn’t Paul or Silas, it’s a local named Jason, with whom, evidently, Paul and Silas had taken up residence. Most likely he was a new convert.  Jason gets arrested is dragged by a mob to city authorities.

But here’s the line I want to hold up for us. Luke writes that the claim is “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here…” It is how the early Christians saw themselves at work in the world. That the name of Jesus is invoked by Paul and Silas is sufficient to cause concern among the civil authorities. And, my friends, that hasn’t changed in two thousand years. The church is the church when it is stirring the pot.  When it is engaged in turning the world upside down. When the faith community has integrity it has been and continues to be political, you can’t get around it.

Confirming what we hear about in Acts 17 Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians makes reference to persecution of the Thessalonian faith community. In his letter Paul greets the church warmly, recalling its members’ faith, hope, and love, and reminding them of their connection with the missionaries: “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia” (1 Thessalonians 1:6-7).

When people of faith serve a God who is “living and true”, those with a stake in the status quo, those in power, get uncomfortable. Pope Francis not only chastised governments over their failure to take in the masses fleeing the violence of their home lands he just brought a family of refugees home with him. There is a long list of cities where efforts have been made recently to outlaw the distribution of food to the hungry and homeless. The churches that participate in Family Promise, serving homeless families, for some reason has become a target. Spokane has an ordinance that prohibits people from laying down or sitting in a public spaces, primarily where tourists are likely to see that Spokane has a problem with people who are adrift. We aren’t alone in this. North Carolina’s legislature just went ballistic over who can use public restrooms. One pastor placed on Facebook this conversation: Colleague: “My congregation voted not to hang out a banner saying ‘Torture is a moral issue’ because it is too political.” Me: “Why do they think Jesus died? For their sins?”

The founding of the Thessalonian church took place in a political environment which was challenged by the person of Jesus, clearly alive and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, and unnerving enough in the life and ministry of Paul and Silas to cause fights to break out and authorities to round up the usual suspects (who turned out, often, to be church-type people). The disciples Christ gathered around him continued, in turn, to gather others for connecting us with God and each other…” That’s our example. Like them, we are called in our present political environment, in the name of Jesus, to challenge injustice and oppression, to challenge the use of violence where diplomacy is more effective. It’s easy to get confused by Jesus’ call to cross the line from abstract piety to what is euphemistically called “meddling.”  That’s especially true where meddling reflects Paul’s description of the work of the Thessalonians where they became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit,  so that you became an example to all the believers. 

It can be a risky business.

Outside In

Acts 3:1-ff

3One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. 2And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. 3When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. 4Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” 5And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 6But Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” 7And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.

8Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. 9All the people saw him walking and praising God, 10and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. 11While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished.

12When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? 13The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, … 16And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

Luke says the church was formed by the gift of the Holy Spirit and in gathering around the Apostles’ teaching and then Luke moves on to relate stories of the Apostles’ ministry in Jerusalem. The first scene in the Book of Acts after the story of Pentecost is this passage in which Peter and John respond to the request of a lame man for assistance. Their response wasn’t what was expected.  Instead of alms it becomes an opportunity for healing.

Of course the first thing the encounter required was that the Apostles actually saw the invalid. Reminds we of the song that went ‘Slow down, your moving too fast…” We can get so distracted, absorbed or so intent of our agenda that we can miss seeing someone in need.

This healing story follows the typical form of healing stories in the gospels. By following the typical forms for healings Luke demonstrates a continuity between the work of Jesus and that of the Apostles. Ancient healing stories intend to demonstrate the power of the healer. This story certainly does that — the patient presents with a congenital disability of his lower extremities. His condition is such that he had to be carried by others.  But, once the healing has occurred, he can not only walk but is able to leap up and walk. Only a truly significant power could bring about such results. And as Peter makes clear, the power at play was not Peter’s own but the power of the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 3:12, 16).

When we look beneath the surface of this healing story we see that something else is going on as well.  The lame man is already making the best of his situation. Each day, with help, he has himself placed at the Beautiful Gate outside the temple to have the best chance to receive alms from those entering the temple. The Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion reported that people who regularly attend religious services give more to religious and secular charities. The location of the Beautiful Gate at the temple is insignificant but the lame man’s location, on the other hand, is of great interest. He begs outside the temple from those going inside. He is not there as part of the worshiping community but as someone seeking charity from that community. There was another reason for his being outside the Temple, according to the rules of Leviticus 21 because of his deformity he was considered impure.  

After he is healed, not only does the man’s ability change, so does his location. Luke tells us he  “entered the temple with the Apostles, walking and leaping and praising God”. This is important. The healing moves the man from outside the temple to inside of it, from someone not able to participate in the worshiping community to being part of it. In other words, hidden in the details of the healing story is an important message about the church; to be included in the worshiping community is to experience a form of healing.

In this story do you identify with the apostles. Can you see yourself in a place of offering healing to others by including them in our community of faith. The inclusion of outsiders stands in continuity with the ministries of Jesus and of the apostles. Imagine what an impact that has for today. But that raises the necessity of knowing those who sit near our gates, on the edges of the church or of society, those who may find wholeness. It’s noteworthy that Peter did not require of the lame man belief in Christ to offer him healing. It was Peter’s belief in Christ that effected the healing. Similarly, the church need not accept only those who believe and act like us. This passage calls congregations as well as individual Christians to reach out to the stranger, the other. In the name of Christ, we can offer healing to refugees, those of different socio-economic status, immigrants, the disabled, people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, persons of different sexual orientations, and so forth. Those at the gates and the kind of healing needed by them may look different in different congregational contexts, but as we see in this text, the gift of inclusion is as old as the church itself. 

By the same token is it the one who found healing with whom you most readily identify? I guess I’m asking your experience of being healed and have known the joy of being included. A week or so ago Michael Cabus posted this on Facebook “Happy to write I am now an official Quaker…I was accepted to be a member of Princeton Friends Meeting…I am a person whose perhaps only good quality is the ability to evolve, but I hope to become a good example of Quaker values…thanks for everyone being welcoming to me in this virtual space.” We so often think of ourselves as “joining” the church in the fashion of a consumer choosing a restaurant at which to dine or a store at which to shop. How different it is to recall being lifted up by the right hand and escorted into the worshiping community. What a thing to celebrate.  It’s grace. Not your will power, not the power of those who midwifed your finding wholeness, it is the grace of Christ at work, lifting you up and wrapping you into the love and embrace of those who claim the name of Jesus.

There’s  yet another way the Apostles continued the work of Jesus. According to the ritual purity the person healed was to go to the priest and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving. The Apostles brought the man in side the Temple with them. Seems such a simple thing. Seems so very natural, yet quite contemporary, risking the rancor of the keepers of the Temple rules.  Dare we? Dare we be inclusive in our place of worship and in our community of faith? 

The Easter story continues to be alive, it accumulates new meaning whenever and where ever it is preached, because with fresh and vital connections to our lives it continues to say something about God’s intentions for us and all creation. …

Beside the Gospel renditions of the Easter story Peter tells the story to Cornelius in the tenth Chapter of Acts.

Acts 10:34Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. 37That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” 

Because the Easter story continues to be alive, it accumulates new meaning whenever and where ever it is preached, because with fresh and vital connections to our lives it continues to say something about God’s intentions for us and all creation. Peter’s short sermon delivered to Cornelius’s household illustrates how the proclamation of the resurrection can work. Peter’s summary of the story of Jesus has a deeper significance in the way that it reflects an enlarged understanding of the gospel and its capacity to transform how we comprehended God. I’ve found that to be the most important aspect in conversation among people within the broader church, ‘How do you characterized God?’ For these men in the Book of Acts the significance of Jesus’ resurrection does not consist in merely knowing or reciting details about an empty tomb, as vital as such details may be. The resurrection provides them evidence of God’s commitment to all humanity — a commitment that Peter, thanks to his recent spiritual encounter, has just come to perceive in a new light. The resurrection, he tells Cornelius and others, provides the foundation for the new realities that God has revealed to them.

“I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.  I love that clear concise and universal statement of the gospel. But I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t receive universal acceptance by most in the church today. No partiality? You’ve got to be kidding. Of course God is partial! God is partial to those who say the right words, participate in the right rituals, articulate the right formulations. Peter’s vision of nothing or no one being ‘unclean’ must have left him confused.  Hadn’t he read Faith and Practice? Hadn’t he learned by heart the meaning of the memorization tool of Reformed theology ‘TULIP’ that starts with humanity’s total depravity. Hadn’t he embrace the Nicene Creed or at least the five non-negotiable beliefs of the National Association of Evangelicals?

Yes, I think Peter’s proclamation has everything to do with his vision. Everything he had held sacrosanct before his encounter with the Holy Spirit about what was clean and unclean, who was acceptable and who wasn’t, had to go out the window.  It resulted in him being in a home into which he never before would have gone,  speaking to a household of people he had before rendered fuel for the fires of hell.

Our witness and our ministry only has integrity as it seeks to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and that requires patience and prayer as well as humility and the willingness to sacrifice some of our fondest notions about our privileged perspectives. Our witness and ministry is not about what we are accomplishing. It is about discerning what God is doing and how God is empowering, and then following God into the world. George Bullard wrote that: Vision is “a movement of God that is memorable rather than a statement of humankind that is memorized.”

I played with Bullard’s notion of vision.  It is not seeing God at work, it is seeing a memorable movement of God. Detecting movement is an interesting subject.

After the meeting house in Kokomo was broken into several times we had Honeywell install of security system. Our first struggle with that was that the technology that we were employing was developed to detect and kill enemy soldiers in Vietnam. You know Quakers. But we found a way to get beyond that. As I understood it, the technology was based on determining how things were and then comparing it to how things changed a few seconds later. As long as you stood perfectly still the system wouldn’t “see” you. But if you moved it noticed a change, that you were no longer where you had been. And then the cycle started over again. It didn’t detect movement, it detected that a change had occurred.  God’s movement can’t be seen, but if we can open our minds, allow our vision to be adjusted, we can notice that God is not where God was.

How about this for an example? In this political season it has become increasingly uncomfortable to continue to embrace being branded an Evangelical Christian. This week I listened to a candidate for the highest office in our land declare that as a Christian he would carpet bomb our nation’s enemies. Another declared that water boarding wasn’t horrific enough that we should escalate our willingness to torture. Where did love your enemies go? I watched, dumb struck, as Evangelical leaders endorsed the candidacy of persons whose values attested by personal pronouncements and public behavior contradict Peter’s line about fearing God and doing what is right.  It left me sad.

When a thoughtful public servant in one State refused to sign into law a reprehensible bill which intentionally targeted for discrimination people whose gender identity doesn’t fit the binary mythology of human sexuality I couldn’t miss the video footage of a severely agitated person wearing a hat that declared him to be Christian shouting that the governor was going to experience the fires of hell. Somewhere the Christian faith in its more popular form in our country has lost its way. God has moved. Against Jesus’ admonition to fear not, Evangelicals seem to be the most fearful. Evangelicals seem to choose ignorance over stewardship in the creation care.

So where might God be at work in the world? Do we have the patience and the humility and willingness to prayerfully have our vision changed as to what the Gospel means in today’s world? Our vision of our witness and ministry won’t be formulated into a clever sentence to be restated time and again, it will be found where God’s movement is detected. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles begins with these words: In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; 5for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

Then in the eighth verse we read But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

It doesn’t say you may be may witnesses – it say you will be the flesh and blood witness to the work of the Holy Spirit in our day and in our world – good, bad or indifferent.

Sit tight, wait for the promise of the Father, in not many days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Be patient and in humility and willingness to prayerfully have your vision changed to what the Gospel means in today’s world.

Sabbath as Peacemaking

Last week Norman Pasche share with us about some different ways of thinking about the Sabbath. The one that stayed in my mind the most vividly was that rather than the Sabbath being at the end of a week of work, we should try organizing the week around the Sabbath, so that three days before we would begin to look forward to it, plan for it and think how we might spend it.

Then the next three days we would look back at it and what a good day it was to step back from the busyness of life, trust God to provide, and rest in thankfulness to God for friends, family, and creation itself, especially as it is so nice to be outside on days like we had this week.

Thus there is a rhythm to our life, a weekly rhythm that revolves around the Sabbath, the day of rest and spending time with people and playing and being aware of all the gifts God has given us. My comments today will focus on the Sabbath as resistance, and draws heavily on Walter Brueggemann’s book, Sabbath As Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now.

Sabbath as resistance – resistance to what? Resistance to the lifestyle experienced in Egypt. The ten commandments start with “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery”* Remember how Pharoah needed more and more storehouses for his grain, how when you asked for time off, Pharoah said “I will make you work even harder, now you have to find your own straw for the bricks, and you still have to make the same quota of bricks as before.”** That was how you lived before.

Now you shall take every seventh day off from all work, and I will provide for you extra manna for the day off. God is not a workaholic, the well-being of creation does not depend on endless work. Because the community of God is based on relationship, not commodities (number of bricks) – that is NOT what life is about.

The commandment to keep Sabbath requires more verses than any other one. The first three commandments take up six verses; that’s two each. The last six take up only 6 verses.But the Sabbath commandment takes four verses*** – why does it get so much airtime on the mountain? There was NO work stoppage in Egypt, any free time was used to gather more straw. System of frantic productivity – God nullifies that system – he breaks the cycle of production and we are invited to an awareness that life does not consist of frantic production and consumption. Stopping work gives us energy to take seriously the next six commandments about committed neighborliness.

Work stoppage is an act of resistance. It declares that we will not be defined by busyness, consumerism, and materialism, the pursuit of getting more and more things., either in our economics or our social relationships. Our life does not consist of commodities. No wonder Jesus invited his disciples out of the system of anxiety about what we will eat, what we will drink and what we will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field****. and that wonderful invitation, “All ye that are tired and heavy laden – come unto me and I will give you rest.*****

And there’s more! The Sabbath is for everyone, your family, your slaves, even your animals, and the stranger within your gates – everyone gets to rest just like you. It is a day of great equality. Not all are equal in production; some are more efficient that others. Not all are equal in consumption – some have greater access to consumer goods. If the societal goal is to produce more and to consume more, these inequalities lead to the “haves” and the “have nots”. The rich and the poor, the important and the unimportant.

But the Sabbath is a resistance to coercion by societal norms. On the Sabbath, you do not have to do more, you do not have to sell more, you do not have to control more, you do not have to know more, you do not have to be more young or more beautiful, you don’t have to have your kids in little league or ballet.

This day breaks the pattern of coercion, and we are all equal – equal worth, equal value, equal rest. Sabbath should be a great day of freedom and thankfulness. And it is a dayto remember! Remember when you were a slave in Egypt? [Do you fall asleep worrying or counting bricks? Thinking of things you ought to have done? Things you didn’t do correctly? How you can get ahead?]

Keeping Sabbath can help us feel less coerced, less driven, less frantic to meet deadlines, free to be rather than to do. And this new social order that we experience on the Sabbath can be carried back into the other six days of the week.

Finally, keeping the Sabbath is a resistance to multi-tasking. If we make shopping lists during church, or spend our open worship planning what we will do next week, try to get all our shopping done in the afternoon, this is not really a work stoppage – it represents a attempt to control more, to extend our power and effectiveness – it leads to a divided self. Jesus offers a warning to us: No one can serve two masters. . . you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.******

Observing the Sabbath is a big step toward a peaceful household and a peaceful neighborhood. The next six commandments describe neighborliness, ending with the last commandment “Thou shalt not covet” – an act that is the ultimate destruction of the neighborhood, because it generates mistrust and sets neighbor against neighbor. So that command is all about respecting the neighbor, which Jesus says is the second great commandment. Thus love of neighbor and thankfulness become the desired alternative to acquisitiveness and greed.

Jesus never said we should not practice Sabbath. What he did say was that the Sabbath was made for us, not us for the Sabbath. It was made for us, because it is important for us to take a step away from our six days of busy, busy, busy and remember who we really are, we are the children of God. The anxiety and agressiveness of many of our lives does violence to ourselves and to our neighbors and to God’s creation. We need to reconnect with God, with our families and our friends. We need time to be in community with each other.

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, he did not come as a CEO of a big company or a dealer in commodities, or with the trappings of wealth from all his hard work. He came, not in a limosine or a Hummer, but on a simple donkey as a person who was interested in people, not in material possessions.

We think of Jesus as the great Peacemaker (the Prince of Peace), and he asks us also to be peacemakers. During the whole last week of his life, which was a very difficult one, to say the least, Jesus never resorted to violence either in his actions or his words. We also know that he regularly went far away from the crowds to spend time along with his heavenly father. Practicing Sabbath could be our way of spending private time with God, and we also might return to the world less prone to violence and better equipped to be peacemakers.

Scriptures: *Exodus 5:4-18

** Deuteronomy 5:6

***Deuteronomy 5:12-15

**** Matthew 6:25-31

***** Matthew 11:29

******Matthew 6:24

Brueggemann, Walter. Sabbath As Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014;

Sabbath as Peacemaking: Leader’s Handbook. Cherice Bock, General Editor. www.nwfriends.org/peacemonth; peaceeducation@nwfriends.org

In a letter to the Episcopal Churches in the State of Maine, Bishop Stephen Lane wrote that the bishops of the Episcopal church, meeting for their annual spring meeting were, among other things, united in a deep sense of unease about the current state of politics in the United States. He wrote: “Of particular concern was the scape-goating of marginalized peoples for the decline of the middle class. Middle class income has been falling for 40 years, but it is not the fault of the poor, immigrants or people of color. Nor is our security as Americans suddenly at risk because people across the globe still see America as a land of opportunity.

“There is no reversing the growing diversity of our land. In fact that diversity is what God intended in creation. And, our faith calls us to welcome the stranger and to have compassion on the poor. In the current polarized environment, the church is called to be a voice of love and moderation. I invite each of you to consider the statement of the bishops and to do your part in bringing Christ’s love and compassion to our civic discourse.

“Remember, love overcomes death.”

What follows is the letter from the House of Bishops for Holy Week 2016

March 15, 2016

“We reject the idolatrous notion that we can ensure the safety of some by sacrificing the hopes of others.”

On Good Friday the ruling political forces of the day tortured and executed an innocent man. They sacrificed the weak and the blameless to protect their own status and power. On the third day Jesus was raised from the dead, revealing not only their injustice but also unmasking the lie that might makes right.

In a country still living under the shadow of the lynching tree, we are troubled by the violent forces being released by this season’s political rhetoric. Americans are turning against their neighbors, particularly those on the margins of society. They seek to secure their own safety and security at the expense of others. There is legitimate reason to fear where this rhetoric and the actions arising from it might take us.

In this moment, we resemble God’s children wandering in the wilderness. We, like they, are struggling to find our way. They turned from following God and worshiped a golden calf constructed from their own wealth. The current rhetoric is leading us to construct a modern false idol out of power and privilege. We reject the idolatrous notion that we can ensure the safety of some by sacrificing the hopes of others. No matter where we fall on the political spectrum, we must respect the dignity of every human being and we must seek the common good above all else.

We call for prayer for our country that a spirit of reconciliation will prevail and we will not betray our true selves.

“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 36And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?”  Of whom do you ask that question?

This text has forever been a hard one for the church. I’ve heard it used to point out that regardless of our economic status in our own community every American is super wealthy when compared with the rest of the world. That may well be true but that wasn’t to population to whom Jesus was speaking. We’ve all heard that the proverbial ‘eye of the needle’ was an extremely small gate in the Jerusalem wall through which a normal human had difficulty and through which no animal the size of a camel would ever pass. But it was a pretty clear metaphor that makes sense even to us who have rarely laid eyes on a camel and who have never visited Jerusalem. As the verse begins Jesus repeats himself and I have to imagine that he was trying to counter the rather prevalent notion held then and to some extent today that entering the Kingdom of God is easy.

Remember Buddy Holly singing “it’s so easy to fall in love” ? That’s kinda become our idea about entering the Kingdom of God, the kingdom of divine love and acceptance. Jesus calls us up short.

Mark 10:23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 26They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” 27Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

28Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” 29Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, 30who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” … Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! That’s when we get the puzzlement from Jesus: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Folks of Jesus day didn’t talk about the economy the way we do today. The poor, the people of the land, includes those of the slave class. It included all those who own no land. It included those of the lower priestly class, the Levites, widows, orphans and immigrants. As we said recently Mary’s offering of birds at her rite of purification testifies to the families poverty, as were 99 per cent of the population. They lived on the edge of existence.

When it came to who were the wealthy what we know is that the Roman’s had confiscated most of the personal income. The family of Herod, a clan that  the people of the land said were the Jews who became gentiles, had enormous wealth and we recently saw an illustration of how that worked in the decapitation of John the Baptist. The High Priestly class, permitted to use the power of religious ritual to keep the people in line, were considered wealthy though they were dependent on the temple taxes from the poor. There were the remnants of old Jewish aristocracy who owned land, not to work but to rent out.  They would be included among the wealthy and there were a few small landowners whose livelihood was precariously dependent on the harvest.

Understanding, as best we can, when Jesus spoke of the wealthy he must have been speaking of those who didn’t feel they could afford to put their trust in God. Persons putting one’s trust in God would be those who took to heart the words of the prophets about caring for the dispossessed and vulnerable. It’s an interesting query that we might ask ourselves.

Jesus doesn’t say choosing the Kingdom is impossible, he simply says it’s hard – really hard. Hard enough for Jesus to be asked “Then who can be saved?” I love his response “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

Mortals can’t do it but left to God “all things are possible.” Salvation is a matter of divine grace. Jesus doesn’t leave the subject without a bit more clarification.

Peter opens his mouth – he reminds Jesus that at least the fishermen had walked away from their families and their family business. They had left everything to follow Jesus. Jesus didn’t deny their sacrifice.  He says: “no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, 30who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.”

What I find interesting in this is that those who give themselves to the kingdom that Jesus proclaims be more than compensated in the ‘age to come’.  This isn’t about what you earn or about amassing points to be redeemed in the future or that if you do God’s work and God’s will you’ll be rewarded with the things of the world. But there is something more important in this than the economic issues. No place do we hear anything about the requirement of confession, or the need for absolution, no mention of practicing prescribed rituals or saying the right words. This is really good news, good news before those who sought to make a religion out of following Jesus. Now don’t misunderstand. Early in his ministry Jesus called his hearers, and us, to repent and believe. But repentance and belief are about redirecting one’s life and trusting in God’s kingdom.

And then there is the kicker. It absolutely blows our minds.

The gun goes off and we run the race – that’s one of Apostle Paul’s metaphors, and the outcome is being first across the finish line. On your mark, get set, go! It wasn’t long ago that we’d hear the line ‘the one who dies with the most stuff wins’. That isn’t it at all. Jesus’ memorable line is: But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. Jesus does it again. He turns the most basic rule of our understanding of success in life on its head. When it comes to the kingdom, getting ahead requires helping others get ahead. It is the most basic element in the culture of God’s kingdom.

Before we get out of this passage, I want to hold up a couple more verses 35James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 36And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?”

Of whom do you ask that question? A parent maybe. So first comes the statement “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you” That’s rather an open ended request. And Jesus replies “What is it you want me to do for you?”

What is it you’d ask Jesus to do for you? He’s asking, what is it?

A little later in this same chapter Mark tells of Jesus and his disciples encounter with Bartimaeus, a blind beggar. Jesus says to him “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.”  Jesus keeps asking “What do you want me to do for you?”