Spokane Friends Meeting

September 28, 2008

 In preparing this week I couldn’t shake the way these very different scripture passages seemed to coalesce. The focus is always on the character of God as trust worthy.  The refusal to repent is simply a refusal to trust God.  It challenges, again and again, our rugged spiritual individualism, our intense need to trust ourselves.  The pendulum of Christian confidence has swung into arrogance and presumption.  We pray as though God were a magical ATM dispensing what we ask or we assume that God has a plan to which we have special privy.  These notions have nothing of fear and trembling in them.  They suggest that God is static, fixed and man-ip-u-lat-able.  Such a god is no God at all. We have even come to think that our salvation is based in what we believe rather than on the grace of God. 

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Matthew 20:1-16

September 21, 2008

Our Gospel reading for today tells us that there were labor disputes in Jesus’ day.  Just like today there were problems between labor and management like the recent teachers strike in Bellview and Boeing’s machinists, who, by the way, reportedly average in salary, overtime and benefits a little over ninety-one thousand dollars a year.  The question of equity in the work place seems to be a perennial one. 

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The word forgive comes from a Greek word with a rich constellation of meanings that extend to financial, relational, and physiological matters. It can mean to remit, to give up a debt, to keep no longer. We can translate it as leave behind, let go, forsake, even divorce. One of the most powerful uses of the word is in Matthew 27.50.  It is what Jesus does with his spirit; he gives it up, releases it.  Forgiveness is a powerful idea that speaks of loosing our hold on something or someone, to renounce our claim to it.  So it was a matter of real fascination for me to learn that of all weeks in the lectionary year, this week of September 11, our Gospel reading is Matthew 18:21-35.  

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“They were changed men themselves before they went about to change others.  Their hearts were rent as well as their garments, and they knew the power and work of God upon them….And as they freely received what they had to say from the Lord, so they freely administered it to others.  The bent and stress of their ministry was conversion to God, regeneration and holiness, not schemes of doctrines and verbal creeds or new forms of worship, but a leaving off in religion the superfluous and reducing the ceremonious and formal part, and pressing earnestly the substantial, the necessary and profitable part, as all upon a serious reflection must and do acknowledge”.   William Penn’s Preface to George Fox’s Journal, 1694

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“…let nothing be wanting among  you. Then all is well and will be well.  Encourage one another to seek out the poor, sick, fatherless, widows and imprisoned and make up their necessities and wants.  Then there will be nothing lacking.  And keep in discerning that you may not be ensnared nor made a prey upon….” Geo. Fox 1659

 
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The expectancy that hopes great things of God is the passport to the kingdom.  Jesus didn’t heal the child – he said it was the woman’s faith that brought healing. It is only within that welcome that Christ can work the wonders of his love.
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Like Jesus, facing the dark times in our lives may require going alone into solitude, into the presence of God, to pray. And like to his disciples, in the darkest moments of our lives Jesus says to us: “Take heart, It is I, Do not be afraid”.

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Scripture Reading Matthew 14: 13-21

Reflections on Experiences at Northwest Yearly Meeting’s annual sessions recently held in Newberg, Oregon. The following persons from Spokane Friends attended Yearly. Bruce Williams, Leann Williams, Sarah Peterson, Keith Sellers, Kitty Bendixen-park, Norm Pasche, Martha Puckett, Paul Puckett, Nick Block.

Out of a season of un-programmed worship several of these were at liberty to speak as the Spirit lead. Each shared personal reflections and this material not available for submission to this web page. Instead what is included here are statements of Friends concerning our life together as a Religious Society,

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Responsive Reading of Matthew 5: 43-48

⁴³You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’

⁴⁴But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

⁴⁶For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

⁴⁷And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

All: ⁴⁸Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

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When Nick asked me to speak today, he asked if there was a message God was burning in my heart.  I think I’d have to answer no, it was more like an eclectic group of musings floating around in my head.  And yet, as I sat with my ponderings before God asking for guidance and started looking into scripture for further insight God did place on my heart a message. And it seems to follow Nick’s message of last week as if someone planned it that way!

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