Eyes That See: Personal Reflections on an Evolving Faith
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Eric Baker
April 6, 2025
Matthew 13:10-12, 16 (The Message)
The disciples came up and asked (Jesus), "Why do you tell stories?"
He replied, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn’t been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears.
“(But) you have God-blessed eyes—eyes that see! And God-blessed ears—ears that hear!
Good morning, everyone! First, I want to say thank you to Pastors Bob and Beth, for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today. I thought about just sitting at the piano and speaking from there, and even though I might have been comfortable, I thought it might be strange for the rest of you. So, here I am.
Many of you who know me, might have heard me, at one point, talk about growing up in a very conservative, religious home. Besides our house where we lived, the church was, without a doubt, the second most defining place of my growing up years, even more than school. My family – my parents, my three siblings, and me – attended an evangelical church that was centered in the holiness tradition. Now, I don’t want to get too deep into theological doctrine, at least not until we’ve all had enough coffee for the day. But I will say this – the holiness tradition is rooted in the belief that there are two “works of grace”, as they are called. The first is salvation – you “get saved”. I can see some heads nodding from some of you who are familiar with this language. The second work is “entire sanctification”. This, according to the teachings of John Wesley, brings about “Christian perfection”, his words, defined generally as a life filled with and guided by the Holy Spirit. Reflecting on this now, many years later, it’s sometimes still hard for me to believe the use of the word “perfection” in this context. But that’s exactly what we were taught, and what, for many years, I internalized and strived for.
This brought about two distinct responses in me. One, more heart-driven, and the other, more head-driven. The first was the notion that I was never going to measure up to what I was “supposed to be”. And this was a bad thing. I was constantly striving for, and falling short. Having the best intentions, and then feeling like a failure every time I had “sin” in my life. The second response was the notion that, once you became saved and sanctified, your beliefs about God, about the world, and about right and wrong, did not change. You accepted the teachings of the church as the small-g gospel truth.
Again, reflecting from this vantage point, it’s difficult to discern which of these responses was more damaging in my life – the guilt I felt for not measuring up, or the fervent conviction that my beliefs about God and the world were “right”, set in stone, and should not, or would not change.
But the danger came about when someone started asking tough questions. “Wrestling with their faith”, as it was called. This was thin ice, and I remember more than one person advising me to “just have faith”. “Let go and let God”. The implication was that I should not get too worried about the questions, but instead just trust that everything I’d been taught was right, and that God would take care of the rest. Not to be too harsh, but when I describe these types of things now, it sounds a little culty.
So, with that backdrop… This is an interesting scripture that Beth read, the words of Jesus from the book of Matthew, chapter 13. And I like The Message paraphrase. Specifically when Jesus says, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom. …Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. …You have eyes that see, ears that hear!” I’m struck by the present and active tone of some of these words – insights and understandings that flow freely, eyes that do see, ears that do hear. But I wonder, what are these insights and understandings? Eyes to see and ears to hear…what? And what does it mean to have a “ready heart for this”, as Jesus says?
The implication that there could be “new insights” into God’s kingdom is not something that was emphasized in my formative years. However, it is something that has become very important to me in the years since. So, how do we gain insights? How do we continue to evolve in our faith and understanding? Well, we can talk about ‘evolving’ from a few different perspectives. Let’s start with an evolving mind.
I’ve had the privilege and honor to be able to teach and mentor many young people throughout my adult life. It’s something that I grew to have a passion for. Most of these relationships began in the context of music – piano or voice lessons, choir directing, band coaching… But many developed from lessons and conversations just about music, to also include conversations about life. About relationships with friends and significant others, about family dynamics, sexual orientation, alcohol and other substances, career choices, and so much more.
One of my favorite things to do with my students was something I called “marker moments”. Let’s say I had introduced a hard concept – playing a certain piece or passage, or maybe scales at a specific tempo. Or, in voice, singing over your “break”, from chest voice to head voice, or blending, or breath control… Can I get an “amen” from my choir? You get the picture. Almost without exception, students struggled with these concepts at first. A week, or two weeks, or a month might go by with little noticeable change. But then, at the, say, three month mark, when we had added other things, other pieces into the mix, and the student breezed through that original three month old concept, I would stop them, and say, “Hey, remember when you couldn’t play that? Remember when trying to do that was so frustrating? Do you realize that you just played it without stopping, and maybe even without thinking about it? Way to go! That progress needs to be celebrated!” Then I’d high-five them, and they’d have a big smile on their face.
Or, maybe the marker moment wasn’t about music at all, but something in their life – passing a particularly difficult class, or finding a job, joining a club, maybe initiating a hard conversation with a friend or family member. And when that “thing” happened, it called for acknowledging and celebrating, not just for the event itself, but for the growth that had occurred in that person as a result.
With several of my really close students and mentor-mentee relationships, we’d have conversations about the really hard questions – Is there a God? What’s the purpose of my life? What really hard things might life throw at me, and will I be strong enough to get through them? These are questions that don’t have simple, pat answers.
At the end of these conversations, I would usually say something like, “Your perspective will likely change on these things as you get older, as you experience more of life. In 5 years, you may have a different answer. In 10 years, you’ll most likely have a different answer. And in 20 years, you’d better have a different answer!”
Ok, let’s get back to the topic at hand. To be clear, the thought of an “evolving faith” would be something akin to heresy in the churches of my youth. And not just for the possible association with Charles Darwin. In that setting, your beliefs, your convictions, were the very measure of the strength of your faith. If your convictions started to crumble, everything went with it. And besides, it was of utmost importance that everyone in a particular church, or even denomination, essentially believed the same things, about God, about certain social issues, about who’s going to heaven, and who’s not. The day I started to question this, was the day I wondered if maybe there was another way.
If you’ve attended this Meeting for very long, it’s likely that you’ve heard talk of the SPICES. These are our core values, sometimes called our Quaker “testimonies”, something we strive to “give witness to” in the world. When we say “spices”, we’re talking about Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship. Now, I knew nothing of the SPICES when I first walked in to this Meeting back in 2012. But now they have become, and continue to be for me a kind of guiding principle in my life. However, my view of these values, these testimonies, has not been static. Indeed, it has been very dynamic.
I’ll take two of these, and give you a couple of examples – First, the “E” in SPICES: Equality.
When I was growing up, the issue of LGBT rights and the gay community in general, was just that – an issue. I was taught to “love the sinner, hate the sin”. Which, based on the models I was being shown, meant, keep “those people” at an arm’s length. And, I’m ashamed to say now, it was pretty easy for me to adopt this approach. Easy, that is, until I formed a friendship with someone who was gay. I was in my mid 20s. His name was Richard. He had stories of terrible treatment at the hands of other people, many of them from conservative faith communities, shunning him in the name of their particular brand of Christianity. I began to see and hear about Richard’s heart, his humanness, his sense of humor, his emotions, his dreams. And, over time, I began to relate to Richard not as a gay person, but as a person, created in the very image of God, just like I was. As our friendship strengthened, I realized that Richard and I were not really that different from one another. Over time, the LGBT community stopped being just a black and white “issue” for me, but now had faces, names, personalities, emotions, hopes.
More recently, I lived on the far east side of Indianapolis, for a period of about five years. The far east side has, for decades, struggled as a result of disinvestment from the city. There are large grocery deserts, struggling schools, boarded up buildings…potholes that don’t always get fixed, yards that don’t always get mowed, trash that doesn’t always get picked up. As a result, there are areas of high crime and violence, drug use, and urban blight. And yet, you know what I eventually found in the midst of all that? Humanity. But wait. I’m getting ahead of myself. I’d love to say that it was easy. That I noticed it right away. That I went in and was immediately able to see past and even through all the dirty outer surface. But, I was not. In fact, for a while, I was judgy, even curmudgeonly about my surroundings. And then I met Benjamin. He was the kid who lived across the street, the same age as my youngest. Benjamin came from a rough family situation. But man, that kid had such a soft heart. A kindness. A desire to learn. And also a pretty wicked jump shot. I began playing basketball with Benjamin in the neighborhood. Then occasionally I would drive him to school when he missed the bus, and had no one else to take him. On a few instances, he spent the night at my house, when his parents had locked him out. We would get into conversations about his interests, and what he wanted to do with his life after high school. Now, please understand, I’m not the savior here. In fact, quite the opposite. It was Benjamin who helped me to see past the ugly things I had chosen to focus on, past the things that were different than my own experience, and instead, connect on a level of mutual respect and admiration.
These two stories, and more specifically, these two people, have helped my understanding and practice of “equality” to grow in significant ways. A different perspective than I had 5 years ago. And a vastly different one than 20 years ago! In fact, sometimes I wonder if a faith journey that is given space to evolve over time, begins simply with the courage to say, “I was wrong about that. And I’ve changed my mind.”
A couple of weeks ago, Beth invited me and a few others to sit on a panel for the Quaker Affirmation class she was leading for some of our young people. Those are always fun and lively discussions. We talk about our histories with being Quaker, and we’re thrown all kinds of questions: “What do you believe about God? Do you think Jesus really resurrected from the dead? What are your thoughts on the Bible?” As I sat there that day and listened to the other 6 or 7 people on the panel talk about their faith journeys, how they understand God and the Bible and other big questions, I noticed two things. One was obvious – that we all had different answers! Thinking back to my evangelical roots, I thought, “Maybe I’ve found what I’d been curious enough to wonder about all those years before – another way.” Maybe we don’t have to all believe the exact same thing. Maybe there is complex beauty in diversity! As I listened to the rest of the panel members reflect, I also felt a deep and profound respect for all of them, despite having perspectives and views that were different than mine. In fact, when I’m really living into the SPICES, it is this deep respect for others’ perspectives that continues to form who I am.
And this leads me to the “C” in SPICES. I am shaped by the community I keep! And I don’t think I’m alone in saying that this community, this Meeting, has had a profound impact on who I am, and how my faith has continued to evolve. The beauty in this is really two fold: Not only am I given the grace and, dare I say, permission to grow, to change, to consider things from a different perspective, but all around me are gentle opportunities to do just that. I just have to have “eyes that see, and ears that hear”. But here’s the real kicker: I get to do that for others, as well! And I’m not alone in this. Not only do you get the grace, the permission, the opportunity to learn, to grow, to see, to hear…but you also get the chance to make this community better, more beautiful, more equitable, by the unique gifts, experiences, and perspectives that you bring.
I don’t want a faith that’s static. I’ve found that there are some questions that I’ll never have the answers to, and yet others that, as I wrestle with them, can open up a whole different level of love, compassion, peace-making, acceptance, and relationship. Maybe, just maybe, this starts to scratch the surface of the “insight into God’s Kingdom” that Jesus talks about. If so, it’s a marker moment to be celebrated.
We’re going to move into a time of waiting worship. If you feel the Spirit moving you to speak, come to the microphone at the front, or simply stand up, and someone will bring a microphone to you.
I’ve written several queries for us to consider this morning. They’re written in your bulletin, but I’ll read them out loud for us as we prepare to enter into this time.
What areas of my faith journey are growing, evolving, and opening up new levels of understanding for me?
Can I identify a barrier that might be keeping me from continuing to change and grow in my faith? If so, what is it?
What are the things or places, or, who are the people that inspire me to seek new insights, and to expand my perspective?