4-17-16 The True and Lasting Call

Sermon 4-17-2016  The True And Lasting Call

Matthew 4:18-22 Elaine M. Prevallet, S.L., Minding the Call, Weavings Vol 11, No. 3, May/June 1996.  

There are some calls that are fleeting – they don’t last long.  At least, the results don’t matter all that much.  Your folks will call you in for bed on a sweet, summer night.  That will happen more than once, I know.  Your boyfriend, your girlfriend, will call you up to tell you they love you.  That’s exciting, but it will happen again tomorrow, most likely, and you’ll be glad it did.  There are some calls that you never forget.  Choir Practice, May 8th, 2008.  My cell phone rang, and when I answered it, all I could hear was the sound of a brand new baby’s breath – our granddaughter Ella had arrived in the world!  What an incredible way to find out!!  
Whether it’s an umpire’s “out” at home plate, a doctor’s diagnosis, a “yes” to that allimportant question, or the score on your ACT test, some messages come that we don’t forget.  They stick with us.  They matter.  They change the game.  They change the future.  They change our lives.    
This happened for Peter, Andrew, James, John, their families and friends, people who knew them and worked with them, and everyone they would meet, once they heard Jesus’ call. One regular, normal day, in the midst of their regular, normal lives, everything changed.  Someone walked up to them and asked them to continue to be who they were, to be fishermen, but to fish for the hearts of people.  To follow a new course.  To follow a new person.  To follow a life of love.    
I wasn’t fishing.  I was packing.  Jesus didn’t walk up to my boat.  He called on my phone.  “Ruthie, I want you to candidate as a pastor for a small Quaker church in Iowa.”  The voice on the other end of the phone sounded like Donna Hemingway – the Clerk of the Meeting, but it really was God.  “I want you to continue to be who you are.  I want you to trust in what you know, and what you don’t know yet.  And I invite you to follow – to come.  You’ve been a teacher.  Come, be a teacher for me.”  I thought Donna – God – was crazy!  But I also knew that God knew more about me than I did.  I was frightened, but ready to step out of my boat – my boxes – and follow.  Six months later, I began serving as a pastor.  Very scary.  Very exciting.  Very ‘God made real’ in my life.    
You’ve had times like this.  Times when you just knew you were supposed to stop.  You knew you were supposed to turn around.  Take that job.  Not take that job.  Help that person.  You may not have gotten a phone call, or had someone walk up to your boat, but you felt a spiritual presence – a sense of the Divine – of Christ’s direction and intention in that moment. What did you do?  How did it feel?  
The four disciples left their nets – two of them left their dad – and followed Jesus.  They left right away, as if they were ready.  They were anxious to begin a new part of their
lives.  And Jesus needed them, as they were.  Who they were, as they were.  He didn’t ask them to become carpenters or farmers.  He called them to be fishermen, and promised a much bigger catch!  This call – Christ’s call – on their lives and ours – is full of integrity.  God asks us to be more of who we are, to deepen our understanding of God and of ourselves, to develop our skills more fully, to broaden our love for our work and our purpose.  God’s call is a ‘becoming’ - an ongoing, life-building, creative, and simple thing.  ‘Follow me’.  Life changing, and yet so familiar – all at once.    
What was Jesus’ call?  He told his synagogue once, reading it from Isaiah the prophet:  "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  [Luke 4:16-19] Christ’s call was to make God, and God’s love, power, and presence, real.  I suppose he could have done all those things by himself, but Jesus chose not to.  He understood the need for community.  The need to share his work – his call – with others.  He did not call just one disciple.  He needed a group of people he could travel, teach, heal, and care for others with.  And so do we.  Our singular lives, shared in community, become ‘God made real’ for us and for others.  We see God in others, and we see God in ourselves, reflected in the lives of others.  Our community helps us, corrects us, teaches us, counsels us, comforts and encourages us, as we answer whatever we’re called to.  Whatever ‘more’ God is making of our lives, whatever ‘new thing’ God is creating in our lives, we rely on community to help form ‘God made real’ in us.    
Our history as Quakers shows the power of community and call.  Prison reform, begun by one person, became a concern for the entire Quaker community and change was brought about.  Human care for mentally ill patients began within the Quaker community.  Fair and honest pricing was a major Quaker concern, as was the ending of slavery.  In our own meeting this week, a team of people will distribute food to those who otherwise would not have enough to eat, and at least three people in our Meeting work for Second Helpings – a food recovery program.  Each one of us, any time we act in love and follow God’s purpose and presence in our lives, lives out Christ’s call to make God real.  Just the other day, I saw God at the Post Office.  (He wasn’t the blind man who sells brooms – that man was gone for the day.)  Two men a ways ahead of me were entering the outside door.  One man said, “Let me get that door for you.”  The other, older man entered saying, “Thank you.”  The first man answered, “You’re welcome – just don’t tell anyone you caught me doing that.”  That was God – with a sense of humor - at the Post Office.    
God shows up all the time.  In you.  In me.  In community.  At First Friends.  In the Meetinghouse and when we spread out into our life each day.  And how does God show up most?  In the call to love.  Good news, release, recovery, freedom, and God’s favor all begins with a call to love.  God’s call to love.    
Sister Elaine Prevallet writes this in ‘Weavings’, and the early portion is given to you in your bulletin today:  
“Fundamentally, God simply calls me to throw by whole self into following Christ, and really, it’s as bedrock as the call of Love to love.  Jesus’ message is that God’s compassionate love is always, unconditionally, available.  Jesus summons me to share that love with every comer, having, as he had, a predilection for the poor, the marginal, the difficult to love, those I am culturally or personally predisposed to keep at a distance.  Such love is no easy task.  It stands opposed to nearly everything society teaches about what it means to be someone, to go somewhere, to succeed; what it means to be powerful, to be rich, to be happy.  It challenges me to experiment with my life to test these truths: that those who are willing to serve can be the freest; that those who are willing to be poor can be the richest; that those who are willing to lose their lives will find happiness and peace.  The call, in other words, is a call to a radical freedom.  
God only calls us to be who we are.  By God’s gift, our deepest identity is not really to be or to do anything but love.  We are, each of us, the uniquely individual container of God’s love in whatever particular context we live.  We live to serve that love, to give it expression.  The call to love is the same for everyone, unique for everyone.  Our role is to help each other become free enough to entrust ourselves to the One who calls us.”  
How is God calling you?  How is God calling us?  What expression of love are you and I being called to serve?  What gifts has God already given us? What of who we already are, is meant to be used, in love, to reveal God-made-real to the world? As just one container, one community of love, how can we as persons, as First Friends Meeting help each other become more free to entrust ourselves to the One who calls us?    

4-10-16 Q & A

Good morning, friends.
Sara read Mark's version of the Syrophoenician Woman's encounter with Jesus earlier, so please allow me to read Matthew's account, found in Chapter 15, verses 21-28:
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
I'd like to begin my thoughts today with a question: what the heck is going on in this scripture?
One thing is clear: this woman is three times an outsider. She's a Greek. She's a she. And she's a Gentile. 
But is Jesus really calling her a dog...insulting her and humiliating her, only to then turn around and heal her daughter?
My inquiry turned up two prevalent yet distinct interpretations of this passage among scholars. The first modernist-deconstructionist view is highly critical of Jesus, claiming that this exchange proves he was a flawed teacher, socially regressive, someone who—like the world he lived in—saw ethnicity first and human beings second. The other classical-structuralist interpretation is overtly apologetic: Jesus just wanted this woman to lower herself by acknowledging her position as outside of the traditional covenant so that she would be position to accept His grace. These folks argue that His milder use of language isn't really all that harsh—for example, he used the Greek diminutive for "dog," implying a small dog such as a household puppy, and not a wild beast. 
I don't know about you, but neither of these perspectives resonates with me. Both seem not only cursory, but also out of sync with who I believe Jesus was, and who Jesus continues to be in our world today. 
And maybe as a Quaker, I also love exploring the third way when the first two just don't fit. 
After a Friend recently reminded me of the tension she felt when reading this passage, I did some digging into three subjects I found relevant in unearthing what was really going on here: the historical nature of questions, the methodology we refer to today as the Socratic Method, and the New Testament accounts of questions asked by Jesus.
The first required a little broader research, the second a reflection on my time in law school when the Socratic Method of deeper and deeper questioning was used almost daily to coax terrified first year students into cohesive answers, and in the third, I found the work of Martin Copenhaver, pastor and author of "Jesus is the Question" to be a very worthwhile read. 
And from these reflections, I found three interesting connections:
1) All great religions and teachers use questions as a primary method of instruction;
2) Christianity is no exception—Jesus asked 307 questions in the New Testament, and answered as few as 8 questions directly; and
3) Questioning is foundational to Quakerism, and our practice of querying is directly derived from these earliest and most powerful practices for personal spiritual growth.
But first, what is a question, really? My favorite definition is actually from Wikipedia, the source of all accurate worldly wisdom. Those editors say:
A question is a linguistic expression used to make a request for information. The information requested should be provided in the form of an answer.
That's helpful, but how do you answer a question? If Jesus is a model, it's frequently with another question—one designed to help the person who asked it.
In a 21st century context, we find that answering a question with a question is impolite and off-putting, as if the recipient has insulted our status or intelligence by not just answering us directly. 
Imagine for example me asking you "what is 2+2" and you responding "well, what is 10-6?" The answer to the second question is the same as the answer to the first, but we would consider it precocious and maybe even downright rude in our modern culture. 
But throughout most of history, and in almost every religious tradition, it was considered a respectable way of engaging and searching for deeper meaning, especially with an equal or one who you cared about. 
From the West, where Socrates was refining the Method of Elenchus, which we know today as the Socratic Method, to the East, where in the Sutta Pikka the Buddha identifies the third type of appropriate response to a question as another question, cultural and religious leaders throughout antiquity saw the benefit of questioning as a powerful spiritual tool.
Certainly, Jesus would have been familiar with the long-established tradition in Judaism of introspective questioning, which has been carried forward to this day perhaps most potently in Talmudic interpretation and instruction. 
And perhaps more importantly, the early Greek audiences of the New Testament would have fully accepted and even appreciated the practice of spiritual querying which was so foundational to the Socratic and Aristotelian traditions of the their own societies. 
The point is, this woman was presented with a question. A tough question.
But, you might say: this wasn't a question! There's no question mark. It's nothing but a harsh statement!
I don't know about you, but my Inner Teacher tells me that the third, and most plausible interpretation of this passage is that Jesus is indeed asking a question, and hoping to solicit a particular response. In fact, the greatest reward the woman could hope for in that moment was granted to her precisely because of her response. 
But before we dive into the construction of the sentences involved in this passage, who are the players?
First, Jesus: who is the very embodiment of Love. And if Jesus is Love, how would Love address people? Part of why I believe we find this passage so unsettling in the 21st century is because it seems so incongruent with the person of Jesus as Love. Jesus is also, of course, the bread being consumed in this allegorical household.
Secondly, the woman...an outsider. One of the dogs under the table at the feet of the children, who are not invited to sit at the table, but who are still a part of the household. 
Then there is Israel: the children at the table. They can eat liberally, and like those who are always and completely filled, they may take some of the crumbs that fall at their feet for granted. 
And then there are the disciples, who in Matthew's version urge Jesus away from the entire conversation.
So let's return to the sentence itself. “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs” is a presumptive statement that clearly encourages a response. The woman was free to respond in a number of ways. 
Today, she might have said "how dare you call me a dog?"
She could have said "Sure, call me whatever you want, but please just heal my daughter."
But notice how the woman addresses Jesus in Matthew. She begins by calling him the "Son of David." She acknowledges him as the culmination of a long an holy lineage adjacent to hers. She expresses absolute faith that even one crumb from His table can heal her daughter. 
And she then addresses the real question being asked by Jesus: which is, roughly: should His grace not be poured out first for Jews before Gentiles?
She responds with a $64,000 question as her answer, and I paraphrase:
"Regardless of status based on our ethnicity, are we not all part of the household of God, worthy of salvation?"
This is some real intellectual Judo. Martin Luther, himself a struggler, saw that, like Jacob in the night, this woman wrestles directly with God. And like Jacob, she wins her reward. 
In the wrestling, she earns her daughter's healing...but through her wrestling, we also earn a great prize in the form of an invaluable lesson:
Hierarchy based on human distinctions like gender, class, and race are dead in Christ. 
To quote the theologian John Piper, Jesus is the end of ethnocentrism. Perhaps nowhere is Scripture is this message more salient than in these parallel passages in Matthew and Mark. 
Sometimes, questions may look like statements. These can require special attention, because leaving them unanswered can have dire consequences. What if the Syrophoenician woman had remained silent? What if during proclamations of injustice we as Quakers remain silent? What if, in the days of American Slavery when our black brothers and sisters were declared property, we as a Society of Friends had shied away from the real questions: who are God's children? Can you be both the child of God and the property of man?
I am a convinced Friend in part because of our questioning nature...because through questions, we find answers. Perhaps more importantly, we find ourselves as recipients of God's grace—worthy as His beloved children to receive it.
A learned biblical pastor in a different denomination once told me that to understand salvation one has to begin with one's own insufficiency. Only though acknowledging one's own unworthiness can we find ultimately find grace. 
As a Friend, I have grown to challenge this presumption, and I would respectfully offer this response: We are the children of God. Imperfect though we most certainly are, we are people worthy of acceptance, of love, and respect nonetheless—hence, the sacrifice of Christ and the story of God's grace poured out for all of us—which we just celebrated at Easter.
As Quakers, we are fond of saying that there is that of God in everyone...but now for my query of the day: do we always see it? This woman saw it. She saw Jesus for who she was. And she saw herself as she was, a member of the house entitled to grace.
Did she elevate herself? No. Did Jesus really call her a dog and then reward her for her groveling? No. He rewarded her insight, her assertiveness, her understanding...and he held her loved ones in His healing light.
Friends, we are the inheritors of a long, deep, and beautiful spiritual tradition. It's easy to criticize many of the expressions of modern Christianity as shallow. Televangelists shout little sound bites as answers to our deepest spiritual questions. This simply isn't how it's done. Just look at our Greatest Teacher who, like many wise people before him, knew that the way to true spiritual growth was through questioning and reflection. 
I also believe that as Friends we have an of obligation: to remind our larger Christian community that rather than declaring "truths," we should be asking questions. Let's keep our old queries alive, and write new ones to help us address our modern times. Let's instruct less and inquire more. 
Rather than merely arrive at conclusions, I hope that we as Friends can continue to be the seekers and the seers. The questioners and the reflectors. The challengers who are rewarded for our patient insight into the hearts, minds, and lives of others. 
We have, after all, but to ask. 

4-3-16 Enough Faith

Enough Faith for our Journey into the Unknown Mark 16:1-18  
Beth Henricks April 3rd, 2016   

Friends, I am so glad to be with you today and have been praying this week that my message  would be God’s words and that this time we have together will be holy and we will experience and be moved by the presence of the risen Christ.   
I have been reveling in the majesty and glory of our Easter Sunday that we shared together last week.  It was a beautiful day of hope and fulfillment of God’s promise that death is not the end of our story. It was amazing  to be with our children in their joy of finding hidden eggs, the beauty of our choir and organ, the hopeful message of what the resurrection story means to each of us, the flowers  and the wonderful fellowship that we experienced after the service.  I think we all felt a mountaintop experience last Sunday that fills us with hope.  
But my mind has ben thinking all week about the aftermath of the resurrection.  The glory of Sunday is now followed by a Monday of our complicated lives.  How is my life without the physical presence of Jesus now different after his resurrection?  How does this resurrection event impact me?    This was a pivotal moment for Jesus followers 2,000 years ago and for us today.    
When Jesus started his ministry, he called men and women to leave their jobs, leave their homes and families and travel with him to share the ideas of a new way of life in God.  These disciples  left their occupations because they believed in the message of Jesus – that they would change the world with a radical love to all regardless of social status or class, or gender.  A message where the oppressed, the poor, the “other” would be welcomed and given a place of honor at the table.  Where fulfilling all the elements of the law was less important than a changed heart full of God’s Light.  The power of this message as well as the power of Jesus call must have been strong for these people to turn their lives upside down.  
This ministry that Jesus started with  his followers was not one that set out to create   a new religion  - they were looking to change the Jewish faith. The Jews had experienced oppression over various times throughout their history.  It is likely when the book of Mark that we read our scripture from today was written, around 65-70 CE, the Romans were destroying the temple in Jerusalem and burning whole Jewish villages to the ground.  In this context, the Jews were looking for someone to come from God to save them.   As time went on, many of the disciples believed that Jesus was this new Messiah and would establish a new kingdom here on earth and they wanted to be part of this.     
But things were not working out as they had planned.  Jesus was having a huge impact on the people but the Jewish and Roman authorities were not going to buy into a new social and religious system that would take power away from them.  Jesus gave lots of hints to his disciples that he was going to have to suffer and die but that he would live again.  His resurrection would break the chain of death.  But they did not understand his words.    
So when we hear the reaction of the disciples and followers like Mary Magdalene in our scripture reading today, we see that they were afraid, they didn’t tell anyone what they saw and some of them didn’t believe.   What were they to do now?  This wasn’t what they had expected at all.  They had given  up their jobs and their families to be a part of this movement with Jesus and now he was gone.  How could they possibly go on without Jesus leading the way?  
They were also afraid that their association with Jesus would result in their own suffering and death just like Jesus.  They knew these rulers would come after them too as part of this movement.  They were afraid about what their future would be.   
Friends,  how many times have we faced a future where we were afraid?  Things come at us that we don’t expect and we really don’t know what to do?  The plans we have made, the outline we have prepared for our lives can get shattered.  Unfair and unjust things happen to us and we really don’t understand why.  We get broken apart through illness, divorce, job loss, broken relationships, devastating results of a situation, death.   This wasn’t suppose to happen to us  - we have embraced a
faithful life in God.  We have tried to do the right things.  But we don’t understand what is happening and we feel fear.  
The question is - what do we do when we are facing our life and peer into darkness?    Parker Palmer , one of my favorite Quaker writers said -   “If you hold your knowledge of self and world wholeheartedly, your heart will at times get broken by loss, failure, defeat, betrayal, or death. What happens next in you and in the world around you depends on how your heart breaks. If it breaks apart into a thousand pieces, the result may be anger, depression and disengagement.  If it breaks open into greater capacity to hold the complexities and contradictions of human experience, the result may be new life.”    This is it for me - this is what the resurrection is about and what Jesus was trying to show his disciples.     
Our suffering is Jesus suffering.  Our life will have suffering and there is no way that we can avoid this.  We can make a lot of the right decisions but we will still experience suffering.  And loneliness.  And pain.  But our hearts can break open into greater capacity and we can experience new life.  Jesus was telling this to his disciples when he appeared to them after his death.  He told them that this new life would take them far beyond what they could have imagined.  This is our salvation.  We no longer need to fear the darkness.  We are truly not alone.  The risen Christ is now at the center of our heart.  We are a new creation in Christ.  
And look what these disciples and followers of Christ did as they took their faith and walked into the darkness?  They brought the good news of the resurrection to many people in the land.  They performed healings, they established assemblies of believers.   They opened up the story of Christ to Gentiles and brought them into relationship with God.  They started a church that has influenced the world more than any other movement.  They weren’t perfect, they made mistakes and they fell down along the way.  They suffered and some were killed for their beliefs.  But they took their new life with Christ into the world, into the darkness and began to work towards that new kingdom of heaven here on earth.  
As we move into a time of unprogrammed worship where we  expectantly wait for God’s voice speaking to us, I ask that you pull out your bulletin and look at this picture of Quaker artist James Turrell on the cover.  All of
Turrell’s works are focused on the concepts of light and darkness and he frequently put us into the picture to experience this.  I particularly like this picture because we are staring into an abyss, a darkness, an uncertainty.  But the Light is behind the darkness and peaks out to us.  We do not have to be afraid because the Light is there.  We are not alone.  
During our time of intimate worship with the divine, I ask that if you hear a message for you alone to hold that and embrace that in your heart.  If you feel a sense from God that this message needs to be shared with others please be obedient and stand and share with us.   

3-13-16 Christ's Prayer

John 17:1-26 Christ prays for himself, his disciples, and for the world…  
Chapters 14 – 17 are known as the ‘Farewell Discourse’ in John’s Gospel.  Jesus and his disciples have just finished a meal in the upper room – it was to be their last supper together before Christ would be arrested and crucified.  He spends time talking with them about critical things… he is going away to the Father, but sending the Holy Spirit in his stead; he gives them the gift of peace and commands them to love one another; he teaches them the important allegory of the Vine and the branches – their belonging to God and to one another, and the means of their work in discipleship, extending Christ’s ministry to the world.  His time with them ends with a prayer – the longest prayer of any in the gospels.  And what does Christ pray for?    
If you knew your life was to end, your work was ending, how would you pray?  You might expect just the opposite – this man who was to give his life for the world would pray first for the world, right?  No.  He first prays for himself.   
When you board an airplane, you hardly notice the safety notifications given anymore, but the flight attendants always say: ‘In the event of a loss of air pressure, an oxygen mask will automatically appear in front of you. To start the flow of oxygen, pull the mask towards you. Place it firmly over your nose and mouth, secure the elastic band behind your head, and breathe normally. Although the bag does not inflate, oxygen is flowing to the mask. If you are travelling with a child or someone who requires assistance, secure your mask first, and then assist the other person.’  
What does Christ do?  Christ secures his mask, his breath, his flow of oxygen with God, before assisting the children of God.  As he breathes in God’s spirit, he prays that everyone would recognize God in him… that people would know God’s glory through all that his life has been, has meant, has done.  In this shortest part of a very long prayer, Christ tells us who he is, what he has done, and why he has done it.  He was God’s Idea… sent from God and returning to God; the peerless, matchless Son of God sent to give eternal life – the deep and intimate knowing of God – to humankind, for the glory of God.  And now Christ’s work is done.  ‘Father, glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify You.’ Christ always points to God when speaking of himself. Who does Christ pray for next?  Those closest to him.  The twelve, who have traveled and travailed, laughed and feared, journeyed and rested, knitted themselves together, and even one who has now been drawn away.  The twelve who have been so certain, and yet doubted.  The twelve, who have seen miracles, heard parables, understood so much, and yet known so little.  The twelve, who have touched God.  Can you imagine rubbing shoulders with God?  Playing ball, or a game of catch with God?  Going fishing, 
swimming, sailing? They knew God-in-Christ that well!  They wanted to protect him from children, and discovered that kids were the kingdom of heaven.  They saw only hunger on a hillside, until Christ showed them how far you could stretch a sack lunch.  God had given him Peter, James, John, Andrew, Phillip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, Simon, Thaddeus, and Judas.  What would become of them?  What would become of their ministry?  What would become of his life – God’s life – in them? Christ’s prayer?  That these disciples who would remain after Christ had left them, would continue to be one, protected by the power of God’s name.  ‘I have delivered your word to them Lord, and the world hates them, because they are strangers in the world, as I am.  I pray thee, not to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.  Consecrate them – set them apart – by thy truth.  Your word is truth.  (God’s word here is not holy scripture… this is God’s voice in each one of them.) As you’ve sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world, and for their sake, I now set myself apart, that they may be set apart by the truth.”  Christ never asks his followers to do something he himself would not do. Christ could have ended his prayer there… a prayer for himself and for his followers.  But that was not enough.  That was never enough for him. Is it enough for you?  Do you only want your life to matter, or do you have a sense of purpose beyond this earthly life?  Does your life expand beyond your close friends and family?  Does it move beyond the reflection you find in the mirror?  The photos on your mantel?    
God-on-earth mattered a whole lot to Christ.  It mattered that every day his right-now life brought glory to his Father.  It mattered that who he was, looked, sounded, seemed like God.  That when people got to know Christ, they could say, ‘I have a sense of who his Father is.’  If you take time to look at the Memorial Banner in Fellowship Hall today, you’ll see a picture of my Mom and Dad.  By looking at their picture, you’re probably going to say, “Wow – she looks a lot like her Dad.  But by spending time with me, you’d really get to know my Mom.  She was goofy, like I am.  And a worrier like me.  My sister is just the opposite… she looks like my Mom, but her personality is much more like my Dad – cool as a cucumber.    
This kind of stuff mattered a whole lot to Christ.  It wasn’t enough for you to just glance at him, passing by.  Christ wanted you and me  – still wants you and me – to hang out with him.  To spend time with him.  To really get to know him. Remember the three guys on the road to Emmaus?  
His disciples – his followers – mattered to Christ.  Those he had loved, taught, invested his life and love in, empowered to teach others, given the gift of healing and miracles, wonder, and Light to - would carry forward his legacy of love. His followers would die for their belief in God – just as Christ would.  Out of 12 disciples, eight would be martyred for their refusal to deny Christ.  Did they mess up sometimes?  Were they
perfect “Christians”? No.  Peter denied Christ, even before the crucifixion.  But these disciples, these followers, were set apart – consecrated – as those who chose to believe and follow God – regardless of the cost.  The same was said of a small group of British folk in the 1650’s, who were known to ‘quake’ in the power of God’s indwelling Spirit.  
Through the disciples’ consecration, the message of love, life and light moved forward… past Christ’s crucifixion and death, past his resurrection and into life.  Through the life, ministry, teaching, words, and sacrifice of generations of disciples, God’s glory moves forward to us – to you and me, just as Christ had asked for, in the final portion of his prayer.  Now, Christ prays for us!  Please join me in reading it together:  From John 17, beginning with verse 20 to the end of the chapter.  You’ll find it on page ______ in your pew Bibles.  
 ‘I ask not only on behalf of these [disciples], but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.   
Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’  
Christ prayed for us!  For all who would hear his story.  For all who having heard, would… believe.  Christ prayed that we would believe what we heard, would experience or know the oneness of God-in-Christ and Christ-in-us.  Do you hear what you just read?  Christ asked God that we would know that God loves you and me, just the way God loved his Son.  “I in them, and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”   
That your life has been honorable.  That your life has been meaningful.  That your life has had purpose, beyond itself.  That your life has been invested in… love.  Regardless of how others see you, encounter you, understand you.  That the motive for your life has been to fulfill that-of-God within you that extends beyond you to others.  I wonder what people will say of you, of me, long after we are gone?  To God be the glory.  Amen

3-6-16 Wanted--Dead and Alive

John 11:17-44 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live…  John 11:25 KJV    
Many people live their lives dying.  Duffy Fankboner did not.  Bob Davis did not.  Even when they were told they were dying, they continued to live, each and every moment of life they had.  Whether they understood it or not, they lived in the power of Christ, who said in our reading today, “though he is dead, yet shall he live.”  
The Gospel of John teaches us that Jesus is much more than a man - than a flesh and blood person who lived in history some 2, 000 years ago.  The opening of John’s gospel tells us that Christ was Word, Life, Light.  Jesus was, and continues to be mystery.  And our life in Christ is the same – mysterious.  
We as Friends say that we have ‘that of God’ in us… the Inner Light, the Light of Christ, the Spirit of God, the empowering, seeking, scorching, searching Light of God in us.  But do we live in that Light?  In that Life?  Or do we live in darkness?  In death?    
Jesus gives us a warning here, and a sign.  Not only of his own earthly death to come, but of our choice to live, fully, in the power of God.  Not only does this story tell of a call to Lazarus.  It’s a call to each one of us, to be unbound… to live.  
Lazarus is actually the least of the participants in this story, although his life, the meaning of his life, his death, and his raising from the dead, captivate us.  What moves us through the story is our story… the story of family and friends living with death… and with God.  We are Mary and Martha.  We are the mourners, come from Jerusalem.  We are the disciples, who know Jesus well, but still can’t figure him out.  And we are the ones who are being asked to trust that Christ’s power is larger than life – or death.  That those who believe in Christ – even though we are dead, still live.  Now, that’s a mystery!  
It had been about three years since Jesus left the safety, nurture, and training of his father’s carpenter shop, to move on to his new work – the ministry that his Father God had long been preparing him for.  His cousin John baptized him at the river Jordan.  His mother was the reason for his first miracle – they had run out of wine at a wedding.  This innocent beginning was just the start of radical signs that offended and frightened those in power.  Three years, and many challenges to authority made Jesus suspect to many persons he had crossed paths with along the way.  
Word comes that the friend Jesus loved most in the world was ill.  Ill or dead, it would not have mattered… Jesus’ disciples do not want him to travel to Bethany.  Going there
could cost Jesus his life. For some reason, Jesus waits two days.  Somehow, he knows Lazarus has ‘fallen asleep’, and that he will raise him from the dead.  There is confusion… if he’s fallen asleep, won’t he wake up on his own?  The ways we speak of death can be perplexing: someone’s ‘gone’, ‘fallen asleep’, ‘crossed over’…   Finally, Jesus speaks plainly - knowingly.  ‘Lazarus has died; I am glad not to have been there. It will be for your good and for the good of your faith.  Let us go to him.’  
Wanted: Dead and Alive.  Awake – Asleep.  Here – Gone.  Dead – Alive.  Christ wants his disciples, his followers… he wants us to know that things aren’t always as they seem.  A person can present as dead… but yet, mysteriously, they continue to live on.  How many of us, as Beth shared today, have ‘lost’ a parent, a child, a person dear to us?  That soul, that life, lives on.  We remember them.  We remember their life lessons engrained in us.  We remember their silly jokes, or their mannerisms – in fact, we often carry them forward.  Some people in the family strongly resemble them.  They are both dead and alive.  Just as Christ knew Lazarus was dead, but saw him as resurrected before he ever reached Bethany, he wanted his disciples - he wants us to know - that life moves on… even through death.  ‘Though he were dead, yet shall he live.’   
Mary and Martha are you and me.  Angry.  Hopeful.  Frustrated.  So sad.  Exhausted.  Relieved to see God, come to us.  The first thing each of them said to Christ?  “If you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”  Of course we’d say that!  We believe all that Christ has preached.  We’ve seen him do miraculous things.  This would have been easy for him.  And besides that, he loved our brother, didn’t he?  He loved him terribly well.  In fact, he’s weeping for him, just now.  ‘What took you so long?”  
Jesus tells them, “Your brother will rise again.”  “Oh, we know that – the resurrection at the last day… all that End Times stuff…”  And Jesus surprises them: “I am the Resurrection. I am the Life. If someone has faith in me, even though he die, he shall come to life; and no one who is alive and has faith shall ever die.  Do you believe this?”  
So here’s where we are…. in Bethany, with a choice.  It’s either dead for a long time, and then, finally alive.   Or dead and alive now.  That’s what Jesus is saying.  “I am the Resurrection.  I am Life.  Now.  Standing in front of you.  Not in the end times.  Not forever away.  But now.  I bring resurrection and life – and not just to your brother, but to you.  Do you believe this?” ‘No one who is alive and has faith shall ever die.”  
I think many of us who have lost someone, die with them.  We move into Lazarus’ tomb with him and take up residence, dying to everything and everyone around us.  I know I did – or at least a great part of me did – when my mother died.  It was my son who said, “Mom, if you believe in God, and you believe that Grandma lives in heaven with God, why are you still so sad?”  This was months and months after my mother had died.  I was stuck in her tomb with my mother.  Actually, I think I was clinically depressed.   
I think Jesus knows this happens, and that’s why he spoke to the sisters about this.  It’s not just the sick and the dying who need resurrection and life… it’s those who accompany the dying, who are in danger of forgetting Life, Resurrection, and the power of Christ in us.  Martha is the most fearful – ‘Don’t touch the grave – don’t move the stone’.  If you don’t move the stone, no one will be freed.  Not Lazarus.  Not Christ.  Not you.  And what is it that Jesus says?  “Did I not tell you that if you have faith you will see the glory of God?”   
Our wounded spirits cry out for the salve, the ointment, the anointing of peace and wholeness that fills the place of loss and longing.  Christ promised the disciples that they would receive goodness, and the strengthening of their faith. God’s glory would be made known, even and in spite of death. Whether Lazarus came out of the tomb or not, those mourners were standing in the mystery and power of resurrection and life! The anticipation of resurrection is a rising in itself.  The anticipation of life, is life.  Live in life.  Live in resurrection.  Live, as Jesus did, knowing death, but anticipating… life.  

2-28-16 Vine and Branches

Sermon 2-28-2016: ‘Vine and Branches’ John 15:1-11 Glenn Reece, “Friends and the Holy Spirit”, Study Booklet for Five Years Meeting, 1960. Thomas R. Kelly, “The Blessed Community” from ‘A Testament of Devotion’, Harper and Row, 1986.    

Years ago, Jon and I biked through the vineyards of Napa Valley.  We haven’t been back since, and I’d love to visit again…  mile after mile of beautiful vineyards standing neatly in row after row of growing grapes.  Fields full of life, and lovely places to stop for refreshment.  We had to make one stop that we hadn’t planned on… Bullhead thorns were everywhere - nasty, sharp things that could and did, puncture bike tires.  We stopped at what seemed to be a lovely farm home to ask to use the phone to call the bike rental company for help.  It turned out to be a drug rehab site, and they weren’t particularly happy to let us in.  
Jesus uses a common agrarian metaphor to teach his listeners, and us, about a deep experience of life – a God-in-us life.  Vineyards, grapes, vinedressers, vines, fruit...  God.  Christ.  Us.  This story could stand three readings – one for the vinedresser, one for the vine, and one for the grapes.  Each plays a part in the outcome.  
God is the vinedresser here.  It’s God’s vineyard, after all.  God has made the investment in the land, chosen the variety of grape to plant, and is responsible for the success of the vineyard.    
The Vine – Christ – has been planted.  All growth will come from this one stalk. The vinedresser tends it carefully, cutting away all dead branches, and pruning those branches that bear fruit so they’ll produce even more.  The branches and vine must remain connected in order to produce fruit.  ‘Only when the sap of the vine flows through the branches are they living branches.’ [Sandra Cronk]  If, for any reason, the sap no longer runs, the branch dies.  
It’s the vinedresser’s intention to keep the sap running!  God wants to see the vineyard flourish… God’s creation thrive!  This is why Christ the Vine was chosen… the Best Vine – the strongest, most enduring, most satisfying, most productive varietal known.  And what is it - what is the ‘sap’ that runs its course through this Vine to the Branches, producing fruit so abundantly?  Christ tell us… “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  Abide in my love.”  The force that moves, abides in, continues, through the Vine, through the Branches, into the Fruit, is LOVE.  The abiding presence of God’s love is what courses through the vine and branches, bringing on a rich harvest.  
Reading from ‘Friends and the Holy Spirit’ by Friend Glenn Reece: ‘George Fox’s life and message were pervaded by joyous abiding confidence in God, a deep sense of moral victory and of spiritual power which he attributed to the ever-living Christ within.  To him, as to his followers, this power and that of the Holy Spirit were synonymous.  They had witnessed the Spirit as He guided people to obedience, righteousness, freedom from sin, unity with God and Christ and one another.  In this unity they formed a deeply Christian fellowship, the ‘Blessed Community’, the ‘Body of Christ’.  To continue in such fellowship one must be receptive and responsive to the Holy Spirit and to the factors which make for growth in Christ, such as ‘love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control.’  
The fruit of our lives will be evident when we live in the abiding presence and power of Christ within - in the spiritual power of the Holy Spirit.  What this means is that when we walk through the vineyards of our personal lives, when we walk through the vineyard of our Meeting’s life, love should be evident.  God’s presence should be evident.  Receptivity to God’s Spirit should be clearly displayed.  Patience and gentleness, humility and self-control will be obvious.  A willingness to abide and continue in God’s love will dominate our sense of direction.  That sense that George Fox had of ‘joyous abiding confidence in God’ will be pervasive in our lives!  
Sadly, branches break off.  It’s frightening to read the history of many Christian denominations, including our own, and discover the detritus of divisions left behind.  Glenn Reece prescribes an antidote as being cultivation of the Spirit… ‘A growing tenderness and loving understanding is increasingly in evidence within the body of Christ when the Holy Spirit indwells and motivates it.’  Christ’s answer was this:  
“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. And this is my commandment; that you love one another as I have loved you.”  It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?  Just one thing – to love each other.  But that’s not what Christ asks of us.  Christ asks us to love each other in the same way Christ loves us.  In the same way God loves him.  We have to withstand pruning, cutting, tough winds, harvest seasons, dormancy, flowering, setting on fruit… we have to love each other through all of that.    
Sandra Cronk, once again:  "Early Friends stressed that God's new order was not present simply because people did all the 'right' things in an outward sense; rather, God's new order, gospel order, was present when people lived out of the fullness of their living relationship with Christ. Truth is not found by professing correct beliefs and correct actions while actually living outside the life and power of Christ. Only this life and power makes a church-community part of the true church. Only when the sap of the vine flows through the branches are they living branches." (Sandra Cronk)      
It doesn’t matter if you and I make all the right decisions, follow proper Quaker practice, can name all the Quaker heroes of faith, or the books of the Bible, are highly intellectual in our approach or very simple in our understanding of God.  None of that matters.  Puritans were able to follow procedure, rules, liturgy, law, and lived a foreign, outward life of faith.  Unless we can live inwardly - in the sap that runs – in the presence of the Living God and the power of the Holy Spirit – unless we can remain there - we will break.  Early Quakers couldn’t afford to live this way and neither can we.    
Many of us live in metaphorical prisons today.  Farm homes are really drug rehab centers.  Government rhetoric sounds nothing like Gospel Order.  Choices are made between family and workplace, between our own safety and that of others.  Quakers today face concerns just as real as those who began our Religious Society in 1652.  Can the Blessed Community afford to be any less vibrant?  Can the Blessed Community afford to be any less loving?  Can the Blessed Community afford to be any less giving, compassionate, attentive, mindful, centered, quiet, receptive?  
Quakers took John 15:14 as their ‘heart verse’…. ‘You are my friends if you do what I command you.”  “If you love one another just as I love you, you’re my friends.”  Not tolerating each other as servants.  Not using each other for our own gain.  But loving each other, in the same way God loves us – with a nurturing, sustaining, life-giving, selfsacrificing kind of love.  That is where the sap is running.  That is where the vineyard flourishes.  And that is a lovely thing to see and experience.  How can I, how can you, continue to love each other, as Christ has loved us?  How can we remain in the lifestream of God’s love for us more attentively?  How can we flourish as individuals, as a Meeting, under the spiritual power and guidance of God’s good Spirit?  How can we continue to grow as God’s Friends – and loving friends of one another?

2-21-16 Inward Light

Sermon 2-21-2016‘Inward Light’

John 8:12-20

http://www.hallvworthington.com/George_Fox_Selections/FoxFromtheLord.html; George Fox Selections

http://www.hallvworthington.com/Margaret_Fox_Selections/MargaretMemoir.html; The Life of Margaret Fox, Wife of George Fox, compiled from her own narrative and other sources, 1859.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Be ready for mystery.  Always be ready for things you cannot see.  Appreciate the things you do not yet understand.  They may frustrate you, they may confuse you, but turn the energy of frustration or confusion to good purpose, and the challenge of learning more about yourself and the world.  The world is not as dark as you might think.  In fact, it’s filled with light – and you carry that light within you.

 Christ tells us in this story from the Gospel of John that he is the Light of the World, and that we never need walk in darkness.  He calls us out of darkness into Light.  George Fox, years later would say, ‘Christ lights every one that comes into the world; and by this light they might be gathered to God.’ 

The persons who heard Christ say these things were not ready for mystery.  They could only see what was in front of their faces.  They could not appreciate what they did not understand, and in fact, were threatened by it.  Their rules of logic applied, and they demanded that Christ validate who he was.  He did, claiming his Father as his witness – his father who had sent him.  Not seeing another person standing there, another person in flesh and blood, another person who resembled this young, impudent man, they scoffed at him.  Because they did not know his father, they refused to believe the son.  Because they could not see his father, they refused to accept the son’s word.  Within inches of the Light of the World, they stood in their own darkness.  Why?  Because they would not, could not, appreciate the mystery of experiencing something they did not understand.  How many of us today, living in the power of the coming of the Light of the World, still stand in our own darkness?  How many of us refuse to enter in to mystery?  To unknowing in order to know?  How many of us are willing to walk in the Light, rather than stand in darkness?

Our grandchildren live in Sheridan, Wyoming, and a week ago, Jon and I had a wonderful conversation with Ella and Ben through SKYPE.  Ben had just registered for Kindergarten, so he wanted to read a book to us that he’d gotten at Kindergarten Round-Up.  “Sam sat on Matt.”  “Matt sat on cat.”   “Cat sat on Matt.”  It was wonderful!  Then sister showed us her brand new Bible – purple, with beads hanging from the front.  Ella is almost 8, and she wanted to read to us, too.  She read a Psalm, and then I asked her to find Psalm 23.  Grandpa, Ella and I took turns reading verses together.  I told her I was preaching from the book of John.  Could she find that?  The kids have been learning a song with all the names of the books of the Bible, and so she sang her way up to John, and found it.  She asked why some of the words were red, and I told her that Jesus was having a conversation with people, and whenever he spoke, his words were printed in red.  She flipped a couple of pages again, and found everything in red.  “Look Mom,” she shouted.  “Jesus is talking!  I’ve got to show Daddy!”  And she took off to find Seth.

Jesus is talking.  Jesus has lots to say, and it’s pretty exciting – not just to a seven year old, but to anyone who will pay attention – to anyone who will step into mystery.  Last week, I told our children that Bible stories began like all stories do, shared from the heart.  Before they were ever written down, they were inscribed on our hearts, and humankind shared stories about God, and their understanding of who God was, what God did, and how God moved.  “Once upon a time” became “In the beginning”, and stories drawn in the sand, or in the sky began to be written, copied, printed, and read.  Jesus’ disciple John, who loved him so, began his gospel with, ‘In the beginning”.  Genesis begins with darkness and emptiness.  John’s Gospel begins with Life and Light.  Genesis brings humankind to creation.  John brings the ‘Word made flesh’ to us all.  Jesus is talking now. God no longer speaks for himself as he did to Moses, or through a prophet or king, but through his son.  God is speaking in red letters.  God is speaking in our hearts.

 The prophet Jeremiah told us this would happen… that all those written stories of family and community, the laws for living, the adjudication of kings and judges, and the warnings of prophets like himself would one day become written – not in books, or tablets of stone, but on our hearts. A five year old child knows God’s laws.  Benjamin may not know the Ten Commandments verbatim, but he knows not to steal, or lie.  He’s drawn naturally toward loving God.  Jeremiah once said, “This is the covenant I will make, declares the Lord:  I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God.”  Always be ready for things you cannot see.

So, how do we tell these stories that were once told in sand and sky?  How do we read these stories written down so long ago?  How do we know these stories? Does that matter?  It did to George Fox.  It’s said that “Fox's preaching was always backed up by the scriptures; his listeners usually remarked that they had never heard anyone open their understanding to the obscure meaning of the scriptures so thoroughly. He often delayed speaking until he could feel the "power of God settle on the people" to quiet them and prepare them for his words. He also waited until he felt the promptings of the Lord to begin to speak. Fox spoke by the Spirit of God, the Word of God, and from the presence of the Lord.”

Listen to what happened when Margaret Fell heard him speak for the first time:

"Our house being a place open to entertain ministers and religious people, one of George Fox's friends brought him there, where he stayed all night; and the next day being a lecture or fast-day, he went to Ulverstone steeple-house, but came not in until people were seated; I and my children had been there a long time before. And when they were singing, before the sermon, he came in; "and when they had done, he stood up, upon a seat or form, and desired 'that he might have liberty to speak;' and he that was in the pulpit said he might. And the first words that he spoke were as follows: 'He is not a Jew that is one outward, neither is that circumcision which is outward; but he is a Jew that is one inward, and that is circumcision which is of the heart.'

And so he went on and said 'that Christ was the light of the world, and lights every man that comes into the world; and that by this light they might be gathered to God.' I stood up in my pew, and wondered at his doctrine for I had never heard such before; and then he went on and opened the Scriptures and said: 'The Scriptures were the prophet's words, and Christ's and the apostles' words; and what, as they spoke, they enjoyed and possessed, and had it from the Lord:' and said: 'Then what had any to do with the Scriptures, but as they came to the spirit that gave them forth. You will say Christ said this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of light, and hast walked in the light; and what you speak, is it inwardly from God?’ This opened me so, that it cut me to the heart; and then I saw clearly we were all wrong. So I sat down in my pew again and cried bitterly; and I cried in my spirit to the Lord: 'We are all thieves; we are all thieves; we have taken the Scriptures in words, and know nothing of them in ourselves.' That so struck me that I cannot well tell what he spoke afterwards, but he went on declaring against false prophets, priests, and deceivers of the people. He came to our house again that night, and spoke in the family among the servants, and they were all generally convinced. I was struck in such sadness, I knew not what to do, my husband being away from home. I saw it was the truth, and I could not deny it; and I did as the apostle said: I received the truth in the love of it; and it was opened to me so clear, that I had never a slightest misgiving in my heart against it; but I desired the Lord that I might be kept in it, and then I desired no greater portion."

This is the moment when ‘way opened’ for Margaret Fell.  She began weeping.  She knew scripture well, but she hadn’t experienced it.  She knew that scripture had been robbed of its depth of meaning, taken only as words on a page.  Knowing God in her heart had been replaced by knowing God in her head. George Fox had said that the Scriptures were the words of the prophets, the apostles and Jesus, written down, moved from sand to page.  That they were lived words, owned words, given words that had come from God, had been used in the service of God, and that the Spirit of God gave them to us.  Instead of receiving them in mystery, Margaret and her kind had replaced that with mastery. They could quote the writings of Christ and the apostles, but what had God written on their own hearts?  What did their own hearts say?

Do we have to know everything?  Can we live in mystery?  The Pharisees could not, but can we, like the apostles, like Jesus, like Moses, like Jeremiah, live in such a way that we pay attention to what God gives us, each day?  Yes!  What we know of God, what we experience of God, what we understand of God is ours… it is our beginning, it is our Light.  Can we live from a centered, enlightened soul, a place filled with the Light of the World, as we walk through darkness?  Can we appreciate the things we do not understand, and wait for God to reveal the things we cannot see?  

Caroline Fox once wrote in her journal, ‘Live up to the light thou hast, and more will be granted thee.’  There is always more light where it first comes from.      

2-7-15 Elton Trueblood

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, but we Quakers can be a bit rebellious and contrarian. So I’m going to talk about baseball for a moment!

More than 30 years ago, Washington Post sports writer Thomas Boswell was a cub reporter. He was in the dugout before a Baltimore Orioles game interviewing the manager Earl Weaver. Weaver went out to exchange lineup cards and returned to the dugout to continue the interview. All of a sudden the National Anthem began to play. With the game about to begin, Boswell realized he had overstayed his allotted time so he apologized to Weaver. The famous manager looked at him in surprise and said, “This ain’t football. We do this every day.” 

Major League teams play 162 games a year, just about every day during the summer. Baseball is one of the few sports without a clock…. Theoretically a game could go on forever… Perhaps some of you feel that a baseball game DOES take forever!

But I try to take mindful- live-in-the-moment approach to watching baseball. At times I’m intensely focused on every pitch. Other times I’m lost in conversation or just enjoying a leisurely day at the ballpark. The players themselves mix intense discipline, focus and training with more lighthearted and casual moments to make it through that long season – have you ever seen a Major Leaguer blow a bubble like a kid with bubble gum? You won’t see an NFL player do that!

Friend Elton Trueblood – whom we’re talking about today – was a Quaker theologian, philosopher, professor and author. He lived a life of discipline. He knew my dad and used to tell him “Time is a moral matter.” “Deliberate mediocrity is a heresy and a sin,” Trueblood would say. Yet Elton Trueblood also had a keen sense of kindness, sense of humor, and enjoyment of life – a kind of freedom he found being Yoked with Christ…. In today’s meditational reading printed in your bulletin, Dr. Trueblood explains Christianity as a paradoxical blending of freedom and discipline, and I believe he applied that to his everyday life. 

To paraphrase Earl Weaver, “This Yoke of Christ ain’t heavy. We can live in fellowship with Christ and one another every day.”

My dad made several trips to Richmond to see Trueblood during his final years at Earlham. One evening my dad drove to pick Dr. Trueblood at the precise time they had set – Elton Trueblood was famously punctual!  But this day Trueblood was a couple minutes late… This was almost unthinkable! My dad feared something was wrong. But, then, thankfully Elton Trueblood walked out of his house and got in the car. He apologized to my dad and said he had been following the Cincinnati Reds game and had gotten caught up in a key moment in the game….
    
Main Message

The Philosopher, the Teenager, and the Tree

The day was Sunday, September 4, 2011. The afternoon forecast called for a chance of rain, but I was determined to go for a bike ride. I was feeling stressed that day because I was in the middle of changing jobs. I needed my bike ride! I headed north from my house in Hamilton County. Gray Road runs out of Carmel and turns into Moontown Road, and then as you leave suburbia and start getting into the countryside it changes name again to Hinkle Creek Road. I’m about 12 miles from home and it starts to rain. 

Often times I keep riding in the rain. But I was passing by this small white church on a knoll – Hinkle Creek Friends Church. There was a nice little porch with a roof, so headed there to wait out of hardest of the rain. I sat down on the concrete steps. Inside I heard a man playing an acoustic guitar and singing a wonderful folk praise song. I know now that that door I sat next to was no longer in use because it’s the old church entrance that is right where the front of the sanctuary is now. 
 
This man playing the guitar was only a few feet away from me, only he had no idea I was there. I listened to the song and watched and heard the rain all around me and looked at the big trees around the church. An incredible sense of peace came that I can only describe as the immediate and loving presence of God came over me. I actually began to cry. 

After a few moments I came out of that intense feeling. I thought about knocking on the door to meet the man but decided not to. But I wanted to share this experience with someone, so I took out my cell phone and type these three messages onto my Twitter account:

“My ride today: Seeking shelter literally + figuratively from the storm at a country Quaker church. Thanks, Friends!”

Next message:

“Man inside church playing guitar and singing folk praise song as I sit on porch + also listen to rain hit leaves.”

Then, just before I left I wrote:

“Uplifted, I pedal pack into the rain.” 
Now, from the perspective of today I can tell you that the man playing the guitar was Mike Haemmerle. His wife, Kelly Haemmerle, was the clerk of the church. In a little over a year from that day in the rain the Haemmerles would welcome us to attend Hinkle Creek Friends, which we attended for a year before coming to First Friends. They’d invite us into their home to talk about our lives and about Quakerism… 
But this is not a conversion story. It is the story of a spiritual seed – dormant for years –sprouting and beginning to grow into a tree of a faith I had yearned for all of my life.
You see, before that day in 2011 I rarely thought about Quakers. I didn’t even know who George Fox was! When I heard the word Quaker I thought about one person – Dr. D. Elton Trueblood, a great philosopher I had personally met years before. 
The funny thing is, I even once remember riding my bike by Hinkle Creek Friends years before with my dad and asking him, “Do you think Elton Trueblood ever spoke there?”
I still don’t know for sure if Dr. Trueblood ever physically visited and spoke at Hinkle Creek Friends Church. But I know for a fact that Dr. Trueblood’s life and testimony spoke to me at Hinkle Creek Friends. 
My journey to Quakerism is a story I’ve come to entitle “The Philosopher, the Teenager, and the Tree.” 
This story spans life and death and centers on the eternal value of the present time. This is a story a story of the eternal value of being a loving person because you strive to see God in every person. 
Dr. Trueblood was born in 1900. He had hoped to live the whole of the 20th Century. But in December 1994 – just after turning 94 – he died in his sleep. 
In March 1994, I saw Dr. Trueblood speak for the final time at the Yokefellow conference on the Earlham campus. His talk, entitled “A Life of Search,” eloquently recalled his long life in chapters. 

Like Trueblood, I’ve come to realize that our human lives contain different chapters. As with chapters in books, human life is finite. Our lives have a set number of pages and a conclusion, no matter how much we want them to go on. Yet faith assures us that the end of the book is not the end of the story – this is the eternal nature of the human soul and of Jesus Christ. Trueblood beautifully reflected this truth when he wrote: “A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.”

Dr. Trueblood planted many trees over his long life:
    Dr. Trueblood was an Iowa farm boy with Quaker roots reaching back to an Arnold Trueblood who died in 1658 a persecuted Quaker in prison. He was a lifelong member of the Religious Society of Friends. But he saw his calling as wider than Quakerism. He advocated reaching across denominational lines for spiritual renewal within Christianity and a transformed more compassionate society beyond it. 
    In 1964, Trueblood delivered a eulogy before more than 75,000 people at President Herbert Hoover’s funeral in West Branch, Iowa. Pastor Ruthie – who pastored at West Branch – read Trueblood’s words on the 50th anniversary of that service.
    Trueblood wrote more than 30 books. Most provided everyday people with a meaningful and logical framework for Christian faith, fellowship and church renewal. 
    His long academic career included stops at Quaker and non-Quaker institutions. He earned graduate degrees from Harvard and Johns Hopkins and served as chaplain at Stanford. But he found his calling as a professor of philosophy at Earlham College. 
    Trueblood sometimes was the target of criticism from within Quakerism. Yet he saw Quakerism as a big tent. He remained solidly Christ-centered in his faith, yet he had at times a non-literal and surprising interpretation of Scripture. He dared to write a book called the Humor of Christ!

Trueblood was a man of supreme self-discipline. A 1992 Philadelphia Inquirer feature on Trueblood told how he organized devotional services at his retirement home. He asked a guest speaker to talk for 11 minutes. “Not 10, not 12,” the Inquirer noted. 11 minutes exactly! My favorite journalism professor at Ball State was Earl Conn, a Quaker who knew Dr. Trueblood. Dr. Conn often told the story of Professor Trueblood who excused himself early from a dinner party. Someone asked Trueblood where he was going. “To prepare for class tomorrow morning,” Trueblood replied. What class? “Philosophy 101,” Trueblood said. The great philosopher dutifully prepared for a freshman-level class. To Elton Trueblood, deliberate mediocrity was a sin. Any worthwhile task deserved full attention. Trueblood spoke without notes, making his point in less than 20 minutes. His books were deep but concise, typically under 130 pages. It is the vocation of Christians in every generation to out-think all opposition, Trueblood said. 

Yet there also was a tender side to Dr. Trueblood rooted, I believe, in the Quaker principle that there is that of God in every person. Trueblood reflected on his life, asking: “How do I want to be remembered? Not primarily as a Christian scholar, but rather as a loving person. This can be the goal of every individual. If I can be remembered as a truly loving person I shall be satisfied.”

This brings me back to the beginning of my time with Elton Trueblood – this parable of “the Philosopher, the Teenager, and the Tree.” I was about to start Chapter 1 of my adult life in 1986 when I first met Elton Trueblood. I was a 17 year old high school senior, he was an 85 year old retired professor from Earlham. My dad, who then was about my age now, had sought out Elton Trueblood as an adviser, mentor and friend. My dad made several trips from our home near Pittsburgh to Richmond to see Trueblood. I accompanied my dad on one of his visits, and after seeing Dr. Trueblood I was to visit Ball State as a prospective student. 

I met with Dr. Trueblood in his study at Earlham. I was a C student. I had struggled throughout high school, academically and socially. I have to be honest, I don’t remember much about my first conversation with Dr. Trueblood. But I do remember he treated me with kindness. He offered to connect me with the Earlham admissions department. He talked about my interest in writing and journalism and said I would be in good hands at the Ball State Journalism Department led by his friend Dr. Earl Conn, a fellow Quaker. 

Soon after that, my meeting with Earl Conn convinced me that Ball State was the place for me. In fact, Dr. Conn would continue to encourage me and show an interest in my career until his death in 2009. Dr. Conn was a great storyteller, including his favorite classroom tale of when he covered Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington in 1963 for Quaker Life, a publication Dr. Conn helped found. 

I saw Dr. Trueblood just a few times after that day in 1986, and each time he’d take time, with a twinkle in his eye, to encourage me as a young writer and journalist. As a senior in college, I completed an editorial practicum with Quaker Life Magazine. 

Over the decades Trueblood’s books helped me form and maintain my core beliefs… my basic Christianity. Elton and I especially bonded in the first half of 1993 when I lived a solitary life in a rented room in Connecticut 1,800 miles from my fiancée. In my first job out of grad school, I earned $300 a week promoting professional bike races. There was no cable TV, Internet, or social media. I found fulfillment riding my bike, attending a Presbyterian church, and reading Elton Trueblood. This simplicity heightened my spiritual focus. Two of the Trueblood books that stood out to me those months were  “The Incendiary Fellowship,” about the need for Christians to rekindle the flame of fellowship cast upon the Earth 2,000 years ago by Jesus, and “Abraham Lincoln: Theologian of American Anguish,” a look at the role religious thought and Scripture played in President Lincoln’s leadership style and character.   

But despite a strong foundation of faith, I struggled for years to find a church where I experienced “incendiary fellowship.” In 2012, thinking of Elton Trueblood, I became curious about Quakers. For the first time, I approached Elton Trueblood not only as a Christian thinker but also as a Quaker thinker. So – almost 18 years after his death – I finally read what is now my favorite Truebook book, “The People Called Quakers.” 

 “There are, it is probable, many who are Quakers without knowing that they are,” Trueblood beautifully wrote in the preface of “The People Called Quakers.”

This book changed my life. I drove with my wife, Jennifer, and our three kids one Sunday morning to the Carmel mega-church we were attending. We sat in the giant parking lot as services began. Jennifer and I shared some of this church’s core beliefs, but we simply felt we belong elsewhere. In a spontaneous decision, I whirled our van out of the parking lot and drove several miles away to the closest Quaker meeting I knew of – tiny Gray Road Friends. We walked in during the middle of Sunday school and the few gathered greeted us as friends. We talked about Quakerism and about Elton Trueblood. My Quaker Chapter had begun. Since that day in 2012, I have experienced God’s presence within my own life and through the lives of others more fully that ever before. In 2014, I officially became a Quaker when I joined Indianapolis First Friends Meeting. 

I often think back to the 1980s. What if Trueblood had not welcomed a new friendship with my dad, a stranger? What if he had not taken the time to give me – a teenager at a crossroads – his encouragement and, even more importantly, his full attention? 

Through his writings and small acts of kindness, Elton Trueblood had helped plant a shade tree of faith within me that he’d never see mature. Elton Trueblood said he wanted to be remembered as a loving person. “This can be the goal of every individual,” he said. As George Fox said – “come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one.” 
Without love, Trueblood’s scholarship and books would have lost their power. 
To send us into silent worship I want to read you one final quote from Dr. Trueblood
 “If you are a Christian, you are a minister. You can help others in ways no one else can. Many of us are sad, lonely, in hardship, and we need Many of us are sad, lonely, in hardship, and we need to face it together. " 
That is the legacy of Friend Elton Trueblood. It’s about planting trees. 

January 3rd 2016

Sermon 1-3-2016  Happy New Year! 
Lamentations 3:19-33
http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Erikson's_stages_of_psychosocial_development
   
A friend of mine copied the bulletin for her church last Sunday, and as she opened it to lead worship, she realized that the inside pages had never printed… they were blank.  There was nothing there.  Rather than panic, Gwen realized how fitting it was that, just as the order of worship lay uncharted before the congregation, so the New Year - about to turn – was opening, with no real understanding of what was yet to be.   
  
The past year, the ‘Old Man of 2015’, has gone.  There were certain things I expected last year – I looked forward to with great excitement!  My son Matthew and his bride Rebecca were married last August.  Our grandchildren came from Wyoming for a visit.  So many other things happened, both large and small, in my family life, in my professional life, in my spiritual life.  It was a wonderful year.  But there were also those things that were were unanticipated… my cousin Sharon’s death as a result of complications from Multiple Sclerosis.  My older brother’s homelessness.  It has been a challenging year.  The ‘New Year’s Baby’ aged quickly as it grew, throughout 2015.  This is the wonder, the beauty, the excitement, the challenge, the test, the work of life… of living in and through each day, each month, each year. 
  
In his work “Childhood and Society” [1950], the psychologist, Erik Erikson, articulated eight developmental stages through which a healthily developing human should pass from infancy to late adulthood.  In each stage the person confronts, and hopefully masters, new challenges.  Each stage builds on the successful completion of earlier stages.  
Stages of Life – Erickson, a la Tippin! 
  
Middle School/High School – Identity
NOT ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’, but ‘who do you want to be?’ A question of character…  Society spends a great deal of time asking our children if they want to be doctors, lawyers, firemen, or soldiers.  But how often do we ask them if they
want to be truthful, caring, loving, forthright, honorable, forgiving, just, and kind?  How do our children learn to identify themselves?   
  
Young Adulthood – Intimacy
Who do you choose to associate with? What kinds of people do you avoid? Who do you choose to join with in business, in life? Do you choose to marry? To raise a family?  Do you choose to remain alone? What kinds of friends/relationships do you surround yourself with? 
  
Adulthood – Generativity
What do you do with what you know?  With what you’ve experienced?  With who you are?  What do you give to others of yourself?   
  
1999 – private practice to academic medicine; Spokane, WA to Iowa City, IA
2001 – academic medicine to private practice; Iowa City, IA to Medford, OR
2004 – private practice to academic medicine; Medford, OR to Iowa City, IA
  
Concern for our aging parents, and the crazy thought that our college-aged kids might need us, moved us back West to Oregon.  It wasn’t long before Jon told me we needed to leave.  That was the last thing I wanted to hear… Six years, three cross-country moves & five different houses:  house, rental, house, rental, house.  Friendships, family ties, my own work… this was going to be tough.  My son Seth was studying for his Doctorate in Psychology at the time, and his advice to me came straight from Erickson’s Stages of Life:  “Dad’s in the ‘generative’ stage.  He could continue to care for patients, and that’s a worthy calling.  But since he has the chance to teach, he can teach others how to care for many more patients than he could himself.  This is why he loves academic medicine so much more than private practice.  This is why he wants to go back to Iowa.”  So, after some negotiating, we started packing… again, for Iowa City.   
  
Just a few months later, amidst packing tape and boxes, the phone rang.  It was God, calling me into pastoral ministry.  It was the strangest thing ever, and six months later I began serving as a pastor in Iowa Yearly Meeting.  January 17th will be the beginning of my twelfth year in ministry.  God was definitely generating something in my life, too! 
  
Late Adulthood – Saging, not Aging! 
‘One strength of Erikson’s theory is that it acknowledges that development continues throughout the life cycle.  According to Erickson, even older people are not finished developing.  Older people who are coming to terms with their own mortality have a deep need to look over their whole lives.  In a life review, a person who can look back over their life history, on the good times with gladness and satisfaction, on hard times with self-respect, and on mistakes and regrets with forgiveness, can find a new sense of integrity and a readiness for whatever life or death may bring.’  These are the persons we become… wise, able, interesting, and sought after for all that we have been taught by our growing… not only older in years, but in understanding and in depth of character.   
  
This past Christmas, the children were gathering for their pageant and I spent time asking them all kinds of questions… Who were the first people to hear the announcement about Jesus’ birth?  Who traveled the farthest to see the baby Jesus?  Jack Broadwell asked me a great question… ‘What did the Wise Men do all day?’  I answered back with a question of my own… “What does it mean to be wise?”  His little brother Sam answered, “Smart.”  “That’s a very good answer,” I said.  “There are a lot of wise people who are very smart.  But there are a lot of smart people who aren’t very wise.  What does it mean to be wise?”  Jack answered again…. ‘It means to be able to figure things out.’   
  
Our Meeting is blessed with a great number of wise sages… people who are really good at figuring things out.  They have lived a lifetime of building personal character; they’ve chosen persons to associate with in spiritual community, business, marriage, friendship; they are people who have given their time, their interests, their love of teaching, their gifts in management, their care for children, their hospitality, their voices, their experiences, their finances, their very selves; and who now reap the reward of counseling, advising, guiding, shaping the life of our Meeting.  We each have a responsibility, no matter where we are in the calendar of our lives to reach out… to question, to wonder, to ask, to initiate, to join in the promise each day brings. 
  
Sages – what wisdom might you share with a young person who is asking himself who are they are?  Who they might become?  Do you ever stop them to ask?  Young adults – what question might you have to ask someone just a few years older than you about starting a business, or making Godly choices in finding a life partner?  Do you recognize the resource they are to you?  Older adults – what lessons do the littlest children in our Meeting have to teach you about the wonder of life you may not notice any longer?  What have you forgotten to give that they give so freely? 
  
The scripture reading today is not a song of praise…. It erupts from a collection of poems – five laments – of God’s people, seeing their city of Jerusalem fall.  Social, political, and religious corruption have overtaken the leadership of Judah.  A new year does not lie open before these people.  All seems lost.  These laments give them a way of working through their season of grief.  It is in the midst of this that we find… mercy and hope. 
  
“My soul… is bowed down within me, but this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; 
they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.” 
  
Morning breaks.  The calendar turns.  God’s love and mercies are recreated, again and again and again. Regardless of all circumstances – within and without – God’s faithfulness and mercy is unfailing.  Whether my soul is standing fully upright or bowed down within me, God is all I need.  God is my portion.  The day lies before me.  The year opens up, fresh and new.  Through all the seasons of my life, those past and that in which I find myself now, God accompanies me.  Will I choose to live into God’s steadfast love, and the newness of life yet to be?  Will I choose to live out of God’s great faithfulness and never ending mercy?    

12-13-15 Christ Born in Us- Mary

Sermon 12-13-2015; ‘Mary’s Song’
Luke 1:47-56
“Mary, Did You Know?”  http://www.metrolyrics.com/mary-did-you-know-lyrics-christmas-song.html
Kathleen Norris, ‘Annunciation’ , Watch for the Light – Readings for Advent and Christmas, Plough Publishing Company, 2001.
 
 
What did Mary know?  We heard a beautiful song this morning, as our Prelude, asking Mary over and over again what she knew about the child she was carrying.  The baby boy she was holding in her womb.  She, like Katie today, knew that she would have a son.  But did she know he would walk on water?  He would calm a storm?  
The blind will see.
The deaf will hear.
The dead will live again.
The lame will leap.
The dumb will speak.
Did Mary know?  When the angel Gabriel came to speak to Mary, there in her home in Nazareth, the first thing she heard – once she recovered from her startled fear at seeing and hearing an angel of God – was that she was ‘highly favored’.  To be favored is to be preferred – to be chosen.  You are ‘the favorite’.  The angel told Mary, the Lord was with her.  There were many other young women God could have chosen, but God chose Mary.  God’s choice was purposeful.
What do we know of Mary?  She was a young woman, already promised in marriage to a man named Joseph.  She would have received a gift from Joseph while he said, ‘By this, thou art set apart for me, according to the laws of Moses and of Israel.”  The betrothal was binding, and could only be broken legally, as in a divorce.  Their betrothal would have lasted for a year, while Joseph prepared their home, and Mary prepared her wedding clothes (what we used to call a trousseau), and for the wedding celebration itself.  Joseph and Mary lived in the region of Galilee, in a town called Nazareth, where Joseph worked as a carpenter.  Each of them – Joseph and Mary – descended from the kingly line of David – depending on the genealogy you study – Matthew’s or Luke’s.  Mary’s cousin Elizabeth was a daughter of the Aaronic priesthood.  Mary, and Joseph too, were very familiar with Jewish customs, and Jewish faith.  
What did Mary know?  Not only was she favored, but she would give birth to a son.  He would be great and would be called the Son of the Most High.  He would be given David’s throne, and would reign over the house of Jacob forever.  Not just for a generation – but forever.  Her son’s kingdom would never end.  She was to name him Jesus.  And she knew that all of this would happen through the power of the Holy Spirit.
What do we know about Mary?  Mary was a virgin, a young person who had not yet learned to doubt her capacity for wonder.  Everything – anything – was possible.  What was it the angel Gabriel had told her?  Nothing is impossible with God!  She knew, as only young people do, that so much of life is beyond our control.  We may act like we control our lives, but much of it is beyond us.  Thomas Merton describes this when he speaks of the true identity he seeks in prayer – “a point untouched by illusion, a point of pure truth… which belongs entirely to God, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will.  This little point… of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us.” 
Author Kathleen Norris writes: ‘It is only when we stop idolizing the illusion of our control over the events of life and recognize our poverty that we become virgin, in the sense that Merton means.  Adolescents tend to be better at this than grown-ups, because they are continually told that they don’t know enough, and they lack the means to hide behind professional credentials.  The whole world confirms to them that they are indeed poor, regrettably laboring through what is called “the awkward age”.  It is no wonder that teenagers like to run in packs, that they surround themselves with people as gawky and unformed as themselves.  But it is in adolescence that the fully formed adult self begins to emerge, and if a person has been fortunate, allowed to develop at his or her own pace, this self is a liberating force, and it is virgin.  That is, it is one-in-itself, better able to cope with peer pressure, as it can more readily measure what is true to one’s self, and what would violate it.  Even adolescent self-absorption recedes as one’s capacity for the mystery of hospitality grows; it is only as one is at home in oneself that one may be truly hospitable to others – welcoming, but not overbearing, affably pliant but not subject to crass manipulation.  This difficult balance is maintained only as one remains virgin, cognizant of oneself as valuable, unique and undiminshable at the core…’
What does Mary do?  She sings!  She SINGS!  She sings of her own poverty, her own humility.  But she knows her inner self well, and she recognizes the strength of her choosing by God.  She is favored, she was chosen, she is valued.  God was mindful, was attentive to her.  God has done great things for her.  Poverty and wealth all wrapped up in one line – one lyric – one voice.  ‘God has done great things for me.’ 
Friends, we are virgin.  We are virgin when we open ourselves to the newness, to the wonder of God in us.  And we can sing from our poverty, when we are blest with the wealth of God’s love for us.  ‘God has done great things for me.’  ‘God has done great things for me.’  
Then, with the cocky assurance of youth, and the clear faith of one stepping out into the ‘known unknown’, Mary speaks rebellion:  mercy to those who fear God; the scattering of the secretly proud; the uncompromised strength of God; the destruction of arrogant rulers and the rise of the humble; the hungry filled with good things, and the rich sent away from the table – empty.  
This young woman, when making out her birth announcements, would write far more than the date, weight, and length of her son.  Here she is writing a cautionary tale: get ready for this kid… make way for the coming of the Lord.  My world, your world, our world, will never be the same.  
Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy has come to make you new?
She knew.  She knew.   
What do we know?