5-15-2016 The WOW of God

Sermon 5-15-2016; ‘The WOW of God’

Psalm 145, read responsively

Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow – The Three Essential Prayers, Riverhead Books, 2012, pps 71, 73

“The third great prayer, Wow, is often offered with a gasp, a sharp intake of breath, when we can’t think of another way to capture the sight of shocking beauty or destruction, of a sudden unbidden insight or an unexpected flash of grace.  “Wow” means we are not dulled to wonder…” Anne Lamott

Years ago, Jon and I were traveling and stopped at a wayside.  We climbed down a trail and could hear a waterfall deep below us.  What an incredible ‘wow’ moment it was to stand beneath that power, in bright sunshine, with tons of water falling so nearby, flushing the pool below it, surrounded with tall trees, lush greenery, and the fullness of sound.  It was a cathedral of space.  It was an holy experience.  It was an unforgettable ‘wow’ time of God’s ‘shocking beauty’, grace, and presence in my life and memory.

Anne Lamott reminds us that, “When we are stunned to the place beyond words, we’re finally starting to get somewhere.  It is so much more comfortable to think that we know what it all means, what to expect and how it all hangs together.  When we are stunned to the place beyond words, when an aspect of life takes us away from being able to chip away at something until it’s down to a manageable size and then file it nicely away, when all we can say in response is “Wow”, that’s a prayer.”

Jon and I recently visited New York City.  We hadn’t been there in twenty years or so.  We had a fabulous time going to some Broadway shows, eating great food, rowing boats in Central Park, and seeing and hearing lots of different people and languages all around us.  What a great city!  What a great experience!  But one of the most incredible experiences was the day we spent at the World Trade Center… or what was left of it.  It’s been fifteen years since that September 11^th, and many of us have been able to ‘chip away’ at that horror, getting it down to a ‘manageable size’ – especially those of us who weren’t in New York City or near there that day.  But when you walk up toward the place where the towers once stood, when you see the beautiful pools that fill those voids surrounded with plaques naming all those who died in each of the buildings, when you notice the white rosebuds next to certain names – those whose birthdays are being celebrated that day – you can’t but breathe a prayer of awe… wow. 

‘The words “wow” and “awe” are the same height and width – all w’s and short vowels.  They could dance together,’ says Lamott.  Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.  Wow and Awe.  Picasso’s ‘Guernica’. Awe and wow .  The Grand Canyon.  Beethoven’s 9th.  The white and purple iris’ flagging us in to the Meetinghouse these past few days… Wow.  Awe.  Wow.  Awe. 

Barbara Dubois shares this story: “We had a tour guide during a Canadian trip to Banff a few years ago. Every time she saw something, if not several things in nature (God's wonders), she acknowledged it with a joyful "wowwowwow” - always three wows!  We heard it when we witnessed a gorgeous blue sky with mountains behind, or Lake Louise with a tiny red canoe crossing it, the chance to witness rare animal wildlife, or the blessing that sunshine afforded so we could travel to exciting sights.  She seemed to see beauty in every day's adventures. We all got to hear her positive "wowwowwow" daily and frequently, so much so, that on the last evening of the trip, at dinner, we all declared aloud our appreciation for her leadership and enthusiasm throughout the week by saying all together, "We think YOU are "wow wow wow!!!"

Lamott says “Wow” has a reverberation – wowwowwow – and this pulse can soften us, like the electrical massage an acupuncturist directs to your spine or cramped muscle, which feels like a staple gun, but good.  The movement of grace from hard to soft, distracted to awake, mean to gentle again, is mysterious but essential.  As a tiny little control freak, I want to understand the power of Wow, so I can organize it and control it, and up its rate and frequency.  But I can’t.  I can only feel it, and acknowledge that it is here once again.  Wow…  Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds.  This happens more often when we have as little expectation as possible.  If you say, “Well that’s pretty much what I thought I’d see,” you are in trouble.  At that point, you have to ask yourself why you are even here.  And if I were you, I would pray, “Help”.  Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time.  Let it be.  Unto us, so much is given.  We just have to be open for business.”

Friends, the WOW of God is what Quakers call ‘continuing revelation’ – all those things God has yet to show us of Godself.  The things God surprises us with every day – that we wake up in and for. The things we cannot yet see.  The things we’ve perhaps missed.  Those things we remember, and then say, ‘Oh… wow…  that was God!”  We sang, with the psalmist this morning, a song of awe.  When have you experienced God’s power in your life?  When have you experienced God’s mercy?  When have you been awed by God’s goodness poured out in the face of evil?  When have you been astonished by God’s ‘shocking beauty’ and grace? When have you been stunned by wonder?  When have you been surprised by God?

Find a partner in the meetingroom this morning.  Perhaps someone of a different age.  Describe to them a moment when you sensed awe – wonder - the ‘wow’ of God.  In nature.  In another person.  In an experience.  What, for you, have you found to be the “wow” of God?

5-8-2016 Gratitude and Grace

Sermon 5-8-2016‘Gratitude and Grace’;

2 Corinthians 4:5-15

Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow – The Three Essential Prayers, Riverhead Books, 2012, pps 43,46,47, 57,58.

John Piper: http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/grace-gratitude-and-the-glory-of-god

Pastor Ruthie Tippin, Indy First Friends

“Thanks” is the short form of the original prayer I used to say in gratitude for any unexpected grace in my life.  ‘Thankyouthankyouthankyou.”  As I grew spiritiually, the prayer became the more formal “Thank you,” and now, from the wrinkly peaks of maturity, it is simply “Thanks.”  So says Anne Lamott, in her book, ‘Help, Thanks, Wow’.  Thanks.  Gratitude.  Grace.  Grace and gratitude are tied together, often in ways we don’t see.

Giving thanks covers a wide range of circumstances:

Whee!  Level One Thanks:  I found a close parking space!

Whoo!  Level Two Thanks:  The cop didn’t notice me speeding – or at least didn’t stop me for it.  What a relief. 

(deep breath)  Whoooooo…  Level Three Thanks: The white blood cell count was about allergies – not leukemia.

The scriptures are full of thanksgiving, just as we are, often after facing huge crises.  It’s as if these deep places force us into exhaustion, need, our cry for help, and finally, our sense of gratitude that we are not alone.  That the thin places between life and death, human and divine, love and Light are transparent, and God-in-us is also God-with-us.  Thankyouthankyouthankyou.  I have found grace.

Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, is a clay jar.  He’s just like any one of us.  He’d be happy to have a cop pass him by, to discover that he doesn’t have leukemia, or to pull into a close parking space at Kroger. He works for a living.  He has friends - and he has enemies.  Here, his integrity has been called into question, and his work, his ministry, is in trouble.  The folks at Corinth aren’t sure they can trust him, so what he has to say matters even more than we might think: “We have this treasure in ordinary, everyday, clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. [2 Cor. 4:7-11]

Ordinary, fragile, regular people, are able to overcome incredible things through the life, power, and grace of God.  What looks and feels like death, is really life.  True life. 

Anne Lamott: “Gratitude runs the gamut from shaking your head and saying “Thanks, wow, I appreciate it so much,”… to saying “Thanks, that’s a relief,”… and of course, gratitude can be for everything in between… But grace can be the experience of a second wind, when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on.  Through the most ordinary things… life is transformed.”

This transformation is just what Paul is talking about.  Our reading today ended with Paul saying in verse 15, and our NRSV translation got it right: “Everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.”  John Piper writes: “Almost all English translations miss a beautiful opportunity to preserve in English a play on words that occurs in Paul's Greek. Paul says, "It is all for your sake, so that as charis extends to more and more people it may increase eucharistian to the glory of God." The Greek word for thanks is built on the word for grace: charis becomes eucharistian. This could have been preserved in English by the use of 'grace' and 'gratitude' which show the same original root. So I would translate: "It is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase gratitude to the glory of God." The reason this is important is because when we try to define thanks or gratitude, what we find is that it has a very close relationship to grace. Unless we see this relationship, we really don't know what gratitude is.

Piper goes on to explain what gratitude is NOT.  Saying ‘thank you’ out of habit, or because your dad told you to, is not being grateful.  It’s a good thing to be trained to have good manners – ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ goes a long way – but true gratitude is a feeling, not a rehearsed response. ‘…gratitude is more than delighting in a gift. It is a feeling of happiness directed toward a person for giving you something good. It is a happiness that comes not merely from the gift, but from the act of giving. Gratitude is a happy feeling you have about a giver because of his giving something good to you or doing something good for you… [and] the emotion of gratitude generally rises in proportion to how underserved a gift it is. In other words, gratitude flourishes in the sphere of grace. And that is why the play on words in 2 Corinthians 4:15 is significant. Grace is charis and gratitude is eucharistian because gratitude is a response to grace. Gratitude is the feeling of happiness you feel toward somebody who has shown you some undeserved kindness, that is, who has been gracious to you.

For Paul, for me, for you, that’s Christ.  Christ loves us at our worst, at our best, at our most selfish, at our most generous, at our most ugly, at our most beautiful.  Christ loves us.  Christ loves us all.  Regardless of who we are, of how atrocious or spectacular our manners are, how kind or thoughtful we are, how much we deserve kindness in return.  Christ loves us all without qualification.  Christ loves Donald, and Bernie, and Hillary.  Christ loves Muslims and Christians.  Christ loves gays and straights, fundamentalist Christians and atheists.  Christ loves you and me.  And there isn’t a thing we can do about it.  Christ loved the Corinthians that weren’t so sure about Paul, and Christ loved Paul.  Christ would have died from old age if he didn’t love us… all.  That’s grace.  That’s what Paul, and Annie, and I, are talking about today.  And that’s why we can all say, “Whoooo… thanks.”

Anne Lamott:  “The truth is that ‘to whomever much is given, of him will much be required; and to whom much is entrusted, of him more will be asked,” if Jesus is to be believed.  He meant us.  Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior.  It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides.  It means you are willing to stop being such a jerk.  When you are aware of all that’s been given to you, in your lifetime and in the past few days, it’s hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back.”  Gratitude is a response to grace.    

So – this is Sunday – First Day.  Think backwards.  Just this past week.  Where did you experience grace?  How did you respond?  How did you behave?  How did your behavior reflect the grace of God?  The goodness of God?  The gratitude you have for all you have, toward God?  It’s hard not to be humbled, isn’t it?  A big part of the word gratitude is attitude! 

“Saying and meaning “Thanks” leads to a crazy thought”, says Annie.  “What more can I give?  We take the action first, by giving – and then the insight follows, that this fills us.  Sin is not the adult bookstore on the corner.  It is the hard heart, the lack of generosity, and all the isms, racism, and sexism and so forth.  But is there a crack where a ribbon of light might get in, might sneak past all the roadblocks and piles of stones, mental and emotional and cultural?  We can’t will ourselves to be more generous and accepting.  It obviously behooves me to practice being receptive, open for the business of gratitude.  A nun I know once told me she kept begging God to take her character defects away from her.  After years of this prayer, God finally got back to her:  “I’m not going to take anything away from you.  You have to give it to Me.”

“I have found,” Annie says, “that I even have to pray for the willingness to give up the stuff I hate most about myself.  I have to ask for help, and sometimes beg.  (Mayday!)  That’s the human condition.  I just love my own guck so much.  Help.”

Perhaps, if we ‘cracked pots’ – so fragile, thin, and open, can allow the Light of God, that ‘ribbon of light’, to permeate us, to fill us, to provoke us to use the Light we are and have for others, we will discover the charis – the grace of gratitude - for ourselves, and for others.  Our thanks will mean more to us.  We will say it more often.  We will say it with greater cause and for deeper reason.  Our thanks will be filled with giving.  Our giving will be filled with thanks.   Our gratitude will come from the attention we’re paying to God’s good grace.  ‘thankyouthankyouthankyou’  Amen.

5-1-16 Mayday!

Sermon, May 1, 2016 ‘Mayday!’

Psalm 70-71:3

Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow – The Three Essential Prayers, Riverhead Books, 2012, pps, 6,7,14,15.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday http://www.npr.org/2012/11/19/164814269/anne-lamott-distills-prayer-into-help-thanks-wow http://www.friendsjournal.org/interview-with-anne-lamott-author-of-help-thanks-wow/

 
This guy’s in trouble.  This psalm, this song to God, is no mere melody.  It’s much more like a desperate cry for help.  I’m not exactly sure what’s wrong.  I don’t know if people are literally trying to kill him, or if their intention is to end his life, his livelihood, his sense of self, as he knows it.  But he’s desperate.  

Have you ever been desperate?  Are you feeling desperate this morning?  You’re in good company.  This person, crying out to God, is one of God’s own.  He, or she, is a child of God, just like you and me.  This person recognizes God, names God, turns to God, in their desperation.  Just like we do.  Even when we may not acknowledge God at any other time, we call to God in distress.  Someone’s got to be there.  Someone’s got to listen.  

“‘Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!”  It’s always repeated three times, so it won’t be mistaken for any other call.  It’s a distress signal, to be used in life-threatening emergencies, primarily by aviators and mariners, but police and firefighters use it, too.  In 1923, a senior radio officer at Croydon Airport in London, Frederick Mockford was asked to think of a word that would indicate distress and would easily be understood by all pilots and ground staff in an emergency. Since much of the traffic at the time was between Croydon and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, he proposed the word "Mayday" from the French "m'aider", a shortened version of "venez m'aider" (meaning "come and help me"). This replaced the Morse Code  …---… “SOS” [Save Our Souls] call.   

In her book, ‘Help, Thanks, Wow – The Three Essential Prayers’, Anne Lamott speaks about the importance of truth.  Of coming to the end of ourselves, and realizing we have no other recourse but to call for emergency aid.    

“My belief,” she says, “is that when you’re telling the truth, you’re close to God.  If you say to God, “I am exhausted and depressed beyond words, and I don’t like You at all right now, and I recoil from most people who believe in You,” that might be the most honest thing you’ve ever said.  If you told me you had said to God, “It is all hopeless, and         I don’t have a clue if You exist, but I could use a hand,” it would almost bring tears to my eyes, tears of pride in you, for the courage it takes to get real – really real.  It would make me want to sit next to you at the dinner table.  So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light.  It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold… Light reveals us to ourselves, which is not always so great if you find yourself in a big disgusting mess, possibly of your own creation.  But like sunflowers, we turn toward light.  Light warms, and in most cases, it draws us to itself.  And in this light, we can see beyond shadow and illusion to something beyond our modest receptors, to what is way beyond us, and deep inside.”    

I love what Lamott has to say about courage… it takes courage to ask for help.  And it takes humility.  Do you remember this song?  

When I was younger, so much younger than today
I never needed anybody's help in any way
But now these days are gone I'm not so self-assured
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being 'round
Help me get my feet back on the ground
Won't you please, please help me? Help me, help meeeeee….

Help! was written mainly by John Lennon at his home in Weybridge.  Lennon said, “When Help! came out, I was actually crying out for help. Most people think it's just a fast rock 'n' roll song. I didn't realise it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help. So it was my fat Elvis period. You see the movie: he - I - is very fat, very insecure, and he's completely lost himself. And I am singing about when I was so much younger and all the rest, looking back at how easy it was.”  [1980]

Whether it was John Lennon composing a song, or a psalmist setting a piece to music, they are both calling out “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!”  Anne Lammott: “There’s freedom in hitting bottom, in seeing that you won’t be able to save or rescue your daughter, her spouse, his parents, or your career; relief in admitting you’ve reached the place of great unknowing.  This is where restoration can begin, because when you’re still in the state of trying to fix the unfixable, everything bad is engaged: the chatter of your mind, the tension of your physiology, all the trunks and wheel-ons you carry from the past.  It’s exhausting, crazy-making.

Help.  Help us walk through this.  Help us come through.  It is the first great prayer.

I don’t pray for God to do this or that, or for God’s sake to knock it off, or for specific outcomes.  Well, okay, maybe a little… I pray.  Help.  Hold my friends in Your light.” 

George Fox, toward the beginning of his travels, writes this in his Journal: “When I myself was in the deep, shut up under all, I could not believe that I should ever overcome; my troubles, my sorrows, and my temptations were so great that I thought many times I should have despaired, I was so tempted. But when Christ opened to me how He was tempted by the same devil, and overcame him and bruised his head, and that through Him and His power, light, grace, and Spirit, I should overcome also, I had confidence in Him; so He it was that opened to me when I was shut up and had no hope nor faith. Christ, who had enlightened me, gave me His light to believe in; He gave me hope, which He Himself revealed in me, and He gave me His Spirit and grace, which I found sufficient in the deeps and in weakness.  Thus, in the deepest miseries, and in the greatest sorrows and temptations, that many times beset me, the Lord in His mercy did keep me.” 

We don’t cry “Mayday” from a safe place.  We don’t call out for help after we’ve reached the shore.  When do we need rescue, restoration, relief?  When we’re in the thick of things.  When we’re lost.  When we’re in darkness.  And that is where we find God.  Right where we are.  As we cry out to God, we discover that God has been calling to us.  God’s capacity for companionship is not one that avoids trouble, but one that moves with us in times of trouble.  God’s capacity for love is not one that falters, but one that chases us, finds us, and even outruns us – welcoming our true selves home.   

John Lennon prayed this:
Help, I need somebody
Help, not just anybody
Help, you know I need someone
Help!  

Thomas Merton prayed this:  "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

John Lennon’s prayer.  Thomas Merton’s prayer.  The psalmist’s prayer.  What is your prayer today?  Perhaps it begins with the simple word “Help.”   

4-24-16 Enough and More

Enough and More

Good Morning…
I’ve been offered the opportunity today to make a plea for First Friends.  In the bulletin you may have seen a snapshot of our current financial condition.  
If I were the CFO for a public company and had to defend the financial position to investors, I might rightly be sweating bullets.  
And you might think that I’m up here because I drew the proverbial short straw. 
And, yes, the current state and trends for the meeting seem pretty dire.  In the first three months of 2016 we are running an outsized budget deficit far in excess of the deficits that we have run in the past.  At the rate we are currently running, without a change, this deficit could very well be an insurmountable challenge.  
But I stand before you this morning without sweating bullets and with an incredible amount of hope and faith.  I believe with all of my heart that we not only can come together to provide enough financially to close the gap, but that we have the wherewithal and ability to provide more.  And by providing more, I’m not speaking merely of finances…considering not just closing the gap financially but providing more to make the Meeting its most thriving ever.
In the history of religious institutions there have been a variety of creative ways to fundraise.  In Jesus’s time sacrifices were sold at incredible mark-ups to which Jesus repeatedly responded with great anger.  In medieval times—and yes in countries like Germany even today!—taxes, albeit optional, are levied to support churches.  Indulgences were sold by the Church centuries ago that spawned wholesale reforms.  And after all these changes the challenge continues to fundraise.  We continue to see pledge drives, bake sales, carnivals, raffles, fish fries, bingo, and a variety of other means to help income match the expenses of different ministries.
But this morning I am going to try a different approach altogether.  I am going to explore a story:
-    A story about The First Friends,
-    A story about First Friends, and
-    A story about us.  
We read today in the Scripture this morning a story about The First Friends, Jesus and his Friends the Twelve Disciples.  This is one of the stories that is so important and impactful that it is found in each one of the gospels:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  I particularly like the version in the Book of John because it provides not only the most detail but helps us realize how we also can make miracles happen with our own efforts along with God’s help. 
Harkening back to this morning’s Reading, the story takes place towards the beginning of Jesus’s ministries.  He has healed many, and many have come to hear him during the Passover Celebration, the Feast of the Jews.  Coincidentally, this same Celebration has been celebrated as it has for millennia by our Jewish friends this very weekend.   And during this Passover celebration two millennia ago 5000 people have gathered on the other side of the Sea of Galilea to see and listen to Jesus’ ministry.  In the Story, none of Jesus’s parables told that day or other words that may have been spoken outside of those associated with the Miracle are recorded.  I wonder what he might have said…Could there have been a parable with as much impact as the Lost Shepherd, the Prodigal Son, or the Good Samaritan that I have found so guiding on my spiritual journey?  Perhaps…However, the Miracle which occurred and was captured was the Story of the day.  
Again, it was the Passover Celebration…a time which according to Jewish tradition and as recorded in Exodus 12:14 would be “…a memorial day…[a day that shall be kept] as a feast to the Lord” and a time where bread is an integral part of the story…unleavened bread that is. Bread that the Hebrews didn’t have the time or materials to leaven during their Exodus from Pharaoh and Egypt.  
And in the Story of the Fishes and Loaves it seemed during this Passover Feast that bread was a scarce commodity.  
As we read in the Scriptures:
“Jesus went up to the mountain, and there sat down with his disciples.  Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.  Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a multitude was coming to him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘How are we to buy the bread, so that these people may eat?’
Jesus essentially posed this rhetorical question to The First Friends:
        “Will we have enough?”
How many times are we asking this very same question?  In fact, I essentially started this message this morning with it.
How many times do we ask this question in a lot of areas of our lives?
Consider this:  
-    To worry about having enough of something… that something must be counted.
-    And what can be counted in our lives?
-    And for it to count… we must possess it.
-    And for it to suffice for our needs… it must be ours.
But what can really be ours?
Of course we can commonly think of having many things:
-    Tangible, physical things like money, houses, clothes, and cars.
-    Temporal things like time, health, skills, and earthly life itself. 
o    Things that we may have at one moment and suddenly lose.
-    Relationships such as family, parents, children, friends, and community.
-    And spiritual gifts such as faith, hope, and love. [I Corinthians 13]
…
Our culture promotes a steadily growing need for more and more of the first two categories of what can be seen and measured:  the tangible and temporal.   And it does so, all too often, at the expense of the latter of relationships and spirituality.  
…The culture promotes an appetite for more and more.
More…so that we may buy the “bread” so that we may “eat”.
So that we can satisfy our material wants and physical needs.
But can these material wants and physical needs ever be satisfied while walk the earth and our souls are incarnate?
Will we ever have enough?
…And… 
What holds us back from feeling secure that we have enough?
As I have pondered this question these past few weeks, I have concluded that Fear is what holds us back – or at least what holds me back. 
Fear of running out of what we need or will need.  Making ends meet. Saving enough for college expenses.  Saving for retirement.
Fear of running out of what we want.  A new car.  A nice vacation.
Fear of losing what we have and hold dear.  Losing a house and home or the lifestyle to which we’ve been accustomed due to some unforeseen financial crisis.
Now Fear is a real emotion and sometimes can be very useful to protect us from some very real hazards.  But when I think of it, Fear is also really a fiction.  For Fear to manifest itself, we must imagine a negative potential action or outcome in the future.  And that future could be immediate or years away, but being the future the action or outcome is still in question and uncertain. 
And what is the best way to overcome Fear?  
We read throughout the Bible and experience it ourselves that Fear is conquered with Faith. [Psalm 23, Matthew 6, John 3:16, etc. etc.]
Faith is a certain belief in a positive future state.
And it is places like First Friends, and Meetings, churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, and other houses of worship where communities like ours can gather to meet with friends to explore, develop, restore, and strengthen our Faith.
Faith in the future…Faith in each other…and Faith in God’s Promises.
        Will we have enough?
Back to the Story of The First Friends from the Scripture Reading…
The First Friends were bewildered by Jesus’s question.  They answered that it would take 200 denarii or a day laborer’s wages for an entire year to buy enough bread to feed the five thousand gathered to hear Jesus.
    The First Friends still did not have Faith.
Andrew, one of the Disciples, was distraught when he spied a boy [lad] with five barley loaves and two fish during the Passover Feast.  
    This one of The First Friends, Andrew, doubted…just like Thomas later in the gospels… and just like us today.
But Jesus provided the answer…after accepting the gift of the lad’s five loaves and two fish and giving thanks, Jesus and The First Friends not only provided enough, they provided more. As we read in the Scripture, after everyone ate, twelve baskets were filled from fragments of the barley loaves left by those who had eaten enough.
This story not only happened in all of the gospels This story happens every day when we share with each other as a First Friends Meeting, with our friends in the wider community, and strangers throughout the world who are simply friends that we haven’t met yet.
    Will we have enough?
Knowing the answer, Jesus is still asking us this rhetorical question and testing us today as he did Philip in the The First Friends Story of the Fishes and Loaves.  And he continues answering as he did in the gospels:
    We will have more when we realize we have enough.
When we realize we have enough to share our physical, temporal, familiar, and spiritual gifts, we as a broader community will have much, much more.  
We collect things out of fear, and it is places and communities like First Friends that catch us when we may find or feel that we don’t have enough—not necessarily not having enough in material things but in a desperate need for more…
This was certainly the case for Beth, me, and our family a few years ago when we were separated from each other by the Atlantic Ocean with me in Germany and Beth and the kids back home her in Indiana.  During this difficult time, we benefitted greatly from our time at the Meetinghouse on Sundays, and visits and meals and love from Friends in the Meeting.  We appreciated the Meeting so much, in fact, that we left immediately for the airport after attending the Meeting the first week of June in 2012.  And our Friends in the Meeting were an essential part of our healing when our adventure was cut woefully short, and we found ourselves living in a hotel suite back home again in Indiana a few months later in August.  The Kay family’s Story with First Friends is full of similar opportunities to both give and receive in our last decade since we first walked in the Meeting House on a beautiful September day in 2006.  
That is one quick story of First Friends Meeting.
And Now for the Story of Us….as  a Meeting…
I invite all of us to reflect during unprogrammed worship on how we have been integral to the Meeting’s ministries to provide more when we didn’t have enough and when we in the Meeting have likewise been provided support when enough was in doubt….

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?