9-11-16 Contemplation

Sermon 9-11-2016; Streams of Living Water – ‘Contemplation’

Mark 14:32-36

Hebrews 11:38

Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water – Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith, HarperCollins, 1998. 

John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert – The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, World Wisdom, 2008.

Where do you go when you want to ‘get away from it all’ – even for a few minutes?  When you need peace and quiet, rest and relaxation, a place to connect with your deepest self, or with God?  It might be as close as your front porch.  It might be your favorite fishing hole.  It might be a good book.  It might be a walk around your neighborhood, or a hike in the mountains.  Each one of us, if we think about it for a while, could name a place that gives us a sense of peace… whether it’s a mountaintop or a river valley, a place nearby or far away.

For Antony, it was the desert.  But he did not go there just to escape.  He went to the desert intentionally, focused on devotion to God.  He’d heard a scripture reading in worship, “Go, sell all you have and give to the poor and you will have treasures in heaven.  Then come, follow me.” [Matt 19:21] Settling the estate of his dead parents and arranging for care of his younger sister, Antony moved to the desert.  He was not to return for twenty years, and then – only for a brief while.  Hebrews 11 speaks of those who ‘wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground… and were commended for their faith…’ Antony was one of those, and has become known as the first of the Desert Fathers.

His solitary lifestyle drew people to him, yearning to know more about Christ, and the discipline of contemplation.  ‘Adherents to this faith were considered outcasts and ostracized by the very fact of their conversion.’ [Chryssavgis] The irony of chosen ostracism, when so many Christians were already ostracized for their faith, made this intention far more significant.  That Antony would choose to spend time alone with God spoke deeply.  Antony was not running from life, but running to the life-giver.  He was not running to avoid, but running to fill the void.  He was not running from God and all that God asked of him, but running to God for sustenance and strength, companionship and compassion, in order to live fully a ‘with-God-life.’ 

In his book, “Streams of Living Water – Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith”, Richard Foster tells of the strengths of the Contemplative Tradition:

It constantly calls us back to our ‘first love’ – loving God with all that we have; heart, soul, mind, and strength and to be vigilant in that love

It forces us past profession to possession, as Fox would say… interaction rather than intellect; Thomas Merton writes “The contemplative is… he who has risked his mind in the desert beyond language and ideas where God is encountered in the nakedness of pure trust… in the surrender of our own poverty and incompleteness…”

Contemplation brings an emphasis on silence and unceasing prayer; Brother Lawrence called it ‘abiding in his holy presence… a wordless and secret conversation between the soul and God which no longer ends’

A recognition of our responsibility for developing a personal history, our own story, with God

One of the great perils of the Contemplative Tradition is the thought that a contemplative, prayerful life must be separated from our everyday life.  That we, like Antony, need to move out to the desert, to the mountains, to our favorite fishing hole, in order to have a ‘close encounter’ with God.  That is just not true.  It might be easier, but it just isn’t practical.  And one who has shown us the way, is The Way… Christ Jesus.

In our reading this morning, Christ is stuck.  There is no way he can get away from life – or death.  At the fullness of his work and ministry, Christ is also at the height of suspicion with those who govern the synagogue, and manage the status quo.  Something has to change.  He has met with his closest followers and told them that he will soon be betrayed to the authorities.  They all go to a place called Gethsemane… an olive yard or garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives.  Jesus tells his disciples to stay – to sit and wait for him - and he goes deeper into the garden to pray.  He moves in… to the garden, to God, to contemplation.  Right then, smack dab in the middle of life, Christ moves away from it all, and moves toward God.  Not for a quick chat, but for deep conversation.  To a place of first love, of deep surrender, of silence, and persistent, unceasing prayer. 

We are in tight places in our lives, more often than we’d like to be.  Where do we go to ‘get away from it all?’  Where is our desert?  Our Gethsemane?  Quiet, inner solitude… still and centered places filled with God’s spirit, contemplative places of remembrance of God’s love for us, and our love of God.  Places where we try on God’s love, if we’ve never felt it before.  Places that prepare us for the stark realities that we face.  Places where we enjoy the pleasure of God’s company.  Places where we honestly tell God how we feel – just like Jesus did.  Places where we find gratitude for God’s presence and faithfulness.  Places where we are glad to be able to go!

In the study portion for today’s sermon series, suggestions are given to help us become more prayerful, more contemplative.  Here are some of them…

Set aside five or ten minutes for silence each day.

Set aside five or ten minutes for prayer each day.

Write a prayer or a letter to God; tell God about when you feel God’s presence most profoundly and when you don’t feel it at all.

Pray a short prayer many times throughout the day, such as “Be still and know that I am God.”

Learn to appreciate God through creation – stop to notice the beauty around you – the power of storms, the light of the sun, the depth of the darkness, and thank God for God’s presence.

Set aside fifteen minutes at the end of the day to say thank you.  Name as many things as you can think of to be thankful.

You may already use some of these practices in your own life.    Perhaps it would be helpful to try something different… to go to another place for a while.  Or perhaps it would help you to reaffirm your need for contemplation – for a quiet place in the midst of your life.  And for those of you whose lives are too quiet… let your contemplation be filled with sound!  Pray out loud!  Sing out loud!  Listen to all the sounds you hear when you take a walk, or sit by your window.  Let your contemplation be filled with the voice of God’s spirit, speaking into your life. 

Please join me now, as we enter into our own time of contemplation after the manner of Friends.  If God speaks into your heart, listen and hold it in silence.  If God speaks for everyone through you, please be obedient, stand, and share it with the Meeting.  Join me in singing this meditative prayer as we move into contemplation…

Be still and know that I am God…

8-28-16 Labor and Delivery

Sermon 8-28-2016; ‘Labor and Delivery’

Matthew 6:6-13 KJV [Lord’s Prayer]; danced by Amy Perry, recorded by Kate Smith

Matthew 6:6-13 paraphrase; written by Bethanne Kashette, Baltimore Yearly Meeting: http://patapsco.bym-rsf.net/files/2012/05/heron200404.pdf

I Chronicles 29:11

Paul Buckley, Owning the Lord’s Prayer, Friends Journal Vol. 51, No. 2, February 2005, Friends Publishing Corporation, p 11.

Mary Sue Rosenberger, The Lord’s Prayer, Covenant Bible Studies, Brethren Press, 1989.

Have you ever found yourself in a very dark place, with no sense of direction, and absolutely no control over yourself, or your surroundings?  It can be very frightening. 

We’ve all been there, at one time or another.  We’ve all been there at least once - in our mothers’ wombs…  natural motion brings us into light, through the surging energy and power of muscle and sinew, forcing us into life in completely new surroundings. The work we’ve done so naturally to grow and develop from one cell to so many more, from egg and sperm to fingers and toes, heart and lungs, brain and being, is just the start of our work yet to do.  New challenges await. 

Job wished he had never been born.  “Let the day perish on which I was born and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’ Let that day be darkness… That night – let thick darkness seize it!”  Job cursed the day he was born, but he never cursed God.  He moved through each day, listening to Bildad, to Eliphaz, to Zophar... (“miserable comforters are you all!”)  Job’s challenges, his trials, his testing was too much for him…  he wanted deliverance, rescue, release.

“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”  These are the things Christ asked us to pray for in the Lord’s Prayer.  The way we learned it as children, the way Kate Smith sang it in the recording we heard today, the way it will be repeated time and again in churches this morning, is based on ‘the King’s English’… King James I.  A lovely benediction was added, ‘for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen.’, taken from a prayer of David in I Chronicles.  Later scholars, using source manuscripts not available to King James’ translators, realized that Christ was not speaking of God tempting us, with a desire to do something wrong or unwise, but rather bringing us to times of testing or trial.  In more modern translations of the same scripture, we find this verse written as, “Do not put us to the test, but save us from the evil one.” [New Jerusalem Bible]  “Do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.” [NRSV]    “Do not bring us to the test, but save us from the evil one.’  [New English Bible]

Christ knew we would want and need this prayer.  Didn’t he pray this prayer himself? In the garden?  ‘Lord, let this cup pass from me’…  ‘Do not put me to the test.  Do not bring me to the time of trial.’  There are many struggles we do not want to move through.  There are many tests we don’t want to take.  Like Job, there are many experiences we do not think we can endure.  Elton Trueblood writes: “The request is that hard-pressed [people] may be saved from tests which are too difficult for them, just as they may be saved from debilitating hunger.  What Christ emphasizes is that hard tests will come.  The gospel inevitably involves suffering and all must learn to bear the cross daily.”  This is why Christ gives us this prayer.  We need this prayer.

But we need testing, too.  If we’re never tested, how do we measure our capacity?  How do we know what we know?  Paul Buckley writes, “I am the father of three adult children.  All their lives, I have wanted nothing but the best for them.  In a lot of ways, my ultimate goal has always been that they grow into strong, honorable, independent adults.  Long ago I realized that if whenever something went wrong I had stepped in to spare them unhappiness, or if I had taken on any burdens they might have to bear, or if I had protected them from the consequences of their own choices, they would have remained children – no matter how old they grew to be.  Each time they faced up to a new test, they grew up a little bit – whether they passed it or not, and whether or not I could have done things better.  Often, to be a good parent, I had to let them do things all by themselves… there were times when I could see trouble coming and had to let it happen.

God is our good parent.  For us to grow spiritually, God must let us face our times of trial.  Sometimes, we will fail, but we can come to know ourselves better in that failure.  For each of us, there are times when we overestimate our spiritual maturity.  For our own good, God may need to guide us into a time of trial.  When those times come, we can ask God if it is possible to postpone the test or to escape it entirely.  But when we are faithful, like Jesus at Gethsemane, we will end our plea with, “Not what I will, but what you will.””  

The prayer Christ teaches allows us four requests:

Bread for each day.

Forgiveness, for ourselves and for others.

Help in tests and trials.

Rescue from evil; from the evil one.

Sometimes our tests and trials are against evil itself.  Pogo once said, looking out over his polluted ‘forest primevil’, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  It’s one thing to be born into this world… it’s another thing to live in it.  We get ourselves into a lot of trouble, following our own self-destructive ways.  In our choice to know good and evil, we made the decision to bite off much more than we could chew.  Why would anyone want to know evil?  Now, we find it everywhere.  And we often need to be rescued.  But God reminds us that good, that God, is everywhere too, and we often hear stories of just that – of God’s goodness rescuing us from evil.  Mary Sue Rosenberger tells this story:

“After the German occupation of Denmark, one of the first edicts passed by the Nazi-controlled government was that all persons of Jewish ancestry must wear a yellow star of David at all times.  Such a technique carried out in other occupied countries had marked Jews for discrimination and later persecution.  In Denmark, however, the morning the edict went into effect, every Danish citizen, from the king to the humblest peasant, appeared on the streets wearing a yellow Star of David!  Deliverance from evil does not always mean removal from evil.  Sometimes it means faithfulness in its midst.”  

Benediction:

Listen to what Job said, having endured his suffering:

23 Oh that my words were written!  Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
24 Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!
25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.”                                                                                                                                             [Job 19:19-26]

Giver of Life, who is in and beyond the universe, we would speak your name with thoughtfulness. May we follow the laws of peace and understanding here on earth as the stars obey the laws of heaven. May there be food for all so that none may go hungry. When we have been unfair, unkind or thoughtless, give us the courage to say we are sorry and help us to be forgiving when others hurt us. Give us the strength to do what we feel is right and to turn away from whatever hurts ourselves or others. For the wonder, the beauty, and the goodness all around us, we give grace and thanks. Amen.                                

Paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer; Bethanne Kashkette

8-21-16 Giving and Forgiving

Sermon; 8-21-2016‘Giving and Forgiving’

Matthew 6:9-14 NRSV

Dennis, Matthew & Sheila Fabricant Linn, Sleeping with Bread, Paulist Press, 1995.

Paul Buckley, Owning the Lord’s Prayer, Friends Journal Vol. 51, No. 2, February 2005, Friends Publishing Corporation, pps. 6-13.

http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/merchant/quotes.html

‘Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.’

“During the bombing raids of WWII, thousands of children were orphaned and left to starve.  The fortunate ones were rescued and placed in refugee camps where they received food and good care.  But many of these children could not sleep at night, fearing waking up to find themselves once again homeless and without food.  Finally, someone hit upon the idea of giving each child a piece of bread to hold at bedtime.  Holding their bread, these children could finally sleep in peace.  All through the night the bread reminded them, ‘Today I ate and I will eat again tomorrow.’”  Sleeping with Bread, p. 1

Sleeping with bread, fulfilling the need for daily nourishment, the sense of safety and security… that we will wake up in abundance, rather than want.  This is our prayer, when we ask God to ‘give us this day our daily bread.’ 

Paul Buckley, in his article ‘Owning the Lord’s Prayer’ writes, ‘In considering this petition, I have learned not to be too literal – in both Greek and Hebrew the word for bread can mean any kind of food.  More than that, I have come to read it as a metaphor for all the things a person needs to live.  Looked at in this way, the phrase can be read as, “Give us what we need today.” Why specify ‘this day’ or include the word ‘daily’? Both seem unnecessary.  God provides what we need today and every day.’

Do you remember the story told in Exodus [Chapter 16] about the Israelites need for food – for ‘daily bread’, and God’s provision of manna and quail in the desert?  Every day, enough for each day. People had to trust God for what they needed, each day, and no more.  Daily bread – daily trust.   

‘Give us this – give us that… give us what is needed…’  The Israelites always wanted more, and so do we. They and we, become bored and dissatisfied with what we have.  How many ways can you cook, bake, fry, or roast, quail and manna?  God gave and continues to give daily bread… what we need for this day, and asks us to trust God absolutely.  Jesus teaches us to ask God for our needs, not selfishly, not with greed, but with trust that God cares and provides for us each and every day. 

Christ took this a step further when he taught us this lesson: ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged.  Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.  Forgive, and you will be forgiven.  Give, and it will be given to you.  A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.  For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Luke 6:37-38If God gives us all we need, then we, without judgement or condemnation, are called to incarnate God for others... we are commanded to give as God has given to us.  Can you imagine the reward those refugee workers in Europe felt when the children were able to sleep; when their fears were calmed; when they knew they were cared for?  Giving is receiving, both for God and for us. 

Giving is also forgiving.  Forgiving is for giving…  not just a daily practice or need, but an everlasting, enduring gift we offer to ourselves first, and then to others.  When we forgive someone, we first have come to a place of forgiveness in ourselves – that we are flawed, that we aren’t perfect, that we make mistakes, that we don’t always succeed or accomplish what we had hoped to.  The list goes on and on. 

Once we have realized this about ourselves, we begin to see these same things about the other – the other person, the other nation, the other organization, the other family.  And then… we are made ready to forgive. 

The gift of forgiveness is not neatly wrapped.  It may look more like an arrow flying through the air, rather than a pretty package tied up with a bow.  The arc of forgiveness may take a long time to meet its mark, but the important thing is that the arrow has been released and that it flies with purpose.  I am ready.  I have found it right to pull the arrow from the quiver, and send it flying.  I forgive.  I forgive.  I forgive... 

It takes strength and agility to shoot an arrow.  You must be able to pull the string back.  You must be certain of your target, with clear eye and full intention.  You must be steady, so as not to miss the mark.  You must be prepared.  Practice.  Think.  Set your feet.  Wait.  Deep breath… let it fly. 

Are you unsure of yourself?  Here’s some advice from ‘raisedhunting.com’: “Looking for a simple solution? Start your bow practice now so you can have enough time to truly get proficient again without sacrificing your health or form. Regular archery practice builds muscle memory, so that shooting a bow becomes second nature to you. When the moment of truth comes, you can simply focus on the [target] instead of all the micro-decisions about your form and where to aim the pin. As you’ve heard before, only perfect practice makes perfect.” 

Forgiveness is something that comes more easily to us when we’re in good shape, when we’ve practiced shooting short distances, and then steadily increased the strength and precision of our intention.  And more than anything, we are empowered when we remember that we weren’t the first to shoot the arrow of forgiveness… that we have received mercy, that we ourselves, were the mark for that arrow.  How can we not forgive another, when we ourselves have been forgiven?  How can we withhold mercy, when God has been so merciful to us?  

The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I; William Shakespeare, 1564 – 1616

The quality of mercy is not strained;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown:

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God’s

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,

Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That, in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

‘Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.’   Amen. 

8-14-16 Thy Kingdom, Come

Sermon 8-14-2016; “Thy Kingdom, Come”

Matthew 6:1-13 Cotton Patch Gospels, Armchair Mystic, St. Anthony Messenger Press, Cincinnati, 1989

Mark Thibodeaux, S.J.,

Psalm 139:7 (God is Everywhere!)

"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Mark Thibodeaux, a Jesuit Priest, wrote a book, Armchair Mystic, about Contemplative Prayer, and takes a look at The Lord’s Prayer.  Studying phrase by phrase as we are this month, Thibodeaux asks us to look at the words carefully…  Who is God in this phrase?  The king.  What kind of king is he?  What would it be like if his kingdom came?  Or has it already come?  If so, how?  How has it not? Why has it not?

Who am I in this phrase?  I am God’s subject.  What does my King expect of me? What do I expect of the King? How far will I go in service to God, my King? How loyal am I?  How loyal do I want to be?

Friend Elton Trueblood once wrote: “We are told to pray for the Kingdom, which is defined as that situation in which God’s will is made manifest on earth.  Our prayer is that that which is potential may become actual, here and now.  We are keenly aware of how far from such a situation we, in fact, are.  God’s will is not now perfectly done, perhaps not anywhere.  If it were, there would be no point in praying for it!” 

But Christ taught his disciples – and us - to pray that God’s kingdom would come, that God’s will would be done, that earth and heaven would be one.  Why did he want us to ask for such an incredible thing?  I think it’s because Christ knew it could happen – if we put ourselves in the phrase.  If we each meant the prayer we prayed.  “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…” If humankind, if Christ’s followers, if those who counted God as king, would live in a way that invited the kingdom of God into the world, it would come.  If we would live in God’s will, we would see it ‘made manifest’.  If we would live as those who know God is present in our lives, and the lives of all humankind, God would be made visible – not just in heaven, but on earth.  God and God’s kingdom would be made known.

Friends believe that there is no reason to wait for death to be with God… to live in God’s

kingdom.  We believe we do, now.  That God’s presence is real, and made known in our lives.    And that changes the way we see, and live in, the world.  We are not meant to abandon the world for the hope of heaven.  We are meant to live in the world, experiencing the same Presence of God with us now that heaven holds. 

Friends believe, as Jesus taught, that the kingdom of God surrounds us.  So many times, Jesus shared stories, explaining God’s kingdom…  “The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, like buried treasure in a field, like a farmer sowing seeds, like a leaven for bread, like a fisherman’s net.  Jesus showed us how real, how ordinary yet extraordinary, how palpable the kingdom of God is.  It is not just a place with pearly gates and streets of gold.  On the contrary, it is very much an everyday reality that we must choose to live out.  Christ is teaching us to see this in our earthly lives, and make God’s kingdom real for everyone.

Jesus lived a very ordinary life.  He got up in the morning, dressed for the day, ate breakfast, and headed to his dad’s shop.  He worked sawing and shaping wood.  He sanded, he sawed, he fastened, he did all that his dad had showed him how to do.  He supported the family business.  For thirty years, he lived his life.  The sacrament of life.  The one incredible, ordinary life he was given – just as you and I are.  The astonishing, beautiful thing called life.

He made something out of nothing.  A block of wood became a table leg, a vase, a bowl… something useful and beautiful.  He saw what others did not see.  This is a lesson about the kingdom of God.  It is the way we see the world in every person.  There is something there – as George Fox said, ‘there is that of God in every person’.  We are called, just as Christ was, out of the sweetness of the carpenter’s shop and into the world around us, seeing in others what they do not see.

Christ did it.  Christ showed up.  Christ showed up to his own life.  No matter what, no matter where… Christ showed up. And God asks us – expects us - to do the same.   To make the kingdom of God real.  This is God’s will… to see God’s kingdom on earth, even as it is in heaven.

I spent all day yesterday at a Leadership Conference at Earlham School of Religion, about holy experiences and risk taking.  The plenary speaker was Samir Selmanovic, who grew up a in a culturally Muslim family in Croatia, converted to Christianity as a soldier in the then-Yugoslavian army, and went on to become a Christian pastor in Manhattan and in Southern California.

This is a poem that Samir shared with us yesterday at the Conference:

Self Portrait by — David Whyte
from Fire in the Earth, Many Rivers Press, 1992

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter

unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

He told a story about a woman, out in the cold on morning in New York City, forced into Samir’s church by the weather.  She would never have come in, except for the cold.  She was a practicing witch… a good witch!... but a witch, part of a Wiccan congregation.  A church was absolutely the last place she wanted to be.  Samir spoke to her, befriended her, and eventually, Sue became a part of the life of his family.  He and his wife hired her as their babysitter. Samir reminded us that “we know enough to judge, but not enough to relate to other people.  The ‘others’ – the ‘outsiders’. Are we willing to help people see what we see?   

Samir invited people to share their stories of failure, to see God in failure.  And he asked Sue, by then a regular part of the congregation, if she would pray.  They had to agree on a name for God, and finally she chose ‘holy spirit’.  Here is Sue’s prayer: 

Dear Holy Spirit,

I am not a Christian.  My son and I may one day be.  But we belong to this community.  What would the world be like without them?  Without these pastors?  Without their love?

Thy kingdom, come.  Do we invite God’s kingdom to come?  Are we willing to show up, and make God real in the world?  It would be easy to stay in the carpenter’s shop, shut the door, focus on the work at hand, and despair about the condition of the world beyond us.  Samir challenged us, saying that the kingdom of God is deeper outside the church than in… Too many times we stay in our Meetings, in our churches, doing good work we’ve been trained to do, only to discover Jesus standing at the window, waving his arms, and calling us out into the consequence of God’s love, into struggle, into despair, into loneliness, and into the risk of sure defeat.  That’s where Jesus went.  And he invites us to come.  It would be great if we could remain in our own little heavenly homes, and ‘let the rest of the world go by’.  But Christ insists that we ask for God’s kingdom to come into our own lives… into our ordinary work and routines; that we show up to our own lives, that we make God’s kingdom as real on earth as it is in heaven.

Why did you come to Meeting this morning?  What did you want?  What did you need? What did you hope to find?  There are so many people who need and want the same things… who crave silence, who hunger for presence, who need friendship and companionship, who want to know God is real.  Rather than thinking of this as a problem, consider it a possibility!  Is it possible that they would find those things where you have found them?  Is it possible that they have been standing outside churches or meetinghouses, waiting for the weather to change, to push them forward in their lives?  Hoping for an invitation into the warmth of God’s embrace?

How can we see what is not there?  How can I invite God’s kingdom into my life?  How can I show up to my own life, to God in me, and especially, to God in others? Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven…

8-7-16 A Hallowed Name

Sermon; August 7, 2016“The Lord’s Prayer – A Hallowed Name’

Matthew 6:7-13 New English Bible

Elton Trueblood, The Lord’s Prayers, Harper and Row, 1965.

Bethanne Kashkette, Baltimore Yearly Meeting: http://patapsco.bym-rsf.net/files/2012/05/heron200404.pdf

What have been your experiences with the Lord’s Prayer? 

I pray the Lord’s prayer every time I fly.  It’s a ritual for me – a way to connect fear with faith.  Once, when returning from a Spring Break trip to Florida with my family, we flew into terrible turbulence near Denver.  The plane was buffeted every which way. People were screaming, the plane shuddered… it was awful.  When we landed in Denver, I sat on the concourse floor, and did not want to move.  But I had to… we still hadn’t gotten home.  From that time on, I have prayed The Lord’s Prayer as we take off… it gives me something familiar and soothing to concentrate on, and it reminds me of God’s presence.

I’ve also played the Lord’s Prayer to accompany my father when he would sing it as a solo.  The Mallotte.  You know… “Our Father, who art in heaven….”  It’s not easy to sing.  And it’s horrible to play… there’s these places where the accompaniment is totally exposed, and of course there’s tons of accidentals, and tough stuff right there – out in the open!  Especially when you’re in junior high or high school, that kind of pressure can be rough!  I’ve since learned to love it, whether I’m playing it, singing it, or praying it.

The Lord’s Prayer is really everybody’s prayer.  It’s meant for all of us. Notice the form:  it’s in first person plural… Our Father, Give us, Forgive us as we forgive…  The prayer was not meant for just one person only, but for everyone.  Friend Elton Trueblood says it should be called The Disciples Prayer, because really, Jesus gave the prayer to them- to us - as a gift.    He taught us all to pray.  What prayers were you first taught?  One that I learned was a table grace:

Thank you for the world so sweet. Thank you for the food we eat.

Thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you God, for everything.

It was a patterned prayer – something simple to remember, and to recite.  The prayer is lovely, and in a very few words, expresses both thanksgiving, and need.  The prayer Christ taught the disciples does the same thing, using a pattern.  A beautiful prayer, easily remembered, that follows a form, and helps us remember what Christ thought was most important in our conversations with God.  Reverence, God’s Kingdom, Daily Needs, Forgiveness, and Help. 

How often do I begin praying by asking for something I need, and then for God’s help?  Do I ask for forgiveness – am I even self-aware enough to know I need to be forgiven?  Do I long for God’s kingdom to be made real in my life, in my family, in my nation, in my world?  Do I remember that God is more than just my friend?  That God is God, loving and powerful, merciful and righteous? 

When we recite the Lord’s Prayer, it’s easy to let the words tumble out – sometimes without thinking about what we’re saying… especially if we’ve been raised in churches where it’s used every Sunday as part of the liturgy.  It becomes part of the service, and not necessarily part of us.  But Christ didn’t teach it in a church, or synagogue, or any place set aside for worship.  It wasn’t given to Rabbis or the Priests… it was given to common, ordinary followers who had heard Christ praying – speaking to God - and they wanted to know how to do the same thing.  “How should we pray?”

The first thing Christ told them is how NOT to pray.  Don’t use empty, meaningless phrases.  Don’t pray in order to be seen and admired.  “Pray then like this…”

With reverence.  We name God, before we name ourselves.  Without arrogance.  Without conceit.  Christ teaches us to honor and recognize God as we come in prayer.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name… Thy name. Names matter.  A lot!  When I meet someone for the first time, I try to make sure I learn their name correctly.  Is their name Katherine?  What do they want to be called?  Are they Kathy, Kate, or Katherine?  When I led the Concert Program at Yearly Meeting last month, a performer told me her name was Kris.  But no one called her that!  She had been raised in the Yearly Meeting, and everyone there still called her Kristy!  Jim, Bill, Dan and I had a great time remembering what Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s name used to be: Lew Alcindor!  (Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. to be exact!)  We are known by our name.  Our personhood is attached to our name.  Remember?  God changed Abram’s name (high father) to Abraham (father of many nations).  “No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.”  Just a few letters can make a huge difference in meaning.   

Names matter to God.  Elton Trueblood again: “It is hard for us in the modern world to understand or to appreciate the Hebrew’s sense of mystery about a name, and particularly about the name of God.  The name of God stood for God’s character, for God’s integrity, and for God’s active power…  Moses asked God’s name and was told that the name is a form of the verb “to be”.  “And God said unto Moses, I am that I am.”  Yahweh, then is “He who is.”  Here the tremendous emphasis is on the real being of God, in contrast with illusion or with mere projections of desire.  God, according to this conception, is not remote, or the object of speculation, but is the real Being of continued self-manifestation.”  Not God as we hope God is, or want God to be.  But, Godself revealed! 

When Christ teaches us to address God as Father, he is inviting us to pray with a sense of belonging.  Pray with a sense of intimacy.  Of acquaintance and connection.  This is your father – your mother – someone who loves you, that you’re talking to.  If you have a tough time thinking of God as your Father, give God a name that means love to you.  That means acceptance.  That means that if you called him on the phone, he’d be happy – overjoyed – to hear from you.  What is that name for you? Our Father?  Our Mother?  Our Lord?  Divine Light?  Lord God?  Use a name that means something to you in your life with others. 

Hallowed be Thy name. Hallowed comes from the verb hallow, a term that descends from the Middle English halowen. That word can in turn be traced back to hālig, Old English for "holy." The word means sacred, or consecrated.  During the Middle Ages, All Hallows' Day was the name for what Christians now call All Saints' Day, and the evening that preceded All Hallows' Day was All Hallow Even, or, as we know it today, Halloween.  Many faith traditions still celebrate All Saints Day – a holy day - on November 1st each year. 

God’s name is Holy.  Sacred.  Set apart for us – not from us.  Our prayers, our conversations with God, are sacred.  Whether walking in Fort Harrison State Park, or through our neighborhood as we pray, we’re in sacred company.  Whether we’re doing dishes, or sitting in silent communion in Meeting, talking with God is a holy conversation.   God can be Light one day, Lord another, Keeper, Shepherd, Friend, Redeemer… the many names of God we use in prayer are a reflection of our yearning for God in that moment.  A sign of our belonging to and with God.

I pray that as we explore this prayer Christ taught, that it will teach us in the weeks to come - a personal expression found in a communal prayer. 

How do you pray?  How do you encounter God in your mind and heart?  What is your name for God? What experiences have you had with the Lord’s Prayer?  What do we, as Quakers who do not use patterned or recited prayers, gain from Christ’s lesson to his disciples? How would you write the Disciples Prayer?

From Bethanne Kashkett, Baltimore Yearly Meeting:

Great Spirit, whose name is sacred,

Guide us to follow your laws of peace here on Earth, as the stars obey the laws of heaven.

May there be food for all beings, so that none may go hungry.

When we have been hurtful, give us the courage to say we are sorry. Help us to be forgiving, when others hurt us.

Give us the strength to do what we know is right and turn away from what harms us, our planet or other beings.

For your wonder, beauty and goodness all around us, we give grace and thanks.

Amen.

7-31-16

Hello Friends!

This past Sunday we celebrated our very special week of Vacation Bible School.  “Cave Quest” was an adventure in discovering Christ’s Light – and boy, did we have fun!  There’s nothing like being in a dark place to discover how important the Light is in our lives… and we did! Through music, stories, games, and even our snacks, we found that Christ gives us hope, courage, direction, love, and power – when we need it most.  Even in a very dark cave!

Thank you for your continued prayer support for the children of our Meeting.  They mean so much to us, and even more toGod.  Bless you, as you remember your days at Vacation Bible School perhaps in days gone by, and always remember that you are a Child of God.

Love,

Pastor Ruthie

7-24-16 Spelunking

Sermon 7-24-2016“Spelunking”

John 1:1-5

Oregon Caves: https://www.nps.gov/orca/index.htm

Caroline Stephen, Quaker Strongholds,Philadelphia, 1890.

Journal of George Fox, http://remembered-gate.net/sing-and-rejoice-early-quaker-bible-reading-for-feb-22/

“Sing and rejoice [Zech 2:10], ye children of the day and of the light [1 Th 5:5]; for the Lord is at work in this thick night of darkness that may be felt [Exo 10:21f]. And truth doth flourish as the rose [Isa 35:1], and the lilies do grow among the thorns [Song 2:2], and the plants atop of the hills, and upon them the lambs do skip and play.

And never heed the tempests nor the storms, floods nor rains, for the seed Christ is over all, and doth reign. And so be of good faith and valiant for the truth [Jer 9:3]: for the truth can live in the jails. And fear not the loss of the fleece, for it will grow again; and follow the lamb, if it be under the beast's horns, or under the beast's heels; for the lamb shall have the victory [Rev 17:14] over them all.

And so all live in the seed Christ [Gal 3:16], your way [John 14:6], that never fell [1 Pet 2:22]; and you do see over all the ways of Adam's and Eve's sons and daughters in the fall. And in the seed Christ, your way, you have life and peace; and there you do see over all the ways of Adam in the fall, in which there is no peace. So in the seed Christ stand and dwell, in whom you have life and peace; the life that was with the Father before the world began.”                                                                                 George Fox, Epistle

We have a choice – children of the day or children of the night.  Children of darkness or children of light.  God calls us, and our faith tradition as Christ followers, and as members of the Religious Society of Friends - to the Day and to the Light.

The natural call on each one of our lives is to darkness, or so it seems.  “Nestled deep inside the Siskiyou Mountains, the caves formed as rainwater from the ancient forest above dissolved the surrounding marble and created a special marble cave system.”  This is how the National Park System describes the Oregon Caves – one of the highlights of tourism in Southern Oregon.  If you’ve ever toured these deep and cool caverns, you know just how dark darkness can be.  Especially when they turn off all the electric lights that have been placed along the pathways.  You cannot see anything – not a thing.  The darkness is thick – just as George Fox described it… “this thick night of darkness that may be felt”.  When one goes ‘spelunking’ or exploring a cave, you can be certain you will find darkness.

Are you willing to go spelunking with me, friends? Are you brave enough, in the darkness of this world, to be a spelunker?  The world needs spelunkers, who bring light into very dark places.

The Oregon Caves and the darkness they hold were formed in a natural, organic way as water, over many years of time, dissolved stone.  There are many who feel that humankind is naturally set in darkness – that humanity, created in companionship with God, was thrown out of that garden of Light and Life into the darkness and void of relationship with the Light. 

No, they weren’t.  We weren’t.  I don’t believe that.  I believe that humankind was created in light.  In love.  In God’s intention for a loving, meaningful companionship with his creation.  The story of Adam’s fall has an important piece that is difficult to deal with, and many have tried to explain it.  I can’t explain it all.  What I will say is that humankind chose darkness. 

Eden was God’s garden.  Creation was God’s home.  Humankind were God’s companions at home with God.  Were they tempted?  Were they curious?  Were they dissatisfied?  God had given them everything, everything they would ever need.   They wanted what they could not have – what only God held for Godself.  Knowledge.  Not understanding or the love of learning or knowing more… but specifically the knowing of good and evil.  The most good and the most evil.  They bit on that one… and humankind has seen the heights and depths of goodness and evil ever since… or have we?  Not only good and evil was opened to humankind, but the Lord God said, “…Now, man might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever…”  Someone, with the knowledge of good and evil who could live forever.  Not God.  Not good.

Genesis 3:23 “Therefore the Lord God sent man forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.  He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.”

I personally don’t believe that we were thrown into darkness, naturally set in darkness, abandoned in darkness.  A careful reading of Genesis 3 shows us something remarkable…

Two verses before God sends humanity out of the garden, once he has spoken with his creation and knows that they have chosen their own way – God does something incredible… God bends down and stitches clothing for them… Of course God is angry and disappointed with his beloved companions, but he doesn’t send them away without providing for them – without compassion for them.  God does not send humanity out of the garden without caring for their survival.  And you don’t put a bright, flaming sword at the entrance if you don’t want people to find their way back to the Garden!

George Fox: “Now was I come up in spirit through the flaming sword, into the paradise of God. All things were new; and all the creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter. I knew nothing but pureness, and innocency, and righteousness, being renewed up into the image of God by Christ Jesus, to the state of Adam, which he was in before he fell. The creation was opened to me; and it was shewed me how all things had their names given them according to their nature and virtue. And I was at a stand in my mind whether I should practice physic for the good of mankind, seeing the nature and virtues of the creatures were so opened to me by the Lord. But I was immediately taken up in spirit, to see into another or more steadfast state than Adam's in innocency, even into a state in Christ Jesus that should never fall. ...Great things did the Lord lead me into, and wonderful depths were opened unto me beyond what can by words be declared; but as people come into subjection to the Spirit of God, and grow up in the image and power of the Almighty, they may receive the word of wisdom, that opens all things, and come to know the hidden unity in the Eternal Being.”

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not, cannot, will not, overcome it.”  I believe, Quakers believe, that God in Christ, the Light of the World, is stronger than any darkness.  It is our choice to seek the Light, and to live in that Light.  The easiest place to find the light is in the dark.  It’s most obvious there.  The smallest light is SO BRIGHT in the darkness of a cave!  So if you’re dealing with darkness in your own life – look for God in the darkness.  Instead of concentrating on the darkness, look for the Light of God and what God is doing in that darkness. 

Caroline Stephen wrote in her book “Quaker Strongholds” : … the Early Friends were accustomed to ask whether they did not sometimes feel something within them that showed them their sins; and to assure them that this same power, which made manifest, and therefore was truly light, would also, if yielded to, lead them out of sin.  This assurance, that the light which revealed was also the power which would heal sin was George Fox’s gospel.  The power itself was described by him in many ways.  Christ within, the hope of glory; the light, life, Spirit, and grace of Christ; the seed, the new birth, the power of God unto salvation, and many other such expressions… To “turn people to the light within,” to “direct them to Christ, their free Teacher,” was his daily business.” 

Early Quakers used the light to search the darkness all the time – starting with themselves.  They welcomed the revealing Light, Life and Grace of Christ in their own souls to instruct them, and to lead them out of darkness, even as they worked to lead the world in the same way.  And so, my companions in spelunking, I ask you to join me – not by strapping on a head lamp, but by opening your hearts and souls to the force of Christ’s Light Within, illuminating and cleansing the darkness in our own lives, as we work to remind our dark world of this same cleansing, healing light.  

7-3-16 Faith in Action

Sermon 7-3-2016 ‘Faith in Action’

James 2:14-26

Arthur Kincaid, The Cradle of Quakerism, Quaker Books, Friends House, London, 2011.

Thomas R Kelly, Reality of the Spiritual World, Pendle Hill, 1942.

Parker Palmer, The Promise of Paradox, Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame IN, 1980.

George Fox, Journal, http://www.strecorsoc.org/gfox/ch01.html, footnote #30.

Pastor Ruthie Tippin, Indianapolis First Friends Meeting

The basis of faith for a Quaker is the experience of God.  It is not a logical argument.  It does not exist in creed or doctrine.  It does not exist in law or command.  It is Moses’ burning bush. It is Samuel’s voice in the night.  It is Paul’s blinding on the Damascus Road.  It is Fox’s experience of Christ speaking to his condition.  It is this for each one of us…  our own experience of God. 

Friend Thomas Kelly writes: ‘There is a wholly different way of being sure that God is real.  It is not an intellectual proof, a reasoned sequence of thoughts.  It is the fact that [people] experience the presence of God… Sometimes these moments of visitation come to us in strange surroundings – on lonely country roads, in a classroom, at the kitchen sink.  Sometimes they come in the hour of worship, when we are gathered into one Holy Presence who stands in our midst and welds us together in breathless hush, and wraps us all in sweet comfortableness into His arms of love.  In such times of direct experience of Presence, we know that God is utterly real… This evidence for the reality of God is the one the Quakers primarily appeal to.  It is the evidence upon which the mystics of all times rest their testimony.  Quakerism is essentially empirical; it relies upon direct and immediate experience.  We keep insisting: It isn’t enough to believe in the love of God, as a doctrine; you must experience the love of God.  It isn’t enough to believe that Christ was born in Bethlehem, you must experience a Bethlehem, a birth of Christ in your hearts.  To be able to defend a creed intellectually isn’t enough; you must experience as reality first of all what the creed asserts.  And unless the experience is there, behind it, the mere belief is not enough.”

Do we trust the experience?  There are many, including ourselves if we are honest, who wonder… ‘Is this God, in me?’  Kelly answers this concern in three ways: the Divine Energizing given to us by our experiences of God – not required of us, but brought forth naturally;  2) these experiences coming from beyond us – not ‘mustered up’ by our own doing, but from God as the active initiator; and lastly, a felt reality of God that is utterly different from an intellectual convincement of the reality of God.  Experience brings a new meaning. 

Are there ‘intellectual holes’ or ‘defects’ in the logic of faith in God? Certainly.  But such defects, says Kelly, “do not prove that God does not exist. They only drive us back to the old, old truth: we walk by faith and not by sight.  Let us then be bold enough to face and acknowledge such criticism of the testimony of religious experience.”

The experience of God was all the people of Cumbria longed for in the mid 1600’s.  The English civil war had divided the country politically, socially, religiously.  The enforcement of God as Catholic or Protestant, Presbyterian or Church of England, left people wanting.  There was an apocalyptic sense of doom… what was God’s intention?  Where was God?  Was God real? 

Religious life in England had been torn back and forth between Catholic and Protestant doctrine, depending on who sat on the throne.  Civil War had ravaged England, the king had been beheaded, and government was in the hands of the people, under Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth.  The Fifth Monarchists were certain that Christ was returning and would destroy the government. 

For a young man named George Fox, there was no waiting for an apocalypse – for Christ’s return.  Christ was already present, and would teach his people himself.  Fox’s openings – his experiences of God - came at a time when a great number of people in North West England, like him, were seeking truth in their own lives.  They were poor, isolated, and hungry to hear God declare himself to them.  They had begun to meet in small gatherings, sometimes with travelling ministers, sometimes not, but always in waiting worship.  ‘George Fox was to draw together many of those in search of a new religious impetus… in the spring of 1652… he felt God move him to climb to the top of Pendle Hill in Lancashire.’ [Kincaid]  He struggled to the top, looked westward toward the sea, and saw a region where the Lord had ‘a great people to be gathered’.  That ‘great people’ became the Religious Society of Friends.       

The experience of God changes us.  It changes the way we see ourselves, our families, our cities, our nation, our world.   It energizes us, motivates us, moves us, into action.  It causes us to seek.  We are not satisfied with the status quo.  Just as the people in Ulverston, Preston Patrick, and Sedburgh felt, we feel hungry for more of God, and see and feel God transforming us. But it’s not enough that God is transforming us alone – we need God to transform the world.  And… we feel called to this transformation, with God.

Thomas Kelly: “Lives that have experienced God as vividly real are new lives, transformed lives, stabilized lives, integrated lives, souls newly sensitive to moral needs of men, newly dynamic in transforming city slums and eradicating war.  By their fruits we know that they have been touched, not by vague fancies, by subjective, diaphanous visions, but by a real, living Power.  The consequences of the experience are so real that they must have been released by a real cause, a real God, a real Spiritual Power energizing them.”

You can’t be a Quaker and not put your faith into action.  The experience of God within you is so real, so important, so life changing, that you cannot help but be an activist.  For Early Friends that meant prison reform, government reform, the right to assemble, civil disobedience.  Their experience of God taught them the value of each person – that we are all God’s creation – there is ‘that of God’ in every person and that God speaks directly to each one of us. 

The understanding of God’s love and capacity for mercy, forgiveness, grace, and wholeness is so real and so full, that living out your faith with everyone around you tells them who you are. Your lives, often more than your lips, preach.  Our testimony of integrity underlies all of life… the inner experience of God for us, informs the outward expression of our lives. This is what James, in his scriptural letter tells us:  It is not enough to say, “Be well, be fed, be safe”.  Just as the experience of God enlivens us, so our experience, our faith in God, must serve to enliven others. This is why Quaker physicians serve medicine more than money.  Quaker judges serve rehabilitation more than repression.  Quaker business people consider the welfare of their clients as much as their own.

The expression of our activism is personal, formed by God in us.  What God is in you will look different, feel different, and make a difference in a unique way.  Some of us, like John Woolman, will act alone, tirelessly reaching out to change the world.  Others will surround themselves with a team of people, dedicated to a cause.  Some of us, like Abraham, are willing to sacrifice our future, putting our faith into action. 

Some, like Rahab, are willing to sacrifice ourselves.  Some of us pray like mad, and some of us anger others with our persistence.  Some of us carry banners.  Others knit baby blankets.  Your activism may lead you to the Food Pantry.  Others will find themselves in a classroom, teaching young children how to resolve difference peacefully.     

Some may say they are moved to social concern, political activism, without the benefit of faith.  It’s my position that those who have experienced God have no choice – they are drawn to concern for the wellbeing of others as a result of their experience of faith.  And, I would propose, those who say they are acting independently of God have not recognized yet, the power of God acting in them. 

Do we recognize the experience of God in our lives?  Do we long for truth, Divine energy, initiative, and presence?  Do we recognize it when we feel God in us – when we see God in the world around us? What does that experience call us to?  The beauty of our life of faith – of paying attention and recognizing how God moves, lives, and works in each one of us, is that it challenges us all.  Jesus began his ministry with these words: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon 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.”  [Luke 4:18]   What has your experience of God called you to?

“Faith in action is love, and love in action is service.  By transforming that faith into living acts of love, we put ourselves in contact with God Himself, with Jesus our Lord.”  Mother Theresa

6-12-2016 Planting for the Future

Sermon 6-12-2016; ‘Planting for the Future’ [Friends Education Fund Sunday]

Ecclesiastes 11 – all     

Mary Oliver, The Summer Day  https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html

Pastor Ruthie Tippin; First Friends Meeting Indianapolis

Cast your bread upon the waters… you know how you go to the park with your children and grandchildren and you bring dry bread. You toss it out on the pond—the duck pond, where all the ducks have been sitting, waiting anxiously for a person to come by. And they want something to eat! Cast your bread upon the waters!

The wisdom writer is sharing with us all – young and old – a beautiful poem about the precious value of life.  How do we see our lives?  And how should we live our lives?  Generously.  Unselfishly.  Joyfully!  Rather than eating the bread of life – share it!  Instead of consuming all that you have available to you – give it away!  Find six, seven, eight different ways to give of yourself!  You never know when your generosity will be returned to you.

And remember… you’re not in control – and you don’t really want to be!  Clouds will roll in, trees will fall, children are formed in the womb… you and I cannot explain it.  It’s not our work to do, but God’s work.  But we do have a part to play…

If we spend all our time watching the wind, we’ll never sow seed.  If we spend all our time staring at the sky, we’ll never harvest any crops.  Get to it!  Wake up to your work, and wait to see what will come of it.  What God will make of it.  Plant now for the future.  That’s what John Williams did.

Washington County, Indiana was founded two hundred years ago.  Quakers arrived in 1808 and founded Blue River Friends Meeting.  Others had been pouring in – part of the territorial expansion of the time.  We are not certain how many people of color arrived in the county, but we know that many came and lived in at least half of the townships there.  Among them was John Williams.  John was a freed slave who lived on a tract of one hundred sixty acres that he purchased from John Reyman, Sr..  Mr. Reyman held a mortgage on the farm for a time but John paid it off rapidly. He cleared fields, built a cabin and raised sufficient grain to fatten many hogs and cattle each year until the time of his death. By any standard of the day – John Williams became wealthy. 

Perhaps it was his wealth.  Perhaps it was the color of his skin.  Perhaps it was the war.  No one knows for sure, but it’s likely that all these things put John’s life at risk.  Early on a December morning in 1864, his lifeless body was found in his dooryard in Washington County, Indiana.  A light snow covered the ground, and it appeared that someone had come and roused him from sleep in the middle of the night, causing him to fear for his life.  He ran outside in his nightclothes, and soon fell to the ground, mortally wounded by a gunshot. He was murdered, and no one was ever convicted of the crime.  The Civil War would end six months later in May, 1865. 

John spent his life.  He literally spent his life, using it each day as an investment in what he could not see.  Imagine living as a freed slave in Southern Indiana during the Civil War, and living generously, building a life of meaning and purpose in his community. 

‘Ask not ('tis forbidden knowledge), what our destined term of years,
Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers.
Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past,
Whether Jove has many winters yet to give, or this our last;
This, that makes the Tyrrhene billows spend their strength against the shore.
Strain your wine and prove your wisdom; life is short; should hope be more?
In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb'd away.
Seize the day; trust tomorrow e'en as little as you may.’           [Horace; Odes]

The wisdom writer of Ecclesiastes wasn’t the only one to wonder about the quality and purpose of a life well lived.  The Roman poet Horace had the same concern.  Carpe Diem!  Seize the day!  No one knows what length of years they’ve been given, or the number of days they’ll live…

John Williams certainly didn’t.  What many didn’t know was that John had written a will, with the help of his Quaker friend, Mr. Lindley, who agreed to serve as the executor and trustee of John’s estate… at the time of his death it was worth $6000.00.  Today, that would be nearly $150,000.00.  John Williams directed his monies to be used for the education of young black children.  Soon after his death, in 1870, the Home for Friendless Colored Children was opened in Indianapolis by Quakers at 319 West 21st Street at the crossroad with Senate Street.  ‘When it opened, it was the only orphanage in the state of Indiana to care for African American children.  At the end of the home’s first year, it had housed 18 children.  By 1922, it had sheltered more than 3000.  Although most of the children came from the Indianapolis area, the orphanage accepted children from all over Indiana.  In 1922, the management of the orphanage changed hands.’ The closing balance became the basis of the Friends Educational Fund – a scholarship fund for black college students – administered by First Friends Meeting.  Today, we will honor those recipients of the Scholarships for 2016. 

John could have eaten his bread.  He could have worried about his farm – his hogs, his cattle to the point of anxiety.  John could have wasted his life.  Instead, he invested it.  He planted his heart in his friends, his church, his community, his future – not knowing what that would be.  He cast his bread upon the waters.  And, as a result, literally thousands of orphans and scholars have received bread. 

The poet, Mary Oliver, challenges each of us: ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’  Horace, and the Wisdom Teacher of Ecclesiastes, teach us to take hold of it.  To live it fully.  Generously. Lovingly.  And live it – now.

‘O youth, enjoy yourself while you are young! Let your heart lead you to enjoyment in the days of your youth.  Follow the desires of your heart and the glances of your eyes – but know well that God will call you to account for all such things – and banish care from your mind, and pluck sorrow out of your flesh!  For youth and black hair are fleeting!’  [Ecclesiastes 11:9-10; Jewish Study Bible] 

Enjoy your life!  God wants – even hopes – that you will.  The Jewish Study Bible teaches that God will hold us to account for joy, for fullness, for meaning – God will want to hear your stories of a life well lived.  Get out and enjoy a generous, loving, devoted, meaningful life.  Discover those things that matter to you, and plant them in the lives and hearts of those you care most about.  Seize this day – for tomorrow. 

Carpe diem! 

5-22-2016 Commencement

Sermon 5-22-2016“Commencement”

Acts 2:1-17

Anthony Manousos; http://laquaker.blogspot.com/ http://laquaker.blogspot.com/

John Piper; http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/old-and-young-shall-dream-together

Pastor Ruthie Tippin; Indianapolis First Friends Meeting

Isn’t it strange that we end the school year, commencing?  With commencement? With beginning?  To commence means to start or begin; come or cause to come into being; from the Old French commencer.  Endings are always beginnings.  They always signify change.  Something different.  Something new.  Something perhaps unexpected.  Something possibly longed for.  We end the school year, and start the rest of our lives.

We watch our kids graduate from pre-school.  I remember that.  Then, from elementary school, middle school, high school, college, grad school.  Graduating means completion – finishing a course of study, receiving a diploma that states your accomplishment.  This part of your life has ended, and there’s no purpose in repeating it.  It’s time to begin – to move forward and learn something new.  And there’s always something new to discover – about the world and about yourself. 

God is all about this stuff – endings and beginnings – because God IS endings and beginnings.  God is Alpha and Omega – the first and the last – from A to Z.  God is there at our borning, at our leavetaking, and with us throughout the stretch of our lives.  God schools us with Godself – teaching us with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, what it is to be human, what it is to be created, what it is to be creative.  There is no age or time when God says we cease to learn, or to be led.  God expects us to continue to grow, to walk, to be.  “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”  Old and young, vital in the continuing circle of endings and beginnings in life, and especially in the life of the Spirit.

The opening of the Book of Acts is an ending.  Life, as the followers of Christ has known it, had ended.  Christ had died on the cross, his body had been taken to a tomb, and then was not to be found.  He appeared physically to many who knew him, and it was known that he had risen to life again – just as Lazarus had, not too long before.  Their teacher and Lord had promised this, and indeed, had kept his word.  Christ told his followers they would not be left hopeless, but instead would be given the power of the Holy Spirit.  They were to wait in Jerusalem, where this would happen. 

What a great example of ‘ending well’.  Christ completed his work, but he didn’t just disappear.  He wrapped up his lesson plans – he turned everything into the Office.  He told all his students where he’d be going next – where they could find him.  He reminded them of what they’d been taught, what they had yet to accomplish, what this Teacher hoped for them.  He left, satisfied that nothing had been left undone.  And he told them to carry on.   Christ returned to heaven - his incarnate ministry on earth ended - and his followers went on to Jerusalem.

And then, everything began again!  Normal life.  Christ’s followers worshipped at the temple.  They prayed in the upper room.  They conducted business, naming Matthias as a new disciple to take the place of Judas.  They lived their daily lives.  Until that Feast Day of Pentecost.  50 Days after Passover, a Harvest Festival was celebrated.  The harvest that year?  The Holy Spirit!  Wind, fire, and flame swept over the people as they gathered.  Everyone was filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in languages they had not known.  A crowd gathered, and was amazed, because they heard their own language being spoken.  Visitors from around the world, gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast, heard the wonders of God declared in their own languages!  It wasn’t wine or strong drink – the followers of Christ were intoxicated with the power of God’s Spirit!  An ending became a beginning… the start of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in and through all people:

“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.  Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.” 

Some people get the notion that prophets tell the future – that they are magicians of some sort.  Friend Anthony Manousos writes: “Just to be clear about what prophets do: inspired by God, they challenge or warn their religious community to live up to its highest ideals (aka the "will of God") and 2) they challenge leaders to live up their highest ideals. (This is sometimes called “speaking truth to power.”)  What does it mean to be “inspired by God”? It means that we have taken time to be silent, reflect deeply and listen to the “still, small voice” that is within each of us. We can do this both individually and corporately.”

No one is left out.  No one is excluded.  God’s spirit is poured out on all people. Young and old.  Servants and those served.  Men and women.  Everyone receives the blessing of God’s spirit.  Each person receives the gift of the Spirit for the good of all.  [I Corinthians 12:7]  We are all empowered for witness and ministry.  Christ has left, but his work and witness has not.  It has begun in a new way, through this beginning in the lives of his followers.  It didn’t, and still doesn’t matter whether they’re young or old, graduates of high school, or the school of hard knocks.  Whether they’ve completed a formal degree or a great degree of work and struggle.  What matters is that they, that you, that I, have discovered the power of God through the Holy Spirit.  It is this power that allows us to move through endings and to begin again.  To say farewell to our youth, and to accept the challenge of maturity.  To say goodbye to those we love, and move forward to loving others – including ourselves.  It is this power that gives us freedom to love God in new ways, not holding our understanding of God in patterns that served us well at one time, but now inhibit our growth and experience of God.

How do we discover the power of the Holy Spirit?  Jesus told his followers to go back to normal life – to live each day, waiting.  We must do the same.  Live each day, waiting expectantly.  Ending, and beginning.  Allowing things to fall away, leaving room for newness.  Ending our own chatter, and allowing an empty space of quietness to be poured full of God.  Ending our own answers, and allowing space for God’s questions.  Ending our own insistence, and allowing God’s way to open within us.  In our end is our beginning.  Alpha.  Omega. The beginning and the end and the beginning.

Amen.