gathering in light

Quaker Life Magazine published an article of mine called “The New Quakers: A Faithful Betrayal?” in their January/February 2010 issue. A number of people have asked for me to share it with them so they could read it, so I checked with the editor of QL, Katie Terrell, and gave me permission to share it here with all of you. You can download the .pdf file here. » Read the rest of this entry «

As many of you know I have been on an editorial board of young Quakers for that past couple years working on a book that collects writings from Quakers around the world. The book was edited by Angelina Conti, Cara Curtis, Harriet Hart, Sarah Katreen Hoggatt, Evelyn Jadin, John Epur Lomuria, Emma Condori Mamani, Katrina McQuail, Rachel Anne Miller and myself. Well, it is about to be published and is ready for pre-order (15% off). Yes, I am proud of it and recommend it to all those interested in reading about young Friends from the many branches of Quakerism and many different countries. Here’s a write up Lucy Duncan who has played a huge part in seeing this book through from start to finish:

Spirit Rising: Young Quaker Voices celebrates, critiques, questions, and reflects on the Quaker faith experience. Writing and visual art by teenage and young adult Quakers from around the world and across the theological and cultural spectrum of the Religious Society of Friends give readers a window on the spiritual riches and witness these Friends offer. The product of the two-year Quakers Uniting in Publications (QUIP) Quaker Youth Book Project, it includes over 200 contributors from 17 countries who reflect on their faith and lives as Friends, on worship and practice, on Quaker testimonies, community, conversion and convincement, and on service to and in the world. They also challenge and inspire, as they witness to and celebrate Quakerism as it has been, as it is, and as it could yet be. » Read the rest of this entry «

I got into an interesting discussion today with a gentleman after our meeting for worship about unprogrammed Quakers. He said he had heard “Silent” worship described by someone (a non-Quaker) as similar to a séance and wondered if the practice really is non-Christian. I think it’s a fair question. With so many interpretations of what the word “Quaker” means, and what authentic Quaker worship looks like, it seems like a question that needs to be taken seriously. My reply to him was that there are a few misunderstandings taking place. One is that it was never meant to be “silent” worship. While it is based in the practice of silence it’s never meant to remain there. The point is rooted in the belief that God can and does speak to everyone (in a variety of ways of course) and desires that the whole body of believers truly have a voice. That we are to be listening, waiting for God to speak to anyone present is to keep the meeting moving forward. If an entire meeting was silent that should give great cause for concern. Is God no longer speaking? Has God run out of things to teach his people? And with early Friends there was a strong emphasis on ministers (not paid clergy), people who were known to be led to minister and teach the Scriptures. So you could expect there to be different levels of participation from the entire community. » Read the rest of this entry «

Here are my notes from Sunday’s sermon.

This month we are discussing what is now known as the Quaker peace testimony, but was, interestingly, called the “testimony against war,” up until about the turn of the 20th century. This morning we’re going to have a small group discussion about statements on the peace testimony from various Quaker yearly meetings [you can download the handout we used here]. I wanted to do this because it helps to stress the point that “testimonies” are formed in community and so why not discuss them in community? In other words, the peace testimony is an isolated idea a few people came up with but is a conviction that is interwoven into the fabric of our tradition. We will also see there is a diversity on how to understand it. » Read the rest of this entry «

Adrian Halverstadt, a Quaker pastor, asks this question on the QuakerQuaker forum boards:

I have been thinking a lot about open worship these days. Many of the larger evangelical Friends churches no longer practice open worship in their big venues for many reasons. I guess I am searching for a contemporary definition of open worship and ideas for how other large congregations incorporate their concept of open worship into their weekly big event(s).
What canst thou saith?

Here are my initial thoughts and response that I posted there but thought I’d also put here because I deeply believe that the Quaker way of worship could be beneficial for those of you in other church traditions as well (I’ll be particularly interesting in your thoughts on this subject). » Read the rest of this entry «

Freedom Friends Church in Salem Oregon is currently an independent meeting that has recently written their own Faith and Practice. A number of Friends, Monthly Meetings and Yearly Meetings, have been interested in reading about this unique meeting and some of the practices they espouse. I have done a decent amount of research on the meeting for my our studies, comparing its similarities and differences with the emerging Church and the simple fact that they put together this book was very helpful for me.

They are releasing a hardcover version of it in the next week or so, here is the blurb I wrote for the back of the book:

Freedom Friends Church have created one of the first postmodern Quaker Faith and Practices to date. Here is a Faith and Practice that is creative and actually fun to read. This is because it is not only relevant both to the concerns of their own faith community and the larger societal context, it is also deeply rooted within the historical practices and theology of Friends. If there was any question whether the heartbeat of Quakerism still had a pulse, FFC has shown that the tradition is not just alive, it is kicking: the Quaker faith is indeed fit for the 21st century. This kind of hybrid Quakerism, this remix of tradition and innovation, is a promising future for the Friends Church.

Their Faith and Practice is well worth checking out.

While I was researching for a recent sermon I came across some great quotes on poverty from 18th Century Quakers. One thing I loved was that the section on plainness and living an unfettered life is right next to the section about caring for the poor. These two things, how we live and what we produce and consume, and interrelated to whether others have enough or not.

Here are few quotes I dug up from the Old Quaker Disciple on poverty:

“With respect to the poor amongst us, it ought to be considered, that the poor, both parents and children, are of our family, and ought not to be turned off to any others for their support or education; and although some may think the poor a burthen, yet be it remembered, when our poor are well provided for, and walk orderly, they are an ornament to our society; and the rich should consider it is more blessed to give than to receive, and that he who giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord, who will repay. Written in 1718 “(198)

“As mercy, compassion, and charity, are eminently required in this new covenant dispensation we are under; so, respecting the poor and indigent among us, and to see there be no beggar in our Israel, it is the advice of this meeting that all poor friends be taken due care of, and none of them sent to the town or parish to be relieved; and that nothing be wanting for their necessary supply; which has been according to our ancient practice and testimony. And it has long been of good report, that we have not only maintained our own poor, but also contributed our share to the poor of the respective towns and parishes wherein we dwell.” Written in 1720 (198).

What are our communities writing (and doing) today about this very issue?

This is the sermon on the Disciple’s Prayer from Sunday morning.

This morning we step foot inside the second strand of the Disciple’s prayer, the ethics strand, the strand that gives us guidance on how we are to live in the day to day. We see that even the God of the cosmos is also interested in the giving of something as mundane as a loaf of bread. Last week we discussed the first strand, the strand of the worshiping community who is reoriented around one father, Our Father, in heaven. This week we look at the implications of that reorientation. If God is our father, then what can we expect? What do we pray for? And how do we act? The prayer, “

Give us this day our daily bread or,
Give us this day the bread we need or again,
Give us provisions for what we need today,

is clearly concerned with our ethics.

The role this part of the Disciple’s prayer has in our lives may shift from time to time. At one point we may be on the side of desperation, crying out, “God, give me something to eat. Anything at all.” At other times, we may be less desperate, but still panicked, “God, I’m ashamed to ask, but help us with these little things.” Then of course, there are other times when we pray this prayer knowing full well we already have our daily, weekly and possibly monthly bread. Then we pray this prayer as, “God, thank you for my food, help me to give it away.”

The prayer for daily bread, is also a prayer to become givers of daily bread. We as the worshiping community, formed around our allegiance to God the Father and his kingdom allows us, even calls us, to live out a different ethic than the one our world operates by.

When we pray the Disciple’s Prayer we risk submitting ourselves to the call of the Gospel, we find that we are called not only to pray this pray, but to live it, and be its answer however we can. Or as the Quaker Elton Trueblood said, “When we pray for bread we are entering consciously into the fellowship of those who bear the mark of hunger.” (E. Trueblood, 52). This prayer helps us to fully enter into the Gospel, and empathize not only with God’s desires, but with those calling upon God to respond.

Growing up I have prayed both sides of this prayer. The prayer of desperation, and the prayer to become a giver. Growing up, we had very little. My step-father stopped working in 1992, and with six kids, a few animals, and a mother who tried to work part-time and take care of the family, we had major difficulties making ends meet. Our family of eight lived on $12,000 a year. I remember praying for daily bread. I remember not having food, I remember volunteering at food giveaway centers and being glad they would allow us to take food home with us too. I remember our house going through foreclosure a couple times, yet a random check arrived in our mailbox allowing us to keep the house. I remember the Christmases when the church we attended bought us gifts so there could be something under the tree.

Praying for bread is something I can identify with (at least to some extent) and the beautiful thing is that along with this empathy, was the experience that God truly was the provider of daily bread. We did have what we needed, and often it was Christians who helped us from getting into an irreversible downward spiral. God worked through the church to answer our prayers for daily bread.

How about you? Where are you located in this prayer? What is your daily bread?
Eat.
When we pray this prayer we are asking God for real bread, and trusting that he has provided this bread for others in the past. Bread is an essential object in the Bible. It comes up in all kinds of stories, it was one the main form of sustenance for many in antiquity. What are some of the stories that you recall dealing with bread from the Scriptures?

I would think the most obvious and powerful are Jesus’ final supper, Jesus’ feeding the 4,000 and 5,000 with fish and loaves, (or bagels and lox) and God providing Manna in the Old Testament. When I pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” I almost instantly go back to the story in Exodus 16 where God provided Manna to the Children of Israel. I think when Jesus was constructing this prayer he had this in the back of his mind.

This is a story our Manna and Mercy small group just discussed this past Monday. While the Children of Israel were on the move through the desert to the promised land, they began to get really hungry and complained to God that he’d rescued them from Egypt only to bring them out in the desert to starve to death. God answered this complaint, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.” (Exodus 16:4) Thus YHWH rained bread, called Manna, or literally translated, “What is it?” The instructions were pretty straightforward, but as we all know, they weren’t easy to keep.

You know how the story goes, God provides the manna for all of them. Each was to gather only as much as they needed for the day (smaller clans got less, larger clans got enough for all their people), hoarding wasn’t allowed and was unnecessary because God was providing new Manna daily. This flew in the face of the Egyptian culture they were used to. In Egypt where they were slaves the worked for the Pharaoh to gather up and accumulate as much as possible. God’s way was different. When some of the people hoard manna, just in case, the next day it began to rot and get worms in it! Yuck!!! Talk about leftovers going sour!

There’s a lot to be learned about God’s economics from this passage, and while we may want to try and quickly write it off as being from the Old Testament and no longer relevant today, Jesus’ prayer for “Our Daily Bread today,” inscribes into the heart of Christianity. This kind of sharing economy, where everyone take enough, so that there is enough for others.

Just like Manna was real bread that sustained the Children of Israel, when we pray this prayer, we are praying for real bread to sustain us. We’re shouldn’t spiritualize this prayer too quickly, when Jesus taught this part about bread he did not mean first and foremost a good sermon [Lucky for you!], or a especially nice quiet time though I  it could be these things as well. For this prayer, Bread is bread, and then by extension it can be other things. In recalling this story, we remember the ethics around what it means to allow God to provide just enough.

Enough.
Now I think for the most of us here, when we pray this prayer we fall into one of the two groups of people I mentioned earlier. The first group is the people who have enough, and the second are the people who need the people with enough to help them have enough also. As one person commented on my Face book: Getting to enough should be everyone’s shared goal. Those with more than enough should work towards enough, and those with less than enough should humbly aim for enough as well.

Therefore the translation, “Give us this day the bread we need,” hits close to both groups of people. It reminds us of the Manna story, reminding us that this is a prayer for enough. This prayer reminds us that there are limits and that we need to limit ourselves to what we need, and thank God for enough. When we pray for enough, we pray for God to establish his kingdom economy, where sharing is central. I take what I need so that you too can have what you need. To go beyond this, to pray for tomorrow’s needs as well is to fall into the temptation of hoarding.

Dallas Willard writes that this way of praying for what we need today helps form within us a trusting attitude towards God. I ask for what I need today, and I trust that God will also provide for tomorrow, just the same as today. He says,

“This is how Children do it, of course. A Mother who discovers that her child is saving up oatmeal, pieces of toast, or strips of bacon [or in L’s case pieces of chocolate] for fear of not having food tomorrow has cause to be alarmed. The world being what it is, we can all too easily imagine situations in which the child’s actions would be reasonable. But in any normal situation parents will be astonished and pained that the child does not trust them to provide for it day by day. A child should never have to even think about future provision until it grows older and has that responsibility” (Willard 261).

In this prayer for enough we are reminded that we live in a world that is connected and that our lives have effect on the lives of others. We can often intentionally or unintentionally isolate ourselves from the deep needs of others, in our very rich society there is a vast separation between the rich and poor. Our call to have enough holds us accountable to our brothers and sisters around the world. A theology of enough balances out a culture of excess. It reminds us that to become takers of more than enough is to forfeit the chance of being kingdom givers. One person’s excess and over-consumption is another person’s daily bread. And I believe it is this ethic is inscribed into the heart of Christianity, and it is this that Quakers have tried to revive with their practices of plainness and simplicity.

We don’t have to look far to find examples of how greed and a theology of excess can insulate us from and dehumanize the poor. In a society that prides itself on excess and over-consumption it is no surprise that we have to take from others to fill our wants. A theology of enough, the prayer for daily bread, is the difficult remedy for this greed. Gandhi once said, “There is enough for everyone’s need, but there is not enough for everyone’s greed.” True simplicity, the kind Quakers have always sought to practice comes out of a love for God and others, it humanizes those who are in need, it looks out for them and advocates that they too have enough, just like us. Quakers at their best have been givers, rather than takers of Bread.

Give.
Shane Claiborne writes in one of my favorite books, The Irresistible Revolution, that “To pray my daily bread is a desecration; we are to pray our daily bread, for all of us.” And so when we pray this prayer we recognize that others are praying this prayer as well. My brother who is out of work praying for daily bread, your sister who was recently laid off is praying for daily bread, the woman who’s husband just walked out on her and left her with two hungry children at home are praying for daily bread. Those of us who are struggling to make ends meet are praying for enough to get by. And those of us who are thankful to be stable and to have extra pray for ways to be givers of daily bread.

And so I think we come to the mission of the church as it is found in this second strand of the prayer. We are to not only pray for bread but to give it if we are a community gathered around “Our Father” who provides. We set out to be like “Our Father,” as Paul says in Ephesians, “Be imitators of God,” Our Father in heaven by loving others and practicing concrete acts of giving. We break down the walls of isolation, and seek first to discover how we can respond to those around us who are in need.

This past February I was a co-facilitator for a weekend retreat on Convergent Friends in the Redwood Forest of northern California. During that weekend we took time to discuss what it meant for us as Quakers to embody the testimony of plainness. One 18th century Quaker discipline reads:

“It is also our concern to exhort all friends, both men and women to watch against the growing sin of pride, and beware of adorning themselves in a manner disagreeable to the plainness and simply of the truth we make profession of (The Old Discipline, 196).” [Interestingly, it is right next to section on poverty, I think it shows that these two things are interconnected.]

Our task at that retreat was to flesh out what plainness looks like in 2009. I remember one lady sharing that she was led to get rid of half her clothes, and she pointed out just how difficult it was to get rid of 50% of her clothing. She said she had given 25% a number of times, but this call to give up half was excruciating. But there was another catch, she had to give all the clothes away personally, to the people who needed them. She wouldn’t take them to a charity and let someone else do it for her, she felt it was essential that she be connected to the process of giving. I think she embodied the heart of this prayer.

Many of you have done similar things: you’ve given food and clothes to those who have needed, that’s daily bread. Many of you have taken people in when they had no place to go, that too is daily bread. In that same Quaker disciple it says, We treat the poor as people who are in our family, and we should think of giving to those in need as lending to the Lord who will repay in due time.

Response.
And so you have been invited to be givers and bring things that would be helpful for homeless people in our area during winter this year. We can be givers of daily bread right here as a church family. We can do this by being prepared to be on both sides of this prayer: The prayer of desperation, and the prayer of enough which compels us to become givers of bread.

And what better thing to represent this tension of giving and taking than a trashcan, probably not the first thing to come to your mind? A couple weeks ago we watched a really great film on dumpster diving, and in that film we got to catch a glimpse of what it looks like for people to live off another person’s excess. Trashcans in our society are receptacles of excess and over-consumption. They contain our refuse and the things we wish to keep hidden from our eyes. But as kingdom people we reverse this meaning and subvert it, we can make it into a receptacle of sharing, of manna, of enough.

My friend Greg Russinger started this project, a trashcans can make a difference, in Portland as a way to embody God’s sharing economy with something that for many of us simply represents waste. A trashcan can make a difference, if we cut back on our excess, cut back on our waste, and lived sought only to have enough then we could have a trashcan filled with gifts rather than trash.

Greg writes on the TCMD website:

In our culture, the trashcan is where we collect our refuse—those unwanted and unclean items that we want to be rid of. For many however, the trashcan represents life—a medium through which daily sustenance is found. In the spirit of the ancient practice of gleaning, in which the leftover crops at the edges of farmers’ fields were left for the poor and the stranger, we’ve reclaimed the trashcan as symbol of hope and given birth to a new initiative: A Trashcan Can Make a Difference (TCMD).

TCMD is a collaborative redistribution effort that uses trashcans for the collection of new goods for those in need. The items collected are then specifically distributed to those in need through partnerships we’ve developed with other local non-profit organizations. TCMD is continually growing through franchise activism—that is, a growing network of concerned individuals, families, businesses, groups, churches and schools collaborating autonomously to host a trashcan in various locales, providing those communities with a visual reminder and an opportunity to embrace the values of generosity, social concern and cooperative living.

It is a network of sharing. For now, I suggest we leave this trashcan in the foyer near my office where we all can have access for it. This will become a place for us to give things to for poor people who need what is inside this. If you know of people are who in need feel free to come and take from this. If you are in need feel free to come and take. We can continue to grow in the ethics of the kingdom by being a community of sharers, givers, and enough.

During our open worship of prayer and silence I invite you all to come up and place things inside this can so in an act of giving Daily Bread. You can put anything in here, if you didn’t bring something but you want to put something in it you can come back later and add to it or you can put money in there and we will use that money to fill in what things may be missing from the can.

As you come forward I invite you to mediate on the part of the prayer we discussed today: “Give us this day the bread we need,” and remember those who are in need. Pray it for your yourself, pray it for your family…And remember you have been invited to participate in the answering of this prayer.

Closing Prayer:

Old Mennonite version of the Disciple’s Prayer:

Abba Father God, Bless your holy name.
Let your reign come now, Let your desires be carried out.
Bring your peace to birth, As in heav’n, so on Earth
Give us bread, daily; Free us, as we free.
When the way is hard, Be our guide and guard.
Your rule, power; and praise Reign supreme, always.

I was recently asked why as an Evangelical I don’t follow the standard issue Evangelical party platform, here’s how I start to answer that question.

Heated political rhetoric comes and goes in waves. Currently in the United States, we’re riding a tidal wave named “Health Care Reform.” Everyone, especially Evangelical Christians, has come out in all their stripes and colors. Within this dialogue, if we can call it that, there is much debate about whether or not religion should keep its two-cents to itself. Some on the left say, “keep it out of the public square,” while others on the right try to bully their way in, like a party they weren’t invited to. (This all operates under the assumption that there really is some religion-free, neutral space like a “public square,” which I have great doubts about). My confession is that I often feel rather hopeless after hearing both these sides. It is as though both groups are predetermined machines whose course cannot, will not, be altered.

But on my more upbeat days my response to all of this is something different from either of our two caricatures above. I am interested and active in politics because I am a Christian, yes, even an evangelical one at that. Yet, I gladly do not identify with either the left or right because for me to be a Christian is to pledge allegiance to only one political party, Christ’s kingdom. The Christian church is at its very core political. That is it is, or at least should be, deeply concerned about all, or at least many of the things, that often get shoved into our “public” discussions. Things like war, poverty, abortion, capital punishment, caring for the sick, hunger, marriage, etc. are all issues that concern the very practice of what it means to be Christian. These are not voting blocks or single issues to be fought over. These are real life, embodied, questions that impact real people in our congregations.

If I get my ethics from the Sermon on the Mount, then as a Christian I play politics to a radically different drum beat. These are ethics, that is a way of embodying core convictions, that are closer to poetry than they are mathematics. This poetry makes little sense to the logical, rational and the powerful. Yet deep within Jesus’ sayings, his parables, and his miracles is a world of reversals, subversions, and love where the losers are winners, the mournful rejoice and the wounded are healed. It sides with the weak, the poor, the orphan and the widow. This is how the world looks like right-side up. These “ethics” are the throbbing heartbeat of Jesus’ movement and the church.

Rather than reducing people and politics down to a single issue as the right does so well, or pretending as though a neutral religious- (or conviction-)free zone could possible exist in our world (as the left obsesses over), Christians following the poetry of the Kingdom of God slice this another way. The church is itself a politic that answers to God, to Jesus’ ethics, rather than the king’s. We are to embody love of enemy, we are to do good to those who abuse us, we are to welcome the “alien” among us, and we are to give daily bread to those praying for it. Therefore, whether or not we live in a country that votes, has soldiers “protecting those freedoms!” or has leaders who believe the proper religious dogmas (often at the expense of actually living those dogmas) is all beside the point. Yes, I (typically) vote and help where I can within the established political system. I live in a country that (still) allows for disagreement and participation (though those on the fringes of the Right seem to favor less difference of opinion, maybe even difference of conviction, with growing fervor even in a free country such as ours), and the outcomes are still (for the most part) not predetermined. But I am not required to do this as a Christian, it is not our duty to transform the world by the means of the world. My duty is to love without measure and pray with my life that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, even if (or when) it costs me everything.  As Christians, or people seeking to practice daily the Sermon on the Mount, I cannot see how this would ever be done with violence, lies, greed, exploitation and other under-the-table charades.

I’m not going to make a habit out of announcing events that Pendle Hill or other organizations do, but I will tell you about the ones I think you should know about, or the ones I would attend if I could. This is no exception. Ben Pink Dandelion is going to be spending sometime at Pendle Hill and there is no reason why, if you live close, you shouldn’t try to make one of these events. Plus, since Ben doesn’t have a blog (and refuses to get one no matter how hard I try) I don’t mind helping him out some.

Ben is going to be leading a weekend retreat based on his new book “Celebrating the Quaker Way.”

There you will:

Reflect on the riches of Quaker insights and the legacy of Quaker heritage. Quakerism springs from the experience of direct connection with God, an experience of communion which leads us into the world guided by our faith. Say ‘Yes’ to our faith and all it has to offer. There will be time for discussion of themes such as witness and the use of silence, but the heart of the course will be Quaker worship, reflection, and the ministry given to us. Deborah Shaw will serve as elder for this course.

The retreat “Celebration of Quakerism” happens November 8-12. You can click here to find out more about the event.

Ben has been a big part of my own theological training and PhD process over the last 3 or so years. I have been deeply impacted by not only his scholarship and tutelage, but also his friendship. I would highly recommend taking the chance to join him in this personal spiritual journey if you are able.

Ben Pink Dandelion is professor of Quaker Studies at the University of Birmingham, England, a tutor at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, and the author of numerous books on Quakerism, most recently, The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2008) and An Introduction to Quakerism (Cambridge, 2007). He edits the journal Quaker Studies. He is passionate about trying to live faithfully and about letting Quakerism feel its own power.