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First Friends Meeting
Isaiah 11:1-3, 6-9
Advices & Queries #19
‘Living the Queries, Part 4:
A Little Child Shall Lead Them’
Doug Gwyn
Some problems are so complex, some conflicts are so entrenched, some
divisions are so deep, only a child can solve them. Sometimes, in
a moment of crisis, a child will say something that puts things in
perspective. Like, “Mom, when are we going to
eat?” Or “Dad, will you play ball with
me?” Sometimes a child doesn’t have to say or do
anything. They just have to be there and it changes
everything.
King Solomon understood this. I Kings tells the story of the two
women who came to Solomon, both of them claiming to be the mother of
the same baby boy. Solomon probably realized there was no way he
could resolve their conflicting claims. So he shifted the focus
from the conflict between the two women to the baby himself. He
ordered that the baby be cut in two. Then they could each have
half. This outrageous proposal jolted the two women out of their
fixation on each other. And it immediately revealed the real
mother. The story tells us that “compassion for her son
burned within her.” In desperation, she begged Solomon to give
the child to the other woman, rather than kill him. Then Solomon
knew who to give the child to.
For many decades, the conflict in Northern Ireland between Catholics
and Protestants seemed hopeless and endless. Various political
solutions were proposed and tried. But nothing seemed to
help. Quakers were one of many religious and civic groups that
tried in a variety of small ways to build bridges, to recreate civil
society in Northern Ireland. The Quaker strategy was to create
environments that would bring Catholic and Protestant children
together. In 1982, I visited such a place, called Quaker Cottage,
on a hill outside Belfast. The children were taught some basic
skills in settling differences without fighting. But mainly they
just played together.
Quakers also worked with Protestant and Catholic teenagers in Northern
Ireland. My wife, Caroline, did some of that work in the
1980s. They did role-playing and created plays, sometimes to
present to their parents and the wider community. When peace
finally began to break out in the mid-90’s, it surprised
everyone. It wasn’t a breakthrough as much as a
tipping-point. The balance of public will shifted from conflict
to peace. There’s still a long way to go in Northern
Ireland. But the first steps to peace have been taken. And
the peace will continue to grow, partly because a new generation of
adults had the experience of being playmates together in their early
years. Sometimes conflicts run so deep, problems are so complex,
only a child can solve them.
That, of course, is the story of Christmas. In these weeks of
Advent, we remember Israel’s long wait for the Messiah, through
centuries of war, conflict, oppression. It’s a chance for
us to think about all the unsettled conflicts and unsolved problems in
our world today. We all want peace, yet it seems so hard to
choose it. This week, we’ve been caught up in the
President’s plan for the war in Afghanistan. It may be a
move toward an exit strategy, it’s hard to see it as a step
toward peace, in the near or long term.
I’m sure in Jesus’ day, the world’s problems seemed
no less complicated and intractable. And yet at Christmas, we
remember the birth of a child in a stable in Bethlehem. We read
how God led both wealthy astrologers from the East and poor, simple
shepherds from the hills there. And when they saw child, they
recognized the answer to the world’s problems. And they saw
the wisdom of it. Over the next few days, we hear a whole cast of
characters prophesy amazing things about this new-born child. And
then the wise men, the shepherds, Anna and Simeon, all go home in their
various directions. And then Luke tells us that Mary
“pondered all these things in her heart.” She was left to
live the questions about this child – in the years to come.
Dortha has read us another of the Advices & Queries from Britain
Yearly Meeting’s Quaker Faith & Practice. This one asks
us how we foster the spiritual lives of children in our Meeting.
“How do you share your deepest beliefs with them, while leaving
them free to develop as the spirit of God may lead them? Do you
invite them to share their insights with you? Are you ready both
to learn from them and to accept your responsibilities towards
them?”
We have been richly blessed with a new wave of children and young
people these last few years. It’s been amazing to watch
this blessing unfold among us. It’s been a blessing for me
to watch these children growing up, as they assemble week by week up
here for the children’s message. It’s also a treat to
hear their answers to questions. Sometimes whimsical, sometimes
funny, but always wise -- wise in the way of a child.
This hasn’t just happened by accident. Tim and the Family
Ministries Commission have pooled a lot of wisdom and a lot of effort
to create a welcoming environment and nurturing programs for the
kids. It demands a great deal of creativity. For example,
this fall, Barbara Jenkins developed a whole series of lessons for her
class, based on our Meeting’s two hundred years of our
history. Along the way, she was nurturing in her class a sense of
place – both the physical place of First Friends – with
brick-making, for example – and the spiritual sense of place,
being part of the larger family that makes up our congregation.
Like the true mother in the story of Solomon, we have men and women
whose compassion for children burns in their hearts. It fires
them to keep giving of themselves for the children’s sake.
Yes, it’s partly an investment in the future of our
Meeting. But also just for the kids’ own sake, just because
of who they are here and now.
Dortha also read for us another of those great prophecies of
Isaiah. Isaiah prophesies a king who will rule with true
wisdom. He will judge matters not according to what his eyes see
or what his ears hear, but with righteousness and equity, in favor of
the poor and the meek. But then suddenly, Isaiah shifts into a
completely different framework, with his outlandish prophecy of
all. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie
down with the kid, the lion shall eat straw like an ox, and a little
child shall lead them. These things are impossible. These
things do not happen. It’s like peace in Northern Ireland
– nobody expects these things to happen. But a prophecy
like this fires the heart, and sparks the imagination. And a few
people will think of ways to try it out, if only among the children
– the only ones innocent enough to try it. And then, to our
astonishment, it’s the children leading us to peace. Isaiah
gives us a set of impossible images, so that we too might dream
impossible things. And when we do, sometimes we see opportunities
to try them out.
I’ve spoken at least twice before of Edward Hicks. He was a
Quaker minister in early 19th-century Pennsylvania. He was also
an artist, at a time when Quakers were against the arts. Maybe he
figured it was OK, as long as he wasn’t a good artist. And
Hicks was not a good artist by any technical standard. But
he’s considered one of the great primitive painters, or
naïve artists. Hicks’ primitive painting, his naivete,
was better than good technique. He painted straight from the
heart, a heart that burned for the peaceable kingdom on earth. He
painted this scene from Isaiah 11 again and again, dozens of times,
each one with some little variations.
This is one of his more coherent compositions. I’ve had
this print more than 30 years, but sometimes I see something new
in. This week, I looked more seriously at the child leading the
animals. On the right side of the picture, we see the crowd of
animals, herbivores and carnivores together, extending back into some
primeval shadows. All the potential violence and suffering of the
natural world, yet somehow together in peace. Leading this
menagerie is the child, with one arm around the neck of the lion
cub. With the other arm, he holds out an olive branch. But
notice that he’s pointing with the olive branch toward the scene
in the background. There’s William Penn, the Quaker founder
of Pennsylvania, signing his famous treaty with the Indians.
So there’s a flow in the painting. It starts here with
Isaiah’s vision, animals living together in peace, like an Aesop
fable. But it moves toward an actual realization of peace in
human history, the peaceful founding of Pennsylvania. It flows
from the impossibility of Isaiah’s vision toward an actual
instance where somebody was outrageous enough to try it. So the
child stands between the two realms. Between the outright
impossibility and actual achievement of peace. This is the
Christ-child. This child leads us to peace. This child
leads us in peace.
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