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First Friends Meeting
Ephesians 5:8-14
BYM QF&P A&Q #2
‘Living the Queries, Part 1’
This morning we’re starting a new series. We’re
focusing on some of the Quaker queries. These are questions we
keep asking ourselves all our lives. Quakers believe that a few
open-ended questions will help us examine ourselves and help us keep
growing and improving. A few well formulated questions are more
productive than a long list of dos and don’ts. You can
never answer these questions once and for all. You might answer
them one way in your teens or twenties, and another way in your
eighties or nineties – or anywhere in between. Because we
face different challenges at different times in our lives, the way we
hear and answer the questions will be different.
The title of this series is ‘Living the Queries’.
It’s a play on the new course Maureen McCarthy has recently
started over at Friends Fellowship, ‘Living the
Questions’. “Live the questions” is advice
Rainer Maria Rilke gave in a letter to a young poet. We live the
questions, rather than forcing once-and-for-all answers to them.
A poet lives the questions. A Quaker lives the Queries.
Ellen has just read from the Advices and Queries in Britain Yearly
Meeting’s Quaker Faith & Practice. This one urges us to
bring all our lives into the ordering power of Christ’s
Spirit. It queries, we are really open to the healing power of
God’s love? It encourages us to let our daily lives and our
worship lives inform each other. “Treasure your experience
of God, however it comes to you. Remember that Christianity is
not a notion but a way.” I suppose if Christianity were a
‘notion’ – a set of ideas, doctrines, and principles
– then the queries would be more like a set of test
questions. There would be certain right answers we could memorize
and spout off. Clearly some Christians see it that way. If
you answer, “Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God,”
you pass. You’re in. But Christ is more the question
than the answer. Christ is not a notion of truth but our guide to
living the truth in our daily lives.
We get similar advice from the Letter to the Ephesians that Ellen also
read. We have chosen light over darkness. Therefore, we
need to live as children of light. Ephesians counsels, “Try
to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.” That’s
living the questions. Ephesians tells us to expose everything in
our lives to the light. See what is bearing good fruit and keep
it. What is fruitless or poisonous, let go.
In a way, both Ephesians and this Query are urging us to live more
conscious lives. Bring all that we are, all that we do, into the
light of God’s love. Consciousness or conscience literally
means “knowing together.” Bringing it all into the
light. Seeing the bigger picture of who we are and what we do.
This is the spiritual work of our lives. We call it spiritual,
but ‘spiritual’ is not a special compartment of our
lives. ‘Spiritual’ is about seeing and living the
whole of our lives. It involves our reflection and prayer.
But it’s about our intention and action too. Now, some of
us are naturally more active doers in life. Others are naturally
more retiring and reflective. All of us are some combination of
both. Sometimes, the doers need to spend more time in quiet
reflection and prayer. Otherwise, we just spin our wheels.
If we don’t reflect and pray, we just start blithering, thrashing
around. Likewise, the more reflective types may need to get out
there and do more – test out our beliefs. I know
that’s always my challenge.
We need to remember that Christ chose not to stay cozy with God in
heaven, but come to earth and act out the role of a servant.
Therefore, should not hesitate to get our hands dirty with the
messiness of the world. I think this is what the query means when
it urges us to let our worship lives and our daily lives enrich each
other. The daily life of action makes our lives more fruitful and
gives us more to pray about. The life of devotion and worship
grounds our active lives in a calm, peaceful center. It sharpens
our sense of what’s most important to do.
The Gospel of John witnesses that the Word, or light, became flesh in
the person of Jesus. It didn’t just become a mind or
brain. The Word became flesh, embodied in a living, breathing,
active human being. John also witnesses that this same light
enlightens each one of us. Our bodies are where spirit and flesh
meet and struggle to become one. Our bodies are where we act out
the love of God to the world. And our bodies are where our
greatest wisdom abides. Our minds are all over the place with
ideas and imagination. Our hearts heave with every kind of desire
and fear. It’s chaos in there! When we turn our
attention to our bodies, we find the calmest, most sane part of
ourselves. That’s where Christ lives in us. The Word
made flesh, not brain, not even heart. So, when our worship and
prayer life gets down below our heads, even down below the pounding
heart, we come to that sanctuary of peace where real communion with God
can happen. The body anchors us. It puts a leash on that
roving mind. It calms the heaving heart.
The body also goes out into the world and does things. Yes, of
course, the body acts out the intentions of the mind and heart.
But the body also tells us whether that action felt right or not.
The senses of the body register how our actions affect other
people. Our minds are churning with ideas and ideals. Our
hearts are awash with emotions. Our bodies are where our hearts
and minds meet reality. Our bodies are where we encounter other
people in the world out there.
Of course, our bodies also get sick or injured. This often does
wonders for our prayer lives. Sometimes desperate prayers for God
to preserve our lives or our health and livelihood. Or maybe
it’s just a cold or flu bug that stops us long enough to take
some time to reflect and pray. Then we can return to our busy
lives with fresh perspective and gratitude. It’s also true
that somewhere in our bodies, each of us holds and stores stress.
It might be the neck, the back, the gut. For me, it’s my
stomach, which often tells me that I’m stressed, or drinking too
much coffee, or even avoiding some truth in my life. Sometimes
the body knows before the brain does.
One of my teachers in graduate school was down for most of a year with
a bad back. He realized that he’d pushed himself too hard
in his work. His back finally rebelled against the stress.
His doctor recommended surgery as a quick fix. Instead, Charles
chose a longer route – rest and gentle exercise. It gave
him time to listen to his back and repattern his life. Charles
got back to his teaching the next year and continued a long, very
fruitful career of service as a teacher. We have to keep
relearning that Christ came in the form of a servant, and our bodies
are usually the servant of our hearts and minds. But when we
learn to let the servant be an equal in the conversation, we’re
on our way to becoming whole persons. We also become more
compassionate to the suffering of others, more sensitive to the needs
of others.
Ironically, it’s when we sit still and be quiet that our bodies
can really be in conversation with our hearts and minds. This is
a truth that Quakers have found in common with many spiritual
disciplines from around the world. As Quakers, we talk a lot
about silence. But silence is only part of stillness –
stillness of heart, mind, and body. We achieve stillness only
imperfectly, but to the extent that we do, we feel a kind of attunement
and peace that realigns everything.
This Saturday, Mel Keiser will lead a workshop at Earlham called
‘Experiment with Light’. It’s an opportunity to
learn a way of being still and letting the light teach us. This
is what early Friends called ‘waiting upon the Lord’.
Being still and letting God teach us directly from within.
It’s a source of endless insight and renewable energy. The
prophet Isaiah knew this from his own experience. Isaiah (40:31)
wrote, “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be
weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Let us take some
time to wait upon the Lord.
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