Daily Old Testament: Isaiah 15-18 and My Own Book "Leadings: A Catholic's Journey Through Quakerism" (Part 20)

Isaiah 15 – This oracle on Moab – the mountainous region on the eastern side of the Dead Sea. In the biblical story, Moab was the son of Lot and Lot’s elder daughter. The Assyrians invaded Moab. Nebo to the north was the mountain on which Moses was said to have died. The people lament; the land is a wasteland.

Isaiah 16 – Moabite survivors ford the Arnon – boundary with Judah – and take refuge there. When the assault is over and the “destroyer is no more” (16:4), a king will be reestablished there, “a judge careful for justice and eager for integrity” (16:5). The prophet grieves for Moab; his “whole being quivers like lyre strings” (16:11). In the end this proud land will be reduced to impotency.

Isaiah 17 – Oracle against Damascus: The city will soon be a “heap of ruins” – towns “abandoned for ever” (17:1). “That day, man will look to his creator and his eyes will turn to the Holy One of Israel” (17:7). Idolatry will end, worship of gods like Adonis.

Isaiah 18 – Oracle against Cush (Ethiopia), which then was in control of Egypt: They are a nation that is “mighty and masterful” (18:2) but it will not always be this way. They will one day turn to Yahweh too on Mt. Zion.

From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism

Part 20

I had had the knowledge of Christ but had missed the connection, and now that I was seeing the connection and the relevance, the knowledge seemed much more credible. How could I have been so willing to set aside these experiences and memories? How could I have turned my back on the life He had begotten in my heart?

Early Friends addressed such questions too, and the answers they gave seemed right to me. There was also  “that in us” that did not want to respond to God, a part of us that was much more comfortable with the answers the world gave. Francis Howgill, one of the early Friends I liked the best, wrote of this with insight as well:

         It [Christ’s word in you] has often checked and called, but you

have not answered its call, and so have chosen your own way, and so have gone from the way, which is the light of Christ in you. And so you run into the broad way; and that which desired after God hath not been nourished and fed, but hath been famished and another hath been fed, which now is for the slaughter. But now as you return home to within, to the true Light of Jesus, which is that one thing, which leads all men that own it, and to be guided by it, you shall have true rest and peace (Howgill, Early Quaker Writings, Barbour and Roberts, eds, 175-176).

This was true. I too had famished the part of me that had desired after God, and I had fed the doubting parts. I too had rushed into the “broad way” – the popular way – of my generation, the way of ideology and political theorizing, the way of psychology and scientific “positivism,” the way of doubt and skepticism of all tradition and truth. Now I wanted to “return home” as these early Friends had done, to “own” the light again and be guided by it to a place of “true rest and peace.” God had been pouring his spirit out on me my entire life, and I had not received Him in a way I could build on, but now I would. I felt my heart respond to the idea of returning to Christ:

O that I might now be joined to him, and he alone might live in me! And so, in the willingness which God had wrought in me, in this day of his power to my soul, I gave up to be instructed, exercised and led by him, in the waiting for and feeling of holy see, that all might be wrought out of me which could not live with the see, but would be hindering the dwelling and reigning of the seed in me, which it remained and had power (Penington, The Light Within, 6).

This was the way back – waiting for and feeling for his “holy seed,” listening for his voice to instruct me, seeing the things in me that “could not live with [it] but [that] hinder[ed] the dwelling and reigning of the seed in me.” This was the way Friends pointed toward. It was just as present to us as it had been to Quakers in seventeenth-century England and to Christians in first-century Jerusalem.

Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 6:1-17 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 3)

2 Maccabees 6:1-17 – The king sends an “old man from Athens to compel the Jews to abandon their ancestral customs and live no longer by the laws of God; and to profane the Temple in Jerusalem and dedicate it to Olympian Zeus” (6:1) -- to compel the Jews to accept Hellenization.

The Temples in Jerusalem and Samaria are filled with idols and the “altar of sacrifice was loaded with victims proscribed by the laws as unclean” (6:5).  There is a monthly celebration of the Seleucid king’s birthday and people are forced to “wear ivy wreaths and walk in the Dionysiac procession” (6:7) when there was a feast for the god Dionysus.

A decree goes out “ordering the execution of those who would not voluntarily conform to Greek customs. So it became clear that disaster was imminent” (6:9). Two women are “charged with having circumcised their children” (6:10). They are “paraded publicly round the town, with their babies hung at their breasts, and then hurled over the city wall” (6:10).

“Other people who had assembled in the caves to keep the [Sabbath] without attracting attention were denounced to Philip [the Phrygian – officer in charge of the town] and all burned together, since their consciences would not allow them to defend themselves, out of respect for the holiness of the day” (6:11).

Then the author says, “I urge anyone who may read this book not to be dismayed at these calamities, but to reflect that such visitations are not intended to destroy our race but to discipline it.” (6: 12).

“Friends’ Testimonies”

Part 3

The silence of the Meeting for Worship is something that has come down through the years in the “unprogrammed” tradition that is mostly followed in the Eastern United States, and it remains what it always was, a place where you can encounter Christ. But people bring to the Meeting the expectations and theologies they have. If you bring to it an expectation of meeting Christ, you will meet him there. If you come expecting something less, that is what you will encounter. Meetings today seldom expect to encounter what early Friends expected, so the ministry you hear is very different.

The feeling of being called to give vocal ministry is a very powerful experience. As I became regular in my attendance at Meeting for Worship and grew in my understanding of what I was going and expecting, I found myself called more and more to speak. The feeling was always the same—the burdened feeling, the feeling in my throat, the beating of my heart. These experiences understood in the light of Friends’ theology were very special to me—like brushing the hem of Christ’s garment inwardly.

By all accounts, the early Meetings of Friends were rich in spoken ministry—inspired prayer, teaching, and encouragement. But there were also times when Friends spoke and “outran” the Spirit. Being attentive meant learning when you were not being called. If you were not being moved by God to speak, you were supposed to remain silent, even if what you had to say seemed very interesting or wise to you. Friends were eloquent in describing and exhorting each other to self-restraint and attentiveness, as I have pointed out in the 1656 advice quoted above. The experience of being called to vocal ministry is not self-inflating. Fare from generating pride, the idea that you might be “God’s mouth” in some small way generates a deep humility:

“. . . stand still in quietness and meekness, that the still voice you may hear, which till you come down within, you cannot hear. . . . So be low and still, if you will hear his voice, and wait to hear that speak that separates between the precious and the vile, now that which you must wait in is near you, yes, in you” (Howgill, Early Quaker Writings, Barbour and Roberts, eds, 176).

Worship was and continues to be the starting point of all Quaker spirituality, but listening and waiting in Meeting was and is not the end—even vocal ministry is not. The end or point of learning to listen for his voice was life in Christ. The discipline of hearing and obeying practiced in worship needed to be carried out of the Meeting for Worship into one’s daily life, into one’s activities in the world. Early Quakers were not contemplatives. They were simple laymen and women—married mostly, often rudely educated and active in every kind of human work. They lived in a tumultuous society at a tumultuous time in history. They traveled, preached, went to jail, challenged entrenched social customs, and tested the limits of religious orthodoxy. A generation later, a certain withdrawal from the world would become part of the Quaker way of life, but even in that more quietistic time, Friends never would withdraw from the daily routines of family, business, and ordinary human life. Also, the silence and inner stillness were never meant to bring one into any kind of contemplative state. They were meant to keep you in the life and power of Christ wherever you were.

The writings of early Friends are filled with words and phrases that evoke the waiting atmosphere of Meeting: “be still and silent”, “stand single to the Lord”, keep “the mind stayed upon the Lord”, and others. But these phrases, which can be plucked from Quaker writings like ripe fruit, rarely refer to Meeting for Worship, but rather to the general hustle and bustle of everyday life. Life was not to be divided into an hour or two of attentiveness to God each week followed by hours and hours of preoccupation with human affairs.

Daily Bible Reading: Ezekiel 37 and Revelation 6

Ezekiel 37 – The Dry Bones – The hand of the Lord carries Ezekiel to the middle of a valley full of bones. He makes him walk up and down among them.

“He said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I said, ‘You know, Lord Yahweh’. He said, ‘Prophesy over these bones. Say, “Dry bones, hear the word of Yahweh. The Lord Yahweh says this to these bones: I am now going to make the breath enter you, and you will live. I shall put sinews on you. I shall make flesh grow on you. I shall cover you with skin and give you breath, and you will live; and you will learn that I am Yahweh”’ (37:3-7).

As Ezekiel prophesies to the bones, they stir and come back to life – “the bones joined together. I looked, and saw that they were covered with sinews; flesh was growing on them and skin was covering the, but there was no breath in them. He said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man. Say to the breath, ‘The Lord Yahweh says this: Come from the four winds, breath; breathe on these dead; let them live!’” (37:7-10).

He continues: “O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. . .I will put my spirit in you that may live. . .” (37:14).

Ezekiel’s passage on the “dry bones” is all about being spiritually resurrected from the dead, and early Friends understood resurrection. What Ezekiel describes here in 6^th c. Palestine, Christ brought to life in his own resurrection from the dead and it was also what early Friends experienced in 17^th c. England:

Wait to see the law set up within . . .and the rebellious nature yoked.  Wait in patience for the judgment, and let the Lord’s work have its perfect operation in you; and so as you turn to him who has smitten and wounded you; he will bind up and heal.  And give up all to the great slaughter of the Lord, to the Cross . . .And as the earth comes to be plowed up, the seed which is sown comes up; and, the rocks broken, the water gushes out.  You so will see that some promises will arise in you to the Seed which is coming up out of the grave, and so the love of God will appear in you, and you will be stayed, and see hope in the midst of calamity . . .And as you come to be redeemed from under the bondage of sin, and come above the bonds of death, and the pure principle lives in you, there will be a delight in you to do the will of the father, who has redeemed you from sin and its law to righteousness and its law, . . . (Francis Howgill)

.  . . he that hears not the Voice of the Son of God, does not

live but is in death. . .And the hour is come, that they which

have been in the graves have heard the Voice of the Son of

God and do live.  They that do not hear . . .are in the death

and the grave.  They that come to believe in the Light, hear

the Voice of the Son of God. . .and live over death, the grave

and hell, and so come to Life (George Fox).

Ezekiel’s prophecy is of God’s gathering of the loyal remnant.  “I will make them a covenant of peace; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will multiply them, and put my sanctuary among them forever.  My dwelling shall be with them; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”  These words which were so central to the exiled Jews and to the early Christians, who saw in them a prophesy of Christ’s resurrection, and were also so important to Friends who saw the churches of their day as dry bones scattered all throughout Europe are hopefully also applicable to the condition of the church today. I believe they are.  I do believe Christ will gather us all together somehow.  His intention is inextinguishable.  It has been there from the very beginning of creation and I do not believe the world will end until He has brought forth what he meant to bring forth and he’ll do it without violating our freedom.

Revelation 6 – Now the Lamb breaks the seals of the scoll:

First – a white horse appears with a rider holding a bow; he is given a victor’s crown.

Second – a bright red horse whose rider will take peace away and set men killing each other; he has a sword.

Third – a black horse whose rider has scales to weigh out wheat and barley skimpily and who will give no oil or wine.

Fourth – a deathly pale horse with a rider called plague with Hades at his heels.

These four are given authority over a quarter of all the earth to kill with sword, famine, plague and wild beasts (6:8).

Fifth – he sees “underneath the altar the souls of all the people who had been killed on account of the word of God, for witnessing to it” (6:9). They all shout, “’Holy, faithful Master, how much longer will you wait before you pass sentence and take vengeance for our death on the inhabitants of the earth?’” (6:10) They are told to be patient.

Sixth – at the breaking of the sixth seal, there is a violent earthquake and the sun goes black. The moon turns red and the Great Day of God’s anger has arrived. The rich and powerful race to the mountains to hide from the anger of the Lamb.