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.
