Daily Old Testament: Isaiah 11-13 and My Own Book "Leadings: A Catholic's Journey Through Quakerism" (Part 18)

Isaiah 11 – The coming Messiah will spring from the stock of Jesse [David’s father]. The “Spirit of the Lord will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord” (11:2). 

He will not judge by appearances. Integrity will be his loincloth and faithfulness the “belt about his hips” (11:5). He will bring the peace of Eden: “In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all” (11:6).

“In that day the heir to David’s throne will be a banner of salvation to all the world” (11:10). He will bring back the scattered people of Judah and end the enmity between Judah and Ephraim. “The Lord will make a dry path through the gulf of the Red Sea. He will wave his hand over the Euphrates River, sending a mighty wind to divide it into seven streams so it can easily be crossed on foot” (11:15).

Isaiah 12 – A hymn of thanksgiving is offered up to the Lord. The anger of the Lord has been appeased. “The Lord is my strength and my salvation” (12:2). “With joy you will drink deeply from the fountain of salvation!” (12:3)

The great things the Lord has done shall be made know to all the world.

Isaiah 13 – This oracle on the kingdom of Babylon is about the judgment God will bring on them for their offenses: “I will punish the world for its evil-doing, and the wicked for their crimes, to put an end to the pride of arrogant men and humble the pride of despots” (13:11).

While the title and occasion reference make Babylon the target, the language of the oracle is more general – more world-wide. Towards the end, the city of Babylon seems more specifically the topic. The introductory note to the chapter says that the oracle was likely written during the exile.

From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism

Part 18

I don’t remember exactly how it started to change, but suddenly I began to see that this was a way of seeing the cross, a way that illuminated what we were going through day to day, what we were hoping for and waiting for. I was familiar with Christian language and teachings, but I had never heard of Christ spoken of in these terms. He had always been presented as an outward thing to me, a person crucified for sins long ago, or off in heaven somewhere at the right hand of God, wherever that was, or present in the Eucharist or in some other thing or place that was always outside of me. But Friends said Christ was in me. His crucifixion was something to be joined with in the depths of my being. What he was going in my life now was what he had come to do in history, and he was inviting me to be joined to him, to trust as he did in his Father to bring forth something good in his own time. It was startling to me to think of Christ as something present in me. Later, when I came to study what early Friends had taught, it was apparent that they had been started at the thought too. The following is Isaac Penington’s account of his own “convincement”:

         The Lord caused his holy power to fall upon me, and gave me such

an inward demonstration and feeling of the seed of life, that I cried

out in my spirit, This is he, this is he, there is not another, there never was another. He was always near me though I knew him not, not so sensibly, not so distinctly, as now he was revealed in me, and to me by the Father. (Isaac Penington, The Light Within and Selected Writings, 6).

I had experienced the nearness of God many times in my life: helping me overcome a tangle of lies so I could start life fresh in a new place, comforting me when I felt rejected or strange living apart from my parents, strengthening me when I was afraid of going to sleep, speaking to me out of the night sky when I needed my grandfather to not die, whispering to me in the words of a great poem. He was always near me though I knew him not, not so sensibly, not so distinctly, as now he was revealed in me . . .

On the simplest level, what I came to see and then to experience as I let my defenses down and opened myself to the possibility that God and Christ might be real and present to me in this interior kind of way were the two fundamental things early Friends taught: that the Christ of history, the Christ who suffered crucifixion and rose again—the light and word of God that John spoke of in his gospel—dwelled really and palpably in the depths of every human person, and that this Christ was not in us to merely be a presence or aura of some kind, but was a power working in us to redeem us from the spiritual death that is the “normal” or “natural” state of our existence in this world. Christ dwells within you, and he is there to lead you to life.

This was the Quaker Message—the early Quaker message.

Daily Old Testament: Micah 5 and My Own Article on "Continuing Revelation" (Part 4)

Micah 5 – The terrible weakness and frailty of Israel’s earthly kings is compared to the coming strength of the messianic ruler “[Y]ou, (Bethlehem) Ephrathah, the least of the clans . . .out of you will be born for me the one who is to rule over Israel. . .” (5:2). “The people of Israel will be abandoned to their enemies until the woman in labor gives birth” (5:3). Then the time will come when a new ruler of Israel will come and lead his fellow countrymen “with the Lord’s strength, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God” (5:4). He will lead his flock from exile back to the own land.

The remnant “left in Israel will take their place among the nations. They will be like a lion among the animals of the forest, . . . [and] the people of Israel will stand up to their foes, and all their enemies will be wiped out” (5:9). The Lord says He will tear down their walls, put an end to witchcraft, destroy idols and sacred pillars, “so you will never again worship the world of your own hands” (5:13). The Lord will pour out his vengeance on “all the nations that refuse to obey me” (5:15).

From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism -

“Continuing Revelation”

Part 4

Still, there were some outward guideposts or principles you could employ in discernment. These were never written in the form of rules (heaven forbid!); they simply developed over time. One was insisting on the unchanging nature of God’s truth. Just as the promises of Christ are utterly constant, so the “spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it” (Fox, Journal, 399).  This principle was associated with Friends’ articulation of their peace testimony, but it was equally applicable to all the truths they saw as flowing from God.

The Spirit of Christ they had “come into” was the same Spirit that had “given forth” the Scriptures, so it stood to reason that Scripture could be used to test the consistency of one’s personal leading to the witness of Christ contained there. The fruits of your profession should be fruits of the Spirit—“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22)—not the fruits of the “fleshly”, unredeemed nature—“fornication, impurity . . .idolatry   strife, jealousy, anger . . . and things like these” (Gal. 5:19-21). If there was a clear statement of principle set forth there, you could not easily set yourself in opposition to it. Friends denied that this amounted to “setting up” Scripture as an outward authority, but the effect was much the same. If Scripture clearly testified to something and you felt led to a path that was inconsistent with it, or if the fruits of what you believed promised to be bad or destructive, you were likely to be judged out of unity with the Truth.

Yet there are difficulties in this way of looking at things. The Scriptures, if viewed as a matter of words only, contain inconsistent admonitions. On the question of slavery, for example, there are words that seem to sanction or accept slavery as a part of civilized life, which believers may participate in—such as Paul’s advice to slaves to “obey [their] early masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ . . .” (Eph. 6:5). Yet Friends challenged the definitiveness of Paul’s words in several ways—by examining closely the “fruits” of slavery in both slave-owner and slave and finding them universally corrupting and destructive, and second, by arguing that the whole tenor and development of the biblical “story” that God’s Spirit had given forth helped us to see that man was not to be viewed or used as chattel.

Christ was the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow as far as Friends were concerned. Another way of applying the test of consistency was to ask if the Christ you were listening to and obeying inwardly was the same Christ that the Scriptures had revealed, or if he had changed to suit the times you lived in. This standard was beautifully articulated by James Nayler:

“Now seeing he has appeared who is from everlasting and changes not, here is an everlasting trial for you all . . . whether you profess him from the letter or the light; come try [test] whether Christ is in you. Measure your life and weigh your profession with that which cannot deceive you, which has stood and will stand forever, for he is sealed of the father.

First, see if your Christ be the same that was from everlasting to everlasting, or is he changed according to the times: . . . Does he whom you obey as your leader lead you out to war against this world and all the pride and glory, fashions and customs, love and pleasures and whatever else is not of God therein? Does he justify any life now but what he justified in the prophets and apostles and saints of old?” (Nayler, Early Quaker Writings, 109-110).

There is an irony here however, which should not go unmentioned. Nayler was one of the most promising of Fox’s early followers. But only three years after writing these words, he himself faced severe censure (virtual rejection) by Fox and other Quaker leaders when he brought their movement into disrepute by engaging in a stupid display of “street theater”—permitting himself to be greeted entering a town in the manner in which Christ had been greeted on entering Jerusalem with palms and praises of a bevy of female followers. The municipal authorities responded by charging him with blasphemy, a charge that resulted in his being pilloried, whipped, his tongue bored through with a hot iron, a “B” for blasphemer being branded on his forehead, and three years imprisonment. He was eventually accepted back into the Society and his writing continued to be held in esteem. Nayler’s actions demonstrated the very difficulty we are exploring her.

Were you led into the same kind of lowliness Christ exemplified, or were you led into self-aggrandizement and pride, thinking you knew more than you really did? Did you seek to justify a way of life that was fundamentally different from the way of life the saints had always been called to live or to seek some liberty no follower of Christ would have sought? The standard was not changed—only the means by which we came into a knowledge of that standard.

Were you eager to serve others and to shed the love of God abroad, or were you led into actions that served your own interests?

“. . . be servants to the Truth and do not strive for mastery, but serve one another in Love, “Wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). Take Christ for your example that I may hear of no strife among you” (Fox, Letters, 55).

Were you enamored of worldly fashions and honors, or did you turn your back on these things as Christ had? Infatuation with the world’s delights had to be put aside if one was to come into the life Christ offered, for that life lay on the other side of his cross.