a talk given by
the
Book of Christian Discipline of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in
Quakers elsewhere around the world have different
practice – sometimes with a pastor and programme of worship. I am confining my remarks to what I know of
Quakers in Britain.
We had a meeting of some Friends from Headington Quaker meeting to
reflect on the theme of this series of Lent talks and I hope I can reflect some
of our thoughts and that Friends here tonight will add to what I have to
say.
First a couple of personal stories:
I was not brought up in a church going family, so my understanding of
contact with God was fairly eclectic. I
spent my summer holidays at my grandmother’s in the country. She had few books, and no children’s stories
apart from a bound volume of copies of The
Children’s Friend dating from 1865.
In this there was a story about a boy who hated his boarding school and
prayed to God not to be sent back. And
he died. I can still remember my sense
of outrage. It was clear to me – if not to God – that this was not the answer
the boy wanted to his prayer. God was not on the same wavelength, distant, not
understanding, and, as in the way of adults, had different priorities. So my prayers became more and more extended
and detailed to make quite sure that there was no room for error, until in the
end I gave them up for lack of response.
The other childhood memory probably came at a later stage when God had
fallen off my childhood radar. This was
of Leigh Hunt’s poem about Abou ben Adhem. My mother used to recite it to me. Those of
you who know the poem will remember that ben Adhem woke from a dream to find an
angel in his room writing in a book of gold the names of those who love the
Lord. His name was not among them so he
asks that he be recorded as one who loves his fellow men. The angels writes it down and comes again the
next night and shows the names whom love
of God has blessed and lo ben Adhem’s name led all the rest . Love of fellow men – and women. I was content to aim for that and leave God
out of it.
So it was from other people to whom God was important that I learned –
Quaker workcamps in Eastern Europe in the 60s, and then working for Christian
Aid when I travelled in the desert regions of West Africa in the aftermath of
the drought of the early seventies. Many
project partners were Muslims, for whom faith was central and the practice of
prayer and fasting an unselfconscious routine.
I met Spanish little sisters of Jesus living the religious life on the
edge of the desert. In the ecumenical
family it was the time of liberation theology, black theology and feminist
theology. Quakers have always been
rather suspicious of theology and God talk, believing that our lives must
speak. These lives spoke to me.
In introducing the first of this series of Lent talks two weeks ago,
Hugh Wybrew looked at the concept, image and mystery that we call god. I would like to take some of the things that
he said and reflect in light of personal and Quaker experience
1. Not a person but personal
God is not a person, but God is also not an abstract life force. God is personal. For early Quakers the direct experience of God, the leadings of the
Spirit was key. Quakers emerged at a
time of enormous change/ferment. People were debating how society should be
governed and questioning the established order of church and state. They were looking at authority in both the
political and the religious sphere. There was discussion of the role of bishops
in the established church, and the role of women. Margaret Fell, a founder of Quakerism, wrote a
pamphlet on Women’s Speaking Justified,
Proved and Allowed by the Scriptures
and women have always played a key role in work and ministry.
Quakers in the seventeenth century studied the Bible and regarded
themselves as the direct inheritors if the early church. A key word was light which they associated
with the risen Christ in their hearts.
Friends weren’t alone in saying
that our experience of god is personal, direct and can be unmediated. However, it is probably fair to say that they
carried this to the logical extreme -
stripping out what seemed to come between them and God. So out went outward religious ceremonies, and
the words and music of the liturgy, out went tests of belief and the
creeds. What mattered was not assent to
doctrines but personal experience and a faith to live by. Revelation was
continuing. Out went the paid clergy
(hireling priests) . Everyone, men and
women, girls and boys, had a ministry.
Out went the times and seasons of the church year, out went the
sacraments – the whole of life was
sacramental and holy. What was left?
Harvey Gillman, in A Light is
Shining, an introduction to
Quakers, describes the foundation of the
Religious Society of Friends like this:
there is a creative, loving power in all people and in the world
around. Many call it God, though it is
beyond al names. Everyone can become
aware of it directly, by listening to its promptings in their hearts …it is not
in the institution of the church, nor through the sacred texts that God is most
keenly felt, but in the human heart.
Obviously if you have difficulties with the institution and the
scriptures this is attractive and helpful.
But it is also, I think, very demanding.
There is no hiding place from the direct relationship with God wherever
God is to be found.
At last year’s annual gathering of Quakers I went to a meeting of the
Committee on Christian and Interfaith Relations. A Baptist minister who had been invited was
asked for his impressions. Well, he
said, I have been to Quaker meetings, of course I have, and 20 or 30 people in
silent worship in a room, it’s fine, it’s lovely. But five hundred gathered together, I
wondered when the silence was going to begin, and then I wondered when it would
end ….it’s scary. Robert Barclay, the
Quaker theologian described his experience thus: When I
came into the silent assemblies of God’s people, I felt a secret power among
them, which touched my heart; and as I gave way unto it I found the evil
weakening in me and the good raised up….he
began to hunger more and more after the
increase of this power and life and so he says ‘I became knit and united unto them.
This describes a close relationship both with other Quakers but also
with this creative living force.
2. Relationship was the second area mentioned by our speaker
last week. The creator, he said, is not separate from creation. All things are in God and God is in all
things. There is no part of ourselves
where God is not present. He suggested
that this God relationship is one of friendship and reminded us that Jesus had
called his disciples his friends. This fits rather neatly for us – Quakers were
originally called Friends in the truth and we remain officially the Religious
Society of Friends. Quakers have taken
wholeheartedly to the concept of God in all and all in God. There is no compartmentalisation into the
public and the private domain. All our
relationships, personal and social, economic and political are in God. How does this belief translate into action?
At this point I turn to our red book, Quaker Faith and Practice.
In the section entitled Living
Faithfully Today we have simplicity and equality, moderation and
abstinence, honesty and integrity. We
are exhorted to be careful not to defraud the public revenue. Fraud is out, but some Friends feel called to
the honest withholding of tax judged to be used for war purposes with the
concomitant sanctions – and bailiffs - that this brings down on their heads,
just as Friends in the past refused to pay tithes. There is a section on oaths and affirmation –
we should avoid two standards of truth -
payment of just debts, sources and use of income, gambling and
speculation. Conflict and how to deal
with it.
A quick word here about
conflict. A Somali friend once said to
me ‘We Somalis know a lot about waging war and that means we also know a lot
about making peace.’ When I was working at Friends House I sometimes felt that
the reverse might be said of Quakers at times.
Of course there will be strongly held views and differences. I can think of a particular occasion. It was a committee meeting. Quaker business
is conducted in the context of worship, decisions should be reached by a
process of discernment. There is no voting, and the record of decisions reached
is written at the time by the clerk.. I
remember an extremely heated discussion, about what, I no longer recall, but at
one point the clerk asked for a moment of silence and then said ‘May I remind
Friends that we are not here to agree or disagree on this issue –we are hear to
discern the will of God.’ That took the
discussion on to a different plane and we did find a way forward.
Back to the red book – there is a
chapter on close personal relationships.
Then there is the matter of our responsibility as citizens, social
justice, poverty and housing, slavery, torture, discrimination and
disadvantage, racism, disability, education
(there is ongoing debate about Quaker schools in the private sector)
world and economic affairs, and the unity of creation and, of course, peace in
all its fullness. Like the News of the
World we could claim that all of human life is there – and that all is in God.
Is there a danger that faith gets lost in action? I remember just prior to the invasion of
For if all are in God and there is that of God in everyone, then every
war is a civil war. When I hear
politicians on the radio say that nuclear deterrents have brought 60 years of
stability I do wonder what planet they are living on. It is not just a matter of all the wars that were fought by proxy outside
In a recent little booklet called Twelve Quakers and Pacifism one Friend
writes:
As a Society
we challenged the immoral and illegal war in Iraq only in the ways of the
‘bourgeois pacifist’, courteous demonstrations and polite letters. The Quaker termites of peace nibbled only
imperceptibly at the foundations of power.
Our latter- day respectability, economic prudence and lack of youthful
vision increasingly hold us back.
As a bourgeois pacifist – I try to keep on nibbling!
(and cheers for our MP Andrew Smith who has decided to vote against the
replacement of Trident, and cheers for
all those nibblers whose correspondence and conversations may have influenced
his decision).
All things in God: God in all
things – a mutuality of relationship if we are attentive and mindful. Quakers love to talk of the light within and
light can bring knowledge and warmth and security – but it also brings the
hidden out and that can be uncomfortable.
20 years ago the Quaker women’s group produced a book entitled Bringing the Invisible into the Light. In it a group of Quaker women described their
experience of God and of their fellow human beings. They challenged Friends to
enlarge their understandings of God and also to face the way in which God may
be mocked in the person of women. I
found it really inspiring. Drawing me
closer to Friends at a time when the Anglican church was struggling with issues
over women’s ordination to the priesthood.
But some Friends found it really hurtful. Maybe the light was both that of revelation
and also of interrogation into truths we would rather keep in the dark.
A male Friend has written of his own difficult feelings about sexism,
guilt, he says, is not a helpful response.
In ourselves as well as others we must seek that of God and this will
lead us in the right path.
A member of the Quaker women’s group wrote
To me, worship
is recognising and communing with the divine whether it is within myself, in
others or in the world. The
pre-condition of worship is my belief in my worth –ship, my own and that of
other people.
3. This leads me
to the third note I made from the first lent talk. This was about the Kingdom within us. The
speaker talked of the need to meet god inside because we won’t otherwise find
god outside. He quoted St John Chrysostom: the door of the heart is the door of the
kingdom of god. We journey through the
self to reach the point where God and I meet.
When Headington Friends had our discussion of prayer we looked at the
roots of worship in worth and the need to affirm our worth as the starting
point to respond to God and the worth in others. For some the personal relationship was
strong, one Friend spoke of what her children call her ‘hello God’ moments. For others such moments of intimate encounter
were rare. In our corporate worship we
still ourselves to wait on god. There is
no formal moment for intercession.. An
American Friend said that his meeting had a time for holding people in the
light. We talked of prayer as thinking
lovingly of others.
If God is within us and the inner
light is in everyone then the kingdom of God is also a commonwealth where all
are equal in the sight of God and one another.
Early Friends addressed everyone as thee and thou, and did not use
titles. It was plain George Fox and
Margaret Fell. This custom continues,
and can still present problems. I find
it quite contradictory when people trying to sell me something will call me
Bridget at the drop of a hat, but still ask for a title on most official
forms. At the weekend I installed a new
printer for my computer but when I tried to register it I was not allowed to be
plain Bridget Walker. I had to be
Mr/Miss/Mrs/or Ms. I wonder why gender and women’s marital status are important
to Canon copiers. You may be interested
to know that there was no slot for Reverend.
Perhaps this is an outward and visible sign of a social order which
still tries to put women in their place – and has moved the formally religious
out of the frame.
To acknowledge that of God in all we meet is to try and be
respectful. That has its challenges even
with family and like minded friends. The
more diverse company we keep the more we may need to work at it. In the red book, in the section of Advices and Queries, we are bidden
actively to go out and learn about other people’s experience of the light, to
work gladly with other religious groups, to enter imaginatively into the life
and witness of other communities of faith and to be open to new light, from
whatever source it may come, while recognising that we must also exercise
discernment.
This has always attracted me as I have spent a lot of my working life in
other people’s countries and communities.
Two years ago in Mozambique I was sharing a room with a Muslim
colleague. The room was very small. She needed physical space to say her prayers
so we had to push the beds together. But
there was no way we could re-arrange the furniture so that she could face in
the right direction. ‘No matter,’ she
said, ‘God is everywhere’. As she prayed I perched on my suitcase and reflected
on the pattern of time and space that are the frame for prayer for many
Muslims. We need space both physically
and also psychologically. In our
discussion of prayer among Headington Friends this came up – how do we find/create
the right space in which to be able to pray? We don’t need a dedicated
building: that can be both a resource
and a burden, but we do need to have the psychological space to come together
with hearts and minds prepared.
This brings me to our corporate worship about which I would like to say
a few words. As we have seen, Quakers share the foundational concepts about the
nature of God with many others from different Christian traditions. What is different is the practice.
Here is Caroline Stephen, the aunt of Virginia Woolf, describing in 1890
her first experience of a Quaker meeting some years earlier.
On one never
to be forgotten Sunday morning I found myself one of a small company of silent
worshippers who were content to sit down together without words, that each
might feel after and draw near to the divine
presence unhindered at least if not helped by any human utterance. Utterance I knew was free, should the words
be given…
She goes on to talk of a sense that At
last I had found a place where I might, without .the faintest suspicion of
insincerity, join with others in simply seeking God’s presence. To sit down in silence could at least pledge
me to nothing, it might open to me the very gate of heaven.
I think that to sit down in silence
could at least pledge me to nothing
is interesting. In her book Interfaith Pilgrims, Eleanor Nesbitt
suggests that this form of worship may offer an opportunity for interfaith
worship that can sometimes founder on familiar formulations of words. This made me think of a Quaker work study
camp I attended in East Germany in 1965.
There were participants from the American Friends Service Committee, the
Friends Service Council (now Quaker Peace and Social Witness) and the German
Youth movement. There was also a member
of the ANC who had reached the GDR through a communist underground
railroad. The Quaker contingent asked if
we might start our day with silent reflection.
We were asking this for ourselves, not with any intention of being
exclusive but not expecting the others to join in, as most of the Germans were
vociferous about the dangers of religion as the opiate of the masses. In fact everyone joined us for our quiet
start to the day and that, together with the hard physical labour of getting in
the rye harvest with a minimum of machinery, brought us together, while our
discussions often tore us apart.
Of course we have to ask ourselves what’s going on in the silence? We are advised to go with heart and mind
prepared , to gather ourselves and seek the still centre, then wait attentively
and leave the rest to God. And at the
end? Well that is the beginning. We are
not breaking contact with God. As
William Penn said in 1682 True godliness
don’t turn men out of the world but enables them to live better in it and
excites their endeavours to mend it. When
worship ends, service begins.
Quaker Faith and Practice: The
Book of Christian Discipline of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in
Britain
Quaker Women’s Group: Bringing the
Invisible into the Light
John Punshon: A Portrait in Grey
Helen
Steven: No Extraordinary Power
Alex
Wildwood: A Faith to Call Our Own
This talk was
given to Churches Together in Headington in Lent 2007