Casting Out Demons

“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.”

-Ephesians 1:17-19 (NRSV)

This morning, I attended Friends Meeting of Washington, and felt very blessed to be among that congregation. There were three messages this morning. The first came from a younger Friend, who spoke of an old friend who recently committed suicide. He described how his friend, by all appearances, had everything going for him in life. He also described how, having learned of his friend’s suicide, it colored his weekend with hues of beauty – in everything, he remembered his friend and was struck by how precious life is.

The second message of the morning came through me. When I had sat down for meeting for worship, I opened my Bible to the book of Ephesians and read the first chapter. This reading spoke very powerfully to my heart, but I was by no means led to give a message – and certainly not just a few minutes into worship! However, after the first Friend gave his message, my mind was forcefully drawn back to that reading. I picked up my Bible, which was lying next to me, and turned back to the passage, and I began to feel led to speak. I soon rose and read from Ephesians 1:17-19.

The last message, delivered after mine, was about the importance of wrestling with the problems that others have that are not under their control, such as mental illness. He spoke of how Jesus calls us to seek out “that of God” in all people and not be limited by our fear of the mentally ill. I did not immediately understand the connection between his message and my own. After weighing his ministry for a very long time, however, I got the sense that our messages expressed Truth from two different perspectives.

The thrust, I felt, of my message was that we are called into hope and glory by Jesus Christ, and that in trusting in Christ and seeking Christ’s Way, we are led into the inheritance of hope, power, glory, and love, that takes away the occasion for suicide. In my experience, suicide is often the response to a radical sense of meaninglessness. My message this morning was about how Christ calls us to be the recipients and servants of immeasurable greatness and power. If we dare to trust in the Spirit of the living God, to be broken open and penetrated, to live in that intimate, soul-forging relationship with God, we can discover the immeasurable greatness and purpose that we are inheritors of, in Christ.

I felt like the Friend who rose after me was speaking to the systemic nature of sin and slavery to self. It seemed to me that a big part of his story – about his loving response to a woman from his meeting, who was mentally ill and standing in front of his workplace shouting obscenities – was about our duty as Friends to extend our hands in an attempt to show others a way out of their misery.

I see that, in this sense, we are called by our Lord to cast out demons. There are forces of evil that have overcome our fellow beings, and we are empowered in Christ to exorcize these demons, to create a space where our brothers and sisters can step out of their enslavement to sin and begin to see glimpses of the Kingdom of Heaven. We, children of the promise, we, children of the Light of the Day Star, are empowered by that Life and Power that we have encountered in our hearts and in the Body of Christ to shine light into darkness.

For we are all called into completeness in the Life of Christ, but we cannot make it alone. Perhaps there really is no salvation apart from the Church. Salvation as a lone individual is, perhaps, a flawed idea, out of touch with our dependence upon our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are called to know this hope together. We are inheritors of the promise God made to Abraham, not as individuals, but as a people.

So, I see that the two messages that followed the first fit together as one piece. The young man who committed suicide is a reminder, on the one hand, of the depths of despair that are possible when we cut ourselves off from the love and grace of God. On the other hand, it is a reminder to us, the Church, of our responsibility to be a light shining in the darkness, illuminating the Way out of death and despair. Are we living up to our calling as members of the Body of Christ to be living reflections of the glory of our Lord? To extend ourselves to those who wallow in despair and meaninglessness? To witness to the Life and Power of God, not only in words, not only in works, but in our very being?

Revival in Barnesville

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,

‘For your sake we are being killed

all day long;

we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

-Romans 8:35-39 (NRSV)

This weekend, I had the honor of attending a weekend at the Young Friends of North America (YFNA) reunion, in Barnesville, Ohio, where several dozen Friends gathered to remember their experiences as young adult Friends as a part of the YFNA, as well as to look toward a future revitalization of the North American young Friends movement. This gathering, as of this writing, is still taking place, and will be continuing until the end of the week. I speak to my experience of what I took part in between Friday evening and early Sunday afternoon. During the weekend, there were two primary focuses that were programmed into the gathering: Celebration of the past YFNA movement, and a chance for current young adult Friends to meet together and discern the will of the Spirit for us as Quaker youth. It was in this context that the Risen Christ created space for the power of the Holy Spirit to be felt amongst us and to guide our gathering to dare to speak aloud our greatest hope and to be broken open to our tenderest wounds. In addition to the twin roles of this gathering as a place for YFNA nostalgia and discernment of way forward for North American young Friends, the Holy Spirit gave us two additional, complimentary charges this weekend: We were called into radical discipleship in the Way of Christ Jesus, and we were moved to wrestle with how the Holy Spirit is leading us into integrity in our sexuality.

On Friday evening, during our first group session, there were in attendance mostly older YFNA “alumni” as well as a dozen or so current young adult Friends. After spending a full hour and a half on introductions, the evening was moseying along primarily as an opportunity for the older folks to indulge in a fair bit of nostalgia. However, about two hours into the meeting, an older Friend from Ireland stood up. This drew our attention immediately, as everyone previously had been speaking from their seats. This Friend, thanks be to God, called us out of a secular trip down memory lane and heralded the arrival of the Holy Spirit in our midst. His message seemed really out of place in the flow of the previous conversation that Friends had been engaged in – which, in that context, seemed like a good sign that his ministry was indeed from God. Friend spoke about the growing tide of darkness in our world and our need to stand up and take seriously the implications of following Jesus, though it be unto imprisonment or death. This message, accompanied by a covering by the Holy Spirit, led the group into a half an hour of open worship, out of which more ministry was given.

On Saturday morning, we broke into small groups, and most of us used that small group time to share about our own experience as being (or having once been) both young Friends and sexual beings. How does God call us to live our sexuality? What romantic and sexual practice leads to more abundant life and which ways of living lead to death? Many Friends felt that they and others had not received the guidance, support, care, and discipline that they needed from their community, which led to much suffering in many cases. While we certainly did not come to unity on any particular vision for Quaker sexuality, there was general feeling that the serious consideration of a “Christian sexual ethics for the 21^st century” would be a positive step forward in strengthening our community.

By the end of the weekend, one Friend felt strongly enough about the past mistakes of her own young Friends community that she felt led to write a minute apologizing for the hurt that the unfaithful sexuality of some Friends caused in her generation. While the larger group was not in unity to approve the minute as a corporate statement, the fact that such a document was written by an individual and presented to the group is an indication of the seriousness with which Friends are taking the question of sexual ethics. I was very pleased to see this kind of serious engagement of sexuality on the part of Friends in Barnesville this weekend. If all Friends were opening themselves up to the admonishing and healing power of the Light as Friends were this weekend in Barnesville, our religious society would be far closer to living the kingdom-life in our romantic relationships.

I must admit that the aspect of this gathering that most surprised me was the amount of Christian language that I heard from so many Friends, accompanied by a deep Quaker understanding of the centrality of the Risen Christ in our midst. At the risk of unfairly maligning some of my brothers and sisters: I did not expect this from liberal-unprogrammed Friends. I know that a small gathering cannot speak for an entire branch of Quakerism, but I must say that the liberal-unprogrammed branch does indeed have its fair share of grounded, weighty – and Christian – Friends! I do think, however, that the Spirit had to make some moves, so to speak, before that reality was able to come to the surface. Two Friends in particular, as I recall, were instrumental in creating a safe space for overtly Christian language – and, in that space, a fellowship blossomed that felt far closer to the radical, Spirit-led Christianity of early Friends than I ever expected to find. I give praise to God for that.

I also praise God for the opportunity that I was given this weekend to experience more deeply the reality that I am not a lone individual, nor even a member solely of my own generation. I am an extension of my parents, and they are an extension of me; my generation is an extension of past generations, and they are extensions of us. When one of us lives in that Life and Power, it affects us all. When one generation sins, it affects all generations. We are not individuals. I am thee, Friend, and thee is me. Our faithfulness or lack thereof resonates between us, yes, throughout the entire Church. We are not individuals, not even family. No, we are something different, something more. We are the Body of Christ. We are the Children of the Light.

We’d Better Get Clear

I spent most of this past weekend with young adult Friends from Baltimore Yearly Meeting and also had the privilege to attend a Quarterly Meeting within Baltimore YM, where Silvia Graves, the General Secretary of Friends United Meeting, spoke. The conversations with young adult Friends before that meeting, the conversations with older Friends at the QM and more conversations with young adult Friends later on today often returned to the question of FUM, and, implicitly, its current institutional stance on homosexuality.

Saturday evening, other young adult Friends and I attended a gay pride
parade near my home in Washington, DC, and I experienced
what I felt was an opening from the Lord. Watching the parade, I saw several local Christian groups - Episcopals, Seventh Day Adventists, Unitarian Universalists, and others - going along in the procession. Sitting there, I felt a movement of the Spirit, and as I bowed interiorly, I was struck - again and again and again - with a two-second soundbite from Deborah Saunder's first sermon at the World Gathering of Young Friends. She had been mocking us young Friends for being so unfocused in our faith journey, and she suddenly became deathly serious: "You'd better get clear," she warned us. This memory, this soundbite of Deborah Saunders saying, "you'd better get clear," repeated in my mind as if fired by an automatic weapon.

You’d better get clear.

Accompanying this message was a great sense of compassion for all of the people I saw before me at this parade, reveling in their sexuality and identity as legitimate human beings. I was struck with the sense that the Church was losing these people. At the recent FUM board meeting in Kenya, as Friends were engaged in debate as to whether or not to re-affirm the Richmond Declaration of Faith, a Kenyan Friend reportedly admonished the board members, saying, "my people are perishing while you squabble." This is no less true in North America than it is in Africa.

While we, the Church, bicker about the very existence of homosexuality, we fail to address the terrible brokenness and unfaithfulness that so many of us find ourselves caught up in with regards to our own sexuality. While we squabble, many Friends deny homosexuals the covenant of marriage. While we scream back and forth about how right or wrong homosexuality is, we seem to be ignoring the lack of integrity with which we carry out our heterosexual liaisons. While we bicker about whether or not to "accept" homosexuality, we avoid doing the important work of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to those whose sexual orientation is not our own, yet who want to live the fullness of the Christian life.

We’d better get clear.

I am increasingly aware of how the question of homosexuality in the Church is allowing Friends to ignore so many other more substantive questions that face us as a community. It is a lot easier to focus on nailing down points of doctrine – be it liberal or orthodox doctrine – than it is to take a real look at whether we ourselves are glorifying God with our sexuality. Are we all, hetero- or homosexual, living out our God-given sexuality with integrity and submission to the yoke of Christ? Are we all, gay or straight, engaged in wholesome, committed, honest relationships with others? Do Friends respect the sanctity of the God-given bond of marriage? Perhaps once we get the log out of our own eye, we might see where the root of our struggles as a Church lies.

We’d better get clear.