BIBLE: GENERAL

411. Plow up the Fallow Ground: A Meditation in the Company of Early Friends (by Lu Harper; 2011)
About the Author—Lu Harper is member of Rochester Friends Meeting in New York and works as an art museum librarian. She serves as an elder for Friends traveling in the ministry, and is interested in understanding [the relationship and functions of ministers and elders]. The meditation on which this essay was based was developed out of a Bible study given at New York YM’s Spring Gathering in May 2009.
[Introduction]—For many years now, I've been under the weight of a message that came in meeting for worship that couldn’t be ignored. As a liberal, universalist Friend, I was challenged to give the Bible the same weight as other sacred traditions. Spirit will speak to us in language we can hear, will lead us in a way fruitful to our condition. I want access to the direct experience of Spirit early Friends describe. Densely biblical language of early Friends may be a barrier to our hearing & understanding this invitation to hear the Spirit inwardly.
In 16th & 17th century England, discourse was filled with Biblical language, “the unique source of divine wisdom on all subjects.” Many of us have left the Bible behind, a reaction against misused scriptural authority. When we translate biblical metaphors into our experience’s inward language, scripture resonates, empowering & enlightening us. George Fox was known for “opening” the Bible, for making its meaning accessible. Fox describes it as sitting down “in him who is the author” so they can be “read & understood with profit & delight.”
[The following passage from George Fox alludes to several biblical passages from Jeremiah, Hosea, Matthew, John, & 1 Corinthians]: “Plough up the fallow ground. Thresh & get out the corn; that the seed may be gathered into the barn; that to the beginning all may come; to Christ … None are ploughed up but he who comes to the principle of God in him, that he hath transgressed.” I will examine how early Friends used biblical metaphors in writing about their own condition; I will share my own reflections on holding these images & metaphors inwardly. Consider the queries as an invitation for you to test how reading the Bible in the Spirit works for you.
Ways in—Inward knowing is one of the most important & revolutionary understandings of early Friends. George Fox wrote: “I was to direct people to the spirit that gave the scriptures, by which they might be led to truth, & so up to Christ & God, who had given them forth.” Fox advocated reading the scriptures inwardly, sit-ting with the imagery of biblical passages, waiting for openings, & applying the insights to one’s own spiritual condition. George Fox invited Baptists to experience Isaiah 40:3-4 inwardly: “I asked them is their mountain of sin brought down, & laid low in them, & their rough & crooked ways made smooth & straight in them?” Fox is asking the group whether they have undergone transformation that inwardly prepares the way for the Lord to be at work. He takes the “outward” language of scriptures & applies the metaphors and parables inwardly. For Fox, the metaphors of the Bible connected to daily life & spoke inwardly of spiritual experience. It is one of the ways we receive the deep knowings that Fox called “openings.” As without, so within, our spiritual condition, light & dark, will speak to others. [I seek to live that my being, my condition answers that of God in others].
Into the Worship of God—Fox calls us to “bring all into the worship of God.” What or where is worship of God? How do we enter into it? It must have been important to describe or name the experience. There is a sense of exhilaration in the language of early Friends. They jumped from one metaphor or biblical reference to another with abrupt transitions or none, as if they had a hard time keeping up with their experience’s intensity.
John Dominic Crossan suggests: “a metaphor … [with] a new vision of world gives … no information until the hearer has entered it & experienced it from inside itself.” If we can hold the words of scripture more playfully or poetically, we may connect [better] to the experience without boxing the words & ourselves into “one true meaning.” Reading Bible “inwardly” is a way to open ourselves to the teachable moment where Spirit engages us through the text. The stories provided imagery to ground seekers & may serve as a focus for going deeper.
The Fallow Ground/ The Vineyard and the Wilderness—What and where is our fallow ground? [Fox draws on Leviticus 25 for the most familiar references to fallow ground]. In a cycle of rest and renewal, we let ground lie fallow in order to recover its fertility. Sabbath rest is for a season only; [too much rest turns fertile land into wilderness; too little rest causes barrenness, a desert].
The prophets offer many examples of God turning a thriving city or fertile field into wilderness [& the reverse]. Fox says: “It is the great love of God, to make a wilderness of that which is pleasant to the outward eye & fleshly mind; and to make a fruitful field of a barren wilderness [for the inward eye]. The prophets Hosea and Jeremiah open up the image of the field or vineyard by inviting us to plow up the fallow ground in our hearts, to turn back to the worship of God (e.g. Hosea 10:12; Jeremiah 4:3-4). When we take passages like these inwardly, we may be able to hear them as descriptive of our condition rather than examples of an all-powerful God.
Queries—When have I experienced the Spirit bubbling up within? What does the worship [space] of God feel like inwardly? When have I or my community trusted God in a deeply counterintuitive, or countercultural way? Whose land is the spiritual field in which I work? What have I been ignoring that I need to pay attention to, in order to reclaim [“the wilderness within”]? What needs to be done to restore fertility, keep it in balance, in connection to Spirit? What is my desert, my wilderness? What is my garden or vineyard? Have I experienced transformation from desert to garden; garden to desert? What was that like? How has my heart been hardened, become full of thorns & briers? How have I been unjust; unmerciful?
The Parable of the Sower/ Being Plowed Up—The parable of the sower invites us to enter further into these metaphors. [See Matthew 13:3-9]. Sit a minute with [the image of the sower]. In the synoptic gospel, no one explains why the sower sows on all these types of ground in the 1st place. Spirit can speak to us in the desert or wilderness as well as in the fertile field or garden. [Thus], the sower sows in all grounds specifically in order to speak to us in whatever condition we find ourselves. Fox said: “All must 1st know the voice crying in the wilderness in their hearts, which through transgression were become as a wilderness.”
Fox wrote: “I exhorted them to read these things within in their own natures, as well as without … The fallow ground of their hearts must be ploughed up before they could bear seed to God.” Such an agricultural metaphor would be easily understood by Fox’s contemporaries. Miles Halhead [dealt] all his life with seeds buried in the ground. When he heard [the sermon referred to in the above quote], Miles’ own past experience as a husbandman bore witness to this doctrine's truth. Plowing up fallow ground opens our hearts. When we are plowed up, we understand ways in which we have transgressed. This is the early Friends’ experience of being convinced.
Plowing breaks up fallow ground which weighs us down, which must be broken up & improved before seeds can be planted or can grow & push the new shoots through the soil. Fox uses the image of the seed burdened by “thick, cloddy earth of hypocrisy & falseness atop, & a briery, brambly nature, which is burned up with God’s word & ploughed with his spiritual plough, before God’s seed brings forth heavenly, spiritual fruit to his glory. When the Light shows us how we have fallen short, the experience cracks us, [plows us] open, shakes us, breaks through the defenses of ego, shows us ourselves in [an undeniable] way, softens our hearts. When we are plowed up, we come to beginning, “to Christ”; then Spirit will enable transformation.
Fields and Hedges, the Sower and the Seed—In the 17th century, when outward hedges were increasingly used to enclose, and separate the haves from the have-nots, the hedge metaphor would have been alive to Fox’s hearers. Fox writes: “Christ … plants his hedge about his plants, just as the outward seeds-man sows his seed and makes his fence around it. Christ Jesus sows his seed in ground … in the heart of all who know this heavenly seeds-man … Look within, there is the power that keeps the seed! Now look within: fields and hedges, and see how God’s blade and seed do spring up after his [heavenly] rain.” This inward hedge protects the Seed and also holds the space for the Spirit’s inward work of transformation.
What kind of seed does Christ sow? Robert Barclay writes: “Though this Seed be small in appearance … and be hid in the earthly part of man’s heart; yet therein is life and salvation towards the sons of men wrapped up, which comes to be revealed as they give way to it.” The inward garden represents the activity of the Spirit within. The inward Christ as plower plows up our fallow ground; as sower, he plants the seed, the kingdom of heaven within our hearts. All this activity takes place within a hedge of the power of God.
The Parable of the Weeds [Matthew 13:24-25]—What is it that keeps us from hearing and attending to Spirit, that encourages us to ignore the Spirit’s promptings in our hearts, to be deaf to the inner voice? We willfully give ourselves over to sleep, to blindness, rather than staying awake in Spirit. [Or we may, as Isaac Penington says: “Pick up and steal away the good seed out of the heart, and to steal in a false image and likeness thereof, which may have a more glorious appearance to man’s eye than the true seed itself … The evil seed may be brought to death in him … but if there be not a praying and watching to the preserver of Israel … the enemy will be sowing to the flesh again; he will be getting some of his corrupt seeds into the heart again.” Our job is to be awake, to be present to Spirit, [to not allow tares to be sown by the “seeds-man of the flesh,” who sows] “strife, back-bitings, whisperings, idleness, etc. These seeds grow with wild energy and “feed one another with that which burdens th e seed, and quenches the spirit, love, and unity.
Queries—What sort of ground is in my heart? Where is the good soil, the stony places, the briery places? What sort of ground is my heart? Where is the good soil, the stony places, the briery places? Have I experienced growth through the Spirit's work within? What happens when that fallow field in heart is plowed up? What in me burdens the Seed? What is my hardened ground? What does my inward garden look like? Are there hedges protecting it? Are they fluid and permeable, a porous hedge of spiritual power? Is there anything I am holding as a barrier that could be let go into Spirit? What is the condition of my inward garden? What is my work among any dry, hungry bramble-choked seeds? Have I experienced seeds of the kingdom growing within? How will I nourish the Seed? [Of the multiple seeds growing in my inward garden], which ones nourish my life & which ones burden it?
The Wheat and the Tares/ Separating the Wheat from the Chaff—Matthew 13:30 tells us to wait before pulling up the weeds. Our instinct tells us to root out the “bad seed.” Inwardly, are we really capable of changing our negative behaviors through our own power? What is called for here is healing and transformation. This is an ongoing process, as we are given the measure of Light to see.
Literally, the chaff is come up/on top of or over the wheat. It covers the germ and needs to be removed to get at the nutrients. Similarly we can cover up the Seed by our willful behaviors. How do we understand transgression? After the transforming power of the Light shows us what they are, we can be led out of transgression, out of behaviors that are not healthy or helpful for us or others. Fox explains: “Go, wait upon God in that which is pure, in your measure, and stand still in it every one, to see your savior, to make you free from that which the light doth discover to you to be evil.”
On Judgment/ The Sabbath Rest—The action [of chaff being burned] is usually understood to be happening in the end times. Yet, if the teachable moment is now, perhaps we need to look inside & wait upon the in-ward Christ to work in us, to teach us discernment, to teach us to separate the wheat from the chaff, to help us burn up inward chaff [& weeds]. [Perhaps we should see] this metaphor as about how healing & transformation can open us to the inward teaching of the Spirit. The parable teaches us that it isn’t our job to separate, but to wait, to hold the differences in dynamic tension, waiting for the harvest, the “3rd way” of resolution.
The sleep in the Parable of the Weeds is indifference or willfulness & produces weeds. The Sabbath rest is an attitude of hope, trust, & belief, & produces good works & good fruit. Getting through spiritual night isn’t easy. Elizabeth Hudson wrote: “It pleased the Lord to hold me for a time in a wrestling frame of spirit without suffering me to prevail until his day dawned on my soul & his day star rose in my heart.” Have we been in darkness enough? When we are in God’s spiritual daytime, we are ready to work in the vineyard.
Working in the Vineyard/ Reading the Bible in the Spirit—What is our work in the garden? In Jesus’ parables when a man finds a treasure in a field, they sell all for the treasure. Not everyone has the same work in the vineyard. At different points in our lives, we have different work to do. Our challenge is the conversion of manners, the ongoing integration of spiritual insights into the measure of our daily life, to continue to work in the vineyard, in the power, & not to rely on one spiritual experience as saving.
Fox writes: “And all come into the vineyard of God to labor, in the light which was before darkness was, and with the life which was before death and his power was; and in the truth and power of God, which the devil is out of, that every one of you may have your penny … And how they have labored in the vineyard, that they may have their penny, some are breakers of clods, some are weeders, some are cutting brambles and bushes [and many more labors] … looking to the Lord for their wages, their heavenly penny of life from the Lord of life … So none are to quench the spirit, nor to despise prophecy, lest ye limit the Holy One; and every one is to minister as he hath received the grace, which hath appeared to all men, which brings salvation … that by the light, and truth, and spirit and power God may have the glory.”
It has been my experience that reading the Bible in the Spirit, alongside of early Friends’ writing, opens me to letting spirit speak to me through the biblical text. When we connect with scripture as it speaks inwardly to us, we experience it live—confronting us, healing us, opening us to ongoing transformation. It is one of the gifts of our Quaker tradition, as are early Friends’ writing. Together they call us into engagement with the sacred.
Queries—How do we nurture one another’s spiritual growth? How do we support each other & hold one another accountable? Do we trust in the light’s power to bring transformation & reconciliation? Am I wrestling with the angel? Am I waiting for the light? Do I know the day’s energizing power springing up? What is my experience of being given ministry of speech or action? Have I received my heavenly penny? Am I still holding onto something that quenches the spirit, & thereby not purchasing the field? Where do you see yourself in the work of the garden image? Where do you see your meeting in the garden image? Where is Spirit quenched & the Seed oppressed? Where are growing places? Where is the life & power?

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74b. A Quaker Approach to the Bible (by Henry Cadbury; 1953)
[About the Author]—Henry Joel Cadbury (1883 –1974) was an American biblical scholar, Quaker historian, writer, and non-profit administrator. He was chairman of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which he helped found, from 1928–1934 and 1944–1960. His contributions to modern Biblical studies are widely recognized, [and he contributed to the New Testament translation of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible]. He had an active concern for what he once called "the social translation of the Gospel."
[Early Quaker Views on the Bible]—Whatever viewpoint is characteristic of Friends, whether ancient or modern, it is actually widely shared [outside of Friends]. Geoffrey F. Nuttall arranges 17th century English religious thought so as to show how Quakerism has much in common with Puritans but stands at the extreme edge of a spectrum. In so far as Quakerism has emphasized the contemporary presence of the Holy Spirit, God and the Light of Christ, all outward and traditional media of religion appear to suffer some eclipse. Emphasis on the past seemed to Friends to weaken attention to the present. It was important to realize the experience in one-self today rather than to recognize its validity in the past. George Fox said: "O no, it is not the Scriptures ... [but] the Holy Spirit by which the holy men of God gave forth the Scriptures [that] opinions, religions and judgments were to be tried. Margaret Fell's reaction was "We are all thieves, we have taken the Scriptures in words, and know nothing of them in ourselves." Early Friends were suspected of Bible-burning.
In that day, and in our day more than ever a Bible-centered theology loves to use the term "Word of God." The rule Quakers claimed instead of Scripture, the experience of present guidance, seemed to others blasphemous, too subjective, untrustworthy and lacking in uniformity and precision. Friends gave precedence to the source of inner guidance, 1st in the individual and then in the important check of the concurrence of the group of Friends. The Scriptures were for Fox a confirmation rather than a source of truth.
One might expect neglect or even hostility [toward the Bible]. Friends haven't infrequently respected & used the Bible as much as did their contemporaries. No matter what reasoned or unconscious basis our Quaker pacifism has today, our predecessors, both Quaker & before, found sanction enough in the New Testament & the Old. Friends made a considerable & selective use of the Bible, like other people. Where their environment was less Biblical than in 17th century England they changed their behavior, even quoting from the Koran to the Great Turk. It seems shocking to some people no doubt that in our unprogrammed worship the Bible isn't in evidence, not read from or quoted. [In the family, this situation existed as far back as 1837, according to Joseph J. Gurney].
Friends often thought of their opponents that they were the ones that neglected the Bible. Friends complained against taking the words of Scripture without knowing the experience first hand as stealing. Friends are today only too aware of the ease with which verbal or mental acceptance can exist side by side with actual ignorance or practical rejection. They see the futility of attempting to make profit of others' authority. William C. Braithwaite has written: "Men substitute tradition for the living experience of the love of God. They talk and think as though walking with God was attained by walking in the footsteps of men who walked with God."
William Penn said: "Blessed are they, who reading them, truly understand Scripture and live according to them." Understanding occurs only so far as one is oneself in "the Spirit which gave them forth." Knowledge of the Bible didn't of itself equip men for God's service. James Naylor writes: "[The] unlearned men, fishermen, ploughmen, and herdsmen [who] spoke forth the Scriptures were counted fools and madmen by [their] learned generation ... The scripture is a book sealed to all our learned men's wisdom and learning." Early Friends and those today who are parents have encouraged both a simple and a more advanced study in the Biblical field.
Holding that God's revelation wasn't limited to Scripture, early Friends weren't impressed by the Bible canon's arbitrary limits. Divine revelation neither began with Moses nor ended with Apostles. R. Barclay writes: "The great work of Scripture ... is that we may witness them fulfilled in us, & so discern the stamp of God's Spirit & ways upon them by the inward acquaintance we have with the same Spirit & work in our hearts." The Bible isn't dictator of conduct & faith, but rather record of persons who exemplified faith & virtue. What is true in the Bible is there because it's true, not true because it's there. It brings answers to questions we aren't directly asking.
[The Best Approach]—At best the Bible is a difficult book, often confusing, ill-edited, & obscure. To have the Bible appropriate us, is far more exacting & rewarding than other ways of Bible usage. It is more important to know how God reveals than what God reveals, & to understand how Jesus thought than what he thought, if we want to [experience God's revelation, not just someone else's expression], & if we wish to learn to think for ourselves as Jesus did. To fail to make this approach is to be satisfied with 2nd best. Taken as a whole, the Bible offers more than 1,000 years of perspective on a religion in time, growing & changing, with a variety of religious experience, not the kind of straitjacket that most churches, even Friends, have been tempted to substitute for the Bible's diversity. It requires patient insight into the unfamiliar, & provides a discipline for the imagination.
The sobering things are that it is not on the whole a book of peace of mind, and that in nearly every case the people shown by the Bible to be wrong had every reason to think they were in the right, and like us they did think so. Complacent orthodoxy is the recurrent villain and the hero is the challenger, like Job, the prophets, Jesus, and Paul. How do we recall our generation to a Bible literacy that is more than superficial verbal knowledge? The approach I discuss here is translation, not from Greek to English, but from language to life, from words to flesh. Such results from the Bible come unconsciously rather than specifically sought, and they recognize rather than exclude the other media of divine revelation. h t tp://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
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282. Batter My Heart (by Gracia Fay Ellwood; 1988)
About the Author—Gracia Bouwman Ellwood was born into a devout Dutch Calvinist family in Washington. Having experienced from an early age the confusing effects of a conception of God both life-giving and life-destructive, she has long desired understanding, the healing of hurts, and union with God. She and her family joined Friends in the early 1980s. The present essay has its origin in pain. [It will cause pain] as it seeks to do surgery [on an old Biblical view]. Ultimately it is good news, of recovery and liberation. Gracia has written many books and articles and teaches Religious Studies at California State University at Long Beach.

[Excerpt from “Batter my Heart” by John Donne] Batter my heart, 3-person’d God/ . . . and bend your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new./ Except you enthrall mee, never shall [I] be free,/ nor ever chast, except you ravish me.
The image of the outraged divine patriarch is unacceptable because it encourages tendencies to violence in human husbands/fathers. [There is a] complex pattern of mutual creation between human mind that projects God in its own image and the figure of God which takes on a life of his own and becomes a model that shapes its own shapers. Gracia Fay Ellwood
[Introduction]—All who read the Bible as Holy Scriptures are selective in their use of it, but Friends are more self-consciously so than most. [Since the final authority is the Light within], Friends find it comparatively easy to learn from the Bible’s wealth without struggling with “difficult” passages that affirm violence. An important source of the evils of hierarchy, oppression and violence is the Bible, the very source that has often in-spired its readers to oppose them. The Bible has done much to shape Western culture as a whole. Its effect has been ambivalent, tending to put out the fires of violence and oppression by day while relighting them by night.
[“Jealous God”]—The divine name Yahweh (YHWH) [has sometimes been interpreted as “jealous,” and] has usually been rendered “the LORD” in our familiar Bibles. The term is appropriate to the overall picture of Yahweh presented in the Hebrew scriptures. [While] there are divine traits traditionally associated with femaleness, and gender-neutral images, in most instances Yahweh is a patriarchal being, and the revelation of his will to Israel is man-centered with women being auxiliary to his purposes.
In form the 10 Commandments are modeled upon the suzerainty treaty, a treaty imposed on subject people. The erotic image or dimension may reasonably be seen as implicit; it becomes explicit in the symbolism of the prophet Hosea. It is very likely in reaction to a sexual relationship between Canaanite deities that Hosea and the prophets after him developed instead a Sacred Marriage between Yahweh and Israel. The relationship is turbulent, with times of happy union and times of alienation. The extended image of Yahweh as husband—[first sending an oppressor after being enraged at betrayal, then sending a judge/champion to rescue them]—fits disquietingly well into the syndrome of battering husband and battered wife.
[Yahweh/ Battering Husbands and Battered Wives]—Yahweh, as a masculine Deity who shows possessiveness, domination and violence, was necessarily made in the image of his patriarchal worshipers. Israel, as wife, is the personified recipient of ambivalent feelings of desire for and revulsion against that seem to characterize patriarchal males everywhere. Here I am referring to one-sided battering with most of the physical and psychological power being in the husband’s hands.
The key trait of the battering relationship is inequality, a shared presumption of the husband’s dominance. The wife finds her raison d’étre in the marriage and is responsible for its success; any unhappiness means that she failed. [Yahweh would be comparable to the] husbands that never give a flickering indication that they ever do wrong. The 2 sides of charmer and beater alternate in a 3-stage cycle: tensions builds with minor violence; loss of control and violent physical assault; fury is exhausted, reparations are made. Some batterers do not have a 3rd stage. [In the Bible,] there is restored intimacy after she [Israel] rather than he acknowledges wrongdoing, while Yahweh feels upwellings of warmth, tenderness, [and longing to be reunited].
[Divine Jealousy]—After Israel is accused by the prophets of disobedience to her lord, violent retaliation is threatened, including sadistic tortures. The period of reconciliation follows, including extravagant promises. Overwhelming jealousy and possessiveness characterize most batterers. It starts as “loving attention and devotion”; only later does it begin to suffocate. Batterers will be jealous of male friends, acquaintances, even female friends. The batterer accuses his wife of being ready to have an affair with every man she encounters.
Not all instances of Yahweh’s jealousy fit the batterer image. There is evidence that in the erotic metaphor’s content, Yahweh’s jealousy is of an irrational sort. Usually battered wives describe themselves as innocent. In the Bible there are confessions of guilt (Lam. 1:18-19), & protestations of innocence (Psalm 44: 11, 17, 20). [Punishing,] violent attacks of Assyria & Babylon fell upon Baal-worshipper alike. The situation is too complex for the metaphor to fit satisfactorily, for we haven’t a single woman, but a people, some “guilty,” some “innocent.”
[Forms of Abuse and Sexual Assault]—The abuse which the battering husband inflicts takes several forms in addition to physical attack: economic deprivation; social isolation; sexual assault. The husband is usually the chief breadwinner; even if she has her own income, he will control it so that she is in the position of supplicant. The economic relationship between Yahweh as husband and Israel as wife falls into this extreme category. The husband insists on the right to pass on his wife’s friends. Knowing he is capable of violence toward her friends, the wife will loosen her ties with them in order to protect them. When these maneuvers have their full effect, she is overcome by feelings of helplessness, having become his captive. Captivity is a very prominent factor in Yahweh’s relationship to Israel; Yahweh incites others to imprison her.
Battered women are often told that they are being sexually provocative to other men. Unusual, “kinky” practices are often forced upon her; she often does not know from one time to the next whether sexual relations will be pleasurable or a dreadful ordeal. Yahweh punishes Israel by means of rape in a series of grim passages. [Threats of stripping her naked and of gang rape appear in several passages].
[Child Abuse/Sexual Attitude]—Some men who batter their wives also abuse their children, [anywhere from ⅓ to slightly over ½]. The extended image of adultery and wife-battering in Hosea very early includes the children, who are initially rejected because the husband (Hosea, symbolizing Yahweh) believes they are not his. [The children of Samaria mentioned in Hosea 13:16] are not symbols only but real human beings, victims of Yahweh’s violence against Samaria as their mother. This horror is presented as justice. What of Gomer, Hosea’s wife? Did she actually commit adultery? Was she happy to be pursued and reclaimed by a man who was tenderly loving one day and talking gang-rape and evisceration another? Ezekiel also includes child battering in his imagery of wife-abuse, as Yahweh incites the rapists to kill their children. Clearly the issue is that the children are his property, and he kills them to increase the torture to their mother.
The battering husband is deeply ambivalent about female sexuality. He desires intimacy with her, [not the vulnerability that goes with it.] He reacts to her like a toddler to his very powerful mother. It is difficult for him to see how dangerous his tantrums have become. There are texts that show that Yahweh as husband isn’t only enraged with Israel because of her actions but harbors hostility toward her femaleness. Defilement was mortally dangerous, a quasi-physical contagion. For many ancients this was equally true of murder’s shed blood & the menstrual or postpartum woman’s blood. [In many biblical passages, it is clear that something essential to female sexuality is part of what needs to be “cleansed” & done away with in order to assuage the divine batterer’s fury.
[Interpreting the Prophetic Metaphor]—Some may hesitate to accept the language of battering to describe Yahweh’s violent judgment, implying as it does that the divine “husband” is a destructive, pathologically disturbed individual and the human “wife” an innocent victim, because it seems to do away with the reality of human guilt. [We are actually] applying the prophetic critique to the prophets themselves. Feminists will see marital possessiveness as a dehumanizing outgrowth of patriarchy, while mystics in many traditions will call any form of possessiveness a deluded attempt to put the finite for the Infinite.
Few would deny that abusing the poor [calls for outrage]. What is unacceptable & abhorrent is imaging these social evils as the rebellious child’s or insubordinate wife’s acts, justly incurring the husband’s & father’s violence. The prophets have turned the natural image upside down when they metaphorically blame 2 oppressed classes. Because they supplied images of wrathful God & sinful Israel before the event, because they gave a meaningful explanation, they made endurable the unendurable; the images kept Israel & its concept of God alive.
But the poor fit of these and similar images was suspected early. This awareness was reflected in the book of Job and verses like Genesis 18:25. Finally and most crucially, the image of the outraged divine patriarch is unacceptable because it encourages tendencies to violence in human husbands/fathers. Peter Berger and Sallie McFague have shown the complex pattern of mutual creation between human mind that projects God in its own image and the figure of God which takes on a life of his own and becomes a model that shapes its own shapers.
[Wisdom as Female]—We should note that in the book Proverbs and the apocryphal wisdom literature there is a reversal of the unbalanced erotic image: a dominant female figure, Wisdom [with her] shadow side, the Loose Woman, an evil seductress who draws unwary males down to Sheol. Since Proverbs and Sirach recommend rods and whips for children and slaves, God as Lady is no more trustworthy a liberator than God as Lord. The sacred Marriage appears explicitly as the union of Christ and Christian (i.e. Church) and as the Lamb and the Holy City in Revelation. Paul [hearkens back to the images of “divine jealousy,” patriarchal marriage, and lustful wives. [In Paul’s world of Greek culture, there is still the powerful patriarch, ruling with absolute authority over wife, children, and slaves]. The basic model in the epistles is that of the celestial husband who [takes his] polluted bride, redeems and cleanses her and accepts her in marriage.
Revelation has nothing good to say about any flesh-and-blood woman. One notable thing about the 144,000 men who were redeemed from the earth, is that they “were not defiled with women; for they are virgins.” [On the other hand] we have a glorious archetypal Woman adorned with sun and stars who gives birth to a male child destined to rule the nations. There is another, the Whore, who is the victim of violence from God. From Wisdom Literature, we have the Madonna/Whore figure split between 2 figures, the Bride and the Harlot.
The Harlot, representing Rome, is a highly sexualized figure. [She is brutally slain] in a gruesome scene of gang-rape, torture & murder; her companions in fornication are not punished. The Bride is not only without perceptible sexuality but is barely imaged at all. It is likewise hard to visualize the bridegroom, who presented as a lamb. [As the Bride & Harlot were split into separate figures], the Lamb & the Conqueror become separate. Even though we have the mildest of bridegrooms marrying the purest of brides, the impact of the images once more gives divine sanction to the patriarch’s benevolent/violent ambivalence toward the female. The choice of imagery for evil and for the righting of wrongs encourages fear of and violence toward women, especially the prostitute.
[Quaker Approach to Biblical Themes]—[The violent, abusive imagery so far surveyed] stands condemned by Friends’ testimonies, which arise from the Light Within & the conviction that it is borne by all. The teaching of George Fox is that the Spirit which inspired the writers of Scripture must be realized & active within us. Themes of compassion for & empowerment of the oppressed were taken up & developed by the historians, the prophets, & the psalmists, [not without oppressive imagery of women & children, but it is there, nonetheless].
Besides Exodus is the Song of Songs, the “Paradise Regained” of the Hebrew Scriptures. The equality of the lovers provides a critique of the male dominant & violent Sacred Marriage. [Freedom & not possessiveness is the hallmark of the lovers’ relationship]. He shows no revulsion or ambivalence in regards to her sexuality. [They suffer under a repressive patriarchal society], but these evils are rejected. There is little, if any, suggestion of violence. As long as the relationship remains mutual respect rather than dominant submission, the one-sided battering of the patriarchal Sacred Marriage can’t develop, & their chances for happiness are much better.
[It stands in contrast to the oppressive Sacred Marriage imagery, & yet] it also has been sacred Scripture for Jews & Christians for millennia; the divine/human union’s spiritual meanings found in it are part of its history & total significance. It shows up the disease at the roots of the other Scriptural erotic imagery, & remains a life-giving alternative model, [a much healthier model than the patriarchal model, as sociological studies show].
Historically, Friends have wisely focused on gender-neutral images of the Divine (e.g. Light, Seed, Spirit). Can we continue to use male images for God in the old manner without implicitly supporting patriarchy? Can we use any hierarchal images for God or any images of submission for humanity, without in some way fostering oppression? I see no way we can do so and remain loyal to our testimonies. [Any] images, [male or female,] of inflexible hierarchy are equally unacceptable. To use non-hierarchical male and female imagery can be a different matter, one which has its own problems. The primary one is the deep resistance people have to using explicit female imagery for God at all; it seems ridiculous, or unreal. [Giving God female “powers” is worse than a purely macho God. And a balanced, fluid switching back and forth will seem awkward, and] make many uneasy, but it is bound to stretch our consciousness and break the power of the model. We can speak to God all day long as Friend, Love, Beloved, or simply Thou—without being troubled by questions of gender.
What becomes of those persons who have derived their identity as Christians or Jews from a commitment to the Bible as sacred Scripture, yet are courageous enough to acknowledge this death-dealing theme that pervades it? The Bible need not be summarily discarded: indeed it is very unwise to try to cut ourselves off from our roots in this manner, to lose the history of our forebears who proclaimed liberty.
A breakdown of total worldview into meaninglessness is likely to happen to many if we proceed firmly toward the dethroning of that long-term idol, the Lord. Taken as a whole, Friends have been much less stunted spiritually by the idolatry of maleness than most groups and individuals in our culture. But we have not come through whole and sound, nor have we brought in the Kingdom, or rather the Peace of God into our own midst.
[Quaker Approach to Battered Women & Hierarchies]—Battered women may be among meeting attenders or members. We need to be aware of the signs, & to emphatically not dismiss or disbelieve on the grounds that her spouse/lover is mild-mannered, sensitive, or involved in humanitarian causes. Woman & children should be in a safe place before negotiations begin. Therapy should come from a professional knowledgeable about battering. The need for volunteer workers, shelters & safe houses exceeds the supply virtually everywhere.
Doing away with every vestige of mastery-submission patterns among ourselves, & opposing them in the world at large seems to be not possible [E.g.] In adult-child relations control appears necessary for a lengthy period of time. We can oppose all permanent human hierarchies of profession, class, race, & sex by refusing them submission or even recognition. We must “call no man master” on earth, & emphatically not in heaven. “No long do I call you servants ... I have called you Friends.” (John 15:15).
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BIBLE:GOSPELS

160. Behind the Gospels (by Henry J. Cadbury; 1968)
   About the Author—Emeritus Professor of Divinity of Harvard; one translator of RSV; Pendle Hill weekly lecturer—“one part Puck and two parts Quaker with vast amounts or erudition.”
   Foreword—Formgeschicte (form criticism) developed in Germany [before 1928] where gospel students realized that between the original events of Jesus’ career & the individual authors of the 4 familiar books, there had been an interim, [mainly oral] process. The short units were once uncollected & separate, used for teaching by early Christians. “Form criticism” assumes these units were best understood by analyzing literary form (e.g. parables, accounts of miracles, aphorism, etc.); a more profitable classification might be according to motive.
They were loose, collected bits. Because they were in booklets, they acquired an arbitrary or editorial sequence. We must work backwards from the completed collection to the earlier materials. We can perhaps recover with guarded optimism less inaccurate pictures of the Jesus of history and the interests of Jesus followers. The addresses combined in this pamphlet are from Studia Evangelica II (vol. 87) and Journal of Biblical Lit., vol. 83.
   Looking at the Gospels Backwards—The title addresses both the order in which the gospels present the words & deeds of Jesus and the order of the probable date of writing which distinguishes canonical gospels from later uncanonical material. The form critic K. L. Schmidt supposed that the separate units had been detached from any authentic memory of their order. Papias, an early Christian writer (about 140 A.D.), stated that Mark wrote “not in order.” The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke so often agree in selection that some sort of common written relation can hardly be denied. They are not two or three independent witnesses. The outline of closing events gives us no presumption that elsewhere the writing down of tradition had more than the slenderest basis of historic sequence to go by. The intentional cross references in the gospels suggest writers that are not so much following historic sequence as editors that are consciously looking back from sequels to antecedents.
   Imagined Evidence of Historical Sequence—Many attempts have been made to [find in] gospel order hints that the evangelists record sequences or developments in a [semblance of historical sequence]. There simply isn't enough basis to argue either for or against these imaginative reconstructions. Such hints of the arrangement of material as evangelists themselves give or unconsciously disclose are much more related to geography. I wish we could recover the original time & place of Jesus’ words & deeds; using the present sequence is hardly justifiable, as they have been detached & put together in a new sequence. If we take the sections as they stand, we can of course construct a reasonable sequence. There is much in the ministry which reads as well backwards as forwards. Any new order, [even a random one] might be no more authentic but we would be sobered by discovering that by the same kind of ingenuity the new order might appear just as intelligible and reasonable.
The Order of Origin of the Gospels—While voices are still raised to challenge the consensus of scholars, it remains probable that Mark is older than Matthew and Luke, and is a source they used, and that John is later than all three. Form criticism has rightly assumed that even prior to the written record the material experienced similar stages of selection, emphasis or change. By studying it in reverse order one can trace backward through them and even before them the course of their literary or ideological development.
What I want to propose is that late evidence now available from the non-canonical gospels suggests that a similar process has taken place in the canonical gospels. [I will focus on] the non-canonical Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Egerton Papyrus. All these were written originally in the 2nd century, probably well before its end. Peter was translated and published in 1892, Thomas in 1959, and Egerton in 1935. The copy of Thomas found was in Coptic and contained over 100 sayings or brief conversations of Jesus.
There in these 3 discoveries some hints or confirmation of the way in which the canonical gospels were composed. The Diatessaron of Tatian, also from the 2nd century, was not an independent gospel and not like a modern harmony, but a mosaic built up by selection and arrangement from our 4 canonical gospels interwoven, much as we suppose Mark was used along with what scholars call Q, L, and M(t). Do [the 3 I mentioned earlier] represent independent and preferable oral or written sources? Or do they rather disclose the freedom with which the writers retold the words and deeds of Jesus? If we should decide that in the 2nd century editorial freedom played a substantial role, have we any reason to assume greater fidelity in the 1st century?
Characteristics and Historic Value—One interesting feature of any writer is his tendency to transfer a motif from one part of the narrative to another. The inscription on the cross is different in all five gospels (counting Peter) as is the scourging and mocking of Jesus. The 7 “words from the cross” are collected from the 4 separate gospels. Luke was capable of transferring to Acts motifs from Mark he did not use in Luke.
It is quite clear that the teaching of Jesus in Thomas is much closer to the synoptics than to John. John and Thomas omit reference to the exorcism of demons. Neither, except for the passion narrative have much direct reference to the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Thomas finds the synoptic type of parable congenial while John does not. Terms characteristic in one gospel become rare in another, and vice versa. The recurrence of identical rare Greek words suggests mutual knowledge.
[Many of the features of the earlier gospels are shared with the later ones, which] challenge the presupposition that what is familiar has special claim to authenticity. [In the later ones] the pious desire for more information about Jesus has conflicted with the prejudice in favor of the canon—two quite subjective rival factors. If the student could without prejudice test these later gospels he might proceed backwards with better practiced criteria for looking at the same questions in the older gospels. Bishop Irenaeus tells us that each of the four [“orthodox”] gospels appealed to its own constituency of “heretics.”
   Alleged Authorship—Each canonical gospels’ value is based on Christians who “knew” a certain early Christian was its author; such tradition is of doubtful worth. Tradition that attaches apostles’ names to books is more suspect than tradition that attaches names like Mark & Luke. One can encourage students to examine secondary gospels so they have better means of evaluating their predecessors than if they were innocent of the similar problems between the 2 groups. If uncanonical gospels were secondary to canonical, canonical were secondary to their sources. Nothing justifies giving gospels special treatment from historical or literary viewpoints.
So far I have dealt with the easy but unproved inference that the order of sections in [the synoptic gospels] is chronological and the easy and natural deference to the 4 canonical gospels, solely because of their role in the church. In an effort at intellectual integrity, we must deliberately ignore their present sequence. The antiquity or accuracy of the related episodes are not to be assessed by their absence or presence in gospels included in or excluded from our traditional New Testament.
Gospel Study & Our Image of Early Christianity—It has long been evident that one can't entirely separate the New Testament writings into the gospels on one hand, & the events & letters of the early church on the other. Form criticism of the gospels began by trying to explain these books by assuming that form was deter-mined by this material’s use within the early Christian movement. The sources we have on early Christian life don't suggest that the life & teaching of Jesus or memory of his character & career played much part in the conscious thought of early Christians. It is a fact that neither Paul’s letters nor those written later ever suggested a sizable fraction of what the gospel story conveys to us, and that the focus was on present and future, not the past. [Our actual problem] is why the Gospel of Mark and the others ever came to be written at all.
The Gospels as Revealing the Apostolic Age—What form criticism attempted to tell us is how the reminiscences were selected and altered if they were to be used at all. Form criticism has led us to observe in the separate gospel units a variety of motives easily attributed to the interests of post resurrection Christians. Whenever these writings seem concerned with the future, or make Jesus sound self-conscious or egotistical, one suspects they [are reflecting] the later interests of his followers. We might be tempted to alter our portrait of the early church to account for the seeming lack of trustworthiness and consistency of the gospels. [Instead], we can imagine that it was the [very diverse] church, not Jesus himself nor even one of the evangelists, that was both Judaistic and anti-Jewish as the Gospel of Matthew seems to be.
Unfortunately, current study of the earliest Christianity conceives a greater unity [rather than diversity] at the beginning. “Kerygma is the modern title of one of these assumed original agreements. They are said to be the recurrent themes, and to have represented a simple and satisfactory body of thought for the unity of the faith. This picture of early Christianity does not stem from a new appraisal of the gospels, but from a long-standing assumption of uniformity in the early church. The very idea of one Christian community is more concrete than I think our sources warrant. The evangelists were spokesman for separate communities. The geographical and cultural expansion of the movement meant proliferation of difference.
   The Danger of Modernizing—I am persuaded that much of our current image of early Christians reflects our own traditions and interests rather than the early Christian documents. There is as much danger in modernizing primitive Christianity as there is in modernizing Jesus. Avoid thinking of the gospel’s contents as connected with church worship or formal instruction. The words “liturgical” and “catechetical” are not very applicable to them. The order in the gospel sections is not much due to either the Christian calendar or the actual sequence of events in Jesus’ life. The gospels became a depository and later a quarry for the most diverse interests and occasions. [Because] parts of their contents were useful for answering personal and social ethical problems of believers, or for keeping individuals courageous & faithful, [doesn't make those uses the original intent of the gospel].
The synoptic parables have lately been used particularly to guess the early Christian background. Yet they are very ambiguous. Parables are illustrations, and illustrations are notoriously unanchored. The earliest known use of gospel recitation is described by Origen: “It is by the name of Jesus, accompanied by the recital of the narratives which relate to him that Christians seem to prevail over evil spirits.” The retention in Mark of Jesus’ words in Aramaic is probably preliterary evidence of the use of these traditions for early Christian cures.
   The Link with the Historical Jesus—The gospels, [even while they] reflect the next generation, they disclose gospel writers, informants, and readers who kept the theory if not the substance of depending on the link with a historical person. The later forms tended to impose their ideas on the historical Jesus, and then to claim the kind of link that implied derivation from Jesus. I am not persuaded that any artificial or abnormal processes were at work to transmit with unexpected fullness or accuracy the historical facts of Jesus’ career and teaching.
Probably the attitudes and interests of the early Christians modified their memories of Jesus as much as the remembrance of Jesus determined the thoughts and interests of the early Christians. The appraisal of Jesus retrospectively was, in successive generations from the first, quite varied. To suppose that a present-day awareness of the miraculous unity of Christ with the church is an accurate revival or survival of the earliest Christian feelings, may be thoroughly unhistorical. The search for a proclamation about Jesus usable today may prove futile. The interest in reconstructing the words and deeds of the historical Jesus separated from the picture of faith drawn by the early church is certainly our interest, which no one of the authors of the New Testament had. Biblical study passes naturally and unconsciously through successive stages. A recent pattern has been the transfer of scholarly interest to the preaching of Jesus’ followers. Our present purpose is to challenge where challenge is needed the image of early Christianity that is sometimes read into as well as out of the gospels.

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4. The Totalitarian Claim of the Gospels (by Dora Willson; 1939)
About the Author—Dora Willson (1900-1953) grew up in England & Switzerland; her father was an Anglican minister. She became a social worker. She met her future husband, Robert Z. Willson at Fellowship of Reconciliation gatherings in England & France; They studied in the 1st class at Pendle Hill, in 1930. In 1938 she started teaching the gospels at Pendle Hill, never forgetting her psychology background; her students approached her as much for personal counseling as for insight into the gospels. She helped start the Friend Conference on Religion & Psychology. She chaired that conference from 1950 until her death from leukemia in 1953.
[Introduction]/ A tragic gap separates the unreligious, pseudo-scientific men and women of today from Jesus' message of an experimental way of life, and its incomparable simplicity and clarity. We must clear our minds of preconceptions, accepted interpretations, famous teachings, and modern psychology's findings, and use simple language.
The brief period of Jesus' public activity was lived entirely under the compulsion of one single motive—to make clear to men the way to full abundant life which he had found. With an equally single loyalty, he held to the method he had chosen to reach his objective. He taught, and centered his teaching on the process, the means by which men might attain fullness of life, without describing objectives, results, ends, or states of bliss. He does describe how someone finding and following the Way will function in daily life. He uses vague, general terms to describe results of successful practice of the right process; the wrong process leads to destruction.
The Way which led Jesus to life is of such a nature that those who follow it, including Jesus, become absolutists. Jesus must have had a magnificent clarity & command of thought & language, because nothing is more difficult to state lucidly than the unconscious steps which lead to spiritual results. That thought & language is still present in the fragments of his teaching still available to us, often corrupted through misunderstanding & repetition, but still marked with genius. There is a difference in tone between his sayings & resulting paraphrases.
FINDING THE WAY & COUNTING THE COST/ JESUS' TEACHING OF THE WAY/ THE WAY OPEN TO ALL—Jesus has faith in human possibilities that is reckless, but at the same time he knows that few be they that find the narrow gate leading to life. Jesus actually warns his hearers to sit down and count the cost. Lay your plans he advises, weigh pros and cons; evaluate requirements and your resources. If the individual doesn't see clearly what is required, one may start what one can't finish and be mocked for it. Realism and reasonableness are in so direct a contrast with much of what is considered to be the proper religious attitude of fervent commitment, that we may fail to see its meaning. There may be a place for profound, revivalist stirring of the emotions, but after that one should take time and assume full responsibility for decisive steps.
Jesus is most absolute in his claim on the individual, in answering the fundamental question: What shall I do to be saved? We find teaching on the Way scattered throughout the Gospels, evidence that time and again he must have returned to it, using different words and methods in his eagerness to make people understand. The Way appeared to him as something open to anyone. Jesus assumes only one requirement: moral earnestness, a deep desire for life. None should draw back saying they lack intellectual ability, spiritual insight, or conviction of personal sin to be washed clean by the self-sacrifice of another. The basic need for [the fullest sense of] life, justifies us in believing that the Way as understood by Jesus, is open to all.
THE WAY IS: A NARROW GATE; ACTION/ FOLLOWERS OF THE WAY ARE JESUS' BRETHREN—If on the one hand no special qualifications of mind or spirit are indispensable, and yet on the other, few are those who find the Way, then something other than reasoning or spiritual exercise is required, something more arduous and exacting. What is required is action, action of such a fundamental nature that it might be called the action, the supreme and decisive act by which man gains a new, [full] life, [every bit as much a birth and] entering into a new world [as our physical beginnings]. Others, by following it, [are "born" into his family]. The results attained by him are attainable by others. It is out of his own experience that he describes it [with great conviction]. When we observe in him those very challenging results in challenging intensity, we realize that he speaks with an authority different from that of scribes, an authority from within, from that which he has lived. [He has "experimented" with life] and his statements are based on facts he has himself established.
JESUS' ASSURANCE AS TO RESULTS/ THE WAY IS TOTALITARIAN—Jesus affirms again and again that the results are confidently to be expected: ["family-hood]; the kingdom; pearl of great price; life is saved. Unmistakable too are the results seen in Jesus: self-objectivity; receptive attitude (including "opposition"); freedom of movement through life; [freedom from fear]. The relationship he had achieved with God convinced him of a sustaining and ever watchful love which banished fear. Jesus makes 2 things clear about the Way, the decisive act: it involves the whole personality; it is directed toward the totality he calls God.
The one who enters upon this vital experiment must throw in one's whole self. Jesus uses the parables of the treasure and the pearl, and the encounters with the rich ruler and the lawyer [to indicate the level of commitment necessary]. One's whole self is absorbed in the relationship between one and God; [the relationship be-tween each human must be all-inclusive. Jesus states the Way in terms of absolute loss of self.
UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE INDIVIDUAL HAS TO DO/ CLEAR STATEMENT OF THE WAY/ THE WAY WRONGLY STATED IN TERMS OF OUTCOMES/ TOTALITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL IS NOT REACHED PIECEMEAL—Understanding Jesus' teaching requires intense scrutiny, made urgent by deep personal concern, which any one who is in earnest about his life will give to possible methods of attaining its fulfillment. What is the "all" that has to be given by the individual? Wrong, inadequate answers may mean stagnation and atrophy. Clear, practical answers may mean growth beyond our present biological stage of development. The Way is stated in terms of ethical conduct; the visible outcomes of the process are thought to be the process itself. [True ethical conduct comes as the spontaneous fruits of a radical inner change to goodness, not through mechanical acting out of that conduct]. As long as we are concerned with good conduct, we are enmeshed in parts and fragments of ourselves.
[If we list every small part of us that needs reform, this piecemeal process will seem endless]. Jesus meant something else, for his descriptions are always of processes that come to completion, that are followed by desirable outcomes. Is it possible to make a direct drive for that which may be central [within us]? And having reached the core of being, if that could be handed over, then the whole self, good and bad, is also handed over.
THE SELF IS ENCOMPASSED WHEN SELF-WILL IS ABANDONED/ SURRENDER TO THE TOTALITY/ THE TOTALITY HAS INGRESS INTO THE SELF—To no individual, however trustworthy, should we guarantee this ultimate allegiance, [and total surrender]. It is equally tragic for any institution to make any such claim. Jesus makes it clear that one can safely hand over one's self-direction only to that which is absolute, all-inclusive, without limit. Jesus uses the word God. All human creations meant to guide human conduct are partial interpretations, caught in the net of space and time, subject to change with our changing conditions Only that beyond the farthest reach of our knowing and of our imagining, is a sufficient object for the total devotion that is required. In every individual there is a point where the Totality touches the self and the self is enabled to transcend its own limits: the light which lighteth every man, the seed, that of God within.
THE POINT AT WHICH THE WAY STARTS/ RESULTS FOLLOW FROM EVEN A MODEST BEGINNING/ PERFECTION IN REPEATED COMMITMENT IS THE WAY—It is where we decide our conduct that we may look, that we must look to make a start on the Way. Deliberate misuse of this sense commits the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. Contact is at once establish with the Whole when one makes as sincere a decision as one knows how to make, to be loyal to the directions which come to one, however imperfectly.
Even when the decision is taken without reference to religious beliefs, the radical act of abdication to the unspecified good bears fruit. [Even when done imperfectly], the self has been born into a new life of freedom and potency; renewed pledges bring increased strength. [The results may be unspectacular], but Jesus seems to take for granted that there will be heightened moral sensitivity and power and sureness in living unknown to those who simply strive to lead good lives. [There will be uncertainty]. Even Jesus himself was uncertain as to the content of God's will on the very eve of his death.
It would seem as if life presents increasing difficult dilemmas as fineness of discrimination grows. & when right is seen, there need be no struggle to force oneself. Failure we know we must expect. In spite of failure, we renew the initial commitment: all my self to the Whole—known, unknown, unknowable; full control to that which is mediated to me through indwelling sense of right, cost what it may. God's reign, the kingdom of God; that is what Jesus called the result of that act; [a total surrender, with] a new self released into power and life.

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219. Approaching the Gospels (by Mary Morrison; 1978)

About the Author—Recently retired leader of Gospels Study Groups at Pendle Hill and long-time member of Trinity Parish, Swarthmore, Mary Morrison describes herself as 49% Quaker & 51% Episcopalian. Group study of the Gospels has had a long history at Pendle Hill. Henry Burton Sharman came to teach [group study & discussion of the Gospels in 1931]. His student Dora Wilson took over from him until her death in 1953. Her student Mary Morrison taught the course from 1957 to 1977. This pamphlet hopes to encourage this approach.

I.--The Gospels are part of an ancient library, the collection which we call the Bible. The Bible story of God’s way with one small people in Asia Minor is a long sequence sweeping through the centuries and making sense of all the things, good and bad, that had happened to the Hebrews. The truth of a myth goes beyond whether or not it represents factual accuracy; truth comes from its power to make sense of events and to breathe meaning into them. The myth of Athena had inspired, formed and developed the Greek and experience of life.

Compelling mystery is what gives myth its power. A myth draws us to it & makes us ask questions, eager to grasp the mystery so far as we are able. A myth speaks in answer to our questions. Our understanding of the answer depends on the mind set with which we approach it. A myth stands beyond our shaping the chaos of our experience into order. It asks of us the awe & respect that will keep it forever free to move with us, creating question, answer & meaning. [In approaching myths, as Heinrich Zimmer says: “The replies already given can’t be made to serve us … Our primary task is to learn how to approach, evoke fresh speech from them, & understand that speech.”

II.--How do we approach the Gospels? So many voices have said so much about them that our ears are deafened. Our eyes slide over the pages as if they were slippery. How can they possibly bring us any good news? What can they possibly say to us that they haven’t already said? Jesus always dealt with the crowds who gathered round him by telling them stories. So we might try approaching the Gospel 1st of all as if it were a story, a novel. We give a novel the latitude it needs to say in its own chosen way what it wants to say. We enter its world, & let that world be created around us. Suppose we read “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” as if for the 1st time. We would realize that in that whole introductory sentence the only word we understand is “beginning.” We have the whole sweep of what is to come to let the theme grow & speak to us as it wants to.

III.--How do we evoke fresh speech from this Gospels material? Words have lost or changed their meaning, especially key words, which may have radically changed. The concepts that “Faith,” “Sin,” “Forgiveness,” “Kingdom of God,” “righteousness,” even “love” try to express are so foreign to ordinary, everyday human thought that tradition can't pass them on. But perhaps we are in worse shape when we think that we have defined them, for then we are casting in concrete what is meant to be a living experience.

Help is at hand in the many new & brilliant translations of the texts that have come out during the 20th century. They can separately bring the language to new life, & together by diversity set our minds to working. One way to flesh out the dry bones of the concepts is to read the gospel as if for the 1st time, & try to learn the “new words” by the context in which they appear. Better still, do the same thing with all of the 1st 3 Gospels in one of the parallel arrangement editions. A dictionary can be helpful too. In it, we are looking for its poetry, its living, active meaning.

The greatest help of all is to assemble a group of interested people and look at the Gospels together, a variety of minds thinking together; it is a real mind-stretcher. Either privately or in groups, we are working at the business of turning dead and empty doctrine into living meaning that will grow in our hearts and give direction to our lives. We must let it come to us and speak to us where we are. Harold Goddard wrote: “[One] must be ready to strike life into it from one’s own experience.” We must be prepared to collide with many events and sayings that we will not like at all. 1st we must see as clearly as we can what is being said; then react to it.

The central character of this story is out to shock us & disturb us, as he does the people in the story. How do we react to being disturbed [by difficult Gospel passages]? Will we feel an inner stir of excitement, & open our minds? If we bring our full, fresh attention in the kind of open response that we would have for a person we most want to talk to, we will hold a conversation with the Gospels, & let them read us while we are reading them.

IV.--How do we understand that fresh speech? [While we put ourselves in the author’s era in reading a book], we lose sight of this requirement when we read the Bible. We have made almost a virtue of taking Holy Writ absolutely straight. “This is what it means, no more, no less.” The real sin lies in assuming that God always speaks in flat linear statements and never in poetry, fiction, riddles, jokes, dreams, anecdotes, folktales or drama.

The Hebrew Bible as a whole has a tremendous variety of content: legend, lawbooks, history, biography, fiction, poetry. The Gospels, coming as they do out of that rich variety, hold it all in miniature. We commit a 2nd sin when we assume that God created the fine responsive instruments, humans, & prophets out them, only to use them as dictating machines. The fabric of prophecy is woven in a much more complicated way than that. In the Gospels we are dealing with human beings, exhausting their range of thought & language to express the inexpressible.

Luke begins with describing the sources he is using, whom he addresses, & what he intends to do. We are to approach this story as if we were inside it; it won’t speak to us if we stand outside it arguing. Mark’s Gospel centers on action more than speech. Matthew’s introduction is a genealogy of Jesus, beginning with Abraham rather than Adam. The strongest impression that the 1st 3 give is of a similarity out of which a central character speaks consistently & powerfully. Jesus is a Jew, a genuine radical, & a challenger of the rigid & corrupt in his tradition.

We must be ready with a Hebrew Bible to look into the sources of his thought when we find a reference that takes us back into his tradition. We must [get comfortable] moving within the deeply-ingrained habit of thinking and acting in symbols and speaking in paradox and parable. We must feel our way into the ingrained Hebrew sense of Covenant, the conviction of being a People chosen to understand and fulfill God’s purpose.

Jesus was speaking to 1st-century Palestinian Judaism, a religion/nation guided by a dream. They held out against the pressures of time & place as they had throughout history. Today, we aren’t People of the Law, [not really even] a People. “The Kingdom of God” has little spontaneous [recognition &] value for Americans. We know more about history, science & politics & less about images, poetry & finding meaning in experience than 1st-century Palestinians. When we have made the mental adjustments we need to read what is actually on the page, we can see that while Jesus lives fully within his time & space, he also transcends it and can speak to us across distances & years. He brings us the assurance that his [human]-voice can be heard and spoken at any time, even our own.

V.--“Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it; and whoever loses it will save it and live,” is a 1st class illustration of what a paradox is; or to make a definition by action what a paradox does. The mind must be startled and teased into emptiness before it can let something new burst in. If we let the Great Paradox have its way with us, life becomes a mystery constantly moving and calling to us to follow where it leads. A paradox turns everything upside-down. Underlying [several] of Jesus’ paradoxes is a general paradox basic to Jesus’ teaching: that all our ideas of good fortune somehow get in our way and make us get in other people’s way.

Perhaps the best way of approaching a parable would be to ask, “If this were a joke, what would be its point? Parables, like jokes, not only amuse us; they also jolt us. They crack our closed minds open. Parables put together 2 things that we never though of relating. Or they place familiar things in a wholly new setting. So we are to let parables move our minds into a new dimension of thought, a light and even graceful seriousness that is for the mind what dancing is for the body.

Jesus said in an early text of Luke, “Man, if you know what you are doing, [working on the Sabbath], you are blessed; but if you don’t know, you are cursed & a transgressor of the law.” The great sin against the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth, is to be a hypocrite. A sense of prophecy grows naturally out of a concern for truth. Because prophets could see so deeply into their own time, they described a basic & recurrent human pattern that future readers could see as applying to their own time as well. In Hebrew thought past, present and future blend and coalesce with a poetic freedom that hard for us to grasp. Hebrew has only completed and uncompleted tenses. We would sometimes do well to leave out the concept of time entirely and look for the timeless pattern that underlies the verb-tenses of our text. Also in Hebrew, a noun can refer, almost in the same sentence, to an individual and to a nation.

Kingdom of God includes and sums up all the rest. It has paradoxes and is expressed in parables. It includes the law and the prophets. It is both individual and social. It is past, present and future all in one. It fully embodies chosen-ness, servanthood, and relationship to God. Just as Jesus wanted the people of 1st-century Palestine to live and be the Kingdom of their time, so he wants us to live in and be the Kingdom of our time.

VI, VII.--John’s Gospel will go out of this world; it will come into this world from the space beyond it or the depth within it. The word “sign” in John carries the simple meaning of a sign by the roadside; it points to something beyond itself. The “Feeding the 5,000” story is a “sign,” pointing to a meditation on the true Bread of Life. When Jesus says “I am,” we might think of the author as saying, “At this point I looked at him & said in my heart, ‘You are the life—the bread—the truth—the way.” It is a meditation on human nature & on the Prologue promise that human beings can, by looking at the full meaning of Jesus, receive “the right to become the children of God.” If we partake of [the great I AM], we,[as Jesus did], will move in freedom & power within our dependence on God.

A musical process works upon the words that appear in the Prologue & again in the final prayer of Jesus in chapter 17. Word … light … life … world … truth … glory … Father … made known in the beginning & at the end they are the same. All that comes in between blends & develops the themes to a point where the words of the ending have acquired overtones and resonances that could only be guessed at in the words of the beginning.

John is the work of a writer whose central image and music come from an inner reality. “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home in them.” John’s author is mediator for the Mediator. He speaks only the words that he has heard in his heart. And the words which we hear are spirit and life. The Son, in a maturity that makes humankind and God merge into one harmonious whole is that expression, that Word. And that inexpressible process of merging is expressed by and in the Gospel, more and more, as we learn more and more how to hear what they have to say.

APPENDIX/ GROUP PROCEDURES—The leader must hold to the concept that the important elements of membership are the ease and openness with which the individuals in the group interact; seek those interested in taking a fresh look at the subject. The leadership of the group can proceed adequately with a learner leader, co-leaders, or rotating leadership. The important things are asking questions and moving the discussion along. Group members should listen to one another and all should read the text as if for the 1st time. Scheduling a weekly meeting is desirable, if possible. A series of 4 meetings, and no more than 10 is a good idea. Have [open-ended] questions ready. 2 books are very helpful as study texts. Records of the Life of Jesus, by Henry Burton Sharman, is a very helpful parallel-column version of the 1st 3 Gospel. There is also Exploring the Mind of Jesus, by Phelps and Willmott, with its selections from the texts, helpful questions and pointers on group procedure.

As discussion leader your job is to help the group mobilize its own resources and direct these to attack the problem at hand. [Things necessary to leadership include]: definite outline and procedure; open-ended questions to meet the developing interest; have members introduce themselves; keep group on topic; move the open-minded, thorough, frank and outspoken discussion along without “steering” it towards a pre-determined end; summaries indicating the trend of the discussion, agreements reached, significant differences; encourage all possible points-of-view; limit own talking; allow silence; encourage participation.

The means by which group thinking is carried on is the method of discussion. A discussion is the process whereby a group of individuals seek together for conviction as the best solution to some problem, and where individuals are not sure beforehand what the outcome of the thinking will be. Group members need to: search for a solution, a best answer; listen, don’t plan next input; avoid stereotypes; participate; say real thoughts, not “acceptable” ones; talk to the point; limit preconceptions; talk briefly; be open to evidence that will change your mind; wait for “erroneous” opinion to correct itself, rather than try to correct it yourself.

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330. Searching for the Real Jesus (by Roland Leslie Warren; 1997)
About the Author—Roland L. Warren was born 81 years ago in Islip, Long Island of New England parents; he attended college at New York University. He is well-known as a scholar of community analysis and applied social change. He and his wife have been very active in American Friends Service Committee. This pamphlet rose out of Roland's preoccupation with questions of religious faith and from reading some the gospel's source material. He then explored what contemporary scholars had to say about the historical Jesus.
[Introduction]—A new generation of biblical scholars has made a series of New Testament (NT) critiques that bother those whose faith is founded on the biblical Jesus. Such scholars deny the truth of fundamental qualities attributed to the Divine Jesus, while others maintain the essential validity of gospel accounts. As a Quaker, I have come to understand the issue is most importantly that of putting under serious doubt the gospels' historical accuracy and the unique divinity of Jesus. [My attention] centered on the Q source and the Gospel of Thomas.
The Q source is inferred, not an actual document. It is inferred from passages in Matthew (MT) & Luke (LK) that did not come from Mark (MK), which was copied in both MT & LK. Its name comes from the German word for "Source" (Quelle). Parts of Q are believed to be the earliest existing report on Jesus after his death; it consists of Jesus' sayings. Burton L Mack writes: "In Q there is no hint of [specific] disciples, no program to reform Judaism's religion or politics, ... no martyrdom with [universal] saving significance." Some view these special NT characteristics as additions. How could Jesus's special divinity be a spurious addition to the itinerant preacher/ teacher & Kingdom of God story? How were the gospel narratives either history or fiction?
The Gospel of Thomas was reported to have existed along with numerous other gospels in the 1st 2 or 3 centuries after Jesus' death. No actual record of its text had survived until its 1945 discovery in Nag Hammadi Egypt, translated from the original Greek into Egyptian Coptic. The Thomas gospel's content of sayings lent credibility to the existence of the Q source; it mentions a Kingdom not in the sky but at hand and "within you." Many scholars believe the historical Jesus to be closer to Q and Thomas than the man portrayed in NT gospels.
THE JESUS SEMINAR—The Jesus Seminar's major cooperative work so far is an edition of The 5 Gospels (traditional 4 + Gospel of Thomas). The Introduction stated: "The question of the historical Jesus was stimulated by the prospect of viewing Jesus through the new lens of historical reason and research rather than the perspective of theology and traditional creedal formulations." They believe one cannot take the gospel narratives literally, for they were not written as objective history. Seminar scholars made the opposite assumption of traditional scholars, i.e. rejecting passages unless the evidence supported their historical validity. Seminar's criteria are: multiple attestation; distinctiveness contrary to dominant religious culture; Non-Christianizing of sayings.
The Seminar's rules of written & oral evidence: evangelists made revisions to shape sayings according language or viewpoint; Jesus "says" Words borrowed from common lore or Greek Scripture; knowledge of events taking place after Jesus' death were included in sayings & narratives; only 30-50 C.E. sayings & parables were from Jesus; gospel tradition's earliest layer is made up of aphorisms & parables that circulated orally; Jesus' sayings & parables cut against the social & religious grain; the saying and parables surprise and shock; they call for a reversal of roles or frustrate ordinary expectations. Jesus makes no claim to be the Anointed, the Messiah.
Historical scholarship must look for purely natural causes, & not assume supernatural ones. Jesus was an ordinary, not divine mortal with vast spiritual gifts. Jesus' special divine character was developed later by gospel writers. Seminar scholars gave no special precedence to the 4 gospels; they hold them up to rigorous historical analysis. The Q source found in MT & LK is believed to date from 10 to 20 years after Jesus' death (40 to 50 C.E.). Seminar scholars maintain that the parts common to Thomas & Q are contemporary with Q. Stephen J. Patterson writes: "[In] the early stage of Q, we find parallels in Thomas' Gospel. Of the 79 sayings with Synoptic Gospel parallels, 46 have parallels in Q. They presume these sources more credible than the gospel.
Traditional Bible scholars see Thomas as an extract rather than a source of the Synoptic Gospel. John D. Crossan dates parts of the Gospel of Peter as contemporary with early Q and Thomas and uses these parts as an important early source of the passion, crucifixion, and resurrection story. Most likely, MK was the earliest gospel, written about 70 C.E., and that MT & LK were written 10 or 15 years later (80 or 85) with John (JN) appearing probably no earlier than 90 C.E. and perhaps later. Some of Paul's Epistles, the early Q source and, according to Seminar scholars, parts of Thomas' gospel, constitute prior independent, sources.
THE JESUS SEMINAR'S CONCLUSIONS—Perhaps their most startling finding was that 82% of the words ascribed to Jesus in the gospels were not actually spoken by him; some of the most revered sayings are fictional, as are the stories that pre-date his ministry. The 5 Gospels states: "The Jesus of the gospels is an imaginative theological construct into which has been woven traces of the enigmatic sage from Nazareth." [These traces call for recognition in their own right, freed from faith-driven rather than fact-driven writing]. [The discounting of "non-historical" writing is done by more than Seminar scholars]; Thomas Sheehan writes: "The gospel stories about Easter are not historical accounts but religious myths." Sheehan provides a useful chart of the "evolution of the Easter story" through the gospels.
The gospel writers' tendency was to make the event fit the Greek translation of prophecies lifted from the Old Testament. John D. Crossan writes: "The Old Testament prophecies aren't considered valid prophecies of Jesus' coming, but simply sources evangelists used ex post facto to explain or legitimize what had happened. Critical scholars, including Seminar scholars depict Jesus' preaching as timelessly countercultural. How can one remain a Christian, testifying to Jesus Christ as Lord & Savior? Scott McKnight asserts that "millions of Christians are deluded into thinking that Jesus was & is their Savior ... [they are being] brought into a myth [without] roots ..." Where do you see God: in Caesar or Jesus? Marcus Borg's wife is an Episcopal priest, so he lives in the world of academic study of Jesus & the church; it is possible to combine [critical] study of Jesus & being a Christian. Timothy L. Johnson writes: "When a so-called [Christian] historian uses the historical method to deny the reality of anything [outside] of what [history] can demonstrate, we suspect a certain defensiveness is at work.
SOME AFTERTHOUGHTS—Paul's preaching the Risen Christ who suffered to atone for the world's sins is a great stumbling block to the reasoning of Seminar scholars & similar scholars. His preaching took place long before gospels were written. It also seems to me that the reasoning of Jesus Seminar scholars is basically circular. Seminar scholars present a credible way of looking at gospel texts: i.e. that Jesus was an itinerant preacher/ teacher who lived & died as a human being, & whose sayings, deeds & status gradually came to assume deification. Seminar scholars seem to demand I acknowledge that the Jesus of history differs drastically from the Jesus of faith; to worship him as divine is an act of faith built upon narratives which are mostly fictional.
TRADITIONALIST CRITIQUE OF THE JESUS SEMINAR—The alternatives to the Seminar analysis are "inerrancy of the Bible," & combining critical historical analysis with affirming Jesus' special divinity Jesus and the bulk of Gospel narratives. I wanted to see what scholars of equal competence would to say in defense of the more traditional conception of Jesus as given in the 4 gospels. They were equal to Seminar scholars in knowledge, logic & being convincing in advancing their view. Of the 74 fellows in the Jesus Seminar, 14 are acknowledged leading scholars, another 20 are recognizable as having produced important works on the subject. The remaining 40 are relative unknowns. Luke T. Johnson writes that the Jesus Seminar was "a far better example of media manipulation than of serious scholarship, thus challenging the claim that the Seminar represents a broad consensus. How can supernatural events be treated impartially? Conventional scholars assert that to dismiss the possibility of miraculous events without weighing the evidence is unscholarly. The gospel of Thomas' date is important as to whether it is an early independent source. Estimates range from 40-50 C.E. to 170.
Paul points out: "Crossan pays virtually no attention to ... Paul's reference to Christian origins. Crossan's accounts of Christian origins bypass completely those in canonical writings such as Acts of the Apostles [& Paul's letters; he prefers apocryphal to canonical writings, & very late non-Christian sources to the NT]. The criteria that matter for determining authenticity are those that make up the ... portrait that Crossan wishes to emerge." This evidences a prejudice against the NT documents that can only be described as historically irresponsible.
It will be recalled that the Seminar scholars set out to be rigorous in their analysis. They rejected 82% of Jesus' sayings; just because they can't verify that Jesus said them doesn't prove that Jesus didn't say them. [If you review rules of evidence from the Editor's 2nd paragraph of THE JESUS SEMINAR section in this summary, you will see that] many of their rules of evidence permit only that conclusion. Gary R. Habermas comments: "If one attributes a Gospel report to ancient beliefs, parallels, or the author's style & believes that this in & of itself explains it away, this is a logical mistake." Darrell L. Bock states: "If we were to apply such standards to other documents, whole shelves of ancient history would have to be excluded." Luke T. Johnson writes: "These are not 'criteria', but assumptions attached to a predetermined vision of the Jesus who is supposedly sought." Johnson also points out that The 5 Gospels accepts the good Samaritan parable as authentic because it fits their preconceived notion of who Jesus must have been, even though it doesn't meet all of the Seminar's rules of evidence.
Craig L. Blomberg asks: How did a simple speaker of proverbs and parables ever alienate the Jewish and Roman authorities of his day to such an extent that he was executed in so gruesome a fashion? He then points out that: "It requires the assumption that someone, about a generation removed from the events in question, radically transformed the authentic information about Jesus ... superimposed a body of material 4 times as large, fabricated almost entirely out of whole cloth, while the church suffered sufficient collective amnesia to accept the transformation as legitimate. Scott Mcknight claims: "Such a Jesus would never have been crucified, would never have drawn the fire that he did, would never have commanded the following that he did and would never have created a movement that still shakes the world."
THE CASE FOR THE GOSPEL ACCOUNTS—The authors of Jesus under Fire & The Real Jesus critiqued the Jesus Seminar scholars & defended the NT's authenticity. We now turn to the latter. The issue is whether such events actually happened. Denying their possibility is to brush away the problem. Even without the NT, Luke T. Johnson writes: "We would be able to conclude from the non-Christian Josephus, Talmud, Tacitus, & Pliny, Jr. that Jesus was: a Jewish teacher; believed to have performed healings; rejected by Jewish leaders; crucified under Pontius Pilate ... His followers believed he was still alive, & spread ... so that there were multitudes in Rome by 64 ... people from cities & countryside, men & women, slave & free, worshiped him by the 2nd century's beginning. No other historical figure has been so carefully & consistently researched.
Blomberg asserts: [Christian divinity] beliefs emerged early in the history of the church [i.e. within 5 years of the crucifixion]; we may not chalk Christ's deification up to a late stage in the development of Christianity ... [Solutions to early controversies could have been written into the gospel, but] not once does Jesus address many of the major issues ... that loomed large in the minds of Christians, [who] were interested in preserving the distinction between ... Jesus' life and later debate ..."
If the gospels were written at different times by different evangelists, decades after the crucifixion, it seems plausible that they would show some difference in choice of events to record & language to use. Darrell L. Bock writes: "Each Evangelist retells the living, powerful words of Jesus in a fresh way for his readers, while faithfully & accurately presenting the 'gist' of what Jesus said." The most massive task confronting conventional scholars is the historical authentication of the miracles performed by Jesus, including the supernatural resurrection.
William Lane Craig presents strong arguments for the authenticity of the resurrection, resting his case largely on the empty tomb. [This pamphlet's author cast the argument as]: Suppose Jesus did not rise from the dead, and asks the following questions:
[ Resurrection Queries—If Jesus' corpse was still there, how could his disciples maintain that he had risen? Why would Jewish acknowledge the empty tomb by claiming that Jesus' followers had stolen his body? Why didn't Jesus' follow the custom of venerating the graves of their dead leaders? Why would Mark's "fictional account" have the empty tomb discovered by women, when a better "story" would be its discovery by Peter or another disciple? How would Paul be convinced of "false" eye witness testimony; why would he stake his preaching & life on it? Why were there no other rumors & alleged stories, no competing traditions of the burial & empty tomb? How could disciples go on proclaiming that Jesus had risen with Jesus' [corpse present as a damning contradiction]? Why would Jesus' disciples use the "incredible" story of the physical resurrection of a dead man when they could instead declare the presence of the Holy Spirit of Jesus with them and energizing their lives? How would the Christian movement, based on the Risen Lord, have an amazing rise without a verifiable resurrection? [How can you have a Christian based on a naturalistic belief that the resurrection couldn't have happen]? There is considerable different of opinion, even among these more conventional NT scholars as to whether the appearances [following Jesus' crucifixion] were visions or flesh-and-blood appearances.
THE CHOICE IS OURS—Once miraculous events aren't excluded from scholarly assessment and analysis, the traditional scholars make a credible case for the essential veracity of the gospels. So, we have 2 contrary, unbridgeable thought systems. Is Jesus remarkable human or Godhead? There seems to be little or no dialogue between them. Each side inflexibly defends its position, seeking only to refute the other side and have its own side prevail. Each side recommends different books; the only book they have in common is the peripheral book edited by James M. Robins on The Nag Hammadi Library. The authors of Jesus Under Fire do not even list for suggested reading The 5 Gospels, the subject matter of their entire book.
Gunther Bornkamm writes: "To make the reality of God present; this is the essential mystery of Jesus." Millions of devout people find that Jesus helps see what God is like, and what God wills for us humans; but many have the nagging suspicion that perhaps the real Jesus was only a human being, though a great one. No matter how we as individuals come out on this question, both sides have provided us with a serious basis on which to take up the arduous task of establishing and grounding our own beliefs. Luke T. Johnson writes: "The resurrection experience that founded and that grounds the church is based on ... the experience of power through Jesus by generations of people across the centuries and continuing today, [not on the original Easter]."
Howard Brinton writes: "The Word or Light proceeding continually from God to create whatever is good in the world dwelt fully in Christ and by measure in all as human beings. For this reason Quakers did not take pains to distinguish between the Eternal Christ and the historic Jesus. It is often hard to tell of which they are speaking. For George Fox it was not the degree of learning, but the experience of God's presence that fit one for ministry. "Being bred at Oxford and Cambridge was not enough to fit and qualify one to ministers of Christ."
It is misleading to apply the factual world-knowledge's standards and truth to the spiritual world's Truth, for this Truth is not amenable to factual verification. I consider the scriptures to be a help in defining my relationship to God; but they are not the main source of my faith. That source is the direct experience of God which lies in me and potentially in all human beings. I find that many thoughts on the traditional and critical sides of biblical criticism are worthy of high respect. For me, religious faith is not based on the historical accuracy of the gospels. It rests on the experience of God's presence.

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179. Light and Life in the Fourth Gospel (by Howard H. Brinton; 1971)
About the Author—When Howard Brinton started as director at Pendle Hill with Anna (1936), part of his role in a pioneer school/community was odd jobs. His retinue included Tibbar (rabbit) & Nuto (dog). Gerald Heard saw this Peaceable Kingdom procession as illustration of his survival by reconciliation philosophy. Howard seems indestructible, rising from ailments like the phoenix. He continues to interpret the essential Quaker message.
Foreword—This pamphlet deals mainly with the philosophy and psychology of early Quakerism as derived from John’s gospel and first epistle. In Quakerism the powerful influence of the Methodist revival gradually substituted salvation through blood atonement for salvation through the Inward Light. [In the original Quaker faith] God the Son, according to John’s Logos doctrine is God as revealed and as creator. God the Father is God in God’s self, to be known only through mystical intuition. I think that this faith is entirely in harmony with modern thought in philosophy, theology, and religion.
I—George Fox, Robert Barclay, and William Penn all based their theology on John’s gospel. Fox [provided “leadership” and a minimum of organization in a group whose primary leader was not human]. Barclay furnished a profound theology based on John’s gospel. Penn led the 1st active lobby in history for Quaker prisoners. What does John mean by “eternal life?” [How does this gospel compare to the religious classics of other religions?] What kind of Christianity can save our modern world?
The Inward Light which Quakers look to as their means of “salvation” is also Inward Life; Eternal Christ is also Life. In John’s gospel Inward Life reaches its highest quality in “Eternal Life,” “Life Abundant,” or “Life Everlasting.” Life is a miracle, known only by feeling & not by an intellectual process, it remains completely out of the reach of scientific understanding. Eternal life is even less subject to intellectual understanding.
Life’s opposite is the machine which is often used as a substitute for life. The most sophisticated machine is without those internal feelings that make up the soul of a human being. For a machine cause always precedes effect. In an organism, the cause may [be some desired future happening that has an effect on present action]. [In one of John’s organic analogies], the branches depend on the vine as the vine depends on the branches. An organism is governed by a power within. [There is a kind of “mutual containment,” i.e. of us in the soul of the world and the soul of the world in us]. Jesus prays that they may all be one: “. . . as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.”
The word “know” occurs a great many times in John’s gospel. To know as John & Plato used the word meant to participate with what was known. Here John’s “know” means a more intimate and organic relation than the word “know” means today. Life as subject and life as object are no longer organic parts of a world organism. As a result part of the world organism has become more like an unorganized sand heap than a world soul.
God is the bridge between one living subject and another, & without God they would not know each other inwardly, since God is the inward life of both. We have identified Christ with life. When Jesus speaks of eternal life he does not mean an endless period of time. He may mean the elimination of the time dimension. Time experienced is a variable, although clock time is a constant. Also, it seems to some writers that Jesus overcomes the space dimension. When Jesus speaks of himself as the light of the world he means a light which can be experienced everywhere [at the same time]. We usually think personality is something that is localized in time and space. But this limitation may not apply to a higher form of personality. Today we have invented machines which almost overcome space and time by enabling us to travel quickly and talk to any part of the world.
The word “eternal” in John’s gospel often does not mean a life which will last forever, though sometimes it apparently does. The Greek aion refers both to a particular quality of life in the present and also to an age of life beyond the grave which has no definite beginning or end. In John 11:24-26, 4:14, and 8:58, Jesus makes eternal life a present-day achievement as well as a future event. What then is eternal life in the present? “ . . . I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” Life abundant has an eternal quality. [Life lived fully has an eternal quality]. The highest forms of life, because they can produce themselves both biologically and spiritually, they possess an eternal dimension extending without limit into the past and future. It is only the spiritual birth which has an eternal quality; it may a gradual or a sudden birth.
II—The “Quaker” verse of John’s gospel (1:9) says that the Light “which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” These words show that every human being, regardless of race or religion, possesses sufficient Light for one’s salvation. This universalism was called “Gentile Divinity” by early Quakers. John Whittier writes: “All souls that struggle & aspire/All heart of prayer by Thee are lit/And dim or clear Thy tongues of fire/On dusky tribes & twilight centuries sit. Nor bounds, nor clime, nor creed thou know’st/Wide as our need Thy favors fall;/ The white wings of the Holy Ghost/Stoop seen or unseen, oer the heads of all.” George Fox said: “. . .The gospel is to be preached to every creature; & Christ. . . hath enlightened them with the light, which is the life in himself.” The Greek philosophers Aristotle and Solon, and the Roman philosopher Seneca, within the 6 centuries before and the 1st century after Christ echo the same beliefs.
The universality of light finds a high degree of confirmation when the gospel of John is compared to the Lotus of the Wonderful Law of Buddhism, & the Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism. These 3 writings show a remarkable similarity to one another in some respects; their highest & most fundamental doctrines [remind one of climbers starting from different sides of a mountain]. The closer they get to the top the closer they are to one another.
The most difficult problem in the theology of all religions concerns the reconciliation of the temporal & the eternal. How can we discover the eternal in the temporal & the temporal in the eternal? [Perhaps] if the [eternal] cosmic soul of the world becomes incarnated, then the problem is solved. This happens in Buddhism, Hinduism, & Christianity, though the incarnations aren't equally historic. These 3 also describe a religion which is not confined to any one people or one place; all three are universal. They all show the influence of more primitive religions brought into a unified theory. The reconciliation of the eternal and the temporal does not take place only in a single incarnation of the leading figure. It takes place to some degree in every human being. The presence of eternal life and light is never complete except in the incarnation of the Eternal.
Buddha and Krishna promise to return to the world whenever they are needed to overcome evil, and they are the personification of the Absolute, the soul of the Universe; Christ promises to remain as the Light and Life in his followers. Jesus says in John’s gospel: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.” In the Bhagavad Gita, peace is the goal, obtained by a complete freedom from samsara, the restless world of appearance which has no reality. In Lotus Scripture peace is obtained by freedom from desire.
In John we can find a philosophy and theology for Christianity, and in the first 3 gospels we can find a code of behavior; each without the other is incomplete. Note the similarities between John, the Lotus Scripture (Buddhist), and the Bhagavad Gita (Hindus) in the following passages.
Lotus Scripture: The Dwelling of the Tathagata (Buddha) is the compassionate heart within all. The Throne of Tathagata is the spirituality of all existence… The Buddha is born in the world to save all living creatures from fires of birth, age, disease, grief… From the rain of one cloud, each plant acquires its growth and the profusion of its flowers and fruit. Though produced in the same soil and moistened by the same rain, yet these plants and trees are all different… I am the Tathagata, the Worshipful, the All Wise, of Perfectly Enlightened Conduct, the Understander of the World, the Peerless Leader … the Teacher of gods and men, the Buddha, the World-honored One… The Law preached by the Tathagata is of one form. If in other regions there are beings/reverent and joying in faith/Again I am in their midst/To preach the Supreme Law.
2nd the Bhagavad Gita: Who sees Me in all/and sees all in Me/For him I am not lost/And he is not lost for Me… Than Me no other higher thing/Whatsoever exists, Dhanamjaya;/On Me all this (universe) is strung,/ Like heaps of pearls on a string… I am the soul, Gudakesa,/ That abides in the heart of all beings.
III—The only kind of Christianity which can be successful in Asia is that which is present in John’s gospel, [because] of its similarity with Asian religious classics. It would be a great mistake to endeavor to offer to the Orient a Christianity based on atonement through a blood sacrifice to an angry God. This is very far from John’s statement that “God is love.” If Asia accepts from our Western world only its scientific materialism and not its Christian religion, then Asia will destroy itself just as our Western culture seems ready to do.
In Paul’s theology as a whole, Paul thinks that salvation occurs through the life of Christ within, not through the blood he shed without. Paul more than once warns us not to confuse the fleshly and spiritual. If Christianity is to be preached successfully in Asia, it must include the great OT prophetic, ethical writings, the first three Gospels, and the theology of the fourth. The Synoptic gospels [reach outward to all of humankind; John reaches “inward” and “upward” to Christ and God respectively]. John says “God is love”; but this love is best described in the parables & sayings of the first 3 gospels; they bring us back to earth & time, after John has led us to eternity.
The West finds it difficult to grasp Zen Buddhism or Quakerism because these religions represent not intellectual analysis but intuitional feelings. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). This truth is life, known only by feeling and not by thinking. [A dead shroud of concrete from a freeway is replacing the living fields and woods near where I am writing]. We are living in a world in which death is gradually supplanting life. The final end of this process is predictable. Our own culture is now faced with challenges which it may be unable to meet. An “interior proletariat” such as the Benedictine monasteries of the 6th century and later, may be able carry our Western culture into the future.
Past cultures passed through a spring, summer, fall, and ended in winter. Oswald Spengler sees a materialistic philosophy, lack of a genuine religion, skepticism regarding the value of life, and the breakdown of family life as signs of winter. Today, the principal cause of anxiety is man’s hidden fear that he is only a collection of atoms and therefore there is no evidence of an immortal soul. If an interior proletariat should rise in the future to preserve a culture which is worth preserving, it seems now that this will occur in Asia rather than in the Western world. It may be that the Far East will be able to preserve a part of that Western world to which the Near East contributed so much by creating Christianity in the first century of our era.
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352. Navigating the Living Waters of the Gospel of John: On Wading with Children and Swimming with Elephants (by Paul Anderson; 2000)
About the Author [and Pamphlet]—Paul Anderson is Professor of Biblical and Quaker Studies at George Fox University where he has taught since 1989. His undergraduate and graduate studies were done at Malone College (B.A.), Earlham School of Religion (M.Div.), and University of Glasgow (Ph.D.). Paul is editor of Quaker Religious Thought. This pamphlet was presented as a Monday Evening Lecture in Fall of 2000.
[Introduction]—The 4th Gospel has been called "a stream in which a child can wade and an elephant can swim." John's Gospel is both a primer for newcomers to the faith and [a source of lengthy discussion and diverse scholarly opinion] among the finest scholars and theologians. What is it that renders John's gospel so reader friendly on one hand, and so theologically puzzling on the other? It offers polarities between: certainty and mystery; universalism and particularity; linear progress and circularity; inclusion and exclusion; narrative history and spiritualizing comment; [elementary statements] and baffling [theology].
ON SWIMMING with ELEPHANTS—John's gospel has theological tensions [in literally contradictory statements]. John has been used by both sides of arguments. In John we have a very human presentation of Jesus, & a very divine one. John's theological tensions include questions on miracles, salvation, & views on the Jews. Signs are offered, yet dependence on signs is rebuked & belief without signs is blessed. The true Light that enlightens everyone coming into the world is Jesus, suggesting universalism; yet Jesus is "the way, the truth & the life, through whom all come to the Father," which suggests a particular belief. These & other passages lead us to wonder if John is self-contradictory or ambivalent, & invite us to explore reasons for the perplexing issues.
John attracts a great deal of attention because of its many differences from the other gospels. The timing of events is different and its content differs, with things like the "I am" statements unique to John, and the major feature of Synoptic parables missing in John. 5 of 8 of John's miracles are not found in the Synoptics, even though "water into wine" and the "raising of Lazarus" are among the most memorable. Exorcisms are missing from John. The Synoptic idea of faith as prerequisite to miracles, is replaced by signs as a precursor to faith. How could John be so different from the Synoptics if it were written by an eyewitness?
Chapters 4 and 6 are in Galilee, while 5 and 7 are set in Jerusalem; are they in the right order? The beginning Prologue is quite different from either the material that follows it or the Synoptics. And there seem to be 2 endings to John, one describing "why these things have been written" (20:31), and one in John 21: 24-25. My view of John's composition is that it involved 2 major editions, one written around 80 C.E. as something of an augmentation of and complement to Mark. Material was added in a 2nd edition, most likely 1:1-18, Chapters 6, 15-17 and 21, nearly 20 years later. The Epistles of John were written in between the 2 editions of John's gospel. Why do readers become attached to it for personal reasons of faith?
ON WADING with CHILDREN—How do we wade with the children while reading meaningfully John's Gospel? Even the simplest readings can evoke a faith-response to God; this makes John a powerful piece spiritually. The reader comes to feel like an insider to the faith as one receives its "good news" & accepts it. Readers become part of a new, loving community of faith. Any & all are invited to accept "the truth"; from this gospel's perspective, not all do so. Jesus came unto his own & they received him not. Some saw Jesus' signs & didn't believe. The evangelist speculated that either they loved the darkness not the light, or they weren't rooted in God. This attitude reflects a community's pain in dealing with disappointments of conviction as to who Jesus was & what he came to do. How do we find ways to navigate the "living waters" of John's provocative text?
NAVIGATING the "LIVING WATERS" of the GOSPEL of JOHN—The best way to enter the world sketched by this gospel is to explore what it says in the light of how it says it. John's gospel was 1st written as a religious apology seeking to convince readers that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah & the world's life-giving hope. It seeks to preserve stories about & sayings of Jesus. It's an evangelistic appeal to convince readers that Jesus was sent by God, to be received through faith. Reasons why people don't believe are talked about, as is how people are [following Jesus the] right or the wrong way, which takes us beyond Jesus' time to later developments in tradition. John's gospel asks & answers the question: What does it mean for Jesus to be the Messiah/Christ?
John 20:31 serves as the gospel's clear purpose statement: "These [particular signs] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name." When you set aside chapters 6 and 21, none of John's 5 remaining miracles are recorded in Mark; this supports the idea of a "1st edition augmenting Mark. John 20:30 acknowledges this fact and declares what he is trying to do in writing a gospel. What are John's 5 unique signs and how are they constructed to evoke belief? What does it mean to believe? What does it mean to receive life in his name?
NAVIGATING the "LIVING WATERS" JOHN'S GOSPEL:"...THESE THINGS are WRITTEN..."—John's gospel uses 3 kinds of material to lead the reader to respond in faith to God's saving/ revealing action in Jesus: witness; miracles or signs; fulfilled word.
The Witness Motif—Marturia or witness is used 33 times in John. While associated with "martyr," in John the term isn't limited to those who gave their lives or suffered for their faith. John's witness motif points to the authenticity of the Son's witness to the Father who sent him. John the Baptist is John's primary gospel witness. The evangelist wants to be sure readers associate the Messianic Prophet & Elijah with Jesus, not John the Baptist. The woman at the well felt there was something qualitatively different in her encounter with Jesus. The lives of John's witnesses become testimonies to spiritual experiences associated with encountering something of God in the presence of Jesus. The crowd beholding the raising of Lazarus become witnesses to the climactic miracle.
The Scriptures witness to Jesus, & Jesus' followers become his witnesses in the world as the Holy Spirit comes upon them. The eyewitnesses testify that others might believe; the gospel writer testifies to what the final editor claims he witnessed. "We know his testimony is true," represents corporate convictions about his testimony's authority. Jesus' signs, words, & works come from the Father, & testify that he is sent from the Father. While granting that self-witness is insufficient, Jesus clarifies that the Father & Holy Spirit also testify on his behalf. The emphasis upon the multiplicity of testimonies, of course, confirms the other witnesses about Jesus.
The Signs—John uses the word semeia or signs to describe Jesus' works. John's signs are crafted in such a way as to highlight the saving/revealing mission of Jesus. They become bases from which to develop Jesus' discourses; each of the signs carries with it the capacity to lead the reader to faith. In the "turning water into wine" sign, purification jars are used to make the party festive and celebrative, not sober and reflective; he saved the best wine for last. This event serves as the launching of Jesus' ministry. His own death and resurrection will be a final saving of the best for last, leading to the post-resurrection experience of the church.
[I recall 3 highlights of] the healing of the royal official's son. Jesus was rejected in Nazareth & Galilee, & received a warmer welcome from the royal official in Capernaum. Religious authorities miss the activity of the Spirit they "seek." To the degree the official believes, the miracle is affected. Faith accompanies, not produces miracles in John's gospel. Jesus' distant healing word is experienced as showing his authenticity. The healing of the paralytic demonstrates Jesus' concern for the infirm, [while it raises the need for] participation of human faith, & raises the query: How have my infirmities become more desired than God's transformative workings? How do I want to be whole? Religious leaders react with questioning, unbelief & [missing the point].
John 6 presents 2 "Synoptic miracles": feeding the 5,000 and the sea-crossing. After the feeding, the crowd exclaims that Jesus must be "the Prophet who is come into the world, and they wish to crown him. Jesus flees the crowds' designs and escapes into the hills by himself. Readers are exhorted to choose the life-producing food which Jesus offers as opposed to less alternatives. The sea-crossing is more terse and undeveloped than its Synoptic counterparts. In the Synoptics Jesus calms the storm, but in John Jesus calms the disciples.
The blind man's healing in John 9 represents symbolic development of a Johnanine sign. Jesus says that it was nobody's sin that lay at the root of his blindness, but that God might be glorified. His healing & its occurrence on the Sabbath caused an argument. The blind man in his obedience becomes a key witness to Jesus' Messiahship. This story also conveys judgment. This story exposes Johnanine Christianity's religious context. John 9:22 cites that Jewish leaders decided those confessing Jesus as Messiah would be put out of the synagogue; this suggests that believers in Jesus among John's audience were expelled from synagogues, [i.e.] experiencing religious hardship for their beliefs. Criticism of leaders extended to "non-believers" in John's audience.
The point of the Lazarus miracle is that death itself is transcended by God's saving/redeeming action in Christ Jesus. Jesus saves the best for last, and his miracles signify the overcoming of the ultimate foe: death. The signs in John lead the reader beyond the events narrated to the spiritual truths they represent; they reveal God's character and love. They also confirm Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. The resurrected Lord leads effectively if the disciples are attentive and responsive. This is the final sign's message.
The Fulfilled Word—The Jewish belief that the authentic prophet is basically confirmed as the Old Testament prophetic word comes true. Note the prevalence of fulfilled Scripture in John. John the Baptist is the voice of one crying in the wilderness "Make straight the way of the Lord" (Isaiah 40:3). The narrator points out 8 times that events or sayings were explicit fulfillments of the Scriptures or the Prophets. [Actions were often not understood as they happened or immediately after]. Secondary reflection documents a community developing in its belief regarding the ministry of Jesus as scriptural associations and connections emerged. In many direct ways the fulfilled word of Scripture attests to divinely ordained events in Jesus' ministry.
At least 6 times Jesus himself is presented as declaring a prophecy to be fulfilled in the events surrounding his ministry. Jesus said: "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink ... Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:37-38; from either Isaiah 44:2-3 or Zechariah 14:8). Many predictions are declared to have fulfilled the word of Jesus after the event had transpired. In John's discourse, Jesus' departure and sending of the Holy Spirit are predicted ahead of time so that when it does happen the disciples will believe. In many ways Jesus having been sent from the Father is authenticated because all the words of the true Prophet like Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15-22 indeed come true. Caiaphas' prophetic word is to be taken as an unwitting double entendre: "You know nothing at all ... It is better for you to have 1 man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed." Caiphas was talking about Romans, but it can be taken as a prophetic statement from God that Jesus was about to die for the nation, & not for the nation only, but to gather into one dispersed children of God. Part of it coming true was the coming to Jesus of the Greeks.
... SO THAT YOU MIGHT COME to BELIEVE—The reader's coming into a faith relationship with God is the main interest of the evangelist. To believe in Jesus is to respond in faith to the saving initiative of God. All religious concepts in the Bible are found within other religions except that God became flesh & dwelt among us. The Incarnation produces a crisis for humanity, demanding a response to the saving revelation of God through Christ Jesus. The Truth sets us free, and challenges our conventional loyalties and understandings. To hear John's gospel-message is to be already transformed by the life-producing Word of God.
The Semantics of Belief—The word pisteuo (believe) occurs 98 times in John, & only as a verb. Belief is opening one's life to God, & not trusting anything of creaturely origin. It is to set one's sail to the Spirit's wind & to live responsively to the eternal Christ's divine presence & leadings. Believing in Jesus leads to partnership with his redemptive mission as one who witnesses to that which one has received. Belief on the basis of, or because of something said or done, draws in the Greek word dia (on account of). Belief that involves the Greek word hoti. Messianic mission is authenticated by belief that Jesus was sent by God; accepting this conviction is of central importance to the Johnninine sending motif. "Believing that" sometimes suggests a formulaic understanding of who Jesus was & what he came to do. Martha's confession: "Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world" probably came to represent the community's belief in Jesus.
"Not believing" in John is regarded quite seriously and is regarded as the primary description of sin. The issue is failure of humans to respond to God's ultimate gifts by clinging to something less than ultimate. They rejected the human/divine partnership that trust implies. The Holy Spirit's work convicts us of sin and of righteousness; sin is the failure to believe. Not believing becomes a step towards [inquiry and] conjectures about why people do not believe; some refuse to believe because Jesus is telling the truth. [As a last resort] the evangelist can only offer is that their unbelief has been prophesied by Isaiah 12:39.
Several times partial belief is alluded to, belief in signs or Jesus' action, but not in Jesus himself as the Jewish Messiah. It is as though religious expectations of how God ought to be working have themselves crowded out humanity's openness to the present workings of God. Partial belief at least moves people in the right direction according to John's Gospel, even if only preliminarily. To believe fully in Jesus is to receive him as the saving/ revealing agency of God, and to do so is to say "Yes" to God's YES to the world. A further stage of faith draws in readers and others from later generations. ("Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe" (20:29)). [Blessed are those] who are captivated by the gospel witness about him. An encounter with John's witness and the living Christ it portrays becomes a sort of direct, 1st-order experience for later generations that those who walked and talked with Jesus enjoyed. The reader become a witness to a human-divine encounter.
[... AND RECEIVE LIFE in HIS NAME]—Jesus comes to bring life to those who believe, & is the way, truth & life, the means by which all who come to the Father do so. The Greek word for life in John is zoe (spiritual life versus bios, physical life); it is often modified by ainios (eternal). Here, eternal life is described as a relational event; it reveals who believers become in relation to God. Jesus is able to provide life because he gives life for the world that God loves; in responding to Jesus, people also respond to the one who sent him. Jesus comes that we might have life. Disciples must be willing to lay down their lives if they expect to receive the gift of life availed through Jesus.
The receiving of life is also associated with "glory." Glory in John denotes encounter with the living God, rather than the false glory of human approval. Believers are drawn into the eternal fellowship and glory shared by the Father and the Son. How does one navigate the living waters of John's provocative text? Noticing how John says what it says provides the best place to begin. John the evangelist sought to convince the reader of his subject's truth and to evoke a transformative encounter with his subject. Test the waters for yourself. Become a wader or a swimmer; just jump into [this stream of Truth].
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399. Matthew 18: Wisdom for Living in Community (by Martha P. Grundy Connie M. Green; 2008)
About the Authors—Martha Paxson Grundy has served widely among Friends through writing, speaking, and [leading] retreats and workshops. She has clerked in monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings. She wrote Tall Poppies, PH Pamphlet #347. Constance McPeak Green, a hospice nurse for 32 years, worked with patients with end stage disease and their families. Connie offers workshops on “Intentional Living and Mindful Dying.” She is called to a ministry of listening and presence and has traveled widely among Friends.
[Introduction]—Friends have found over the centuries that in community we are enabled more fully to experience the presence of God. Joined in community we are able to offer a more powerful witness to the world, demonstrating an alternative way of living, and “letting our lives speak.” Over time, interactions with others expose personal foibles as well as gifts. Connie and Marty have discovered in Matthew 18 words that have come alive to guide us in our efforts to be faithful members of a Friends Meeting. The internal work that we understand Jesus in inviting us to carry out is not easy, and alone we are tempted to avoid it. The willingness to go forward and do what seems to be required has been nurtured by our shared listening, questioning and support. Seeing how the message of Jesus in Matthew reflected our own experiences was surprising and joyful.
Our common experiences & understanding is expressed with the 1st person plural. Passages in the 1st person singular are Connie’s experiences nurtured by Marty’s listening & support. We have drawn upon 4 different Bible versions: CEV; Priests for Equality; KJV; NRSV. Our touchstone is Love. We find 5 parts to the process in Matthew 18, & several steps within these parts. Skipping any of them tends to short circuit Divine Love’s flow, which comes from something far greater than ourselves & yearns to be expressed through us. When I found I resented someone, I was told to pray for them, asking that they be given what they needed [to become whole and healed]. I didn’t have to mean it; it worked. This prayer became an indispensable tool in my life & the basis for reconciliation as a spiritual practice.
Parts One & Two—The 1st part of the suggestions Jesus made to his disciples has to do with being like little children. [Read Matthew 18:1-5]. The 1st step in resolving meeting conflicts or tension between 2 individuals is for us to become humble—like a child. Healthy children: know they don’t have all the answers; trust; are teachable; innocent; receptive; obedient; expectant; curious; hopeful; & joyful. Adult behaviors to move beyond are: skepticism, cynicism, being guarded; being defensive; being angry; being weary; being discouraged. Jesus is telling us there are things we need to learn—about ourselves and the situation. In addition we try to regard the other person as a little child. We aren’t asked to humble ourselves before the person as much as before God.
The 2nd part of Matthew 18 has to do with the way we treat other people and the creation of stumbling blocks. [Read Matthew 18:6-7]. If I react to the provocation of the outward behavior rather than listening carefully for the little child within, do I unwittingly create stumbling blocks that make it more difficult for that person to be as a “little child?”   Is this passage meant to be a description of our community, rather than a prescription of how God is going to punish us? Jesus is not asking any of us to fix anything, [but rather to concentrate on ourselves and our own behaviors and] avoid setting up stumbling blocks for others.
  We are asked to recognize that God loves them, & that they are very important to God. [Read Matt. 18: 12-14]. The “lost sheep” whom Jesus is so concerned about is that person I dislike in meeting. It is also me with my shortcomings. When I pray as I mentioned earlier, occasionally I may gain a sense of compassion or new in-sight. Perhaps something I disliked is a reflection of something I have been unable or unwilling to see in myself.
  As social beings we humans are constantly bumping up against each other with our opposing needs, viewpoints and issues. Each of us is a perpetrator and a victim. The outward reality we have observed is that sometimes a “sheep” refuses to be “found.” We are each called to do our own part toward bringing the lost one back, or coming back ourselves. [The childlike viewpoint] calls us to be tender with frailties and not make things more difficult for the other person by judging them. Our experience suggests that we are to welcome this person, on behalf of Christ, who longs for us to be welcomed together into his love.
[I once knew someone from meeting whose behavior was very off-putting]; I didn't want to be in the same room with him. [I realized I was afraid of him, & prayed for his wholeness]. Ministry & Counsel needed to contact him and I discerned that I should be the one to do it. In the moment of our encounter, I experienced being suffused with Divine Love. The fear was absent and what transpired was a quiet, gentle, [sweet] conversation.
Part Three—The 3rd part in following Mt. 18 has strong language that once made no sense. [Read Mt. 18: 8-9]. This passage doesn’t have to be understood as physical mutilation, nor about “body” as community, nor about [shunning] people who make us stumble & lose our serenity. This passage is about us, & what causes us to stumble. The “eye” could be perception; the “hand” treatment of others; the “foot” walking our life-path. It may be spiritual jealousy. We can’t proceed with reconciliation if we are holding on to any ego-inspired feelings.
If the Light shows us misuse of the “eye” or “hand” gift, or if its use has shifted & we haven’t changed with it, then this beloved gift is a stumbling block that must be cut off. One of my character defects is “intuition,” a quick judgment of others. This use of a “gift,” has been a false seeing that I need removed; [its loss is painful]. How are Friends to do these spiritual amputations of “gifts” that aren’t helpful? Prayer or journaling may help. We may need to "become as little children" with humility, submissiveness, & trust. It is hard to identify dear habits of mind or action as obstacles that causes stumbling; it's very hard to let go of these habits. It has been discouraging to discover that rarely are these surgeries permanent; there is need for continual vigilance.
We understand the 3rd part of following Mt. 18 as a call to acknowledge responsibility in difficulties with someone else, & to excise our resentments, fears, & prejudices. My work supervisor triggered fury & resentment in me. After several weeks of daily prayer for her I saw that I needed to make my part of the situation right. How do I make amends for expecting more than the other can give? I needed to cut out angry thoughts & stop speaking ill of her. After most of a year of prayer, we ate together & were able to admit to failings & humanness & to start anew. Anything we do to hamper love & reconciliation is a stumbling block. Matthew is saying, “Look, this is important. If you are putting stumbling blocks before other folks, stop—no matter what it takes.”
Part Four—Mt. 18: 15-17 is the 4th part of Jesus’ advice. We have found it unhelpful to attempt to follow the advice in these verses without the personal, inward preparation of the 1st 3 parts that leads up to them. We might ask: Am I feeling a threat to my self-esteem or image … to my sense of safety … to my control or power? What may God be trying to teach me through this unpleasant encounter? With an understanding of the preparatory steps, we turn to Jesus’ instructions to his disciples about the next part of the process.
[Read Mt. 18:15]. The 4th part begins with speaking to the person who has offended or upset us. We certainly have noticed how much inner preparation has been required before approaching a person we are angry with. In Quiet Presence, we may ask God to remove perceptions & actions that have made us fall into negative ways. [Only with prayer &] compassion, [do we become able to go & speak lovingly to that person. We have found that we are able to encounter the other from the inward space, with the pure motive of a child, aching for reconciliation. It is an amazing gift to be lovingly confronted by another & to see how we’re a stumbling block.
In a small group exercise, I asked someone to stop who was going too fast, but never invited her to resume speaking, & didn’t approach her & apologize. She approached me to apologize after prayer. Her Spirit-led action opened the door for me to confess & ask forgiveness. Even if the other person remains adamant, we have found it important to do the inner work of clearing, of doing as God asks to heal the tears in the fabric of community.
John Woolman wrote: “Having perceived a shyness [tension] in some Friends … I felt a resignedness in my mind to … have an opportunity with one alone … Things relating to the shyness were searched to the bottom … which was of use to both of us.” This procedure is for wrongs done to us personally. Sometimes this passage has been used to justify [“eldering” at its worst]. Others have found it a very useful reminder to take personal responsibility to reach out & work out disagreements. If a personal meeting does not produce reconciliation, Jesus goes on to another step. [Read Mt. 18:16]
If grace hasn’t broken through to promote understanding, healing, & love, then the next step is to take 1 or 2 others, not to push an agenda, but to listen, to celebrate God’s grace or uphold the truth as spoken by both parties. If a small group is unable to bring reconciliation, perhaps after trying more than once, then Jesus spells out what to do next [Read Mt. 18:17]. “Telling the church” can be an unfamiliar & frightening suggestion for some Friends. [What started as a “difference” in Friends’ circles grows and begins to cause a tear in the community.
[After going through all the steps outlined earlier], an individual may come before business meeting to confess failure to reconcile & asks the community to hold them both in prayer. This step: allows the individual to surrender their part in the problem; it brings the problem into the Light; it brings a more powerful prayer presence into the process. My own experience followed the process, [however imperfectly] & ended with the other party leaving the meeting community. Old meeting minutes have many “differences” that Friends labored with.
[Jesus’] words seem harsh. If someone holds to a position out of unity with the sense of the meeting, what does the group do? Naming & facing disunity is the difficult but necessary step toward restoring unity. [We aren’t suggesting resurrection of disownment]. It can be helpful for the meeting to [do discernment of] what disunity means to it & what to do about it. Considering how he treated Gentiles & tax collectors, is Jesus asking us to maintain bonds of friendship with a person with whom the meeting must minute disunity with? [The individual needs to do as Jesus suggest; the meeting needs to witness to unity's importance in our corporate life].
[Read Mt. 18:18-20] [In this passage about binding & loosing], the 1st sentence has been used by other denominations to justify church discipline in accepting individuals for membership. Quakers don’t use this verse to [define] membership, but rather the upholding & living into one’s measure of the Light. When, in the process outlined above, 2 friends pray with us before meeting with the other party and pray for the other party, our requests to “loosen” our resentments & fears, & to “bind” ourselves with love shall be granted. When someone confronts us about an offense, [this process] allows us to be freed of the tension that marred the relationship. The offense & its circles of discomfort are “loosed.”
Part Five—The truth is that we don’t like having to get rid of preconceptions & judgments. We don’t like being like little children. [Read Mt. 18:21-22]. [In always forgiving others], are we supposed to be doormats? We are to move through these parts of the reconciling process each time someone offends us. Each time we are to become as little children & see the other [that way]. We are to involve others in prayer. We are to confess our part in the “difference.” As we become more skilled in this practice, we don’t need to go through all of the steps.
We should forgive again & again, [& at the same time be wise &] change our behavior so that we are less likely to be robbed, hurt by gossip, or be misunderstood. [The inevitable] new hurts are what we continue to deal with. Richard Foster suggests that in forgiveness we are releasing our offenders so that they are no longer bound to us; we are freeing them to receive God’s grace, & the offense no longer exerts power over me.
In our experience there is a direct, chicken-&-egg relationship between denying love to others & being unable to receive it. [Mt. 18:23-35 is a parable of someone who is forgiven, but who refuses to forgive another, & is tortured because of his lack of forgiveness]. When we hold on to anger or resentment, we keep replaying the memory of what happened to us, [thus torturing ourselves]. We are blocked from experiencing God’s love & joy.
We believe that these steps offered by Jesus in Mt. 18 can bring [any] individual to the place where they can lay down the burden of resentment, bitterness, guilt, and victimhood. Forgiveness is letting go of those terrible things so they no longer control one’s mind. I came away [from a personal tragedy, and a global tragedy with a churning heart full of grief and confusion about God’s place in all of this anguish.
When I returned from my travels I had the good fortune to meet with a small group of Friends who were able to listen as I recounted my experiences of the last few months. In worship, these Friends were my container as I took my questions to God: How could my brother suddenly be gone? Why do genocide & abuse & disease keep happening in God’s creation? How can anyone possibly forgive? I saw myself and Christ, weeping together. What was required of me was to witness, listen, weep and see what love can do. I found myself filled with new energy and resolve to be of service in the world. Friends in community made this healing possible.
Final Thoughts—The way that Mt. 18 teaches us to deal with dissension & tension, & even with egregious wrong is straightforward & simple; it requires an inward change of heart. The inward process probably isn’t possible without prayer & grace. We become like children, humble & open to guidance; the other is seen as a child. We are shown those parts of us that are out of alignment. We ask God to remove or transform the offending part of ourselves. After working these steps we are now ready to go to the person who offended us, perhaps going more than once, accompanied by Friends the 2nd or 3rd time. We may take it to the meeting. We keep forgiving the person throughout the process. [The entire process is necessary to our spiritual freedom].
The Shepherd wants to bring each of us into the fold, wants us to receive & accept Divine Love & forgiveness. We have realized that this active work can stop at any point when reconciliation is reached & unity is restored or we forgive. For whoever does this whole process, Love can flow again, [& invite the other to join in that Love]. We are invited to join together in this Divine School of Love to learn to live together in love. Our testimony of peace begins in our own families and meetings by paying attention to guidance of the Inward Teacher.
Queries—How has the way that you relate to other people been guided by passages from the Bible? What are the healthy traits of a child and how can we show them in a health way in healing our relationships? What “stumbling blocks” have you seen in Friends meeting that may hinder a person’s spiritual growth and vitality? Have you ever prayed for someone you were angry at? What have you done to prepare yourself for speaking with someone who has upset you? What role can a Friends meeting play when 2 members have been unable to reconcile their differences? What does forgiveness mean to you?
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