Friendly Bible Study and Jesus my Friend

You would think that liberal religion is going the way of the do do bird, and you might be right.  People have been leaving mainline churches for decades, but even Evangelical churches are seeing a decline in attendance.  Churches are shutting doors everywhere, but Homewood Friends Meeting is growing.  Pre-pandemic we were between 50-70 persons attending worship. We are now up to about 30-50 each Sunday, usually around 40.  Attendees at our meetings are roughly 1/2 under 40 years old.  In the past two months we've had a number of new memberships and transfers -- all young adults.  And these young adults are leading committees (Young Adult Friends, Anti-racism working group, Bible Study to name a few).

A year ago, a relatively new attender (now member) proposed starting Bible Study at Homewood.  I agreed to support it if he would take on the main job of convening the group.  Every 3rd Sunday before worship 6-10 Friends gather to do Friendly Bible Study.  

Now, considering that I'm a non-theist who has been reacting (recoiling) these past few years from the pain that I endured so long among Christians, who was more "into" alternative spiritualities than the tried and true Quaker Way (which is Christian), and who had arrived at a point where I couldn't make it through one chapter of the Bible without putting it down grimacing and walking away,  you may wonder why I agreed to do this.

It's because of the testimony of Lloyd Lee Wilson, a Quaker minister of North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative).  Lloyd Lee shared with me a story about how he was an atheist MIT grad who found Quakers through our peace stance during the Vietnam War.  When he asked if he could be a member, though he didn't believe in Christ or God, they asked him if he would be willing to wrestle with the tradition (Bible, Quaker writings, Faith and Practice). He said he would, and they accepted him.  Lloyd Lee also talks about avoiding picking and choosing the parts we like and don't like.  Sometimes the "food" we avoid is the best for us.  Sometimes the "rough corners" smooth out our own roughness. Sometimes the hard lessons and teachings make us open and tender to receive New Light and Truth.

So, Lloyd Lee was fully in my head when I was approached about Bible Study.  Not only did I recognize the need for more fellowship and learning at Homewood, but I recognized God moving through this Friend.  Here was an Opportunity, as Bill Taber called moments when we can come together in the Light with another Friend.  I also knew deep down inside that I had avoided the hard parts long enough.  

It has been amazing over the past year to study the Bible with a diverse group of Friends. Long-time members, new attenders ages 18-80s gather every month in the Lucretia Mott room upstairs around a conference room table and wrestle with the written foundation of our tradition.  We are all eager to learn and be informed.  It's a safe place to talk about what the sticking points are, where the challenges lie and what revelation is received.  God's Word does not return void, and in studying the written account, the Word has been working in me.

Now, the critic may say "wait, you're using Christian language, but you don't believe in a Father God."  I'm not going to go into my theology, but suffice it to say, that there is no other word I know to describe that Reality that instructs, guides, informs, reproves, regenerates, and comforts me.  A song from an apostolic church I attended as a kid comes to mind:

"In the Name of Jesus, In the Name of Jesus, We have a Victory!  In the Name of Jesus, In the Name of Jesus, Satan will have to flee! I can't tell you what God can do, but I can tell you what He's done for me! In the mighty name of God, we have a victory!"

My life experience still tells me that there are many religions and religious figures that teach ways to be faithful to their religion or to their higher powers.  So I'm not about to begin down that path of one religion being the only way.  It makes no sense and cannot be true.  That being said, Christianity is the home of my Quaker faith, and regardless of what I believe, or think I believe, it's intellectually lazy and spiritually avoidant to ignore this and not wrestle with it.

This is what I can tell you has happened over the past year.  In studying the Scripture with Friends, my heart has softened and become more tender.  The more I read about Jesus and the early Jesus movement, the more I love him.  I don't love him because of some cosmic formula that he fulfilled (died for my sins, eternal life, etc).  I love him because of his radical stances that shook cultural norms upside down.  He loved the sinner (prostitutes and people who did not keep the Law), the sick (lepers), the corrupted (tax collectors), and the stranger (Samaritans - ancestors of modern Gazans).  He cared deeply about his Jewish faith and knew his tradition backwards and forwards. But he shook that religion up too!  He was impatient with the corruption of money in the Temple (turned over the merchant's tables), of religious legalism (arguing with Pharisees and Sadducees) and abuse of power by the Romans and the Jewish priests.

It doesn't matter if everything or even most everything is accurate or true.  Whether I sit down with a Biblical Literalist or someone who thinks it's all made up (well, it is all made up, but you know what I mean), how you see the Bible does not affect how I do, and we both can experience God pouring through without having to agree on the particulars of the Book itself.  You see, Quakers never believed the Bible was the Word of God until Methodism influenced Quakerism in the 19th century.  It was always considered to be a "declaration of the source, but not the Source itself."  

Also during this year I've allowed colleagues to pray over me, all of them doing so in the name of Jesus.  To me the name of Jesus is a name of Power - God's Power through Love.  When we call on the name of Jesus, we are invoking love, healing, grace, mercy, rebirth.  

And Jesus is the Lord of my ancestors.  He is the one to whom my ancestors prayed as far back as we can go to the Huguenots on my mom's side and the Normans on my dad's.  If I venerate them and ignore their God, am I honoring them?  So who is this Jesus?  The Jesus I know is the one who asks his followers "Who do you say that I am?"  The Jesus I am trying to follow is the one who tells me to DO what he says and I am his friend (hence the name of Quakers -- Friends).  He is the radical rabbi or prophet who turned convention upside down and on whose teachings a new world religion was formed (for better or worse).  Through Jesus' life and death, gone is the need for sacrifice -- it's been done.  Gone is the need to appease God, Jesus' life and death does that.  These ancient Jewish and pagan notions of god(s) and our relationship to the Divine were made obsolete. If we enter into the Life of Jesus, there will be certain fruits of the spirit which will manifest through our walk in the Light.  

That's all well and good, and I believed that before I had to shed the label "Christian," So what's different?  What's different is my heart.  Through prayer and Bible study and through regular attendance at meetings, through the Spiritual Formation Program I participated in this year, I've come to realize that while my anger and hurt are understandable, a spirituality that is one of avoidance, of bitterness, of disdain or of resentment is toxic.  It doesn't facilitate growth and connectedness. In my case it just puts up more walls and keeps me from seeing that of God in other people.

So while I can't say I'm a Christian in the orthodox sense of the word, I am a Jesus person.  I do not see him as a God, as with Muslims and Jews I do not see any human as God.  But just as I can see that of God in my neighbor, and if I'm instructed to see that of God in my adversary, then I certainly can recognize that of God in Jesus.  Just as I can speak to and meditate on my ancestors, Jesus is a spiritual ancestor with whom I can talk and on whose teachings I can meditate. I don't have to take the trappings of the Church any more than Muslims do to accept Jesus as the prophet and teacher he was.

So what does this mean practically?  It means I'm healing.  It means I'm more grounded.  Who do I say that Jesus is?  My friend.