Northwest Yearly Meeting Keynote Address 2015
Becky Ankeny, General Superintendent
Luke 12:35-38, 41-44:
“Keep your pants on and your flashlights handy, like
servants who wait for their employer to return from his honeymoon trip, so that
when he comes and knocks, they will open the door immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the employer
finds prepared and watching when he arrives. This is the truth: he will put on
his own apron, make them sit down to the table, and come and serve them dinner
himself. And if he comes in the middle
of the night or at dawn and finds them watchful, those servants will be happy.”
… Peter asked, “Lord, are you speaking this just to us disciples, or to
everyone?” And the Lord said, “Who is the faithful and wise steward whom his
employer shall put in charge over his household to feed everyone in the house
at the appropriate times? That steward
will be happy if he or she is fulfilling that responsibility when the employer
comes back. This is the truth: the
employer will make that steward boss of everything” (paraphrased).
There are so many parables about us and God as servants and
master. This relationship helps us understand that we are not the ones who call
the shots, not the ones who own the house. We are caretakers, we are stewards,
we are trustees, we are servants. God
has given us responsibilities, and key in that word is the idea of response.
Our work is in response to God as our master. This parable helps us ask what is
important to God. As the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends, what have we been
trusted with by God? What have we been
given to care for? How do we fit into this parable and the various other
parables where God leaves people in charge of some aspect of God’s world?
It helps us answer these queries to look to the Bible to
find what God loves and treasures and takes joy in. From there we can infer our
own calling in this world and among the human beings God so obviously loves.
Creation
God loves creation and creating. Genesis tells us of light gathered out of
dark (Gen. 1:4), land gathered out of sea (1:9); plants, trees (1:11): sun,
moon, stars, universe (1:16); sea monsters, fish, whales, birds (1:21);
creepy-crawlies, livestock, wild animals (1:24); procreation itself (1;22); all
living creatures, especially including human beings in God’s own image, to whom
God entrusted the care of the living earth (1:26). Both male and female human
beings, charged with filling and organizing and ruling over the earth (1:27),
caring for plants particularly (1:29).
God also gave humans time, marking it off by Sabbaths—time to work, time
to rest (Gen. 2:3, Ex. 20:11). And God gave humans choice—the choice to trust
and obey God, the possibility of love—both human to human and human to Creator (Gen.
2:16,17; 2:23-25).
We are thus caretakers of God’s creation and creating. We care for the oceans, the wilderness, the
farmland, the gardens, the villages and cities where people live together. We care for living things—we learn about them
and from them, we find their usefulness in God’s grand scheme, we respect their
natures and we help life to prosper. We hold the earth in trust for God. This
is a human responsibility, not uniquely given to the NWYM Friends, but the
widespread concern among us for the earth recognizes a God-given
responsibility.
Traditions and
Relationship
God loves being in relationship with humans (Ex. 20:6). When
God led Israel out of Egypt, using Moses’s gifts and passion as the instrument,
God gave the people clear instructions.
Don’t ever forget that I did this for you. Steward this history, steward the Sabbath
rest I require, steward all the feasts I’ve prescribed. Let everyone see the uniqueness of our
relationship. Embody yourselves the
universal pattern I, God, follow: setting slaves free (Ex. 20:2; 21:2; 22:21,22;
Lev. 26:13), placing them in a way of life that has a gentle, restorative pace
(Ex. 20:11; 23:11-12) and built in moments of festivity and joy (Ex. 23:14-17; Lev.
23), teaching them to remember their source—God—and their deliverer—God—and
their shepherd—God—every day. Treasure
this relationship. It is your
inheritance, your heritage. And remember
this also. I have relationships with other peoples as well (Deut. 2; Amos 9:7;
John 10:16; 11:52). I am not without a witness throughout the world’s peoples (Acts
17; John 1:9; Romans 1:19; Psalm 19:1-3).
When Jesus came into the world as a Jew, he showed what it
means to hold a tradition in trust for God (Matt. 5:17). He reminded everyone
continually that the primary purpose of a human being is to enjoy a personal
interactive relationship with God (Matt. 6:25-34; 7:11; 10:19-20; 12:50; 18:14;
22:37; 25:40; John 14:23, and so much more). He argued most heatedly with those
curators of Judaism who cared most about the tradition—I think he loved the
Pharisees so dearly for their commitment—but he saw that they missed the point.
They focused on externals (Matt. 23:23-32; Luke 6:6-9). They made slaves to the
tradition; they themselves were enslaved (Matt. 23:2-4,13-15). And they curated
God instead of living with God in gentle, restorative, festive relationship
(Matt. 15:3-6; 22:37-38).
Jesus shocked them—so obviously a teacher, a holy man, a
prophet (Luke 7:16)—because he ignored externals and went straight for heart issues,
their genuine life before and with God (Luke 7:36-50; Mark 7:1-23)). He told one curator of tradition, Nicodemus,
you’ll never understand unless you are willing to start over, like a newborn
infant—without preconceptions of what God wants and instead always a child in
relation to God. God’s spirit, like the
wind, goes wherever it pleases, despite your efforts to contain and control it
(John 3:1-8). Don’t make the lethal
mistake of attributing the work of God’s free spirit to the devil. You cannot yourself leave your slavery if you
do this (Mark 3:20-29).
Each Other and Our
Neighbors
So besides the creation and a relationship with God that our
traditions point to, what has God given us to care for as NWYM Friends? God has
given us each other and our neighbors (Gen. 4:10; Deut. 15:7-11; 24:14-15,
17-22; Matt. 22:39; 25:34-40; Luke 10:25-37).
We are trustees of our children, holding them in trust for
God, trying to keep them alive and making it normal to live honestly and openly
before God (Deut. 11:18-19; Matt. 19:13-15; Luke 17:1-3). We learn about and from the children God has
sent us, we help those children find the gifts God has graced them with, we
make space for them to take the place God made for them in God’s grand scheme
(Luke 2:40-52). We are caretakers of our young people. NWYM Friends established
Greenleaf Friends Academy and George Fox University as partial fulfillment of
this care for our children. We need to welcome young people onto our YM boards
and listen to what God is saying to them.
We care for others by clearing out the debris that prevents
them from knowing God personally—knowing God experimentally. God does not give us the right to control and
limit how other people know God (John 4:23-24; 15:16-17; 21:22). God does not ask
us to be in charge of who gets to be part of God’s family (John 5:19-30;
6:44-45). Instead, God asks us to tell
everyone everywhere the good news that Jesus is present to teach all of us
(John 14:16-17, 26), that we have something in us that yearns toward God and
that recognizes good (John 1:4, 12-13), and that God is also yearning toward us
and eager to meet us more than halfway (Luke 15). Friends have traveled the world, beginning in
the first generation with the Valiant Sixty, to point people toward God. NWYM Friends have traveled the whole world to
embody and preach the good news—to Alaska, Bolivia, Peru, Palestine, Russia,
China. NWYM Friends are also opening their hearts and church buildings to AA,
Celebrate Recovery, neighbors from the street, children from around the world.
We are thus caretakers of each other. We listen to and learn
from other people, we enrich others’ lives rather than impoverishing them; we
make space for others to be in authentic personal relationship with God where
God is making them whole and holy, where they can take joy in loving God and
other humans. Friends’ heroes such as John Woolman and Elizabeth Gurney Fry,
Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Lucretia Mott, Hannah Whitall Smith, Herbert Hoover
are excellent examples of living well into this kind of caretaking.
Sadly, Friends’ record of fulfilling our call to care for
each other has not been spotless.
Friends held slaves and trafficked in them for over 100 years before
coming to recognize that slavery is inherently wrong. Friends enforced conformity to external
standards of dress and forbade marriage to non-Friends with fundamentalist
rigidity. Friends disowned young men who fought for the Union against slavery
for violating the testimony of non-violence.
Friends who adopted the practice of paying pastors soon fell away from
the testimony of equality in ministry for both men and women. Friends are not
immune to the currents and prejudices of their social contexts, not above
racism or sexism or other prejudices, nor are they immune to the temptation to
prefer economic stability to standing against social ills and the temptation to
substitute form for living reality. We must acknowledge the truth that each of
us has potential for blindness as well as sight, for evil as well as good, for
error as well as truth. We need humility and repentance, and sometimes we need
to change our minds, not in pursuit of some superficial relevance, but because
sometimes we are wrong. And persisting in blindness, evil, and error alienates
people from the Jesus we embody. We need to be born again, to start new in
every generation and in every day of our individual and communal lives. We need
to be born again to care for each other and our neighbors, all of whom God is
trusting to our care.
God has also entrusted us with the good news, the Gospel.
And we have this entrusted to us not so we can protect it but so we can share
it. The dominance of Christianity in the U.S. is waning; we have seekers next
door who need the Good News. NWYM has great opportunity to share our
relationship with God with spiritual seekers outside the church, and we need to
remember how far back to start. Like Paul among the Gentiles, we need to begin
with the basics, namely the Creator God who gave humans freedom, is good, and
uses human messengers (Acts 14). Like
Paul, Quakers tend to focus on the good God intends toward us.
The heart of the Gospel is Jesus. We need to teach the history of the
Incarnation. The essentials are in
Peter’s sermon to Cornelius (Acts 10):
1)
God anointed Jesus on earth with the Holy
Spirit;
2)
Jesus came to bless, heal, and free human
beings.
3)
Jesus was killed in Jerusalem;
4)
God raised Jesus from the dead.
5)
Many saw the risen Jesus, even eating and
drinking with him.
6)
Jesus is the judge of the living and the dead;
7)
Whoever places his or her confidence and trust
in Jesus will receive the remission of sins, release from slavery to error,
dishonor, wrong-doing, disobedience
NWYM’s commitment to this Good News positions us well to
speak to people who know little about Christianity.
When we care well for our neighbors, we may find that
sometimes they bring alien ways into our congregations, creating tension.
Thus Peter’s sermon to insiders (Acts 11) reminds them that
no human is common or unclean; that God shows no partiality, accepting any
reverent and obedient person; and that God poured out the Holy Spirit on
Gentiles, even before any ritual of baptism.
The story of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) represents
the continual conflict between established expectations and new membership.
Believers need to learn to be as welcoming as God and to
recognize that God’s gift of the Holy Spirit transcends ritual. We NWYM Friends understand that Jesus has
come to teach us himself and that within each person is the potential to
respond to that teaching with obedience. We can invite our neighbors to “live
up to the light you have.”
James’s response in the council of Jerusalem shows how an
established group can welcome outsiders.
“We should not trouble these who are turning to God with our whole
religious history.” They asked new
believers to commit to worshiping only God, to having sexual ethics, and to
caring for the convictions of others in the fellowship. The Gospel is good news
to all.
So let us consider together that we NWYM Friends hold the
creation, our relationship with God, and each other and our neighbors in trust
for God. Let’s consider what the limits
of our trusteeship are. Let’s be as simply authentic as we can with God,
knowing that God will help us move toward wholeness as individuals and as a
small part of the church universal, the bride of Christ whom Christ purifies.
And let us care for our neighbors who have not yet heard that they can be in a
personal authentic relationship with God by sharing the good news and helping
them feel welcome among us. Then when our boss, Jesus, shows up, he will find
us doing a good job of caring for the other servants and he will put on his
apron, sit us down at the table, and serve us dinner. May it be so.
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