August 30, 2020
- Flowers: Leigh Ann Dawley
- Technology: Michael Barrett & Michelle Barrett
- Prelude: Molly Loesch – Hymn is “Show Me How to Stand for Justice” which is sung to the tune of Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, # 31
- Announcements
- Pastoral Prayer
- Message – Resistance Is … Inevitable
- Scripture – Acts 6:1-7
- Open Worship
- Benediction
Good morning! Welcome!
Thank you to Leigh Ann Dawley for the flowers and to Rosemary for the music. Thank you to Michael and Michelle for facilitating the technology.
- If you have announcements or prayer requests, please feel free to add them as comments on the Facebook page.
Announcements
- We are live streaming on Facebook and the church website (wichitaquakers.org) until the pandemic numbers in our area go down.
- Feel free to share our worship with your Facebook friends by posting a link.
- We have room for a few people to worship with us in person, and if you would like to do so, please be sure and let the office know.
- Among church activities this week
- The 205 Sunday School class meets today at 3:00 via Zoom.
- The Listening Group leaders meet today at 5:00, at the church or via Zoom.
- The Transition Team meets tomorrow morning.
- The Nominating Committee meets tomorrow afternoon.
- Great Plains Yearly Meeting will be held virtually September 11 & 12. That’s less than two weeks away.
- If you register (and you can find a link to the registration form in The Light This Week), LaVonna will send you the Zoom invitation.
- Also, some of us will be Zooming in from the church library, and if you’d like to join in that small gathering, please let us know. I have heard Noah Merrill speak, and he’s pretty darn good.
Hymn: “Show Me How to Stand for Justice,” sung to the tune of “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” #31
Prayer concerns
- Pam took Steve Grether to the VA hospital this past week, where they found he had had a heart attack. The doctors put a stent in and will do another in 4 weeks. They also found a cyst that they are treating with antibiotics.
- Gordon Smith died at home yesterday evening. Family has been able to spend time with him, and Joan was glad to have had him home for a week and a day. He will be cremated, with a memorial service to be arranged. Please keep them all in your prayers.
- Students, teachers, administrators and staff, as well as their families as school starts, in person or virtually, around the world.
- Our church during this time of transition – May we find clarity and energy for the tasks at hand and the decisions we will need to make as we find our way forward. May we find ways to use our assets wisely and well. May we discover ways we are to be a beacon of love in our world. May we be looking for the doors God is opening, and may we have the courage to walk through them.
Prayer
God of all life, we acknowledge your presence.
Message
Probably most of us are familiar with the line, “Resistance is futile,” uttered by the Borg in Star Trek.
The Borg [is a] … race of cybernetic beings that functioned as a sort of hive mind. Instead of having the traditional desire to conquer or destroy, the Borg sought to assimilate all biological life into their collective. https://nerdist.com/article/star-trek-history-of-the-borg/
The Borg would send audio messages to their target:
“We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.” https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/03/04/the-stories-behind-some-of-the-most-popular-star-trek-lines/
You will be assimilated (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg)
While the Borg’s motto is “Resistance is futile,” in intentional interim ministry, one of the things we learn is that resistance is inevitable.
We are a church. Distinctiveness is to be expected and appreciated. When transition is happening, resistance is inevitable.
I was reminded of that this past week by Book Club’s reading. We’ve been working our way through The Nehemiah Code by O.S. Hawkins.
Hawkins begins Part 4 of the book by introducing us to a football term, YAC, which stands for yards after contact. That is, it is a measurement of “the number of yards a running back makes after first being hit by an opposing player. It measures the player’s ability to keep moving forward toward the goal line after encountering opposition” (Nehemiah Code, p. 103).
Hawkins continues:
Watch for YAC the next time you are viewing a football game. Notice that when a running back first is hit by a player from the opposing team, he doesn’t just stop running, throw the ball to the ground, and quit. He doesn’t cave in, crumble to the turf, then casually get up, and stroll back to the huddle to regroup and plan the next play. He does not fumble away his opportunity. Nor does he turn around and start running in the opposite direction to avoid more contact. What do the best running backs do? After being hit, they keep moving forward, keep churning their powerful legs, and keep heading in the direction of the goal line. … They simply keep going because they know that … yards after contact, is what makes the difference between winning and losing.
Some of us never rebuild in life because as soon as we are hit with any opposition, we are prone to quit, fumble away our opportunity, or, worse yet, start running in the opposite direction. But rebuilders always keep moving forward after they are hit because they have learned that it is the yards after contact that matter most in life, not just in football. ***
Anyone, anywhere, who becomes serious about rebuilding can expect to meet with opposition. Like ham and eggs, steak and potatoes, corn beef and cabbage, and spaghetti and meatballs, rebuilding and opposition go hand in hand. There are times when it comes from without. … There are other times when opposition may well up from within our own ranks. … But it’s how we deal with the opposition – opposition that will surely come – that will largely determine the success or failure of our own rebuilding projects (pp. 103-105).
In The Nehemiah Code, Hawkins mentions several kinds of rebuilding projects. He says we might “be rebuilding our own self-confidence, our marriages, our business, or whatever” (p. 105).
Our church’s time of transition is also a kind of rebuilding project, and it too will meet with opposition. Resistance is inevitable.
Hawkins mentioned two kinds of opposition, from within and from without. What might opposition from without look like?
We talked at Book Club about the pandemic as opposition from without. For example, we planned a church retreat, and we had to reschedule and reschedule because of the pandemic. Preparation for the retreat has hit roadblock after roadblock. We plan, and the pandemic laughs.
Are we going to make the kind of progress we envisioned a year ago? No. Are we going to give up? No. We are going to persist. We are going to persist with both patience and determination. We’re going to be realistic about what we can actually accomplish, and we’re going to keep working to move forward.
We had originally talked about having three sessions with each Listening Group before the end of August. That didn’t happen. But we are still planning three sessions with each Listening Group, and those will happen as soon as we can make them happen. By the end of September? Possible but not likely. By the end of October? Maybe so. Whenever it happens, we will reschedule that retreat.
We might also think of the letter we got from Mid-America Yearly Meeting as a source of opposition from without. I heard some people worry that dealing with our response to that letter would distract us from the work of the transition, that it could take months to come to clearness. Some people told me about how it took two years to make a decision about the church sign. The implication was that if it took two years to decide about a sign, it could take much longer to decide about our yearly meeting affiliation.
We didn’t have much choice about whether to deal with the question, and it was a potential stumbling block, but we faced it head on, and we made a decision in about a month.
Rather than seeing this opposition from without as a roadblock, I think of it as practice for other decisions that we will need to face. We’re not going to rush those decisions, but we will deal with them.
Hawkins in The Nehemiah Code also said we might face opposition from within our own ranks. Resistance is inevitable.
What would opposition from within look like?
- We might have people say we have to go in a particular direction, or they will leave the church.
- We might have people say we have to go in a particular direction, or they will spread rumors.
- We might have people say we have to go in a particular direction, or they will stop giving.
- We might have people say we have to go in a particular direction, or they will use everything they can to keep things from moving forward.
If people say those things, when people say those things, what we will do? Will we cave? No, we will not.
We will deal with the opposition when it comes up by naming opposition for what it is, by listening to the underlying concerns, and by finding ways to move forward with patience and determination. And prayer. Lots of prayer.
The Borg says, “Resistance is futile.” Interim ministry training says, “Resistance is inevitable.” While I was poking around on the internet, I noticed another saying: “Resistance is fertile.”
We see an example of this in the sixth chapter of Acts.
Here’s what had been happening up until this point in Acts:
- Jesus had ascended into heaven.
- The Holy Spirit had been poured out on the followers of Jesus.
- Peter preached to great effect, more than once.
- The community of believers were generous and joyful, and people were attracted to their faith.
- Ananias and Sapphira had a bit of trouble.
- Religious leaders opposed the new movement.
Now here’s chapter 6, beginning with verse 1, in The Message:
6 1-4 During this time, as the disciples were increasing in numbers by leaps and bounds, hard feelings developed among the Greek-speaking believers … toward the Hebrew-speaking believers because their widows were being discriminated against in the daily food lines.
We might see this dispute as opposition from within.
We might also see this dispute as a matter of social injustice. Those who protested were saying, in effect, Greek widows matter.
So the Twelve called a meeting of the disciples. They said, “It wouldn’t be right for us to abandon our responsibilities for preaching and teaching the Word of God to help with the care of the poor. So, friends, choose seven men from among you whom everyone trusts, men full of the Holy Spirit and good sense, and we’ll assign them this task. Meanwhile, we’ll stick to our assigned tasks of prayer and speaking God’s Word.”
Basically, the Twelve said they had better things to do than worry about who’s being treated fairly in the lunch line: Not our circus, not our monkeys.
5-6 The congregation thought this was a great idea. They went ahead and chose— Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, Philip, Procorus,
Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicolas, a convert from Antioch.
What you might not be able to tell in English, these men were all Greek. The response to the protest (that Greek widows matter) was not all widows matter. The congregation chose Greek-speaking leaders to address the problem of injustice against Greek widows.
Then they presented [the men] to the apostles. Praying, the apostles laid on hands and commissioned them for their task.
7 The Word of God prospered.
Those early followers of Jesus were moving forward in building what would become Christianity. Opposition arose from within, and they dealt with it. They didn’t badmouth the Greek-speakers. They didn’t sweep the concern under the rug. They addressed it in a way that was better than fair. And they became a beacon of love in their city.
Here, the followers of Jesus saw resistance as an opportunity to do things better. Resistance is fertile.
Such a way of looking at things can be useful as individuals as well as for a group.
As I close, I want to share some from a website on mindfulness.
If things happened the way you wanted them to, you’d likely be less stressed and have an easier life. Traffic would be light, the weather would be delightful, family members would be attentive to your needs, colleagues would complement your work, strangers wouldn’t threaten you, and lab results would affirm your good health.
While these nice-to-experience events do take place, they are transient, always changing, and largely outside of our control. When all is said and done, this life of ours is full of surprises, both pleasant and unpleasant.
It is natural to seek pleasant experiences and to avoid unpleasant ones. Related to this is the effort we make to hang onto these pleasant experiences and push away unpleasant ones. Because of the fact that everything changes – including the pleasant and unpleasant – this hanging on and pushing away inevitably meets resistance. During these moments what we are resisting is, well, reality.
To live a mindful life is to appreciate this deep truth and remain present for the unfolding of your life and all it entails. This means noticing and embracing the continual arising and passing away of events, both pleasant and unpleasant. …
As a rule, most of us have a preference for the way things should be. When reality does not meet our expectations, a tension arises between what we wanted and what we got.
It is like the tension in a rope that develops during a game of tug of war. The tugging can take the form of complaining, denying, escaping, and fighting. It consumes energy, time, can lead to confusion and sap us of strength. But unlike a tug of war that involves two sides, when we resist reality, there is only one person tugging – us. And, as is obvious when cast in this way, the resistance is futile.
… and … while resistance may be futile, it is always fertile. Accordingly, each time you become aware that you are resisting something, an opportunity arises to practice mindfulness. Simply being aware of this dynamic can be fertile ground for responding more optimally to difficult and challenging situations. …
Resistance is neither good nor bad. It is a matter-of-fact expression of how we relate to an event.
Resistance is not arbitrary. We resist things for a reason.
Resistance is idiosyncratic. Not everyone resists the same events or resists in the same way.
Resistance says something about who we are. ***
Resistance is seen as an obstacle to achieving one’s objectives, whether it be happiness, stress reduction, greater compassion, or anything else one desires but finds challenging to attain. But … resistance is also a stepping stone to mindfulness.
By keeping in mind the fertile quality of resistance, you may find you meet your next challenging encounter with an open heart and gratitude. … (http://www.mindfulliving.net/welcome/resistance_is_fertile.html)
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. 😊
Resistance is inevitable. Rebuilding and opposition go hand in hand.
Resistance is fertile. Resistance is a stepping stone to justice and to mindfulness.
Open worship
Please join together in a time of open worship, communion after the manner of Friends. If you feel led to contribute, please do so via comments on this page or the Facebook page.
We are meeting in person and also streaming our sermons on Facebook at 10:00 AM CST. Watch live:
https://www.facebook.com/universityfriendschurch/
Not on Facebook? You can see all of our posts and videos on our site here!
