July 19, 2020
Message: Walk in the Light
Scripture: 1 John 1:5-10
Prelude: Molly Loesch
Flowers: Dorothy McKay
Good morning and thanks for worshiping with us this morning!
Thank you to Dorothy McKay for the flowers and Molly Loesch for the music.
- If you have announcement or prayer requests, please feel free to add them as comments on the Facebook page.
Announcements
- We are live streaming and not gathering at the church for worship, at least through the end of July.
- Feel free to share our worship with your Facebook friends by posting a link on your page.
- Also, the live-streaming is available on Facebook and the church website (wichitaquakers.org) simultaneously, so you can watch at either location, and the written transcript is added to the post on Monday.
- During the live streaming, we have room for a few people to come and serve as a kind of facing bench. If you would like to be among a handful of people who worship with us in person, please be sure and let the office know.
- If you’re planning to attend any part of Mid-America Yearly Meeting’s Ministry Conference, the registration deadline is July 20. Sessions and registration are online, and the registration fee of $20 needs to be in the church office by July 22. See The Light This Week for details.
- Among church activities this week
- Our Monthly Meeting for worship with a concern for business is today at 1:00 via Zoom.
- The 205 Sunday School class is meeting today at 3:00 p.m. via Zoom.
- The Transition Team meets Monday morning.
- The Representative Gathering of Mid-America Yearly Meeting is next Saturday, July 25, at 3:00 p.m., via Zoom. This gathering will include the official recognition of University Friends’ parting from Mid-America Yearly Meeting, and only representatives will be allowed to attend.
Congregational hymn #54: “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”
Prayer Concerns
- Gordon and Joan Smith
- Those who are struggling during this time of pandemic
- 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.
Prayer
God our maker, defender, redeemer, and friend, we open our hearts to your work in and among us.
Some of us are struggling with loneliness and isolation. Some of us are struggling with grief over lost opportunities and hopes. Some of us are struggling with what seems like never-ending hardships. Some of us are struggling to pay rent and buy food. Some of us are struggling for life.
Message
A couple of weeks ago, when I spoke on racism, I asked,
What do we do when we become aware of individual or interpersonal racism?
And my answer to that question was,
Hold it up to God. As 1 John 1:9 says,
9 If we confess our sins, [God] who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And I’m pretty sure that I said I live in the hope that we can be transformed.
This morning I want to talk a bit more about that – not about individual racism but about the possibility that we can be transformed.
As I do so, I’m turning once again to Wilmer Cooper’s A Living Faith, this time looking at what he has to say about the Light of Christ within.
Early Friends believed that if they waited in the Light and walked in the Light they would be endued with power to overcome sin and moral darkness and come into the Light of the glory of God. This victory over sin and evil constituted a doctrine of perfection: if they responded to the Light of Christ, they would be empowered to live up to the measure of the Light that was given them (p. 13).
If we wait in the Light, if we walk in the Light, if we respond to the Light of Christ, we can be empowered to walk away from sin, empowered to live in perfect relationship with God. Wow.
The idea of perfection is tricky, though. If we believe that we have achieved perfection, we may convince ourselves that we no longer need to listen to God or to other people about our shortcomings.
That might be nice, but let’s get real. None of us is that perfect.
If we believe that perfection is the standard by which we are judged, we may be crippled by the thought that we are not good enough, can never be good enough to please that exacting heavenly Father.
God is not that kind of father. God meets us where we are with understanding and love, encouraging us in the path of righteousness.
On the other hand, if we don’t believe in the possibility that we can grow in grace, that God can be engaged in the work of perfecting us, we can become complacent, satisfied with a life that is less than what is actually possible.
And that’s not what God wants for us, either.
A healthy spiritual life, I believe, finds a path that acknowledges that we are human, that we always have room to grow, that we do need to pay attention when others speak to us in love, that we do need to listen to God and let the Light continue to work in us.
A healthy spiritual life also finds peace in relationship with God, in the knowledge that God loves us wholly and completely just as we are.
And a healthy spiritual life knows that God is not finished with us, that there is more to learn, room to grow, more paths to explore. God is still surprising me.
A couple of years ago, I was talking with my friend Margaret. Both of us had thought that by this time of life, in our 60s and 70s, we would be done. But here we were, both of us, finding new paths opening up, new ministries to engage in, new growth appearing.
It’s not about being done. It’s not about being perfect all at once or even once for all. It’s about walking in God’s Light.
Here’s Cooper again:
The Light of Christ was understood to be the Inward Teacher of righteousness. This assumed a dynamic personal connection between oneself and God that allowed one to enter a ‘hearing and obeying’ relationship with God… (p. 14).
Cooper points to the work of Rachel Hadley King, who
… concluded that for [George] Fox the Light was that which shows us evil and that which brings us into unity with God and one another. The first is an ethical emphasis on turning from evil to the good, whereas the second has to do with … reconciliation with God and with one another in the community of faith (p. 13).
In Fox’s own words, from his Journal
Now the Lord God hath opened to me … how that every man [that is, every person] was enlightened by the divine light of Christ; and I saw it shine though all, and that they that believed in it came out of condemnation and came to the light of life and became the children of it, but they that hated it, and did not believe in it, were condemned by it… (p. 33).
God’s Light is available to us all. That Light can show us our shortcomings, and then we can choose to let that knowledge bring us down or to let that knowledge show us the way toward a full life as a child of God.
In that process, we can ask for help. If we have trouble hearing God, we can ask. God knows us and knows how to reach us.
I remember a moment when this became clear to me. It was many years ago. My son was an infant, and he is approaching his 45th birthday. So, you know, a few weeks ago. 😊
I was frustrated with myself about something. I’m not sure what. Perhaps I was scolding myself for feeding my son too much or for feeding him too little. I could do both of those things in the course of an hour.
I wanted to be a perfect mother, and I wasn’t very good at that perfection thing.
I honestly don’t remember what I was tying myself into knots about, but I was, and I was frustrated and couldn’t seem to find my way out of the knot.
This particular day, though, I realized that I had seen a glimpse of a better way to handle my situation. Just a glimpse, a peek, and then it was gone, and I was a mess.
But, on that particular day, I realized that I had seen that glimpse, and even though I didn’t take that better way, I had seen its possibility.
And on that particular day, I asked God, “Next time, could you please make the glimpse last a little longer or make the way a little clearer or hang in with me long enough or loud enough or bright enough so that I can choose that better way? Please.”
And that’s what happened. The next time I started tying myself in knots about whatever it was, maybe trying to be a perfect mother, God caught my attention just long enough, so that I was able to make a better choice.
The point isn’t that I was or was not a perfect mother or that I figured out how much is the right amount to feed a baby boy. The point is I had learned that, even though I couldn’t get it the first time, I could ask for help, and because I was looking for it, help came.
We can live, I believe, without castigating ourselves unduly for our shortcomings. Once we’ve recognized that we’ve screwed up, we can do something about it. Admit it. Ask forgiveness if that’s what’s needed. Open that part of ourselves to God’s Light. Ask for reminders the next time.
1 John 1:5ff, in The Message
5 This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in [God].
6-7 If we claim that we experience a shared life with [God] and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God … being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.
8-10 If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—[God] won’t let us down…. [God will] forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.
Did you hear that – not simply forgiveness, which is pretty darn good, but transformation: God will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
I came across a meme this past week:
However dirty or broken or far away or guilty or worthless we feel, God is always reaching out in love to cleanse us and heal us and lead us.
That is true for us as individuals. It is true for us as a congregation. God is reaching out in love to heal us and lead us.
Caroline Fox (1819–1871) wrote in her journal at the age of 21, of ‘the struggle through which a spark of true faith was lighted in my soul’:
The first gleam of light, ‘the first cold light of morning’ which gave promise of day with its noontide glories, dawned on me one day at meeting, when I had been meditating on my state in great depression. I seemed to hear the words articulated in my spirit, ‘Live up to the light thou hast, and more will be granted thee.’ Then I believed that God speaks to [people] by [the] Spirit. I strove to lead a more Christian life, in unison with what I knew to be right, and looked for brighter days….
1841 (https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/passage/26-04/)
Live up to the Light you have, and more will be granted.
Open worship
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