I visited the Quaker Silent
Worship Group who have no introductions, announcements, hymns, prayers, or
preaching. For an hour we sat in meditation with only a cough, a sneeze and
stomach growls breaking the silence. The lack of a preacher might be explained
by a poster on the wall which read, “Be patterns, be examples in countries,
places, islands, nations, wherever you come; that your carriage and life may
preach among all sorts of people, and to them. Then you will come to walk
cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone (italics
included).” George Fox, Quaker 1624-1691. There was no mention of God, Jesus,
the Holy Spirit, or any higher power. However, the Spirit within me spoke loud
and clear, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the
nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalms 46:10 NIV).
2 comments:
Gail;
Nothing quite reminds me of the old fable of the five blind men describing an elephant than the state of Christianity since the second century AD. The Jehovah's Witnesses might be the blind man holding the elephant’s trunk saying the elephant is a great hose. The Baptists could be the one holding its leg saying the elephant is a planted tree trunk. The Pentecostals would be the ones holding its tail saying the elephant is a little, swinging rope. The Campbellites touch its belly saying the elephant is our ceiling. And the Presbyterians hold its ear saying the elephant is a fine security blanket for a mental snooze. None of them are particularly wrong in trying to relate to the sum of their experience with the elephant; its all any individual can do (which is why it is so important to experience God’s Word in all ways it can be experienced: reading, researching, thinking, living, ie abiding.) But they are all wrong in relating the sum of the elephant to the sum of their experience. None of them gained sufficient experience with the elephant to speak of its sum.
No Christian gains sufficient experience with God or His Word to relate the sum of what it is to be His and worship Him. Every man's experience in this life is too limited to speak of any sum, but is sufficient for sharing only some. What about Paul? He seemed to set the fundamentals of Church. “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.” (II Cor 12:2-4) He had experience beyond normal dimensions.
The rest of us don’t. The ambition to share good experience either by mutual participation or by teaching is human nature. So when one bloke sees the light bright from some way he’s related to God, he’s going to spread that around for sure. And if that bloke is an influential preacher type, or an elder, or especially a mover-shaker, the way other people around him relate to God is going to get challenged and reshaped just because this influential bloke touched some unusual part of the elephant.
I suppose some Quaker preacher in the distant past must have had an overbearing wife who wouldn’t let him speak. Well, gee, that must have meant God wants silent meditation when Christians gather together! Meditation is enormously important, but not enough to be the entire worship experience.
Now I’m not going to address where on the elephant Rick Warren put his hand. But I will say in passing that the changes he came away demanding smelled suspicious from the beginning. “Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. He also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; while he who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God…The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God;” (Rom 14:5b-6;22 which, by the way, was written by the guy who had the “saw things in heaven” experience.)
Love you all,
Steve Corey
I wondered how individual meditation for an entire hour strengthens anyone spiritually for the upcoming week.
Gail
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