Just Curious

Quaker Sermon

Yesterday I delivered a piece of vocal ministry in my Quaker Meeting for Worship, which was regarded by some of my fellow congregants as thought-provocative.

For those among you that are not familiar with the Quaker tradition, it is necessary for me to offer a brief remark on our peculiar way of worship. Quakers, to a certain degree, brings the Puritan movement in Commonwealth England to its logical conclusion. While their Puritan brethren were ridding (hence the name "Puritan") their religion of Catholic and Anglican influence, Quakers gave up all outward sacraments altogether, including the Lord's Supper and Water Baptism. The real sacrament, according to the Quaker, has to be worked by the quickening Spirit of God on our souls. Together with these "outward manifestation of inward faith", the concept of salaried clergy was also rejected, for the very idea of hiring men (and women) to preach the Word that Christ himself preached freely was repugnant to the Quaker conscience. Hence, according to this tradition, every Christian ought to be a minister, and the caste of laymen must be abolished.

It was under such tradition that I delivered a sermon yesterday in the Friends Meeting of Washington, D.C..

The Meeting itself was housed in a lovely garden enclaved in downtown D.C. The house was built in 1931 by a Rhode Island Quaker and was quickly donated as a Meetinghouse. President and Mrs. Hoover were frequent attendants to the services.

The sermon I delivered was a follow-up of what another Friend had said before me. He made a good point that progressive-thinking people today are no longer open-minded enough to tolerate people of diverse opinions, and more often than not we see people attributing to their ideological adversaries qualities beyond intellectual error. Instead of drug-addiction, alcoholic abuse, and sexual promiscuity, Quakers should really include "compulsive politics" in their Book of Inquiry. This fellow very vividly depicted our almost self-righteous contempt for every politician since Ike Eisenhower. Everyone from JFK to George W. Bush is a crook. Well perhaps they indeed were, yet who are we to call someone the "antichrist"? He ended his sermon with a mind-shattering statement, "He who cannot love Hitler cannot love mankind." (I'll follow up on this statement later.)

I was deeply moved by his sermon, so I rose immediately after he had finished and said:

Friends, when I pray, these words of our Lord often come up in my head, "[Father]... Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us." The first statement really is conditional on the second. It is a central message of the Gospel that being imperfect sinners ourselves, we could never expect communion with God unless we first forgive they that offended us. But what does it mean by "trespass"? Does it apply only to those who physically harm us? To those who rob us of our earthly treasures? No. It's much more than that. We must forgive they that reject our persons, our ideas, and all the beliefs we hold dear. Even if they did so with malicious intent. God made his sun shine over the good and the wicked, did He not? And who are we to pass absolute judgment on others? Even the most corrupted individual possess a measure of the Divine Light in him. Yes, President Nixon may be the most corrupt, paranoid and crooked politician in modern times. But God never hesitated to exercise His miracles through him. Was Nixon not the man who pulled our Nation out of Vietnam? Was it not he who pegged social security against inflation?

After the Meeting, many Friends came to me, expressing their approval of my sermon. A gentleman from Indiana, who is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, told me that when he mentioned how polarized our nation is in a workshop, a woman immediately raised her hand and say,"Yeah, you know, I couldn't even talk to the Republicans these days." We had some great discourses, and I remember he said, "You know, James, I really want to vote for someone, not against someone. Nowadays you hear a lot about how the Democrats are not really voting for Kerry, not so much as they're voting against Bush." Another Friend, who identified himself as a Republican lawyer, came to me and told me that it would be impossible for Friends 50 years to talk about politics at all in their meetings, let alone getting impatient of what others got to say. I totally agree. Christian congregations, left or right, for better or for worse, are overly politicized in this country. No one, none, remember these Words "the World will hate you,for you are not of this world." Now where has all this outworldliness been?

This probably has to do with the institutionalization of the Church, which is a huge topic. I'll address it some other day.

posted by James Chang @ 9:13 AM