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Friends United Meeting |
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Quaker
Life
October 2001
Seeing the Wheat from the Chaff
By Peter Stafford Sumner
Today, standards of behavior within our society, like so many other things, are changing rapidly. Standards regarded as socially desirable or acceptable a generation ago are now openly challenged and often flouted. Social and personal standards, or what seems like the lack of them, affect us all. They determine whether or not we live in a safe, peaceable, productive world and what our general quality of life is like.
Although ideas of what is right and wrong may vary from age to age and from place to place, it is significant there is a distinction between right and wrong. Quakers long believed the inner compulsion to do right and the shame we feel when we are aware of having done wrong is an experience of the divine presence in every person.
Nobel Prize winner, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, explains his awakening to this hitherto unknown presence in his being as he lay on rotting straw in a prison cell: "I sensed within myself the first stirring of the good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes, not through states, not between classes, not between political parties either, but right through every human heart and through all human hearts."
George Fox found himself in 17th century English society where standards of behavior and belief were measured against civil laws and clerical creeds. This led not to true goodness, but to various forms of legalism and oppression that had more to do with control than the building of character or the development of a better society. He saw, like Solzhenitsyn, the only standards that mattered which could ensure the well being of the individual and society came not from outward institutions but from enlightened hearts.
Fox used the word "rule" rather than "standard" when advocating conduct or way of living that would bring the maximum blessing to God's people and their communities. In a letter to early Friends he wrote: "Walk according to the rule of the Spirit of God." (Epistle 270) In attending daily to God's Spirit within our heart, we would sense what is right or wrong, just or unjust, etc., because God's mind would be expressed in our thinking (Romans 12:2).
In God's Light, we hold before our mind different ideals or courses of conduct, picture ourselves finding satisfaction in one or another, and then decide which shall be the one to adopt. Holding issues in the Light also brings the conviction that optional behaviors and beliefs have different moral worth, and we ought to choose that which appears the highest.
The truth the Spirit of Christ reveals to our minds enables us to get our scale of values right; it is in Christ's Light we see what is really important and what is not. Thomas Kelly put it picturesquely when he wrote: "Facts remain facts, when brought into the PresenceÉbut their value, their significance, is wholly realigned. Much apparent wheat becomes utter chaff, and some chaff becomes wheat."
According to Kelly, the inward Christ is the "living Center of reference for all Christian souls and Christian groups—and yes," he says, "of non-Christian groups as well—who seriously mean to dwell in the secret place of the Most High. He is the center and source of action. Once we are committed to Christ's Way and to walk in His Light, we are committed to an entirely new set of standards—an entirely new kind of life at our work, in our personal relationships, in our pleasure, in our conduct, in our speech, in the things that we allow ourselves to do.
"Friends are to 'walk,'" Fox wrote, "as [Christ] walked (1 Peter 2:21), and not only to talk as He talked; for there are too many talkers, and too few walkers in Christ; my desire is there may be more." (Epistle 353)
Friends who walk by this rule find themselves within a paradox. They live ever at the crossroads between time and eternity, an intersection of the hidden life that is the source of inspiration and involvement with the real needs of society. They consistently bring the world into the Light that judges it and, at the same time, take the Light into the world in an endeavor to recreate it. William Penn reminds us, "right is right, even if everyone is against it; and wrong is wrong even if everyone is for it."
In one of his famous cartoons, Charles Schulz shows Snoopy, the dog, typing a manuscript on his dog house. Charlie Brown asks, "What are you doing, Snoopy?"
Snoopy replies, "Writing a book about theology."
"Good grief." Charlie Brown responds, "What's its title?"
Thoughtfully, Snoopy replies, "Have You Ever Considered You Might Be Wrong?"
John Woolman had to summon the courage to ask that searching question even of Friends over the issue of slavery. He was unpopular among Friends and in society, opposed and misunderstood, but he kept asking the question. As more and more Friends attended to the rule of the Spirit, they too began to see they were not "walking the talk." Early Friends knew only too well that to be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with the worldÉand sometimes also within the household of faith.
Those who live by the Light and rule of God's Spirit realize sooner or later that the only way to bring about significant changes for the better and lasting peace in the world is by helping others to discover this Light and rule within themselves.
As we refer continually to the inward Christ, our living Center of reference, we will become more and more like Him, by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:18) Money, brains or outward beauty are often fleeting. The rarer spiritual gifts of love, selflessness and generosity of heart come from our daily relationship with Jesus Christ.
Peter Stafford Sumner worships at Fremantle Regional Meeting in Perth, Western Australia. He and his wife, Pearl, founded and operated an overseas aid and relief organization and now publish inspirational literature.
Copyright (c) 2001 Friends United Meeting
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