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Friends United
Meeting |
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July/August 2009
Early Friends
and Scripture:
The Language of Spiritual Intimacy
By Michael Birkel
Early Friends certainly knew their Bible. When in conversation — or, more often in that era of fierce religious polemic, conflict — with non-Friends who questioned their faith or practice, early Quakers could wield the Bible as readily as their opponents to defend their position. Yet they had another, more intimate way of reading Scripture, one that did not simply talk about God (as though God were not present) but instead brought them to a profound encounter with God. Because early Friends were suspicious of outlining methods of spiritual practice too narrowly, they did not spell out this experiential approach to reading in an explicit way. Instead of telling, they preferred to show. We can see the results of this kind of reading by looking at early Quaker texts, especially writings that were composed to offer spiritual nurture and guidance.
As an example of this, we might look at a short excerpt from George Fox’s Epistle 227. It is a beautiful letter on its own, but when we hear the biblical resonances in it, it is like moving from black and white to color: we perceive shades and tones unrecognized before. Written in 1663, the epistle offers words of encouragement to imprisoned Quakers during a time of severe persecution:
Sing and rejoice, you children of the Day and of the Light. For the Lord is at work in this thick night of darkness that may be felt. Truth does flourish as the rose, the lilies do grow among the thorns, the plants a-top of the hills, and upon them the lambs do skip and play.
This proclamation of comfort overflows with biblical references.
“Sing and rejoice” echoes Zechariah 2:10, which proclaims hope and restoration to exiles in Babylon: “‘Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! For behold, I will come and dwell in your midst,’ says the Lord.” George Fox’s words invite Friends suffering for their faith to identify with those singing, rejoicing returnees. Even while still in prison, they could know the presence of the God who dwells with them.
“You children of the Day and of the Light” alludes to 1 Thessalonians 5:5 and, perhaps, also to Ephesians 5:8. Fox often quoted the latter, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” In the epistle, Light, like Day, contrasts with night in the subsequent sentence.
“For the Lord is at work in this thick night of darkness that may be felt.” The reference here is to Exodus 10:21, which describes one of the 10 plagues of Egypt, a darkness so thick that you could touch it, but the faithful were spared. As with the call to rejoice because the exile is over, this is a message of comfort and hope. Despite the literal darkness of the prisons, like the ancient Israelites, Friends had the Light with them.
“Truth does flourish as the rose, the lilies do grow among the thorns.” This phrase weaves together two biblical sources. The first is Isaiah 35:1, also written to encourage the Babylonian exiles, which says that the desert shall flourish like the rose (here George Fox is quoting the Geneva Bible rather than the more common Authorized or King James Version). A vast desert lay between Babylon and Jerusalem. Isaiah promises not only that the exiles will return to the homeland but also that the wilderness will bloom along their journey — a promise of restoration and renewed life for those who are suffering.
The second source is the Song of Songs 2:1, “I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among thorns, so is my love among maidens.” Like Christians for centuries before them, early Quakers understood the Song of Songs as a celebration of the love between God and humankind. The book was favored by mystics for describing an intimate experience of unity with God. So with these few words, George Fox has suggested both deliverance and the intense presence of God, the soul’s beloved.
“The plants a-top of the hills” echoes Jeremiah 31:3-5. As Judah lay in ruins and the exiles were marched into captivity, Jeremiah proclaimed consolation: “Again you will plant vines on the mountains of Samaria; the planters will plant and will enjoy the fruit.”
“And upon them the lambs do skip and play.” Another double reference occurs in this phrase, first to Psalm 114, which retells the story of the Exodus, the escape from bondage in Egypt. The Exodus and the crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land after the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness are seen almost as a single event, as two aspects of God’s redeeming activity. Psalm 114 celebrates the natural wonders of the events: creation itself affirms God’s work in freeing the chosen people and bringing them into a homeland. “Why is it, sea, that you fled, Jordan, that you turned backwards, mountains, that you skipped like rams; hills, like lambs?” (Psalm 114:5-6)
The second text echoed here is, again, the Song of Songs (2:8), “The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills.” With a few strokes, Fox has hinted both of God’s deliverance in times of persecution (the Exodus) and God’s loving intimacy.
It is images rather than rational argument that organize this mosaic of biblical allusions. The choice of biblical texts, however, was deliberate, so that the reader might reflect on the wider context of each allusion. Such a use of Scripture seems based on an associative way of reading, allowing the imagery from each passage to comment upon and deepen the meaning of the next. Scripture animated the world of early Friends. To read in this manner was to invite the Spirit who gave forth the Scriptures to reflect in the mirror of the reader’s life. Scripture was for them the language of spiritual intimacy. It was the mother tongue of the soul. The biblical story is our own story. It is recapitulated in our own lives: we each have our own exile and our own exodus. Scripture becomes, as Robert Barclay wrote in his Apology (Proposition 3, Section 5), a mirror:
God hath seen meet that herein [that is, in the Scriptures] we should, as in a looking-glass, see the conditions and experiences of the saints of old; that finding our experience answer to theirs, we might thereby be the more confirmed and comforted. . . . This is the great work of the Scriptures, and their service to us, that we may witness them fulfilled in us.
Early Quaker writings, filled as they are with Scripture, beckon us to read the Bible as early Friends did. How can we embrace their way of reading and make it our own? As I’ve tried to explore this way of reading, I have become persuaded that such reading was an exercise of attention, memory and openness to the presence of God.
To read as early Friends did, we invite the presence of God, we sit patiently and expectantly with the words and images and we consent to what may happen. Reading Scripture this way opens us to being moved to wonder, or to grief, or at times to laughter. We courageously allow the Spirit behind the text to touch our deepest desire, which is to be with God without reservation.
Michael Birkel teaches in the Religion Department at Earlham College, where he is also affiliated with the Newlin Center for Quaker Thought and Practice. If this essay has whetted your appetite, you may want to explore Engaging Scripture: Reading the Bible with Early Friends, published by Friends United Press. For an example of Margaret Fell’s use of the Bible, see Birkel’s recent Pendle Hill Pamphlet (398), The Messenger That Goes Before: Reading Margaret Fell for Spiritual Nurture.