New Blog Post: Quaker Plain IV: "A Plain Life"

Last week's worship focused on Preparing for Pentecost. Andy Henry brought the message.

2 Samuel 12 – The Lord sends his prophet, Nathan, to afflict David.  Don't you wish every "ruler" had an honest prophet to keep him on the straight and narrow! Nathan tells David a story—about two men in a city, a poor one and a rich one, one with many sheep and one with only one.  When a traveler comes to the rich man requiring hospitality, the rich man is loath to sacrifice even one sheep to feed the man; so he takes the poor man’s one lamb and uses it.  David becomes…

2 Samuel 11 – In the spring, David sends his army to besiege Rabbah (Ammonite city east of the Jordan). But he remains behind in Jerusalem.  He sees a beautiful woman, Bathsheba, bathing on the roof of her house.  He sends someone “to inquire about the woman” (11:3), and it turns out she is the wife of Uriah the Hittite, who is off fighting with Joab. David sends for her and sleeps with her.  She gets pregnant and David has a problem on his hands.

David sends word to…

Why do I believe homosexuality is not a sin? 



At bottom, because it makes no sense to believe that it is God’s will for us to believe homosexuality to be a sin, a sin to be avoided even if that requires celibacy of those who have a natural orientation to be sexually attracted to those of the same sex.…

Your family is yearning with hope for tomorrow,

that burns with the light of Your love in this place.

Now tears for our errors are cleansing our sorrow;

we're ready to be hallowed and filled with your grace!

Illumine us, Jesus, to know your direction

and move with the Spirit where life's breaking in.

The justice and mercy of Your resurrection

empower us to live out God's reign from within.

Pray in us and through us,…

2 Samuel 10 – Nahash’s (the Ammonite and David’s loyal friend) son Hanun succeeds him and David plans to remain loyal to him. But the Ammonite princes doubt David’s intent when he sends his messengers to meet with Hanun. They think he has sent them as spies.  As a result, Hanun seizes them and humiliates them by shaving off half their beards and cutting their garments.  David is furious.…

2 Samuel 7 – Having consolidated the kingdom and had a great house built for himself, David conceives the idea of building God a dwelling place too.  He asks his “in-house” prophet, Nathan about it, and at first Nathan says fine; but at night Nathan receives a definitive word from the Lord that this is not His will.  These wonderful passages follow:

“Are you the one to build me a house to live in?  I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the…

2 Samuel 4 – Ishbaal [Ishbosheth] is alone now.  When he hears of Abner’s death “his courage failed” (4:1).  Two men described as captains of raiding bands associated with his side (Baanah and Rechab) come and kill him (4:7). They cut off his head and bring it to David—hoping, I presume, to get on his good side.  But David does to them what he did to the Amalekite who came to him, claiming to have killed Saul. He kills them, cuts off their hands and feet and hangs their bodies by the…

In a previous blog post I shared my own journey with God and food, expressing my desire that Quakers would eat more regularly together, even suggesting that Meeting for Worship is incomplete until food has been shared. Now I would like to expand on these thoughts.

Quakers speak a lot about the whole of life being sacred, faith in practice and letting our lives speak. Quakers are known for their activity in the world. However, to someone visiting a Meeting for Worship, they might see…

Just when I thought I understood quaker thought I ran across this quaker family (at 1:26)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgWMrc-u6Fo&feature=related

I am now flummoxed.

QuakerQuaker This Week, Fourth Month 15 2012

Some post-Easter reflections on the Quaker Blogosphere. Patricia Barber writes of a Land of Saturdays, where  we've embraced the life and death of Christ, but haven't yet experienced the joy and certainty of the Resurrection.…

2 Samuel 3 – A long war ensues between the house of Saul and the house of David.  David has six sons during the seven years he spends in Hebron: Amnon, Ahinoam’son; Ahinoam was his first wife; Chileah, his son by Abigail; Absalom, Maacah’s son – Maach’s father was king of Geshur, located in the Golan Heights; Adonijah, Haggith’s son; Shephatiah, Abital’s son and Ithream, son of Eglah.

Saul’s son Ishbaal (or Ishbosheth—to avoid use of the word…

2 Samuel 2 – The Lord tells David to go into Judah, to the town of Hebron, a very important city to the south and west of the Dead Sea.  He goes with two of his wives—Ahinoam of Jezreel (his first wife) and Abigail of Carmel (formerly wife of Nabal – see 1 Samuel 25).  There David is anointed king over the house of Judah. The tradition of 2 Samuel is different from the account in 1 Samuel 16:1, where Samuel goes out in search of the shepherd boy whom God…

Where are Quakers with the death penalty? 

 The death penalty is a good question to consider the week after we mark Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection.  Do we believe any human being should ever be executed, whatever the means: cross and nails, electric shock, guillotine, poison gas, or stoning?

 The Old Testament prescribes the death penalty for a wide variety of misdeeds: murder, kidnap, rape, adultery, even false prophecy (Deuteronomy 13:5). 

 How about homosexual…

2 Samuel - I know it might seem to make more sense to start the books of Samuel with 1 Samuel, but I am following Year Two of my scripture plan. I love both books. The story of the transition from the era of "judges" to that of the "kings" is fascinating. We are skipping over Saul's time to the rise of David. The second book of Samuel centers on David's consolidation of power and the later weakening of his rule over the kingdom and his own family. 

 …

Our Easter podcast! We had a very creative service with stations around the meetinghouse where we could draw, decorate a cross with flowers, meditate on the metaphor of bread in the Bible (while eating bread!) and other things.