Sunday morning (1) Worship and Doreen O'Dowd

Morning session, Sunday 12 August (1) Worship and Doreen O’Dowd

Good morning.
Dear Friends, my name is John, and I am helping facilitate the music during this week. We thought it would be good, useful if just before the worship each time we could just go through the hymns or songs that are going to be used so that you are familiar with them when the time comes. This morning I think the first hymn that is going to be sung is Dear Lord and Father of Mankind. We shall be singing it to a tune well known in Europe which Irish friends have asked us to use, it is different from the one in your song book.

Song: Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.

(Song sung)

Thank you. The Spanish words are in the song book, but in general the hymns and songs we will be using in the plenary worship will be projected and are not in the book. The other hymn which is being used for this worship is Be Thou Our Vision. It's a lovely Irish tune so let's sing that when we have got the words.

Song: Be Thou Our Vision

Let's try verse 2!

Thank you very much, Friends.

Good morning, friends. Can I just say before we start if you have a mobile phone, now would be a good time to make sure it is switched off because we don't want any mobile phones going off during our worship. Welcome, Friends, to this morning's worship organised by Irish Friends. Irish Friends have always worshipped through the unprogrammed meeting; however, this morning will be a little different. The worship has been arranged to incorporate the various ways in which Friends worship around the world.

We also hope it will have an Irish flavour to it. Our worship will involve singing hymns, something which is not unfamiliar to Irish Friends. The Irish who attended Young Friends Gatherings will know that singing is at the heart of our gathered worship. Just a word about those hymns, John has already explained a little bit. Some of you may think you know the song, but you realise when the music starts you don't know the tune, but we will try and keep everybody happy. We will sing an Irish hymn, Be Thou Our Vision with the American version of the words. We will also sing Dear Lord and Father of Mankind by an American Quaker, but we will use the tune more familiar to Irish Friends!

We hope we won't confuse Friends too much.

We are also going to hear a harp solo from Lynn again. Also our Friend, Doreen Dowd, from Dublin will offer us an address on the theme for the Triennial. Doreen's message will be followed by 30 minutes of unprogrammed worship where all Friends are invited to share as the Spirit moves them. I would now like to invite you to sing Dear Lord and Father of Mankind and you can find the Spanish words on page 15 of the FWCC songbook.

Song: Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.

A reading from the book of Isaiah chapter 61 verses 1 to 3.

"The spirit of the Lord God is upon me. He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to provide for those who mourn in Zion the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory."

Isaiah. (Reading in French and Spanish)

Harpist: Rivers of Babylon

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight oh Lord my rock and my Redeemer.


Doreen Dowd addressed the Triennial as follows

“Good morning, Friends.

“It is a privilege and a responsibility to speak to you during this meeting for worship. I am sure there were other Friends who shared my reaction on hearing the theme for this Triennial, 'Finding the prophetic voice for our time'. I immediately thought of the Old Testament prophets whose words and deeds are recorded in the Bible. Presumably those who chose the theme were not expecting to set Friends up as prognosticators or seekers with an unusual ability to foretell the future. Rather, in this context prophetic has the meaning, as my dictionary confirms, of inspired by God.

“I am reminded of our Meetings for Worship for attention to business when we use not just our intelligence or our expert knowledge, but rather seek to find God's will in organising the affairs of the church.

“It seemed a good starting point to look at who some of these men were. They were prophets, but we don't know very much about them. Firstly, some of them came from very humble origins. Moses, David and Amos were all minding sheep when they received their divine call. Elijah was ploughing, Ezekiel, Nehemiah and some of the others were prisoners of war.

“Secondly, several of them felt unequal to the task. Moses complained so much to God about his lack of eloquence that he was finally given Aaron to be his spokesman. Jeremiah said 'I am but a child'. Isaiah confessed 'I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell amongst a people of unclean lips', but when he accepted the forgiveness and cleansing offered by God he was able to say 'here am I, send me'.

“The environments in which they prophesied were very varied. At times Israel was materially wealthy, complacent that its military might could not be challenged, while the civil society was corrupt and promiscuous. Intermarriage with neighbouring tribes had introduced temple prostitution and worship of nature and fertility gods.

“At other times, the prophet was speaking to a people in captivity in exile, wondering if they would ever again see their native land let alone fulfil their destiny of bringing to birth the messiah. Did you recognise the music By the waters of Babylon I sat down and wept?

“The messages of the prophets were very specific to the people to whom they spoke, but at the same time carried a universal message that can still speak to us today. So this Triennial can produce a message that is applicable to all the yearly meetings represented here, although some of us live in countries racked by hunger, by poverty, by AIDS, while others of us are surrounded by wealth and materialism. The common factor in the message of the prophets is restoration of the relationship between God and those who would worship Him in spirit and in truth. Those of you who think the Old Testament is only about battles and bloodshed should look again at some of its images of God: A faithful husband, a bird protecting its nestlings and of course 'the Lord is My Shepherd'.

“It is interesting that the only reference I could find in the New Testament to the purpose of prophecy is 'so that the church may be edified'. Although we have few details of New Testament prophecy, the young church needed divinely guided insights in how to deal with its internal structure and how to deal with the pagan world around it as it explored the meaning of the gospel of Jesus.

“There are undoubtedly some Friends who are already thinking this is all about words and ideas whereas I just want to feed the hungry, reduce dependence on arms, care for the environment, so that future generations can have clean air and water, but the prophets often inspired practical action. Nehemiah comes over like the rather bossy clerk of a large Premises Committee obsessed with rebuilding Jerusalem, abandoning his donkey so that he could clamber over the rubble to inspect enemy damage to the city walls. More than once, the words of the prophet led to the removal of pagan shrines. Although priests and prophets had specific roles in Israel, all of the people were expected to behave as children of God, farmers and merchants were to trade honestly and to treat their employees well - surely good Quaker principles.

“These are some impressions of some biblical prophets. They were ordinary people, aware of their weaknesses, but willing to be used by God and to share insights with their communities. Have these ancient Hebrews a message for our 21 century world? To bring the question a little nearer in time, I believe the New Testament is also about restoring the relationship between God and human kind. Isnot Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son about restoring communication between our Heavenly Father and his child?

“Here also in my experience lies the huge challenge for present day Friends. Can we with our enormous diversity of outlook still find a united message for the 21st century? You are here as guests of Ireland Yearly Meeting and for a variety of historical and social reasons Friends in Ireland reflect the breadth of diversity that is found amongst Friends across the world. I know that even amongst the small group of Irish Friends here this morning, there is a great range of understanding about who Jesus is and his significance for the world today. How should we interpret the Bible, was Jesus an inspired Jewish teacher, even a prophet, but only one of the people who have had a special perception of the nature of God or is he the only begotten son of God the father, fully divine, fully human, who died on a cross as an expression of God's profound love for us and our need of restoration to wholeness and who rose again triumphing over death?

“Personally, I claim Jesus as my saviour, my guide, my enabler; and that is not a creed, it is an experience. There are Irish and other Friends who cannot use such language, perhaps even find it offensive, yet they are very committed to living their lives according to gospel order and their integrity constantly challenges my way of life. Irish Friends have recently had to confront our different interpretations of the gospel as we updated our Book of Christian Experience, but we have managed with tears and with struggles to agree to continue worshipping together and sharing our search for God's will. I hope this Triennial will witness such love and grace also.

“Early Friends and those who have followed them believed that authentic Christian faith has to find expression in action feeding the hungry, freeing the slaves, seeking reconciliation of conflicts. In the words of William Penn "true godliness don't turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavours to mend it".

“I wonder if doing good works can sometimes become a ploy to occupy our minds and keep us too busy to consider our relationship with God? Is it true godliness that is enabling us? The best loved chapter in the Bible tells us that if I give all my goods to the poor but have not love, I gain nothing. It is not just head knowledge that we need but heart knowledge. It would be well to remember during the coming week that even the gift of prophecy is nothing, it is useless if it does not spring from love.

“1 John 4:19 tells us that we love because God first loved us.

“What then is our or God's prophetic message of love to the refugee mother watching her child die of hunger or malaria, to the politician promising bread and circuses or cheap oil with a view to re-election, to your workmate who thinks happiness is a new car, to the friend sitting quietly in the corner of your meeting. You are going to spend the next week seeking to hear more plainly the message that God has for Friends in these days, for our society and to share with the wider world.

“While we value our heritage we should not be burdened by tradition. We cannot relive the experiences of previous generations, but we can learn from them. George Fox was a Seeker, but started finding truth when he heard a voice which said "there is one even Christ Jesus that can speak to thy condition".

“Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, I don't know how many times in my life I have sung that hymn, I have prayed that prayer, but the words are just as important to me today as they were when I first learned them 50 or 60 years ago. Most of us came today or yesterday or the day before, probably in a rush, fussing over airlines and that we haven't got everything ready for those people who are coming, in various different guises we were all uptight. The words of that poem or prayer are just as important now. ‘Drop thy still dues of quietness until all our striving cease, take from our souls the strain and stress and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of thy peace’.

“One of the problems for the prophets in the Old Testament was how do you tell a true prophet from a false prophet? There were so many prophets, some of them were professional prophets. Even with Jeremiah there was a great argument after the city of Jerusalem had fallen and Jeremiah told the people that it had fallen because they didn't worship God and the people said all these troubles came upon us because we stopped worshipping the queen of heaven. How do we tell the true from the false? It is our problem too. There is such a clamour of voices, journalists, politicians, religious leaders. The New Testament says test the spirits. We have to be able to test to hear what is true. Love is one of those tests.

“One test I have been thinking of is humility, the true prophets weren't saying 'look at me, look at me, listen to what I am saying’, they were saying ‘listen to God, listen to the voice of God in your own heart, see what is being said to you'. Another test I think is persistence and patience.

“If you look at the people who worked for the abolition of the North Atlantic slave trade, they worked for years and years and years doing the work, believing, hoping, converting people until finally it happened. I think another test is whether people live it themselves, if you look at John Woolman, he lived what he was teaching. Fox said ‘let your lives preach’.

“If we are to be a prophetic people we have to be the message we are preaching.”

[End of Doreen’s introduction]

[MINISTRY OUT OF OPEN WORSHIP]

Speaker 1:
“This is from Jeremiah chapter 4. "If you will return oh Israel return to me, declares the Lord. If you put your detestable idols out of my sight and no longer go astray and if in a truthful, just and righteous way you swear as surely as the Lord lives then the nations will be blessed by him and in him they will glory". This is what the Lord said to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem "break up your unploughed ground and do not sow among thorns, circumcise yourself to the Lord, circumcise your hearts".

“Jeremiah was also and always a bit foul-mouthed. We do not swear and circumcision hurts. There is a lot of words in here that would turn Friends off, but glory be to God, he came to us as an interpreter in the heart. A few days ago I thanked God to have been given a liberal universal translation of foul-mouthed Jeremiah. Please take a look at chapter 4 of Jeremiah with me and let's remake it in our hearts.

“If you will return to me oh Friend return to me and return me to your heart, declares the Friend of friends. Some world Friends may be surprised to know that some world Friends are allergic to some names of God. I will tell you for instance King of kings. There are good decent democratic Friends who hear the words King of kings and go oh -- and the Spirit is in them.

“If you put away the world's busyness that separates us, that separates you from the Spirit, you will no longer go astray. If in a truthful, just and righteous way you affirm, why swear? Surely as the Friend of friends lives in the heart then the nations will be blessed by that friendship and the glory will dwell in each of our hearts. Break your unploughed ground and do not throw the seed of God's love on those hard bits of the heart that won't receive it. Cut out from your heart those hard bits of the heart and put the seed in the wounds. Then you will grow, irrigate it.

“Friends, we have to interpret not just for each other, but we have to interpret in each other's heart. We have to gather and we have to let ourselves speak all the names of God that makes our heart go a-flaring. We have to confess that some names of God are difficult because of our history. If you come from a Latin Americanindigenous community and you felt that an empire came over with a cross and took your land whacking the cross about, there is a truth in that and it has to be recognised. We also have names of God, of the God that makes our heart take fire and there are names of God we say that hurt other people of goodwill and we have to know that all and circumcise our hearts. May we continue together to sing out the names of God and to learn how it is that the Friend of friends calls us to say his name to each other.”
[End of first spoken ministry]

Speaker 2:
“When I was reading the study guide and meeting with Friends in the Netherlands and working with the theme for this Triennial, I found not only in myself, but I also heard through the words of Dutch Friends that we have difficulty in attaching the word prophet or prophecy to our own personal lives, to bring these words down to ground level. I have heard names of Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King or Gandhi several times, but I also have a name and how do I visualise prophecy in my own daily life. It seems such a big word and I have two feet on the ground. This past week I had the privilege of taking part in the pre-Triennial in Northern Ireland and one of the questions that arose was how to see this thing of serving cups of tea to wives of prisoners who want to visit their husbands? They have to wait, possibly quite a long time, and Friends in Belfast started pouring cups of tea and they organised a mini bus to shuttle these wives to the prison gate and back again. As participants in a Triennial we, I think, most of us were surprised, amazed to hear that in almost 40 years’ time this has grown to an organisation with 40 employees, Quaker cottage and a Quaker house, in all a huge organisation.

“We were pondering, Is this the way to do it, start with a cup of tea and just see how it grows? Maybe we didn't answer that question, but I am very impressed with this example.”

[John Sheldon]:
“Now, Friends, we will conclude our worship this morning with the hymn Be Thou My Vision”.

(Song sung)

[Charles G. Lamb]:
“I wonder just before we separate, could we have a moment of prayer.

“Our dear loving Heavenly Father, we thank you for having brought us here safely. We thank you for the knowledge of your presence here with us. We remember those that we have left at home, some unwell, some in hospital, we ask you Lord to be with them and with the many who are remembering us who are privileged to be here. We pray Lord that as we read in John's gospel that the true light which lighteth every man to cometh into this world might shine upon us here as we gather, that our hearts may search, that we may be tried, yes, for some of us possibly even in the fire, that during our time here we might experience a cleansing of our ways, a changing of our ways, that our eyes might be opened, and that we might be found obedient to walk to your foot steps. You have said 'I am the way, the truth and the life'. We pray Lord that that might be all of our experience as we gather here and that we might hear that still small voice which corrects us, which challenges us, and guides us in the right direction and so Lord we come before you this morning with thankful hearts. Renew our right spirit within us and fill us with the presence of thy Holy Spirit. This we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.”

Thank you very much, friends, for joining with us in worship this morning. I understand there may be some notices; is that correct? No notices at the moment. So there is tea and coffee next door and we are back here again at 11:00, thank you.

Short break.