It’s good to be together, Friends.
If there’s one thing I know, it’s that stories matter. As human beings, we are made of stories. Stories shape our actions, our memories, and our identities, our relationships with ourselves and one another. In them, we find meaning, direction, and purpose for our journeys in this world.
Stories help us understand where we have been. They help us to know where we stand in the present and what matters now. And, for good or ill, the stories we choose to tell—the stories we come to inhabit together—shape our encounters with the world in the time to come. The stories we tell become the stories we live.
This is especially true for us as participants in a spiritual tradition which calls us to support one another in living a different Story, one that may lead us into ways of being which can seem a great distance from the stories that are loudest or most visible in our wider society.
And so: Here we are at the 363rd Annual Sessions of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends.
Part of how I understand what Friends have done as part of our Sessions for so many years, and what we are invited to do together over these next several days, is to participate in a kind of annual storytelling festival. An opportunity to share stories of how the Spirit has been alive and active in our lives in recent months, how God has been with us, blessed us, and changed us, and how we sense Love calling us to live out a shared vocation in the world.
We are invited to listen together for how our personal stories, and especially the stories of the life and ministry present in our local Friends meetings, are part of one greater Story—a story about the unfolding of Love, continually being born in Creation.
The stories we tell become the stories we live.
In recent months, I’ve been returning in prayer to two stories drawn from the living roots of our tradition, and I’ve felt to share them with you. They’re old stories. They’re stories about a People yearning for a new society, about humans in search of a home that can hold them amidst the anxiety and suffering of a changed and changing world. Maybe they could be stories about us, too.
Here’s the first story—one of the earliest to be written down, and older still:
The sun rose on the wreckage of the Ark. It was after the catastrophe of the Flood, in the wake of the disaster. As the waters receded, the people went out, seeking a new home in a changed and changing world. They felt lost. They felt alone. They grew afraid.
In time, they gathered together in one place, on a great plain between two rivers. By digging, shaping, and storing, they began to learn—with surprise and delight—that they could forge a life of greater security and stability for themselves.
Slowly the chaotic mud of that place became orderly bricks, shaped by pressure and hardened by heat. There, on the plain, they built a city. There, they hoped, they could create a new society. In this place, they would make a home for themselves.
The canals and earthworks they built made possible an abundance of food and shelter. Soon their storehouses were filled. Together, they celebrated the beautiful work of their hands. And they began to dream great dreams.
They forged new ways of living to mend the harms of history, a new community where everyone would have a place. The common language they created enabled learning and teaching, planning and building. They were making a new way together. They felt less alone. And they grew less afraid.
Soon, they came to understand that they didn’t need to depend on external power or outdated superstitions—they could rely on the creativity and the power they found in themselves and one another. They saw that their community—and the structures and systems they were building to support it—could make new things possible. More than ever, working together, they could channel and grow the energy of the people to make the vision they shared more fully expressed in the world.
The people carried the enduring memory of the terror of powerlessness, and of the chaotic rivalries and senseless suffering that had nearly destroyed the world. They were never going back. Through the insight and understanding they now held, things would be different.
In this city they were building, they would create a better world. Here, people would learn to be more just, more generous, more peaceful, more free. They knew this would be difficult, but working together, nothing would be impossible. As long as they believed in themselves, and supported one another and their vision, their home would thrive. Here, they would create the world they so yearned for.
Whenever they grew tired or discouraged, their faith in what they had built would sustain them. Their city would become a beacon, a light in a despairing world, a beloved community that would endure.
And so they built a tower, rising up to heaven. They called it “Bab-il”—the gate of the gods.
It was only later that someone first called their dream by another name. That name is “empire.”
Some of us may have heard the rest of this story—or maybe, in some sense, we may have lived it. We may recognize some echoes of this story in ourselves.
You see, as they had grown in the wonder of their own gifts, they had forgotten the Giver.
With time, the very web of life that sustained them began to unravel as they strained to meet the ever-growing, overflowing desires and demands among them, driving them ever onward to conquer and control. They became ever more watchful for threats from without—and from within. Resentment and grievance festered; rivalry and suspicion came to rule relationships. As trust eroded, confusion and division descended.
And so—the Tower of Babel fell.
Despite the miracle of their imaginations and the wonders they created together, they had proven themselves unable to be their own gods.
In the wreckage and ruin of the Tower, the people who had placed their faith in themselves were once again scattered—fearful, lonely, and disconnected.
And yet, their devotion to a world remade in their own strength and wisdom remained. We are their descendants. We are building Babel still.
Here’s the second story. Still ancient, but closer to our own time:
The sun rose on the city of Jerusalem, on the wreckage of a movement. The people Jesus had called his “Friends” had traveled with their Teacher, sharing in his proclamation, teaching, and healing. They had participated in his betrayal and abandonment, and had witnessed the catastrophe of his torture and execution. In the midst of their despair, they had been astonished by a newly alive Presence, in the discovery of a divine Friendship which had come to them again, despite everything.
It was during the feast called Pentecost, when people from the corners of the earth gathered seeking nourishment for body and soul. These “Friends,” this ragtag band of holy fools, were all together in one place, in an upper room in the midst of the city.
In prayer, they waited. In a time pregnant with possibility and longing, they shared what they had, abiding in gratitude and love in this changed and changing world.
So when tongues of fire descended from heaven on every head, their willing and prepared hearts welcomed the Holy Spirit into their lives as the living presence of forgiveness and steadfast Love. The gravity of this Love drew them down from the height where they were gathered, out into the streets of the city. There, they met travelers who had come from many nations—a reflection of the fullness of humankind in a place, in a moment.
Moved by a strength that was not their own, these first Friends shared with those they were meeting the story of discovering this Friendship—this intimacy and unity with God and with another—that had come to reorder their lives. Their speech sounded strange to those around them. Yet everyone whose spirit was willing heard, in the language of their own heart.
In this meeting, the pilgrim travelers who heard these first Friends speaking discovered for themselves a place of refuge in which to abide—a strength, stability, and peace unlike any they had experienced before. Bearing all that they carried, they received a deep assurance that each one of them was—truly always had been, and always would be—held in an unshakeable belovedness—a belonging and care that no person, group, society, or power could ever take away—not even death.
Overshadowed by a boundless grace, an unmerited forgiveness beyond measure, they came to recognize how their long nurtured rhythms of desire and action—many shaped and transmitted across generations—had separated them from the Love of God. They found the grip of these long-held habits of the heart weakening.
Gradually, their addiction to striving and rivalry lost its hold on them. They began to be less ensnared by the urges and anxieties that had shaped their lives. Liberated from the need to control, fix, and perfect, they experienced a new freedom, an inner spaciousness, a sense of wholeness and resilience beyond what they had known.
They found themselves relating to their world differently. It was as if they had been given a new mind, and new ways of perceiving. Old wounds were not taken from them, but as a deeper healing came they came to know that all that they had suffered was held and shared, in the deepest sense, in God’s infinite care.
In response to the overflowing of this Love, they laid down burdens. In response to this Love, they took new burdens up. They discovered that even their own wounded and wandering hearts could become instruments of this universal Love.
Near at hand, they felt the presence of the Living Spirit that had come upon them, who could guide them toward a new Way.
As their relationship with this Spirit deepened, they grew into unity with one another as well, a new connectedness as a family in faith. Day by day, those who had ears to hear and whose hearts had grown tender received a new identity—a new kind of self-understanding and self-expression—one not earned or imposed, but one freely given. This transcendent oneness embraced and encompassed their blessed diversity, bringing each aspect of who they were to a new fullness. Within, through, and among them, a new society was being born. They were being welcomed home.
But the journey didn’t end with their own homecoming. They came to see themselves as a humble, essential part of one great Story, unfolding across the ages. They discovered it was impossible to journey for long in the guiding presence of this Love without being moved to share it.
This homecoming, they now knew, could never be confined to one place, one group, one institution, one city. They could not be saved in isolation, outside of the world as it existed. Instead, they were given to participate in God’s revealing of a new Creation in their midst.
And so they went out—into the streets and into the world—encouraged by the Spirit to expect, recognize, and respond to this same Life at work in every heart. In each grace-filled encounter, they welcomed those whose hearts were open into fellowship with the Life and Power, a fellowship which bore the fruits of the Spirit.
Across a changed and changing world, their surrendered lives bore witness to a self-giving Love, here and yet still being born. And daily, they chose this path they were being given to discover, so filled with suffering, struggle, and sacrifice. For the sake of the joy that was set before them, they embraced the world as it was—and joined in God’s continuing labor toward what it was becoming.
In the years that followed, many more fellowships were gathered, distinguished by an astonishing diversity, care for the vulnerable, and equality across differences unknown in the experience of those around them. The love and joy palpably present in these communities—even and especially in the midst of suffering and persecution—were signs of a new society made possible by this common unity, this mutual foundation, this shared Friendship.
Now, in every place, in every life, in every moment, the invitation to this Friendship remains. We are their descendants. This homecoming waits for us, still.
Those who built the tower to heaven and those on whom the Spirit descended are ancestors to us all. Each in their own way, the stories of Babel and of Pentecost offer distinct visions of a People yearning for a new society, of choices always before us, and of enduring consequences. At Babel, we seek to build a shelter through struggle and striving in our own power. At Pentecost, through surrendering to Grace, we are welcomed home. The first story is the founding myth of empire. The second heralds the birth of a new family in faith.
And now, in our own time and context, we’re returning to the place where each of these stories begin. As the sun rises on this day for us, we find ourselves once more in the midst of the ancient wreckage—reeling from catastrophe, after the disasters of these years. In so many aspects and circumstances of our lives, we are seeking a renewed society, yearning for a home that can hold us.
Moment by moment, as at Babel, our wills claw and clamber over one another in rivalry, suspicion, and fear. Our urgent, distorted, self-important visions eclipse the humble, patiently waiting invitation to a life in faith. In our hubris and shortsightedness, we who bear the image of God seek to make God in our own image. We strive to make ourselves into gods, with the best of intentions, with the most beautiful illusions, for the most compelling purposes. It’s an old, familiar story—one of the first to be written. The tower on that Mesopotamian plain fell. But its ruin stands waiting in the city of our hearts, ready to be rebuilt—brick by brick by brick—today.
And moment by moment, the Spirit waits to come upon us as it did at Pentecost, shattering the towers we build within, bringing us down to a new foundation of humility, surrender, and relationship with God, and so with one another and all Creation—and sending us forth bearing news of great joy.
Both at Babel and at Pentecost; and here, now, today—there is work to be done. But the story that animates us in this work makes all the difference.
Friends across generations have known that the journey of faithfulness requires discipline and practice. Our distinctive ways of worship and discernment offer a time-tested way of removing distractions and focusing our prayerful attention as we learn to more deeply receive and respond with our lives to the Love of God.
We need other tools as well: Research and study; administration and stewardship; policy, processes; organizing and advocacy; programs and training—dedicated and diligent work of every kind—each play a meaningful part in how we respond to the leadings and cares we are given. These capacities and tools are expressions of gifts from our Creator, part of the fearful and wonderful way in which each of us is uniquely made.
And yet—there is always the risk, in our humanness, that all these things can become ends unto themselves. Earlier generations of Friends warn us to take care of the ideological frameworks and abstract theories that they would call “notions”, and the allure of too much outward striving, lest as we grow in the beautiful form, we dwindle in the Life. Action and urgency are seductive; for many of us they can and do offer a reprieve from anxiety and loneliness. I know they have for me.
Some time ago, a Friend put a collection of the minutes of New England Yearly Meeting over recent years into a “word cloud” generator—the one where words are arranged and displayed at a size reflecting their relative frequency in the whole body of the text. The resulting constellation of words led to a striking revelation: The word at the center of this page reflecting our corporate discernment and life together, far larger than all of the others, was not “Love”. It was not “Friend”. It was not “community”, or “faith”, or “justice” or “peace”, or “God”, or “Spirit”. It was “work.” Work.
There is something addictive about an undue reliance on work, a distortion that comes from disordered attention to simply getting things done, to getting more done, or through work, an attempt to exercise some kind of control in an uncontrollable world. Like all addictions, an unhealthy reliance on work and our own capacities to remake the world can eclipse our sight and distract our hearts, closing us off from God’s Presence with us. And this is true no matter our intentions, no matter the goal or the vision we embrace.
Because according to our spiritual ancestors, the root sin at the origin of what some call empire is not injustice. It is not discrimination or oppression. It is not violence or hatred or ignorance or jealousy or exclusion or greed. According to our spiritual ancestors, the root sin—the root distortion of our hearts that leads to empire, Friends—is what they called pride.
Translated from the ancient words for this spiritual condition in Hebrew and Greek, “pride” in this sense is living as if our own expectations, cravings, emotions, and experiences are at the center of the universe, that each of our own small and separated senses of self form the axis on which the spinning world turns. Pride is a spiritual distortion that asserts that it is us—and not the wellspring of our life, the fountain of all Being—it is us … that is and should be of ultimate concern.
Pride is the opposite of surrender, the mortal enemy of gratitude. It is the antithesis of humility, and the nemesis of right relationship. It is the death of joy. And pride is the ground and spring of the systems and structures of oppression, exploitation, and violence, the powers and principalities of this world which have been called empire.
Taking the path of pride is always an option. It’s an easy, compelling, and rewarding way—at least until it’s too late. And yet, even in the midst of Babel, another journey awaits: a way of yielding, a pilgrimage of faith.
Bearing all we have suffered and lost, all the troubles we have known, all the sin and evil committed by or against us, we are invited to find our rightful place in a society of surrendered hearts, a fellowship of unfathomable, unearned, and undeserved grace, forgiveness, and joy. We’re invited to come home to a community of those discovering themselves beloved beyond measure, each one of us at once betrayer and betrayed, traitor and Friend.
This fellowship is born from an abiding: it grows in, with, and through communion with this common Life, this Seed Pattern of Grace. And this Love’s presence is known by its fruits—the fruits of the Spirit—in the imperfect lives of those who humbly choose to seek it.
At the heart of the testimony of the Religious Society of Friends across the centuries, for which so many have laid down their lives, is this enduring conviction: The self-giving Love of God, and no other power, can make us truly free.
This Love cannot be summoned to endorse our cause. It cannot be domesticated to meet our demands, or invoked as an afterthought to spiritualize our schemes. This Love can only be waited upon, welcomed, allowed, embraced. It is when we are ready—if we are willing—to surrender to this Love, and to allow ourselves to be shaped and formed in this Love’s image, that we begin to become who and whose we were created to be.
Daily we are offered a choice: to strive for the citizenship forged in Babel, or to welcome the fellowship given at Pentecost. Truly, these are not times or places; each is an orientation of the heart. Only we can choose where we give our loyalty. And this choice of allegiance matters.
So may we remember that this week together for Sessions is a time for choosing. In the coming days, we will be offered many opportunities to communicate, with our words and actions, the stories where we make our homes, the stories by which we are being formed. Whether in our moments of celebration, in quiet encounters, in play and rest and grief and inspiration and discernment, I believe we are being invited—especially now—to keep our prayerful attention turned to the orientation of our hearts. Which story will we choose in this moment, and the next? Where will we—each of us—give our allegiance? Even now, are we turning toward Babel, or Pentecost?
Maybe this time, in this wreckage, we don’t need to build a tower. Maybe this could be a season overcome by tenderness, a homecoming of amazement and joy.