The Refiner’s Fire
Prepared message given as part of Three Rivers worship on Zoom 20 May 2021. Editor’s note: when quotations are read aloud, the transcript follows what was actually spoken.
I also want to thank David Coletta and Kristina who helped me to prepare my heart for this, as well as Dorothy.
I'd like to start by reading you a passage. It's a short epistle. I’m not reading it all. From James Naylor to Friends, written in 1658, when he was in prison for blasphemy. And I won't say anything more, I’ll just read it, except that the language is definitely 17th century language, so I changed one or two words but certainly did not make it fully inclusive, and so I apologize for that. It doesn't express my feelings about gender or identity.
Children of God, seek a kingdom in you wherein the heavenly spirit rules, guides, and brings forth fruits of itself. Heavenly fruits, the fruits of grace and meekness and of a lowly mind, the fruit of peace and gentleness and forbearance amongst yourselves. These are heavenly fruits and the virtues of the Tree of Life. Wait with patience to feel that quickened which is sown in tears and springs up with joy out of the sight of the natural understanding that that alone may bear you. And let the life open the understanding that is the heavenly learning of Christ Jesus the righteous, full of grace and truth. But, striving to get up to the knowledge of heavenly things in notion and form before the thing itself be born and brought forth: this is the wrong way to learn Christ, as the way of the world that veils the life. For this knowledge stands in the worldly part to exalt and puff up the mind above the meekness and lowliness that is the spirit of Christ, and beguiles the soul of the simplicity in which it should feed. So a tree may grow high and hard and strong, yet fruitless and out of the power. God above the poor, above the innocent, and out of the feeling of the sufferer and the person of sorrows where that person is. And the end of this growth is not in the pure rest. The end of that growth is not in the pure rest. For the higher anyone grows here the more doth wither and die in them which is soft and tender and melting. Which makes one and is the true fold for lambs where the lions must lie down in the end if they come to rest. The eye must be put out which looks to be great among people, that comes not into the rest, but hath strife in the mind, strife in words, as secret smitings which defile the rest and lead into division and separation. But the little child leads into the rest, and that which is lowly gives the entrance.
Naylor's words bespeak to me two different paths: a way that is of the world that has to do with power over others, honoring people's gifts differently; and a way of trying to think about religion and spirituality that's in the head rather than the heart.
A passage which is much more familiar to Friends I’ll quickly read, because it's also spoken to me much earlier than this passage that I got from Brian Drayton that I just read. And it’s from Matthew 5.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn; they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
Christ -- the eternal Christ -- is surely not gendered. But to me the man, the human body that Jesus, walked and spoke in words of a different kind of maleness than what is honored in the world and in Empire. I myself am the oldest son of an oldest son of an oldest son, most of whom were New Englanders: independent, sturdy, but also very domineering men. And I’ve had a very long and difficult journey to live into and understand and deal with the kinds of patterns of living and being that Naylor and Jesus both spoke about as the world's way, or as Empire's way, or like a tree that grows high over others. Not just with gender, but with race, with sexuality, sexual orientation, with class.
I have been touched by Marcelle Martin’s book Our Life Is Love, and she has a chapter in there called “The Refiner’s Fire,” which, when I first saw it, I had no idea what she was talking about. It comes from the prophet Malachi, chapter 3, where the prophet said,
The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, indeed this messenger is coming, says the Lord of Hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and the fullers’ soap.
Again, outmoded language. But a refiner's fire is a very hot furnace where impure metals are placed, and the terrible heat burns away the impurities and leaves pure silver or gold. And fullers’ soap is a very caustic soap used to wash wool and make it soft and pliable and pleasant and tender to the skin. And fulling was a very harsh process; sometimes they would beat the wall with hammers, and other times they would walk on the wool to help drive out the impurities.
Margaret Fell wrote, and urged Friends, “Let the living principle of God in you all examine what ye possess and enjoy of Christ who is eternal, and what is of Christ will stand in God's presence, which is a consuming fire to all that is not of God.” She spoke of the refiner’s fire as something that happens in convincement stage of a spiritual journey. Many Friends in their journals spoke about terribly painful times when they were first being opened to God's light. I felt the refiner’s fire more later in my journey, where I already feel part of a journey with Christ, but I’m always discovering new impurities, new strong, rooted-in, hard-to-uproot ways of power over others, of needing to be right, of feeling like the world will not be okay unless I take charge. And yet sometimes in harsh ways the refiner's fire comes to me, maybe through another person, a woman, a person of a different class, a person of a different race, speaking truth to my impurities, my wounds. And sometimes it happens in gentle, tender, cool grace, and in a still small voice.