Through the Flaming Sword

There’s one more thing to say about testing new leadings. I think the most reliable touchstone for a new revelation may be the lives being lived by those Friends who are already living according to that leading.

I think of Woolman’s refusal to notarize a slaveowner’s slave sale, or Jesus’ refusal to pay the Roman tax or to curse his persecutors.

But the real source of my own championing of this touchstone for new leadings is the lives of the gay and lesbian Friends who were seeking to be married under the care of our meetings in New York Yearly Meeting. No one could deny their love for each other, or the exemplary lives they were living as couples (though I’m sure they had their troubles, as all couples do), and the grace with which they endured all the conflict surrounding their requests, in most cases. 

What more could we want to know about what would happen if we married them? Their lives bore good witness. And then meetings started marrying them, at last, and the sky did not fall, lightning bolts did not strike them down. The “institution of marriage” was expanded, not degraded. Instead, we were blessed by their lives and their loves, as we were being blessed by them before they got married.

New leadings come to us through real people, and these people are our prophets. As Jesus experienced (and Jeremiah and Amos, etc, before him), prophets often have no respect in their home communities. But, when we are lucky, their persistence and faithfulness can overcome our resistance, when we see that their words and deeds, their lives and their example, bear good fruit. For you shall know them by their fruits, said Jesus himself regarding true and false prophets (Matthew 7:15).