Considering today’s emphasis on individuality, plurality, and personal psychology, I believe that returning to the metaphor of the Seed holds the most potential for fertile spiritual development and guidance in our own era.

I find the evolution of Quaker metaphors fascinating. Early Quaker sermons and epistles were packed with biblical allusions. I grew up relatively unchurched but I’ve tried to make up for it over the years. I’ve read the Bible cover-to-cover using the One Year Bible plan (like a lot of people I suspect, it took me a little over two years) and have been part of different denominational Bible study groups. I try to look up references. But even with that I don’t catch half the references early sermons packed in.

John Woolman lived a couple of generations after the first Friends. We Quaker remember his Journal for ministry of its anti-slavery sentiments, finally becoming a consensus among Friends by the time of its publication in 1774. But other religious folks have read it for its literary value. Open a random page and Woolman will have up to half a dozen metaphors for the Divine. It’s packed and rich and accessible. I find a kind of particular Quaker spiritual truth in Woolman’s rotation of metaphors: it implies that divinity is more than any specific words we try to stuff it into.

Lately Quaker metaphors have tended to become more sterile. I think we’re still worried about specifics but instead of expanding our language we contract it into a kind of impenetrable code. The “Light of Christ” becomes the “Inward Christ” then the “Inward Light” then “the Light” or “Spirit.” We’re still echoing the Light metaphors packed into the Book of John but doing so in such a way that seems particularly parochial to Friends and non-obvious to newcomers. A major New Testament theme is reduced to Quaker lingo.

Jnana Hodson’s problem with “the seed” as metaphor is interesting: “ ‘seed,’ as such, has far fewer Biblical citations than the corresponding complementary ‘light’ or ‘true’ and ‘truth’ do.” I’m not sure I ever noticed that. I like the seed, with its organic connotations and promise of future growth.  But apparently the few biblical allusions were rather sexist (spoiler: it often meant semen) and lacking in biological awareness. It feels like Friends are searching for neutral metaphors like “the seed” these days; we also have a lot of gatherings around “weaving.” I certainly don’t think we should be limited to first century images of divinity but I also don’t think we’ve quite figured out how we can talk about the guidance we receive from the Inward Teacher.

The Seed, initially, is the most problematic of the three central Quaker metaphors

I’m in Exodus 30 now and the Lord is giving Moses a list
of very specific laws. In 30:17, he specifies how Aaron and the
priestly caste must wash their feet everytime they come into the
Tabernacle and gives the what else: “or they will die!” Then God makes
the law firm: “This is a permanent law for Aaron and his descendants,
to be observed from generation to generation.”

I’m reading a special One Year Bible,
where all of the daily readings are grouped together. There’s not too
much commentary and I tend to skip it but the editors did feel the need
to address the laws of the Old Testament head on and asked in one
sidebar “Do we need to follow these laws today?” The answer was yes and
no: “The moral law is still to be followed… The ceremonial laws no
longer need to be followed because of the final sacrifice for since has
been made by Jesus.”

God very clearly says in Exodus that the
laws he’s giving are permanent. I don’t really read much wiggle room in
there. Priests need to wash their feet… and kill a certain number of
lamb every year… and splatter the sacrificial blood around the alter a certain
way and… I know Jesus is the new law, etc., but still it’s kind of
funny how literal-interpretation Christians will shrug off a direct and
permanent order from God. It seems obvious that the religious
traditions in the Bible differ greatly, as do the modern lens we bring
to them and the two centuries of shifting Christian practices we’ve
brought to them.

Does anyone happen to know if there’s any religious group still trying to follow the details of the Mosaic Law? I wonder close do certain Orthodox Jewish groups get?