Dear Friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Three years ago, I received an invitation to a family reunion in Geneva, Minnesota. It was the place where my mother was raised and my parents were married.  For decades, we had attended the annual reunion of my father’s Norwegian side of the family,  but this was the first time we had been invited to my mother’s English paternal side of the family, what we affectionately referred to as the Farr Side. The invitation itself made me curious. It had both an heraldic shield with a bold Gothic letter F printed on it, and a picture of William Penn.  To be honest, the Farr Side of my family was always a bit of a mystery.  It was made up of opinionated, proud, non-conformist dissenters. My grandfather Amos Farr, from whom the A in Arden comes from, didn’t care much for Norwegian Lutherans and their traditions, even though he married one. His daughter, my mother, wasn’t allowed to be baptized until she was 18^th years old when she could make her own decision.  That is how stubborn and set in his ways he could be. Well, it was at that family reunion that I discovered my English Quaker roots in Pennsylvania.

Sons do not always follow in the footsteps of their fathers. This was certainly true of the Penn family, the founders of Pennsylvania. The father, Admiral William Penn was an English royalist who was honored for his courageous military work and loyalty to the king, while his son was a non-conformist and pacifist who would champion the principal of individual rights. After the English Civil War, the death of Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell, and restoration of the Monarchy in the mid 1600’s, King Charles II responded with a violent persecution of all religious groups opposed to the Church of England including Roman Catholics and Quakers. The younger Penn was studying at the University of Oxford at that time and was caught in a volatile mix of sober Puritans called Cavaliers, and non-conforming Quakers.  Because of his father’s high position and social status, the young Penn was assumed to be a Cavalier among the students, but his sympathies lay with the Quakers. Despite the dangers, Penn began to attend Quaker meetings and was soon arrested. Rather than deny his curiosity and avoid any charges, he publicly declared himself a Quaker. Enraged, his father tried his best to reason with his son but to no avail. Admiral Penn felt he had no option but to order him out of the house. The younger Penn who was now homeless, began to live with Quaker families where he became a close friend of George Fox, the founder of the Religious Society of the Friends, known colloquially as the Quakers.  Penn travelled frequently with Fox through England and Europe. He wrote a comprehensive explanation of Quakerism along with a biography of George Fox. In effect, Penn became the first theologian, and legal defender of Quakerism, providing its written doctrine and helping to establish its public standing.

William Penn strongly believed in the individual’s right to choose their belief and faith practice, and in 1668, he published the first of many pamphlets questioning the authority of the Crown over matters of faith for which he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. With his father dying, the younger Penn wanted to see him and restore their relationship.  Still in prison, he urged his father not to pay his fine and free him.   Over the years, however, his father had gained respect for his son’s integrity and courage and told him, “Let nothing in this world tempt you to wrong your conscience” and then paid his fine. The Admiral understood that after his death his son would become more vulnerable.  In an act which not only secured his son’s protection but also set the conditions for the founding of Pennsylvania, the Admiral wrote to the Duke of York, the heir to the throne. In return for the Admiral’s lifetime of service to the Crown, the Duke promised to protect young Penn and make him a royal counsellor. A decade after the senior Penn’s death, in March of 1681, King Charles II granted William Penn the charter for a proprietary colony in the New World. The grant settled an old debt owed by the king to Penn’s father.  The younger Penn wanted to name the territory New Wales because the hilly terrain reminded him of the Welsh countryside. His second choice was Sylvania, the Latin word for forest. The King himself, however, chose to name the colony Pennsylvania, or Penn’s Forest after the late Admiral. The younger Penn reluctantly agreed.

Penn’s blueprint for Pennsylvania was unique among colonial governments specifically requiring that “natives” of the Lenape tribes be treated equally with new settlers both economically and legally  It was to be a Holy Experiment. Penn launched a brilliant marketing campaign with incentives for settlers.  As for his capital Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, Penn envisioned broad roads and green spaces. True to his conviction, there was no state religion in Pennsylvania and also no standing army.  Nor were oaths to be spoken by public servants or others signs of allegiance to king, colony or community. Within a year 23 ships carrying nearly 2000 English Quakers arrived in the colony. It offered the promise of a good life for everyone who settled there regardless of the religious beliefs and practice.

The morning’s story of the disciple Peter and his dramatic “fall from grace,” teaches us that even Jesus’ closest followers can be confused by the promise of God’s “good life.”  Earlier in scripture, Peter was praised for his confession of faith.  He was following faithfully in the footsteps of his master.  When Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”  Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”  It was a great moment for Peter, as he took this rightful seat at the head of the class.  He felt as though he had landed feet first into the good life.

Unfortunately, the moment of victory didn’t last long. In the continuation of that story, we read that from that time on, Jesus began to tell his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.  Peter was shocked.  This was not the “good life” he imagined.  He had left his livelihood as a fisherman to take on a new life with Jesus. He had left the simple comforts of home to take on a tough life on the road.  He had left a familiar well-worn routine to take on the uncertainties of a whole new life. And, now, finally, when the good life was there for the taking, Peter was shocked when Jesus said there would be still more sorrow and suffering to come, and so he rebuked Jesus.  Embarrassingly Jesus then in turn rebuked Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!”

My friends, that is the surprise and shock for many Christians. The good life that Jesus promises is not always what we receive here and now. Far more often the reward and treasure that is promised is yet to come. Theologian Tom Long once described the promised good life that Jesus embodied as this: “A life that is spent soothing the pain of the sick, caring for children in need, hammering nails in houses for those without shelter, sharing bread with the hungry, visiting those in prison.  Denying oneself may seem like a squandered life in the economy of a self-centered age, but in the storehouse of heaven, it is a lavish treasure.”  That is Jesus’ promise.

William Penn understood the trials of discipleship more than any other colonial founder. A man of deep religious conviction, he was imprisoned several times in the Tower of London.  His book No Cross, No Crown, published in 1669 while he was in prison has become a classic of Christian theological literature. He also understood that the good life in this world will have its sorrows. Regrettably, William Penn was a better theologian than businessmen.  At age 62, he landed in debtors’ prison. A rush of sympathy reduced his punishment to house arrest. By then Penn had grown weary of governing, so out of fear that colony might fall into the hands of an opportunist he tried to sell Pennsylvania back to the Crown. In 1712, Penn suffered a first stroke. A second stroke several months later left him unable to speak or take care of himself. He slowly lost his memory. And in 1718, at age 73, Penn died penniless, but he knew his reward was great in heaven. All because he opened the door to a good life in his Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania.

My own family story in America began with William Penn. At that Farr Family reunion, I discovered that my mother’s paternal ancestor Richard Farr and his wife Mary Sanger practicing English Quakers arrived in Pennsylvania aboard the Bristol Factor on December 15th 1681. They were indentured servants to one of the three commissioners hired by Penn to survey the land before his arrival in the colony the following year. They were economically indebted to the commissioner to do everything that was required of him without pay and without question.  In spite of the journey across the Atlantic Ocean, and the reality that many settlers died in their first year in the New World, they trusted God and that his promise of a good life would be theirs one day. At the completion of their 4 years of service, they were released from indenture and treated as freemen with the right to work their own 50 acres of land allotted to them by William Penn. Richard Farr would become a juryman in the early Philadelphia court and constable in Chester, Pennsylvania, the oldest city in the state.

My friends, the good life Jesus promises may at times seem out of reach, and the cost of discipleship too high. You may be tempted to turn away fearful that sorrow and suffering may rob you of your joy.  But the story of Jesus rebuking Peter teaches that when you bravely and courageously follow Jesus in his suffering- he will help you grow.  Jesus, the one who willingly walked the way of sorrows for you, the one who offered his life upon the cross and his endless possibilities for you, will offer in those lonely, painful hours his gifts of strength and hope and glory. He will walk beside you. And along the way, you will discover that the good life he offers is yours. Amen.

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.