That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Advent (Page 5 of 9)

Stir Up – From the Daily Office – December 17, 2013

December 17, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Revelation:

You are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Rev. 3:15-16 (NRSV) – December 17, 2013.)

Hand Stirring a CupWhen I was in college I was part of group that liked to go backpacking on weekends. Because we were in Southern California, this often meant a trek into some desert wilderness where there was no local water. As a result, we each had to carry enough water for the weekend; as a rule of thumb, that would mean one gallon of water for each day of the hike.

We had found these one-quart, cube-shaped, collapsible water bladders that weighed just an ounce or two, and were easily packed into a backpacked. Pack four of those per day and you were set.

Of course, the cubes weren’t insulated and neither were the water bottles or canteens we carried outside our packs for easy regular access. One’s water was whatever temperature the day was; most of the time that meant the water was tepid, or as this verse says “lukewarm.” It satisfied the body’s need for hydration, but it was not terribly refreshing or stimulating!

I’ve always understood these two verses from Revelation (part of the message to the angel of the church in Laodicea to be metaphorical. I have considered that being “hot” or “cold” equate to loving or hating God; being lukewarm, to being indifferent. Understood in this way, the verse encourages emotional commitment.

But as I think about drinking that tepid water on those college hikes and how much more I appreciated the water if it was chilled or used to make a hot beverage, I’m wondering if maybe the passage should be understood somewhat more literally. What if God really does want to be refreshed? What if God really wants to be stimulated? (I won’t say “needs to be,” but that would be an even more interesting question.)

That God enjoys refreshment and finds it good is witnessed in Scripture. In the Book of Exodus, God commands the Israelites to honor the sabbath because “it is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” (Exodus 31:17)

That God might be stimulated by human beings was explored by the poet Louise Glück as she described an afternoon hike:

Even as you appeared to Moses, because
I need you, you appear to me, not
often, however. I live essentially
in darkness. You are perhaps training me to be
responsive to the slightest brightening. Or, like the poets,
are you stimulated by despair, does grief
move you to reveal your nature? This afternoon,
in the physical world to which you commonly
contribute your silence, I climbed
the small hill above the wild blueberries, metaphysically
descending, as on all my walks: did I go deep enough
for you to pity me, as you have sometimes pitied
others who suffer, favoring those
with theological gifts? As you anticipated,
I did not look up. So you came down to me:
at my feet, not the wax
leaves of the wild blueberry but your fiery self, a whole
picture of fire, and beyond, the red sun neither falling nor
rising —
I was not a child; I could take advantage of illusions.
(“Vespers” in The Wild Iris)

I wonder if God finds me refreshing or stimulating . . . or just lukewarm, tepid, and dull.

On Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent, in the Episcopal Churches, we began our worship with this prayer, “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.” Perhaps it is us who need to stir up in Advent, who need to become hot or cold, stimulating or refreshing.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Corporate Responsibility – From the Daily Office – December 16, 2013

December 16, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

We have heard with our ears, O God, our forefathers have told us,
the deeds you did in their days, in the days of old.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 44:1 (NRSV) – December 16, 2013.)

Mouth Speaking into EarToday’s evening psalm begins with a verse reminiscent of the psalm verse from which my blog takes its name:

That which we have heard and known,
and what our forefathers have told us, *
we will not hide from their children. (Ps 78:3)

These psalms speak to the obligation of the generations to communicate from one to another the lore of the faith, the stories that make us who we are, the tales that cement the People of God together. This is a duty which is common across the gulfs of religion, culture, and nationality; any group of people which considers itself a unified society must communicate generation to generation the knowledge and the values around which the society coheres. One generation must tell and the next must listen; the older must teach; the younger, learn.

In the past few days two news items caught my attention. The first was a report of findings of sociologists that Americans are less mobile in the second decade of the 21st Century than we were 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. People in our country are not moving from place to place, not changing residences as frequently as they used to. Those doing the research did not venture an explanation of why this is, but they offered possible reasons including the much higher costs of relocation, the change from a manufacturing to a service economy, and the homogeneity of both the current workforce and the current job market. Whatever the reasons, the nation seems to be returning to a more settled way of life, perhaps one similar in some ways to the agrarian society of the nation’s youth. This means that stories of affinity and location, the tales that form neighborhoods and cultures, the social economy of the small community will become more important.

The second news item, however, suggests that settled communities and social economies are not forming, that they are instead being destroyed. The story concerned the way in which the large corporations that form the basis of our service and information based economy (Facebook, Google, Twitter, cell phone companies, and so forth) are moving into and taking over the urban landscape. Because these companies need large amounts of space, their entry into the urban real estate market as buyers drives up the cost of office and commercial space, often to a rate that small retailers, cafes, restaurants, and other local businesses cannot afford. This, in turn, leads those smaller businesses to go out of operation. In addition, these corporations are providing “full service campuses” for their employees – providing gymnasiums and recreational facilities, dining facilities, all the ancillary services previously provided by the smaller businesses. This exacerbates the small, local businesses’ problem and accelerates their demise. The full-service corporate campuses and the absence of those small retail firms, cafes, and restaurants mean that the normal “meeting places” of society are disappearing. The employees of different businesses, the constituencies of competing corporate societies no longer have either need or place to interact.

These two trends seem to me to be incompatible. As we become more settled and have greater need for the organs of society that create communal coherence, we are also being fractured by the economic engines driving us to be more settled; the corporations which undergird the service-information economy are (perhaps inadvertently) demolishing the small-business economy that fosters human community in settled societies.

Now someone will say, “But there is the internet. Those service-information corporations, through the internet, provide an alternative to the public spaces, the small-business and social interactions of earlier settled communities.” Yes, to an extent that is so. But the internet and social media cannot replace the one-on-one, the one-with-many flesh-and-blood interactions of humankind. We need those in-the-flesh moments, to see another’s face, to hear his or her inflections, tones-of-voice, sighs, and chuckles, even to smell his or her sweat, breath, or perfume.

I am not blaming the Googles, the Twitters, the Facebooks for the loss of what sociologist Robert Putnam called “social capital” (see Bowling Alone), but I am suggesting that it is our responsibility to use the technologies and media they offer in appropriate ways, ways that enhance rather than disrupt the formation and sustaining of human community. I am suggesting that the owners, executives, managers, employees, and customers of those corporations share in that responsibility.

We cannot with integrity and authenticity say that we “have heard with our ears [what] our forefathers have told us” if we have only seen a Tweet, viewed a Facebook page, or read a blog entry. We cannot with integrity and authenticity say that we are not hiding the story of our community from our children if we are not sharing that story with one another in person. If we are to sing these psalms authentically, we must tell with our own voices, hear with our own ears, see with our own eyes, not with those of technology. It is our corporate responsibility.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

The Highway of Salvation – Sermon for Advent 3, RCL Year A – December 15, 2013

December 15, 2013 / / 0 Comments

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This sermon was preached on the Third Sunday of Advent, December 15, 2013, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The Revised Common Lectionary, Advent 3A: Isaiah 35:1-10; Canticle 15 (The Song of Mary, Luke 1:46-55); James 5:7-10; and Matthew 11:2-11. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Highway though Blooming Desert

There are some numbers that made the news this week: 194 and 11,507. They are important numbers, numbers which represent an unpleasant reality of the world in which we live. I’ll return to them in a moment. but first let’s explore the Scriptures assigned to this, the Third Sunday of Advent, the second week in a row the Gospel focuses on John the Baptizer.

Last week we heard from John himself, this week we have Jesus asking people why they paid attention to John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at?” he asks them. “A prophet,” would be the correct answer, but more than a prophet – the forerunner of the kingdom of God. Jesus draws on the tradition of the prophet Malachi through whom God had said, “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me . . . . ” (Mal. 3:1) It was Malachi who predicted that the Messiah would be heralded by the return of Elijah: “I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.” (Mal. 4:5) This was and remains in Judaism a traditional expectation known to all Jews. By equating John with Elijah, Jesus was announcing to one and all that, in himself, the reign of heaven had begun, that salvation was at hand. Some who heard him took this testimony seriously, but many others rejected. We take it seriously and because we do, we are preparing once again to celebrate Jesus’ birth.

We take it seriously that salvation is at hand, but what do we really mean when we use that word, “salvation”?

I know that many will say that salvation is a personal thing. “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved,” wrote Paul to the Romans. Many people believe that what this means is that, doing those two things, each person will get into heaven when he or she dies.

On the other hand, we have the witness of the prophet Isaiah in today’s reading from the Old Testament that salvation is more communal than personal. God “will come and save you,” he says: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” Hands that are weak will be strengthened, knees that are feeble will be made firm, and those who are fearful of heart will be made strong. Salvation is something that happens for the whole human community.

And not only is salvation communal, it is universal! Not only is salvation for the human community, it is for the whole of creation! “Waters shall break forth in the wilderness” and “the burning sand shall become a pool.” “The desert shall rejoice and blossom; . . . it shall blossom abundantly.”

Isaiah makes it clear that salvation is so much more than personal; it is so much more than simply getting into heaven when we die. Salvation is for everyone; it is for everything; and it is for the here-and-now. Jesus affirms this when John sends word to Jesus and asks, “Are you the one?” Jesus replies: “Tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Notice that everything Jesus says is present tense! It’s here! It’s now! It’s not “will be;” it’s not “might be;” it’s not sometime in the future. It’s not in heaven when we die! It’s here and it’s now!

So why, then, if salvation is for everyone and everything in the here-and-now, are we told to wait “until the coming of the Lord?” Why in our Epistle Lesson does James tell us to “be patient [as] the farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains?” That question haunted me during my prayers and my meditations this past week as I thought about what to say this morning. As I pondered the question, however, I came to realize that I was focusing on the wrong things. I was looking at and questioning the waiting and the patience, and I should have been fixing my attention on the farmer.

I grew up in a farming family. My nuclear family weren’t farmers, but my maternal great-grandfather, Hinrich Buss, homesteaded several thousand acres of Kansas farmland in the late 1800s and quite a few of my Buss cousins to this day run farms on that land. Some grow corn and soybeans; others run dairy farms. I know from family example that while farmers do a lot of waiting and have to be patient people, they are never idle. “Waiting with patience” doesn’t mean sitting around doing nothing; to wait and be patient as a farmer patiently waits is to be active, to be attentive, to take a hand in bringing about that for which one is waiting.

Salvation that transforms the human community, that enables all creation to sing together in present and eternal joy happens as people’s eyes are opened to see and their ears are unstopped to hear both the Good News of God in their own lives and the needs of others to know that Good News in their lives. When that happens, the desert wilderness blooms and becomes a verdant landscape.

Passing through that lush landscape, says Isaiah, there will be a highway. “It shall be called the Holy Way” and the redeemed shall walk upon it to Zion, singing and rejoicing as they go. How will that highway get there? In a few more chapters, Isaiah will answer that question by saying to the People of God, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” That highway, the highway of salvation, will get there because the People of God will build it!

There is an old story about a time of economic depression in France. The government decided that it would put the unemployed to work building roads. Initially, this worked well: the workers received paychecks, their spirits were high, and the government was pleased with itself. But then some of the laborers began to ask where the roads were leading. The government had to admit that these roads were simply make-work; they were going nowhere, just out into a swamp or something. The workers became dispirited; they lost a sense of purpose in their work. In a very real sense, their eyes were shut and their ears were closed up because they had been robbed of the hope that they were making life better for others and for themselves.

Salvation happens, the highway in the wilderness gets built, when there is hope; hope is there when our eyes and ears are opened to perceive that God is in our midst and to know that amazing things are possible. People of God have known this in every generation and they have seen it in every generation. God “has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.” God shows “the strength of his arm” and “scatter[s] the proud in their conceit” in every generation. God “cast[s] down the mighty from their thrones” and “lift[s] up the lowly” in every generation. God “fill[s] the hungry with good things” and sends “the rich . . . away empty” in every generation.

God does these things through God’s People who in every generation have seen Isaiah’s vision of a God of infinite and unstoppable hope, who in every generation have wondered how to see it more clearly, how to believe it more firmly, and how, like the patiently waiting farmer, to actively and attentively take a hand in transforming the often unpleasant desert realities in which they live.

I mentioned some numbers earlier, numbers that I suggested represent an unpleasant reality of the world in which we live: 194 and 11,507. Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the murder of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. We were tragically reminded of that massacre by another shooting incident on Friday at Arapahoe High School in suburban Denver, Colorado. In our country during the year between those two incidents, 11,507 people have died from gunshots; 194 of them have been children 12 years of age or younger. It is an unpleasant reality of the wilderness in which we still live, where we are still called to build the highway of salvation.

Let us pray:

Almighty God our heavenly Father, you have promised to come and save us as the eyes of the blind are opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped: Open our eyes and unstop our ears that we may know that you are in our midst and may share your vision of infinite and unstoppable hope, that we may do the work of transforming unpleasant realities and building the highway of salvation for all; for the sake of him who was and is and is to come, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Shaking Grammy – From the Daily Office – December 14, 2013

December 14, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Haggai:

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Haggai 2:6-7 (NRSV) – December 14, 2013.)

Antique KitchenI remember a movie scene, maybe a cartoon? A character is picked up by his ankles and shaken, and all the change in his pockets rattles out and collects on the ground beneath him . . . . That is what first came to mind when I read these verses of Haggai, still going on about rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem immediately after the Babylonian Exile.

Then another memory, a memory of being shaken myself.

I spent many childhood summers with my paternal grandparents in a small town in southeastern Kansas. They had moved there in 1919. My grandfather had purchased five city lots. On one he built there home, a three-bedroom bungalow. On another he built a similar home to rent out for income; eventually, it would be the home of my father’s older brother and his family who lived there during those childhood summers. On a third, Granddad built a large structure which might have been called a barn if it were on a farm or a ranch; we just called it “the garden shed.” That lot also was the location of the chicken coop where my grandmother collected eggs every morning. The remaining two lots were my grandfather’s garden and fruit orchard, where I worked and played with my cousins summer mornings; in the afternoon, we would go to the city swimming pool or to the library or to the movies.

My grandfather was a very good gardener, so there always seemed to be plenty of beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, okra, you-name-it for my grandmother to can, make into preserves, cook fresh, blanch and freeze, and so forth. When I think of her, I most often picture her in the kitchen.

Grammy Funston was a small woman. If she was fully five feet tall, I’d be surprised. Because kitchen counters were just a bit too tall for her, she preferred to sit at the kitchen table to do her vegetable and fruit preparation, the peeling, dicing, slicing, sorting, and what-all that is required to cook, preserve, or can garden produce.

Grammy’s kitchen was the way into the house from the garden, the orchard, the play yard, and the work shed: up the back porch steps, into the mudroom, past the stairs to the basement, into and through the kitchen to get to wherever else you might be headed. With all that cooking and canning going on, boiling pots of water on the stove, pans of cooking jams and jellies, stacks of glass mason jar and jelly glasses, it was also a busy and sometimes dangerous place. She didn’t mind people coming and going through her work space, but she had one hard-and-fast rule – no running in the kitchen.

Violate that rule and you would find yourself snagged! For a woman as petite as she was, she was incredibly strong and had a grip like iron. Run past her in that kitchen and her arm would flash out like a bull-whip; her hand would latch on to your upper arm like a vice; and you would find yourself planted right in front of her about to get a stern talking-to. She had a habit of placing her hands on both your upper arms and shaking you as she made her points: “You could get seriously hurt!” SHAKE “Do you understand me?” SHAKE “This is a dangerous place!” SHAKE

“I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations. . . .” I picture God as a grandmother working in her kitchen, making all sorts of good things, and occasionally snagging an unruly creation by the arm, grabbing the world by both shoulders. “This is a dangerous place!” SHAKE “You need to pay attention!” SHAKE “Do you understand me?” SHAKE

It’s the message of Advent, again! “Be alert; I have already told you everything.” (Mark 13:23) SHAKE!

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Spiritual Center – From the Daily Office – December 13, 2013

December 13, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Haggai:

Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider how you have fared. You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Haggai 1:5-6 (NRSV) – December 13, 2013.)

Spiral GalaxyIt never ceases to amaze me how directly Scripture can speak to the present day! The admonition to “Consider how you have fared,” and its description of an economy in a shambles, where the people work but do not enjoy the produce of their labor, continue to be hungry and thirsty, cannot find warmth, and find their earnings dribbling away to nothing, could be addressed to anyone anywhere in today’s world, I think.

Haggai’s purpose in speaking his prophecy is to encourage the rebuilding of the Temple in the years immediately following the end of the Babylonian Exile, sometime around 520 BCE. His thesis seems to be that if the Jews can reclaim their spiritual center, in his eyes quite literally the physical center of the universe, the Temple of God, their lot will improve. It’s a good point, I think.

I’ve noticed over the past few days that a lot of people were remarking that today would be “Friday the 13th,” not a few with noticeable dread. Many of the same people regularly check their horoscopes and will make it a point of telling others, “I’m a Sagittarius,” or will explain someone’s behavior with, “Well, he IS a Leo!”

My late mother was one such person. She didn’t put much stock in concern about the number 13 (live and work in Las Vegas, Nevada, and you see and learn to dismiss a lot of that sort of thing), but she sure seemed to pay attention to astrology. She was a Cancerian; she constantly reminded my brother and me that he was a Leo and I, a Libra. Whatever personality traits we exhibited were explained by the stars! But all that changed when she entered her 70s.

Something else changed then, too. Her son became a priest. About a year after my ordination, my family and I were visiting my parents and I noticed on her nightstand a copy of The Book of Common Prayer, an old study bible that had been on their bookshelves unused for years, and a newcomer’s pamphlet from a local Episcopal Church. I picked up the BCP and walked into the living room.

“Uh . . . what’s this?” I asked innocently.

“Well,” she said in that almost-sarcastic tone of voice on which I think she had a trademark, “I guess you’re serious about this, so I thought I’d better check it out.”

And check it out she did. Both she and my step-father became official members of the Episcopal Church later that year. He became a regular handyman volunteer around the church, and she became an active member (and even an officer) in the Episcopal Church Women. They attended Mass every week, took part in social events, and worked in the church’s outreach ministry. Both pre-planned their memorial services using the burial rites of the Prayer Book, and their ashes are now together in the memory garden next to the larger church sanctuary their capital contributions help to build.

Here’s the interesting thing: after that day when she admitted she was “checking out” religious faith, I never again heard a word about horoscopes or the zodiac. God, Jesus, and the Christian faith had made astrology unnecessary in her life.

I have atheist and agnostic friends who will scoff at that. In their minds there is no difference between belief that the stars control our destiny and belief that there is a God who loves us. There is, however, a significant difference and it is exactly in that verb I just used – love. The stars, the number 13, rabbit’s feet and lucky clovers, the things of superstition are indifferent to human beings; God is never indifferent.

When we put the indifferent (indeed, the inanimate) at the center of our lives, life suffers. Whether that indifferent thing is a distant star or a bank account, a good luck piece or a career, that thing cannot give back any of our devotion. Center on the indifferent, we will sow much and harvest little. When God is at the center of life, our devotion is returned. Our hunger and our thirst are satisfied.

Haggai was on the right track and his prophecy does address our current situation. A religious re-centering was needed and perhaps the Temple was a visible sign of that re-centering of the returned exiles, but one does not really need a physical center. The people, each individually and all together as a society, needed a spiritual center. The people, each of us individually and all of us together as a society, still do.

It is Advent: the Advent call to self-examination continues in Haggai’s prophecy. What is at our spiritual center? As the morning psalm says today, God is our “strong rock, a castle to keep [us] safe,” and God will lead us and guide us. (Ps. 31:3)

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Cleaning Cups – From the Daily Office – December 12, 2013

December 12, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From Matthew’s Gospel:

[Jesus said:] “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matt. 23:25 (NRSV) – December 12, 2013.)

Dirty CupThe devisers of our Episcopal Church Daily Office Lectionary were a clever bunch, weren’t they?

Here we are less than two weeks from Christmas Day, in the middle of that great orgy of greed and indulgence which is the holiday gift buying season, and they give us Jesus saying this!

Yesterday, TIME Magazine announced that their selection of the 2013 Person of the Year is Pope Francis, the current Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. Interesting choice, especially at this time of year given that less than a month ago he said:

The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption. (Evangelii Gaudium, published 24 November 2013, Paragraph 55)

I am not a Roman Catholic, but I find myself fully in agreement with the pope’s insistence that unfettered capitalism and unrestrained “free markets” are contrary to the Gospel mandate. His insistence that the church and society are called by Christ, compelled by the Spirit to help “those who are in thrall to an individualistic, indifferent and self-centered mentality to be freed from those unworthy chains and to attain a way of living and thinking which is more humane, noble and fruitful, and which will bring dignity to their presence on this earth (Para. 208),” is fully in accord with what I understand Jesus to be saying in this (and other) verses of Scripture.

There is little that any one person can do in this regard. I’ve done this Advent what I can — I stayed away from all retail activity on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, not giving into or being part of the feeding frenzy of “holiday sales” — I am trying to “buy local” both for gifts and for personal needs — I do my banking at a local financial institution, not with one of the national conglomerates — I plan to give few gifts this year, but instead to make dedicated contributions to Episcopal Relief & Development, Médecins sans Frontières, Habitat for Humanity, and similar organizations.

These are small things. In the vast, global financial network that is our dysfunctional economy, they are a drop in the ocean. But they are something. The American Unitarian clergyman Edward Everett Hale is quoted as saying, “I am only one, but I am one. I can’t do everything, but I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do. And by the grace of God, I will.” If each of us does something to clean the inside of the cup which is our economy of greed and indulgence, perhaps we can change it.

The clever compilers of our lectionary and the pope have reminded us that Jesus calls us to do so. This Advent, I am doing what I can.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

I’m sorry? – From the Daily Office – December 11, 2013

December 11, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 38:18 (NRSV) – December 11, 2013.)

Repentance of St Peter by Guido ReniI thought, “Surely, this is wrong! There can’t be anything as weak and lifeless in Scripture (especially in the Psalms) as the plaintive little cry, ‘I’m sorry . . . .'” So instead of the New Revised Standard Version, I turned to The Book of Common Prayer, sure that I would find a stronger statement, perhaps “I repent.” But, no. The BCP version of this psalm is really even worse because it renders the verb in the future tense: “I will confess my iniquity and be sorry for my sin.” Come on! “I will be sorry”? Really?

I couldn’t sit there in my pajamas disconcerted by such a feeble, apologetic rendering of what must surely be a more forceful statement in the Hebrew. I turned to my old interlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament and my Hebrew lexicon; I had to climb the stairs to the second floor study because those are not close to hand next to the recliner in the den. It was worth the effort; I breathed a sigh of relief. The Hebrew is da’ag, which means “to fear, be anxious, be concerned, be afraid, be careful.” In fact, the American Standard translation (which is what my interlinear uses) renders this verse: ” I am full of anxiety because of my sin.” In the Complete Jewish Bible (which I also snagged while I was upstairs), the translation is similar: “I am anxious because of my sin.” To be fearful or to be filled with anxiety because of one’s sinfulness is a lot more than merely being sorry! But even that doesn’t seem quite strong enough . . . .

I’m not sure why the words “I am sorry” set my teeth on edge, but they do. When my children were younger like all children they committed youthful indiscretions; when called on the carpet, their first words were always, “I’m sorry.” My response was almost always, “Don’t be sorry. Change your behavior.” Feeling badly about one’s wrong-doing is simply not enough! What is called for by Scripture, what is called for by the process of growing to maturity, is repentance. “Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin,” says Ezekiel (Ezek. 18:30) In another place, the Psalmist proclaims, “If one does not repent, God will whet his sword.” (Ps. 7:12) “Repent,” says Jesus, “for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matt. 4:17)

To repent is to lament one’s guilty state, turn away from it, change one’s mind and purpose, and undertake amendment of life and behavior. It is so much more than simply being sorry! It is to take action to alleviate one’s deep-set feelings of anxiety and fear. “Don’t be sorry. Change your behavior.”

Although Advent is not the penitential season that Lent is, there is in it a call to contrition. Last Sunday and next at the weekly celebration of the Eucharist we hear of John the Baptizer who came “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” and announcing the arrival of the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. (Luke 3:3,16) In Advent, we do our best once again to heed his call and prepare again for the Messiah’s arrival.

There is so much more required than simply a weak plea of “I’m sorry,” and certainly more the Prayer Book’s promise to be sorry in the future! Only with true repentance, right now, and amendment of life, now and in the future, can we “come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” (Eph. 4:13)

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Move Anyway – From the Daily Office – December 10, 2013

December 10, 2013 / / 1 Comment

From the Book of the Prophet Amos:

Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Amos 7:14-15 (NRSV) – December 10, 2013.)

Sheep Blocking RoadwayIn truth, this is Amos objecting to Amaziah, the priest at Bethel, that he, Amos, is not an official prophet, not a member of one of the recognized or sanctioned schools of prophecy, but the first part of it has always sounded to me as if Amos is protesting his commission to prophesy, trying to get out of doing what God wants him to do. “Hey, that’s not what I do! I can’t be a prophet because I have these sheep and these figs to take care of!”

Last night I had a dream that I was unexpectedly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by the Queen of England . . . apparently being an American rather than a Brit was no obstacle, being merely a priest never made a bishop was no obstacle, and there was no problem that the Crown Appointments Commission had no involvement. But I couldn’t accept because my cats and my dog couldn’t come to Britain with me. What a great excuse for getting out of something I wouldn’t want to do, huh? “Hey, that’s not what I do! I can’t be archbishop because I have these cats and this dog to take care of!”

Advent is a time for conquering obstacles: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain,” wrote the prophet Isaiah (Isa. 40:3-4). It is a time for overcoming objections, for setting aside whatever sheep, figs, dogs, or cats may be our excuses for not doing what we are called to do, for not going where we are called to go.

Sometimes the obstacle to our action is our own ignorance of what the things or the places to which we are called may be, our own failure of discernment. Today on the Episcopal Church’s sanctoral calendar is the day of remembrance of Thomas Merton, who wrote this prayer for just such circumstances:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. (Thoughts in Solitude)

It is Advent! Remove the obstacles in the path and, even if you are uncertain what the obstacles are, or if you are uncertain of the path, move forward anyway. God is with you.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Increasing Complexity – From the Daily Office – December 9, 2013

December 9, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Revelation:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega”, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Rev. 1:8 (NRSV) – December 9, 2013.)

The Annunciation by Sandro BotticelliFirst, a confession: I’m not fond of the Book of Revelation. Although it has occasionally brilliant passages and some incredible metaphoric imagery, it is probably the most abused and misused piece of scripture in the entire Christian canon! I remember hearing or reading at one time that, during the formation of the canon, bishops in what is now the Eastern Orthodox wing of the church opposed the inclusion of this book. If that had been the way things went, it would have been relegated to that collection of interesting historical literature which includes The Shepherd of Hermas, The Didiche, and the Letters of Clement. But it wasn’t, so we have it and we have to take it seriously. (When dealing with the Apocalypse, it is well to remember the meme about Episcopalians, though: “We take the Bible too seriously to take it literally!”)

One of the thinkers whose work was formative of my theology is the French Jesuit priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He postulated the evolution of the universe in the direction of ever increasing complexity and ever growing consciousness. The supreme point of complexity and consciousness he dubbed “the Omega Point” (with reference to this verse, I wonder). He theorized that the Omega Point is utterly complex and completely conscious, transcendent, and independent of the universe; in fact, according to Teilhard, the Omega Point is the cause of the universe’s growth in complexity and consciousness. In a sense, it “invites” the creation to grow toward it. Teilhard argued that the Omega Point is equivalent to the Logos describe in the prologue to Gospel according to John, namely Christ, who draws all things into himself.

Most Christian theology focuses on God as the creator and source of all existence, the Alpha of this verse. As a result, we think of God as somehow “behind” creation; creation was perfect at the beginning, “fell” into brokenness, and now must somehow (through the grace of God) get back to that original state. But Teilhard’s thought invites us to focus on God as the goal and summation of all existence, a perfection to which we are evolving through God’s invitation.

There is an intersection between Teilhard’s thinking and another branch of theology that I found of value in my earlier studies, process theology derived from the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. One of the premises of process theology is that God does not control the universe, nor any individual in it, but rather influences our creaturely exercise of universal free will by offering possibilities. Note the plural! Possibilities! In other words, there are different ways to approach (getting back to Teilhard) the Omega Point.

Advent is the season of possibilities. One of the most powerful images of the season is Gabriel’s message to Mary, his communication to her of God’s invitation to be the mother of the Messiah. It is a moment fraught with possibility — she could have declined . . . . Sandro Botticelli’s painting of that liminal moment is poignant; the look on Gabriel’s face is one of almost-fear that she will refuse. Of course, she didn’t . . . and it would be an understatement to say that her life became one of increasing complexity!

As we look on that painting, as we consider God who is Alpha and Omega, both source and ending, who invites us into ever-increasing complexity and ever-growing consciousness, what are our possibilities? Where do we have opportunities to say “Yes” or “No” to God?

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Clergy Cufflinks – From the Daily Office – December 7, 2013

December 7, 2013 / / 1 Comment

From the Psalter:

The Lord has sworn and he will not recant: “You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 110:4 (BCP Version) – December 7, 2013.)

Clergy CufflinksI have a pair of cufflinks with part of this verse inscribed on them in Latin: “Sacerdos in Aeternum” (“Priest Forever”). They were given to me as an ordination present. I seldom have reason or opportunity to wear them as I don’t generally wear long-sleeved, let alone French-cuff, shirts. But yesterday I did.

At my parish, our chapter of the Episcopal Church Women holds an annual “English Cream Tea” on the Friday nearest St. Nicholas Day. This is the group’s big fund-raiser for the year and it is a major undertaking. Yesterday was the day! The 21st Annual St. Nicholas Tea.

We are in the process of expanding our church building, specifically the fellowship area and gathering space, and the Tea was the first major event in the not-quite-finished new space. It took a lot of work by a lot of people to get things cleaned up, set up, and ready to go. It took more work by more people to host the event, seat the guests, serve the tea, run the gift shop which is part of the event . . . and then, after 140 guests (in two seatings) had enjoyed their tea and tid-bits, to tear it all down, clean it all up, and put it all away.

I wore my “Sacerdos in Aeternum” cufflinks because each year I join other men in the parish assisting the ladies. We dress in formal wear to do so. It’s the one day each year that I get to wear my tux, French-cuff shirt, silk waistcoat, and those cufflinks. Together, the day, the cufflinks, and their engraved message are a reminder that a priest is a priest in community. It is the community of the church which discerns the call to ordination, nurtures the priest in formation, ordains him or her to the office, and sustains his or her presbyteral ministry. Clergy do not minister in isolation.

Nor are the clergy the only ministers in the church. In my tradition (the Episcopal Church), our catechism reminds us that “the ministers of the Church are lay persons, bishops, priests, and deacons.” (BCP 1979, page 855) We take seriously the Reformation idea of the priesthood of all believers. We are a community of priests, some ordained to the sacerdotal priesthood, but all of us part of the “royal priesthood” about which Peter wrote in his first epistle, “a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Pet. 2:9)

That Light is coming into the world. Be alert, be prepared. It’s Advent!

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

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