Category: Advent (Page 7 of 9)

The World Didn’t End Today – From the Daily Office – December 21, 2012

December 21, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Isaiah:

Therefore the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts,
will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors,
and under his glory a burning will be kindled,
like the burning of fire.
The light of Israel will become a fire,
and his Holy One a flame;
and it will burn and devour
his thorns and briers in one day.
The glory of his forest and his fruitful land
the Lord will destroy, both soul and body,
and it will be as when an invalid wastes away.
The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few
that a child can write them down.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Isaiah 10:16-19 (NRSV) – December 21, 2012.)

The End of the World Imagined The world was supposed to end today. I slept in in hopes it would be gone before I got out of bed . . . but alas, it is still here and there are still laundry to be done and a dog who needs a bath and Christmas meals to be shopped for and sermons to be written.

I jest, of course. I didn’t really think the world would end. I had no faith in doomsday predictions based on a misunderstanding of the Mayan long calendar, any more than I believe the world will be destroyed by a collision with the invisible planet Nibiru. But having said that, I’m left open to this big, gaping question: Why, then, do I believe Isaiah? It’s a legitimate question – why believe one prophecy and not another?

The answer really boils down to what we mean by “prophecy”. The Mayan “prophecy” really wasn’t a prophecy at all, just the end of a calendar. The Mayans divided time into eras called “baktuns”. Based solely on mathematics and observation of the movement of celestial bodies, the so-called “long calendar” laid out the calculations for the length of the 13th Baktun, which ended today. The long calendar doesn’t say, in any way, that creation would also end; the rational implication of the long calendar is that the 14th Baktun would begin, but that’s not the way the nuttier folk among us took it.

The Nibiru “prophecy” is based on even less observable reality than the Mayan long calendar. It comes from the tortured and demonstrably inaccurate translations of ancient Babylonian and Sumerian texts by one Zecharia Sitchin, a proponent of the idea of “ancient astronauts”. The idea is that there is an invisible planet called “Nibiru” which circles through our solar system every 3,600 years and will eventually collide with Earth. The date of the collision has been recalculated and changed on several occasions.

This is what differentiates the Hebrew prophecies like Isaiah’s from the Mayan, Nibiru, and similar prophecies. The former are not based on mathematical calculations; the latter are. The former give voice to a moral sense of history; the latter give voice to a mechanistic model of the universe.

Isaiah and the other Hebrew prophets were not simply, nor even primarily, predicters of the future; they were historians, moralists, social critics, spokesmen for God. In general, one can outline a Hebrew prophet’s pronouncement sort of like this:

(a) In the past the People of God or their leaders or their enemies behaved in this manner.

(b) God responded to this behavior in this way. From this we know that . . .

(c) if the People of God or their leaders or their enemies continue to act as they currently are . . .

(d) then God will respond to this behavior in a similar way. On the other hand . . .

(e) if the People of God or their leaders or their enemies change their behavior . . .

(f) then God will change God’s mind and respond differently.

In other words, the prophecies of the Hebrew seers are conditional upon the moral behavior of human beings and a belief that the Creator of the universe also behaves in a moral way. I’ve heard it said that the role of a Hebrew prophet is not “foretelling” (predicting the future) but “forth telling” (speaking the word of God to God’s People in their time and place).

The Mayan calendar and the Nibiru prophecy are amoral; they simply assert that heavenly bodies (real or imagined) behave in certain ways and will continue to do so without regard to human or divine behavior. If they predict disaster (and it is by no means clear that they do – obviously the Mayan calendar did not), there is nothing anybody can do about it. And knowing about it offers us no moral guidance.The prophecies of Isaiah and other Hebrew prophets, on the other hand, are of a different sort. They provide us the same guidance they provided their original audiences: “God has dealt thusly with God’s People in the past; we can expect God to deal similarly with us; how, then, should we act?” Our specific reading today, a part of a pronouncement against the king of Assyria and in consolation to the People of Israel, is a reminder of the corrupting influence of political power and the dangers of political arrogance, a lesson we and our own leaders should often remember.

From the Mayan long calender we learn nothing of moral guidance; from the Nibiru prophecy we learn nothing except that poor scholarship produces ridiculous nonsense; from the prophecy of Isaiah, however, we learn that human political authority has its limits. This is why I trust in the prophecies of the Hebrew prophets, but not predictions of “the Mayan apocalypse.”

On the First Sunday of Advent this year, the Gospel lesson at the Holy Eucharist (Luke 21:25-36) included Jesus’ warning that before the end of time there would be “distress among nations” and that “people will faint from fear and foreboding.” These are much more important than “signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars,” though there may be those, as well. As Advent ends, let us pray for less distress, less fear, less foreboding, less political arrogance, less corruption . . . and let us give thanks that the world didn’t end today, even though we didn’t really think it would.

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

Advent Exclamations of Disappointment – From the Daily Office – December 20, 2012

December 20, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Isaiah:

Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees,
who write oppressive statutes,
to turn aside the needy from justice
and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be your spoil,
and that you may make the orphans your prey!
What will you do on the day of punishment,
in the calamity that will come from far away?

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Isaiah 10:1-3a (NRSV) – December 20, 2012.)

Lonely Old Woman The first word of this bit of Isaiah in Hebrew is often translated “Woe” but here in the New Revised Standard Version, it has been rendered “Ah”. The Hebrew is hôy ; it is a negative exclamation pronounced “oy!” Perhaps the “woe” translation is better. However, the construction “woe to you . . . . ” has taken on an oracular connotation to modern ears and that is not what the prophet is saying here. He will later make prediction about these oppressors, but for now he is simply making an indictment.

It is an indictment against the leaders of his own community. This is not a part of the prophet’s writings in which international politics play any part whatsoever; this is a complaint against his own people.

Whenever I read the prophets’ writings and they begin a statement with this Hebrew word hôy, I often wonder what tone of voice to use. I got a clue recently while talking to a Jewish friend.

My friend is a 75-year-old woman. She may be the only Jew in my small town; she claims to be but I don’t think she is. A couple of weeks ago, my friend and I were together with some other people at a luncheon. We were talking about the current “fiscal cliff” nonsense and the issue of whether Social Security and Medicare would be cut or otherwise changed. “Oy vey!” she said, “They’re going to rob us of our pensions!” She said it in that Jewish grandmother caricaturish voice that Jon Stewart sometimes mimics on his Daily Show television program.

I don’t know if the Hebrew word hôy is the origin of the Yiddish expression, “Oy vey!” But when I read this passage today, my friend’s comment and her tone of voice came immediately to mind. Think of Jon Stewart’s caricature, think of the cartoon character Zoidberg on Futurama, think of the character Howard Wolowitz’s never-seen mother on The Big Bang Theory, think of Judd Hirsch’s portrayal of Jeff Goldblum’s father in the movie Independence Day. Read Isaiah’s words in that tone of voice . . . a tone of exasperated disappointment, of deeply negative resignation, of an anger that can only be uttered in sorrow.

Last Friday the terrible tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School took place and in my sermon on Sunday (posted elsewhere on this blog) I said that I’d had a vision of unwrapped Christmas presents sitting under unlighted Christmas trees in darkened rooms. Today, similarly, I have a vision of the lonely elderly, the widowed sitting alone beside ancient menorahs or in rooms with a few tattered Christmas decorations. I know they are out there; I’ve visited them, as I know my colleagues in ordained ministry have all done. As Advent comes to a close this week and we put up our Christmas decorations (if they are not already up) and make our final preparations for Christmas, Isaiah’s prophecy reminds us of the plight of the elderly poor. They have been around a long long time . . . and so, apparently, have the political leaders “who make iniquitous decrees [and] write oppressive statutes.”

This Advent, this Christmas, and in the coming year . . . perhaps we should do more than simply utter exclamations of exasperated disappointment.

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

Advent Music, Advent Politics – From the Daily Office – December 18, 2012

December 18, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Isaiah:

For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onwards and for evermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Isaiah 9:6-7 (NRSV) – December 18, 2012.)

Roman Imperial Coins I absolutely adore Handel’s Messiah. As a child in a non-church-going family (except during the summers when I lived with my Methodist grandparents), my introduction to these words from the Prophet Isaiah was through Handel’s music. My step-father, who had sung in high school choirs, would take me with him to community sing-alongs of the oratorio which churches in our area would offer during the Christmas holidays. Even now as I read these lines from Isaiah, I read them to music of Handel!

That’s a mistake. The beautiful notes of the oratorio mask the highly charged political nature of this prophecy and the titles by which the church has named Jesus of Nazareth. Two weeks ago on Sunday morning we read the evangelist Luke’s report of the ministry of John the Baptizer crying out in the wilderness. Luke tells us very specifically that it happened “in the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas . . . .” This grounds John in a specific place and time, a political place and time. The Nicene Creed does the same thing when it bids us to affirm as an article of faith that Jesus was “crucified under Pontius Pilate,” that his death took place within a specific political context, the hard and gritty reality of the Roman Empire.

When the first Christians used Isaiah’s prophetic titles as references to Jesus they were not making so much a religious or theological point as a political one. They were making a bold and provocative political declaration about the Roman emperors. The emperors claimed religious titles and expected to be worshiped. Coinage and documents from the reigns of both Augustus, Caesar at the time of Jesus’ birth, and Tiberius, Caesar when he was crucified, proclaim the emperors divine and give them such titles as Prince of Peace, Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Savior, and Son of God. The church’s transfer of these titles to Christ declared that the emperors’ claim was false, as false as the Roman Peace, the Pax Romana for which the emperors claimed credit.

The Pax Romana was, in fact, no peace at all! It was the conquering and occupation of non-Roman territories, as in Judea and Galilee. It was a state of constant warfare on the empire’s borders, as in Gaul and Britain. It was a sham. Giving Isaiah’s prophetic titles to Jesus was the early church’s way of making that clear. Declaring that Jesus would reign “from this time onwards and for evermore” was the church’s way of saying that the emperor would not!

As we prepare for Christmas, Advent’s call to calm reflection is as much a call to examine our politics as to examine our faith. As we prepare to welcome the Prince of Peace, the Lord of lords, the King of kings, Advent calls us to question the princes, the lords, the kings, the political leaders of our own time and place, at all points on the political spectrum, from Right to Left, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. Do we have the courage of the early Christians to stand up to them, to declare that their “peace” is no peace and that their reign will not last?

Handel’s beautiful music can mask the political impact of Isaiah’s words, and all the music of the holiday season can lull us into complacency. But the message of Advent, even of the music of Advent, should remind us that our faith is not a fairy tale. Our faith is grounded in the hard and gritty reality of human politics.

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

Spiritual Fire Extinguisher? – From the Daily Office – December 17, 2012

December 17, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From Luke’s Gospel:

Jesus came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. When he reached the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground. When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Luke 22:39-46 (NRSV) – December 17, 2012.)

Fire Extinguisher Use Poster We are all, every American, still reeling from and trying to comprehend a tragedy. Twenty First Grade children, most age 6, and six teachers and school administrators were gunned down at an elementary school in Connecticut on Friday. There is not a person in this country, probably not a person in the world, who has not uttered some variation on “Father, if you are willing remove this cup . . . .” in the past 72 hours.

We would give anything to have those lives returned to us. But the cup was not to be taken from Jesus and the loss of those innocent lives will not be miraculously restored; the cup will not be removed.

And Christmas is still on the way. Today and tomorrow and the next I will be in my office preparing the liturgies of celebration. I will be reading the oh-so-familiar texts of Isaiah and Luke, contemplating what I might put into a sermon. I will be consulting with the staff musician about music for the Christmas Eve services and attending rehearsals of the choir and our brass ensemble. I will be in conversation with the altar guild director about flowers and vestments and the arrangement of the chancel for Christmas Eve. I will not be remembering or thinking about the children of Sandy Hook Elementary School.

I will, however, remember them and think deeply about them and their deaths at least twice each day for the foreseeable future. During these hours of disciplined prayer saying the Daily Offices of Matins and Vespers (Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer), reading the lessons of the daily lectionary, praying the Psalms; I cannot now foresee a day when they will not be remembered, as are the students at Columbine High School or Virginia Tech, or even those killed in the clock tower shootings at the University of Texas at Austin in 1966. (My late brother had been student at Austin and we were fearful that people we knew through him might have been among those shot.)

It is . . . perhaps “easy” is not the right word, but I can’t find the right word . . . to fall to our knees in prayer at times of crisis and I know of many who did, actually as well as metaphorically, in the past few days. Here in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus is doing the same. But prayer when we are desperate is empty and specious (and, frankly, dishonest) if it is not grounded in a disciplined habit of prayer . . . if we are not in the practice of spending time daily with God, in praise of God’s majesty, in thanksgiving for the blessings we have received, in petition for our everyday needs, in intercession for the needs of others. Prayer at a time of great distress, if it is not part of daily reverence, reduces God to nothing more than some sort of spiritual fire extinguisher, referred to in time of need, grabbed at in a moment of panic, expected to put out the blazing inferno of our trouble, but otherwise ignored.

I’m not suggesting that this would be true of God . . . but I think we all know what happens when fire extinguishers are ignored. The United States Fire Administration recommends an annual check to make sure that a fire extinguisher is not blocked by furniture, doorways, or any thing that might limit access in an emergency, that the pressure is at the recommended level, that all parts are operable and not damaged or restricted in any way, that hoses and nozzles are free of insects or debris, and that there are no any signs of damage or abuse, such as dents or rust, on the extinguisher. In the case of prayer and time with God, it’s not the “fire extinguisher” that needs to be checked, however, it’s the user, the pray-er. Are we blocked? Are we operating properly? Are we damaged by rust or abuse? Daily prayer checks these things and so much more.

Advent encourages us to develop, if we don’t already have, a custom of spending time with God every day. Advent teaches us to “get up and pray” every day. If we are not doing that, our prayer in time of crisis is simply grabbing at a spiritual fire extinguisher!

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

A Holy and a Broken Hallelujah – Sermon for Advent 3, Year C – December 16, 2012

December 16, 2012 / eric / 4 Comments

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This sermon was preached on Sunday, December 16, 2012, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(Revised Common Lectionary, Advent 3, Year C: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Canticle 9 (The First Song of Isaiah, Ecce Deus, Isaiah 12:2-6); Philippians 4:4-7; and Luke 3:7-18. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Broken Hallelujah Lyric Did you pay attention to the words of the song we just sang as our sequence hymn? Listen to them again:

Comfort, comfort ye my people,
Speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
Comfort those who sit in darkness,
Mourning ‘neath their sorrows’ load . . . .

(Hymn 67, The Hymnal 1982)

These are God’s words to the prophet Isaiah; we find them in the 40th chapter of Isaiah. They are God’s instructions to Isaiah, but I think every priest hears them personally when we are called on to minister to someone in times of trouble and loss. “Comfort, comfort my people; comfort those who are in sorrow.”

Since Friday morning when I, like many others, sat in stunned silence struggling to understand the horror of what had just happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, I have had a recurring vision of Christmas presents under Christmas trees in darkened homes, presents that will never be unwrapped. I see mothers and fathers sitting in that darkness mourning beneath a load of sorrow I don’t think I could ever comprehend, and I wonder if I as a priest or as a friend could speak any word of comfort to them. I have known the pain and brokenness of losing loved ones; I have known the sadness that comes with the death of parents and siblings. But I can only imagine (and I’m sure completely inadequately) the grief and agony a parent must feel when his or her child has been murdered; I can only imagine how broken those parents’ hearts must be, how broken they must feel. I don’t know if I could offer any comfort to them.

I have spent the past 48 hours following the news reports, weeping, screaming at the television, reading the statements of bishops and other clergy, enraged at the injustice of it, angry because as a society we seem unwilling (not incapable, unwilling) to do anything about the epidemic of gun violence that seems to sweep unchecked across our country.

This is not the way we are supposed to be on this, the Third, Sunday of Advent! In the tradition of the church, today is known as Gaudete Sunday or “Rejoicing Sunday” because in the medieval church the introit, the first words of the Mass, was Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete, the first words of our epistle lesson this morning: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice.” The same theme is struck in the Old Testament reading from the Prophet Zephaniah and in the Gradual taken from the Prophet Isaiah; these readings are meant to emphasize our joyous anticipation of the Lord’s coming. “Rejoice and exult with all your heart,” Zephaniah cries out, but when our hearts are broken how are we to do that? Here in the depths of dealing with a senseless act of brutality, there is damned little rejoicing in our broken hearts, there is damned little comfort. We are in the midst of a murderous gun violence epidemic and I find it hard to rejoice.

Consider what has gone on in just the past week: last Sunday a man fatally shot his security-officer wife, tried to kill another person, and then killed himself in an employee parking lot at Cleveland-Hopkins Airport; on Tuesday a masked gunman killed two people and seriously injured another in a Portland, Oregon, shopping mall; on Friday, the Sandy Hook Elementary School killings, the second worst mass shooting at a school in U.S. history; and yesterday, a gunman shot three people in a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. Earlier this year we saw fatal mass shootings in Minneapolis, in Tulsa, in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, in a theater in Colorado, in a coffee bar in Seattle, and in a college in California. It is painfully clear that this is an epidemic of violence, that all is not well in our country. Like our hearts, our society is broken.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are about 31,000 deaths from firearms annually in our country. Of those, 500 are accidental; another 300 or so are considered “legal” as the result of law enforcement actions; and the nature of about 200 cannot be determined. That means that about 30,000 intentional, illegal, fatal shootings occur in the United States in a year’s time; 62% of those are suicides; 38% are murders.

Speak ye to Jerusalem
of the peace that waits for them;
tell her that her sins I cover,
and her warfare now is over.

As someone who, everyday, tries to speak the word of God to people who need to hear it, I don’t know that I can do that! I don’t know if I could comfort those parents mourning beneath their dark load of sorrow, and I don’t know how I could tell you that our warfare, our plague of gun violence is over! Our warfare is not over; the slaughter goes on . . . one or two people here, thirteen theater-goers there, twenty children in Connecticut . . . the massacre continues more than 11,000 times a year. Yes, it is painfully clear that this is an epidemic of violence, that all is not well in our country. Like our hearts, our society is broken.

John the Baptizer warned the people who came to him that all was not well in their society, that it was broken. “Do not,” he told them, “begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor.'” Don’t think that because you are who you are that all is well and that all will be well; it is not and it will not be. Our society is broken! “And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?'” John’s answer was simplicity itself – do what you know to be right. If you have two coats, if you have extra food, and your neighbor has none, share. If you have taken on the job of tax collector, or if you are a soldier entitled to ask citizens for support, collect no more than you should, ask no more than is proper. Just do what you know to be right, do what you know ought to be done.

Every time one of these mass shootings occurs there is an outpouring of public grief, and there are expressions of sorrow and sympathy. Every time this has happened, however, we have been told that it is not the appropriate time to talk about strengthening our nation’s gun control laws; we are told that it is too soon to talk about doing something about gun violence; we are told that we have to give the families of the victims time to heal. But as John the Baptizer said to those who came to him at the Jordan, the time is now – “Even now,” he said, “the ax is lying at the root of the trees . . . .” There is no time like the present to do what we know to be right, to do what we know ought to be done.

I believe that that talk about time to heal is a sham. I don’t think anyone ever “heals” from the death of a loved one; one remains broken. I know that I have never “healed” from the deaths of my parents or of my brother or of any other person I loved; forever, after each death, there is a part of me that is and will always be broken. As a parent, I am very sure I would never “heal” from the murder of my child; I would be forever broken. But I know that life goes on and, through the grace of God, we are given the strength to live it, even as wounded, as broken, as broken-hearted as we may be. As Isaiah said, “Surely, it is God who saves me; I will trust in him and not be afraid. For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, and he will be my Savior.” The one who was broken on Calvary’s tree was broken that I, in my brokenness, might be made whole. Through his brokenness, in our brokenness, we are given the peace of God which passes all understanding.

Life goes on, and by the grace of our Savior we are given the strength to live it, and in it to do what we know to be right, to do what we know ought to be done. The only question is whether we have the will to do it.

Make ye straight what long was crooked,
make the rougher places plain;
let your hearts be true and humble,
as befits his holy reign.

Have we the will to do what we know to be right, to make what is crooked straight, to make what is rough plain? Are our hearts, broken though they may be, true and humble as befits our Savior’s holy reign?

Many of you know that I’m a great fan of the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and many of you are familiar with his song Hallelujah. In it there is this great line:

Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

And again, later in the song, the singer says of love,

It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

In the funeral liturgy of our church, near the end of the service, the priest stands at the body of the deceased and says, “All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” When each of those twenty children, each of those seven adults are buried, their families will hear those as cold and broken Hallelujahs! But as our Advent hymn reminds us in its conclusion,

For the glory of the Lord
now o’er the earth is shed abroad,
and all flesh shall see the token
that the word is never broken.

Our hearts may be broken; our lives may be broken; our society may be broken, but God’s word, God’s promise is never broken. The Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, he was broken . . . broken on the Cross that we might be made whole. Risen unbroken though still bearing the scars of our brokenness, he will return again so that we might sing not a broken, but a whole Hallelujah, a holy Hallelujah, so that we might “rejoice in the Lord always.”

I still don’t know if I could comfort those grieving parents, but I do know that I believe in God, that I believe God’s promise, and that I believe in Jesus Christ, the One who was broken that we might be made whole. It is his birth and its promise of wholeness that we prepare to celebrate in this Advent season. And because I believe, I know that I could, at least, be with those families in this time of grief, that I could sit with them, and that I could assure them in words just slightly changed from the end of Mr. Cohen’s song . . . .

There’s a blaze of light in every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah.
* * * *
And even though it all went wrong
We’ll stand before the Lord in song
With nothing on our tongue but Hallelujah!

Good God, Do Easter! – From the Daily Office – December 16, 2012

December 16, 2012 / eric / 1 Comment

From the Prophet Isaiah:

All hands will be feeble,
and every human heart will fail,
and they will be dismayed.
Pangs and agony will seize them;
they will be in anguish like a woman in labor.
They will look aghast at one another;
their faces will be aflame.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Isaiah 13:7-8 (NRSV) – December 16, 2012.)

Angel of grief, a 1894 sculpture by William Wetmore Story Today is the Third Sunday of Advent; in the tradition of the church it is known as Gaudete Sunday, Latin for “Rejoicing Sunday” so named because of the medieval introit to the Mass, “Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete”, St. Paul’s words in the Letter to the Philippians, “Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say rejoice.” (4:4) (A reading from that very portion of Paul’s letter is this year’s epistle lesson for the Eucharist today; we will hear and consider those words at church this morning.)

But on Friday, at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, twenty children and six of their teachers were gunned down by a 20-year-old man wielding two semi-automatic assault weapons. Before entering the school, if reports have been correct, he murdered his mother, and after killing the children, he shot himself. In the face of such insanity, how does one rejoice? Isaiah’s words of feebleness and failure, pangs and agony, anguish and faces aflame seem somehow so much more appropriate than Paul’s admonition to rejoice.

On Friday, following those tragic events, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship published this poem by Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann on its Facebook page. Entitled Grieving Our Lost Children, I offer it again here:

Another brutality,
another school killing,
another grief beyond telling . . .
and loss . . .
in Colorado,
in Wisconsin,
among the Amish
in Virginia.
Where next? (In Connecticut)

We are reduced to weeping silence,
even as we breed a violent culture,
even as we kill the sons and daughters of our “enemies,”
even as we fail to live and cherish and respect
the forgotten of our common life.

There is no joy among us as we empty our schoolhouses;
there is no health among us as we move in fear and bottomless anxiety;
there is little hope among us as we fall helpless before
the gunshot and the shriek and the blood and the panic: we pray to you only because we do not know what else to do.
So we pray, move powerfully in our body politic,
move us toward peaceableness
that does not want to hurt or to kill,
move us toward justice
that the troubled and the forgotten may know mercy,
move use toward forgiveness that we
may escape the trap of revenge.

Empower us to turn our weapons to acts of mercy,
to turn our missiles to gestures of friendship,
to turn our bombs to policies of reconciliation;
and while we are turning,
hear our sadness,
our loss,
our bitterness.

We dare to pray our needfulness to you because you have been there on that
gray Friday,
and watched your own Son be murdered
for “reasons of state.”

Good God, do Easter!
Here and among these families,
here and in all our places of brutality.

Move our Easter grief now . . .
without too much innocence –
to your Sunday joy.
We pray in the one crucified and risen
who is our Lord and Savior.

Good God, do Easter! It may be Advent. We may be getting ready for Christmas. But our hands are feeble; our hearts will fail; we are dismayed; our faces are aflame. Please God, do Easter!

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

Christmas Shopping with Peter – From the Daily Office – December 15, 2012

December 15, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

The following meditation was prepared before the news of yesterday’s tragic events in Newtown, Connecticut. I pray for the repose of the souls of all those who died and for comfort for their families, and I pray that this nation will come to its senses and enact reasonable and effective gun control legislation.

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From Luke’s Gospel:

Jesus said, “Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” And he said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!” Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you have denied three times that you know me.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Luke 22:21-24 (NRSV) – December 15, 2012.)

Holiday Shopping at the Mall This is the part of the Maundy Thursday – Good Friday story that breaks my heart! I so identify with Peter; he’s such a bumbling fool on so many occasions and Jesus just keeps on holding him close, knowing that eventually he will pull through. I know that I would have done no better than Peter in those dark hours of Thursday night. I might not even have done as well as he did; I’m not sure I’d have had the courage to follow Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard!

And now, during this season of Advent, do I do any better? The world around us is going mad with consumption. The malls are filled with shoppers buying garbage to give to people they probably don’t really like who probably don’t really want what they are buying and will probably return it or “regift” it. And I’m right out there with them – although so far I haven’t bought anything. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what my wife or kids or friends would want to receive from me as a gift. Can I just tell them I love them and leave it at that? Can I just tell Jesus that?

I don’t. I go to the shopping centers and try to find that perfect gift for each family member; I seldom do and often end up getting nothing for anyone and feeling guilty about that in the end. Meanwhile, I melt into the crowd and wander the mall and drive the crowded streets and, just like Peter, I look like one of them. I emulate Peter and do not open my mouth. His accent gave him away as a Galilean — I might inadvertently hold forth with the cadences of the Book of Common Prayer or make some reference to orthodox theology and give myself away as a Christian, a follower of Jesus rather than a minion of Santa Claus. By my failure to say “Enough!” and fight against the commercial Christmas consumption madness, the avalanche of advertising that has annihilated Advent, I have denied Christ many more times than Peter ever did.

But I know what Peter did not yet know, that even my denial will not separate me from my Lord, that even shamed by my denial as I am, I can return to him and I will be received, welcomed, forgiven. And so today, after a Saturday of shopping surrounded by the crass commercialism of secular Christmas, blinded by holiday lights, deafened by the roar of the shopping crowd and the public address systems blaring Winter Wonderland, a Saturday spent joining Peter in silence and denial, I am still able to pray the evening Psalm –

Send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me,
and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling;
That I may go to the altar of God, to the God of my joy and gladness;
and on the harp I will give thanks to you, O God my God.

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

You Know, Sweetie, Jesus Did Grow Up – From the Daily Office – December 14, 2012

December 14, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From Luke’s Gospel:

When the hour came, Jesus took his place at the table, and the apostles with him. He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Luke 22:14-20 (NRSV) – December 14, 2012.)

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby Prayer Scene In ten days we will begin our celebration of his birth, but the Daily Office lectionary today has us consider his last meal on the night before his death . . . .

When our son was born, my wife and I designed our own announcements. On the front we put a quotation from poet Carl Sandburg’s only novel: “A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.” The birth of a baby is a marvelous event, a hopeful one, an occurrence that focuses on the future. During Advent the secular commercial world, buying into a certain sentimental spirituality, when it isn’t focused on the legend of Santa Claus, constantly reminds us that we are getting ready to celebrate the birth of a cherubic, rosy-cheeked baby. For some, it is difficult to move beyond that icon of hopefulness, that image of God’s opinion of continuation.

In the movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, the title character, played by Will Ferrell, is one of those. When the family gathers for a Thanksgiving meal, he offers a grace addressed to the Christmas cherub and a conversation ensues:

Ricky Bobby: Dear Lord baby Jesus, we thank you so much for this bountiful harvest of Domino’s, KFC, and the always delicious Taco Bell. I just want to take time to say “Thank you” for my family – my two sons, Walker, and Texas Ranger, or TR as we call him. And of course my red-hot smokin’ wife Carley, who is a stone cold fox. Dear tiny infant Jesus…

Carley Bobby: Hey, um… you know, Sweetie, Jesus did grow up. You don’t always have to call him “baby”. It’s a bit odd and off-puttin’ to pray to a baby.

Ricky Bobby: Well look, I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I’m sayin’ grace. When you say grace, you can say it to grown-up Jesus, or teenage Jesus, or bearded Jesus, or whatever you want.

Today’s gospel lesson reminds us, in the midst of our Christmas preparations, “You know, Sweetie, Jesus did grow up.” He lived the life of an itinerant preacher; he challenged the authorities; he was crucified; he died; he was buried; he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven. On the night before he died, he had this meal with his friends. In her book The Spirituality of Bread (Northstone:2007, p. 146), Donna Sinclair writes, “The re-enactment of Jesus’ last conversation with his friends says that those who share a meal with the compassionate one can become just and brave agents of healing. Such bread offers the hope of human change. That’s why, over and over, I form a circle with my friends and say the words, ‘The bread of new life . . .'”

Advent prepares us to witness once again that baby whose birth was God’s opinion that not only should life go on, it should be redeemed. Advent prepares us for the return of the One who grew up and gave himself that life might be changed.

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

The Water Bearer – From the Daily Office – December 13, 2012

December 13, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From Luke’s Gospel:

Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover meal for us that we may eat it.” They asked him, “Where do you want us to make preparations for it?” “Listen,” he said to them, “when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him into the house he enters and say to the owner of the house, ‘The teacher asks you, “Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”‘ He will show you a large room upstairs, already furnished. Make preparations for us there.” So they went and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Luke 22:7-13 (NRSV) – December 13, 2012.)

This, of course, is the familiar story of the preparation for the Last Supper, the supper in the Upper Room where so much of the story of Jesus’ last days and of the church’s first days takes place. Reading it again today I have noticed the little remarked “man carrying a jar of water.” From time to time in Holy Scripture we meet these people, sometimes named (especially in Paul’s letters), sometimes anonymous, about whom we are told very little, but who play important roles. This water bearer is a pivotal character in this story; without him Peter and John would be unable to find the place which would become so important in the Christian story, the scene of the first eucharist, the place where the Resurrected Lord would appear to his friends, the location of the Pentecost event. And yet, we know nothing about him.

Whenever I read or hear a passage of Scripture about a water carrier, a water jar, or a clay pot, I cannot help but remember a folk tale from India, a story I’ve used as a sermon illustration on several occasions:

A water bearer had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his master’s house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you.”

“Why?” asked the bearer. “What are you ashamed of?”

“I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master’s house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don’t get full value from your efforts,” the pot said.

The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, “As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.”

Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure.

The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of your path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.”

The cracked and leaking pot was unaware of its importance in the life of the water bearer. I wonder if the “man carrying a jar of water” in the story of the Last Supper was aware of his importance; did he even know the disciples were following him? Would he later say, “I took them to my master’s home where Jesus ate his last meal”? We can’t know since Luke tells us no more, but we can take an Advent lesson from his inclusion in this story.

The message of Advent, spoken by Jesus in the gospel lesson for its first Sunday, is “Be alert!” (Luke 21:36) Slow down and pay attention. Be aware of those around you, the unknown carriers of water jars, and more especially those for whom you may be the water bearer . . . or the water jar.

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

The Book of Life – From the Daily Office – December 12, 2012

December 12, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From John’s Gospel:

Each of them went home while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 7:53-8:11 (NRSV) – December 12, 2012.)

There is one ancient manuscript that adds that what Jesus wrote in the sand was “the sins of each of them,” but no others. Most scholars generally hold that we really don’t know what Jesus wrote. I think one of the more fascinating ideas is that Jesus was writing the names of those who were judging the woman.

If that is the case, Jesus’ doing so is another of his “prophetic actions” – deeds done as illustrations of a prophetic point. The probable reference is to Jeremiah 17:13. The NRSV translation of that verse is “O hope of Israel! O Lord! All who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be recorded in the underworld, for they have forsaken the fountain of living water, the Lord.” An alternative rendering from the King James version is “O Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed , and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.” The Hebrew word translated in the first as “the underworld” and in the second as “the earth” is ‘erets, which can also be translated as “the ground.” Is Jesus, by writing their names in the ground immediately after calling for “anyone without sin” to cast the first stone, referring to Jeremiah’s warning?

It is only by happenstance that our Jewish friends are celebrating Chanukah this week. Among the many tradition of Chanukah is to greet one another, especially on the last of the eight days of the celebration, with the same greeting used at Yom Kippur: “May your name be written in the book of life.” The contrast between names of the forsaken written in the ground and names of the righteous written in the book of life underscores the Second Coming anticipation of Advent.

The book of life is not only a Jewish image. It is also seen in the Savior’s Second Coming as revealed to John of Patmos who saw “a new heaven and a new earth” and saw “the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” (Rev. 21:1-2) The gates of that city, John saw, “will never be shut by day – and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” (Rev. 21:25-27)

Advent is a time of reflection, a time to prepare, a time to make sure our names are not written on the ground but rather in the book of life, to focus on our own worthiness and not on the sins of others.

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

Category: Advent (Page 7 of 9)

The World Didn’t End Today – From the Daily Office – December 21, 2012

Advent Exclamations of Disappointment – From the Daily Office – December 20, 2012

Advent Music, Advent Politics – From the Daily Office – December 18, 2012

Spiritual Fire Extinguisher? – From the Daily Office – December 17, 2012

A Holy and a Broken Hallelujah – Sermon for Advent 3, Year C – December 16, 2012

Good God, Do Easter! – From the Daily Office – December 16, 2012

Christmas Shopping with Peter – From the Daily Office – December 15, 2012

You Know, Sweetie, Jesus Did Grow Up – From the Daily Office – December 14, 2012

The Water Bearer – From the Daily Office – December 13, 2012

The Book of Life – From the Daily Office – December 12, 2012

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