Category: Anglican (Page 57 of 115)

Feet? – From the Daily Office – March 25, 2014

March 25, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Isaiah:

How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news,
who announces salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Isaiah 52:7 (NRSV) – March 25, 2014.)

Sandaled Feet It may be pedestrian of me, but I can’t stop thinking of the messenger’s feet and whether this passage of Isaiah is really very well chosen as the Old Testament lesson for Morning Prayer on the Feast of the Annunciation! Reading the rest of the lesson with its message of redemption and salvation, one can see why it is set out in the special set of Daily Office readings for this feast day, but I can’t get my mind off the feet.

I’m part of a weekly bible study group that, a couple of months ago, read through and discussed the Book of Ruth. It was news to one of our members that the term feet was used there (when Ruth uncovers Boaz’s feet on the threshing floor) as a metaphor for male genitalia; so . . . now when we encounter the word in any other context, the question “Is this metaphorical?” always pops up. I don’t believe Isaiah is being metaphorical in that way here.

What occurs to me about the passage is another question, “Do archangels even have feet?” We know that seraphim do because of Isaiah’s description in Chapter 6: “Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.” (Isa. 6:2) Artistic renditions of the Annunciation seem generally to show at least one of Gabriel’s feet, but then Gabriel is generally depicted in human form which I’m not sure is all that accurate.

In my two favorite pictures of this story, those by Fra Angelico and by Sandro Botticelli, Mary does not seem very interested in the messenger’s feet (or foot). In the former, she looks absolutely distracted and doesn’t appear to be looking at the archangel at all. In the latter, apparently recoiling from the message, her gaze is downcast, but she seems to looking at her own feet rather than Gabriel’s; perhaps she is contemplating running away.

The feet of messengers also have a bit of walk-on part in the regular lessons for Tuesday in the third week of Lent. In the gospel reading from Mark, Jesus sends the Twelve out in pairs to preach his message but tells them, “If they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” (Mk. 6:11) And, yes, bible study partner, Jesus is using feet metaphorically, but not in that Book of Ruth way. Here, as in Isaiah’s prophecy, the metaphor is the message; the messenger’s feet are the foundation of the good news. They can be appreciated for their beauty or rejected and turned away.

When I think of feet, of looking at feet, of considering the appearance or beauty of feet, I remember a bit of verse by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, Your Feet:

When I cannot look at your face
I look at your feet.

Your feet of arched bone,
your hard little feet.

I know that they support you,
and that your gentle weight
rises upon them.

Your waist and your breasts,
the doubled purple
of your nipples,
the sockets of your eyes
that have just flown away,
your wide fruit mouth,
your red tresses,
my little tower.

But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon the wind and upon
the waters,
until they found me.

(From The Captain’s Verses, 1952, English translation 1972)

When we cannot fully appreciate the message, when it confuses us or appalls us or frightens us or overwhelms us, we can at least focus our gaze on the feet of the messenger and, perhaps, eventually lift our eyes to view the fullness of the Good News which walks upon the earth and the wind and the waters until it finds us.

So, I think, yes, the Old Testament lesson is really well chosen for this, the Feast of the Annunciation, and it doesn’t really matter whether archangels have feet. After all, it’s a metaphor.

====================

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!

====================

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

The Prisoner’s Groaning – From the Daily Office – March 24, 2014

March 24, 2014 / eric / 1 Comment

From the Psalter:

Let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before you,
and by your great might spare those who are condemned to die.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 79:11 (BCP Version) – March 24, 2014.)

Icon of Archbishop Oscar Romero This verse is from the optional additional evening psalm for today. I chose to focus on it because today is the commemoration (on the Episcopal Church’s sanctoral calendar) of the martyred Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero. Today is the 34th anniversary of his assassination; he was shot to death while celebrating a private funeral mass for the mother of a friend.

Romero was a relatively conservative priest before being appointed a bishop in 1970. When he was made auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, he was not welcomed by the more radical progressives among the clergy; until his appointment as archbishop seven years later, he did not distinguish himself as any sort of social activist. He was made Bishop of the Diocese of Santiago de María in 1975 and then Archbishop of San Salvador in 1977. His appointment met with approval in Salvadoran government circles, who felt he would be a “safe” bishop, but was met with surprise and dismay by some clergy. They feared that with his conservative reputation he would put the brakes on liberation theology and their commitment to the poor.

However, a month after this elevation to archbishopric, a progressive Jesuit priest and personal friend, Rutilio Grande, was assassinated. Grande had been creating self-reliance groups (“base communities”) among the poor campesinos, a program seen as a threat to the right wing military supported government. His death had a profound impact on Romero who later stated “When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought ‘if they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.” For the next three years, until his assassination, Romero’s theology became increasingly radicalized as he spoke out for the poor in his country.

Later that same year, on New Year’s Eve, Romero preached a sermon of which the today’s evening psalm, with its plea that God hear the groaning of suffering prisoners, reminded me:

For the church, the many abuses of human life, liberty, and dignity are a heartfelt suffering. The church, entrusted with the earth’s glory, believes that in each person is the Creator’s image and that everyone who tramples it offends God. As holy defender of God’s rights and of his images, the church must cry out. It takes as spittle in its face, as lashes on its back, as the cross in its passion, all that human beings suffer, even though they be unbelievers. They suffer as God’s images. There is no dichotomy between man and God’s image.

Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being, abuses God’s image, and the church takes as its own that cross, that martyrdom. (Homily by O. Romero, December 31, 1977)

====================

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

Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans – From the Daily Office – March 22, 2014

March 22, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of Mark:

People came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 5:14b-17 (NRSV) – March 21, 2014.)

Falling Snow The story of the reaction of the people to the curing of the Gerasene demoniac is, I think, unique among the healing stories in the Gospels. Most of the time when people hear of or witness one of Jesus’ healings, he is then swamped by crowds and sometimes has to flee them. Here, we are told that he is begged to go away. As I read the passage, I thought of Isaiah’s reaction to his call: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips” (Isa. 6:5) These folks are those who realize they are “a people of unclean lips.” Like Isaiah, they fear being in the presence of holiness.

And yet . . . they were attracted to it initially. It was they who “came to see” what was going on. That is the nature of holiness; it attracts and it repels. Rudolph Otto, a great early 20th Century Lutheran theologian, defined “the holy” by these characteristics. He coined the term “the numinous” (derived from the Latin numen, “divine power”) and described it as a “non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self.” (The Idea of the Holy, 1917)

Otto used the Latin phrase mysterium tremendum et fascinans to describe the “object” of this experience. Mysterium (“mystery”) denotes the wholly Other which can be experienced only with blank wonder or stupor. Tremendum (“awe inspiring” or “terrifying”) describes the absolute unapproachability of God in whose presence one appreciates a sense of one’s own nothingness and utter dependence. Fascinans (“fasinating” or “attractive”) signifies the holy’s potent charm which draws us to it despite our fear.

For many, this is the experience of walking into a sacred space, a place where God’s majesty has been revealed before. Places of worship, religious architecture and art, great church music are some of the human attempts to reflect the mystery of God and often form the backdrop for the experience Otto describes. But Otto was quick to point out that more often the experience comes in non-religious settings. The numinous may be and often is experienced in our appreciation of a mountain vista, the changing colors of autumn leaves, the flight of migratory birds, or the awesome majesty of lightening and thunder.

Yesterday at 10 a.m., when the National Weather Service and all the commercial weather forecasters predicted a partially sunny day with ambient temperatures getting above 50F, I looked out my office window and saw snow falling thickly and the ground blanketed in white! I had that “non-rational, non-sensory experience” of which Otto speaks, that sense of the utter unknowability and unpredictability of creation. No matter how much we study and how much we learn (at least so far in human existence) there is still that part of reality that we don’t know and don’t understand. For all of our experimentation and hypothesizing, for all of our theoretical mathematics, there is still that millionth of a billionth of a trillionth of a second at the beginning of time about which we know nothing. For all of our biological and medical and chemical knowledge and experimentation, there is still that glimmer in my lover’s eyes, there is still that lilt in my daughter’s laughter, there is still so much that warms my heart and soul that cannot be explained, that is and can be appreciated only in a non-rational and non-sensory way.

It is fascinating and attractive, and it is, as my kids are wont to say, awesome!

====================

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

Stilling the Seas – From the Daily Office – March 21, 2014

March 21, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of Mark:

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 4:35-41 (NRSV) – March 21, 2014.)

Boat in Violent Waves Mark, who is usually so taciturn and parsimonious with his descriptions, goes into rather great detail telling this story of Jesus calming the sea. A detail often overlooked is the second sentence of verse 36: “Other boats were with him.” (When Luke tells the same story in chapter 8 of his gospel, he leaves out this detail.)

One presumes that these other boats were being as tossed about, as beaten by the waves, as nearly swamped as that in which Jesus and disciples found themselves. One presumes that they also experienced the dead calm when Jesus rebuked the winds and commanded the say, “Peace! Be Still!” Unlike the passengers in Jesus boat, they would have had no idea what the cause of the sudden stillness might have been.

It’s interesting that this story is paired in the morning with Psalm 69, in which the rising waters of a swamp are used as a metaphor for an abundance of “lying foes” (v. 5) and “those who hate me” (v. 16), while in the evening the psalm appointed in Psalm 73, in which the source of one’s trouble is internal rather than external, arising from envy of “the wicked” who seem to have more than they deserve:

When my mind became embittered,
I was sorely wounded in my heart.
I was stupid and had no understanding;
I was like a brute beast in your presence.
(Ps. 73:21-22, BCP 1979, p. 688)

Are our lectionary editors suggesting that the raging storms in our life are as often caused by our own internal mechanisms as by the machinations of others? I think they are. Are they encouraging us to believe that Jesus can calm all chaos, both internal and external? I think they are.

And that little-noted half-verse in the gospel story reminds us that chaos and disruption, whether brought from outside or created from within, never affect only one person or one small group. Chaos and confusion are like the storm-tossed sea that disrupts everything around; the raging storm may have been centered on Jesus’ boat, but “other boats were with him” and just as certainly in danger of being swamped. And when it was stilled, the other boats also benefited. So it is when our lives (or those of others around us) are beset by chaos and trouble, external or internal, and when those troubles end and a calm settles unexpectedly on all about.

I’ve experienced those times when, all of a sudden, what had seemed a raging, chaotic mess simply resolved in a moment and settled into something manageable. It occurs to me now that it may have been because a storm, internal or external, in someone else’s life was calmed in ways and by means unknown to me. So this morning I give thanks for the stilling of the seas in others’ lives and for the undeserved calm it brings into mine.

====================

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

Really? What? No! – From the Daily Office – March 20, 2014

March 20, 2014 / eric / 2 Comments

From the First Letter to the Church in Corinth:

Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – I Corinthians 6:16 (NRSV) – March 20, 2014.)

Wedding rings and money This is one of those times (there are, I admit, quite a few) when Paul loses me! I step back from his words and say, “Really? What?” Is Paul seriously equating sex with a prostitute with marriage? I know that Paul didn’t have too high an opinion of marriage. In the next chapter he will say that he thinks staying single is a much better idea: “I wish that all men were even as I myself am. . . . I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I.” (1 Cor. 7:7,8) But does he really hold it in such low regard so as to equate it with prostitution?

Paul’s quotation is from the second chapter of Genesis, from the story of the creation of Eve at the conclusion of which the biblical author writes, “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. ” (Gen. 2:24) The story of the creation of Eve is about God fashioning for Adam a helper, someone with whom he would spend his life tending, caring for, and protecting the Garden of Eden — it’s not the story of a “one night stand.”

The two are not the same, but in the midst of his argument about preserving the purity of the church Paul has let his guard down, blurted out an honest (if inappropriate) appraisal of marriage, and let us see what he really thinks of it. To my mind, this makes suspect everything else he writes about marriage (or that someone else has written in his name). If, for example, he believes that marriage is nothing more than a cheap sexual liaison, that stuff about wives being “subject” to their husbands (Eph. 5:22, Col. 3:18) takes on a different color! I don’t know, it might be reasonable to expect a paid call girl to be “subject” to the man who’s paying her (prostitution seems to be inherently a relationship of power and domination) . . . but that’s not what I understand the relationship between spouses to be.

I rather like what the introduction to the Episcopal Church’s rite of Holy Matrimony says about the mutuality of marriage:

The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God’s will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord. Therefore marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God. (BCP 1979, page 423)

And I don’t think marriage was instituted by God to be equivalent to prostitution despite what the Apostle Paul may have thought. So when I read this verse, I step back and ask, “Really? What?” . . . and I answer, “No!”

====================

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

Life Isn’t a Game – From the Daily Office – March 19, 2014

March 19, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the First Letter to the Church in Corinth:

In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – I Corinthians 6:7a (NRSV) – March 19, 2014.)

Judge with Gavel This may be the simplest, truest, most profound thing Paul ever wrote. No flowery language, no showing of his erudition and knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures or of Greek philosophy, no convoluted logic, no run-on sentences. Just a simple declaration: if you are in litigation, you’ve already lost.

For nearly 20 years I was involved in a litigation law practice. First as a paralegal, then as a law office administrator, then (after going to law school myself) as an associate and later partner of one of the largest personal injury and malpractice defense firms in the state of Nevada. Somewhere along the line I learned a statistic that 95% of all such claims are settled before any complaint or petition is filed in a court of law, and of those cases were litigation is instituted only about 3% ever end up actually going through a trial, and of trials that begin at least 50% are settled before being submitted to the judge or jury for a decision. (Those statistics are at least 20 years old and, of course, 47% of all statistics are simply made up, so don’t quote me on this.)

Only a tiny fraction of personal injury or malpractice claims are litigated. I don’t know of the statistics regarding civil suits for breach of contract or other transactional litigation, but I suspect that it is the same. Nearly all disputes are settled in some faction before a lawsuit is initiated. If a complaint, information, or petition is filed, it means that other, less disruptive means of resolution have failed; it means that the relationship between the parties is almost irretrievably broken; it means that both have lost something precious.

This (I believe) is Paul’s point: litigation demonstrates the defeat of relationship. Modern psychologists have discovered that the end of a relationship, especially a romantic linkage or deep friendship, affects the human psyche in much the same way as a death. Years ago, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross identified the five stages of grieving a death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Movement through these stages is not neat and clean – different stages may take longer than others, some may be repeated, they may be experienced in a somewhat different order – but this progression is predictable. The same process occurs when a relationship ends. Litigation, which signals the irrefutable breakage of a relationship, is like death: to have lawsuits at all with one another is a defeat.

What relationship is deeper or more important than one’s brotherhood or sisterhood with another member of the church, someone to whom one is related as the parts of the body are related? To have lawsuits between church members is like the cutting off of body parts! (Jesus’ hyperbolic parable of cutting off body parts which cause one to sin has no application here.)

We live in a litigious society; lawyer advertising encourages lawsuits. Every perceived wrong, however slight, is portrayed as reason to seek redress in the courts. Where I live, I see at least five personal injury lawyers’ advertisements on television every evening, including one whose annoying slogan is “I’ll make them pay.” I suspect that a larger percentage of disagreements and grievances are litigated now than when I was in practice. I am convinced that our politics have become more fractious and hostile and that our social fabric is fraying, and that this is symptomatic of the same ill that increased litigation points to. Our society is losing, has already lost, a cohesion it cannot afford to lose.

It is one of the callings of the church to demonstrate the needlessness of this, to be a sign that reconciliation is not only possible but desirable, to witness to Paul’s simple profound truth that ” to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat.” The Catechism of the Episcopal Church says as much:

Q. What is the mission of the Church?
A. The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.
(BCP 1979, page 855)

I loved courtroom work! To be in a trial was great fun; it was a game and I was very good at it. Life, however, isn’t a game, and to the extent it may seem like one, to be in a trial is conclusive evidence that we have already lost it.

====================

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

Zesty Vestry – From the Daily Office – March 18, 2014

March 18, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the First Letter to the Church in Corinth:

Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – I Corinthians 5:6b-8 (NRSV) – March 18, 2014.)

Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Yeast Paul uses the metaphor of yeast in a negative way making it symbolize sin and corruption. In the letter to the Galatians, he uses it in a similar manner in an aside about the few who have “prevented you from obeying the truth,” saying, “A little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough.” (Gal. 5:7,9)

Jesus had used the metaphor in a positive way: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” (Matt. 13:33; cf. Luke 13:21) But he also warned his disciples to beware “the yeast of the Pharisees.” (Matt. 16:6, Mark 8:5, Luke 12:1)

The point of the metaphor is that a small number of individuals can influence the behavior of a large group. A few years ago, some British researchers demonstrated that this is true even when there is no conscious communication within the group. In a series of experiments groups of people were asked to walk randomly within a large but confined space. A few subjects were given detailed instructions about where to walk. Participants were all instructed to stay at least arms length away from any other person and they were not allowed to communicate with one another.

In every run of the experiment, the instructed subjects ended up being followed by others in the crowd, forming a sort of self-organizing conga line. Iterations with varying numbers of subjects up to 200 demonstrated that it only took 5% of the group being instructed to result in an unconscious group consensus. Despite the fact that participants weren’t allowed to talk or gesture to one another, the group ended up being led by the specially instructed minority.

Just think what a small minority within a church community could do if it were united and made conscious effort to influence the larger group. Think what a vestry, session, or other governing board could do if it put its collective mind to being a “yeast” for good within a congregation. Too often church leaders try to persuade congregations to grow through personal evangelism or to reach out in social ministry or to mature in faith through spiritual discipline without actually demonstrating those behaviors themselves. That hasn’t worked. What works is “leading by example,” which is what the small amount of yeast in a loaf does in a way; it’s what the instructed walkers in the British experiments did.

With just a little bit of care and nurture, a little bit of yeast can grow explosively; the most common yeast used in brewing and baking (Saccharomyces Cerevisiae) can double every 100 minutes! The English word “yeast,” according to the dictionary, derives from the Greek word zestos. The word used in the New Testament for “leaven” (and translated here as “yeast”) is zume. These words have no linguistic link to our modern words “zest” and “zoom,” but it occurs to me this morning that if small leadership groups in our churches got truly zesty for spiritual maturity, for personal evangelism, and for social ministry, there’d be no stopping the church; it would zoom. The church would explode! We need to cultivate a zesty vestry in every congregation!

====================

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

Why Everyone’s Irish Today – From the Daily Office – March 17, 2014

March 17, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Genesis:

When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph; what he says to you, do.” And since the famine had spread over all the land, Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe in the land of Egypt. Moreover, all the world came to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain, because the famine became severe throughout the world.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Genesis 41:55-57 (NRSV) – March 17, 2014.)

Is it just coincidence that we read in Genesis of a famine on St. Patrick’s Day? This day of international Irish pride, when “everyone is Irish,” would just be the feast of another insignificant local saint but for the Irish diaspora, especially the Irish emigration to the United States in the mid-19th Century. And that would not have happened then and in such large numbers but for an Gorta Mór, the “Great Hunger,” the Irish potato famine.

The famine was the result of two things: a fungus-like organism called Phytophthora infestans, which killed off the potatoes throughout Ireland, and human indifference. It is estimated that at least a million people starved to death and two million more left the island. And it needn’t have happened. (My great-great-grandfather John Henry Funston came to America from Ireland during the Great Famine, so this is a personal story for me.)

At the time, the poor of Ireland had come to depend on the potato as a food staple. A single type, the “Irish lumper,” was grown throughout the country. It grew rapidly, produced large crops, and was loaded with nutrients. Humans could do quite nicely on a diet of potatoes and milk. But when the potato plants died off and the crop failed, there was nothing for the poor famers and their families to eat. Or so the story goes. In fact, the country was still producing and exporting more than enough grain crops and beef to feed the population; more than thirty shiploads of food grain (in addition to beef and several other food crops) where shipped daily out of Ireland bound for England during the famine years!

But the English governors would not make that food available to the lower class population. In deciding how to address the Famine, British administrators applied the popular economic theory of the day, laissez-faire capitalism (the French means “let it be”), which was based on a belief that the market would eventually solve all problems through “natural means.” It was not unlike the notions of today’s libertarians and those who insist that privatized public services will improve society. In fact, the language of “avoiding a culture of dependence” spoken by some modern critics of our social welfare “safety net” is a direct repetition of comments made by the British overseers of famine “relief” in Ireland at the time.

Those administrators made great efforts to avoid any interference with the perceived private property rights of British landlords. Throughout the entire Famine period, the British government would never provide the massive food aid Ireland needed because they believed that the business interests of English landowners and private businesses would be unfairly harmed by food price fluctuations.

What might have happened of they had considered the story of Joseph and Pharaoh, who opened their grain stores to the poor people of Egypt, and not just to them but to the Hebrews, as well?

For the most part, addressing the needs of famine ravaged Ireland was left to the church chairities and religious communities, as some now suggest relief of the poor should be done in our time and country; they were overwhelmed with the task. Some, to be quite frank, undertook it with grossly inappropriate attitudes and goals, requiring Irish Catholics to abandon their ancestral faith and “convert” to their particular Protestant dissenter sect. (Anglicans and Quakers decried the practice, but it was widespread.)

Some today suggest that our welfare and healthcare systems for the poor should be given over to churches and charities, that they are not the responsibility of the government. Plenty of economic and financial studies have shown that private and religious charities are inadequate to the task, that their resources are orders of magnitude below what would be needed. Furthermore, the story in today’s Genesis reading is one in which it is the government which comes to the aid of its people, not just its own citizens but “all the world.”

It may be just coincidence, but on this day when “everyone is Irish” I think we should stop and give thought to why that is; we need to understand that if the example of Pharaoh and Joseph in today’s Daily Office reading, the example of opening the grain stores to the hungry had been followed in 19th Century England and Ireland, we probably wouldn’t be celebrating St. Patrick as widely today.

====================

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

Break the Chains – Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent (Year A) – March 16, 2014

March 16, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

Croagh Patrick In the Education for Ministry (“EfM”)^[1] program we engage in a process called “reflection” (“theological reflection” to be precise). In this process, we take a close look at a thing or a story, an incident from life, a passage of scripture, or an object we use everyday. One of the best group reflections I ever took part in started when someone put their mobile phone in the center of the table and said, “Let’s talk about this.”

In part of the process, we draw on what are called the “four sources” to illuminate the subject of our reflection. The sources are experiential – this is the “Action” source: things we do, think, and feel; positional – our attitudes, opinions, beliefs, and convictions; traditional – drawn from our Christian heritage, scripture, liturgy, hymnody, and so forth; and cultural – popular songs, movies, novels, commercials and advertisements, politics, etc.

Theoretical Doctrines, Doctrinal Theories – From the Daily Office – March 15, 2014

March 15, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of Mark:

[Jesus] entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 3:1-6 (NRSV) – March 15, 2014.)

Theory - You keep using that word . . . . . Gregory of Nyssa, one of the Cappadocian Fathers, is supposed to have said, “Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over concepts. Wonder makes us fall to our knees.” I think that pretty much describes what is going on in today’s Gospel lesson, and pretty much describes what has become of conversation and discussion between groups in our society. The Pharisees and the Herodians, who disagreed with one another about nearly everything, could nonetheless come together and plot to kill Jesus because his words and actions threatened both of their conceptual frameworks. They had to defend their concepts against the wonder of healing, even if it meant killing.

A few days ago I had the thought that in the current debate (and I use the term advisedly and optimistically) between proponents of a scientific view of how the world got to be here and to be as it is (the champions, shall we say, of the theories of the “big bang” and of evolution) and the proponents of a religious view (the champions, shall we say, of the “young Earth creation” idea), the issue is one of language. It is a battle over concepts in which the two sides use language in ways the other doesn’t understand. They use the same words but use them with different meanings. They conceive of them differently and must defend their concepts to the death (of their perceived opponent).

For example, the word “theory” . . . . This word is used by scientists to mean an agreed upon explanation of some phenomenon, a description of the phenomenon which can be experimentally verified. Wikipedia offers this definition: “A well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method, and repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation.” Those who champion a strictly religious view of creation, who insist on the accuracy of the Biblical account as factual (I’m not one of them, I hasten to add), hear the word differently. They hear the word “theory” and equate it to “hypothesis;” they hear the word “theoretical” and think “conjectural.” Theories are provisional, but they are not conjectural!

Or, on the other side (so to speak), the words “dogma” and “doctrine” . . . . In religion, a dogma is nothing more than a doctrine or a related set of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith set forth in an authoritative manner by a religious body. Doctrines are explanations; they attempt put into human language a definition or explanation of a spiritual or supernatural phenomenon. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity, for example, seeks to explain the nature of God through the metaphor of the relationship between the Creator (Father), Jesus the incarnate Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Vedic doctrine of karma seeks to explain the ethical harmony and equilibrium of life. Doctrine and dogma occupy, in the realm of religion, the same place theories occupy in the realm of science. Theological doctrines are just as provisional as theories; as one theologian has said, they are “temporary resting places” on the journey toward understanding.

Now I’m going to get pilloried by some, I’m sure, for suggesting any sort of equation or even similarity between scientific theory and religious dogma. “Theories are not dogmatic,” will say some scientist. “Doctrines are not hypothetical,” will say some religious apologist. Both will be right, of course, and both will be wrong; both will be reacting in that manner precisely because of the way each hears and understands the words. And their understandings are different.

In their doctrines and their theories, religion and science are trying to conceptualize the wonder of universe. Like the Pharisees and Herodians watching Jesus heal the man with the withered, they refuse to simply say, “Wow!” Both want to nail down an explanation, their explanation, their concept, as the only way to perceive and understand the wonder.

We need to get past this barrier, the wall of theoretical doctrines and doctrinal theories, the barricade of concepts that prevents us from listening to one another. The Pharisees and the Herodians were able to do it, albeit for the negative purpose of killing Jesus; we ought to be able to do it for the more positive purpose of working together.

====================

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

Category: Anglican (Page 57 of 115)

Feet? – From the Daily Office – March 25, 2014

The Prisoner’s Groaning – From the Daily Office – March 24, 2014

Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans – From the Daily Office – March 22, 2014

Stilling the Seas – From the Daily Office – March 21, 2014

Really? What? No! – From the Daily Office – March 20, 2014

Life Isn’t a Game – From the Daily Office – March 19, 2014

Zesty Vestry – From the Daily Office – March 18, 2014

Why Everyone’s Irish Today – From the Daily Office – March 17, 2014

Break the Chains – Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent (Year A) – March 16, 2014

Theoretical Doctrines, Doctrinal Theories – From the Daily Office – March 15, 2014

Looking for Something …. ?

The Archive

Subscribe

Blogroll

News Sources

Administration

Copyright

Looking for Something …. ?

The Categories

The Archive

Subscribe

Blogroll

News Sources

Administration

Copyright