That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Acts (Page 5 of 9)

Use It or Lose It – From the Daily Office Lectionary

June 17, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From New Testament lesson for Wednesday in the week of Proper 6B (Pentecost 3, 2015)
Acts 2
7 Amazed and astonished, [the crowd] asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?
8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?
9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,
11 Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”

At an earlier time, and with regard to another context, Jesus had told his followers, “Do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time.” (Mt 10:19) Some years later, Paul would write, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (1 Cor 12:7) ~ So, I’m wondering how long do these gifts last? Are there some that last a lifetime and some that manifest only as long as context requires? For how long after the day of Pentecost did the apostles retain the ability to speak the various languages of the empire? Legend has it that many of them scattered to distant places, to Ethopia, to India, to Spain: did they go to the countries where the languages they’d been given were spoken because they retained that ability? Or did their linguistic talent fade, as mine always does, with lack of use? I’ve studied and gained some degree of fluency in four languages other than English: Spanish, Italian, French, and Irish Gaelic. To my sorrow, I’ve retained not much more than a few phrases of any; lack of opportunity to converse has meant a loss of ability, an atrophy so to speak. Is it the same with the various gifts of the Spirit? “Use it or lose it”? I suspect so.

May We Be One: Sermon for Sunday after the Ascension (Easter 7) – 17 May 2015

May 16, 2015 / / 0 Comments

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

A sermon offered on the Sunday after the Ascension, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 17, 2015, to the people of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day are Acts 1:15-17,21-26; Psalm 1; 1 John 5:9-13; and John 17:6-19. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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

Unity in the Community“That they may be one, as we are one.” (Jn 17:11)

Obviously, there is quite a bit more to the “Farewell Discourse” or “High Priestly Prayer” of which today’s gospel lesson is a part, but in the end (I believe) the central petition of Jesus’ last prayer is one for the unity of the church and for God the Father’s protection of that unity.

Perhaps 60 or 70 years had passed since Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension when the author or authors of the Fourth Gospel put the finishing touches on this manuscript. Bible historians believe this gospel was written in Roman Asia (what is now Turkey), perhaps in the city of Ephesus, almost 1,100 miles from Jerusalem by land (over 600 miles by sea), sometime between 90 and 100 A.D.

They wrote not from personal experience and witness, but from oral tradition crossing decades of theological development and a great distance of cultural difference. There were many things that they had heard that Jesus had said, and a great deal that they needed Jesus to have said, and when they reached almost the end of their story, they had him say a lot of it in this Farewell Discourse.

Guided (we believe) by the Holy Spirit, the authors of this gospel portray Jesus offering this lengthy prayer to the Father, a prayer which might also be thought of as his last theological instruction to his inner circle, those who came to be called “The Apostles.” At its core is his wish that they stick together, “that they may be one, as we are one,” and that they continue his ministry by teaching the Truth he had sought to teach them.

The Episcopal Church takes this call to unity and ministry seriously, understanding it as a call not to uniformity but to harmony. In 2009, the 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church declared that a “Biblically-based respect for the diversity of understandings that authentic, truth-seeking human beings have is essential for communal reasoning and faithful living. The revelation of God in Christ calls us therefore to participate in our relationship with God and one another in a manner that is at once faithful, loving, lively, and reasonable. This understanding continues to call Episcopalians to find our way as one body through various conflicts. It is not a unity of opinion or a sameness of vision that holds us together. Rather, it is the belief that we are called to walk together in Jesus’ path of reconciliation not only through our love for the other, but also through our respect for the legitimacy of the reasoning of the other. Respect for reason empowers us to meet God’s unfolding world as active participants in the building of the Kingdom and to greet God’s diverse people with appropriate welcome and gracious hospitality.” (Interreligious Relation Statement – Final Text)

Last Sunday, fifteen members of our congregation, joined by two others from St. Patrick in Brunswick, knelt before Bishop William Persell and, in some manner, reaffirmed the covenant made at their baptism. One was already a confirmed Episcopalian; two were teenagers who’d grown up in this parish. The others came to us from a variety of backgrounds, some actively Christian in other traditions, some not. Whatever their background, however, those fifteen persons apparently found here at St. Paul’s Parish that “appropriate welcome and gracious hospitality,” that unity in ministry to which the High Priestly Prayer compels us.

In his prayer, Jesus refers to his disciples (all of them, not just the Apostles) as “those whom [the Father] gave me from the world.” (v. 6) Earlier during their dinner conversation, he had reminded his followers, “You did not choose me but I chose you.” (Jn 15:16a) We tend to think otherwise of our membership in this or any church; we like to believe that we are autonomous, that we are here by our own decision, and our confirmation service certainly encourages our thinking in that direction.

In that liturgy, the Bishop asks the candidates, “Do you renew your commitment to Jesus Christ?” and they answer, “I do, and with God’s grace I will follow him as my Savior and Lord.” (BCP 1979, page 415) We tend to focus on only the first two words of that response, “I do.” But Jesus’ words at the Last Supper compel us to surrender our autonomy and hear clearly the rest of the answer: “I do … with God’s grace ….”

“I do … with God’s grace ….”

Let’s consider the case of Matthias chosen as replacement Apostle in our reading from the Book of Acts. Peter, having heard Christ’s prayer that the unity of the church might be preserved, knew that Jesus’ plan of a leadership group of twelve followers had to be reconstituted; the unity for which Jesus had prayed had been broken and needed to be restored. “One of these [who have been with us from the beginning] must become a witness with us to [the Lord’s] resurrection.” (Acts 1:21) Peter was well aware that Jesus’ mission had been to restore Israel and that this inner circle was key to that mission; he probably recalled that Jesus had told them that they would “sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Mt 19:28), something that could not happen if there were only eleven of them. To restore the embryonic church to its original unity, a replacement apostle was needed.

Two candidates meeting the community’s qualifications are put forward, Matthias and another named Justus, and Matthias is chosen through the casting of lots. It might seem that this is all just a game of chance, but that is not so. Consider what has happened here: the action is taken by the apostles as a group; before casting the lots, the group has studied the Scriptures, prayed together, and discussed what they were about to do. The decision was not that of the leadership only; it clearly was one concurred in by the entire congregation present (about one-hundred and twenty we are told). And one scholar has suggested that there may have been some sort of group affirmation after the lots were cast, as is implied by the words, “and he was added to the eleven apostles.” (v. 26)

The election of Matthias to serve as replacement for Judas gives us a paradigm for our own decision making. The first step, obviously, is the recognition that we are at a decision point: Judas is gone, something must be done. The second is recourse to Scripture. The early followers of Jesus had only the Hebrew Scriptures to which to turn; we have, in addition, the New Testament in which we are taught that there are two great commandments ~ Love God: Love your neighbor.

Every decision we make must honor these; there may be lesser rules within Holy Writ which provide guidance, but in the end, in making our decisions, we must follow these commandments above all else.

Once we have considered the guidance of Scripture, we must pray. My grandfather, the Methodist Sunday school teacher, taught me that the purpose of prayer is not to get what we want, but to make us into instruments for God to do what God wants: he was fond of saying that the Lord taught us to pray, “Thy will be done,” not “Thy will be changed.” The followers of Jesus in that upper room, faced with the monumental task of appointing a new apostle, prayed. So should we. This has been the church’s tradition from the very beginning.

Now, let’s be honest ~ the answer to prayer is often vague and often confusing. I know very few people who have ever received specific directions for their lives and, to be truthful, I view those who claim to have done so with great suspicion. Most of us will never know for certain which is the right choice; I suspect that even those in the upper room that day wondered, when all was said and done, whether Matthias was a better choice than Justus. But they chose, and we choose.

We do not do so blindly, however. As the confirmation response says, we choose “with God’s grace.” We read Scripture; we pray in accordance with church tradition; and we seek the guidance of others, reasoning together, testing our thoughts and our beliefs about prayer’s answers against those of trusted companions. Then we decide. Perhaps the choice to be made is clear; perhaps it is not so clear, but at least one choice seems better or wiser than others; or perhaps, like that first congregation, we come to a point where there are two or more choices that seem equally good and the best we can do is flip a coin and trust God. However we make the decision, we say, “I do … with the grace of God” and trust that that grace will sustain us in the decisions we make.

Sometimes, perhaps most times, our decisions will be wrong; they will be sinful. But Martin Luther once advised his friend Philipp Melanchthon, “Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.” (Letter 99, Paragraph 13) Having studied Scripture, having prayed, having sought the counsel of others, we make our decisions boldly, trusting in the grace of God.

In our individual choices, we may not (indeed, we will not) reach the same decisions, but valuing this process of decision-making we are able to respect our differences of opinion, belief, practice, and action. In our corporate decision-making, by this process, we are able to reach consensus all can accept, as the disciples did in numbering Matthias one of the Twelve. In the end, “we know that all things work together for good for those who love God” (Rom 8:28), even our wrong choices and bad decisions.

Every ten years or so the bishops of the Anglican Communion, including the bishops of the Episcopal Church, gather with the Archbishop of Canterbury in what is called “The Lambeth Conference.” In 1930, Archbishop William Temple preached at the opening of the seventh Lambeth Conference, assuring his colleagues:

While we deliberate, God reigns;
When we decide wisely, God reigns;
When we decide foolishly, God reigns;
When we serve God in humble loyalty, God reigns;
When we serve God self-assertively, God reigns;
When we rebel and seek to withhold our service, God reigns —
the Alpha and the Omega, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

We decide however we decide . . . but Almighty God will always reign!

I do not know why each of those seventeen people last week knelt before the bishop and affirmed their commitment to Christ in the context of the Anglican tradition and in the community of the Episcopal Church. I know why I did (lo, those many years ago): because I found in the Episcopal Church not a uniformity of belief and practice, not a church which claims to know (and thus to dictate) how all of life’s choices and decisions are to be made, but rather a unity of mission, a community of harmony, a church which offers “appropriate welcome and gracious hospitality,” where Christians are encouraged to explore and make life’s decisions in the same way the embryonic Christian community elected Matthias: through reliance on Scripture, prayerful tradition, and reasoned reflection. Perhaps that is also why our newest confirmed members have chosen to join us.

Or, rather, why Jesus chose them, why the Father has given them to Jesus in the context of this community, why we welcome them and join with Christ praying for them and for ourselves as he prayed for his first followers: “May we be one, as he and the Father are one.” Amen.

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

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.

Thomas the Realist: Sermon for Easter 2 – 12 April 2015

April 11, 2015 / / 0 Comments

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

A sermon offered on the Second Sunday of Easter, April 12, 2015, to the people of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day are Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2; and John 20:19-31. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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

I assume that you are all familiar with Leonardo da Vinci’s famous mural of The Last Supper in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. Nearly all of us have seen reproductions of it; it is said to be one of the most reproduced (and most parodied or satirized) paintings in human history. I have been privileged to see it in person twice in my life: once when I was a 16-year-old student studying in Florence and again in the summer of 2000 when I chaperoned the Kansas City Youth Symphony on a concert tour of northern Italy.

Each time I have looked at that painting, either the original or reproductions, I have found myself drawn more to da Vinci’s depiction of the disciples than to his Jesus. We know from Leonardo’s notebooks who each of the figures is meant to be. Thomas, who figures prominently in today’s Gospel lesson, figures prominently in the painting, as well. He is the first figure on Jesus’ left, right next to Jesus, looking intently at Jesus (we see him only in profile) with his right index finger pointing in Jesus’ face!

Has anyone ever done that to you? Gotten in your face making a point, raising their finger in emphasis? [Gesturing with index finger pointed upward] You know that this is a serious person. They know the way the world is; they have a very definite view of reality; and they are intent and making sure you see and understand their viewpoint. In The Last Supper, Thomas is only the first person on Jesus’ left because he leaning over St. James the Greater to make his point. He is a serious person with a definite view of reality.

That’s why I never call St. Thomas “Doubting Thomas.” This was not, in the upper room, and never in any other Gospel story, a man filled with doubt. This man is serious, sure of himself, and sure of his world. He is, in a word, a realist, a pragmatist, not a doubter.

Although Thomas is listed among the Twelve in all of the Gospels, we only encounter him as a speaker in John’s Gospel, and our first view of him is in the discussion leading up to the raising of Lazarus. We are told that the disciples (perhaps it was even Thomas) tried to dissuade Jesus from returning to Bethany in Judea, where Lazarus and his sisters lived, because they believed his life would be in danger: they remind Jesus that the Judeans “were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” (Jn 11:8) Jesus, however, will not be turned away, so Thomas says to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (Jn 11:16) This man is a serious realist.

He is so realistic, so down-to-earth, that he doesn’t understand metaphor. When, in his farewell discourse, Jesus says . . .

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.

. . . Thomas’s very pragmatic reply is, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (Jn 14:2-5)

So we should not be surprised, and we should not call Thomas a “doubter” when he demands proof of Jesus’ resurrection. Would any of us have been any different? And, let’s be honest, none of the other disciples were themselves any different. None of them believed it either. In his Gospel, Luke is very clear about that: “Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told . . . the apostles. But [their] words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” (Lk 24:10-11; emphasis added)

I’m fairly certain that when Thomas said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe,” (Jn 20:25) he never really expected to have the chance. Such a thing simply wouldn’t fit into the real world he understood. He wasn’t a doubter; he was a realist.

So, I think, Thomas has gotten a bad rap because of this story and the story has gotten a resultingly bad interpretation. This is not a story about changing someone’s mind; it’s a story about changing someone’s life!

Confronted by the reality of the risen Jesus, Thomas the realist is confounded by what reality really is; his perception of reality and thus his life is what is changed. When Jesus rises to his challenge and invites him to “put your finger here and see my hands; reach out your hand and put it in my side,” (Jn 20:27) he is not belittling Thomas, but he is positing the possibility that Thomas’s reality was too little. Thomas’s vision of reality is too small, too limited; his life is too circumscribed. His worldview is defined too much by evidence and too little by trust. When Jesus calls him to believe, he is calling on him to accept the evidence of an intellectual proposition; he is inviting him to live into a whole new world of trust. This is not a story about changing someone’s mind; it’s a story about changing someone’s life!

In 1961, an English priest named J.B. Phillips published a short book entitled Your God Is Too Small. In it he challenged many prevailing notions of God, many of which we still have with us today. He called these the “unreal gods” and gave them names such as “the Resident Policeman,” the “Parental Hangover,” and the “Grand Old Man.” These unreal gods, he said, were the gods of what he called “the modern outlook, which regards the whole of life as a closed system.” That “modern outlook” is precisely the point of view that Thomas had before meeting the risen Jesus! It is a too-small vision of reality in which it is unthinkable that anything could happen outside of what Phillips called “the whole huge cause-and-effect process,” that view of the world supported by physical evidence of the sort Thomas initially wanted.

But Thomas’s life and point of view, and that of all the apostles, were radically altered by their experience of Christ’s resurrection. Phillips wrote:

We may . . . point out the great difference that has come to exist between the Christianity of the early days and that of today. To us it has become a performance, a keeping of rules, while to the men of those days it was, plainly, an invasion of their lives by a new quality of life altogether. The difference is due surely to the fact that we are so very slow (even though we realize our impotence) to discard the closed-system idea. *** With the closed-system sooner or later you have to say: “You can’t change human nature.” Ideals fail for very spiritual poverty, and cynicism and despair take their place. But the fact of Christ’s coming is itself a shattering denial of the closed-system idea which dominates our thinking. And what else is His continual advice to “have faith in God” but a call to refuse, despite all appearances, to be taken in by the closed-system type of thinking? “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you”—what are these famous words but an invitation to reach out for the Permanent and the [truly] Real? (Your God Is Too Small, online PDF, The Common Life, pp. 88-89)

The story of Thomas is a story for all of us because we too easily fall into that closed-system worldview with its rules and its limitations. The story of Thomas reminds us of a grander vision. A vision defined not by limitation but by possibility, governed not by scarcity but by abundance, ruled not by remembered offenses but set free by forgiveness and reconciliation.

This is the vision shared by “the men of those days” (as Phillips called them), the members of the earliest Christian community described by Luke in the Book of Acts, that community of believers “who . . . were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.” They had this shared vision because “the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” In other words, Mary Magdalene and the other women told their story of the empty tomb and of meeting Jesus in the garden; Cleopas and his companion told their story of meeting Jesus along the road to Emmaus; Thomas and the others told their story of meeting Jesus in the upper room.

The result was that peoples’ lives were changed. They lived in a way radically different than they had before, radically different from those around them: “There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.”

“From each according to his ability; to each according to his need” is not an economic model developed by Karl Marx; it is a religious model lived by the followers of Jesus Christ whose lives have been radically altered by their encounter with the Risen Lord. “Oh, how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity!” (Ps 133:1)

We live in different times. The total sharing of resources practice by Christ’s first followers no longer seems practical to us. We say to ourselves, “It just won’t work in our circumstances.” And we call ourselves realists and pragmatists. We hang onto that closed-system model and say [gesturing with index finger pointed upward]: “You can’t change human nature.”

But Jesus appeared to Thomas and said, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” (Jn 20:27) And proved that he can change human nature. Are we willing to let him change ours?

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

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.

Beyond Jesus’ Instructions: Annual Parish Meeting Sermon – January 25, 2015

January 25, 2015 / / 0 Comments

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

A sermon offered at the 198th Annual Parish Meeting, the Feast of the Conversion of Paul, January 25, 2015, to the people of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day were Acts 26:9-21; Psalm 67; Galatians 1:11-24; and Matthew 10:16-22. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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

St Paul's Conversion by Gustav Doré“I heard a voice saying in Hebrew: ‘I have a job for you. I’ve handpicked you to be a servant and witness to what’s happened today, and to what I am going to show you. I’m sending you off to open the eyes of the outsiders so they can see the difference between dark and light, and choose light, see the difference between Satan and God, and choose God.'” (Acts 26:16-18a, The Message)

Amen.

A personnel recruitment and testing agency sent this memorandum to their client:

To: Jesus, Son of Joseph, Carpenter Shop, Nazareth

Thank you for submitting the resumes of the twelve men you have picked for managerial positions in your new organization. All of them have now taken our battery of tests. We have not only run the results through our computer, but we have also arranged personal interviews for each of them with our psychologist and our vocational aptitude consultant.

The profiles of all tests are included. You will want to study each of them carefully. As part of our service, we make some general observations. These come without any additional fee. It is the staff opinion that most of your nominees are lacking in background, educational and vocational aptitude for the type of enterprise you are undertaking. Specifically, we have the following observations about these candidates:

Simon Peter is emotionally unstable and given to fits of temper. Andrew has absolutely no qualities of leadership. The two brothers, James and John, place personal interest above company loyalty. Thomas demonstrates a questioning attitude that would tend to undermine morale. We feel that it is our duty to tell you that Matthew (the former tax collector) has been blacklisted by the Greater Galilee Better Business Bureau. James the-son-of-Alphaeus and Thaddaeus have radical leanings and registered high manic-depressive scores.

Only one candidate shows great potential. He is a man of ability and resourcefulness who meets people well and has a keen business mind. He has contacts in high places and is highly motivated, ambitious, and responsible. We recommend Judas Iscariot as your chief financial officer and right-hand man.

All the other profiles are self-explanatory. The candidates do not have the team concept. We would recommend that you continue to search for persons of experience and proven capacity in management. We wish you every success in your new venture.

Of course, our commemoration today is not about any of these guys . . . today we celebrate the “conversion” of our Patron Saint, Paul of Tarsus, who was (as he says himself in his letter to the Galatians) “violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it.” (Gal 1:13) Clearly not someone you would recruit to grow the church . . . and yet that is exactly what the Risen Jesus did! He handpicked him to be a servant and witness. As has been observed by many writers: God does not call the qualified; God qualifies the called.

And that’s as true for the church today as it was when Jesus was calling fishermen from their boats on the Sea of Galilee, or recruiting tax collectors out of their offices in Capernaum, or accosting the firebrand Pharisee Saul on the road to Damascus. Just look around this room. If you were going to call some group of people to represent God and spread the gospel in Medina, Ohio, would you call any of us? Be honest! Maybe one or two . . . but the whole group of us? Not likely. But here we are, tasked with doing just that.

The other thing Jesus doesn’t do is give instructions. He calls the unqualified and then sets them to work with minimal direction. Just a few verses before the bit we heard this morning Jesus has told the Twelve:

Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. (Mt 10:8-10)

Then he gives them some advice about finding lodgings. That’s it. Minimal instructions and then the part read today, which boils down to “This is hazardous work” and “Don’t be naive.” (Thanks to Eugene Peterson’s The Message for those paraphrases.)

Professor Greg Carey, who teaches New Testament at the UCC’s Lancaster Theological Seminary in Lancaster, PA, in discussing this passage notes that although “Jesus gives the Twelve clear [if minimal] instructions,” once they are sent, “they are on their own. They must assess the responses of the cities; they determine whether to stay or to move along.” They probably wanted something more in the way of training (they were, as that fictional memorandum suggests, grossly unqualified). We would like more in the way of instructions and that drives many Christians to treat scripture as a rule book. But scripture isn’t a rule book and Jesus instructions, as Prof. Carey notes, “only take us so far. The faithful church must move beyond Jesus himself, as the disciples do.” Like “the disciples the church finds itself cast into the world, taking Jesus’ message [of healing and liberation] beyond his instructions into surprising new contexts.” (Working Preacher commentary)

As we begin our 199th year of being the Episcopal Church in Medina, Ohio, that is the self-examination we must undertake. Have we moved beyond the minimal instructions we have been given? Have we successfully taken the gospel message of healing and liberation into our context in this time and place?

In the Annual Journal that you will be given when we begin the business session is a page of parish statistics which reflects the data our national church requests from us each year in the Annual Parochial Report. Looking at those statistics might suggest that the answer to that question is “No.” You will find there, for example, that we began the year with a registered membership of 539 persons (active and inactive); we baptized six but lost two to transfer and one to death for a net growth of three; that’s a growth rate of a little more than 1/2 of 1% – not really very good. But . . . that report is constrained by the definitions and requirements of the canons, our “instructions,” if you will, from the national church.

If we move beyond the instructions, as Prof. Carey suggests the followers of Jesus are supposed to do, one gets a much different picture. We may have a “registered” membership of 542, but a good number of those people are inactive . . . some don’t even live in Ohio anymore. Our active worshiping community at the beginning of the year was really composed of around 200 people and to that active group this year we have added 19 adults and six children that I can name. They are not yet technically “members” as defined by the canons, but they are certainly part of our parish family! There may be some more, people who have quickly grown so familiar that they seem to have been here longer than the year. But even just counting those I can name off the top of my head, that’s a growth rate of 12-1/2%, twenty-five times what our “official” statistics would suggest.

However, as the Rev. Loren Mead suggested more than twenty years ago in his book More Than Numbers, there are other measures of church growth: there is growth in maturity of faith, increase in corporate effectiveness, and success in transforming the outside world. Those are very difficult metrics to measure. It’s really not easy to determine if, when, and how God’s “ways [have been made] known upon earth,” and God’s “saving health [manifested] among all nations.” (Ps 67:2) There, however, some indicators.

We have, for example, not only added 25 people to our worshiping community, we also added two pledging households to our stewardship base and have seen an increase in financial commitments from pledging households of about 2-1/2%. In 2014, we added to our outreach ministries, increasing our outreach expenditures to 18% of our operating budget, well above the nationwide Episcopal Church average which is 11%. Our outreach includes, as you can read in the Annual Journal, $11,000 raised for and spent on feeding the hungry through the Free Farmers’ Market which provided almost 50,000 pounds of food to over 4,300 of our neighbors.

We are offering education in biblically based personal fiscal responsibility and financial management through the Financial Peace University program in which sixteen Medina households are participating, about half of them not (yet) members of this congregation.

We have added to our youth group which now includes middle and high school students not only from our own congregation but from other Episcopal congregations in our mission area and other Christian churches in our city, youths who meet in this building every Wednesday evening for supper and bible study and who, throughout the year, have raised awareness of homelessness in our community, raised money for shelter ministries, built teddy bears for children in need, repaired the homes of the poor, and taken part in the councils and ministries of the church. Two of our youth group members, Nick _______ of our own parish and Richard __________ of Christ Church, Kent, are among thirteen diocesan youth nominated to be part of the official youth presence at this summer’s General Convention of the Episcopal Church.

Of course, we completed addition of 400 square feet of open and inviting gallery space to our parish hall, and reorganized our usage of space moving the nursery to the second floor of Canterbury House (on the same level as our worship space) and consolidating our offices in the undercroft. (There are still some finishing touches to complete, but for the most part that process is done.)

I suggest to you that all of this represents growth in maturity of faith, increase in corporate effectiveness, and success in transforming the outside world . . . and that it is just the tip of the ice berg.

Yes, our official statistics may not look all that good and when the hierarchs of the diocese and the national church look at them, they may “hand [us] over to councils and flog [us] in their synagogues,” (Mt 10:17) although I don’t really think they will. As we approach the bicentennial of our congregation, I believe we have ample evidence that we have followed Jesus’ instructions to feed the hungry, house the homeless, cure the sick, and liberate the captive. And we have followed his last instruction, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” (Mt 28:19-20a)

Can we do better? Yes, of course, we can and we will because we have faith that those “who endure to the end will be saved,” (Mt 10:22) and we believe Jesus’ assurance that he is “with [us] always, to the end of the age.” (Mt 28:20b) We have followed Jesus’ instructions and gone beyond them. We may not be the most qualified, but we are the ones who have been called. We have taken Jesus’ message of healing and liberation beyond his basic instructions into our context in Medina, Ohio.

I believe that through the open windows of our gallery, through the activities of our youth, through the ministry of our food pantry, through our faithfulness our neighbors and all who pass by “can see the difference between dark and light, and choose light, see the difference between Satan and God, and choose God.” (Acts 26:18a, The Message) I believe that through our faithfulness and God’s grace St. Paul’s Parish has grown in many ways and will continue to increase; “may God, our own God, give us his blessing. May God give us his blessing, and may all the ends of the earth stand in awe of him.” (Ps 67:6-7)

Amen.

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

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.

Toleration – From the Daily Office – October 23, 2014

October 23, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From Ecclesiasticus:

Do not get angry with your neighbor for every injury, and do not resort to acts of insolence.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Sirach 10:6 (NRSV) – October 23, 2014)

Today is the feast of St. James of Jerusalem, also called James the Just, also known as the brother of our Lord. He is revered as the advocate of tolerance for Gentile converts (see Acts 15:12-19). Of note is the apparent fact that he was not a follower of his famous brother until after Jesus’ Resurrection; one imagines that getting a visit by a deceased-but-risen relative who claims to be the Son of God would be a hell of a conversion experience.

Anyway, this lesson from ben Sira is not from the lessons for James’ commemoration, but its admonition to patience and toleration for the foibles of one’s neighbors, even those which might cause injury, seems fitting to the day. Unfortunately, fitting or not, patience and toleration are not the trademarks of our age, are they?

We live in an era of social conflict which is, if not created by, supported by the social media we thought would overcome such divergence. Library shelves are filled with science fiction novels in which instant and wide-spread communication was predicted to be the panacea for political confrontation, the mechanism which would foster peace and mutual respect, the technology which would usher in utopia. Those rosy speculations have all turned out to be bullshit, however.

Along with the social media has come an increase in “tribalism,” in purity tests for membership in social groups, in litmus tests for political candidates, in raised voices shouting past one another. And the social media technology of algorithms making machine-logical decisions about which messages their human consumers would be fed is pushing the tribes and social groups further apart, raising the volume of the shouting. Some cloud-based calculator is deciding whose voices I hear, whose pictures I see, whose news-feed I read; that coldly logical “thinking machine” is deciding that I only want to hear the voice, see the pictures, and read the news that bolsters my prejudices, and so that’s what I hear, see, and read. Whatever the “other” tribe is hearing, seeing, and reading, I’m not . . . and what I am, they’re not. And so we have no meeting in the middle or anywhere else.

So much for peace and mutual respect, so much for toleration and utopia.

We need to turn off the machines; we need to divorce ourselves from the algorithms; we need to start listening to one another without the filter of calculating machines. We need to be less angry about perceived (often mis-perceived) injury. We need to heed James’ call to toleration.

Coexist (with symbols)

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

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.

We Should Think . . . – From the Daily Office – August 21, 2014

August 21, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Acts of the Apostles:

An angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 8:26-27a (NRSV) – August 21, 2014)

Telephone Call to MinistryI suppose that if “an angel of the Lord” told me to “get up and go” that I’d do as Philip did, even in these times when a trip to Gaza would not be the most pleasant journey one could make. I have often remarked at the willingness of the early disciples to drop everything and respond to these calls to ministry. The response of the first of the apostles, of Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, of James and John (the sons of Zebedee), to leave their fishing businesses and take off with Jesus is the same. (Mt 4:18-22) The response of Matthew (or was he called Levi) to leave his tax booth is the same. (Mt 9:9) “Come” and they come; “get up and go” and they go. Modern folk are seldom so swift to respond.

Of course, we live in a world (at least in the United States . . . at least in the Episcopal Church in the United States) that discourages swift responses to God’s call.

We should really think about that!

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

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.

Of Tombs and Siblings – From the Daily Office – August 14, 2014

August 14, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Acts:

[Stephen the Deacon answered the High Priest in the council and said:] “Joseph sent and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five in all; so Jacob went down to Egypt. He himself died there as well as our ancestors, and their bodies were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 7:14-16 (NRSV) – August 14, 2014)

Icon of the Martyrdom of St PhiloumenosShechem was known as Sychar in Jesus’ time. Near that land that Abraham had bought for use as a tomb, just a short walk south from the traditional location of Joseph’s tomb, is a well that belonged to Jacob. At that well, Jesus stopped to ask a Samaritan woman for a drink; part of the story of that meeting and Jesus’ conversation with the woman (the longest of all the conversations recorded in the Gospels) is today’s Gospel text (John 4:27-42).

Near Sychar the Romans built the Greek-named city of Flavia Neapolis which grew large and encompassed the ancient Jewish and Samaritan city. As the predominant local language changed to Arabic, the Greek name was retained but shortened and Arabicized, and now the modern city of Nablus is among the largest Arab cities in the Holy Land.

Over the site of Jacob’s Well stands the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Photini. The name Photini is given by Orthodox tradition to the Samaritan woman; it means “light bringer” in recognition of her bringing the light of Christ to the people of the city. The first church dedicated to her at the site was built in 311 AD.

There are two tombs at St. Photini Church. One inside houses the remains of Archimandrite Philoumenos, a priest who almost single-handedly restored the ancient church to its present modern condition. In 1979 a group of radical Zionists from a nearby Israeli settlement claimed Jacob’s Well, which is in a chapel inside the crypt of the church, as a Jewish holy place and demanded that crosses and icons be removed. A week later, on November 29, Fr. Philoumenos was hacked to death with an ax in the crypt and the church was desecrated. Although it is widely believed that the settlers were responsible, no one was ever convicted of the priest’s murder. Fr. Philoumenos was ranked among the Saints of the Church of Jerusalem on August 30, 2008, and his feast day set on November 29, the anniversary of his martyrdom.

Fr Justinus's TombThe second tomb is that of Fr. Justinus, the priest who took over the church from St. Philoumenos and continued his work of restoration. An accomplished artist, Fr. Justinus wrote all of the icons which now decorate the nave, sanctuary, and crypt, including an icon of the martyrdom of St. Philoumenos. Fr. Justinus’s tomb is empty because he is still alive. He built his tomb himself and it is placed just outside the front door of the church; he walks past it everyday coming from his residence in the neighboring monastery to the church. It is a daily reminder of his (and our) mortality and of the dangers he (and many) face in the on-going violence or threat of violence that characterizes the Holy Land today.

If we were to read further in Acts (and we will tomorrow and the day after) we would read of the martyrdom of Stephen. His address to the Sanhedrin (perhaps one would best characterize it as a polemical sermon) so enraged his hearers that “they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him” (Acts 7:58) which resulted in his death. We are told that “devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him” (8:2) but we are not told where his burial place may have been, though surely it is in or near Jerusalem.

Nonetheless, his sermon about Jesus at Jacob’s Well in Shechem-Sychar-Nablus, the well’s location near Joseph’s Tomb and its intimate connection to the martyrdom of St. Philoumenos, and the eventual outcome of Stephen’s address are stark reminders that the Good News of God (whether that be the Covenant of the Old Testament or the Gospel of the New) is not the promise of an easy life. One would not be surprised to hear the Almighty singing the lyrics of that old country song:

I beg your pardon; I never promised you a rose garden.
Along with the sunshine, there’s gotta be a little rain sometime.
When you take you gotta give so live and let live and let go.
I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.

In fact, Jesus did pretty much that when he disabused his disciples, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Mat. 10:34)

The People of God are called to be risk-takers and, sometimes, to risk even death. Christians most surely must know that; we have only the example of our Lord to prove it. But it is also true of all the children of Abraham, not only Christians but also Jews and Muslims. What is sad is that Abraham’s descendants cannot live peaceably among themselves, that it is often our Abrahamic “siblings” from whom we face the greatest danger (sometimes even more so from our brothers and sisters within the same faith group). I believe that this breaks God’s heart!

As he died, Stephen the Deacon “knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’” (Acts 7:60) So should we all pray for those who persecute us, and let us pray especially for all who are the spiritual descendants of Abraham, that there may be peace among Jews, Muslims, and Christians.

(Note: The icon of the martyrdom of St. Philoumenos may be photographed by pilgrims and tourists, and those photographs are to be found widely posted on the internet, the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority will not permit the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem nor the parish church or monastery to reproduce the icon. It is considered politically inflammatory and is therefore censored.)

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

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.

Most Definitely – From the Daily Office – August 13, 2014

August 13, 2014 / / 1 Comment

From the Book of Acts:

Now during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. And the twelve called together the whole community of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait at tables. Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task, while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.” What they said pleased the whole community, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, together with Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. They had these men stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 6:1-6 (NRSV) – August 13, 2014)

Coptic Pope Selected by a ChildMy wife refuses to use the word “coincidence.” She claims there are no such things. The concurrence in time of apparently unrelated but complementary and mutually reinforcing events, she asserts, is the intentional activity of the Holy Spirit. Nothing, “coincidental” (in the popular understanding of the word) about it.

Well, today one of these God-incidents, as she calls them, has occurred. When we are given this passage of scripture to read, we are also treated to the announcement of the Joint Nominating Committee for the Election of the Presiding Bishop (JNCPB) that it has issued a Call for Discernment and Profile for the election of the 27th Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church. (Notice all the “this is terribly important” capital letters in that announcement!) The “Call and Profile” can be found here: it is TWENTY pages long! The coincidence (Sorry, dear!) of this reading and this announcement seems instructive.

Luke (the author of Acts) doesn’t tell us how the apostles and the early Christian community actually called, profiled, [s]elected, and chose the first seven deacons, but I somehow doubt that they spent several months producing a twenty page document detailing the perceived needs, duties, qualifications, objectives, potential ministries, goals, and whatever-else-corporate-America-is-currently-buzzwording-for-CEOs of the job. Granted deacons are not presiding bishops. (Truth be told, I think deacons are more important than presiding bishops.) But diakonia is diakonia at whatever hierarchical level it may be performed.

I think the church has gotten lost. I hate to say that, but I think the church has truly gotten lost in the dark woods of corporate leadership process. We have followed the guidebook of the Harvard MBA and seem no longer to hear (or heed) the promptings of the Holy Spirit. As much as I value the democratic processes that make the Episcopal Church unique among Anglicans and the other branches of the Christian faith which preserve the Catholic Tradition, those processes do not and should not be permitted to make us a religious reflection of a for-profit corporation. What works (assuming it does work) for shareholders, directors, and managers of Wall-Street-traded business entities may not (probably does not) work for the church, but we seem to have adopted those processes and methods lock, stock, and barrel.

We use these methods now to select rectors of parishes, bishops of dioceses, and (now) the Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church. I ask, in all sincerity, have they worked? And my answer would be, “Sometimes.” Sometimes I believe the Holy Spirit uses our business methods and processes to do her work and help us select the best person. And sometimes I think our business processes and methods get in the way, and that the Holy Spirit just shrugs her shoulders, sits back, and waits for next time . . . .

When the Episcopal Cafe made note of the “Call and Profile” and posted that article on Facebook, I made this comment:

Put the names of all canonically eligible bishops in a large chalice then have my yet-to-be-born grandchild (who will be 9 months old and in attendance with his/her deputy parents) – or some other available innocent child – draw one name slip from the chalice. Make that person PB. Trust the Holy Spirit and stop all this corporate-America profiling-and-politicking nonsense.

This is a riff on the method the Coptic Orthodox Church uses to select its popes (as reported by NBC News). I believe it would work for us as well as, if not better than, all the profiling, job describing, nominating, and electing we go through; it is just as likely to be used and guided by the Holy Spirit, and maybe even more so. It was, basically, the method the apostles used to select a successor for Judas (Acts 1:15-26) and, in all honesty, I don’t think we’ve improved on it in nearly 2,000 years of adopting, changing, and monkeying with other methods.

My son is a clergy deputy to the upcoming General Convention (and his wife is a lay deputy). I asked if he thought Jr. Funston would be up to the task of selecting a name from a chalice. He replied, “Most definitely.”

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

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.

All God’s Children: Day Four in Jerusalem – From the Daily Office – June 29, 2014

June 29, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Acts of the Apostles:

Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him — though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being;’ as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ “

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 17:22-28 (NRSV) – June 29, 2014)

Always one of my favorite stories of the Apostle Paul, this incident is depicted in the stained glass altar window of my church (St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Medina, Ohio). I chose to use it as my focus scripture to introduce a summary of our Holy Land Pilgrimage activities today because Paul’s message of unity – that in God we all live and move and have our being, and that we are all God’s offspring – is one that needs badly to be heard in Israel and Palestine and, if the statistics we are hearing about Christian population in these countries are correct, it is one that won’t be heard very loudly or at all. Down from as high at 35% at the time of the British Mandate and the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the Christian population of Israel and Palestine today is less than 2%.

We began our day early with breakfast at 5:30 a.m. — to the usual assortment of olives, pickled eggplant, humus, labneh, yogurt, cheeses, and so forth was added a flaky, cheese-stuffed pastry, a sort of savory popover. Washed down with several cups of instant coffee (instant is all they serve here), this got us fortified for a morning of cultural fascination and disappointment.

First, we rode our bus to the Dung Gate of the old city, a pretty awful but ancient name for the southern gate in the city wall which derives from the refuse dumped here in ancient times; presumably, the prevailing winds would carry odors away. (“I went out by night by the Valley Gate past the Dragon’s Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that had been broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire.” Neh 2:13) This gate leads directly to the Western Wall and an archaeological park located at the south end of the Temple Mount.

We stood on line for nearly an hour waiting for Israeli security to open the gate that leads to the only access non-Muslims have to the top of the Temple Mount (which Muslims call “the Noble Sanctuary), the Al-Aqsah Mosque, and the Dome of the Rock. Above this gate is a sign reading, “According to Torah Law, entering the Temple Mount area is strictly forbidden due to the holiness of the site. [signed] The Chief Rabbinate of Israel” Both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi Chief Rabbis have signed this statement which was first issued by the Ashkenazi rabbi in 1935; both reiterated this prohibition in 2013.

Ignoring the Chief Rabbinate, a group of Israeli “settlers” stood in the line in front of us waiting to gain access to the Temple Mount.

Finally, security opened the gate and we were ushered through. The settlers were given a thorough search, however. From the covered wooden walkway from the security point to the actual gate of the Mount, we were able to take some good photographs of the crowd of Jews at the Wailing Wall. Directly under us, a large group of Jewish women were singing a hymn at the Wall. Directly in front of us, at the end of the covered walkway, Israeli security stored their heavy plexiglass riot shields, a visible sign to anyone entering that the police were prepared.

We entered the Noble Sanctuary and found a spot in the shade where Iyad could tell us about its history, ancient and modern. While he was talking some young adult tourists (American or Canadian college kids?) came onto the Mount and an old Muslim man began to berate them for being immodestly dressed. (We’d been told ahead of time that should wear long pants and long- or short-sleeve shirts, no tank tops; women should be in dresses or pants to the ankle, long-sleeved blouses, and scarves or veils. Why their guide hadn’t done the same, I have no idea.) An argument erupted between the old man and the Israeli police guards about who had authority to tell tourists whether they could enter and what the should wear. Eventually the college kids got themselves properly attired (using towels and large scarves) and walked on, but I know they took away an image of Muslim intractability.

Shortly after that, the settlers we’d seen at the security gate entered, to boos, hoots, catcalls, and other shouts of protest (or of “Allah hu akbar” – God is great) from the Muslims. They either offered a prayer or held a short conversation just inside the gate, then made a bee-line for an exit (passing us and wishing us “Shalom” as they did so). They had no reason to be there, other than to be provocative.

We spent some time walking through the area and seeing its sights. Unfortunately, since September 2000 when Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon “visited” the Temple Mount, an act scene by many as provoking the second Intifada, no non-Muslim has been permitted to enter the Al Aq-sah Mosque or the Dome of the Rock, so we could not see in the insides of the buildings.

After that we left the Noble Sanctuary by another gate (one can leave by any of the twelve gates, but non-Muslims can enter by only the one). We made our way to St. Anne’s Church at the Pools of Bethesda. A short visit to the pools and archeological site was followed by our entering the church and, as a group, singing Seek Ye First before the altar. The church, which is a crusader construction of limestone, has marvelous accoustics and we really sounded good. (The church is well preserved because it was turned into a Muslim school at one point. This is why it has no windows; those were replaced by the Muslims with plaster filigree. It also has a verse from the Qur’an carved in the stone over the front door.) After that, we made our way back to the bus which took us back to St. George’s Cathedral.

We gathered in a rather full church for the Eucharist, celebrated in both English and Arabic — and interesting experience reciting the creed and other parts of the canon in English while others were doing so in Arabic. Bishop Suheil Dawani presided; Canon Naim Atik preached. The canon focused on Jesus’ reference to rewards in the reading from Matthew’s Gospel and tied it to the recent vote by the Presbyterian Church USA to divest itself of stock in companies doing business in occupied Palestine, which he praised. I really didn’t follow the connection, however.

A short coffee hour (the coffee was “Turkish” or Arabic coffee – strong and sweet in tiny cups) and then a conversation with the bishop. He told us about his diocese’s ministries (education and health care) carried on by 30 diocesan institutions in five countries; the diocese covers Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan! He also told us about the shrinking of the Christian community in the Holy Land: the cathedral had been full, but that fullness was made up of two pilgrimage groups – ours and a larger group from Canada – and one group of scholars at St. George’s College. The indigenous members of the congregation this morning numbered only about twelve! He pleaded with us to support the work of the church in Jerusalem and beyond.

Lunch followed, after which we went to the Israel Museum to see a scale model of what Second Temple (First Century) Jerusalem is believed to have been, and an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Both were very impressive. More impressive was the unfortunate and unnecessary way in which Iyad was hastled by the guards at the museum’s entrance. He was clearly made to feel unwelcome.

On our return to the Guest House we had some free time and then had a conversation with a Jewish scholar who described himself as a “Jewish Zionist Leftist who sympathizes with the Palestinians and believes they have a right to self-determination.” He laid out for us in very a honest and nuanced way the differing Jewish perceptions of the difficulties in Israel and Palestine. He personalized the struggle in this land by telling us stories of the ways in which he, his wife, and his children had been accosted by Muslims, among whom they live! He teared up telling us of an incident involving his 9-year-old son, and yet he still urged us to not take sides and he still takes the view that the Palestinian Arabs have an equal right to a homeland.

He advised us to “not take the conflict home with you” and to support Christians in this country. Noting that they are (as stated above) down to less than 2% of the population, he opined that their absence would be tragic for the country. They are a force for peace, he said, and without them the possibility of armed conflict increases. Asked what we could do, his answer was the same as the bishops – support the Christians.

A tasty dinner of spiced beef and then Compline finished the day.

Take away from this day – Paul is correct; we are all the children of one God and those of us of the Abrahamic faiths ought to be able to demonstrate that to the rest of the world. But, for whatever reasons, we seem unable to do that. Everywhere we go in this country we find Israeli Jews provoking Palestinian Muslims; clearly it is a minority doing so blatantly, but the government seems to do so as well in more subtle ways. We find Palestinians, both Muslims and Christians, angry at the Israelis. We find Christians unable to work together (even though their bishops, Bishop Dawani told us, meet together frequently for mutual support and consultation). We hear Arabs talk of “peace and justice” and Jews talk of “peace with security,” but there is very little talk of reconciliation. There are some beginnings of grass-roots efforts at reconciliation, but it is not happening in the secular political world nor in the religious hierarchies. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ‘May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls and quietness within your towers.’ ” (Ps 122:6-7)

Post by That Which We Have Heard & Known.

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

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.

Rise! Rise! Rise! – Sermon for Easter 7 (Ascension Sunday) – RCL Year A – June 1, 2014

June 1, 2014 / / 0 Comments

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

On the Seventh Sunday of Easter: the Sunday after the Ascension, June 1, 2014, this sermon was offered to the people of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day were: Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36; 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11; and John 17:1-11. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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

Ascension of Christ by Salvadore Dali

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

(From And Still I Rise,Maya Angelou, Random House:1978.
Note — The verse beginning “Does my sexiness upset you?” was not read in church.)

The late Dr. Maya Angelou, who died this week and was (in my opinion) one of the greatest of contemporary English-language poets, wrote that poem (entitled Still I Rise) in 1978. Though it speaks out of her experience as a black woman growing up in the segregated South of the mid-20th Century, I believe it also speaks to us in our context today, celebrating the Ascension of Christ into heaven and, also, honoring our five newly minted high school graduates.

The Feast of the Ascension was Thursday. You may have missed it, however; it is a feast largely ignored by the Church. It passes by and we seldom, if ever, give any thought to it. In the Sunday rota it is noted only as the day after which the Seventh Sunday of Easter comes: that’s exactly how today’s collect is titled in The Book of Common Prayer, Seventh Sunday of Easter: The Sunday after Ascension Day. Kind of sad, because the Ascension really is the last event of the Incarnation, the last scene of the last act of the great drama which is “the Christ event.” Fortunately, this year (Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary) we have actually heard the story of the Ascension from the Book of Acts. This is not the case in the other two years of the rotation; in years B and C the Ascension isn’t even mentioned in any of the Sunday readings.

The story of Christ’s Ascension is told not only in Acts, which we heard this morning, it is also found in the Gospels of Mark and Luke. Mark’s account is brief, a single verse: “So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.” (Mk 16:19) Luke’s is also short: “He led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.” (Lk 24:50-51).

Although neither Matthew’s Gospel nor John’s mention the Ascension event itself, both include prophetic references to it. According to Matthew, in his trial before the High Priest just before his Crucifixion, Jesus said, “I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Mt 26:64) In John’s Gospel, after the Resurrected Jesus tells Mary Magdalene not to cling to him, he gives her a message for the Apostles: “Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'” (Jn 20:17) So the fact of Jesus’ Ascension is well attested by Christian Scripture.

This Jesus, whom the powers of his age had (to use Dr. Angelou’s poetic language) tried to “write down in their history with bitter, twisted lies,” had tried to “tread in the very dirt” — this Jesus rose, not only from the grave into a new earthly existence, but into heaven. This Jesus, whom they “wanted to see broken, with bowed head and lowered eyes, with shoulders falling down like teardrops, weakened by his soulful cries” — this Jesus rose into very center of the Godhead. This Jesus, whom they “killed with their hatefulness” rose “out of the huts of the Hebrews’ history of shame,” from Israel’s past, a past “rooted in pain,” “bringing the gifts that his ancestors gave;” he is “the dream and the hope” of every human being enslaved to sin and death. He is our hope and he rose. He ascended into heaven taking our humanity into the very presence of God Almighty.

If the Incarnation (meaning the whole of Jesus’ earthly being, the entire time of God’s being in the flesh on earth) were viewed as a stage play, the drama of salvation would be seen in this way:

Act One — In the Nativity, God becomes a human being offering great promise to humankind.
Act Two — In the life of Jesus, God fully enters human existence in all its aspects making clearer the meaning of the promise.
Act Three — In the death and resurrection of Jesus, God defeats death and opens the way of eternal life to all human beings setting the scene for fulfillment of the promise.
Act Four — In the Ascension, the story comes full circle as a human being becomes God bringing the promise of the Nativity to fruition.
(Pentecost and all that follows it are the epilogue, just as the story of Israel and the words and works of the Prophets are the prologue.)

The Ascension is the denouement of the entire story but, unfortunately, most of the audience, thinking the play concluded, left after Act Three; some may even have left in the middle of that act. The climax of the drama played out on Thursday to a largely empty theater.

One of the Episcopal Church’s collects for today says: “We believe your only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into heaven, so we may also in heart and mind there ascend.” (BCP 1979, page 226) I think this prayer gets it slightly wrong. Our ascension with Jesus is not a future thing that we “may” later attain. Rather, in Jesus’ Ascension we all have already ascended. It is not only Christ’s humanity but our humanity that ascended into heaven. God has already seated us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus; our ascension is not so much an experience to be attained, but a reality to be experienced. As St. Athanasius famously put it, “God became man that man might become God.” This is known theologically as the theosis or deification of humanity, and in the Ascension of Jesus it has already happened.

So here we are, deified human beings capable, as Jesus told us, of doing the very works that he did and, in fact, of doing greater works because he has ascended to the Father and he will do whatever we ask in his name — at least that’s what he promised in the Gospel lesson from John we heard in church two weeks ago (Jn 14:12-13) — but do we actually do them? Do we do the works of power and witness to the truth of the Gospel? Let’s be honest and admit that we usually don’t.

We don’t because we’re a lot like the eleven guys standing on that hilltop in Bethany “gazing up toward heaven.” Like them, as Prof. James Holbert of the Perkins School of Theology has written, “We are too enamored of the ascending Jesus, our necks strained as we peer upward, hoping for a further sign, for a magic act, for a cloud spelling out ‘I love you.'”

Ascension WoodcutIt’s my favorite part of the story, really, because it demonstrates just how human the Apostles really were, how much like us. It’s this part of the story that is depicted in the woodcut on the cover of our bulletins. There they are looking up, Jesus’ feet just disappearing, when the “two men” (probably angels) appear and ask them why they are staring into space. In our modern vernacular, the two angels tell them, “Don’t just stand there. Do something!”

Prof. Holbert paraphrases and analyzes what the angels say in this way:

“Why do you stand looking into heaven?” Did you not pay attention to him just a few moments ago? He said, ‘Go,’ and you are rooted on this spot, looking longingly for some further word from him. He will come back in the same way that he went, but you need ask no further questions about when, they imply. “When” is simply not the right question to ask.

Why in heaven’s name (I mean that quite literally!) do so many Christians then spend vast amounts of time, inordinate amounts of energy, immoderate amounts of speculation, asking precisely that very question? We have been asked to be “his witnesses” to the world, not his calculators for his return. It remains a thorough mystery to me why this is so, and has been so throughout Christian history.

But I suppose I do know the answer. It is far safer, far less demanding, to be a speculator than a witness. Speculators write books of calculations, hold seminars that attract thousands, rake in untold piles of loot, while prognosticating a certain time for Jesus’ return. Witnesses, on the other hand, just witness to the truth of the gospel: the truth of justice for the whole world, the love of enemies, and the care for the marginalized and outcast. As Acts 1 makes so clear, the world needs far fewer speculators and far more witnesses. (Speculators or Witnesses)

Which brings me to our five high school graduates . . . . You have finished that part of your education which society has made mandatory. Whatever you do from now on is up to you. You may, if you and your families decide, continue your education at college or university; you may continue it in trade or vocational school; you may continue it as an apprentice in a skilled trade. You may, alternatively, decide to enter the work force immediately and skip any further formal education and training, opting instead for what is known as “on the job training.” And you could, although no one here would recommend it or be happy if you did so, opt to do none of these things and, instead, become a bum, a grifter, a burden on society, in which case you will learn the hard and dangerous lessons of the streets.

Whatever you choose to do, you may have noted that every path means continuing to learn. I hope, as I’m sure everyone here and your parents hope, that you will learn the lessons of faith, hope, and love.

We hope that you will learn the lessons that Dr. Angelou learned and tried to teach us through her poetry — if people tell lies about you, rise above it; if people try to tread you in the dirt, rise above it; if they want to see you broken and weeping, disappoint them and rise above it; if they try to shoot you with their words, cut you with their eyes, or kill you with their hatefulness, rise above it.

We hope that you will learn to be, as Prof. Holbert said, witnesses “to the truth of the gospel: the truth of justice for the whole world, the love of enemies, and the care for the marginalized and outcast,” that you will learn to be (as the Letter of James puts it) “doers of the word, and not merely hearers.” (James 1:22)

That is our hope for you and our prayer.

And now I have a word for the parents of our graduates. I’ve been where you are now, twice. When our eldest, our son Patrick, entered college he went away to the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. We drove him down to Sewanee and, with other freshman parents, we attended a meeting with the school’s president while our children took part in orientation activities. At the end of our meeting, the president was quite blunt: he basically said, “Go away. Get off campus. Let go of your sons and daughters.” Like Mary Magdalene, we were being told not to cling, not to hold on. So we left that meeting, found our son, and said good-bye. After he hugged us both, he turned and walked down the street toward to his dormitory, and he never looked back.

I stood there watching him go and, like those guys on the Mount of Olives, I wanted him to look back; I was “hoping for a further sign, for a magic act, for a cloud spelling out ‘I love you.'” Like them, I didn’t get it. I suppose the Apostles realized at some point as they stared into the sky that their friend, their rabbi, was no longer the man they thought they knew; he was something more. He was, and is, God. Standing on that campus lane at Sewanee, I knew that this young man was no longer the child I thought I knew; he was something more. He was, and is, an adult.

Both of our children, Patrick and Caitlin, are adults. So are yours. I’m proud to say that both of ours are college graduates and, though Caitlin is not working in her chosen field (yet), both are fully employed, productive members of society. So will yours be.

So don’t cling to them and don’t just stand there watching them go away, fading into the distance. You have things to do because, like them, like those eleven guys on that hillside in Bethany, like everyone of us, you too are called to be witnesses “to the truth of the gospel: the truth of justice for the whole world, the love of enemies, and the care for the marginalized and outcast,” to be “doers of the word.”

So graduates, parents of graduates, everyone . . . Remember the implication of the angels at the Ascension.

Don’t just stand there. Do something!

Experience the reality of the Ascension. Christ’s Ascension, our Ascension, your Ascension!

Rise!

Rise!

Rise!

Amen.

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

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.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2025 That Which We Have Heard & Known

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑