From the Book of Acts:
“I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them — in that case you may even be found fighting against God!”
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 5:38-39 (NRSV) – June 25, 2013.)
The Pharisee Gamaliel gave sound advice to the Sanhedrin: “Leave them alone. If their movement is of God, you will not be able to stop it.” It’s advice the church, which benefited from it, has often failed to heed. We ought to follow it more often than we do . . . but there is that other rule the church more frequently follows: “Any change, at any time, for any reason, is to be deplored.” (Often attributed to an otherwise unidentified Victorian-era “Duke of Cambridge.”)
Episcopalians are said to be the poster children for this rule. The old joke asks, “How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?” . . . .
“Change! My grandmother gave that lightbulb!”
None of us are really comfortable with change. I suspect that most people, if they had their druthers, would just keep things mostly the same. For most of us the status quo is comfortable and staying the course gives us a sense of security. A read recently about a guy who bought a new radio, brought it home, placed it on the refrigerator, plugged it in, turned it to a station coming out of Nashville, home to the Grand Ole Opry, and then pulled all the knobs off. He had he wanted and had not intention to change.
But life without change isn’t life. It’s death. If there is one constant in this world it is that living things change; only lifeless things are static. And life, as Scripture tells us, is God’s will for God’s People. Isaiah prophesied, “No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.” (Isa. 65:20)
Take heed of Gamaliel’s words to the Sanhedrin. Change is evidence of life, and life is the will of God, so change may be of God and, if so, you will be unable to overthrow it.
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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.
Today’s reading from Luke’s history of the early church details the method by which the eleven remaining apostles chose someone to replace Judas. It was a simple method: (a) identify the candidates; (b) pray; (c) take your chances. They drew lots, but they might have thrown dice, cut a deck of cards, flipped a coin, or done any number of other things that would have randomized the outcome.
I was told once that there is a difference between Yankee fairy tales and Northern fairy tales, and the difference is found in the way they begin. Yankee fairy tales start off, “Once upon a time . . . . ” Southern fairy tales begin, “Y’all ain’t gonna believe this!”
Which brings us to the second story, the “y’all ain’t gonna believe this” story of the first Christian Pentecost. The twelve (with the addition of Matthias a few days before) who would become known as the Apostles were again together in the Upper Room, perhaps together with several other disciples including all those women, Joanna, Suzanna, Mary the mother of James, Mary Magdalen, and the other Mary, those women who “used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee.” (Mark 15:41) The first ECW! They were there in that room where they’d shared that last supper, that Passover meal with Jesus, that room where they had cowered in fear on the day of the crucifixion and the next day hiding from the Jewish authorities and the Roman police, that room where the risen Jesus had come to them not once but twice and had allowed Thomas to feel his wounds, that room where Jesus had told them to wait for “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14:26) There they were, in that room, probably as confused and bewildered as all those people on the plain at Shinar when the Lord scattered them with confused speech.
It’s Good Shepherd Sunday . . . the Fourth Sunday of the Easter Season is always Good Shepherd Sunday. Every year, regardless of which of the three years of the Lectionary cycle we are in, we hear some lessons which mention shepherds or lambs, and we recite the 23rd Psalm as the Gradual, and we sing every “Shepherd hymn” in the hymnal. I’ve been preaching Good Shepherd sermons for 25 years, so I pretty much thought this was going to be one of those Sundays when I could just “wing it” and preach extemporaneously. 
Several years ago, shortly after my mother died, my step-dad’s business partner also passed away leaving my step-dad to run the business they had created together. Now it is no insult to my step-dad, Stan, who had never before been a business owner, to say that he knew little or nothing about running a business. He’d been a tool-and-die man most of his working life with a brief foray into sales, but he’d never been in the “front office” and he’d certainly never been a manager or executive of any sort. Stan didn’t know accounts receivable from fish, and inventory control was a foreign language to him.
In my opinion there is probably no more misused piece of writing in all of Holy Scripture, unless perhaps it is Paul’s other toss-off line (in this same epistle): “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.” (Rom. 3:28 NRSV) Both of them have led people to a religion that is all talk and no walk, which I am quite sure was not Paul’s intention at all!
On the second day of Christmas the church remembers a murder, the martyrdom of Stephen, and our Daily Office lectionary won’t let us forget it. Often the readings of the Daily Office seem to have nothing to do with the season and they seldom are tied to a saint’s commemoration, but today the morning and evening readings tell the whole story in gruesome detail.
This is one of my favorite images from Scripture, God as strong rock, castle, crag, and stronghold. In fact, during my sabbatical last year this verse kept coming to mind as I explored the ruins of castles and monastic foundations in Scotland, England, and Ireland. My fondness for this metaphor today dovetails with my thoughts the past couple of days about the nature of sovereignty (see yesterday’s meditation on praying Psalm 72 in modern America) and God’s reign (the day before, considering the modern political implications of Christ’s triumphal entry in John 9). 
“Average Sunday Attendance” – also known as “ASA” – has become a hot topic in church circles. It’s how we gauge the health of congregations, not that it’s a very good measure of that, but what other easily accessed metric to governing boards and denominational judicatories have? If the parish priest, pastor, senior minister, whatever he/she may be called is doing a good job, the assumption is, the pews are going to be full. So if we count the number of seats in the seats, voila! we know if things are good.
