Category: Jeremiah (Page 4 of 5)

Leopards Changing Spots – From the Daily Office – July 1, 2013

July 1, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Acts:

They dragged [Stephen] out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 7:58 (NRSV) – July 1, 2013.)

Leopard This is the first appearance in the Christian story of the man who will become the early church’s greatest evangelist and the author of most of the New Testament. We are told that as he witnessed the martyrdom of the first deacon, “Saul approved of their killing him.” (Acts 8:1)

Saul would take the Gentile form of his name, Paul, when baptized and under that name would spread the Christian faith among non-Jews. One assumes that, from time to time, he might have told the story of witnessing Stephen being killed – it would make a powerful sermon illustration, don’t you think? He obviously told it to someone because eventually it got to Luke, who included it in his little history of the church.

This story of a public execution brought to mind a conversation I had with a parishioner just a few days ago. Texas recently executed its 500th death-penalty convict since resuming executions in 1980s; that news led us into a discussion of the death penalty. I am opposed to the death penalty on several grounds; my parishioner favors it. In the course of our conversation he put forth the argument that execution rids society of criminals who will kill again. He’s convinced that killers don’t change: “The leopard never changes his spots,” he said.

He certainly has the Bible (or at least the the Old Testament on his side. This old shibboleth comes from word of God spoken through the prophet Jeremiah! Lamenting the sinfulness of God’s People, the Lord asks: “Can Ethiopians change their skin or leopards their spots?”(Jer. 13:23, NRSV). Of course, the message of the prophet would suggest that the answer to that question is “Yes” else why call the people to repentance? And therein lies the theological and ethical issue I have with the death penalty. (I have legal, economic, and practical issues with it, as well.)

The death penalty denies the power of God in Christ to redeem, restore, and transform human existence. It precludes any possibility of repentance and amendment of life. When the capital punishment is imposed, the life of the convicted person is devalued and all possibility of change is ended. When the government undertakes capital punishment on behalf of the people (on my behalf), the people are implicated in that judgment and we are made to share in an ethic we may not accept (one which I do not accept). An ethic which says, as my congregant put it, that “leopards cannot change their spots.”

But that is not the Christian ethic (nor is it the ethic of the Old Testament in which that image is first spoken). The Christian ethic says that repentance is always possible. It is, in a very real sense, the whole message of Christ: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 3:2) The leopard can change its spots and the Christian hope is always that it will.

After all, Saul – who held the cloaks of the executioners and approved their killing of Stephen – changed his!

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

Blindness and Sour Grapes – From the Daily Office – March 18, 2013

March 18, 2013 / eric / 2 Comments

From the Gospel according to John:

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 9:1-3 (NRSV) – March 18, 2013.)

Sour Grapes I’m not the least bit sure I like the last thought of Jesus reply . . . Is he suggesting that a loving God caused this innocent man’s blindness so that Jesus could come along and heal him with some mud made of spittle and demonstrate his power? I mean, really, is he? I don’t want to get into that today, but surely there must be another interpretation for Jesus words and perhaps someday I’ll explore that.

Today, I want to focus on the first clause of his answer, which is basically just a wordy, “No.” As a parent, I cannot tell you how happy it makes me that the man’s blindness was not his parents’ fault! Because accepting that blame is all too often our parental response when things go wrong in our children’s lives . . . . It doesn’t really matter what it is – accident, illness, bad grades, suspension from school, trouble with the law, break-up with their partner or spouse – it doesn’t matter what it is, when something goes wrong in our children’s lives a parent’s response is often an overwhelming sense of guilt. “What did I do wrong that this happened to my child?”

This is, after all, a perfectly acceptable biblical view! In the Book of Exodus, Moses told the Hebrews that God does not “clear the guilty, but visits the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exod. 34:7 NRSV) And again the same words are reported the Book of Numbers: “The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.” (Numb. 14:18 NRSV) And, again, in Deuteronomy, Moses says, “Be careful to obey all these words that I command you today, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, because you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God” (Deut. 12:28 NRSV) implying that disobedience would mean things wouldn’t go well for the kids! Finally, there is that great biblical proverb reported by both Jeremiah and Ezekiel: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” (Jer. 31:29 and Ezek. 18:2 NRSV)

So there is plenty of biblical support for our parental guilt pangs! But here is Jesus saying that the sins of parents are not responsible for the misfortune of their son. Thanks be to God! What that says to me is that we need to start looking at our feelings of parental remorse in a different way.

Not that those feelings are “wrong” or “bad.” Guilt is a basic human emotion. Everyone feels it and, when it comes to parenting, whatever we do is liable to cause us a little bit of guilty self-reproach because it sometimes seems that “you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.” What if, instead of beating ourselves up over these things, we think of what feels like guilt as simply evidence that we are being good parents, good enough to be constantly thinking about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it? We care enough to do our best at the very important, frequently frustrating, often terrifying, and even more often incredibly rewarding job of raising children we love more than we will ever be able to tell them. No parent is perfect, but the ones who worry about whether they are doing it well, probably are doing it well, really well.

Here’s something I know. During the past sixty or so years that I’ve been alive, I’ve had a lot of rough patches, a lot of problems. I’ve done some bonehead things and made some really stupid mistakes. I’ve been in trouble with various authorities, and broken up with lovers and partners. And you know what? Very little of any of that was my parents’ fault! On the other hand, I’ve gotten through those rough spots. I’ve solved the problems. I’ve learned from my mistakes and avoided doing even more boneheaded stuff. I’ve made up with the lovers and, if I haven’t made up with the authorities, at least I’ve figured out how to work with them. And you know what? Most of my ability to do so is due to what I learned from my parents, from what I observed of the way they lived their lives and from the values they taught me. They may have eaten some sour grapes, I don’t know, but my teeth were not set on edge.

I love my kids a whole lot more than I can ever tell them, and I can only hope they have learned from me the way I learned from my folks.

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

God’s Annoying Accent – From the Daily Office – March 13, 2013

March 14, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Jeremiah:

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Jeremiah 18:1-11 (NRSV) – March 13, 2013.)

Potters Hands at Wheel Years ago, my wife and I were active in the Cursillo community in another state. In fact, we met through that community, so it was very important to us. We participated in the three-day weekends; we took part in the reunions; we even had the “De Colores” bumper-stickers on our cars. At that time, folk masses and simple guitar-accompanied choruses were also popular in the Episcopal Church and a lot of the music used in the Cursillo movement spilled over into church on Sundays and at other times. A favorite of many people was a tune which mixed Jeremiah’s potter metaphor with some of Jesus’ language from the Gospels:

Abba, Abba Father
You are the potter
And we are the clay,
The work of your hands
Mold us, mold us and
Fashion us,
Into the image,
Of Jesus your Son
Of Jesus your Son.
Father, may we be one in you,
May we be one in you,
As he is in you,
And you are in him
Glory, glory and praise to you
Glory and praise to you
Forever amen….

I remember sitting with my table groups during the Cursillo weekends and at nearly every one one of the speakers would ask that we sing this song, and then would talk about how God molds each individual into a Christ-like figure. But that isn’t what the song says, at all! Nor is it what Jeremiah prophesies in this pericope! This isn’t about individuals.

The song, following Jeremiah’s lead, speaks of a group being molded: “Mold us . . . Fashion us.” Us not me. God the potter in Jeremiah’s prophecy molds “the house of Israel,” a nation, a kingdom, not the individual residents of that house or nation. Certainly, as a part of that group each member may be, must be changed, but the emphasis is on and the prophecy is about systemic, group-wide change, not individual transformation.

When a potter molds a pot, a drinking vessel, a piece of sculpture, he works with a mass of clay. The mass is made up of molecules, but the potter does not concern himself with these small, constituent bits. He does not work with each molecule. He pushes this way and that on the mass, and the individual molecules, most of which are never directly manipulated by the potter, move and change as the mass moves; most are shoved about not by the potter but by their neighbors. The potter may, from time to time, work with smaller bits, but always with the intention that that bit will add to the value or beauty of the whole. His concern is with the larger work.

Of course, Jesus was concerned about individual people. He loved the one lost sheep separated from the ninety-nine; he searched for the one of ten coins that was missing. His reason for doing so, however, was restoration of the community. The ninety-nine were incomplete without the missing lamb; the “round ten” were not round without the missing coin. He sent the Samaritan women at the well back into her city (John 4); he rescued the woman caught in adultery from being stoned, but sent her back into her community, saying “Go your way” (John 8); he raised a little girl from death, restoring her to her family whom he instructed to nourish her (Mark 5).

Jesus was concerned about individuals, but he was committed to the ideal of community in which there would be a close relationship between members. His disciples were related not just individually to him, but also to one another. He formed them into a group that would give itself mutual support, a community that would reach out to others and invite them in. Yes, he said, the first commandment is to love God, but there is a second, equal commandment — Love your neighbor as yourself. (Matt. 22:37-39 NRSV)

St. Paul used the metaphor of “the body of Christ” to describe the church: “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (1 Cor. 12:27 NRSV) God the potter molds the church and each of us get shoved into our proper place as the potter works. At times, the potter may work with an individual bit, but the potter’s attention is on the whole. God the potter’s concern was with “the house of Israel;” God the potter’s concern is with the Body of Christ, the church.

It’s too bad modern English doesn’t have a clearly plural form of the pronoun you. That used to be the plural pronoun and thou was the singular. Perhaps we should create a new plural form or borrow one to use in translating Scripture. We could render God the potter as sounding like a Southerner: ” Can I not do with y’all just as this potter has done?” Or like a Pittsburgher: “Can I not do with youse just as this potter has done?” We might find God’s accent annoying, but at least we would understand what was meant!

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

A Community of Fishers – From the Daily Office – March 11, 2013

March 11, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Jeremiah:

I am now sending for many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall catch them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my presence, nor is their iniquity concealed from my sight. And I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Jeremiah 16:16-18 (NRSV) – March 11, 2013.)

Still from A River Runs Through It I wonder if Jesus had this prophecy in mind when he called Andrew and Peter and said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” (Matt. 4:19)

When we modern, urban Americans read biblical references to fishermen, I suspect that a majority of us picture someone sitting lazily on the banks of a river with a pole stuck in the soil next to them, a line trailing off to a bobbing float; or perhaps we imagine Tom Skerrit standing in the Blackfoot River casting hand-tied flies trying to snag a large trout. Although hook-and-line fishing was not unknown in the ancient world, it was then, as now, a recreational sort of fishing. When God says through Jeremiah that he is sending fishermen to catch the wayward people of Israel, when Jesus tells his new disciples that they will become fishers of people, the reference is a very different sort of fishing.

The image we should have is of net fishing, probably using either a dragnet or a cast net. The dragnet is one of the oldest of fishing dating from the third millennium B.C. in Egypt. The dragnet, perhaps 250 to 300 yards long, and varing in height from 3 to 8 yards, would be taken out from the shore by boat which would proceed straight out for a distance, then turn parallel to the shore for a bit, and then turn back to the shore. The bottom of the net would be weighted with sinkers, and the top would have cork floats attached. Tow lines attached to each end of the net were hauled in by a teams of sixteen men for large nets, fewer for for smaller nets. This method of fishing is described in the books of Habakkuk, Ezekiel, and Matthew.

A cast net was, as the name suggests, thrown or cast onto the waters by one man either from shore or from a boat. After it had sunk to the bottom, trapping fish within it, the caster and others would dive down to it and either retrieve the fish individually placing them into pouches, or they would gather the footrope of the net, gathering the fish into a sort of purse formed by the net and bring them up together.

In either event, the picture we get is of teamwork. Biblical fishing was a community activity, something that required cooperation to be effective. So, although God promised to send a single shepherd, the Messiah, God in this prophecy of Jeremiah also promised to send a working party.

And, one wonders, who might that be? The church? All the baptized? No doubt. God’s team is made up of the spiritual descendants of the ones to whom Jesus said, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Midway through Lent as we are, this might be a good time to turn from individual self-examination and consider how well we are doing as a community of fishers.

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

God’s Underwear – From the Daily Office – March 9, 2013

March 9, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Jeremiah:

Thus said the Lord to me, “Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth, and put it on your loins, but do not dip it in water.” So I bought a loincloth according to the word of the Lord, and put it on my loins. And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, “Take the loincloth that you bought and are wearing, and go now to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.” So I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me. And after many days the Lord said to me, “Go now to the Euphrates, and take from there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.” Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it. But now the loincloth was ruined; it was good for nothing. Then the word of the Lord came to me: Thus says the Lord: Just so I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own will and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. For as the loincloth clings to one’s loins, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the Lord, in order that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory. But they would not listen.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Jeremiah 13:1-11 (NRSV) – March 9, 2013.)

Cotton Briefs According to Wikipedia:

Loincloths are being and have been worn:

in societies where no other clothing is needed or wanted

as an undergarment or swimsuit

by the farmers in paddy fields in Sri Lanka and India, especially when they are working with mud

The loincloth or breechcloth is a basic form of dress, often worn as an only garment. Men have worn a loincloth or breechcloth as a fundamental piece of clothing which covers their genitals – not the buttocks – in most societies throughout human history which disapproved of genital nakedness. The loincloth is in essence a piece of material, bark-bast, leather or cloth, passed between the legs covering the genitals.

As a metaphor for the relationship of God and God’s People, this has to be one of the most bizarre. We can readily understand the spousal metaphor of Hosea, the body metaphor used by Paul in First Corinthians, or Peter’s spiritual house. We’re familiar with shepherds and their sheep, gardeners and their fig trees, vine dressers and their grapevines, hens with their chicks, parents with their children, and princes and their people; they all make sense as ways to understand our relationship to God. But underwear? Seriously? Underwear???

The beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (still going strong at nearly 94 year of age) wrote a poem about underwear (entitled Underwear) published in 1961:

I didn’t get much sleep last night
thinking about underwear
Have you ever stopped to consider
underwear in the abstract
When you really dig into it
some shocking problems are raised
Underwear is something
we all have to deal with
Everyone wears
some kind of underwear
The Pope wears underwear I hope
The Governor of Louisiana
wears underwear
I saw him on TV
He must have had tight underwear
He squirmed a lot
Underwear can really get you in a bind
You have seen the underwear ads
for men and women
so alike but so different
Women’s underwear holds things up
Men’s underwear holds things down
Underwear is one thing
men and women have in common
Underwear is all we have between us
You have seen the three-color pictures
with crotches encircled
to show the areas of extra strength
and three-way stretch
promising full freedom of action
Don’t be deceived
It’s all based on the two-party system
which doesn’t allow much freedom of choice
the way things are set up
America in its Underwear
struggles thru the night
Underwear controls everything in the end
Take foundation garments for instance
They are really fascist forms
of underground government
making people believe
something but the truth
telling you what you can or can’t do
Did you ever try to get around a girdle
Perhaps Non-Violent Action
is the only answer
Did Gandhi wear a girdle?
Did Lady Macbeth wear a girdle?
Was that why Macbeth murdered sleep?
And that spot she was always rubbing—
Was it really in her underwear?
Modern anglosaxon ladies
must have huge guilt complexes
always washing and washing and washing
Out damned spot
Underwear with spots very suspicious
Underwear with bulges very shocking
Underwear on clothesline a great flag of freedom
Someone has escaped his Underwear
May be naked somewhere
Help!
But don’t worry
Everybody’s still hung up in it
There won’t be no real revolution
And poetry still the underwear of the soul
And underwear still covering
a multitude of faults
in the geological sense—
strange sedimentary stones, inscrutable cracks!
If I were you I’d keep aside
an oversize pair of winter underwear
Do not go naked into that good night
And in the meantime
keep calm and warm and dry
No use stirring ourselves up prematurely
‘over Nothing’
Move forward with dignity
hand in vest
Don’t get emotional
And death shall have no dominion
There’s plenty of time my darling
Are we not still young and easy
Don’t shout

There are observations in that poem that help me get into prophet’s metaphor:

“Underwear can really get you in a bind” — God talks about the loincloth clinging. Our relationship with God is to be intimate; we are to be closely bound to our Creator; we are to cling to God tightly.

“Underwear is one thing men and women have in common” — Boxers or briefs or bikini panties, tightie-whities or long-johns, underwear is a shared experience, although for each wearer there are unique peculiarities. Our individual relationships with God, our personal spiritualities, are like that; there is a commonality of experience, but there are also profound differences. We learn about God as we share and discuss those likenesses and unlikenesses.

“Underwear on clothesline a great flag of freedom” — Anglican prayer books include a collect for peace which, in its modern form in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church petitions, “O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom . . . .” (pg. 99) The last phrase is derived from the Latin cui servire, regnare est, “whom to serve is to reign,” attributed to St. Augustine. This metaphor as a flag of freedom reminds me that “if we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him.” (2 Tim. 2:11-12)

While I don’t expect God’s underwear to make it into the next prayer book or the next liturgical supplement the way other biblical metaphors have done, it’s one I could wish had more exposure. It’s certainly startling and thought provoking.

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

Health Is a Human Right – From the Daily Office – March 6, 2013

March 6, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Jeremiah:

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Jeremiah 8:22 (NRSV) – March 6, 2013.)

Good Health Sign Why has the health of the people not been restored? This is God’s question of the leadership of ancient Israel, but it could certainly be the question asked of modern America! Other questions could also be asked, even in the aftermath of the healthcare reform debates, the passage of the Affordable Care Act, and its vindication as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Why is it that, in the practice of medicine, we do not have equal treatment for everybody? Why is that every American is guaranteed a lawyer, but not a doctor? Why don’t we (even now) have guaranteed health care for everyone?

By an odd coincidence, on the Episcopal sanctorale calendar today is the commemoration of two pioneering physicians and their sons who followed in their footsteps, William W. Mayo and Charles F. Menninger. Among the readings prescribed for their celebration is Sirach 38:8: “God’s works will never be finished; and from him health spreads over all the earth.” Health is an endowment of the Creator to every person; it is a natural right. Why has it been taken from the people, and why has it not been restored?

The human right to good health should mandate a system of preventive health care and medical care for everyone. Every human being should be guaranteed the right to good quality health care, to living conditions that enable each to be as healthy as possible, to adequate food, to good housing, and to a healthy environment. Arguments about reforming our health care and medical treatment delivery system framed in terms of markets, costs, competition, or insurance are red herrings rooted in presumptions that deny this basic truth. A for-profit, market-driven medical care model treats health as a commodity to be bought and sold, and leads to inequities, to severely decreased well-being, and to needless loss of life. The Affordable Care Act is, at best, a stop-gap measure. What is required is a complete re-imagining of our health care system.

Any debate about medical treatment and health care should be structured and waged within the realm of human and civil rights, within the realm of morality and spirituality. A reform of our medical delivery system must take it out of the false model of markets (“competition” in health and medical delivery is a myth!) and place it squarely in the realm of human rights. Good health and medical care are basic rights recognized in the Declaration of Independence’s assertion that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are guaranteed by God, protected by the penumbra of the U.S. Constitution, and explicitly spelled out in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a statement adopted in 1948 with strong American encouragement.

As Christians, we are called to remember the poor and those less fortunate than ourselves. Assuring that all enjoy their right to health care is basic to honoring life. Those without good preventive care and medical treatment when needed live shorter and sicker lives. Failure to work for universal health care sends the message that only those with the wealth to afford private health care really matter. This is a message squarely opposed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ who made it clear that we are called to care for “the least of these who are members of my family.” (Matthew 25:40 NRSV)

Recently, the Episcopal bishops of the two dioceses in the State of Ohio wrote to the state’s governor and other elected officials in support of the expansion of Medicaid coverage. In their public letter they set out the teaching of our church in this area:

The Episcopal Church affirms the following principles as they pertain to health care:

health care, including mental health care, should be available to all persons in the United States;

access to health care should be continuous;

health care should be affordable for individuals, families, and businesses;

national and state health care policy should be affordable and sustainable for society;

health care should enhance health and well-being by promoting access to high-quality care that is effective, efficient, safe, timely, patient-centered and equitable; and

health care providers should not be expected to assume a disproportionate share of the cost of providing care.

“God’s works will never be finished; and from him health spreads over all the earth.” . . . “Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?” Good health is not a commodity to be bought and sold. It is a gift of God, and adequate preventive health care and good medical treatment are the right of every human being.

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

Deceptive Words – From the Daily Office – March 4, 2013

March 4, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Jeremiah:

Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Jeremiah 7:8 (NRSV) – March 4, 2013.)

Trust Me I'm Lying I’ve been thinking about this all day and there is so much to say . . . but this cuts so deeply into so many areas of life that I cannot bring myself to say any of them.

I can only ask every person a question: If you are truly honest with yourself, can you identify the deceptive words – in church, in politics, in the economy, in your work, in your family, in your personal life – that you trust to no avail?

The most important ones, the deceptive words to be most honest about, are the ones we say to ourselves. They are also the most deceptive.

Be honest . . . you know there are many.

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

Holy Wit: Humor in the Bible – From the Daily Office – February 25, 2013

February 25, 2013 / eric / 4 Comments

From the Prophet Jeremiah:

The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see a branch of an almond tree.” Then the Lord said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Jeremiah 1:11-12 (NRSV) – February 25, 2013.)

Buddy Jesus, from the movie Dogma These two verses have probably caused any number of people to scratch their heads in bewilderment over the centuries. Those who read them in English without looking behind the translation to the original language wonder, “What on earth does this mean?” Those who read them in Hebrew wonder, “How can God have such a terrible sense of humor?”

This is a pun. The Hebrew word for “almond” or “almond tree” is shaqed, while that for “watching” is shaqad. God is playing with words and images in order to impress upon Jeremiah’s mind the seriousness of God’s watchfulness. It worked; Jeremiah remembered (and wrote about) it.

The Irish satirist (and Anglican clergyman) Jonathan Swift said of punning that it “is an art of harmonious jingling upon words, which, passing in at the ears, excites a titillary motion in those parts; and this, being conveyed by the animal spirits into the muscles of the face, raises the cockles of the heart.” Essayist Charles Lamb considered the pun “a noble thing per se. It fills the mind, it is as perfect as a sonnet; better.”

Such praise, however, is far from universal. Often quoted is English poet John Dryden’s aphorism that the pun is the “lowest and most groveling kind of wit,” or Ambrose Bierce’s derision of it as a “form of wit to which wise men stoop and fools aspire.” In all of her work, Jane Austen includes puns in only one, Mansfield Park, and there only to demonstrate the low moral character of the offender, the shallow and evil Mary Crawford.

Holy Scripture, on the other hand, is full of puns and other word play, such as double-entendres. The Law and the Prophets are full of them; Jesus uses them in the Gospels. The problem for modern American readers, however, is that they are in Hebrew and Greek, and simply don’t translate into English. In addition, Scripture is chock full of other forms of humor, including sarcasm and irony, humorous imagery and exaggerations, and plays on the names of people and places. Again, these do not translate well from one language to another.

Although there are no jokes per se in the Bible, the Scriptures are replete with humor; there is an abundance of wit in Holy Writ. Perhaps not all, but most of this humor can only be appreciated if read in the original Hebrew or Greek. To the believer, the conservative believer especially, the Bible is a moral document, not a storybook, so the presence of humor in it comes as a shock to many; in fact, some would deny that there is anything funny about the Holy Book. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, for example, claimed that “the total absence of humour from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all of literature.” Many Christians seem to think the Bible is only a solemn and serious book, full of timeless wisdom but definitely containing nothing even remotely funny. I recently read a sermon by a preacher from the “Christian Right” which derided the use of humor in preaching; among his assertions was this:

There is no amusement in Jesus, nor is there in any of the 66 books of the Bible. God expects his saints to be quite content with straight forward fellowship and sound teaching. Any time the saints seem to get overloaded with good things, the solution is to sing Psalms and spiritual songs. Anything else is mongrel Christianity.

I remember reading a report a couple of years ago of a study by two psychologists which suggested that political conservatives have much less of a sense of humor than do liberals, and another which, disturbingly, showed that conservative evangelical Christians are more likely than not to support torture of suspected terrorists. And I wonder if there is some connection between failure to appreciate the humor in Holy Scripture and Christian conservatism.

As a Christian who generally leans towards political liberalism, I enjoy the word play, the sarcasm, the irony, and all the other humor in the Bible. I believe that humor brings us closer to God and that the holy wit in Holy Writ brings God closer to humankind. The Protestant theologian Karl Barth is reported to have said, “Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.” And the Catholic theologian and writer G.K. Chesterton wrote, “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.” I believe they are right, because “he whose throne is in heaven is laughing.” (Psalm 2:4a, BCP translation)

Maybe God’s doing so because of all those awful puns one finds in God’s book.

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

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

December 12, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From John’s Gospel:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pluck the Fruit, Pay Attention: Sermon for Advent 1, Year C – December 2, 2012

December 2, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

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This sermon was preached on Sunday, December 2, 2012, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(Revised Common Lectionary, Advent 1, Year C: Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; and Luke 21:25-36. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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“The days are surely coming….”

“Be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus….”

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars….”

“Heaven and earth will pass away….”

The End Is Near!

We don’t actually pay much heed or give much credence to crazy talk like that now, do we? We’ve heard plenty of preachers on street corners, on the radio, on the television predicting the end of the world. Remember Harold Camping last year? And, of course, the so-called Mayan prediction that we all have only nineteen days left now. We’ve heard these sorts of things often enough over the years that we just don’t pay any attention to them.

On top of that, we’ve become thoroughly scientific and modern. Everything has an explanation. We know how the world works. And we’ve turned all of it into a product; everything is for sale in one way or another. There seems to be no more mystery in anything. Our materialistic progress has almost overshadowed any sense of the spiritual. We have analyzed, demystified, commodified, and commercialized everything. In 1802 William Wordsworth wrote a sonnet bemoaning exactly that:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. – Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

“Great God! I’d rather be a Pagan!” wrote Wordsworth more than 200 years ago. We modern Christians, he said, “have given our hearts away. We are out of tune” with the rhythms of the world. We no longer see the signs in the natural world. But here they are in scripture, the signs of the end of the world, reportedly predicted by Jesus himself. “Look at the fig tree and all the trees,” he says, “as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place [these signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars], you know that the kingdom of God is near.”

We human beings, whether Pagan or Christian, have proven incredibly bad at understanding the signs of the times insofar as they apply on a global, or universal, or apocalyptic scale. We keep getting it wrong. You’ve probably heard someone say something like this: “The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching.” Those particular words were found inscribed on a clay tablet from ancient Assyria, a tablet dating from about 2800 BC, and there are similar words on a grafitto on a wall in ancient Pompeii – so I’m not sure Wordsworth was all that right about the pagans. They weren’t any better at it than we are.

But here’s the thing. Jesus didn’t tell us to look at the forest. He told us to look at the trees, at individual trees, at the fig tree in particular. The end of the world doesn’t come, or at least it hasn’t come, in a big global, universal apocalypse. It comes to each of us individually. Today is the end of the world, right now, for somebody. All over the world, today is the day of judgment. For thousands, possibly millions, of individual people today is the end of the world; they will die today. For millions of others, there will be some important turning point their lives. For each of those people, the end – in some way or another – is close at hand.

Why do you suppose church tradition has us thinking about such things at the beginning of the Christian year, the First Sunday of Advent, with only twenty-two days until Christmas Eve, getting ready for one of the most joyous events of our year? Well, it’s because Advent isn’t just about getting ready for Christmas; it’s not even primarily about getting ready for Christmas. It’s about getting ready for Christ’s Return; it’s about getting ready for the Second Coming. Advent, in fact, means “coming” and the season is about getting ready for the coming of Judgment Day, the end of this life.

And how do we do that? By paying attention and by praying. As Jesus says, “Be alert at all times, praying . . . . ”

During this season while we get ready for Christmas, try not to get all caught up in the commodification and commercialization of everything. A friend of mine, Fr. Marshall Scott, who’s a hospital chaplain in Kansas City, commented recently, “It seems to me that the problem is not too little Christ in Christmas. The problem is too many ads in Advent.” Don’t get caught up in all of that! Take a breath; pay attention to the rest of life. I’m tempted to say, “Pay attention the real things in life.” Take time to pray, today; take time to give thanks, today. Because, although it sounds like a cliché, it’s the truth of Advent, today may be the end. And if it is, be assured that at the end stands Jesus.

So live expectantly; fill each day with meaningful activity. “Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

The 20th Century poet Denise Levertov penned an answer to Wordsworth. Where he wrote, ” The world is too much with us,” in her poem O Taste and See she wrote, “The world is not with us enough.” This is her poem:

The world
is not with us enough.
O taste and see
the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything all that lives
to the imagination’s tongue,
grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform
into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince
living in the orchard and being
hungry, and plucking
the fruit.

That is Advent’s message: taste and see, bite and savor, cross the street, pluck the fruit, stand up, raise your head, pay attention, be alert. Amen.

Category: Jeremiah (Page 4 of 5)

Leopards Changing Spots – From the Daily Office – July 1, 2013

Blindness and Sour Grapes – From the Daily Office – March 18, 2013

God’s Annoying Accent – From the Daily Office – March 13, 2013

A Community of Fishers – From the Daily Office – March 11, 2013

God’s Underwear – From the Daily Office – March 9, 2013

Health Is a Human Right – From the Daily Office – March 6, 2013

Deceptive Words – From the Daily Office – March 4, 2013

Holy Wit: Humor in the Bible – From the Daily Office – February 25, 2013

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

Pluck the Fruit, Pay Attention: Sermon for Advent 1, Year C – December 2, 2012

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