Category: John (Page 21 of 24)

Lighten Up! – From the Daily Office – December 11, 2012

December 11, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From Luke’s Gospel:

Jesus said, “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Luke 21:34-36 (NRSV) – December 11, 2012.)

Don’t be “weighed down by dissipation and drunkenness.” I’m told that the Greek word translated as “dissipation”, kraipale, describes the headache that results from drinking too much wine; in other words, it describes a hangover.

When I read these words I immediately think “office party”. We don’t do those sorts of parties in the office where I currently work (I suspect very few church staffs do), but when I was a practicing trial lawyer . . . . ‘Tis the season for that sort of thing and here in the middle of it (we are about half way through Advent right now) Jesus tells us to knock it off. Negative experiences and tales of stupid and self-destructive behavior from such parties abound. That sort of thing, we know without Jesus telling us, weighs down one’s heart. But just to be sure we do understand, Jesus does warn us: drunkenness and its result and “the worries of this life” weighing down your heart, he warns, might make us miss things, like Judgment Day. Well, not miss it perhaps, but certainly be unprepared when it gets here.

I got to thinking about the opposite of a “heart weighed down” and realized that that would be “light-hearted.” According to the dictionaries, to be light-hearted is to be carefree and happy, to be known for a blithe spirit, to possess a merry blithesome nature. And I realized that this is not the currently accepted understanding of someone who self-identifies as “Christian”. A few years ago, David Kinnaman, president of the Barna research organization, published a book entitled unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why It Matters (Baker:2007). In it he revealed that his organization’s findings are that modern young adults consider Christians to be judgmental, bigoted, sheltered, right-wingers, hypocritical, insincere, and uncaring. Not exactly adjectives suggesting light-heartedness.

And then last week Lutheran pastor David L. Hansen in Texas published an article about his experience listening to non-churchgoers explain why they don’t go to church: “The No. 1 thing that keeps people away from the church is the people who are in the church.” He went on to say, “It’s not that people outside the church have low expectations of Christians. It’s the opposite. They expect us to actually live out the things we proclaim on Sunday. They expect us to love our neighbor, care for the least of these and love our enemies.” (Why Don’t People Come to Church?)

Kinnaman and Hansen, I think, are simply demonstrating that we haven’t properly heard nor learned to live the message of Advent, the message of Jesus reported here by Luke. It’s really quite a simple message: “Lighten up!” Somehow, we just can’t quite seem to believe that that’s what Jesus meant, but I really think it is. Jesus wants us to be light-hearted; not weighed down by stupid and self-destructive behaviors. He wants us to be carefree and happy, and known by our blithe spirit: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

It’s Advent! Don’t let your heart be weighed down stupid and self-destructive behavior! Don’t be weighed down by drunkenness and dissipation and worry! Don’t be weighed down by judgmentalism, bigotry, prejudice, hypocrisy, insincerity, or lack of caring! Don’t be weighed down! Lighten up!

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

An Angry Jesus – From the Daily Office – December 1, 2012

December 1, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From Luke’s Gospel:

As Jesus came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, “It is written, “My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.” Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Luke 19:41-48 (NRSV) – December 1, 2012)

When I was eight years old, my grandparents gave me an illustrated copy of the King James Version of the Holy Bible. More than 50 years later, I still have it. It is rather small, a little bigger than a standard paper-back novel, and has a zippered leather cover. There are perhaps thirty glossy color plates with (one must admit) mediocre depictions of various biblical events. My favorite has always been the depiction of Jesus cleansing the Temple.

In that picture (not the picture I’ve appended to this post, I’m sorry to say), Jesus stands like some comic-book superhero, eyes blazing with righteous fury, his hair and the skirts of his robe flaring out as if he were some rapidly pirouetting dancer, arms outstretched, cat-o-nine-tails whipping about his head. Tables are crashing to the ground, animals are scattering, and the money changers and merchants are fleeing in terror. You can almost hear the panicked cries of the animals and the men.

Throughout the years, as I would go to Sunday School (not very often) or take confirmation instruction (required at my parochial high school) or attend college classes on “the bible as literature”, I would use that bible and look at those pictures, especially that one. I couldn’t really relate to the wise and gentle Jesus sitting on a hillside rock preaching the Beatitudes, nor to the suffering victim hanging on the cross under a stormy and darkling sky. But I could relate to the superhero furiously chasing the bad guys out of the Temple.

Many years later, I was practicing law as a trial lawyer and serving as the chancellor of my diocese. An older priest of the church during some council or committee meeting, or perhaps during the annual diocesan convention, in support of some position or other on some important issue of the day made the assertion that, “of course, Jesus never lost his temper.” What? thought I. You’ve got to be kidding! I’d grown up with a picture of a very angry Jesus kicking butt in Jerusalem!

But . . . as the years have passed, I have seen his point. Jesus was angry, but Jesus didn’t lose his temper. To be angry, even demonstrably angry is one thing; to lose one’s temper, however, suggests something more. Consider the synonymous descriptions we use: blow a fuse, fly into a rage, hit the roof, hit the ceiling, have a cow, have a fit, go ballistic, fly off the handle, flip one’s wig, flip one’s lid, blow one’s stack, throw a fit, blow up. They all describe a loss of control.

That’s the point, I believe, my older, more seasoned colleague was making. Jesus was angry, but Jesus was not out of control. Luke does not elaborate in his description of the cleansing of the Temple, nor do Mark or Matthew other than to add that he overturned the merchants’ tables. John, however, has a more interesting description:

In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” (John 2:14-16)

Jesus was angry, but he was not out of control. He did not “lose his temper”. What he did was deliberate and determined. This was an incident of symbolic prophetic action, like Jeremiah breaking a clay pot, Isaiah walking naked through the city, or Hosea marrying a prostitute. This is Jesus very carefully and very consciously acting out the last verse of the prophecy of Zechariah: “There shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day.” (Zech. 14:21)

So, after all these years, even though that superhero picture in my illustrated bible remains my favorite, I think the artist was wrong in his or her depiction of Jesus. If I were going to paint that scene now, everything might be the same except for Jesus’ eyes. I would not paint them flashing with terrible, uncontrolled rage; I would show in them the same kind of disappointed, almost sad, displeasure I sometimes saw in my parents’ eyes. That’s the only sort of anger I can imagine Jesus expressing . . . controlled, deliberate, and so very, very disappointed.

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

Christ the King Among the Amish – From the Daily Office – November 25, 2012

November 25, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From Peter’s First Letter:

In your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – 1 Peter 3:15-16 (NRSV) – November 25, 2012)

Amish Buggy and Cart in Ohio Today is the last Sunday after Pentecost called “the Feast of Christ the King.” A relatively new feast on the calendar of the church, it was instituted by a 20th Century pope and originally set in late October as a response to the Protestant celebration of “Reformation Sunday” on the Sunday closest to October 31, the anniversary of Luther’s posting on the Wittenburg chapel door. The latter, I would suppose, started with the Lutherans but has spread throughout American Protestantism; I know of Presbyterian, Reformed, UCC, and Methodist churches that mark it. I know of no Episcopal congregations that do so. Episcopalians did take to Christ the King, however, and since Paul VI moved it to the last Sunday of the Christian year, every congregation I’ve been a part of has celebrated it. With the adoption of the Revised Common Lectionary, it is now an official part of our tradition.

Today, my congregation will be celebrating it without me. My spouse and I have taken a break and, since Friday, have been staying in a retreat facility not that far away from our home geographically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually a very, very long distance separate this place from that. We spent yesterday indulging our hobby of “antiquing” – wandering aimlessly through several of the amazing collections of junk one finds in the abandoned supermarkets, retired barns, and former garages now called “antique malls.” There are several in the Amish Country of Ohio, where we are.

The Amish are an interesting people. They quietly and steadfastly maintain a traditional way life hundreds of years old, one dating back to their formation as a Protestant sect in German-speaking Switzerland. Eschewing automobiles, they drive boxy black buggies down the state highways and country roads. Claiming not to use electricity, they have gas lights or kerosene lanterns in their homes and businesses, except when they don’t – I admit to being befuddled by this; I can’t figure out when it is OK to use electricity and when it isn’t. And then there is the use of batteries by those who “have no electricity” (as one shopkeeper put it); batteries power buggy lights and sometimes business lighting (but “we have no electricity”). I don’t get it it, but that’s OK – that’s not what this meditation is about.

What makes the Amish most interesting is that they go about this odd, set-apart way of life “with gentleness and respect.” I nearly wrote above that they maintain their traditions “unobtrusively,” but that really wouldn’t have been accurate. They are obtrusive! Come upon a horse-drawn farm cart plodding along a 55-mph-speed-limit highway or a buggy on a 35-mph country lane, roads which are winding and hilly and have limited visibility, and (believe me) it’s an obtrusion! Often a deadly one for the Amish if the automobile driver doing so is not paying attention or has poor reactions.

In stores, the Amish men with their broad-brimmed hats, long beards, and plain rugged clothing, and the Amish ladies with their long skirts, dark sweaters, and hair done up in buns under starched linen caps, are very noticeable, whether they are service personnel or are themselves customers. In restaurants, which they rarely but occasionally patronize, their large families pausing to say grace in antiquated German before eating are a reminder that while they are sanctifying the Lord, we are not. That’s obtrusive . . . but oh so gentle and respectful.

That is the nature of the King whom we sanctify today on this special day of remembering his lordship. He gave vent to flashes of anger, of course, and there are plenty of hints throughout the Gospels that he was, rather often, frustrated and unhappy with this followers, but we mostly remember him as gentle and reverent. “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild” is a phrase I remember from a hymn we learned in my Methodist Sunday School days of long ago.

The Gospel lesson for today’s celebrations of the Holy Eucharist is from John: Pilate questioning Jesus before his crucifixion. Jesus, the epitome of gentleness and respect, answers Pilate calmly, or stands silently, when he could have taken complete control of the situation, called down the wrath of God, and established an earthly kingdom right then and there. Instead, he takes complete control of the situation in another way, the way of gentleness and peace.

I think that’s what I find most compelling and oddly attractive about the Amish. They are in complete control of their lives, as narrow and confined as they may seem to a modern outsider like myself. They go about their traditional ways in the midst of the madness around them, the speeding cars, the frantic shoppers, the hurried diners too busy to say grace; they don’t give in to modern pressures. They just keep plodding along like the horses pulling their carts and buggies, doing faithfully what they know they are called to do. They are a Protestant’s Protestants, children of the Reformation started when Martin Luther nailed those theses to the Wittenburg door, but more than any Solemnity declared by pope or any dictate of the lectionary, they stand testimony to the power of gentleness and respect, a potent reminder of Christ the King.

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

Unbind Him, and Let Him Go! – Sermon for All Saints Sunday – November 4, 2012

November 4, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

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This sermon was preached on Sunday, November 4, 2012, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(Revised Common Lectionary, All Saints, Year B: Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 24; Revelation 21:1-6a; and John 11:32-44. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Orthodox Icon of the Raising of Lazarus Today, following church tradition, we step away from the calendar of Ordinary Time and, instead, commemorate the Feast of All Saints. That festival is specifically held on November 1, but tradition allows us to celebrate the saints also on the Sunday after that date, so here we are.

Anglicans and Episcopalians for generations have been used to hearing the Beatitudes from Matthew’s gospel (Matt. 5:1-12) or the similar Blessings-and-Woes from Luke’s version (Luke 6:20-26), but since the adoption of the Revised Common Lectionary we also, every three years, hear the story of the raising of Lazarus from the gospel according to John. The listings of who is blessed in the other two gospels make sense as lessons for this day; the story of Lazarus, not so much. It may make us wonder why those who created our new lectionary made that choice.

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to that question, if there are any answers at all. The development of the lectionary is a creature of time and custom as much as it is of purposeful selection. Lectionaries develop over the centuries. Typically, a lectionary will go through the scriptures in a logical pattern, and also include selections chosen by the community for their appropriateness to particular occasions. The ecumenical scholars who set up our current lectionary looked back over these centuries of development and selected lessons which had the broadest consensus for use on particular days, like today’s celebration of the feasts.

But why that consensus may exist is lost in time. There are no legislative notes indicating why communities thought a particular lesson, like the story of Christ raising Lazarus, fit a particular feast, such as All Saints Day. We who have inherited the tradition must read the lessons and figure out their message for ourselves. On a feast day, the Prayer Book gives us some filters, if you will, to aid in our reflections and our understanding; these are the collect (or prayer) of the day and the “proper preface” said (or chanted) before the Great Thanksgiving. Let’s take a look at the collect again:

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. (BCP Page 245)

The focus of the prayer is the “communion and fellowship” of the saints, the community of the church, which is “knit together . . . in the mystical body” of Christ, which shares in “virtuous and godly living” and together enjoys the “ineffable joys” of eternal life. Likewise the preface focuses on the community:

For in the multitude of your saints you have surrounded us with a great cloud of witnesses, that we might rejoice in their fellowship, and run with endurance the race that is set before us; and, together with them, receive the crown of glory that never fades away. (BCP Page 380)

The emphasis is on the “great cloud of witnesses” (a phrase borrowed from the Letter to the Hebrews 12:1) who rejoice in fellowship and together are crowned with unfading glory.

So in our contemplation of any of the lessons for today, we should look for the ways in which the lesson exemplifies or speaks to the community of faith, and in the raising of Lazarus that comes at the end of the story: “The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go’.” (John 11:44)

“Unbind him, and let him go!” These may be the most powerful words in the story, because with them Jesus not only frees Lazarus, he empowers the community of faith. The community assists in the resurrection; it is the task of the People of God to complete the action of Resurrection. Jesus has called Lazarus out of the tomb, but he is still wearing the clothing of death, his funeral wrappings; the community removes those burial shrouds and dresses him for life.

I love that old Southern Harmony hymn we sang in procession today, especially the chorus which says

As I went down in the river to pray,
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the robe and crown?
Good Lord, show me the way.
(“Down in the River to Pray”)

“Who shall wear the robe and crown?” is a reference to the vision of St. John of Patmos recorded in the Book of Revelation, a vision of heaven where “there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.” (Rev. 7:9)

Last Thursday, which was actually All Saints Day, one of the lessons for the Daily Office of Morning Prayer was from the apocryphal book of Second Esdras. In it Ezra reports seeing a similar vision of heaven.

I, Ezra, saw on Mount Zion a great multitude that I could not number, and they all were praising the Lord with songs. In their midst was a young man of great stature, taller than any of the others, and on the head of each of them he placed a crown, but he was more exalted than they. And I was held spellbound. Then I asked an angel, “Who are these, my lord?” He answered and said to me, “These are they who have put off mortal clothing and have put on the immortal, and have confessed the name of God. Now they are being crowned, and receive palms.” Then I said to the angel, “Who is that young man who is placing crowns on them and putting palms in their hands?” He answered and said to me, “He is the Son of God, whom they confessed in the world.” So I began to praise those who had stood valiantly for the name of the Lord. (2 Esdras 2:42-47)

This vision differs from that in Revelation in that the presence of the Son of God is among the crowd, crowning them and putting the palms in their hands. I have to say, I rather prefer this vision to John’s because of that difference. There is something compelling about the Son of God being there with the saints, not high and exalted on a throne, as the Lamb is in the oracle of Revelation, but down with the people. This seems much more like the Jesus described in the Gospels, much more like the God he revealed.

This vision of Christ with the masses, yielding his glory and mixing in with his people, seems somehow quite in keeping with our celebration of all the saints. Today we don’t commemorate only those whose names are known, those who are portrayed in art with golden halos, those in whose particular memory churches and schools are dedicated; today we commemorate those whose names are not known. Ezra’s vision in Second Esdras of Christ mingling with these unknown but godly people appeals to me.

An early 20th Century Roman Catholic Lithuanian archbishop, George Matulaitis, once wrote:

May our model be Jesus Christ: not only working quietly in His home at Nazareth, not only Christ denying Himself, fasting forty days in the desert, not only Christ spending the night in prayer; but also Christ working, weeping, suffering; Christ among the crowds; Christ visiting the cities and villages. (Renovator of the Marians)

This is the Christ of Ezra’s vision; this is the Christ of the saints whom we remember today, Christ among the crowds. Indeed, John of Patmos in our reading from Revelation today describes God among the people: “[God] will dwell with [mortals] as their God; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.” (Rev. 21:3-4)

When Jesus, this Christ among the crowds, this God dwelling with mortals, tells those around him, “Unbind him, and let him go” he is speaking not only to them, but also to us. When we hear those words we should remember another time when he empowered his church to unbind others. In Matthew’s gospel, in conversation with Peter, Jesus said: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matt. 16:19)

And again later to the apostles he said: “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matt. 18:18)

Here the Greek verb luo is translated as “loosen”, but it is the same word in our reading today translated as “unbind”. We have the power and the obligation to unbind and set others free. “Unbind him, and let him go” is Christ’s empowering command to all the saints everyday. It is Christ’s command to us to unbind others and give them their freedom; this is Christ among the crowds, God dwelling with God’s people, showing us the way that we and others can wear the robe and crown.

We unbind others and set them free when we work to alleviate the desperate plight of those who lack material means of survival, whether they are in our own communities, on the Gulf Coast or the eastern seaboard, or in distant countries. We unbind others and set them free when we act to console a brother or sister crushed by loss or fear or despair. We unbind others and set them free when we strive to empower rather than intimidate. We unbind others and set them free when we commit ourselves to justice for all, not merely for ourselves. We unbind others and set them free when we extend to others the mercy we have received from God. Whenever and wherever we find someone bound by sin or system or circumstance, we are to unbind them and set them free, not keep them tangled up in the old affairs, the old clothing, the old funeral wrappings of sin and death; those burial shrouds constrict them and damage everyone. Whenever and wherever we find someone struggling to be free, we are to unbind them and let them go so that we may all wear the robe and crown.

Today we commemorate all the saints, that great cloud of witnesses, that great multitude that no one can count wearing their robes and crowns, the community of the church throughout time and space charged with, committed to, and constantly striving to unbind others and set them free. Amen.

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

No Ifs, Ands, Or Buts – From the Daily Office – October 22, 2012

October 22, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From Luke’s Gospel:

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.?”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Luke 9:57-62 – October 22, 2012)

No Excuses Jesus is so demanding! Follow me and you won’t have a place rest; leave your dead; if you look back, you aren’t worthy!

My grandmother used to have a way of responding to excuses. She’d tell us to do something and my brother or my cousins or I would say, “But, Grammy . . . . ” And she would reply, “No ifs, ands, or buts!”

As I reflected on today’s gospel lesson I tried to find some humor in it, but the plain truth of the matter is that Jesus is demanding. To the rich young man he said, “Sell all you have, give the money to the poor, then follow me.” (Luke 18:22) To his followers he says, “If something in your life, even a part of your body, causes you to sin, get ride of it.” (Mark 9:43-47) Our allegiance to him and his gospel is to be so exclusive that it may even make enemies of our closest relatives: “I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” (Matthew 10:35-36) No ifs, ands, or buts about it!

This is a man who brooks no compromise and if we are to be his followers, he demands that we adopt the same attitude: “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master.” (Matthew 10:24-25)

No wonder many of those who thought they would be his disciples turned back and even those who continued with him found his teachings and example hard to follow. We still do; the church and her members still make the compromises he warned us not to make. But in the end we are left to ask with Peter, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

It is a dilemma! To whom else can we go? But Jesus is so demanding! No ifs, ands, or buts about it!

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

God’s in Control – From the Daily Office – September 18, 2012

September 18, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From John’s Gospel:

The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting,
“Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord – the King of Israel!.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 9:12-13 – September 18, 2012)

2008 Electoral Map We are living through a presidential election campaign in the United States. It seems to have been going on for ever, and the political ads and the news coverage of the candidates are increasing in intensity and in frequency. Pollsters take the public’s political pulse; commentators analyze the polls; the public reacts to the analysis; the pollsters re-poll the public. It’s a system of pendulum swings that feeds upon itself and oscillates back and forth. Flip-flopping candidates are matched by a flip-flopping electorate, and the candidates, their surrogates, and the commentators all decry the fickleness of the crowd.

But there is nothing new in a vacillating crowd, just look at today’s story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In just a few days, without the help of 24/7 television news and the internet, the same crowd will be whipped into a frenzy demanding Jesus’ execution. In their eyes, Jesus will go from king to criminal in less than a week! They will move from “Hosanna!” to “Hang him!” in four days’ time! Talk about a rapidly swinging electoral pendulum!

Of course, at this point in the American electoral process opinions are pretty much hardened; our electoral choices are probably rock-solid by now. The candidates are courting a small portion of voters, the so-called “undecided”. This group makes up under 10% of the voting public: a recent Wall Street Journal poll says only 3% of voters haven’t decided who they will vote for, while Gallup places the number at 8% at the highest. In physics terms, I suspect, the “amplitude” of the political pendulum’s oscillations is very small.

It was larger in Jesus’ time. As told in the Gospels, the swing involved nearly the whole crowd of visitors (and residents) in Jerusalem, not just a small (under 10%) group of “undecided” Jews.

Here’s what I take away from a comparison of the Jerusalem crowd and the American electorate, and the outcome of their and our decisions . . . in the long run, they were not in control and, frankly, neither are we. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t care, shouldn’t decide as carefully and prayerfully as we can, shouldn’t take part in the electoral process, shouldn’t vote. We should do all those things! But we should do so in the faithful assurance that, in the long run, God is and will be in control. The “Jerusalem electorate” chose badly; God redeemed that decision and used its result for the salvation of the world. However we choose, whatever the short term result, in the long term God will use it.

Archbishop William Temple, archbishop of Canterbury during the Second World War, once said:

“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.”

So we should do our homework. We should study the issues, review the candidates, take part in the process, vote in the election. We should do so hopefully and, regardless of the outcome, we should not despair. In the end, whatever decision we make, God’s in control!

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

Unbind Him and Let Him Go – From the Daily Office – September 14, 2102

September 14, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of John:

When Jesus saw [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
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[Jesus] cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 11:33-36,43-44 – September 14, 2012)

Icon of the Raising of Lazarus My father-in-law died a week ago; he will be laid to rest later today. His ashes will be interred next to those of my mother-in-law, his first wife, who passed away sixteen years ago. Marge was a Christian and an active church member; Paul was not. I’m not sure he was ever baptized but, if he was, he left that behind long ago. (Yes, I know the theology of baptism – once baptized, always baptized – and that may true from the church’s point of view, perhaps even from God’s perspective, but that was not Paul’s reality.)

There’s an old saw that “there are no atheists in foxholes,” but in our few, brief conversations about religious faith I learned from Paul how wrong that is. A communications specialist with the Air Force in World War II, Paul had seen plenty of death during combat and had been present at the liberation of one of the concentration camps; a personal encounter with the inhumanity of war and oppression had knocked any notion of God completely away. Paul simply didn’t believe. Coming face to face with the issue theologians and philosophers call “theodicy” had made religious faith impossible for him.

But Paul was a good man. Except for a couple of years during high school and those war years in Europe, Paul spent his entire life, all 95+ years of it, in the same small Nevada town. Everyone knew Paul and Paul would have done (and often did do) anything for any of his neighbors. I know that there will be a crowd at the memorial event the family has planned and that many will weep. Some (my wife and I among them) will quietly say prayers for this good man who didn’t believe but who lived his life the way believers are supposed to live theirs.

Despite the insistence of some on the Pauline requirement that salvation requires that one “confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,” (Rom. 10:9) I cannot believe that my father-in-law is not among the saved. When I read the Gospels, I do not find Jesus laying down such requirements. Rather, I find him focusing on how one lives one’s life. I find him promising eternal life to those who do good, who help their neighbors, who care for those who cannot care for themselves, who provide food to the hungry, who make this world a better place because they have lived in it. By that standard, my father-in-law Paul is one of the saints in light. I’m quite confident that on that last great day, he will hear a voice crying “Paul, come out!” and that Jesus will say to whomever is handling the administrative details of the resurrection, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

May he rest in peace and (surely to his surprise) rise in glory!

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

Guilt Tripping Jesus – From the Daily Office Lectionary – September 13, 2012

September 13, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of John:

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 11:20-21 – September 13, 2012)

Today, my wife and I are traveling to her home town to bury her father who died last week. I hope beyond hope that no one will say to her, “I wish you had been here.”

My mother died thirteen years ago just before Christmas and those very words were said to me by my stepfather. Can you say, “Guilt trip”? I know that wasn’t his intent, but that’s sure how it felt. I had visited her a few weeks before the end, and my wife and daughter had been there just a few days before she passed away, but none of us were able to be there the week she died. The week before Christmas parish clergy and their families just don’t leave home! (Especially those of us who have no assistants, no staff to pick up the slack!) So I wasn’t there; I couldn’t be there; I regretted not being there; and the last thing I needed to hear was someone drive that point home! (A few years later when my stepfather died, I was en route to visit him when he died just a couple of hours before I arrived. My stepsister said, “I wish you could have been here” . . . . Déjà vu all over again!)

I’m pretty confident Martha wasn’t guilt-tripping Jesus (nor is her sister Mary a few verses later when she says exactly the same thing), but it sure sounds like it. Maybe she was. In fact, I cannot read her words without a tone of anger; try as I might, when this lesson comes up in the lectionary to be read at public worship, that’s how I read it. Parishioners have remarked on that, that they hear it even when I try for some other tone of voice.

Maybe she was angry. Anger, as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross taught us, is the second of the five stages of grief, right after denial. So it’s entirely possible that she was angry with Jesus. After all, she knew him well. She may have witnessed one or more of his acts of healing; she probably had expected him to come before her brother Lazarus’ death and make him well. But he didn’t and Lazarus died. That would be enough to piss you off! So maybe she was angry at Jesus.

And that’s OK. Jesus can take it. He does take it. He takes people’s anger all the time. As a parish priest I see it again and again. Angry people pissed off at God about whatever is wrong in their lives. They’re ticked at the Almighty and, somewhat contradictorily, they feel guilty about it. I tell them it’s OK, that there’s nothing to feel guilty about. “God’s a big boy,” I tell them, “he can take it.” (Hey! Don’t get all feminist and inclusivist on me. I know God’s not a boy. It’s a metaphor! OK?) And I tell them the story of Martha and Mary and how they got angry at Jesus and how Jesus accepted that and dealt with it lovingly. Go ahead, be angry. The best people to be angry with are the ones who love us. Like God.

But please, don’t guilt trip people who are also grieving and angry. Don’t say, “I wish you could have been here” (even though it’s true and even though you don’t mean it as a criticism). Mary and Martha had some reason to say it to Jesus; they knew he could have done something! None of the rest of us have his gifts.

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

Look Who I’m Talking To! – From the Daily Office – September 12, 2012

September 12, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of John:

Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 11:16 – September 12, 2012)

Icon of Saint Thomas Commentaries insist that all John is doing in identifying Thomas as having been “called the Twin” is translating his Semitic name into its Greek equivalent, Didumos meaning “two-fold, twain, or twin”. But I wonder why he does this? A strain of Christian gnosticism insisted that Thomas was Jesus’ twin brother! Wouldn’t that have been interesting? How would we explain the Incarnation if the “power of the Holy Spirit” which came over Mary and produced a child with no earthly father had actually resulted in twins? Only one of them would be the Incarnation? Would that even make sense? No, I don’t think the gnostics got that one right, at all. But still, I find it intriguing that John throws in this little tidbit that Thomas was called “the Twin.” (He does it three times! He must have thought it important! See also John 20:24 and 21:1.)

This intriguing fellow, after Jesus refuses his disciples’ advice and decides to go to Bethany to deal with the death of Lazarus, utters the words, “Let us go, that we may die with him.” Die with whom? Jesus, one supposes. But he could be referring to Lazarus. Let’s assume (as most others have before us) that he means Jesus. Can’t you hear the exasperation in his voice? One can almost hear sarcasm. I can envision Thomas turning to the other disciples and saying, as so many Jewish vaudeville comedians have done, “Look who I’m talking to!” Yet again Jesus declines to take the advice of those closest to him. Yet again he’s going to do something they think is foolish, dangerous, and ill-advised. Sure that Jesus is walking into some sort of death-trap, Thomas heaves himself up and says (probably with an indignant sigh), “C’mon! Let’s go get ourselves killed!”

For all his sarcasm and indignation, however, Thomas is the obedient disciple. He may have objections; he may have second thoughts. He may know all the reasons that what is asked of him is impractical but, after having his say, he is still going to do it because his Lord has asked it of him. Could it be that John is not calling him “the Twin” at all? Could it be that in naming him Didumos John is calling him “Thomas two-fold”? “Thomas who is of two minds”? Thomas who voices objections but carries through in any event?

That’s the tough part of the story to internalize and make my own, the carrying through anyway. I usually only get as far as the objections, the second thoughts, and the impracticalities, or at least I take a long time to get through them (when I do get through them). For example, I knew in high school that I was called to ordained ministry, but did everything possible to not respond to the call as a young man. In college, my university chaplain and my parish priest both encouraged me to make an application for postulancy and to consider seminary. I followed their urgings but, looking back, I realize I also did just about everything I could to undermine the process. I was successful – I was rejected by the Commission on Ministry of the Diocese of San Diego. They told me finish college, maybe get a graduate degree and then re-apply. “Yeah, right!” was my reply. That was in 1973. Fifteen years later after two graduate degrees and a career practicing law, several refusals to my then-bishop who often encouraged me to consider ordination, and a lot of nagging from God, I finally reapplied and quickly went through the process. Twenty-two ordained years later, I can’t imagine not being in the ministry.

I guess that’s why I find Thomas so intriguing and so beguiling. I can relate to someone who voices objections, who gets exasperated with God, who gets a little sarcastic with the Lord, who complains about what he’s asked to do. I’m sure that he knew it was pointless, that Jesus was going to get his way in the end . . . but he bitched and moaned anyway, just to have his say. (Sometimes, I think Thomas’ post-resurrection “doubt” was not so much disbelief, as just another incident of getting in a snarky little dig.)

The really intriguing and beguiling figure in the story, however, is Jesus. I can see him sitting there listening to Thomas with a wry little smile and an affectionate shake of the head. He knows Thomas is going to come along in the end, but he also knows that Thomas has to have his say first, and he lets him have it. In my mind’s eye I see Thomas, having voiced his complaints, heaved his sigh, and spoken his sarcasm, getting to his feet and being the first one out the door, Jesus following him, smiling affectionately, shaking his head, and thinking to himself, “Look who I’m talking to!”

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

The Eternal Now – From the Daily Office – September 5, 2012

September 5, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From John’s Gospel:

Jesus said: “Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.” Then the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 8:56-59 – September 5, 2012)

Salvador Dali, Persistence of Time I’ve been sort of mulling this over all day. It’s one of those interesting mixed-tense things; Jesus uses the past tense for Abraham (“Abraham was”), but the present tense for himself (“I am”), while placing his presence before Abraham’s past. I think what he’s trying to do here his describe eternity. That’s not easy to do!

There was a sort of “pop theology” popular when I was getting my education for ordained ministry which made a distinction between two “kinds” of time: chronos (one of the Greek words for time) and kairos (another Greek word for time). The former is described as the former refers to our experience of sequential time; it is “human time.” It’s the time Steve Miller sang about with the lyric, “Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future.” (Fly Like an Eagle) Kairos signifies a time of indeterminate nature in which something special happens; it is “God’s time.” It is, I suppose, eternity.

There’s a similar difference between “eternity” and “forever”, and I think it’s the same difference. “Forever” is an extension of sequential time. It’s the way in which time, as we experience, just keeps going on and on and on. But “eternity”, if it is kairos, is somehow outside of the linear sequence of our temporal experience. Eternity encompasses linear time. It was “before” time; it will be “after” time; it is “outside” of time. Forever might come to an end; it might slip into the future to point where it stops. Eternity or kairos, however, doesn’t, can’t, won’t – the concept of an end of eternity is meaningless.

Kairos or eternity, however, is also not the cyclical time of the Eastern religions. It isn’t the wheel of time or kalachakra of Hinduism and Buddhism. The problem (in my estimation) of that concept is that it makes existence seem a bit like a continuous-loop tape recording that plays over and over again, but never gets worn out. Nothing can be avoided; nothing can be changed. There is no final destination and, ultimately, there is no purpose to anything. As the French writer and filmmaker, Jean Cocteau said, “Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere.”

Cocteau, continued, however, “The moment is the only thing that counts,” and this (I believe) is where Jesus’ understanding and statement of who he was and is led him and leads us. When asked to teach his disciples to pray, Jesus taught them to focus on the moment: “Give us today our daily bread.” (Matt. 6:11; Luke 11:3) In the sermon on the mount he said, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matt. 6:34) Rather than worry about one’s clothing or food or drink, he encouraged his followers to “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” (v. 33) Be focused on the moment, the eternal now, eternity, kairos.

Ideas of past and future are just baggage. It has been said that depression results from trying to live in the past; anxiety comes from trying to live in the future. Psychologist Abraham Maslow said, “The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.” As Jesus made clear, it is a major component of spiritual wellness, too. Jesus ministry, among other things, was to bring eternity “into” time, kairos into chronos: “Before Abraham was, I am” is a statement of now, the eternal now, kairos.

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

Category: John (Page 21 of 24)

Lighten Up! – From the Daily Office – December 11, 2012

An Angry Jesus – From the Daily Office – December 1, 2012

Christ the King Among the Amish – From the Daily Office – November 25, 2012

Unbind Him, and Let Him Go! – Sermon for All Saints Sunday – November 4, 2012

No Ifs, Ands, Or Buts – From the Daily Office – October 22, 2012

God’s in Control – From the Daily Office – September 18, 2012

Unbind Him and Let Him Go – From the Daily Office – September 14, 2102

Guilt Tripping Jesus – From the Daily Office Lectionary – September 13, 2012

Look Who I’m Talking To! – From the Daily Office – September 12, 2012

The Eternal Now – From the Daily Office – September 5, 2012

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