That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: John (Page 22 of 25)

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

September 18, 2012 / / 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 MapWe 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 / / 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!”
* * *
[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 LazarusMy 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 / / 0 Comments

Martha by David Leiberg, Visual Meditations on the GospelFrom 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 / / 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 ThomasCommentaries 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 / / 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 TimeI’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.

What Is the Truth that Will Set Us Free? – From the Daily Office – September 3, 2012

September 3, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From John’s Gospel:

Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 8:31-32 – September 3, 2012)
 
Anglican Compass RoseLook at the Compass Rose emblem of the worldwide Anglican Communion and you will find these words, “The truth will make you free,” emblazoned on it in Greek. As an Anglican, I think that’s great. But there are times when Pilate’s question to Christ, “What is truth?” (John 18:38) makes a lot of sense! What is truth? What is this truth that will set us free?

It seems like a very simple question, but it isn’t simple at all. Many people confuse truth with facticity. The dictionary offers answers such as “conformity with fact or reality” and “actuality or actual existence”. But these definitions are unsatisfactory; they merely beg the question, encouraging us to ask, “What is fact? What is reality? What is actuality?” And then there is the issue of objectivity versus subjectivity How does individual perception affect “the truth”? Answers beget questions and more answers beget more questions. For the philosophically or religiously inclined, “truth” is just not that easy to nail down.

Philosophers have many theories of what the nature of truth is; they go by titles such as “the correspondence theory,” “the coherence theory,” or “the redundancy theory.” They apply argumentative techniques such as pragmatism, recurcivism, realism, deflationism, minimalism. Philosophical discussions of truth and last for hours and go nowhere. They’re fun, but in my opinion are ultimately fruitless. The question, “What is truth?” remains.

For the Christian, truth is not a concept, or an idea, or a philosophical theory. For the Christian, truth is a Person. “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” said Jesus. (John 14:6) Philosophers and skeptics will dismiss Jesus’ claim, but for the Christian, it answers Pilate’s question.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote of Jesus: “We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said, or else a lunatic, or something worse. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God. God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form.”

I can’t do better than that. What is this truth that will set us free? Jesus. Jesus is Truth.

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

We’ve Never Done It This Way Before! – From the Daily Office – September 1, 2012

September 1, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From the Acts of the Apostles:

[Peter said to the circumcised:] “I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 11:16-18 – September 1, 2012)
 
Changing a Light BulbA couple of days ago I talked about Cornelius’s conversion from pagan to Christian through some time spent as a pious not-quite-proselyte Gentile. In today’s reading Peter defends his decision to baptize the Gentiles (Cornelius and his entire household) with this great question, “Who was I that I could hinder God?” It certainly shut down his critics!

How often do we stand in God’s way? Well, how often have you heard these words: “We’ve never done it this way before”? Or it’s more affirmatively stated equivalent, “We’ve always done it this way before”? Both usually said in that dismissive, fatally negative tone of voice.

“How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?”

“Change??!?!?!??!”

It happens again and again in our churches. Nearly everyone will acknowledge that we need new carpet for the Nave or the Parish Hall, but then someone will ask, “What’s wrong with our old carpet? I like the old carpet.” I once served a church where there was universal agreement on the need to replace the carpet in the worship space, and everyone agreed that it should be red (the color of the previous carpet), but the Vestry debated for six months about the shade of red! (Finally, a member of the board just went out and ordered the carpet and put all out of our misery!)

I read recently about a church where a recently deceased parishioner had left a bequest of $15,000 for a new prayer garden. The memorial committee met for months, but eventually disbanded because they couldn’t decide where to put it or what it would look like. “We’ve never done it this way before!”

Wouldn’t be great if that were a cry of delight and adventure instead of the fatally negative dismissal of change it usually is?

A few years ago my wife and I made our first trip overseas together to Ireland, a country neither of us had ever visited. Everything we did on that trip was something we had never done before. We had never before driven on the narrow back-country lanes of Ireland, the single-track roads where one might meet a flock of sheep or a herd of cows and have to back up a hundred yards or more to wide spot and let them pass before you could go on. We had never before climbed the cliffs of County Antrim and seen the Giants’ Causeway. We had never before eaten “the full Irish breakfast” with black pudding, baked beans, sauteed mushrooms, and grilled tomatoes added to our usual fare of bacon and eggs. For eighteen days we lived an almost hourly experience of never having done nearly everything this way before, and we loved it.

Wouldn’t it be great if folks in the church, instead of fearing change and difference, would greet new things with “We’ve never done it this way before!” as a cry of delight and adventure?

We always need to remember Jesus’ words, “You did not choose me but I chose you.” (John 15:16) We have been invited by God to a surprising adventure. Just like Peter we need to ask (some of us constantly), “Who am I to hinder God?” Ours is not to hinder God, but to follow God; not to stand in God’s way, but to journey in God’s way; not to say dismissively, “We’ve never done it this way before,” but to cry with delight and excitement, “We’ve never done it this way before!”

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

Brotherly Advice – From the Daily Office – August 29, 2012

August 29, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From John’s Gospel:

Now the Jewish festival of Booths was near. So [Jesus’] brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see the works you are doing; for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 7:2-4 – August 29, 2012)
 
Icon of Jesus and his brother JamesThe picture of Jesus getting advice from his brothers just tickles me. John makes such a deal of it (while pointing out that his brothers did not believe in him – as the Messiah, I suppose – at the time). It seems so at odds with John’s otherwise oh-so-perfect, oh-so-divine Jesus!

It isn’t clear who these brothers are; there are some who suggest they are older half-brothers. Although there’s no biblical warrant for this, there is this pious invention of a first family for Joseph. The story is that Joseph was a lot older than Mary, had been married before, and had sons from that first marriage. Thus, Mary became a step-mother and Jesus had a bunch of older half-brothers. The reason for this invention is a belief in the “perpetual virginity” of Mary which seems to have originated in the 2nd Century with Irenaeus; his contemporary Origen came up with the step-brothers theory. What I always wonder about is why there’s no mention of these other kids in the few stories we have of Christ’s infancy and childhood. Where were they when Joseph and Mary made the trip to Bethlehem? Did they go along (then why aren’t they portrayed in Luke’s Gospel)? Or were they left home with relatives? What about the flight to Egypt? Surely Joseph wouldn’t have left them behind while he moved to another country! Were they with the family in Jerusalem when, instead of joining the return party, Jesus stayed behind to dazzle the Temple intellectuals? If they were, why didn’t they help in the search for the missing boy? Anyway, as this probably makes fairly clear, the whole perpetual virginity thing seems suspect to me.

So if these brothers aren’t Joseph’s boys from a first marriage, they must be Joseph’s and Mary’s subsequent issue; after all, Jesus is described by Luke as Mary’s “firstborn” (Luke 2:7). Presumably they are “James and Joses and Judas and Simon” (named in Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55), and they are Jesus’ younger brothers.

I never had a younger brother. I had an older brother (nearly a decade older, in fact). He passed away several years ago and I often miss his brotherly advice. We were not close during my childhood, but once I was in college we got close and became good friends. It helped that we lived in the same metropolitan area; I was a student at UC:San Diego and later at California Western School of Law in San Diego; my brother was on the faculty at San Diego State University. We saw each other often, enjoyed each other’s company, and I often turned to him for counsel.

Jesus getting advice from his brothers (whether they were older or younger doesn’t really matter) appeals to me. I can relate to that picture of Jesus and it helps me to believe that Jesus can relate to me. I believe Jesus can (and does) give me brotherly advice.

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

To Whom Can We Go? – From the Daily Office – August 28, 2012

August 28, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From John’s Gospel:
 

Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 6:67-69 – August 28, 2012)
 
"Angry Jesus" from "Here's Looking At Jesus"Several years ago, when I still earned my living by practicing law, I represented a man who was a sculptor; that was his hobby, not his profession. He was really very talented at carving stone. One of the pieces he showed me was a crucifix; the face of Jesus was contorted in rage. I told him that I had never imagined that look on Jesus’ face at that time. He referred me to Luke 23:34 in which Jesus says, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” He told me he’d imagined that Jesus was angry at that moment, that the import of his words something like, “Father, you forgive them! I can’t, not right now! They have no idea how stupid and cruel this is!” It was an Aha! moment for me, a moment when I had an insight into Christ that has stuck with me all the years since. That artist and his crucifix forever changed the way I hear Luke’s version of the Crucifixion, and to be honest I think I hear the story more clearly as a result. (Accompanying this meditation is another “angry Jesus” from a Brazilian artist who had been tortured. The picture links to another person’s blog post, a sermon about images of Jesus that is really quite good.)

In the first of several eucharistic prayers in the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer, the presider at Holy Communion gives praise to God for the mission of the Son, sent by the Father, “to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.” That phrase, “to share our human nature,” it seems to me, picks up on a theological point made by the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews, the description of Christ who “in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb. 4:15) It is the same point made in the Nicene Creed when we insist that the Son “by the power of the Holy Spirit . . . became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man.” It is the same point made in the Chalcedonian Definition that insists that Christ is not only “truly God” but also “truly man.” Jesus was a human being! And what human being undergoing the intense and excruciating pain of crucifixion would not be angry?

So you wonder (I’m sure), what has that to do with Jesus asking the Twelve if they, like others offended by his bread/body metaphor, want to turn away from him?

John’s portrayal of Jesus has always troubled me. He’s just a little too divine for me. He knows ahead of time what is going to happen; he seems to read the minds of the people around him. In fact, elsewhere in today’s reading from John’s Gospel, we are told that he was “aware that his disciples were complaining about” the bread/body allusion and that “Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him.” This Jesus actually isn’t a whole lot like me; he’s not in every respect as I am or as most other people in my experience are. We are not aware of what those around us are thinking and we generally do not know “from the first” the way things are going to turn out. And if Jesus is as we are, then he wasn’t as all-knowing and all-seeing as the Gospel of John seems to make him out. But if he is like us when he questions the Twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” then I suspect there might be a little irritation, a little frustration, a little anger in his tone of voice.

Not, perhaps, the outrage portrayed by my sculptor client in his version of the Crucifixion, but the everyday peevishness of hard-working human beings who have done their level best only to see things go not quite as hoped for, the simple annoyance of someone who has patiently explained things only to find him- or herself misunderstood, the vexation that accompanies the common experience of unrealized expectations. That’s what I hear in Jesus’ voice in today’s reading.

And I hear it, too, in Peter’s reply. (I hear the same exasperated tone of voice in Peter’s response to Jesus when he makes the comment about rich people getting into heaven in all three of the Synoptic Gospels: “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” [Mark 10:28]) “To whom can we go?” he asks. The whole conversation just sounds like the tired, worn-out men who have traveled far, done much, worked hard, and still don’t quite see the fruits of their effort they had hoped to see. They are frustrated with the situation and they are ill-tempered with one another. And you know what? I love that! I love it that Jesus and Peter and the others are that real, that human, that honest with one another that they can show their feelings and vent their frustrations. These are not superheroes; these are not emotionless automata; these are not people who are always in control. They are, in every respect, as we are. Peter, and James, and John, and (most importantly) Jesus have been there where we often find ourselves, ill-tempered, snappish, and a bit out of sorts.

“To whom can we go?” To whom else would we want to go than to someone who knows us as we are because he’s been there, who knows us as we are because he’s experienced even worse?

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

Bread? Body? Questions Without Easy Answers – From the Daily Office – August 27, 2012

August 27, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Jesus said:
 

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 6:54-56 – August 27, 2012)
 
The Jews, John tells us, disputed among themselves as Jesus was delivering the lengthy dissertation on bread from which these statements come. Earlier he had introduced this idea that his flesh was bread to be eaten by his followers: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (v. 51) The very idea of consuming human flesh is off-putting, even disgusting, and would have been extremely objectionable to the Jews; no wonder they grumbled and mumbled, complained and disputed. Even as a metaphor, the statement demands a lot from Jesus’ followers!

Church-going Episcopalians (and others who participate weekly in Holy Communion) are perhaps overly familiar with the metaphor. It’s not that we have somehow explained it away, I don’t think we have. Rather we have made it routine. Weekly (or more frequent) communion, with sweet wine and tasteless little cracker we laughingly call “bread” seems to have weakened the impact of this shocking metaphor. I mean, really, to someone who does not hear these words through 2,000 years of eucharistic practice, eating flesh and drinking blood sound a whole lot like cannibalism and vampirism.

How can we recapture the power of this metaphor? How can we make it make sense both to ourselves and to the non-church world in the 21st Century? As a ministry colleague has put it, “How would we explain this to a person who has watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer and read every word of the Twilight Series, but never stepped foot in a church or even know what the Bible is?”

I wish I had the answer to these questions, but the answers are less important than the questions themselves. Simply knowing that there are questions, acknowledging that they are real, that they are troubling, that they are important, and that there are no easy answers is the first step in our calling to show that Christ is real, and troubling, and important to the world, that Christ is relevant in the 21st Century.

Questions are much more important than answers, especially the hard ones.

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

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