Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Luke (Page 14 of 25)

What Is Joy? – From the Daily Office – May 19, 2014

From Book of Psalms:

The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 65:12-13 (NRSV) – May 19, 2014)

Joy Carved on StoneWhat is joy? A bible study group at church grappled with that question recently and I’m still thinking about the question, so these concluding verses of today’s evening psalm got my attention. It’s not just a matter of defining emotion. Joy is a religious attitude, a stance toward God mentioned numerous of times in the Holy Scriptures; according to St. Paul, it is one of the “fruits of the Spirit.” (Gal 5:22) It’s important to know what we mean when we name it.

In the bible study discussion, I found it amazing that, although “laughter” was mentioned as we tried to answer this question, the common synonyms “happiness,” “mirth,” “giddiness,” and the like (even “gladness”) were not. We wrestled with the issue by exploring such questions as: “When do you feel it?” “Who are you with?” “Where does it come from?” “Where are you when you know joy?” and a really tough one “How do you feel when you experience it?”

That question almost seems redundant, doesn’t it? But as we tried to answer that in some meaningful way another question was asked, “Did Jesus feel joy on the cross?”

Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft says that joy “is more than happiness, just as happiness is more than pleasure. Pleasure is in the body. Happiness is in the mind and feelings. Joy is deep in the heart, the spirit, the center of the self.” If he’s right, and I think he is, then the answer to our question about Jesus must be “Yes.” Jesus felt joy on the cross!

Consider Christ’s “seven last words”:

“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” (Lk 23:34)
“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Lk 23:43)
“Woman, here is your son” . . . “Here is your mother.” (Jn 19:26-27)
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34; Mt 27:46)
“I am thirsty.” (Jn 19:28)
“It is finished.” (Jn 19:30)
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Lk 23:46)

Read in this, the traditional order in which they are presented in Good Friday meditations, only one simply cannot be read or understood as containing any joy: Mark’s and Matthew’s report of his cry of despair, “Why have your forsaken me?”

Jesus had told his disciples that joy is the result of a relationship with God:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. (Jn 15:1-10)

He concluded this discourse saying to them, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” (v. 11)

In the Psalms, the hills, the sheep, the trees, all of nature is described as experiencing and giving voice to joy. This makes sense only if joy is a relationship with God. On the cross, only once, only in that cry of “why have you forsaken me,” do we find Jesus unable to sense that connection. In fact, the “seven last words” in their traditional order evince the very human journey every person has experienced at one time or another during a time of trouble, a journey from trust in God (“Forgive them”) into the valley darkness where God seems absent and back out again with a renewed sense of kinship with God (“Into your hands, I commend my spirit”).

What is joy? A connection with God, a relationship in which we are fulfilled not by our own efforts, not by the circumstances in which we find ourselves, not by anything other than the Presence and grace of God. Even in the hardest and most troubling of situations, even hanging on a cross, we can know joy.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

I Don’t Know – From the Daily Office – May 13, 2014

From the Book of Exodus:

Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them?” And Aaron said, “Do not let the anger of my lord burn hot; you know the people, that they are bent on evil. They said to me, ‘Make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ So I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off ‘; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Exodus 32:21-24 (NRSV) – May 13, 2014)

Golden Calf“I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

I chuckle every time I read this story and get to this point. In fact, when the story of the golden calf has been read in church and the reader gets to Aaron’s disclamation of responsibility, I’ve been known to laugh out loud.

Once, years ago, in a bible study group reading Exodus, I asked, “How old was Aaron?” No one knew, but we were all pretty certain that Moses and his brother were not young children at the time of this story. Nonetheless, a young child is exactly what Aaron sounds like: “I threw the gold in the fire, and out came this calf!” No mention of his forming the mold, pouring the molten the gold, breaking the mold, polishing the casting, and all the rest that goes into the making of a metal statue. The calf just “came out.”

There was a phantom in our house when my children were very young. We’d find that someone had opened the orange juice and not only taken some, but also spilled a good deal on the kitchen counter and floor. “Who did this?” we would ask. “I don’t know,” would be the answer. The contents of my wife’s purse were spilled there was lipstick smeared on things. “Who did this?” we demanded of the little girl with red all over her face. “I don’t know,” she told us. Someone once tried to make sand castles in the cat box. “Who did this?” we asked the little boy with sand fingers. With a straight face he replied, “I don’t know.”

We never caught I Don’t Know doing any of these things (or many others), but there was plenty of evidence of his (or was it “her”?) existence. I Don’t Know was a very active sprite! Apparently, I Don’t Know was much older than we thought. He or she appears to have been with the Hebrews in the desert. — “Who made this golden calf?” — “I don’t know. I threw the gold in the fire and out came this calf!”

In the modern adult world, I Don’t Know has gotten more adapt at hiding his or her identity. “Who made that decision?” we ask. The answer is often one of I Don’t Know‘s alter egos: a committee, the vestry, the (unnamed) higher-ups, the council, management, the administration. Could it be that I Don’t Know is being scapegoated?

Imaginary friends are a healthy part of maturing. Research shows that children with imaginary companions tend to be less fearful, laugh more, smile more, engage more with peers, and are better able to imagine how someone else might think. An imaginary friend can aid a child to handle fear, explore ideas, or gain a sense of competence, but children with imaginary friends will sometimes blame them for misbehavior in an attempt to dodge the displeasure of adult authority. I Don’t Know is not exactly an imaginary friend, but disclaiming responsibility and deflecting blame is certainly child-like (if not childish) behavior.

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child,” wrote St. Paul, “I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” (1 Cor 13:11) Jesus once told a story about someone who decided to stop blaming I Don’t Know. The man in the story “put an end to childish ways” and said to himself, “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.'” (Lk 15:18)

We human beings of all ages when challenged still seem invoke I Don’t Know to avoid personal responsibility on a pretty regular basis. Christian maturity, coming (as Paul said) “to the measure of the full stature of Christ,” (Eph 4:13) no longer laying things at the feet of I Don’t Know is something for which we all need to strive. We need to give up being like Aaron; we need to put an end to childish ways.

Is that going to happen on a general basis any time soon?

I could answer, “I don’t know.” But the truth is, I think I do.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Jesus the Jedi – Sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Easter (Year A) – May 4, 2014

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This sermon was preached on the Third Sunday of Easter, May 4, 2014, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day were: Acts 2:14a,36-41; Psalm 116:1-3,10-17; 1 Peter 1:17-23; and Luke 24:13-35. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Broken BreadSince the early 1970s this day, on the Episcopal Church calendar, this day on which we hear the story of Jesus’ appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus has been known as Star Wars Sunday. It’s because Jesus is very much like a Jedi in this story. I mean, think about it . . .

In the Star Wars movies, Luke Skywalker is mentored first by Obiwan Kenobi, who dies, then by Yoda, who also dies. But both Obiwan and Yoda come back! They appear to Luke and others after their deaths, continue to teach and give sage counsel, and disappear. That’s what happens with Jesus in the story Luke tells us this morning.

It’s still Easter Sunday. (For us, we’re three weeks down the road, but for them it’s the afternoon of the same day on which Mary Magdalene and the others found the empty tomb.) Two disciples, one named Cleopas and the other unnamed (let’s call him “Bob” — although some feminists scholars suggest that the reason this disciple is not named is because she is a woman, so it might be “Bobbie”) are on their way to a village called Emmaus. Luke tells us this village is seven miles from Jerusalem; that’s a long walk — two or three hours. Sometime during this long afternoon journey, they are joined by a stranger whom they do not recognize; the stranger, Luke reveals, is Jesus but Cleopas and Bob can’t recognize him. They have a long talk with him about all the thing that have happened in Jerusalem in recent days, and he gives them sage counsel about the meaning of scripture, particularly the messianic prophecies. They arrive in Emmaus early in the evening and encourage their traveling companion to join them at dinner.

They sit down at an inn for the evening meal and the stranger takes the lead. He takes the bread served by the innkeeper, offers a blessing, and breaks the bread. Now, Cleopas and Bob realize who this is. As he does the same thing he had done with his followers just a few days before, their memory is tweaked and their eyes are opened (which suggests that Cleopas and Bob were in the upper room in Jerusalem on Thursday evening). That’s when they recognize him; that’s when they think they’ve figure out who he is — he’s Jesus the Jedi. And that’s when Jesus vanishes.

Why do you suppose that is? Why does Jesus disappear?

Well . . . let me remind you of what happened earlier in the day as the story is told by John. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning, found it empty, and told Simon Peter. Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved (another unnamed follower!) also found it empty, and then returned to their home to tell the others. Mary, however, hung behind and encountered Jesus but, like Cleopas and Bob on the road to Emmaus, she did not recognize him; she thought he was the gardener. Only when he addressed her by name (perhaps because of the tone of his voice) was something in her memory triggered and she realized who he was. She called him “Rabbouni” (which means teacher) and apparently fell at his feet and grabbed hold of them, for Jesus says to her, “Don’t hold on to me.” I think he did so for the same reason he disappeared from the table at the Emmaus inn.

Similarly, remember what happened before they arrived in Jerusalem, when Jesus took Peter and James and John up the mount of the Transfiguration. While they were on the holy mountain, the three disciples witnessed Jesus in conversation with Elijah and Moses. Peter wanted to memorialize the event by building booths, monuments to concretize the moment. Jesus said, “No. We’re not going to do that.” Again, I think for the same reason he disappeared in Emmaus.

That reason is that we cannot pin Jesus down. Jesus cannot be contained; he will not fit neatly into our boxes. When we think we have him figured out, we find out we are wrong. Jesus . . . God is bigger than any notion of him we may have; God is bigger than our conceptions, bigger than our doctrines, bigger than our creeds. And every encounter with Jesus is singular and unique. We cannot hold onto him; we cannot concretize and cast the moment in stone.

We just sang as our sequence hymn the old chestnut In the Garden, and that hymn makes this very point. We, the singer, say that we would like to stay there in that garden, but Jesus will not allow that:

I’d stay in the garden with Him,
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.

We cannot pin him down! We cannot cast the moment in stone. When we think we’ve got hold of him, we find we are wrong; he disappears and what we are left with are our own notions, our own ideas, our own doctrines, our boxes. Our boxes, however, are too small; God is too big for them.

And the chorus of the hymn reminds us of the singularity and uniqueness of every meeting with our Lord:

And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

Every time we encounter Jesus, the experience is unique; none other (not even our earlier selves) has ever had that experience before.

I think that is why it is significant that Cleopas and Bob recognized Jesus as he broke bread. Every loaf of bread is unique, similar perhaps to other loaves but never, ever identical. And every occasion on which bread is share is singular and unique. It may be a family meal or a celebration of the Eucharist; it may be a formal banquet or just friends having a bite. Whatever the circumstances, the situation is one unto itself, not like any other, never to be repeated.

A couple of Christmases ago, Evelyn gave me a set of books about the elements of the Eucharist. One volume is entitled The Spirituality of Wine; the other, which I have here, is The Spirituality of Bread by Donna Sinclair. The author is a Christian (in fact, I think she is an Anglican). I’d like to read you some of what she has to say about the symbolism of bread. About bread and community, she writes:

Jesus may have been lent significance by his association with other gods of bread. But that doesn’t acount for the power of his celebration, which persists daily around the world.

Everywhere, the words are similar: “He took a loaf of bread and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them and said, ‘Take, this is my body.'” And, everywhere, people line up, blue-jean clad or robed, young or old, to receive bits of bread; or they sit in pews and pass tiny chunks on a plate; or they stand in a circle and murmur a blessing as a broken loaf moves from hand to hand.

Sometimes they gather around a sickbed.

Once, I sat in a circle of friends, in a smoky cabin in the bush, after a weekend of tending a woodstove and talking about dreams. We passed the bread around as gently as if it were the heart of the other, which it was.

The ritual has power. I get uneasy if I think I might be left out. Once, reporting on an event, I slipped up to take a photo of Archbishop Desmond Tutu serving Communion, and then paused anxiously. He winked and held out the bread.

Perhaps inclusion is this ceremony’s strength. This bread offers an enormous community, a family that stretches around the world and through the centuries. We don’t want to be left out.

We don’t want to be left out because we don’t want to miss the opportunity for that unique and singular encounter with Christ. Every celebration of Eucharist, like every sharing of bread and every meeting with Jesus, is a moment unto itself never to be repeated, never to be duplicated. We realize that in some way, that this encounter with Christ in the breaking of the bread will never happen again, and we don’t want to be left out.

With regard to bread and sacrifice, Ms. Sinclair writes:

The celebration of Communion is also a powerful experience of metaphor. Bread as body. Wine as blood. Love as sacrifice.

In the Jesus story, it is clear that love has great requirements. There is a price to pay, in an oppressive era, for feeding the unwanted.

It may help to see another story, that of the Celtic Earth goddess Tailtiu, queen of the Fir Bolg, one of the ancient peoples of pre-Christian Ireland.

When Tailtiu saw that her people were starving after an insufficient grain harvest, she took up an axe and, for a solid year, cleared a forest: “the reclaiming of meadowland from even wood by Tailtiu, daughter of Magmor,” is the way it is reported by the anonymous bard of The Dindsenchas, poems about Irish place names.

After the trees had been cut down, “roots and all, out of the ground,” the land became “a plain blossoming with clove,” presumably suitable for planting grain. But the cost was appalling. Tailtiu’s heart “burst in her body from the strain beneath her royal vest,” the bard says. The Celts loved their sacred groves, and the destruction to the enchanted richness of her forest must have broken Tailtiu’s heart.

Aware that she is dying, her courtiers gather around, and Tailtiu whispers her last command. She wants funeral games to be held in her honour each year, just before the harvest. And they are to be peaceful, she says, “without sin, without fraud, without reproach, without insult, without contention, without seizure, without theft.”

Thanks to her faithful foster-child Lugh (later associated with a bountiful harvest), Tailtiu’s wish came to pass. There was always an “unbroken truce” at her fair, and “men went in and came out without any rude hostility. Corn and milk in every stead, peace and fair weather for its sake, were granted to the heathen tribes of the Greeks for maintaining of justice.”

Tailtiu had given up her beloved forest and her life for a vision not too different from that of Archbishop Oscar Romero or of Mondawmin, who brought corn to the Ojibway. “Unbroken truce” and “corn and milk in ever stead,” represent the commonwealth of peace, the kingdom Jesus told his friends was close by. New parents get a glimpse of this kingdom looking at their tiny baby. Their sudden understanding that they would do anything to keep this child safe is the closest we can come, perhaps, to understanding the sacrifice that is part of love’s potential.

Perhaps that’s the power of Communion bread. Some say that it commemorates Jesus offering himself as a sacrifice for our sins, but I don’t think so. I would be appalled by a god who asked for the death of his child, or any child. But like any parent, I believe I would die for my children’s lives, even as absurdly grown-up as they are now.

Perhaps this bread simply expresses our wish to live little closer to the ideal of Tailtiu, Jesus, or Mondawmin, who died to give their people enough to eat. None of us can stand up to greed or selfishness as strongly as we wish. But eating this ceremonial bread with others, who also want to be just and loving, makes us brave enough to try.

Maybe that’s why I am sometimes overwhelmed at these ceremonies. Maybe I am simply terrified by the high sacrifices love assumes. Certainly the part most touching to me in the story of my own bread-god, Jesus, is not his death, but his constant focus on compassion. “Love one another as I have loved you,” he commands. “Love your enemies.”

Every encounter with this God who commands us to love, every encounter with love is unique and singular. Every encounter with this God who commands us to love, every encounter with love is larger than we can describe. We cannot constrain love in our boxes. Whatever our notions, our doctrines, our creeds, our understandings . . . they are too small to contain love, to pin love down, to hold onto and control love. When we try, love disappears, and that is why Jesus disappeared from the dinner table in that inn in Emmaus.

Now . . . I have to confess that, on the church’s calendar, this really isn’t Star Wars Sunday. But as every Star Wars aficionado knows, today is Star Wars Day: “May the Fourth be with you.”

But may Jesus the Jedi . . . Jesus, known in the breaking of the bread . . . Jesus, whom we cannot hold onto and pin down . . . Jesus, unique and singular . . . may Jesus be with you. Amen.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Standing by Jesus – Sermon for Palm Sunday (Year A) – April 13, 2014

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This sermon was preached on Palm Sunday, April 13, 2014, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day were: Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; and Matthew 21:1-11. In addition, Zechariah 9:9-12 was read at the Liturgy of the Palms, and the Passion story, Matthew 26:14-27:66, was read at the conclusion of the Mass. Except for the Zechariah text, these lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Donkey with Colt

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

That’s one of my favorite pieces of verse, The Donkey, by G.K. Chesterton, in which he captures Palm Sunday from the perspective of the donkey that Jesus rode.

Matthew’s version of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is somewhat confusing because he pluralizes the donkey. Did you notice that in the reading of the Gospel lesson? “The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.” Why does Matthew do this (when none of the other Gospel writers do so)? Some have speculated that it is because Matthew wants to tell the story in a way that precisely mirrors the prophecy in Zechariah: as you can see in the Gospel reading, Matthew’s version of Zechariah is that the Messiah will come “mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

That argument presupposes, however, that Matthew does not understand Jewish poetry which uses what is called “parallelism” to underscore or highlight a particular idea, saying the same thing in two or more ways, often connected with the conjunction “and”. But Matthew was an educated Jew, so that argument doesn’t float. Others have suggested that Matthew is the first Christian biblical literalist, but that doesn’t hold water either since Matthew’s Gospel is full of metaphor and allegory. No, the likely reason Matthew does this is to present Jesus as the least military, the least kingly, the least imperial of all possible messiahs. Bible scholar John Dominic Crossan points out that Jesus the Messiah (and Matthew the Gospel writer)

. . . want two animals, a donkey with her little colt beside her, and that Jesus rides “them” in the sense of having them both as part of his demonstration’s highly visible symbolism. In other words, Jesus does not ride a stallion or a mare, a mule or a male donkey, and not even a female donkey. He rides the most unmilitary mount imaginable: a female nursing donkey with her little colt trotting along beside her.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke also make point of telling us that Jesus approached Jerusalem from the east. They do this be situating us to landmarks: Matthew tells us in today’s lesson that it was “when they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives” that Jesus sent two of the disciples to get the donkey and the colt. This direction of approach is important.

At the time of the Passover, as pilgrims made their way into the city for the ritual observances, the population of Jerusalem would swell from around 50,000 (about twice the size of Medina) to well over 200,000 (more than the population of Akron). We know from secular histories that it was the custom for the Roman governor to make a militaristic triumphal entry to Jerusalem — with war horse, chariot, and weapons — each year in the days before Passover to remind the pilgrims that Rome was in charge. Because the Passover is a celebration of liberation from imperial Egypt, imperial Rome was very uneasy about so many people being in town. Pilate’s procession displayed not only imperial power, but also Roman imperial theology, according to which the emperor was not simply the ruler of Rome, but the Son of God.

The Roman garrison was on the coast at Caesarea Maritima, a city built by Herod the Great to honor Caesar Augustus, so their approach would have been from the west. So there were two processions into Jerusalem. One — the procession of the Roman army — coming from the west, demonstrating imperial might; the other — those with Jesus — coming from the east, making a clearly anti-imperial witness. Jesus’ subversive donkey ride reminded all those waving Palm branches that Rome was the new Egypt, and the Emperor was the new Pharaoh.

And, obviously, the crowd got it! People began to spread their cloaks on the road for Jesus to ride over like a red carpet; they remembered, perhaps, the story in the Second Book of Kings, which tells how the crowds spread their cloaks on the ground when Jehu was anointed King of Israel. They cut palm branches or other leafy plants as Jews did at other celebrations and festivals and strewed them in Jesus’ path; perhaps they remembered the admonition of Psalm 118: “The Lord is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar.” (v. 27) They must have, for they began chanting verses of that psalm:

Save us, we beseech you, O Lord!
O Lord, we beseech you, give us success!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
We bless you from the house of the Lord. (Ps 118:25-26)

This is what Hosanna means. Hosanna is not a shout of exultation, though we have made it one; hosanna is a prayer for salvation. The Hebrew is h?shi `?h nn? and it means “Save now, we pray.”

Recognizing Jesus as the “Son of David,” the crowd chanted the words “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” and others respond, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

The scene was set for a clash not only with the authorities of the Jewish nation, but with imperial Rome. The first Holy Week had begun. And ever since that first Holy Week, the followers of Jesus have been trying to figure out what to do with it. Sara Miles of St Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco says, “it’s kind of confusing: there’s a lot of different stuff going on in Holy Week. You could get whiplash” and she explains:

Think about it. During Holy Week, we wave palms in the air and hail Jesus as king, the long-awaited messiah who’s going to save us from our oppressors, then we change our minds and scream that the oppressors should crucify him; we share a loving last supper with Jesus and he washes our feet, then we sneak out after dinner and betray him. Jesus begs us to stay with him, we promise we will, then we don’t. We abandon him, he’s arrested and beaten; he forgives us, then we run away. Then Jesus is killed; we lay him in the tomb and weep; we go back for him, then he’s gone, then he’s back, and then — wait! — he’s not dead at all.

Spiritual whiplash, indeed!

But necessary whiplash, I’m afraid . . . . If we just skip from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday, without stopping to ponder the days between, Jesus’ last supper with his friends, his night of tormented prayer in the garden, his scourging and crucifixion, the fear and anguish of his disciples, and their confusion on finding the empty tomb, then we will have misunderstood the whole thing. We’ll be lulled into believing that the Christian life is just one triumph after another. We will have failed to appreciate that triumph often comes with suffering and death. Palm Sunday is only the opening act of the drama of redemption; it takes courage and commitment to enter completely into the fullness of the story.

It is so much easier to come for the pomp of Palm Sunday and then go about our business for the week, ignoring Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, before coming back in for the trumpets, the lilies, the bells, and all the rest of the great show on Resurrection Sunday. But this year somebody needs to stand by Jesus. Somebody needs to hang in there with him. Somebody needs to stay at his side as he is humiliated, beaten, mocked, and killed. Holy Week is our annual confrontation with that choice.

The donkey had no choice facing her

One far fierce hour and sweet:
[When] There was a shout about [her] ears,
And palms before [her] feet.

She and her colt had not choice, but we do. If we don’t have the courage to stand by Jesus, who will?

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Jesus’ Cellphone – From the Daily Office – March 27, 2014

From the Gospel of Mark:

Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 6:45-46 (NRSV) – March 27, 2014.)

Jesus with CellphoneJesus sure spends a lot of time on mountains! And I can understand why. They are generally inaccessible to all but the most determined making them the perfect place for someone who needs a little “down” time, a little bit of “I’m exhausted by all of this and need to recharge” time, a little “leave me be for a while” time.

It may be cynical of me, but my first thought reading these two verses was, “I hope he remembered to turn off his cellphone.” I have learned that lesson well, even though I sometimes fail to follow my own advice and answer the phone on my day away from church business and usually regret it when I do.

Why is it that we take little note of, and often ignore, these last two verses of the story of the feeding of the 5,000? When Matthew’s version of the tale is used in the Sunday readings (as Proper 13 in Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary), his similar statement is cut off from it:

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. (Matt 14:22-23)

Luke does not mention Jesus’ behavior after the miracle of the loaves and fishes, but neither Luke’s nor Mark’s versions are read in the Sunday rotation. John’s version ascribes a motive other than prayer to Jesus’ climbing the mountain: “When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” (John 6:15, RCL Year B, Proper 12)

I don’t give John’s political twist much credence. It may be that people wanted to “make him king,” after all the Jews were anticipating that sort of Messiah, but I suspect that exhaustion and the need for privacy were much bigger motives for Jesus at the moment.

When in public worship we end the story with the report that “those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children” (Matt. 14:21, cf. Mk. 6:44), we get an incomplete picture of Jesus. And John’s “I don’t want to be king” motivation for his departure just makes it worse! He becomes a superman who does incredible miraculous things with little or no effort and with no cost to himself, and then (like some super-spy) thwarts the political designs of the ignorant and ill-informed; as a model for life or ministry, he is an impossible paradigm. Being Christ-like becomes an impossible task beyond the ken of mortal human beings.

But what if we include these two verses, this post-script about depleted reserves, this acknowledgement of Jesus’ weariness and need to replenish? What a richer, more nuanced vision we are given! Jesus becomes a much more accessible savior! He truly is seen to be (as the writer of the Letter to Hebrews insisted) someone who is able “to sympathize with our weaknesses . . . in every respect . . . as we are.” (Heb. 4:15) He is seen as a model of healthy ministry, of self-care following service to others. We see him as someone who really would turn off his cellphone!

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Questions from the Press – Sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Lent – Year A – March 23, 2014

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This sermon was preached on the Third Sunday in Lent, March 23, 2014, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day were: Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; and John 4:5-42. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Russian Icon: Woman at the Well and ZacchaeusFour interesting things happened this week. The first was our monthly Brown Bag Concert. During the construction of our Gallery addition to the Parish Hall, the attendance at the concerts had dropped off. Tuesday’s was the first since construction has been completed and we were unsure what sort of turn out we would see. Well, as it happened, we had over 100 people in this church for that concert! What a great thing!

The second thing was the death of Fred Phelps on Wednesday, March 19. The so-called Reverend Mr. Phelps was the so-called pastor of the so-called Westboro Baptist Church. I say “so-called” so many times because I believe Mr. Phelps was essentially self-ordained, and he founded the Westboro congregation which, despite its name, is not recognized by any national or regional Baptist convention. If you don’t recognize those names, Fred Phelps and his congregation are the people who show up with picket signs at the funerals of servicemen and other notable people, picket signs which read “God Hates [Homosexuals]” (only they use a much viler term on their signs). There’s a meme floating around the internet that reads, “Live your life in such a way that Fred Phelps will picket your funeral.” I recommend that.

In the days surrounding his death, my gay and lesbian friends were having quite a discussion of whether anyone should picket his funeral. Another Facebook meme answered that question: it was a cartoon of God saying, “I give you a new commandment: you shall not stoop to Fred Phelps’ level.” That’s where I came down on the question. We pray for the repose of Mr. Phelps’ soul, as we do for anyone who died; we pray that he find in death the peace he seemed not to find in life and which he denied to so many.

His death nearly coincided with what would have been the 86th birthday of another Fred, Fred Rogers, the man who assured children that everyday “it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.” What a contrast these two Freds present: the man who invited everyone to be his neighbor and the man who wanted almost no one to be his. I had a little vision when I heard of Fred Phelps’ death that he had arrived at the Pearly Gates to be greeted by Fred Rogers saying, “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, Fred, and everybody’s here!”

The third thing was our “St. Patrick’s Last Gasp” Irish Festival yesterday. It was a great party and a smashing success. Ray and I were trying to figure out how many people actually attended and we think that, at the highest point, we probably had more than 250 people in this building – here in the church, in the parish hall, in the dining room – if we’d had 25% more people, we couldn’t have moved. That’s a great problem to have!

The fourth interesting thing that happened was that our diocesan communications office contacted me and asked if I would be one of seven Episcopal clergy in the Cleveland metropolitan area to answer some questions posed by the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “Sure,” I said and set about answering their questions. After doing so, I thought I ought to share my answers with you so you won’t be surprised when you open the paper someday soon and see what your rector is quoted as saying . . . because although their questions start innocently enough, they escalate rather quickly to address some thorny issues in our tradition and in our society.

I will get to addressing today’s Gospel lesson, trust me, but I want to share those answers with you first. So here they are . . . .

What is my favorite Easter tradition?

My favorite tradition is the Great Vigil of Easter celebrated as an evening service on Saturday evening or as a sunrise service on Resurrection Sunday. At St. Paul’s, Medina, we celebrate the Vigil in even numbered years on Resurrection Eve Saturday evening, and in odd numbered years on Sunday at sunrise. This year is our Saturday evening year and the service will begin after sundown at 8 p.m. Beginning the service in the dark with the lighting of the new fire, processing the Paschal Candle through the dark church, the church coming to light as other candles are lighted one from another, and finally the sanctuary fully lighted as the cry of “Alleluia! Christ is risen!” is sounded, the sun just rising (when we do it at sunrise), and the bells ringing . . . all of that brings me great joy. It speaks to me more clearly of the Light of Christ than any other tradition we observe at Easter or at any time during the church year. Of course, the Sunday morning Festival Eucharist (which will start at 10 a.m.) is great fun, as well!

How do I feel about the way Easter is celebrated in popular/secular culture?

I think the secular traditions of Easter (bunnies, eggs, new bonnets, a new set of dress clothes for the kids, lots of candy) are fine. They are celebrations of the new life of springtime. I’ve gotten out of the habit of calling our church celebration “Easter” and more often refer to it as “Resurrection Sunday” or “Resurrection Season,” so the term “Easter” actually speaks more to me of the secular festivities than of church observance, but the popular Easter traditions and the Christian celebration of Christ’s Resurrection all celebrate the joy of life returning. Human beings in all religious traditions (and those in none) have been celebrating springtime for millennia, and all that we do is good fun and spiritually uplifting. I don’t think the popular traditions detract from the religious significance at all.

What is the relationship between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion (including the Church of England)?

The Episcopal Church is one of the many churches around the world which trace their lineage to Christ and the Apostles through the historic Church of England, a family of churches called “the Anglican Communion.” The U.S. Episcopal Church is the second such offshoot of the Church of England; the Scottish Episcopal Church, which ordained our first bishop, was the first. As Anglicans, we are a part of a reformed catholic tradition which separated from the Roman Catholic Church as a political act during the reign of England’s King Henry VIII, not as a result of theological reform or protest. The Episcopal Church is the only Anglican church in the United States officially recognized as such by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, and the Anglican Consultative Council (our international “instruments of unity”).

What does it mean for the Episcopal Church to allow gay & lesbian weddings when the state of Ohio does not legally recognize these unions?

In considering this question, I think we should make a distinction between the civil contract of marriage, which is a creature of law defined by state statutes and constitutions, and the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, which is the church’s blessing of a committed, loving relationship of two adult persons. Currently, the Episcopal Church does not offer this sacramental blessing to same-sex couples; we offer a service of blessing and life-long commitment. A study group has been appointed by our highest governing body, the General Convention, to reflect upon our theology of matrimony and make recommendations as to whether the sacrament can and should be extended to same-sex couples; I believe that it should.

Although state law (wrongly, in my opinion) currently denies same-sex couples the right to form the civil contract, that law cannot prohibit the church from offering its blessing to anyone or for any purpose; that would be a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Therefore, the church is free to and does offer a service of blessing to couples who wish to make solemn vows of life-long commitment one to the other. The church’s blessing does not (and should not be understood to) constitute the formation of the legal contract of marriage. When in a traditional wedding ceremony the husband and wife make their promises, in the Episcopal Church, the first part of the service before the reading of Scripture and the making of the religious vows, is the formation of the contract; after that is done, Scripture is read, prayers are offered, and the religious vows are made and sanctified during the sacramental service of blessing.

By the way, I don’t like to use the term “gay wedding” or “lesbian wedding” because the wedding or commitment ceremony is just that, a ceremony, regardless of the gender or sexual orientations of the persons involved; the couple may be both of the same sex or of opposite sexes, but the nature of the commitments they make to each other in the religious vows — to rely upon God, to love and support one another, to care for each other, and so forth — are the same, neither gay nor lesbian nor straight.

What does “God loves you. No exceptions.” mean to me in a culture that’s spiritual but not religious or with little to no religious affiliation?

Well, I think the statement speaks for itself and would mean the same thing whether the surrounding culture were highly religious or completely secular; God’s love for everyone is not culture dependent. As a statement of belief of the Episcopal Church in this diocese, it means that everyone is welcome. As a former Presiding Bishop of our church once said, “There will be no outcasts in this church,” meaning no one is excluded from participating in our worship, our educational programs, or the social life of the church community. A few weeks ago we put up on our church sign this invitation: “You can belong before you believe.” There is welcome here for the “spiritual but not religious,” the unaffiliated, the disaffiliated, the questioner, the doubter . . . everyone. We don’t pretend to have all the answers, but we love exploring the questions and we offer a safe place for those with questions to do so. Although he’s not an Episcopalian, the author Brian McLaren speaks for our tradition when he writes in one of his books that the church should offer responses to questions, not answers; answers cut off conversation, while responses invite further discussion. The Episcopal Church offers responses. We think that’s what God does, too; God responds.

Considering the Gospel story of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well

Which brings us to today’s Gospel reading, a very long reading setting out the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone in any of the four Gospels. It’s amazing that Jesus had this conversation at all. First of all, he is speaking with a Samaritan. The Samaritans were the descendants of those who were left behind when the important families of Jerusalem and the country were taken into exile in Babylon. Those who got to stay in Israel had intermarried with the surrounding Canaanite peoples and continued to worship God according to the first four Books of Moses; they built a temple on Mt. Gerizim not far from the city of Sychar where this conversation took place and offered their sacrifices there. When the exiles returned and restored the temple in Jerusalem, they launched a campaign of “racial purity” demanding that those with “foreign” wives divorce them; adding the Book of Deuteronomy to the Scriptures, they also insisted that sacrifices could only be made at the Jerusalem temple. The Samaritans rejected these demands and “bad blood” existed between the two groups. By Jesus’ time, there was real hatred and enmity between them; John is a master of understatement when he says, “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.”

Not only was Jesus’ conversational partner a Samaritan, she was a woman! If we accept the Gospel’s naming of Jesus as a Rabbi, he was breaking all sorts of laws and traditions by conversing with a woman, even if she were a good and faithful Jew. Rabbis simply did not speak to any woman to whom they were not related; it just wasn’t done. And this particular woman, apart from being a Samaritan, was also a woman of (shall we say) besmirched reputation. She had been through five failed relationships and had entered into yet another with a man not her husband (how Jesus knows this I’m not sure, but he knows it).

So this poor woman was everything Jesus should have had nothing to do with, and yet there he is carrying on a conversation as if they were old friends. No wonder the disciples were astonished when they returned.

A fifth interesting thing happened this week. I was introduced to a Russian Orthodox icon depicting this Gospel story, and the interesting thing about it is that the icon writer chose to depict not only this story, but also the story of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus, you remember, was the Jewish tax collector who climbed a tree so that he could get a look at Jesus as he walked through a crowd in the Jewish city of Jericho. (Luke 19:1-27) Just as with the woman at the well, Jesus spoke to Zacchaeus. And he didn’t just talk to him; he walked up to the tree and said, “Zacchaeus, come down because I’m going to have dinner with you.”

Now, Zacchaeus was a tax collector, a lacky of the hated Roman occupiers of Israel. We all, I’m sure, have our opinions of the agents of the I.R.S. and as we get closer to April 15, that opinion is probably going to get pretty bad. But whatever we may think of contemporary revenue agents, what the Jews thought of Jewish tax collectors was a thousand times worse. They were collaborators working with oppressive Roman Empire which had invaded and occupied the Jewish nation. They were given what was for practical purposes a license to steal. The Roman authorities would tell them what they were to collect, but they could take more and did; they excess was what they lived on. So they were as hated and as outcast among their own people as a Samaritan would have been.

I believe that is the reason the Russian iconographer depicted the two stories on the same panel; he was illustrating that for Jesus there were no outcasts. For God incarnate in Jesus, there are no outcasts. Despite what Fred Phelps may have taught in his church, the Gospel story we heard this morning and the story of Zacchaeus demonstrate that God hates no one. As that diocesan bumper sticker and billboard about which the Plain Dealer asked says, “God loves everyone. No exceptions.” In Christ’s church, in this church there will be no outcasts. Ever.

Amen.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Zesty Vestry – From the Daily Office – March 18, 2014

From the First Letter to the Church in Corinth:

Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – I Corinthians 5:6b-8 (NRSV) – March 18, 2014.)

Saccharomyces Cerevisiae YeastPaul uses the metaphor of yeast in a negative way making it symbolize sin and corruption. In the letter to the Galatians, he uses it in a similar manner in an aside about the few who have “prevented you from obeying the truth,” saying, “A little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough.” (Gal. 5:7,9)

Jesus had used the metaphor in a positive way: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” (Matt. 13:33; cf. Luke 13:21) But he also warned his disciples to beware “the yeast of the Pharisees.” (Matt. 16:6, Mark 8:5, Luke 12:1)

The point of the metaphor is that a small number of individuals can influence the behavior of a large group. A few years ago, some British researchers demonstrated that this is true even when there is no conscious communication within the group. In a series of experiments groups of people were asked to walk randomly within a large but confined space. A few subjects were given detailed instructions about where to walk. Participants were all instructed to stay at least arms length away from any other person and they were not allowed to communicate with one another.

In every run of the experiment, the instructed subjects ended up being followed by others in the crowd, forming a sort of self-organizing conga line. Iterations with varying numbers of subjects up to 200 demonstrated that it only took 5% of the group being instructed to result in an unconscious group consensus. Despite the fact that participants weren’t allowed to talk or gesture to one another, the group ended up being led by the specially instructed minority.

Just think what a small minority within a church community could do if it were united and made conscious effort to influence the larger group. Think what a vestry, session, or other governing board could do if it put its collective mind to being a “yeast” for good within a congregation. Too often church leaders try to persuade congregations to grow through personal evangelism or to reach out in social ministry or to mature in faith through spiritual discipline without actually demonstrating those behaviors themselves. That hasn’t worked. What works is “leading by example,” which is what the small amount of yeast in a loaf does in a way; it’s what the instructed walkers in the British experiments did.

With just a little bit of care and nurture, a little bit of yeast can grow explosively; the most common yeast used in brewing and baking (Saccharomyces Cerevisiae) can double every 100 minutes! The English word “yeast,” according to the dictionary, derives from the Greek word zestos. The word used in the New Testament for “leaven” (and translated here as “yeast”) is zume. These words have no linguistic link to our modern words “zest” and “zoom,” but it occurs to me this morning that if small leadership groups in our churches got truly zesty for spiritual maturity, for personal evangelism, and for social ministry, there’d be no stopping the church; it would zoom. The church would explode! We need to cultivate a zesty vestry in every congregation!

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Wine, New and Old – From the Daily Office – March 14, 2014

From the Gospel of Mark:

Jesus said: “No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 2: 22 (NRSV) – March 14, 2014.)

New and Old WineskinsI remember preaching on this text some years ago and doing a lot of research into the meaning of “new wine” as used in the Bible (tirowsh in Hebrew, oinon neon in Greek) — whether it meant fermented wine or yet-to-be-fermented newly-crushed grape juice. There is a lot of differing scholarship on the issue, both among Biblical scholars and oenologists. I came to the conclusion that all of that scholarship is an interesting waste of time. None of it matters to Jesus’ meaning in using this metaphor for the spiritual life.

So what does it mean? I have to admit to being somewhat confused by it. One thing it could mean is that Jesus’ new teachings don’t it into the “old skin” of the Judaism contemporary to his day, either the Temple Judaism of the sacrificial system or the synagogue Judaism of the Pharisaic rabbis both of which were in operation. That is a popular interpretation among evangelical Christians. The problem with it is that Jesus, though critical of the manner in which Jewish leadership administered the religion, was faithful to it and, by his own statement, did not come to abolish it but to fulfill it. (Matt. 5:17)

I think what Jesus might have been referring to was not the formal structures of religion, but the attitudes of religious people. There’s not a church leader around who hasn’t heard the words, “We’ve never done it that way before” or “We’ve always done it this way.” I think the sentiment or attitude behind those words, the minds that conceive and use them, might be the “old skins” to which Jesus is referring. New ideas, new ways of thinking, new ways of doing things cannot be held by such attitudes, cannot be encompassed by minds which are hardened by “the ways we’ve always . . . . ”

I’ve noticed that new programs or new initiatives in an older parish are usually undertaken among and bought into by the newer members of the congregation, newer members who have little of the power in or control of the congregation. Older members used to and comfortable with the “the ways we’ve always” are not only less likely to participate in new initiatives, they are also prone to undermine them. This is why church leaders often apply the wineskin metaphor to the churches in which they work and remark that it is easier to start up a new congregation than to re-start an older one: the wineskin of “the ways we’ve always” haven’t yet hardened in a new church.

I don’t actually like to use the metaphor of the wineskin to refer to the church itself. The church, I think, is less like the wineskin and more like the burden-bearer that carries it, the donkey on which large wineskins were laid for long-distance transportation or the servant given smaller wineskins from which to serve at a banquet. The church can carry several wineskins, new and old, some containing the old wine of long-standing programs, services, and ways of being that “we’ve always done,” some containing the new wine of new initiatives that “we’ve never done before.” Members of the church can choose which “wine” to enjoy. Some, as Jesus remarked in Luke’s version of this story will say, “The old is good enough.” (Luke 5:39) Some will find, as God speaking through Isaiah noted, that there is a benefit in the new wine. (Isa. 65:8) But both are ministry of the church; neither should be denigrated or discarded.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

The Looking Glass – Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent (Year A) – March 9, 2014

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This sermon was preached on the First Sunday in Lent, March 9, 2014, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day were: Genesis 2:15-17,3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; and Matthew 4:1-11. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Eve and the Serpent by Max KlingerToday, as we step further into the season of Lent, this season of self-examination when we liturgically join Jesus for his forty days in the desert, we are treated to what is traditionally known as the “Fall of Man.” Genesis, chapters 2 and 3 set out the Bible’s first story of human temptation and the first act of human disobedience in the garden of Eden, brilliantly portrayed by the Victorian-era lithographer Max Klinger in the etching on the cover of your bulletin in which the serpent presents Eve not just with an apple but with a mirror, a looking glass in which to examine herself.

The popular understanding of this story is that it explains why human beings do not live in a world of perfect comfort, why there is evil in the world, blaming it all on the Devil and on the weakness of the woman. That popular interpretation, however, is based on some frankly erroneous assumptions.

First, that God created an absolutely perfect and static world.

Well, that’s clearly wrong. The world that God has created in the Genesis accounts includes the raging sea, which has been divided into two waters – the water above the firmament and the water below the firmament. In the theological and cosmological understanding of the ancient middle eastern world, the sea was the place of chaos; God’s Spirit moves over and subdues that chaos, declaring to it (as the voice from the whirlwind in the Book of Job puts it), “Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped.” (Job 38:11) Far from static and far from perfect, God’s world contains the chaotic, the unsettled, and the creative.

And let’s not forget the serpent who “was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made;” I’ll come back to him in a moment. He’s a part of this creation, which clearly is neither perfect and static.

The second erroneous assumption often made is that Eden was a luxurious paradise in which humans lived with no responsibilities.

We can only have that incorrect understanding if we overlook the first sentence of our reading: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” (Gen. 2:15, emphasis added) The humans in this garden had work to do! One might quibble with the translation, however.

The traditional rendering of the Hebrew word ‘abad as “till” reflects the agriculturally based culture of 17th Century England; the word has been rendered in this manner (or by the equivalent word “cultivate”) since the Authorized Version of King James I & VI. But the Hebrew is better translated (and more frequently rendered throughout the rest of the Old Testament) as “serve;” it is the root from which the word “slave” derives. The distinction is significant. “Tilling” implies some control of the garden and suggests that the human can make it better or more productive. But the humans were not, in fact, in control at all; they were to be the servants of the soil, working in partnership with it to make the garden fruitful.

And then there’s the word translated “keep” — shamar in Hebrew. In common modern English, “keep” has the sense of ownership, of having a claim on the garden, the Hebrew really means “to keep safe, to guard, or to protect.” The humans were to serve the garden and to protect that which they were meant to serve. They were given neither control nor ownership.

But whether to cultivate and maintain or to serve and protect, the humans were given work and responsibility in this garden. No luxurious paradise, this Eden.

The third incorrect assumption is that the serpent was evil.

Actually, this error is a bit more serious than that. This mistake, in fact, holds that the serpent was Satan intent on bringing evil into God’s perfect creation, one of the central points of the popular interpretation.

But, again, one has to ignore the very words of the text to believe that about the serpent. As I pointed out a moment ago, the serpent is described as a “wild animal that the Lord God had made.” The serpent is a very clever and very conversational animal, but that’s all – an animal. This crafty old snake is just one of God’s own creatures who simply poses some questions and offers some alternative explanations about God to the humans who could have, if they’d chosen to do so, told the serpent that he was full of it and asked him to please go away.

The wily serpent is, one commentator has suggested, a “metaphor, representing anything in God’s good creation that is able to facilitate options for human will and action.” God has created a world in which human beings have choices, alternatives to the will of God. And in this world human choices count; our relationship with God is not predetermined and our response to God is neither coerced nor inevitable. The story reveals that there was and is something in human nature that resonates to the suggestion of suspicion that the serpent offered about the words and actions of God, and we’ll come back to that in a moment. So the serpent is not Satan and he does not bring evil into the picture; he’s a clever animal who introduces the humans to wariness and skepticism.

The fourth traditional, but wrong, supposition is that it was Eve alone who succumbed to temptation and so she alone is responsible for bringing sin into the world.

When we listen to people discuss this story, the impression is that they believe that Eve was all by herself, had this conversation with the snake, ate the apple, gained for herself the “knowledge of good and evil” (more needs to be said about that, by the way), and then went and tempted Adam to do the same. Nothing could be further from the truth!

The plain meaning of the words is that Adam was there all along: “She took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.” Just as, at any point in the conversation, the humans could have told the snake to get lost, Adam could have spoken up, at any point, and suggested to Eve that she discontinue the dialogue with the snake. But he doesn’t. While Eve converses with the serpent, expressing her knowledge of God’s command, Adam just stands there silent, and then he eats with no objection.

And take note! That’s when things start to happen. It isn’t until both of them have consumed the fruit that “the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked . . . .”

That last simply wrong understanding is that the “knowledge of good and evil” has something to do with morality.

It doesn’t. Hadda-‘at towb wara’ is simply idiomatic Hebrew for knowledge of everything; saying “good and bad” in Hebrew is like saying “lock, stock, and barrel” in American English.

The two most important words spoken by the crafty serpent are “God knows,” because they arouse suspicion. They carry a corollary suggestion: “God knows . . . and you don’t.” God, the snake hints, has not told you the full truth. And the surprising thing is that the serpent is telling the truth! The serpent may not tell the whole truth, but then neither has God.

Which brings us back to the question of suspicion. At its deepest level the issue of knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of everything, becomes an issue of trust. Can human beings trust God? Can Adam and Eve, can any human being, trust that God has our best interests at heart?

Until they ate of that fruit, Adam and Eve were oblivious to their nakedness; after eating it, they find themselves hiding from God out of shame. Scholars and sages from the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius to the 20th Century psychologist Eric Erickson have noted the intimate linkage between mistrust and shame. The moment Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of everything, they began to experience a profound sense of vulnerability, a sense of distrust of God, perhaps even a distrust of one another and of the serpent with whom they (well, Eve anyway) have been conversing like old friends.

We all know what happens next, right? God shows up and asks what’s happened. Adam points to Eve, “She did it. She made me eat the fruit.” And Eve points to the snake, “The serpent tricked me!” This sense of shame and mistrust is grounded in their failure to fully realize that they were made in the image and likeness of God.

That is why I put that Victorian etching by Max Klinger on the cover of our bulletins this week. It is one of six panels in a work made by Klinger in 1880 entitled Eva und die Zukunft (“Eve and the Future”). In it the snake is holding a mirror and Eve, standing on tip-toe, is viewing her own image. The serpent’s appeal is to her (and to Adam’s) vanity. “God knows . . . and you don’t.” Invited (as we are during Lent) to examine herself, she cannot see the image of God in the mirror; she can see only her own suspicious visage.

So if this story is the story of a “fall” or “falling,” what sort of falling is it? Is it a falling down from some supposedly higher level of perfection? I think not. The initial creation was not a set-piece of static perfection. Is it a falling up into some greater human maturity as Iranaeus and other early theologians suggested, a leaving behind of some childlike innocence? In the story, the human beings, before the fruit, aren’t really presented as childlike or innocent, and afterwards Adam and Eve certainly don’t exhibit much in the way of adult maturity when confronted by God. So, I don’t really believe that interpretation works either.

The Lutheran theologian Terrence Fretheim has suggested that if this is the story of a “falling” it is a “falling out,” the story of a breach in relationship leading (as the rest of the Bible clearly demonstrates) to estrangement, alienation, separation, and displacement, an ever-increasing distancing of human beings from Eden, from each other, and ultimately from God.

That suspicious alienation is symbolized by the clothing Adam and Eve make for themselves: “they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.” As the ancient Hebrews knew all too well, the leaves of Mediterranean fig would not make a particularly comfortable garment; they have a rather rough and sandpaper texture and their underside is covered with fine spiny “hairs”! Those loincloths would have been scratchy and prickly and uncomfortable — a great metaphor for a relationship broken by distrust and shame.

Which brings us to the Gospel lesson.

The snake in the Genesis story may not have been Satan, but here he is at the beginning of our Lord’s ministry and he’s doing with Jesus exactly what the serpent did with Eve; he’s appealing to his vanity. “Are you the son of God? Well, then, act like it! Show these people! Do something really incredible — turn stones into bread, throw yourself off the Temple steeple, rule the world!”

Jesus, however, turns each temptation aside with a quotation from Scripture. Each is different, but each of his responses boils down to the same thing – “I trust God.” And his life and his gospel will bear that out even to the end. Even then, in the most painful of circumstances when death is imminent, he will live out that trust: “Not my will but yours” (Luke 22:42) . . . “Into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). And, in the end and for eternity, he is clothed as John of Patmos saw him and reported in the Book of Revelation, in a flowing white robe of righteousness, crowned with many crowns, and seated at the right hand of God.

“Great are the tribulations of the wicked,” says our psalm today . . . their tribulation is like wearing a rough and scratchy garment of fig leaves . . . “but mercy embraces those who trust in the Lord.”

In this season of self-examination, in we which are asked to look at ourselves in a spiritual looking glass, like Eve’s mirror in Klinger’s etching, we must ask ourselves the question, “Which is it to be for us?” The rough, painful garment of alienation, or the flowing robes of mercy and righteousness?

We live in a world in which we have choices, and our choices count. Which is it to be? Do you trust God? Amen.

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

Mystical Jesus – From the Daily Office – March 1, 2014

From John’s Gospel:

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 12:20-22 (NRSV) – March 1, 2014.)

Single Grain of WheatThis is such a great set up! Here are these Greeks (whether gentiles or Greek-speaking Jews of the Diaspora is unclear) who want to meet Jesus. They come to Philip who apparently speaks Greek and make their request. He goes to Andrew (another unclear thing: does he take the Greeks with him?) The two of them go see Jesus (with the Greeks?)

Now, how will Jesus respond?

If the Greeks are gentiles, will he respond as he did to the Syro-Phoenician woman: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” (Matt. 15:26)

Will he respond as he did to the centurion who sought healing for his servant: “Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.” (Matt. 8:10)

If they are Jews, will he remind them of the Law as he did the rich young man who asked about eternal life: “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” (Mk. 10:21)

Will he welcome them and invite them to eat with him as he did the tax collectors and sinners? (Luke 15:1-2)

Uh . . . no. Not John’s Jesus. John’s Jesus goes off on some entirely self-centered tirade about glorification and grain dying and eternal life and his soul being troubled! John’s Jesus doesn’t respond to Andrew or Philip or the Greeks at all! I swear, there are times when Jesus as portrayed in the Fourth Gospel seems to be somewhere on the autism spectrum; his answers to inquiries are so far removed from the subject of the question one wonders if he even heard what was asked, or knows or cares who is asking. (This is one of those times!) Is this an accurate portrayal of the way Jesus interacted with people? Can this be historically factual?

So here’s my thought: the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel is not the historical Jesus. This Jesus is John’s attempt to communicate the spiritual nature of the resurrected and ascended Lord; this Jesus is a mystical reality not an historical portrait. L. William Countryman in The Mystical Way in the Fourth Gospel called Jesus’ strange, almost non-responsive, frequently offensive dialogs “obnoxious.” Although that’s a good description, I think they are almost hallucinatory. They twist the reader’s understanding of reality and open the reader’s mind to new possibilities. Would you see Jesus? Then consider a kernel of grain and how its life increases even though it dies? Would you see Jesus? Then follow Jesus, do as Jesus does, do what Jesus teaches. Would you see Jesus? Then listen for the voice of the Father. Jesus’s answers seem non-responsive, but they are gateways to new appreciations.

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

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