That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Mark (Page 12 of 18)

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

March 27, 2014 / / 0 Comments

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.

Otherwise You’d Cry – From the Daily Office – March 26, 2014

March 26, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of Mark:

Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 6:27-29 (NRSV) – March 26, 2014.)

Salome by Giampetrino, c. 1510I have a hard time with the beheading thing . . . . I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about cutting someone’s head off that just appalls me.

When I was a student in Italy in 1969 (and again when I chaperoned 87 teenagers to Italy in the summer of 2000), I visited the cathedral in Siena where the head of the local medieval heroine, St. Catherine of Siena, is on display. It’s really quite creepy! Catherine wasn’t beheaded in life, however. Her head was separated from her body when the Sienese, upset that the corpse of their favorite hometown girl was in Rome, tried to steal it back. Unfortunately, they were only able to get the head and were only able to smuggle it out when the Roman guards were miraculously led to believe that the sack in which it was carried contained rose petals rather than a mummified skull.

There is a special class of saints who were martyred by beheading and are commonly depicted carrying their heads under their arms like a football in religious art. John is the first of them, but because of his importance in the Jesus story, he is not usually so represented. These saints, called the cephalophores (it means “head carriers” referring to their artistic portraits), are often said to have recited, scripture, preached, or even spoken to choose their own burial sites after decapitation. For example, St. Nicasius of Rheims att the moment of his decapitation was reciting Psalm 119. When he reached the verse “Adhaesit pavimento anima mea” (My soul cleaves to the dust, v. 25), he was executed. After his head had fallen to the ground, he spoke the rest of the verse, “vivifica me, Domine, secundum verbum tuum” (give me life according to your word).

St. John Chrysostom said of the cephalophores that the severed head of a martyr is more terrifying to the devil than when it was able to speak in life. I don’t know about that, but severed heads just present me with all sorts of problems. It presents a problem to artists, too. How do you handle the halo in a portrait of a beheaded saint? Some put the halo where the head used to be, others have the saint carrying the halo along with the head, but neither is a really adequate representation.

Anyway, I have to admit that I find very little in the way of spiritual uplift thinking about, contemplating, or viewing (in reality or in artistic depiction) the severed head of a martyr. These stories only speak to me of the depravity of human beings, which I suppose must be their point. I speak lightly of them and joke about them only because I would otherwise slip into despair. As my late mother used to say, “You have to laugh about, because otherwise you’d cry.”

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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.

Feet? – From the Daily Office – March 25, 2014

March 25, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Isaiah:

How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news,
who announces salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Isaiah 52:7 (NRSV) – March 25, 2014.)

Sandaled FeetIt may be pedestrian of me, but I can’t stop thinking of the messenger’s feet and whether this passage of Isaiah is really very well chosen as the Old Testament lesson for Morning Prayer on the Feast of the Annunciation! Reading the rest of the lesson with its message of redemption and salvation, one can see why it is set out in the special set of Daily Office readings for this feast day, but I can’t get my mind off the feet.

I’m part of a weekly bible study group that, a couple of months ago, read through and discussed the Book of Ruth. It was news to one of our members that the term feet was used there (when Ruth uncovers Boaz’s feet on the threshing floor) as a metaphor for male genitalia; so . . . now when we encounter the word in any other context, the question “Is this metaphorical?” always pops up. I don’t believe Isaiah is being metaphorical in that way here.

What occurs to me about the passage is another question, “Do archangels even have feet?” We know that seraphim do because of Isaiah’s description in Chapter 6: “Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.” (Isa. 6:2) Artistic renditions of the Annunciation seem generally to show at least one of Gabriel’s feet, but then Gabriel is generally depicted in human form which I’m not sure is all that accurate.

In my two favorite pictures of this story, those by Fra Angelico and by Sandro Botticelli, Mary does not seem very interested in the messenger’s feet (or foot). In the former, she looks absolutely distracted and doesn’t appear to be looking at the archangel at all. In the latter, apparently recoiling from the message, her gaze is downcast, but she seems to looking at her own feet rather than Gabriel’s; perhaps she is contemplating running away.

The feet of messengers also have a bit of walk-on part in the regular lessons for Tuesday in the third week of Lent. In the gospel reading from Mark, Jesus sends the Twelve out in pairs to preach his message but tells them, “If they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” (Mk. 6:11) And, yes, bible study partner, Jesus is using feet metaphorically, but not in that Book of Ruth way. Here, as in Isaiah’s prophecy, the metaphor is the message; the messenger’s feet are the foundation of the good news. They can be appreciated for their beauty or rejected and turned away.

When I think of feet, of looking at feet, of considering the appearance or beauty of feet, I remember a bit of verse by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, Your Feet:

When I cannot look at your face
I look at your feet.

Your feet of arched bone,
your hard little feet.

I know that they support you,
and that your gentle weight
rises upon them.

Your waist and your breasts,
the doubled purple
of your nipples,
the sockets of your eyes
that have just flown away,
your wide fruit mouth,
your red tresses,
my little tower.

But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon the wind and upon
the waters,
until they found me.

(From The Captain’s Verses, 1952, English translation 1972)

When we cannot fully appreciate the message, when it confuses us or appalls us or frightens us or overwhelms us, we can at least focus our gaze on the feet of the messenger and, perhaps, eventually lift our eyes to view the fullness of the Good News which walks upon the earth and the wind and the waters until it finds us.

So, I think, yes, the Old Testament lesson is really well chosen for this, the Feast of the Annunciation, and it doesn’t really matter whether archangels have feet. After all, it’s a metaphor.

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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.

Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans – From the Daily Office – March 22, 2014

March 22, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of Mark:

People came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 5:14b-17 (NRSV) – March 21, 2014.)

Falling SnowThe story of the reaction of the people to the curing of the Gerasene demoniac is, I think, unique among the healing stories in the Gospels. Most of the time when people hear of or witness one of Jesus’ healings, he is then swamped by crowds and sometimes has to flee them. Here, we are told that he is begged to go away. As I read the passage, I thought of Isaiah’s reaction to his call: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips” (Isa. 6:5) These folks are those who realize they are “a people of unclean lips.” Like Isaiah, they fear being in the presence of holiness.

And yet . . . they were attracted to it initially. It was they who “came to see” what was going on. That is the nature of holiness; it attracts and it repels. Rudolph Otto, a great early 20th Century Lutheran theologian, defined “the holy” by these characteristics. He coined the term “the numinous” (derived from the Latin numen, “divine power”) and described it as a “non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self.” (The Idea of the Holy, 1917)

Otto used the Latin phrase mysterium tremendum et fascinans to describe the “object” of this experience. Mysterium (“mystery”) denotes the wholly Other which can be experienced only with blank wonder or stupor. Tremendum (“awe inspiring” or “terrifying”) describes the absolute unapproachability of God in whose presence one appreciates a sense of one’s own nothingness and utter dependence. Fascinans (“fasinating” or “attractive”) signifies the holy’s potent charm which draws us to it despite our fear.

For many, this is the experience of walking into a sacred space, a place where God’s majesty has been revealed before. Places of worship, religious architecture and art, great church music are some of the human attempts to reflect the mystery of God and often form the backdrop for the experience Otto describes. But Otto was quick to point out that more often the experience comes in non-religious settings. The numinous may be and often is experienced in our appreciation of a mountain vista, the changing colors of autumn leaves, the flight of migratory birds, or the awesome majesty of lightening and thunder.

Yesterday at 10 a.m., when the National Weather Service and all the commercial weather forecasters predicted a partially sunny day with ambient temperatures getting above 50F, I looked out my office window and saw snow falling thickly and the ground blanketed in white! I had that “non-rational, non-sensory experience” of which Otto speaks, that sense of the utter unknowability and unpredictability of creation. No matter how much we study and how much we learn (at least so far in human existence) there is still that part of reality that we don’t know and don’t understand. For all of our experimentation and hypothesizing, for all of our theoretical mathematics, there is still that millionth of a billionth of a trillionth of a second at the beginning of time about which we know nothing. For all of our biological and medical and chemical knowledge and experimentation, there is still that glimmer in my lover’s eyes, there is still that lilt in my daughter’s laughter, there is still so much that warms my heart and soul that cannot be explained, that is and can be appreciated only in a non-rational and non-sensory way.

It is fascinating and attractive, and it is, as my kids are wont to say, awesome!

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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.

Stilling the Seas – From the Daily Office – March 21, 2014

March 21, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of Mark:

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 4:35-41 (NRSV) – March 21, 2014.)

Boat in Violent WavesMark, who is usually so taciturn and parsimonious with his descriptions, goes into rather great detail telling this story of Jesus calming the sea. A detail often overlooked is the second sentence of verse 36: “Other boats were with him.” (When Luke tells the same story in chapter 8 of his gospel, he leaves out this detail.)

One presumes that these other boats were being as tossed about, as beaten by the waves, as nearly swamped as that in which Jesus and disciples found themselves. One presumes that they also experienced the dead calm when Jesus rebuked the winds and commanded the say, “Peace! Be Still!” Unlike the passengers in Jesus boat, they would have had no idea what the cause of the sudden stillness might have been.

It’s interesting that this story is paired in the morning with Psalm 69, in which the rising waters of a swamp are used as a metaphor for an abundance of “lying foes” (v. 5) and “those who hate me” (v. 16), while in the evening the psalm appointed in Psalm 73, in which the source of one’s trouble is internal rather than external, arising from envy of “the wicked” who seem to have more than they deserve:

When my mind became embittered,
I was sorely wounded in my heart.
I was stupid and had no understanding;
I was like a brute beast in your presence.
(Ps. 73:21-22, BCP 1979, p. 688)

Are our lectionary editors suggesting that the raging storms in our life are as often caused by our own internal mechanisms as by the machinations of others? I think they are. Are they encouraging us to believe that Jesus can calm all chaos, both internal and external? I think they are.

And that little-noted half-verse in the gospel story reminds us that chaos and disruption, whether brought from outside or created from within, never affect only one person or one small group. Chaos and confusion are like the storm-tossed sea that disrupts everything around; the raging storm may have been centered on Jesus’ boat, but “other boats were with him” and just as certainly in danger of being swamped. And when it was stilled, the other boats also benefited. So it is when our lives (or those of others around us) are beset by chaos and trouble, external or internal, and when those troubles end and a calm settles unexpectedly on all about.

I’ve experienced those times when, all of a sudden, what had seemed a raging, chaotic mess simply resolved in a moment and settled into something manageable. It occurs to me now that it may have been because a storm, internal or external, in someone else’s life was calmed in ways and by means unknown to me. So this morning I give thanks for the stilling of the seas in others’ lives and for the undeserved calm it brings into mine.

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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

March 18, 2014 / / 0 Comments

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.

Theoretical Doctrines, Doctrinal Theories – From the Daily Office – March 15, 2014

March 15, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of Mark:

[Jesus] entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 3:1-6 (NRSV) – March 15, 2014.)

Theory - You keep using that word . . . . . Gregory of Nyssa, one of the Cappadocian Fathers, is supposed to have said, “Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over concepts. Wonder makes us fall to our knees.” I think that pretty much describes what is going on in today’s Gospel lesson, and pretty much describes what has become of conversation and discussion between groups in our society. The Pharisees and the Herodians, who disagreed with one another about nearly everything, could nonetheless come together and plot to kill Jesus because his words and actions threatened both of their conceptual frameworks. They had to defend their concepts against the wonder of healing, even if it meant killing.

A few days ago I had the thought that in the current debate (and I use the term advisedly and optimistically) between proponents of a scientific view of how the world got to be here and to be as it is (the champions, shall we say, of the theories of the “big bang” and of evolution) and the proponents of a religious view (the champions, shall we say, of the “young Earth creation” idea), the issue is one of language. It is a battle over concepts in which the two sides use language in ways the other doesn’t understand. They use the same words but use them with different meanings. They conceive of them differently and must defend their concepts to the death (of their perceived opponent).

For example, the word “theory” . . . . This word is used by scientists to mean an agreed upon explanation of some phenomenon, a description of the phenomenon which can be experimentally verified. Wikipedia offers this definition: “A well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method, and repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation.” Those who champion a strictly religious view of creation, who insist on the accuracy of the Biblical account as factual (I’m not one of them, I hasten to add), hear the word differently. They hear the word “theory” and equate it to “hypothesis;” they hear the word “theoretical” and think “conjectural.” Theories are provisional, but they are not conjectural!

Or, on the other side (so to speak), the words “dogma” and “doctrine” . . . . In religion, a dogma is nothing more than a doctrine or a related set of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith set forth in an authoritative manner by a religious body. Doctrines are explanations; they attempt put into human language a definition or explanation of a spiritual or supernatural phenomenon. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity, for example, seeks to explain the nature of God through the metaphor of the relationship between the Creator (Father), Jesus the incarnate Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Vedic doctrine of karma seeks to explain the ethical harmony and equilibrium of life. Doctrine and dogma occupy, in the realm of religion, the same place theories occupy in the realm of science. Theological doctrines are just as provisional as theories; as one theologian has said, they are “temporary resting places” on the journey toward understanding.

Now I’m going to get pilloried by some, I’m sure, for suggesting any sort of equation or even similarity between scientific theory and religious dogma. “Theories are not dogmatic,” will say some scientist. “Doctrines are not hypothetical,” will say some religious apologist. Both will be right, of course, and both will be wrong; both will be reacting in that manner precisely because of the way each hears and understands the words. And their understandings are different.

In their doctrines and their theories, religion and science are trying to conceptualize the wonder of universe. Like the Pharisees and Herodians watching Jesus heal the man with the withered, they refuse to simply say, “Wow!” Both want to nail down an explanation, their explanation, their concept, as the only way to perceive and understand the wonder.

We need to get past this barrier, the wall of theoretical doctrines and doctrinal theories, the barricade of concepts that prevents us from listening to one another. The Pharisees and the Herodians were able to do it, albeit for the negative purpose of killing Jesus; we ought to be able to do it for the more positive purpose of working together.

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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

March 14, 2014 / / 0 Comments

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.

Carrying Our Mat – From the Daily Office – March 14, 2014

March 13, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of Mark:

Some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 2:3-5 (NRSV) – March 13, 2014.)

Paralytic Lowered Through the RoofIt’s a familiar story. A paralyzed man on a pallet comes to Jesus carried by his friends. They can’t get by the crowd, so they cut a hole in the roof of the house where Jesus is staying. (The first verse of the chapter says “he was at home” in Capernaum. That’s an interesting thing to say of someone who “has nowhere to lay his head,” [Matt. 8:20] but I don’t want to be distracted by that this morning.) The man on his mat is lowered through the hole and Jesus heals him. A pretty straightforward story of a miracle healing.

Except for one thing. In every other story that I can think of it is the faith of the sick person that Jesus witnesses or credits with accomplishing (or at least setting up) their healing. In this story, it is “their faith,” the faith of the paralytic’s friends (perhaps his, as well, but the Greek taken in context is clearly plural).

We live in a world in which the besetting sin is individualism. Our (Episcopal Church) Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, has commented that she believes the notion of a “personal relationship with Jesus” is “the great Western heresy—that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.” In her opening statement to the General Convention of 2009, she went on to say, “It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being.” Jesus attention to the faith of the paralytic’s community, not simply his personal faith underscores the communal nature of the Christian creed.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews touched on this in the Daily Office epistle lesson for Ash Wednesday when he noted that we are surrounded by “so great a cloud of witnesses” and suggested by way of admonition that this allows us to “run with perserverance the race that is set before us.” (Heb. 12:1) Any of us alone cannot be in right relationship with God; we are surrounded and supported by the community of faith. The writer of Hebrews also emphasized the community in the next verse when he said of Jesus that he is the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” (12:2)

This is why the Nicene Creed was originally written as a “We believe . . . .” statement. Made personal as an “I believe . . . .” creed in Latin and then in English, it is now properly translated in the current Episcopal Church prayer book. It is a statement of the faith of the community, not that of any one individual. (The Apostle’s Creed, on the other hand, is a personal statement of faith made by the individual especially in connection with his or her baptism.)

When we recite the Nicene Creed together in worship, we are all standing on the roof of the house lowering the paralytic to the floor beneath where Jesus can heal him or her. We are also the paralytic on the pallet. Our voices united are the ropes and the Creed, “the sufficient statement of the Christian faith” as Anglicans call it, is our mat. Jesus bids us to stand up and carry our mat for all to see: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matt. 5:16)

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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.

Tedious Temptations – From the Daily Office – March 10, 2014

March 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of Mark:

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 1:12-13 (NRSV) – March 10, 2014.)

Procrastination Cartoon by Dave WalkerJesus’ time of temptation in the desert is related by each of the Synoptic Gospels. Luke and Matthew give us a detailed account, noting that Satan tries to get Jesus to (a) turn stones into bread, (b) throw himself from the pinnacle of the Temple so as to demonstrate his power over the angels, and (c) worship Satan who promises him world domination. (We heard Matthew’s version on Sunday morning.)

Mark is typically terse giving none of those details: Jesus “was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan.” I prefer Mark’s version. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews says of Jesus that he “in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb. 4:15) It’s Mark’s Jesus that the writer is talking about.

Matthew’s and Luke’s Jesus faced temptations I will never face: I know darned good and well that I can’t eat rocks nor make them into anything edible no matter how hard I try; I’m much too afraid of heights to even get to the top of a church steeple let alone be tempted to some daredevil base-jumping stunt; and no one is ever going to suggest that I become a world dictator. My temptations are of a much more pedestrian sort.

I often face the temptation to sit on my butt and do nothing; faced with an onerous task, or a boring one, or just a mildly unpleasant one, I will be tempted to turn away from it for something more enjoyable. Mark’s Jesus might have thought about (I think probably did consider) that possibility out there “with the wild beasts.” Then there’s procrastination, the simply putting off of something until it just has to be done; maybe that’s why Mark’s Jesus was out there for forty days, just putting off doing what he knew he had to do. And there are so many more . . . the prosaic and unexciting tests of everyday existence.

By not getting into too much detail Mark lets us believe, Mark encourages us to believe, that Jesus is with us in those. That’s my Jesus, Mark’s Jesus, the one who in every respect was tested as I am, who faced the tedious temptations and didn’t give in.

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

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