Category: Matthew (Page 23 of 29)

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

March 6, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Jeremiah:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

access to health care should be continuous;

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Holy Families – From the Daily Office – March 2, 2013

March 2, 2013 / eric / 2 Comments

From the Gospel of John:

After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him. Now the Jewish festival of Booths was near. So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see the works you are doing; for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” (For not even his brothers believed in him.) Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify against it that its works are evil. Go to the festival yourselves. I am not going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come.” After saying this, he remained in Galilee.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 7:1-10 (NRSV) – March 2, 2013.)

Holy Family Icon Thirty or so years before the episode described here by John, Mary “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” in a town called Bethlehem. (Luke 2:7) We are told here and elsewhere that Jesus had brothers, and his brothers were named “James and Joseph and Simon and Judas.” (Matthew 13:55) He had sisters, too, but their names are not reported in Scripture.

We know next to nothing about his family life. His siblings are not mentioned in the two stories we have from his childhood and adolescence. One supposes it was pretty typical of his time and place. We are told that a Jewish man in First Century Palestine live a life of hard, physical labor either in the farm fields or in the workshop. His wife prepared meals, kept the house, made and washed clothing, and bore and cared for the children. Babies were breastfed, and weaned after 18 months to 3 years. At the age of 13, boys entered adulthood and were apprenticed to learn a craft. Although there is no evidence that boys at the time underwent a ritual bar mitzvah as current Jewish adolescents do, Shmuel ha-Katan a Talmudic scholar writing at the close of the First Century AD does indicate that the completion of the 13th year marked the age for responsibility to the Law. Girls assisted their mothers with domestic work and rearing the younger children; at the age of 12 they were eligible to marry.

If we assume Mary’s and Joseph’s family followed this pattern Jesus and his siblings lived together for at least their formative years. Furthermore, it appears from this story (and others in the Gospels) that as adults the children lived nearby. This seems to have been a tightknit family, although maybe one with some issues. Modern psychology has shown that first born children hold the exclusive attention of the parents and grandparents until the birth of the next child. This is believed to allow for the development of a confident individual who is certain of his place and does fear competition. Jesus would certainly seem to live up to this expectation.

Eventually, the first born does have to deal with the challenge of newcomers. The second born usually ends up in a fight for attention that starts even before he or she is weaned. The expectation that the second will achieve the same standards as the older sibling can result in self-undercutting behavior or in over-achieving behavior in competition with the elder sibling. We don’t know who was the second child in this family; if the listing of Jesus’ brothers’ names in Matthew’s Gospel is in birth order, perhaps it was James. Given that James later became the first Bishop of Jerusalem, that is an interesting possibility.

The arrival of more brothers and sisters may lead second and later children to “middle child syndrome” where the child, being neither youngest nor oldest strives to find a rational role to fill within the family. The youngest children of a large family can face a variety of confusing relationships. Could this be the reason that “not even his brothers believed in him?”

Of course, all this is speculation. We don’t, as I said before, really know anything about Jesus’ early family life. Nor do we have any basis for supposing that the family of Joseph and Mary conformed to these modern psychological stereotypes. What we do know is that Jesus grew up in the bosom of a family, reared by a loving mother and foster father, surrounded by brothers and sisters. In doing so, he sanctified family life in whatever form it may come – large families like his own, childless couples, single-parent households, same-sex couples with or without children – in whatever configurations human beings may form themselves into household units, those families are holy families because each, in its own way, replicates the family in which the Son of God was reared.

The Book of Common Prayer (1979) of the Episcopal Church includes a traditional prayer for families. I’ve edited it to be more inclusive than the original:

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, you set the solitary in families: We commend to your continual care the homes in which your people dwell. Put far from them, we pray, every root of bitterness, the desire of vainglory, and the pride of life. Fill them with faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness. Knit partners together in constant affection. Turn the hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children to the parents; and so enkindle fervent charity among us all, that we may evermore be kindly affectioned one to another; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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

(Re)Learning Stewardship of Space – From the Daily Office – February 28, 2013

February 28, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Psalms:

Your adversaries roared in your holy place;
they set up their banners as tokens of victory.
They were like men coming up with axes to a grove of trees;
they broke down all your carved work with hatchets and hammers.
They set fire to your holy place;
they defiled the dwelling-place of your Name and razed it to the ground.
They said to themselves, “Let us destroy them altogether.”
They burned down all the meeting-places of God in the land.
There are no signs for us to see; there is no prophet left;
there is not one among us who knows how long.
How long, O God, will the adversary scoff?
will the enemy blaspheme your Name for ever?

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 74:4-9 (BCP version) – February 28, 2013.)

St Margaret’s Church, Leiston, UK Despite the tradition that the Psalms were written by King David, any good commentary will tell you that this Psalm was written probably in the first decades of the Sixth Century BC, at around the time of the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians circa 598 BC. Some scholars would even suggest that it was written as late as the Maccabean era (circa 165 BC). Personally, I tend to go with the earlier date; the Psalm’s description of wide spread destruction of religious meeting places seems more in line with the pre-Exilic invasion.

The first deportation of the Jewish leadership followed almost immediately; two more deportations would occur. Those who were taken away were separated from their land and from the temple, central elements in their identity as the People of God. Loss of their homeland and, more importantly, the loss of their exclusive worship space, the temple made a critical impact on their experience and understanding of God. Could they worship God in a foreign land? Where was God in this alien land? For that matter, who was God? Their confusion is expressed in Psalm 137:

By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,
when we remembered you, O Zion.
. . .
How shall we sing the Lord’s song
upon an alien soil? (vv. 1,4 BCP version)

Today’s evening Psalm expresses the dismay of those left behind, those who are still in the land but whose places of assembly and worship have been destroyed. Both groups face the same issue: how to worship God without the traditional, exclusive-use worship spaces? Could it even be done?

They learned the lesson that God is not tied to land or temple, that God’s rule extends everywhere. They learned that their appreciation of God’s presence was not dependent on there being the traditional, exclusive-use worship place, that they could worship God anywhere. This is, unfortunately, a lesson that God’s People have forgotten and need to learn again.

We in the Christian church are tied to our buildings, especially those of us who are part of highly liturgical traditions. Our custom (or perhaps we would be better to call it a habit or even an addiction) of structured, even majestic worship with processions, high altars, choirs, fancily vested clergy, and pipe organs seems to demand special spaces in which to indulge it. We forget that these spaces are simply tools for ministry; instead, we treat them as holy themselves and we use them exclusively for worship. We call them “houses of worship” or, even more telling, “houses of the Lord.”

In the spring of 2009 in Cleveland, Ohio, near where I live, the Roman Catholic bishop announced the closure of 52 parish church buildings because the parishes were deemed financially nonviable. The outcry was deafening; the members of many of these congregations could not imagine being the church without their historic building. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the pastor of one of the closed churches tried to teach his flock that the “building is a beautiful building. A magnificent building, but the bottom line is, it isn’t the church. We are.”

Buildings are simply tools and tools should be properly used. While they are useful tools, the loss of buildings and property could actually be a blessing in disguise to such congregations. In American church culture, many churches, like these Roman Catholic parishes, have developed an unwholesome attachment to their buildings and locations. Loss of their building and property could free a congregation to discover its identity as the Body of Christ. The threat of loss could also be salutary; it can encourage a rethinking of our stewardship and use of space.

Proper stewardship of space would encourage the use of our worship locations for other, additional purposes. Flexible space could allow the area used for worship a few hours each Sunday to be used, for example, as a soup kitchen on weekdays. This is exactly what an historic Episcopal church in New York has done. Church of the Holy Apostles‘ nave becomes a dining room where thousands of people are fed. The church which worships there has come to understand that space is not holy because “God lives there.” It is holy because they worship there, and it is no less holy when used for other purposes, such as feeding the poor. After all, “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40 NRSV) Thirteen of the closed Roman Catholic parishes successfully appealed the closure order to the Vatican and the bishop was ordered to reopen the buildings, which occurred late in 2012. Whether the parishes will make any changes in the way they do outreach ministries in their neighborhoods remains to be seen.

The Babylonians destroyed the holy places, but the People of God learned a lesson about their need of holy space . . . that they didn’t need an exclusive-use worship space . . . and they lived on. Today’s economy is, perhaps, making exclusive worship places nonviable, but the People of God can live on without them, or they can live on while making faithful multiple uses of them. The lesson learned by the Jews during the Exile must constantly be relearned.

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

“Be” not “Go” 24/7 – From the Daily Office – February 27, 2013

February 27, 2013 / eric / 2 Comments

From the Gospel of John:

The man [from the pool at Beth-zatha] went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 5:15-18 (NRSV) – February 27, 2013.)

I go to vs I am Graphic Recently, a graphic has been making the rounds on Facebook. I received it from another church and posted it on my parish’s Facebook page about 24 hours ago with the caption, “Something to think about.” As of the moment I am writing, this graphic has been “liked” 235 times. It has been shared 1,412 times. And according to Facebook’s calculations, it has been seen over 132,400 times. That’s only as originating our page. It is being posted and shared on other pages and, no doubt, has even larger numbers than these at some of those other pages.

The graphic in question is the illustration of this meditation. It suggests a distinction between what it calls “the consumer church” and “the missional church.” The first is characterized by an attitude in its members of “I go to church;” the second, by a realization that “I am the church.”

“My Father is still working, and I also am working.”

When I read these words, they spoke to me of the same thing, the difference in paradigm between “going to church” and “being church.” For Jesus, his ministry on this earth among the People of God was not simply something he was doing; it’s who he was. It wasn’t work he could walk away from, go home from at night, take a day off, or go away on a long weekend. His Father was working “24/7” and, so, so was he. This is the difference between “going to” and “being.”

Theologically, this difference is most often discussed in connection with ordained ministry, in distinguishing between a “functional” view of ordination and an “ontological” theology of Holy Orders.

Ontology deals with the nature or substance of thing. It answers the question, “What is it?” The ontological view holds that ordination works a permanent and indelible change in the character of the deacon, priest, or bishop ordained. It is a sacrament which, like baptism, cannot be repeated, nor can Holy Orders be conferred temporarily. The ontological view is that ordination places one in an exclusive position in the community of the church, not a better or privileged place, but one from which the clergy person is to live exclusively in service of the people of God. This view is summarized in the aphorism “Once a priest always a priest.”

Orthodox theology holds that this is also the nature of baptism, the sacrament of membership in the church. According to St. Gregory of Nyssa, a real metaphysical, ontological change takes place in the baptized person, if the baptized person lives a virtuous life and makes his or her baptism effective in faith. Again, the church’s understanding is that once one is baptized, one remains forever baptized.

At the other end of the spectrum of understandings of these sacraments is the “functional” or “relational” view. As to ordination, it is a view that the sacrament is nothing more than a license to perform the functions of ordained ministry within the context of the local church community; apart from his or her relation to that community, the ordained minister is nothing and possesses nothing. According to the functional view, any of the tasks normally performed by the ordained could be performed by others within the church if properly authorized by the local community. When the ordained minister ceases to function in that role, he or she ceases to be ordained.

However, there is no “functional” theology of baptism. To the best of my knowledge, all Christian traditions hold that once a person has been baptized with water “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19 NRSV), they are then and forever baptized. They may quibble about whether immersion is needed; they may describe the effect of baptism differently, as the “washing away of sin” or as conferring an indelible “mark” or “seal.” But once baptized, always baptized: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6 NRSV)

At least that’s the theology . . . the lived reality is often something different. For many church members, baptism is something that “was done” to them; they do not view it as defining who they are. For these Christians, church is a place they “go” not a Body to which they belong, not something they “are.” This morning, a member of my parish governing board brought this up in the context of contributions and offerings, budgets and bills. She made particularly note of the many church members who make an offering when they attend, but do not consider the church’s financial need when they are absent. “They are like people buying a service,” she said. Church is a place they “go;” church is not who they “are.”

I think this is why the graphic has proven so popular. There are many, many church members who “are the church,” who do not merely “go to church.” The graphic resonates with them. They realize that their Father is always working and that they, like Jesus, are also always working. Their Christian identity is a 24/7 thing.

In baptism, says The Book of Common Prayer, by water and the Holy Spirit God bestows upon God’s servants the forgiveness of sin and raises them to the new life of grace. The newly baptized person is “sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” (BCP 1979, page 308)

During this season of Lent, as the baptized are invited to observe “a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word” (page 265), I hope that all baptized persons will come to believe that church is who they are, not simply someplace they go.

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

The Possibility Is Just Too Wonderful – From the Daily Office – February 23, 2013

February 23, 2013 / eric / 7 Comments

From the Psalms:

Lord, you have searched me out and known me;
you know my sitting down and my rising up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You trace my journeys and my resting-places
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Indeed, there is not a word on my lips,
but you, O Lord, know it altogether.
You press upon me behind and before
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain to it.
Where can I go then from your Spirit?
where can I flee from your presence?
If I climb up to heaven, you are there;
if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there your hand will lead me
and your right hand hold me fast.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 139:1-9 (BCP version) – February 23, 2013.)

Multiple Worlds Illustration A few days ago I wrote about my interest in superstring theory, m-theory, and the multiverse concept which springs from my life-long love of science fiction and the especially the “alternate reality” sorts of tales. I suggested that Jesus’ miracles might have been accomplished by his somehow accessing an alternate reality to affect this world; that would imply some sort of access to knowledge of those other universes.

I’ve never believed that the human Jesus had access to the divine mind in that way, so I’m not sure how I feel about that implication. Or maybe a spiritual connection to another reality doesn’t require that; perhaps that sense of and access to a healthier reality is what the Celts are onto with their idea of a “thin place”. Perhaps there are places where the divisions between the universes are permeable, and perhaps there are people who, like Jesus can sense that, and draw the realities together. Perhaps the ability to do this is what Jesus promised his disciples when he said, “If you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:23-24) I know that’s a lot of “perhapses” . . . . but that’s part of what meditation is all about, imagining the possibilities.

And it is possibilities and alternate realities, and the question of God’s knowledge of them, that grab my attention today as I consider the evening psalm. The psalmist sings of God’s knowledge, which is all encompassing; God’s understanding of the psalmist’s existence is inescapable. In theology this is call “omniscience”; God is described as “all knowing.”

If there is only a universe, a single reality, this would mean that God knows the past, the present, and the future of the one-and-only timeline, and this gives rise to the doctrine of predestination, a sort of determinism: if God knows ahead of time what will happen, then events in the universe are effectively predetermined from God’s point of view. I have a lot of difficulty with predestination because, if it is true, then Jesus promise that “the truth will make you free” (John 8:32) is hollow. There is no freedom in a single universe whose future is determined.

But what if m-theory is right and there are alternative realities, an infinity of them? What if what God “knows” is not the future of a single reality, but all the multiplicity of possible outcomes? What God “knows” in that case is not what must be, but what might be. God knows, for example, what will become of Schrödinger’s cat . . . in every possible outcome there may be.

The multiverse theory is much too complicated to lay out in a brief theological reflection (and I’m certainly not the theoretical mathematician who could do so, in any case), but at its highest level it simply postulates that any universe that is mathematically possible has equal possibility of actually existing: if the physicists and mathematicians can get it to work out on paper, even if it can’t exist in this universe, it would exist “somewhere”. And, I would suggest, the God of possibilities would know about that universe.

God’s omniscience over a multiverse reality truly is “too wonderful for me.” It is also, from my point of view, much more exciting than any deterministic, single-universe idea that God simply knows the future of a solitary timeline. It means that God is the God of possibility. “For God all things are possible,” said Jesus (Matt. 19:26) And again, “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.” (Luke 18:27) And again, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible.” (Mark 14:36)

Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “Inasmuch as for God all things are possible, it may be said that this is what God is: one for whom all things are possible . . . God is that all things are possible, and that all things are possible is the existence of God.” (The Sickness Unto Death) For Kierkegaard, human existence is not confined to the known, to one concrete, “factual” reality; a multitude of possibilities is fundamental to human life. The human soul is released by possibility; it is possibility that makes us free.

Superstring theory, m-theory, the multiverse hypothesis . . . these are the new science of possibility. Our omniscient God is the God of possibility. And possibility is the truth that sets us free! That is just too wonderful!

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

Far More Than We Can Ask Or Imagine – From the Daily Office – January 19, 2013

January 19, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Ephesians:

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Ephesians 3:20-21 (NRSV) – January 19, 2013.)

Episcopalians who say the Daily Office are familiar with this text; a variation of it is one of the options for the Grace at the end of both Morning and Evening Prayer. Each time I recite those words at the end of the office, I am reminded how limited our imaginations are!

Yesterday, I wrote here about seeking ways to incorporate the cutting-edge practices of the “emerging church” into the life and ministry of the “inherited church”. I received one response which asked, “so there is no place for people who have grown up in the Church, then?” Of course there is, I replied. Something new is not a threat to that which is old, it is simply new. Are our imaginations are so limited that we cannot envision there being something new in the church without also thinking that means the loss of something old and valued? Are our churches and church structures so limited that they cannot encompass both old and new together?

We are bounded by our questions; our imaginations are limited by what we ask. It is not without good reason that St. Paul phrased this doxology to say that God can accomplish “more than we can ask or imagine.” What we ask limits what we can imagine. How we ask frames our expectations. The sorts of questions we pose determine the limits of our thinking. When we ask the right questions, we get the right answers; with the right questions, we expand our thinking and with expanded thinking, we broader horizons.

There are many trite and hackneyed sayings about imagination: “All things are possible to those who believe.” — “What the mind can conceive, it can achieve.” The thing about the trite and the hackneyed, however, is that it’s true; we say these things again and again because we recognize their validity. Just consider what human imagination has wrought: humankind has gone to the moon; heavier-than-air contraptions carry human beings through the sky at supersonic speeds; kidneys, lungs, hearts, hands, and faces have been transplanted from one body to another; we carry small light-weight devices with which we can access all the knowledge human beings have ever accumulated. These things were the stuff of science fiction not too long ago; they are now science fact.

So why is our imagination so limited when it comes to the future of the church? In our spiritual and religious life we should be even more imaginative. “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Matthew 7:7) Ask anything you like, said Jesus. Tell trees to be uprooted! Cause mountains to be thrown into the sea! For God’s sake, use your imagination! We are made, the Genesis story tells us, in the image of God. The novelist Henry Miller once wrote, “Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything godlike about God, it is that. He dared to imagine everything.” If there is anything godlike about us, it is that we have that same voice of daring. “Use it,” is the command of our Lord.

God is able to do far more than we can ask or imagine. The funny thing is, so are we.

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

The One Who IS – From the Daily Office – January 11, 2013

January 11, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of John:

When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, got into a boat, and started across the lake to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The lake became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the lake and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land towards which they were going.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 6:16-21 (NRSV) – January 11, 2013.)

Gustav Dore, Jesus Walking on the Water (1866) Jesus walking on the water has always struck me as a very funny story. “Funny” in the sense of “oddly out of place”, although it also has a certain Monty-Python-esque quality to it as well. The fact that it is reported in three of the Gospels – in the synoptic Gospels of Mark and Matthew and here in John – attests to its importance for the early church. John’s version of the story is the simplest, but it contains all the elements – a storm, rough seas, disciples’ fear. Like Mark, John leaves out Matthew’s addition of Peter trying to join Jesus on the surface of the lake.

I say the story seems out of place because it is (other than Jesus’ fit of pique at the poor fruitless fig tree, which has a parabolic quality to it, the fig being a rabbinic metaphor for the Torah; Mark 11:12-14, and Matthew 21:18-22) the single demonstration of divine power by Jesus which does not benefit another person or group of people. Other manifestations of power result in the provision of food (the wine at the wedding in Cana, the feeding of crowds of 5,000 and 4, 000) or in the healing of the supplicant or some other person. Jesus here seems to be simply about his own business. In fact, Mark makes it clear that “He intended to pass them by.” (Mark 6:48b) However, the disciples see him so he must respond.

It is Jesus’ response that underscores why this story is here, I think, and the NRSV translation does not do it justice. The Greek is “Ego eimi, me phobeithe.” The words “ego eimi” are the same words used in the Septuagint (the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) when God’s identity is revealed as “I AM” (for this is what the Greek emphatically states). In Exodus, God speaks to Moses out of the burning bush and, when Moses asks God’s name, he is told, “I AM who I AM;” the Greek is “ego eimi”. (Exodus 3:14) In a similar way, Isaiah the prophet reports God saying several times, “I, even I AM He;” the Greek is “ego eimi.” Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus will use this same construction in his famous “I am” statements. Here as there, Jesus’ identity with God is what is stressed.

And this is also the import of the story of Jesus’ walking on the water, this miracle with no other purpose, no parabolic meaning as in the blasting of the fig tree, no benefit to another as in the feeding or healing miracles. This miracle simply demonstrates the power of Jesus over nature, and simply over nature, but over the forces of death and chaos represented by water and the storm. It is, purely and simply, a manifestation of divine power.

I try always to keep before my mind’s eye the Jesus who is human, to remember that he was “one who in every respect has been tested as we are” (Heb. 4:15) But every so often it is important to remember that Jesus is also divine, fully divine, God incarnate. It is necessary every so often simply to stand in awe of the One who walked on the water, the One WHO IS, and yet who humbled himself to become as we are.

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

The Presence of the Lord – From the Daily Office – January 3, 2013

January 3, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Genesis:

Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it!”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Gen. 28:10-16 (NRSV) – January 2, 2013.)

Sunlight figure on wind-swept hilltop How many places do we go where the Lord is and we do not know it? This story of Jacob reminds me of a song we sang in the Cursillo community where I meant my wife. It’s very pretty, very contemplative, and usually sung as an accompaniment to Holy Communion:

Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.
I can feel His mighty power and His grace.
I can hear the brush of angels wings.
I see glory on each face.
Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.

I like the song; I have good memories associated with it. The thing about the song that bothers me, however, is its linking of the Lord’s presence to a time or place of emotional or spiritual glory. Christians believe that God is omnipresent; as St. Paul said, God “is above all and through all and in all.” (Eph. 4:6) And even if we don’t quite believe that, we believe that Jesus promised that “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Matt. 18:20) He didn’t promise to be there only when times were good or when people were on a spiritual high. Surely Christians gather in bad times and well as good, in times of sorrow as wall as of joy. We believe that God is present in those times, too.

It is often that we find ourselves unable to discern God’s presence, however. We find ourselves, like Jacob, not knowing that God is present. The question is how to train ourselves to be aware of the holy whenever and wherever we may be.

Here is a resolution for the New Year: to take the steps necessary to clear our consciences of those distractions that keep us from recognizing God’s presence with us. Let us resolve to turn off the cell phone, the television, the computer . . . to put down the newspaper, the book, the magazine . . . to listen carefully and prayerfully for the presence of God.

Perhaps if we do that we can live another lyric that this story brings to mind, the song Presence of the Lord by Blind Faith:

I have finally found a way to live
Just like I never could before
I know that I don’t have much to give
But I can open any door

Everybody knows the secret
Everybody knows the score
I have finally found a way to live
In the presence of the Lord

Because the truth is that surely the Lord is in all places – and often we do not know it! Let us resolve to finally find a way to live in the presence of the Lord.

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

Defining God, or Not . . . . – From the Daily Office – December 19, 2012

December 19, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
All are corrupt and commit abominable acts;
there is none who does any good.
God looks down from heaven upon us all,
to see if there is any who is wise,
if there is one who seeks after God.
Every one has proved faithless;
all alike have turned bad;
there is none who does good; no, not one.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 53:1-3 (BCP 1979 Version) – December 19, 2012.)

God as envisioned by Michelangelo Recently, following the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, a bunch of Christian “leaders” (Mike Huckabee, James Dobson, Bryan Fisher, to name a few) have basically said, “God has been taken out of the schools,” or “God has been taken out of our society,” or some variation on this theme. This, they say is, the reason the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School took place. Because of God’s supposed absence (voluntary on God’s part, it would seem) the horror took place. They seek to blame those who have “put God out,” but the way they make this argument really places the responsibility on God who apparently made the decision to stay away; either that or they are describing a God who is powerless in the face of some alleged official refusal to “allow God in” because our Constitution prohibits state-prescribed sectarian prayer in the schools.

Their alternative theory seems to be that because America now condones some sort of behavior to which these so-called “ministers” object (marriage equality, for example), or disallows some behavior they would champion (that state-sponsored school prayer, for example) God is punishing us. They seem to believe that God shares their judgement and is acting upon it . . . by killing children.

If any of this is true about God then I am in the class of fools who have said in their hearts, “There is no God” because I sure don’t believe in a God of the sort they seem to be describing.

But then, to be honest, I’m finding myself not believing in a lot of the Gods various people have described over the years. I read the atheist arguments of folks like scientist Richard Dawkins or the late journalist Christopher Hitchens; when I read their descriptions of God, I think “I don’t believe in that God, either.”

Recently, I’ve been thumbing through an old theology book, one that I think got me through my General Ordination Exam almost single-handedly (if that description can be applied to a book). It is Theological Outlines by Francis J. Hall (Morehouse-Barlow:1933). I found this description of God in the section on Divine Perfection:

By virtue of His infinite perfection, God is self-sufficient. Nothing is wanting to His essence which is needed for His blessedness. Neither His knowledge, nor His will, nor His love, depend upon the existence of the creature, but have sufficient scope for their activity in the eternal relations subsisting between the Persons of the Trinity. Creation is an act of the Divine will, not the result of necessity.

I read that and (guess what?) thought, “I don’t believe in that God!” I don’t believe in a God that has no need of God’s creation. I don’t believe in a God whose love has “sufficient scope for [its] activity” in God alone. The God I believe in wants to be in relationship with God’s creation! The God I believe in not only “looks down from heaven upon us all;” the God I believe in became one of us! The God I believe in was and is incarnate in Jesus Christ, lived in First Century Palestine, was crucified, died, was buried, and ascended to heaven, and yet is with us always, even to the end of the age. (Matt. 28:20) That is not a God in whom “nothing is wanting;” that is a God who wants to be with his creatures, with us!

That, I believe, is a God who wants to know, who lovingly hopes to know “if there is one who seeks after God.” That, I believe, is a God who, finding instead “ministers” like Huckabee who portray him as powerless or Dobson who make God into some kind of child-killing monster, finding atheists who make God into a caricature that no one actually accepts, finding theologians who describe God as some sort of theoretical philosophical construct with no needs, probably does conclude that “every one has proved faithless.”

Maybe as Christmas gets closer and Advent draws to an end, as we celebrate the birth of the God incarnate in Jesus, as we anticipate his return . . . maybe we could stop trying to define God and start trying to relate to God? Maybe we could turn our attention from describing God and instead simply try to do good? Let’s leave defining God up to God.

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

Say a Little Prayer . . . for Yourself – From the Daily Office – December 2, 2102

December 2, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From Matthew’s Gospel:

Jesus said, “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 25:1-13 (NRSV) – December 2, 2012. Please note, this is the Daily Office gospel for today, a Sunday, not the gospel from the Eucharistic lectionary.)

I have to admit that I’ve never liked this parable! I mean, isn’t the point of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we are “all in this together” and that we’re supposed to help one another, share what we have, take care of our brothers and sisters who have less than we do? But here “wisdom” of five bridesmaids is to be selfish and not share their oil! That just doesn’t sit well with me.

But, of course, that’s not the point of the parable, is it? The thing about parables is that they are are extremely limited in their application. Parables, especially Jesus’ parables, are usually intended to make a single important point, and living in community, sharing what we have, and helping one another is definitely not the point of this parable. This little story is about being ready, being prepared, getting one’s act together.

As a reminder for the first day of the new Christian year, the first Sunday of the season of Advent, this story is most apt. In the midst of all the running about that most of us are doing at this time of year, buying presents, decorating homes and businesses, planning liturgies (those of us in the church business), planning menus, baking fruit cakes, making candy, taking care of travel arrangements . . . the list of pre-Christmas activities goes on and on . . . it is good to take a moment to look beyond the big day. Are we ready for something else? Are we ready for what lies beyond Christmas? Beyond this life? Are we ready for the bridegroom’s return? Will the bridegroom know you when he comes back?

The way to be known to cultivate a relationship; the way we do that with Christ is through prayer. Forty-five years ago this month, Dionne Warwick made the charts with the Burt Bacharach tune I Say a Little Prayer. The song describes several times each day, during every day activities, when the singer said a short prayer for her beloved. That’s really all it takes, a short prayer in the midst everyday life.

Here’s a simple exercise in tending one’s lamp and making sure one’s stock of oil is filled: each time you get into or out of your car say this words – “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” Nine short words. Say them in connection with that one specific action. It won’t take long but it will cultivate the habit of prayer; it will add a little oil to your store; it will trim the wick of your lamp just a little.

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

Category: Matthew (Page 23 of 29)

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

The Holy Families – From the Daily Office – March 2, 2013

(Re)Learning Stewardship of Space – From the Daily Office – February 28, 2013

“Be” not “Go” 24/7 – From the Daily Office – February 27, 2013

The Possibility Is Just Too Wonderful – From the Daily Office – February 23, 2013

Far More Than We Can Ask Or Imagine – From the Daily Office – January 19, 2013

The One Who IS – From the Daily Office – January 11, 2013

The Presence of the Lord – From the Daily Office – January 3, 2013

Defining God, or Not . . . . – From the Daily Office – December 19, 2012

Say a Little Prayer . . . for Yourself – From the Daily Office – December 2, 2102

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