That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Micah (Page 3 of 3)

Houses and Vineyards, Laws and Regulations – From the Daily Office – November 23, 2013

November 23, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Isaiah:

They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Isaiah 65:21-22 (NRSV) – November 23, 2013.)

House and VineyardThis part of Isaiah was written shortly after the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon, which Cyrus of Persia had allowed in the middle of the 6th Century BCE. Isaiah (on God’s behalf) was promising two things with these images of laborers enjoying the fruits of their own efforts: first, that the people would no longer be (if not slaves) subjugated workers of foreign (or domestic) overlords and, second, that there would be peace. Israel’s and Judah’s history had been one of regular (if not constant) upheaval with invaders coming in and taking control of the vineyards and seizing the people’s lands and homes: the simple planting of vineyards with an expectation of enjoying the crop was a metaphor of peace and security.

As I read the words this morning in our modern context, I thought how inappropriate a metaphor this is for us. We no longer live in a world where enjoying the fruits of one’s own labor is the norm. We live in a world dominated by an economic system in which those who tend the vines and harvest the grapes are not those who enjoy the crop, those who build the houses are not those who will ultimately live in them; indeed, they are several levels of “production” and “marketing” away from those who do. The metaphorical vineyard workers and home builders of our society have no personal or emotional connection to the crops and the buildings; they work for a paycheck which, one hopes, will enable them to purchase other crops harvested by other workers and to live in other homes built by other builders.

Not that there is anything wrong with that system, so long as it is fairly administered. Fairness, justice, and peace are, after all, what this prophecy is really addressing. Any economic system that produces those fruits lives up to the biblical standard. But it takes laws and regulations (and law enforcement systems and regulatory agencies) to assure that human beings and their economies behave in such ways. Left to our own devices, we humans seldom do so, as the historical record makes painfully clear.

As so often happens, I could not help but think of two recent news reports when confronted with this witness of scripture, reports that clearly demonstrate the need for such laws and the need for vigilance by those (like me) who would insist that they are needed. The first was the news that a congress woman from another state has introduced a bill to abolish, as a matter of federal law, the requirement of overtime pay for those whose employers demand they work in excess of 40 hours per week. The second was a report yesterday that British authorities had found and freed three women who had been kept as domestic slaves (in London, for heaven’s sake!) for thirty years!

We are so far from the biblical standard of fairness and justice for laborers! So far! And at times we seem to be slipping further way. The prophecy promises that the time will come when workers will know justice and peace; present-day news reports show that that time hasn’t come yet.

Another prophet once asked “What does the Lord require of you?” and then answered his own question: “To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) Only when each person and the whole of society (through its laws, regulations, and law enforcement) does so can we be assured that workers will build houses and inhabit them, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

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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.

Purify Our Conscience – Sermon for Advent 4, Year C – December 23, 2012

December 23, 2012 / / 0 Comments

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This sermon was preached on Sunday, December 23, 2012, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(Revised Common Lectionary, Advent 4, Year C: Micah 5:2-5a; Psalm 80:1-7; Hebrews 10:5-10; and Luke 1:39-55. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Orthodox Icon of the MadonnaI want to ask you to read along as I re-read the collect for the day, the particular prayer of the Fourth Sunday in Advent: “Purify our conscience . . . . ” That’s enough, just those three words: “Purify our conscience . . . . ” Don’t you think that’s asking a lot of God? I mean really . . . purify the human conscience, that place in ourselves where we know all the wrongs we have done. Tall order, purifying that! But that’s what the prayer asks and in doing so it draws on the language of the Letter to Hebrews from which our second lesson today is taken.

Our reading came from Chapter 10 of the letter, but what we heard is only small part of a longer section dealing with the efficacy of sacrifice, a section that begins in Chapter 9. There we read these words:

For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God! For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant . . . . (Heb. 9:13-15a)

But what is the conscience?

The dictionary tells us that the conscience is that “inner sense of what is right or wrong in one’s conduct or motives; the complex of ethical and moral principles that controls or inhibits the actions or thoughts of an individual.” (dictionary.com) Another definition comes from the devotional text My Utmost for His Highest compiled from the lectures of the British Baptist educator Oswald Chambers:

Conscience is that ability within me that attaches itself to the highest standard I know, and then continually reminds me of what that standard demands that I do. It is the eye of the soul which looks out either toward God or toward what we regard as the highest standard. This explains why conscience is different in different people. If I am in the habit of continually holding God’s standard in front of me, my conscience will always direct me to God’s perfect law and indicate what I should do. The question is, will I obey? I have to make an effort to keep my conscience so sensitive that I can live without any offense toward anyone. I should be living in such perfect harmony with God’s Son that the spirit of my mind is being renewed through every circumstance of life, and that I may be able to quickly “prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2 ; also see Ephesians 4:23).

So, then, our conscience is that sense within us which, if it is pure, directs us to do that which God asks of us. But note what our prayer asks of God . . . that the purification of our conscience has to happen everyday: “Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation . . . ” and then the prayer goes on to sound an Advent note ” . . . that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself.”

I was a great fan of Charles Schultz’s cartoon Peanuts. I recall a Sunday installment in Lucy and Charlie Brown were talking about cruise ships. Lucy was holding forth giving, as she was wont to do, her unflappable opinion: “You know,” she says to Charlie Brown, “there are two kinds of people who go on cruise ships. There are some people who face their deck chairs toward the stern so that they can see where they have been, and there are others who face their deck chairs toward the bow so that they can see where they are going. Now,” she asks Charlie Brown, “on the great cruise ship of your life, how do you face your deck chair?” Charlie Brown thinks for a moment, then says, “I can’t get mine unfolded!”

Focusing our conscience like “the eye of the soul,” as Chambers said, so that it looks outward toward God whom we beseech to purify it daily, is like getting our deck chair unfolded and faced toward the bow of the ship so we can see where we’re going, so that we are prepared for Jesus. I think that’s really what today’s Psalm is all about, too, especially the refrain that is repeated twice in the portion we read and is repeated again in the whole Psalm: “Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.” Purify our conscience so that we are prepared for our savior, for Jesus.

The great example of that preparation is the virgin Mary. Her trip to the hill country of Judea about which we heard in today’s Gospel lesson took place almost immediately after the angel Gabriel had visited her to inform her that she would be the mother of the savior. Her willing response to that news, of course, was, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) If we are honest in our prayer that God purify our consciences each day, then we must be willing to follow Mary’s example and accept whatever God wills for us; when God makes God’s daily visitation to us, our response must echo hers, “Let it be with me according to your word.”

The German medieval mystical theologian put it this way: “We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place increasingly, but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? This, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of Man is begotten in us.”

So it is that we pray today, “Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation,” that we like Mary may be bearers of the Eternal Word. Amen.

In God We Trust – From the Daily Office – October 15, 2012

October 15, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Micah:

Put no trust in a friend,
have no confidence in a loved one;
guard the doors of your mouth
from her who lies in your embrace;
for the son treats the father with contempt,
the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
your enemies are members of your own household.
But as for me, I will look to the Lord,
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Micah 7:5-7 – October 15, 2012)

In God We Trust on Dollar BillSound familiar? Jesus sounded a lot like Micah at times:

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. (Matt. 10:34-36; cf. Luke 12:51-53)

Micah is the same prophet who authored what may be my favorite verse in all of the Old Testament: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:8) And Jesus is the same preacher who said “Love your neighbor as yourself” was one of the greatest commandments. (Mark 12:31) How does one reconcile these admonitions with advice to put no trust in friend or loved one and promises to bring enmity between family members?

The answer lies in the last part of the above quotation from Micah: Trust in God. In the 1950s the U.S. Congress decided to emblazon “In God We Trust” across American currency as a response to the rise of “Godless communism” in the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence. One may debate whether it was appropriate under the U.S. Constitution, or whether it has since had any salutary effect, but it is what Micah models here, and it is the message of Scripture and of Jesus. “Don’t trust human beings! Trust God!”

In the last weeks of the U.S. presidential campaign, as political debates lead to family arguments and people begin to see the members of their own households as political enemies, it is well to remember this. Human beings, even the best of us, are fallible and untrustworthy, especially the ones we put on pedestals and look to to solve the problems of our nation or our world. As the Psalmist (echoing Micah’s sentiment) reminded us, “Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them.” (Ps. 146:2, BCP version)

It may sound trite. It may be misplaced on our currency. But it is the only solution: “In God We Trust.” If we remember that, maybe we can all just get along . . . .

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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.

Fruitful House of Bread – From the Daily Office – October 13, 2012

October 13, 2012 / / 1 Comment

From the Prophet Micah:

But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to rule in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Micah 5:1 – October 13, 2012)

House of BreadThis obscure little verse in the book of the Prophet Micah is best known to Christians from the story of the visitation of the wisemen in Matthew’s Gospel:

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’ “

I’ve always been intrigued by the word Ephrathah (which Mattew does not quote). Apparently it is a place name; one source indicates that Ephrathah, or Ephrath, is the ancient name for the town of Bethlehem in Judah, in the southern part of the land of Israel. Micah uses both names in order to distinguish the town from another Bethlehem in the north. Another source tells me the name means “fruitful”.

The name Bethlehem means “house of bread” which always intrigues Christians who see it as somewhat prophetic of Jesus words at the Last Supper identifying the bread as his own body.

When I hear that Ephrathah means “fruitful” I am immediately put in mind of two other verses of Scripture. First, God’s admonition to Adam and Eve in Genesis: “Be fruitful and muliply.” (1:28) The second is Christ’s admonition to his disciples: “I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.” (John 15:16)

In the name of Jesus’ place of birth as set forth in Micah, I hear a call to evangelism. Nurture and sustained by what comes from the “house of bread,” we are “to go and bear fruit;” we are sent out to “be fruitful and multiply,” The fruit which we are to bear is an increase in followers of the Way, an increase in the number of disciples (not simply the fruit of individual good works, nor only the “fruits of the spirit” in our own lives). Our efforts, our ministries, our prayers, our daily lives are to be the means by which the “house of bread” will truly be “fruitful.”

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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.

Political Speech: Prophetic or Nasty? – From the Daily Office – October 11, 2012

October 11, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Micah:

And I said:
Listen, you heads of Jacob
and rulers of the house of Israel!
Should you not know justice?—
you who hate the good and love the evil,
who tear the skin off my people,
and the flesh off their bones;
who eat the flesh of my people,
flay their skin off them,
break their bones in pieces,
and chop them up like meat in a kettle,
like flesh in a cauldron.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Micah 3:1-3 – October 11, 2012)

Cannibalism, Copper Engraving by Theodore de BryMicah gets just a wee bit graphic here with his metaphors, with his condemnation of political leaders, don’t you think? He has accused them of being cannibals! He describes them as treating the people like meat for a meal; they have butchered them, flayed them, broken their bones, and chopped them up for stew meat! It’s awful!

In the midst of our political campaign, I am intrigued by the awfulness of Micah’s prose as it compares to the things we are seeing about the candidates, about President Obama, about Governor Romney, and on the local level about those running for the Senate, for the House, and for state and local offices, though those are not quite as bad as the presidential advertisements, commercials, and so forth. Worse than the television advertisements and radio spots are the things that others (the superPACs and the partisan websites) are throwing up on the internet, on Facebook, on Twitter. Some of it truly awful. Like Micah’s prose.

Where does one draw the line? Each week in our Prayers of the People, my parish includes a petition that political discourse during the election campaign will be civil, courteous, and productive. So far, I’m sad to say, it seems to be none of those things. I think many people would agree that it is excessively negative, but has it crossed the line? I believe that it has; it always does – this election is no different from any other of my adult life, to be honest. Every election year seems to bring out the worst in people.

Why do we feel justified in uttering such terrible things about others, especially about those who are our leaders or those who would like to be our leaders? And is there any difference between our election year condemnations of incumbents and challengers, Micah’s prophetic condemnations of the leaders of Jacob, the rulers of Israel? Are we following in a prophetic tradition when we call them out in such “purple prose” for what we believe are their failings?

Are we being prophetic like Micah and his colleagues in Scripture? Or was Micah just being nasty like us and our neighbors? Is there a difference? I wish I knew.

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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.

Radical Preaching – From the Daily Office – October 10, 2012

October 10, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Micah:

Alas for those who devise wickedness
and evil deeds on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in their power.
They covet fields, and seize them;
houses, and take them away;
they oppress householder and house,
people and their inheritance.
* * *
“Do not preach” – thus they preach –
“one should not preach of such things;
disgrace will not overtake us.”
* * *
If someone were to go about uttering empty falsehoods,
saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink”,
such a one would be the preacher for this people!
* * *
The one who breaks out will go up before them;
they will break through and pass the gate, going out by it.
Their king will pass on before them,
the Lord at their head.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Micah 2:1-2,6,11,13 – October 10, 2012)

Bible Lighted by Votive CandleMicah condemns those who plot to do wrong “on their beds” and then carry out their plans when they rise; he prophesies God’s retribution against them. But then he is told not to do so; those to whom he preaches not only reject his prophecy, they tell him not to preach such things at all. He concludes that they only want to hear their preachers tell them of pleasant things, the things they enjoy; they want preachers who will utter “empty falsehoods” and preach of “wine and strong drink.”

I’m sure that every preacher has at one time or another felt like Micah. I remember early in my ordained career being told by a congregant that all she wanted from church was to spend Sunday morning with her friends singing songs she knew and hearing “an uplifting message.” But not every bible text lends itself to an “uplifting message” and from time to time there are social ills that need to be addressed! The early 20th Century Swiss theologian Karl Barth insisted that theology and preaching had to be done with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. Another theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr is often credited with saying that the role of the preacher is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” (Interestingly enough, the originator of that idea was newspaper humorist Finley Peter Dunne who said it was the role of newspapers to do so.)

Micah, Barth, and Niebuhr thus call the preacher to view contemporary culture, especially the news of the day, though scriptural lenses and view the Word of God through cultural lenses, to call out and condemn that in the culture which does not accord with the word of God, even if the preacher is, in turn, condemned for doing so. The witness of Micah reminds us that doing so will result in criticism from at least some of those to whom one preaches. The thin-skinned preacher would do well to be safe and conservative and always preach that pleasant, uplifting message. In my opinion, he or she would not be faithful, but he or she would be likely never hear “Do not preach of such things” from his or her congregation.

Preachers, as Micah makes clear, and as Barth and Niebuhr intimated, are not called to play it conservatively safe. Preachers are called to be (as Micah puts it) “the one who breaks out”, the one who leads his or her people out of their comfortable culturally-bound lives through the gate of Scripture so that they may follow “the Lord at their head.” It isn’t always, or even often, an easy-to-hear, uplifting message that breaks down those cultural walls. It is been said that the word of God is radical and so it is; Scripture gets to the root, the radix, of human existence and good preaching should do the same. Although Barth was speaking in a political context, something else he is reported to have said is also true of preaching: “The radical is probably wrong but has a chance of being right; the conservative is always wrong.”

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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.

Spare That Bull! – From the Daily Office – May 3, 2012

May 3, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From Psalm 50 (the Lord speaking):

12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the whole world is mine and all that is in it.
13 Do you think I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and make good your vows to the Most High.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 50 [from the Book of Common Prayer 1979] – May 2, 2012)

This psalm is not the only time Holy Scripture reports God’s displeasure with the sacrifice of animals. Consider these words from the first chapter of the Book of Isaiah, “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation – I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.” (Isa. 1:11-13) Despite all of the ritual directions found in the Law and in the Histories (see, e.g., Exodus 29, Leviticus 1, Numbers 7, and 1 Kings 18), the Psalmist, the first Isaiah, and especially the Prophet Micah make it very clear that sacrificing innocent animals is not what Judaism (or religion in general) is all about. Micah writes, “‘With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’ He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:6-8) It may be that doing justice, loving kindness, and walking with God may (and often does) require one to give up one’s possessions, one’s livelihood, even one’s life. But such “sacrifice” without the demanded ethical basis, sacrifice done only to curry favor with God, is not what God asks or wants. ~ It is from this ethical stream in ancient Judaism that Christianity flows. It is unfortunate that early Christian writers looked back to the sacrificial practices of the Temple to find an analog to crucifixion of Jesus; we might have seen the Christian religion develop differently if, like the writers of the Gospels, they had looked more to the prophets. Jesus certainly did: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40) ~ So spare that bull! Sacrifices of animals (or their modern analogs, whatever they may be) are not the sacrifices that demonstrate love of God and love of neighbor. Rather, the core of ethical religion is as the writer of the Letter to Hebrews said: “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” (Heb. 13:16)

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