From the Book of Deuteronomy:
There you will serve other gods made by human hands, objects of wood and stone that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Deuteronomy 4:28 (NRSV) – May 29, 2013.)
Seems to me that “gods made by human hands” these days can do some of these things. I have a smartphone that wakes me up by speaking out the time, the weather (current and predicted for the day), and a news headline (I have no idea what the algorithm for choosing the news item is, nor what news feed the alarm application uses). I think I can (if I knew how and did the set up) talk to my smartphone and get it to do things. My phone is not an iPhone, so it doesn’t have a name, but it can do a lot of seeing and hearing and speaking. I don’t think it’s gotten to the eating and smelling part . . . yet. But there are restaurant and wine review applications and who knows what upgrades may be coming . . . .
It would be an overstatement, I think, to say I “serve” my smartphone – after all, it’s supposed to serve me! But it’s all too true that I seem to be at it’s beck and call every minute of every day, or at least I can fall into the trap of thinking that way. The darned thing has a variety of “tones” by which it alerts me to, among things other than telephone calls, text messages, emails, Facebook postings, up-dates available for various applications, Amber alerts, severe weather alerts, voicemail messages, Words with Friends plays, and slew of other inputs. Telephone calls are neatly sounded with individual ringtones; my wife, my daughter, my son, my office, the bishop, and a few other people all have personalized sounds.
A few of those alerts I’ve learned to ignore. I often don’t even recognize the faint “buzz” of a Facebook notification. On the other hand, the raucous SS-siren of an Amber alert will waken me from a sound sleep several rooms away. And when the ringtones for my wife (something called Illuminator) or the bishop (Fanfare for the Common Man) sound, I know I’d better answer.
So, yeah, I guess it does feel like I serve this little “god made by human hands.”
Therefore, for a few minutes each day, and for several hours one day each week . . . I turn this little god off. I can do that. I make it a point to do that. And in the times it is turned off, I turn my attention to God, the real one, the “maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” I need to do this because when the phone is on, when it sounds one of its insistent tones, I can forget to turn to God. When my “little god made by human hands” is in control, I can (and frequently do) find myself relying on my own strength, or on human institutions, or on human technology, all of which are prone to fail. I need those moments when it is turned off to be reminded, as Moses reminded the Hebrews and the end of today’s reading, “The Lord your God is a merciful God, he will neither abandon you nor destroy you; he will not forget the covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them.”
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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.
Three words come to mind as I read Paul’s question: indecision, duplicity, and dialectic. Each could be described as “saying ‘Yes, yes’ and ‘No, no’ at the same time.”
Wow! Jesus says some really tough stuff occasionally, and this one ranks really near the top. In my opinion, this is just slightly below the cut-off-your-hand and pluck-your-eye out stuff in terms of toughness.
I’d like you to take out a pen (there are some in the pew racks if you don’t have one of your own) and on a blank piece of paper, or an empty spot on your service bulletin, I’d like you write down these numbers:
A few days ago an ordained colleague posted this status to Facebook:
During the past decade the Episcopal Church has monkeyed about with its scheme for clergy discipline, the bunch of rules and canons and procedures that are lumped together in what we call “Title 4.” As a member of the Bar and a former diocesan chancellor who had had to assist a bishop in facing some clergy discipline situations, as well as from my standpoint as a priest, I didn’t think the extensive revisions (indeed, the word “overhaul” would apply) were necessary. But there they are. Whether they have done any good and whether they are actually working as the revisers apparently hoped is anybody’s guess.
There are some parts of the Bible that I am thankful I don’t generally have to read aloud in public. The story of Ruth seducing Boaz is one of them, especially this verse. I get to this verse and I’m “laughing out loud” – I mean, really, I’m like LOL! A guy falls asleep on his threshing floor and wakes up to find a woman “lying at his feet,” and not only that, he finds that she has undressed him!
And there you have it, ten years in the lives of six people, and the deaths of three of them, put to rest in five short Bible verses. As Antonio said to Sebastian, “What’s past is prologue” (The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 1) and for the author of Ruth apparently not very interesting prologue. The storyteller is (pardon the pun) ruthlessly efficient in his introduction (I assume the author was “he” – maybe not). He clears away the unnecessary detail of sixty “person-years” of life to set the stage for what is to follow. 
I was told once that there is a difference between Yankee fairy tales and Northern fairy tales, and the difference is found in the way they begin. Yankee fairy tales start off, “Once upon a time . . . . ” Southern fairy tales begin, “Y’all ain’t gonna believe this!”
Which brings us to the second story, the “y’all ain’t gonna believe this” story of the first Christian Pentecost. The twelve (with the addition of Matthias a few days before) who would become known as the Apostles were again together in the Upper Room, perhaps together with several other disciples including all those women, Joanna, Suzanna, Mary the mother of James, Mary Magdalen, and the other Mary, those women who “used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee.” (Mark 15:41) The first ECW! They were there in that room where they’d shared that last supper, that Passover meal with Jesus, that room where they had cowered in fear on the day of the crucifixion and the next day hiding from the Jewish authorities and the Roman police, that room where the risen Jesus had come to them not once but twice and had allowed Thomas to feel his wounds, that room where Jesus had told them to wait for “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14:26) There they were, in that room, probably as confused and bewildered as all those people on the plain at Shinar when the Lord scattered them with confused speech.
