Category: Friends (Page 4 of 7)

The Little God Made By Human Hands – From the Daily Office – May 29, 2013

May 29, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

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.)

My Samsung Galaxy S2 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.”

====================

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!

====================

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

Worthy of Double Honor? – From the Daily Office – May 24, 2013

May 24, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the First Letter to Timothy:

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching; for the scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves to be paid.” Never accept any accusation against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – 1 Tim. 5:17-19 (NRSV) – May 24, 2013.)

Dinner Table 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.

A few days ago, a friend (a retired lay church professional) called just to chat. My friend lives in another area of the country but the Episcopal Church is a small denomination, really, and we have a lot of mutual acquaintances, including some clergy who have been subjected to the new disciplinary plan and their current whereabouts and goings-on came up. In the course of our conversation, he told me that in the diocese where he now lives something like twenty congregations and their clergy are at some point along the spectrum of investigations and activities that compromise the discipline and dissolution processes of Title 4. Twenty congregations in one diocese!

In my current diocese, there have been a couple of disciplinary matters over the past few years. One resulted in a cleric being suspended; the other, in the priest renouncing holy orders and leaving the Episcopal Church’s ordained ministry. Across the church (and across denominational lines) I have been told by colleagues that they live in fear of being subjected to discipline, not because they think they’ve done anything wrong, but simply because their careers could be ruined by an accusation. A Lutheran spouse recently published an internet essay critical of the lack of support given pastors by their hierarchical superiors and detailing the devastating effect of an accusation on the clergy family. I have friends who have moved from one jurisdiction to another because they felt they couldn’t trust their bishop (or bishop-equivalent) to back them up if an accusation was made.

I could not help but think of that conversation and these other instances when I read St. Paul’s advice to the young bishop Timothy regarding the compensation and then, immediately, the discipline of the presbyters (elders) in his jurisdiction. These pastors, he says, especially the preachers and teachers, are to be honored and compensated and, if an accusation is made against them, it must be supported by the corroborating testimony of other witnesses. The linkage of honor, compensation, accusation, and discipline in this text is probably purely circumstantial; I’d bet that Paul was dictating this letter to a scribe and just thinking of things “off the top of his head,” and yet now inscribed in Holy Writ for all time, the linkage is there.

Last week, my wife and I were invited to a parishioner couple’s home for an informal dinner. Just the four of us, a bottle of wine and a couple pizzas. It was great! We all had a good time; we talked about our experiences raising kids and now being parents of adults in their late 20s and early 30s. We shared stories of vacations, of illnesses, of family crises, of joys, and of disappointments. And it later occurred to me how rarely my wife and I have enjoyed this sort of intimate dinner in a parishioner’s home. In fact, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of parishioner households who have hosted us for dinner in the last three years (not counting church group get-togethers, which I would suggest are a different category of event).

When I was a kid we didn’t go to church, so I have no nuclear family experience of dinners with clergy, but I do know that my Methodist grandparents (with whom I spent summer vacations) and my Disciples of Christ grandparents (who took care of me after school in the early elementary grades) both entertained their pastors and their wives on a regular basis. When I became an active Episcopalian adult, I was aware that our rector and his spouse regularly socialized with parishioners, and once I was ordained and began working as his assistant, my wife and I were often invited to join parishioners socially. Of course, those parishioners were also long-time friends as I had been a lay member of the congregation for about seventeen years before joining its clergy staff. So maybe that was an out-of-the-ordinary experience.

When we left that church and I took my first parish as rector, a very small parish in the rural exurbs of a midwestern city, we socialized often with parishioners. Then we came to Ohio. During our first couple of years, there were dinner invitations . . . but they tapered off and now they are, as I suggested above, rare.

Now I’ll admit that maybe I’m just not a likeable person and that it may just be that people don’t want to eat with me. That’s a distinct possibility. (It couldn’t possibly be my wife; she’s the sweetest person in the world.) But in my conversations with colleagues, I’ve been told that their experience is the same. Few of them, they tell me, are asked to socialize with their parishioners in the manner and to the extent that we might have been a few years ago, and certainly not to the extent that our predecessors seem to have been.

Back when I was practicing law, well actually before it – when I was a paralegal, I would socialize with the secretaries and other non-lawyer personnel of the law firm, but not so much with the attorneys, and then only with associates never with partners. Then I went to law school, passed the Bar exam, and became an associate. I still socialized with the secretaries and the paralegals, but more and more often with the other associates and occasionally with the partners. And then I became a partner. I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way in my early years of being a partner, it became clear (in fact, a senior partner made it explicit) that partners did not socialize with the secretaries. You didn’t invite “the help” to dinner; they didn’t invite you.

I wonder if that’s what’s happening in the church. For years we (the clergy, at least) have fought the idea that priests are “hired.” We are “called,” we insist. Our relationship with our congregations is not that of employer-employee. It’s more like a marriage or a partnership; we are colleagues in a ministry which is mutual and reciprocal. Of course, the one colleague (the parish) pays the other colleague (the priest) a salary, and we have letters of agreement and denominational policies requiring a pretty good array of benefits . . . but we are not, we insist, employees!

Are the discontinuance of social invitations, the increase of concern about disciplinary schemes, the upsurge in instances of clergy discipline cases, all symptomatic of a sea change in the church’s unspoken understanding of the priest-parish relationship? Is it all because clergy are no longer seen as respected elders “worthy of double honor?” Are we just “the help?”

Maybe so. There may be many reasons for such a paradigm shift. In a brief meditation on a short sentence of scripture one doesn’t have the time or the space to consider what all of them might be. All I can do here is suggest that these apparently disparate phenomena — changes in clergy disciplinary rules, a rise in the number of discipline cases, clergy moving out of fear, and a downturn in clergy-parishioner socializing — may be symptomatic of a change in the way the church community functions.

I admit that I don’t really know. But if my morning musing is even close to correct, I’m sorry to see the decline of the former model, the model of the pastor who could also be the social friend of those in his or her flock. I don’t believe an employment model is as conducive to mutual respect between priest and congregation, nor as supportive of relationships between bishops and clergy. I hope someday to see the church return to the earlier paradigm — or maybe find a new one; at any rate, we need to find a paradigm for this relationship with less of the fear that seems to pervade the one we have now.

====================

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

Life Is Like Time Magazine – From the Daily Office – May 20, 2013

May 20, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Ruth:

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there for about ten years, both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons or her husband.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Ruth 1:1-5 (NRSV) – May 20, 2013.)

Time Magazine cover, December 23, 1929 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.

When I realized that, it hit me pretty hard. I’m sixty years old! Could the sum-total of my life be as easily summarized and shuffled off simply as prologue for something else? I suppose it could, but I would hope not.

Recently I was at a gathering with a bunch of other clergy and at some point during our deliberations comments were made about the use and organization of time; someone else made a remark about how we compartmentalize the different areas of our lives; and then I heard someone say something about a magazine. I have to be honest and admit that (a) I wasn’t paying close attention and (b) I don’t know if these comments were all made in the context of the same conversation. In my head, though, they merged into a rumination about Time magazine as a metaphor for a human life.

I used to be a very faithful subscriber to and reader of Time magazine. I took out my first subscription when I was in high school (1967) and didn’t stop subscribing until I attended seminary in 1991. And before that, my parents and my brother had been subscribers, so I’d been reading that magazine for a long time. It didn’t change much in all those years and I suppose it still hasn’t, at least insofar as the magazine is organized.

The classic issue of Time magazine is a study in compartmentalization. There are “departments” for all the areas of news, or if you prefer the areas of life (although Life is a different, if related publication): U.S., World, Politics, Sports, Lifestyle, Religion, Fashion, Tech, Science, and so forth. Which departments appeared in a given weekly issue depended on what was making news that week. There were always overlaps between these departments, of course, and I suppose the editors would have to determine if a story about regulation of new oil technologies fit better under Politics or Tech or Science; one would guess that the decision would be based on which subject predominates.

Life (life, not Life magazine) is a lot like a Time magazine. We have “departments” – Family, Job, School, Church, Friends, Hobbies, Politics, and so forth – and somehow, like the editors of Time magazine, we decide how all the stories of our lives get organized. We decide what order they are put in and how, like the magazine, they are arranged; we put some things closer to the front cover of our lives, where the public is most apt to see them, and other things we bury in the back pages. Then stories are neatly bound for our presentation of self to the world.

Time magazines were held together with staples through the spines. Sometimes, the pages would come loose from the staples. First, the four center pages would come away. You’d put them back in and hope the magazine would hang together until you finished reading all the articles of interest, but it wouldn’t always work out that way. Sometimes someone would take the magazine apart because they needed a picture for a school report, or wanted to send an article to someone in a letter, or whatever . . . sometimes the staple would get pulled out or work its way out on its own, and then all the pages would be loose. If you weren’t careful, the pages would get mixed up in a mishmash. As you were sitting out by the pool, a breeze would come along and blow them away, and you’d chase them across the yard hoping to gather them all. Some would blow into the pool and get soaking wet; some would blow into the neighbor’s yard on the other side of the fence and you couldn’t get them because of the vicious dog; some would take flight and get caught in the branches of trees. The articles would be all jumbled and some pages would be missing and the stories would be incomplete and not make sense.

And sometimes life can be a lot like that unstapled, jumbled, blown apart, partly missing, chaotic Time magazine, too.

Suppose someone actually did report on everything you did everyday for a week, on every work related task, about every friend or co-worker or family member with whom you talked, on every school assignment, every leisure activity, every television program you watched, on everything. Suppose they wrote it all out, organized it into departments, bound it with a staple, and produced a magazine of your week. Suppose they did that every week. Suppose those magazines were stacked week after week, month after month, year after year. Can you visualize those stacks? Can you see the piles and piles of magazines with your face and your name on the cover like the Time magazine Person of the Year?

Now think about this . . . if Antonio was right that “what’s past is [simply] prologue” and some storyteller were going to summarize what’s in those stacks of magazines, those piles of stories as foreword to a new story, would five verses be enough? Do you think it could even be done in a way that would honor your existence? I don’t.

I think life is a lot more like Time magazine and a lot less like the introduction to the Book of Ruth! And I believe the Author of life is a lot more interested in the stories of our lives than the author of Ruth was in the stories of Elimelech, Mahlon, and Chilion. And for that, I’m grateful.

====================

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

When I Needed a Neighbor – From the Daily Office – March 21, 2013

March 21, 2013 / eric / 3 Comments

From the Gospel according to John:

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 10:22-30 (NRSV) – March 21, 2013.)

“I have told you, and you do not believe.”

Jesus Walks in the Portico of Solomon by James J Tissot What does it mean to believe? That is really the crux of the matter and the stumbling block for 21st Century folks. In modern American English, the dictionary tells us, the the verb to believe means, “to accept a statement, supposition, or opinion as true.” Is this what Jesus is saying to the Jewish authorities in the Jerusalem Temple? “I have told you and you do not accept my statements, suppositions, and opinions as true.” Somehow, I don’t think so.

The Greek-English lexicon, in quite a contrast to the modern English dictionary, tells us that the Greek verb pisteuo, used in the original Greek of the New Testament and translated here and elsewhere into English as to believe, is “used in the [New Testament] of the conviction and trust to which a [person] is impelled by a certain inner and higher prerogative and law of soul to trust in Jesus or God as able to aid either in obtaining or in doing something: saving faith.” This is what Jesus is saying to the Temple authorities: “I have told you and you do not have that inner certainty which impels you to trust, with your soul, in God.”

In the same way, I was once told that the Latin verb credere, which is also translated to believe and from which we get our words credo, creed, and credibility, is related to the Latin word for “heart” (cardia) and can be understood as meaning “to put one’s heart upon.”

So religious belief, Christian belief is more than simply intellectual assent to a statement, supposition, or opinion. Religious belief is a matter of heart and soul, a matter of trust and conviction, not simply a matter of the head but of the whole person. This is what the Temple authorities lacked, this whole-person trust in and commitment to God. Jesus had told them, and they did not believe.

In recent days, I have had to put that kind of trust into people I have never before met. I have had to hand over to them and entrust them with one of the most precious things in my life. Not only have I had to accept their statements that they know what to do and have the skills and wherewithal to do it, I have had to steel my soul and my heart with the conviction, the inner certainty that they do. I have never doubted in God; in these days, I have had to not doubt these neighbors who, like the Samaritan, are ministering to my and my family’s needs. When they have told me what they know and understand, what they believe (in the modern English sense) needs to be done, I have had to believe it, too (in every sense of the word).

The experience of these days has reminded me of a lovely English hymn entitled When I needed a neighbour:

When I needed a neighbour were you there, were you there?
When I needed a neighbour were you there?
[Refrain:]
And the creed and the colour and the name won’t matter,
were you there?

I was hungry and thirsty, were you there, were you there?
I was hungry and thirsty, were you there? [Refrain]

I was cold, I was naked, were you there, were you there?
I was cold, I was naked, were you there? [Refrain]

When I needed a shelter were you there, were you there?
When I needed a shelter were you there? [Refrain]

When I needed a healer were you there, were you there?
When I needed a healer were you there? [Refrain]

Wherever you travel I’ll be there, I’ll be there,
Wherever you travel I’ll be there.
And the creed and the colour and the name won’t matter,
I’ll be there.

I do believe that what Jesus was really saying to the Temple authorities was, “I have told you to be neighbors to those around you, to those in need, and you have not done that; you have not committed yourself heart and soul to the love and care of others.” When I needed a neighbor, many were there. When I needed an answer to prayer, it came through these neighbors. Thanks be to God.

====================

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

Nothing! – From the Daily Office – March 15, 2013

March 15, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From Paul’s Letter to the Church in Rome:

In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Romans 8:37-39 (NRSV) – March 15, 2013.)

Dissociative Disorder Illustration These may be my favorite words from the pen of the Apostle Paul. My mentor during my education for ordained ministry, who also became my first boss after ordination, often referred to these verses and would add, “Not even ourselves.”

But there are times when I wonder about things Paul seemed not to know about. Sure, he puts in that great, inclusive catch-all phrase “nor anything else in all of creation,” but what about drugs, addiction, mental illness, brain dysfunction . . . . What about the things that make us no longer us, the things that separate us from ourselves?

We human beings can suffer all sorts of trauma, large or small, that can lead to separation from ourselves, from others, and from the meaning of life. Even simple depression, anxiety, or just getting “off-track,” can create a sense of separation or alienation. We may feel like we are living in a sort of fog; our thinking may become clouded. We may find ourselves unable to access our feelings, and simply not be aware of or engaged in the world around us. We seem to be functional, but we are living a life separated from ourselves and from those who love us. Dissociation becomes a way of life. People in such a state are vulnerable to quick fixes and bad habits, behaviors and addictions that promise quick relief.

My father was an alcoholic who drove off in the middle of the night, angrily separating himself from his family, and a few hours later dying in a single-vehicle automobile accident. He was “not himself;” he was, in a real sense, separated from himself. My mother-in-law took years to slip away deep into the darkness of Alzheimer’s disease; for the last few years of her life, she wasn’t there. In a very real sense, she was separated from herself.

Last Sunday’s gospel lesson was the parable of the prodigal son, a story of separation and estrangement. The story is that the younger of two sons demands his inheritance from his father, takes the money and squanders it, and ends up living as a starving swineherd in a foreign land. There is this wonderful line in which Jesus says of him, “When he came to himself he said, . . . ‘I will get up and go to my father . . . .'” (Luke 15:17-18) “When he came to himself…;” he was separated not only from his father, but from himself. Nonetheless, that separation was overcome and there was reunion first with himself and then with his father.

I do believe in divine grace that precedes any human decision we may make. God’s grace operates in no way dependent on anything we may have done or failed to do. In the words of The Book of Common Prayer, God’s “grace . . . always precedes and follows us” (Collect for Proper 23, pg 234); it allows us to engage our free will to choose reunion, to choose to not be separated, to choose salvation. And I hope that God makes that choice for us when, because of mental illness, alcohol, drugs, brain dysfunction or injury, or whatever reason we are unable to make it for ourselves, when we cannot “come to ourselves.” Because nothing can “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” not even ourselves. Nothing!

====================

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

Jesus Is Crazy – From the Daily Office – January 22, 2013

January 22, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel according to Mark:

Then [Jesus] went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 3:19b-21 (NRSV) – January 22, 2013.)

Buddy Jesus from the movie Dogma Mark, Matthew, and John all report that on another occasion Jesus commented, “Prophets are not without honor except in their own country and in their own house.” One can’t get much more dishonored that being accused of being crazy!

I was at meeting today where the issue of evangelism was discussed – we were being honest, I think, in referring to it as “marketing” and using a marketing analysis of how we can go about putting the gospel before others.

At one point during the discussion, one of our number referred to a part of the market as “the crazies,” by which he meant those going through crises in their life: divorce, death of a loved one, loss of a job, alcoholism or other addiction (their own or someone else’s), etc. There are numerous disruptions, dysfunctions, crises, tragedies, and catastrophes that can lead to craziness in a family. What, he asked, can we offer to those facing “the crazies”?

We can offer Jesus whose family and friends thought he was “out of his mind”; we can offer the Jesus who is crazy! We have a crazy savior who is with us in the midst of the craziness. Of course, by calling Jesus “crazy,” I’m not saying Jesus was insane. C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, addressed that issue when he suggested that in thinking about who Jesus was and is, we only three choices — (1) Jesus was mad. Only a madman would make some the outlandish statements Jesus made; (2) He was lying. He might or might not have believed what he said about himself, but regardless they were not true; or (3) What he said was and is true and he is the Son of God, the Incarnate Lord who came from heaven to live among us, who died on the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven opening the way of salvation to us. This is how Lewis makes this profound logical argument.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg – or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.

You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

No, when I say that Jesus is “crazy,” I’m not thinking he was nuts. Rather, I’m remembering a character from a television show from my childhood – The Life and Loves of Dobie Gillis. Bob Denver played the beatnik character Maynard G. Krebs. When Maynard really liked something, he would say, “That’s like crazy, man!” That’s what I think about Jesus; he’s like crazy, man. And he’s with us when things go crazy!

====================

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

Talking Trees – From the Daily Office – January 4, 2013

January 4, 2013 / eric / 1 Comment

From the Book of Exodus:

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Exodus 3:1-6 (NRSV) – January 4, 2013.)

Decorated Christmas Tree As I read the lesson from Exodus today, there is a bush in my dining room. It’s a four-foot tall evergreen and it’s sort of burning. There are little electrical lights all ablaze all over it. It’s our Christmas tree. (We have a short Christmas tree set on a table because we have three cats. We tried for a couple of years to have a normal size seven-foot tree with these guys, but it was impossible. So, small tree on table.)

If my Christmas tree suddenly started talking, what would it say? (I know the burning bush didn’t talk! It was God speaking “out of the bush.” OK.) Would it call me to a great ministry of leadership? Would it give me an historic prophetic ministry to accomplish? Probably not, I’m not really qualified.

But then, neither was Moses. Consider who he was. He was the child of slaves who was not even supposed to live. Floated down the river in a basket by his slave mother, he’d been found and adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter and reared as a prince. But then he’d blown it by raising his arm in anger and killing a guard. Rather than stick around and defend his action, he’d hidden the dead man’s body and run away. He was a fugitive from the law. He wasn’t particularly well spoken; in a few verses, he will try to decline God’s commission saying, “I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” (4:10) He really didn’t want to do what God was telling him to do. “O my Lord, please send someone else,” he pleaded. (4:13) The God who spoke from out of the burning bush would not take “No” for an answer.

I think, perhaps, our Christmas trees do speak to us. Like God speaking to Moses from the burning bush, they call us to important ministries. They call us to ministries of life and love, of family and friends, of generosity and gratitude. They call us to spend time with those who are important to us and with those whom we do not yet know; they call us to give of ourselves and to accept from others the gifts of their being. And like God commissioning Moses, they won’t take “No” for an answer.

(Note to self: Consider writing a Christmas play in which the principal characters are two Christmas trees – Bruce the Spruce and Douglas the Fir . . . . )

====================

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

Remembering My Friend Deb – From the Daily Office – December 9, 2012

December 9, 2012 / eric / 5 Comments

From the Psalms:

Hallelujah! Praise God in his holy temple;
praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him for his mighty acts;
praise him for his excellent greatness.
Praise him with the blast of the ram’s-horn;
praise him with lyre and harp.
Praise him with timbrel and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe.
Praise him with resounding cymbals;
praise him with loud-clanging cymbals.
Let everything that has breath
praise the Lord. Hallelujah!

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 150 (BCP Version) – December 9, 2012.)

Deb's Facebook Profile Picture Day before yesterday, I had a pretty good day in my ministry as rector of my parish. An Episcopal Church Women event went very well; we all had fun in what we were doing. I got home in the late afternoon and took care of a couple of personal matters, called my wife about the possibility of a “date night,” and when she said “Yes” I made reservations for dinner. I took the dog for a walk and, after my wife got home from work, we went out to dinner at our favorite local restaurant. When we returned home, I turned on my computer, checked my email, took a look at Facebook . . . and learned that Deb, a long time friend, a singer of great skill, and an occasionally very funny woman had passed away. It more than ruined the day.

Here’s the thing about my friend . . . we had known one another for over 15 years, but we had never met. We first became acquainted on an email listserve called “Anglican”, an internet community of Anglicans and Episcopalians all around the world. That list migrated from server to server, grew, shrank, suffered from spats and “flame wars”, eventually a few of its participants left to form another community, a virtual pub called “Magdalen’s Rose and Compass”. Deb and I kept “running into each other” in these virtual venues.

Over the years I learned about Deb’s life, her love of her husband, her deep connection with her severely handicapped step-son, her own difficulties with emotional balance. She learned about my life. We corresponded privately by email and publicly we participated in the listserve discussions and shared each other’s posts on Facebook.

Deb’s voice is sounding in my ears as I write these words. A CD of her Advent and Christmas music, performed with her singing partner Ana, is playing. Her voice is silenced, but lives on in her recordings; I’m sure she is singing in the heavenly chorus now.

A lot of folks don’t understand virtual community. Especially people my age and older will (as my mother would have said) “pooh pooh” the idea that friendship, community, or real relationship can be fostered through what seems to be the impersonal medium of computer-connected-to-internet. I’m here to witness that it most definitely can; deep and lasting friendships, spiritual connections, real and permanent community.

All around the world this weekend, Deb’s good friends, people like me who knew her well and never met her, are praising God for the witness of her voice, singing along with her and Ana’s voices and their wonderful instrumentation of pipes, drums, cymbals, prayer bowls, strings, and you name it! “I’m gonna tell my Jesus ‘Howdy’ one of these days!” she and Ana are singing on the stereo right now. She’s gotten there before the rest of us – she’s told Jesus “Howdy!” and she’s praising God in his holy temple, in the firmament of his power. In our own poor and sad voices, the rest of us are joining along.

It is fitting that Deb passed on during Advent. It is the season when we all look forward to seeing that heavenly temple, to singing in that chorus of “angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.” The burial rite of our church reminds us in the preface to the Great Thanksgiving that to God’s People, “life is changed, not ended; and when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for us a dwelling place eternal in the heavens.” A prayer in the funeral service admonishes us to, in quiet confidence,”continue our course on earth, until, by [God’s] call, we are reunited with those who have gone before.” Deb’s friends won’t be all that quiet, however; we’ll sing along loudly with her music until we see her again . . . or for the first time.

Memory eternal, Deb! Rest in peace and rise in glory!

====================

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

Giving It All Up, Getting Back Very Much More – From the Daily Office Lectionary – November 26, 2012

November 26, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From Luke’s Gospel:

Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” He replied, “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.” Then Peter said, “Look, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Luke 18:25-30 (NRSV) – November 26, 2012)

Jesus Talking to the Disciples Do you ever wish someone whom you respect and admire hadn’t said what they said, because what they said is so hard to explain to someone who doesn’t respect and admire them, and what they said just sounds wrong, even to you? Then you know how I feel about the last response of Jesus in this conversation with Peter!

Jesus has just answered the question of someone Luke calls “a certain ruler” (in Mark’s Gospel he is described as a “rich young man”) about how to inherit eternal life with the famous reply, “Sell everything you own and give the money to the poor.” The disciples (more people than the Twelve, I think) are as unhappy with this hyperbolic response as the original questioner, and Peter seems downright outraged. “What are you saying?” I can almost hear him shouting at Jesus. “We have given up everything for you!” Is Jesus simply placating him with the promise of pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by? That’s what it sounds like. “Don’t worry! You’ll get it all back and get to live forever, too!”

Of course, I’m pretty certain that’s not what Jesus meant, but it’s so hard to explain that to someone who is skeptical of this whole God-Incarnate thing to begin with.

The reason I’m pretty certain that that’s not what Jesus meant is that here, unlike in the Markan version of this story, he doesn’t say, “You’ll get back a lot more of the things you gave up.” In Mark he does say pretty much that: “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age – houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:29-30) Gave something up? Get a hundred more back. That’s what Mark’s Jesus says. But in Luke’s version of the story all that Jesus promises is “very much more.” I think that here there is a qualitative rather than quantitative difference in the promised return. In Mark, Jesus promises his follower will get a lot of the same stuff but at a price, i.e., persecutions; here, something better is promised . . . maybe peace, contentment, love, blessing, the Presence of God, the gifts of Holy Spirit . . . one doesn’t know, but it will be “very much more” than what was sacrificed. Are Mark and Luke trying to say the same thing? Are the things they report Jesus promising as rewards to the faithful follower equivalent? I don’t know; I hope they are, but the texts don’t make it easy to tell. And neither text makes it easy to explain to the skeptical unbeliever.

And the icing on the cake in both versions is the promise of “eternal life” in “the age to come”! It looks like a promise of immortality in the future, but (again) I’m not so sure. Both of these are coded phrases. The second one is found in lots of rabbinic literature, some contemporary with Jesus, some from later periods. It doesn’t necessarily mean the future; it means the time when God’s rule directs human affairs. That can be at any time when a person or persons give up their falsely perceived autonomy and live in accordance with God’s will. “The age to come” can (and does) exist concurrently with “this age”. It’s like that both-and, here-and-not-here, within-you-but-also-only-nearby thing that Jesus announced, the Kingdom of God. “Eternal life” is also not a future thing. For Jesus “eternal life” doesn’t mean immortality; it means life in eternity, where eternity is God’s Presence. “Eternal life” means living in God’s Presence with full awareness.

So the promised reward (whether it includes a hundred houses or not) is a qualitatively different life. Whatever we are called to give up in order to live a faithful life, possibly the hyperbolic “everything” that Jesus and Peter mention in this text, the reward of such a life is “very much more.” Which brings me back to how to explain it to the unbeliever . . . and the truth is that I don’t think it can be explained. It can only be lived and when it is lived, it becomes very apparent to someone not living it. An old friend of mine used to say this was the very best form of evangelism, to live the Christian life so well that one fairly glows with peace, contentment, love, blessing, the Presence of God, and the gifts of Holy Spirit. Others will see that and think, “I want that.” Then we don’t have to explain it, just offer it. Give it all up; get back so very much more.

====================

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

Is go dtí tú mo mhuirnin slán

A Sober Thanksgiving Reminder – From the Daily Office – November 22, 2012

November 22, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter of James:

Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts on a day of slaughter.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – James 5:1-5 (NRSV) – November 22, 2012)

Thanksgiving Cornucopia It may be the United States’ holiday of Thanksgiving Day, but the Daily Office continues at this time of year delivering its message of repentance rather than encouraging thanksgiving. The Old Testament lesson is another from Malachi in which the Lord speaking to the priests says that he has spread dung on their faces and put them out of his presence! The gospel lesson from Luke has Jesus predicting the end of the world. And then there’s this epistle lesson which condemns the wealthy. Just not a lot of giving thanks!

On the other hand, Jame’s warning about the dangers of wealth is perhaps a fitting counterpoint to the day. During the past several days, the international news services to which I subscribe on the internet have shown pictures not seen on American television or in the US papers, pictures of dead Palestinian children stacked like so much cordwood in makeshift morgues, pictures of children in temporary hospitals missing legs and arms. My throat kept constricting and my tears kept flowing, and in the back of my mind I kept hearing a phrase my step-father often used – “And here we sit – fat, dumb, and happy.”

The President of Egypt and the American Secretary of State have, the news reports, brokered a ceasefire. It’s not peace, but at least the shelling and the missile launches have stopped. At least the 75,000 Israeli reservists activated by their government will not be leaving their families and marching into Gaza. For that we can and surely should be thankful.

I don’t mean to put a damper on the day, and the lectionary pointing us to James’s letter and the other lessons today is simply coincidence. But they are a reminder to pause in the midst of our family gatherings, to eschew being “fat, dumb, and happy,” and to think of things for which we should be truly thankful – love, peace, family, friends – not merely the stuff we possess – the riches, the clothes, the gold, the silver. A sober reminder to pause yet again and “pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” (Ps. 122:6)

====================

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

Category: Friends (Page 4 of 7)

The Little God Made By Human Hands – From the Daily Office – May 29, 2013

Worthy of Double Honor? – From the Daily Office – May 24, 2013

Life Is Like Time Magazine – From the Daily Office – May 20, 2013

When I Needed a Neighbor – From the Daily Office – March 21, 2013

Nothing! – From the Daily Office – March 15, 2013

Jesus Is Crazy – From the Daily Office – January 22, 2013

Talking Trees – From the Daily Office – January 4, 2013

Remembering My Friend Deb – From the Daily Office – December 9, 2012

Giving It All Up, Getting Back Very Much More – From the Daily Office Lectionary – November 26, 2012

A Sober Thanksgiving Reminder – From the Daily Office – November 22, 2012

Looking for Something …. ?

The Archive

Subscribe

Blogroll

News Sources

Administration

Copyright

Looking for Something …. ?

The Categories

The Archive

Subscribe

Blogroll

News Sources

Administration

Copyright