That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Lectionary (Page 31 of 99)

If You’re Serious About This: Sermon for Proper 11B (Pentecost 8, 19 July 2015)

July 18, 2015 / / 0 Comments

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A sermon offered on Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 11B, Track 1, RCL), July 19, 2015, to the people of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day are 2 Samuel 7:1-14a; Psalm 89:20-37; Ephesians 2:11-22; and Mark 6:30-34,53-56. These lessons may be found at The Lectionary Page. Note: The Revised Common Lectionary provides that the first lesson is 2 Samuel 6:1-5,12b-19.)

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I was ordained a deacon in May of 1990 and made a priest in June of 1991. For two years, I served as associate rector of a parish in Nevada and then accepted a call to be rector of a parish in the Kansas City metropolitan area in a small, exurban community called Stilwell. Sometime after we had moved to Stilwell, my family and I visited my parents in southern California.

Now I should tell you that my parents were not church-going people. After the death of my biological father in 1958, my mother pretty much stopped going to church. In 1962, she married by step-father, a non-practicing Roman Catholic, in a Methodist church ceremony, but that is the only time I remember my parents going to church on their own (that is to say, not dragged there for the holidays or some other special occasion by one of their children). My folks were not particularly happy campers the day I told them I would be leaving the practice of law and entering ordained ministry.

So we were visiting my parents about three years after my ordination as a priest and during the visit I happened to go into their bedroom and found, on my mother’s bedside table, a copy of The Book of Common Prayer and an Inquirer’s Class study folder from St. George’s Episcopal Church in Laguna Hills, California. I picked them up and went out to the living room where they were both watching television and said, “Hey, Mom? What’s this all about?”

“Well,” she said, “I guess you’re serious about this, so I thought I should check it out.”

“If you’re serious about this . . . .” Took her three years after my priesting, but she finally, reluctantly got there . . . . But that was my mom. Today would have been her 96th birthday, by the way.

Once she decided I was serious about this, she got serious about this. She and my step-dad completed their Inquirer’s Class, became members of St. George’s and then a few years later transferred their membership to St. Wilfrid of York in Huntington Beach, California. Both volunteered to work at the church in various ways; he did handiwork; she became the secretary of the ECW. Both are now buried in the memory garden at St. Wilfrid Parish. That was my mom: “If you’re serious about this, then be serious about this.”

In the Gospel lesson today, I can imagine Jesus saying something similar to the apostles.

Chapter 6 of Mark’s Gospel is a bit hard to read because it’s all choppy and excited, like someone telling a story but who can’t get his words out fast enough to satisfy himself. Mark jams this chapter full of detail, but breaks the details up. Jesus goes to his home town and is rejected, so he and the apostles leave. He then sends the apostles out two-by-two with no provisions or equipment. They spread through the countryside, proclaiming the gospel of repentance, casting out demos, and anointing the sick. Mark tells us that King Herod hears about all this activity and becomes convinced that John the Baptizer has returned from the dead, at which point Mark goes off on a tangent and tells the story of Herod and Herodias, Salome’s dance and demand for the Baptizer’s head, and John’s execution. Now, in today’s bit, we return to the apostles and their missionary journey.

They are back, all excited by what they’ve done; Mark tells us (in Mark’s usual breathless style) that they told Jesus “all that they had done and taught.” So Jesus tells them to slow down; he can tell that they are excited by what they’ve done, but they are also exhausted and, because of all the coming and going of people who have heard about them, they can’t even take a break to eat. So he tells them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” I can almost hear him, in my mother’s voice, prefacing that with, “If you’re serious about this . . . .”

“If you’re serious about this, come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”

What’s going to happen is that they are going to try to do as Jesus instructs, but people aren’t going to let that happen. They are going to get in their boat, head out to a deserted place a few miles away across the lake, the “Sea” of Galilee, a place now called “Tabgha,” but the people are going to follow; in fact, they are going to “hurry there on foot from all the towns and arrive ahead of them.” (v. 33) “If you’re serious about this, come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” But guess what, you’re not going to get the chance to do that today.

Do you notice the verse references on your insert? Once again, the Lectionary has us edit out some verses in our Sunday readings, nearly twenty of them from this gospel reading. Guess what happens in those twenty verses. Jesus feeds the 5,000 people who have “hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them,” and he sends the apostles back across the lake by themselves, and he walks on water, and he calms a strong adverse wind. All of that in this one short chapter . . . all of that, but no one actually gets away to deserted place by themselves. Instead, they are continually confronted by the demands of people who “rush about the whole region and bring the sick on mats to wherever they hear Jesus and the apostles may be.”

If you are serious about following Jesus, however, you have to find a way to get away to that deserted place by yourself. If you are serious about following Jesus, if you are going to love God, you have to find time for private time with God. If you are serious about following Jesus, if you are going to love your neighbor as yourself, you have to find time to take care of yourself.

We have another variation on this same theme in the story from the Second Book of Samuel. David has become king over Israel, supplanting Saul. He has taken over the city of the Jebusites, sometimes called Jebus, sometimes metsudat Zion, and made it his capital, renaming it “Jerusalem, the City of David.” He has built a fine house for himself (a “house of cedar,” as he calls it). He has reclaimed the Ark of the Covenant from the Philistines and moved it to Jerusalem, where it is now housed in a tent. Now he wants to build a house for the Ark, a temple for God.

At first, the prophet Nathan, who is David’s trusted adviser, says, “Fine. Go ahead and do this thing.” But then Nathan has a dream in which he is given a message to David from God. He is to say to David, “Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day; I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle.” In other words, God doesn’t want a temple; God is happy with a moveable tent. And Nathan is to remind David, “I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel….” In other words, God has given you a job to do and, if you’re serious about this, you need to do it. If you are serious about being king over Israel, make sure the people may live in their own place and be disturbed no more. If you are serious about being king over Israel, make sure that evildoers shall afflict the people no more. If you are serious about being king over Israel, do the jobs I have given you and don’t take on tasks that don’t need to be done now (building the temple will be someone else’s job).

And that’s really Paul’s point in writing to the Ephesians, as well. “You [Gentiles],” he writes to them, “are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.” He will, in a few pages, say to them, “I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Eph 4:1-3) He will remind them that every church member, baptized into the one faith, following the one Lord, is gifted, equipped for ministry, for the building up of the body. “If you’re serious about this,” he seems to be saying, “if you’re serious about being a Christian, then get serious. Do the job you have been given to do.”

And what is that job? The job given to each of us, though we may be given different gifts with which to accomplish it is, is the same. We who are “living stones … built into a spiritual house” (1 Pt 2:5) of which Christ is the cornerstone all have the same job: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” (Lk 10:27)

If you’re serious about being a Christian, get serious about this:

Don’t take on jobs that you don’t need to do; building the temple is someone else’s job. If you’re serious about serving God, do the tasks God gives you.

Go away to a deserted place from time to time; spend time in prayer. If you’re serious about loving God, spend time with God. If you’re serious about loving your neighbor as yourself, take care of yourself.

If you’re serious about following Jesus . . . Love God. Love your neighbor. Use the gifts you have been given. Change the world.

Amen!

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

R.I.P. Bishop David Bowman – From the Daily Office Lectionary

July 18, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the Daily Office Lectionary for Saturday in the week of Proper 10, Yr 1 (Pentecost 7, 2015)

Acts 13:36 ~ For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, died, was laid beside his ancestors, and experienced corruption; . . . .

Paul’s words in the synagogue at Pisidia hit me with particular force as I read them this morning.

In a couple of hours I will be leaving to attend the funeral of my colleague and friend, the Rt. Rev. David C. Bowman, former Bishop of Western New York, who entered larger life in God’s Presence last week. David presided at my installation as rector of St. Paul’s Parish, Medina, Ohio, and instantly became a trusted friend; I shall miss him very much. Here is his obituary as published on the website of his former diocese:

The Rt. Rev. David C. Bowman, Ninth Bishop of Western New York and Assisting Bishop of Ohio, died on July 10, 2015 in Cleveland, Ohio, at age 82, shortly following a stroke.

Born on November 15, 1932 in Oil City, PA, Bishop Bowman was raised in Canton, OH where he attended Canton Lincoln High school, and graduated from Ohio University in 1955. After serving three years in the U.S. Army, he attended the Virginia Theological Seminary, where he earned a Masters of Divinity in 1960. He was ordained to the diaconate in June and to the priesthood in December of that year.

From 1960 to 1963 he served as Assistant Rector at the Church of the Epiphany in Euclid, OH, where he met his wife, Nancy. He was then Vicar of St. Andrew’s in North Grafton, MA from 1963 to 1966; Rector of St. Andrew’s Church in Canfield, OH from 1967 to 1973; Rector of St. James’ Church, Painesville, OH from 1973 to 1980; and Rector of Trinity Church in Toledo, OH from 1980 to 1986, from where he was elected Bishop of Western New York.

Early in Bishop Bowman’s Episcopacy, the Diocese began a “Forward in Faith” capital campaign which raised more than four million dollars for the support of the Church at the local level, as well as providing resources to enable the mission of the Church at the diocesan and national levels.

While Bishop of Western New York, Bishop Bowman served on the Board of the Episcopal Church Home, a retirement community and Compass house, a home for Runaway youth. He was an active leader of the Buffalo Area Metropolitan Ministries and helped lead this agency to a merger with the Buffalo Area Council of Churches. Nationally, Bishop Bowman served on the Episcopal Churches Program Budget and Finance Committee for nine years. He represented that Committee on the Churches Audit Committee. He served as the Vice Chair of the House of Bishop’s Planning Committee and in this capacity assisted in the planning of an historic joint meeting with the Lutheran Conference of Bishops and the Episcopal House of Bishops. He served a term as a member of the General Board of Examining Chaplains.

Upon his retirement in 1999, the Bowmans moved to Shaker Heights, OH where he served for a year as Interim Dean of Trinity Cathedral, followed by a year as Interim Bishop of Central New York, while that diocese moved through the process to elect a new bishop. In 2003 he served a year as Assisting Bishop of Ohio, after which he was the interim Dean and President of Seabury Western Seminary in Evanston, IL. For the last ten years he has served actively as one of the Assisting Bishops of the Diocese of Ohio.

Bishop Bowman spent summers in Rangeley, ME, at the family’s lakeside camp, where he loved to sail, play tennis, and play the banjo and string bass.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy Lou Betts Bowman, whom he married in 1962, and their three children, Ann of Cleveland, OH, William (Georgine) of Cincinnati, OH, and Sarah Bowman Workman (Jason) of Cleveland, OH, as well as two granddaughters, Abigail Bowman and Lucy Workman, and his brother, Richard of Boulder, CO.

Burial service and reception will be held on Saturday, July 18, at 1 p.m., at Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Ave, Cleveland (parking lot on Prospect Ave).

Memorial contributions may be made to Episcopal Relief and Development, P.O. Box 7058, Merrifield, VA 22116-7058 (www.episcopalrelief.org), and the Church of the Good Shepherd, 2614 Main Street, Rangeley, ME 04970.

Do We Lack Madmen? – From the Daily Office Lectionary

July 17, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the Daily Office Lectionary for Friday in the week of Proper 10, Yr 1 (Pentecost 7, 2015)

1 Samuel 21:15 ~ Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence?

“Do I lack madmen?” asked Achish, King of Gath, when David, pretending to be mad, was brought before him. Consider what has been brought before us in recent days . . . . ~ Members of Congress condemn an important nuclear arms agreement before even reading it simply because they believe it not perfect and (more importantly) because they are in the habit of opposing everything the president (from the other party) champions. Perfection thus becomes the enemy of good and party politics the enemy of governing. ~ White citizens stand at the side of the road in Oklahoma and wave Confederate battle flags as the black President of the United States drives by. Free speech and public expression become the enemy of patriotism and simple good manners. ~ The Pope issues a statement on the moral implications of human activity causing climate change and calling for repentance and change of behavior; his decree is meant with opposition by fossil-fuel industry spokespersons (and from politicians given large donations by that industry) who suggest that the Pope leave science to the scientists. Business becomes the enemy of religion and ethics. ~ The bishops of the Episcopal Church refuse to even consider the possibility of taking a position with regard to the Israeli occupation of Palestine out of fear that church-run hospitals and schools might be impacted by government reprisals. Medical and educational ministries become the enemy of prophetic action. ~ Do we lack madmen? Have we ever lacked madmen?

Use Your Imagination – From the Daily Office

July 15, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the Daily Office Lectionary for Wednesday in the week of Proper 10B (Pentecost 7, 2015)

Mark 2:14 ~ “As [Jesus] was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.”

This is one of those mornings when what I read in the appointed Scriptures dovetails so nicely with something I read in the news (or in this case on a friend’s Facebook page) that I can hardly believe it. I don’t often read the Episcopal Cafe blog, but a colleague posted a link to yesterday’s notice there of comments by a Baptist preacher (pastor of a megachurch in Dallas, Texas) when interviewed on Fox & Friends (a show I admit to never ever watching). I linked to a clip of his interview and, sure enough, just as reported in the Episcopal Cafe headline, this fellow said that liberal churches “are following the Jesus of their imagination rather than the Jesus of the Bible.” ~ It occurred to me that since at least 33 A.D. not a single human being who follows Jesus as Lord has done anything differently. Levi (who is sometimes also identified as Matthew) and his colleagues “got up and followed” Jesus, a real flesh-and-blood guy whom they could reach and touch and with whom they could eat, walk, talk, cry, laugh, and tell jokes. Since his Ascension, however, not one other person has been able to do that. We follow a “Jesus of the imagination,” just like the Baptist preacher said. Even the Baptist preacher follows a “Jesus of the imagination.” ~ To start off, we follow a Jesus of the imaginations of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, and the other writers of the New Testament. These men (any women there?) like every writer of every genre of literature made use of imagination in setting pen to paper (or parchment or velum or whatever) to tell their stories. Then each reader employs his or her own imagination in bringing to life in his or her mind the characters and events of the story. The Gospels and other documents of the New Testament are not verbatim histories; they are personal stories infused with imagination and read with imagination and, as a result, we all follow “the Jesus of [our] imagination.” We can’t help it. ~ It is when one comes to that realization that it is possible to abandon dogma, bigotry, and ignorance, to enter into real conversation with Scripture, and to actually engage with and follow Jesus. Then, and only then, can a follower of Jesus encounter and engage with others in real dialog. ~ One is tempted to note that, in a very real way, even our encounters with, our following of “real-life flesh-and-blood” human beings are encounters with imagination! Our imaginations filter, color, and influence every interpersonal encounter we experience. So, my advice to my Baptist colleague: stop denying and start using your imagination.

Irredeemable Name-Calling – From the Daily Office Lectionary

July 13, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the Daily Office Lectionary for Monday in the week of RCL Proper 10B (Pentecost 7, 2015)
Acts 11:26 – “…. and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called ‘Christians’.”

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the power of naming or, more accurately, name-calling. ~ That is the origin of the term “Christian,” after all. The followers of Jesus did not use this term of themselves; they simply called themselves “followers of the Way.” It was their neighbors and detractors who first called them “Christian,” and there is some evidence that the word used was actually “Chrestian,” note the “e” rather than an “i” in the first syllable. This is not simply an orthographic error; this variant spelling has its own meaning, something like “Goody Two-Shoes”…. The early followers of Jesus held themselves to a high ethical code and so their neighbors believed they may have thought themselves better than others; they made fun of them as excessively virtuous do-gooders. The Christians, however, embraced the epithet, changed its spelling, and made it their own. ~ Name-calling has been on my mind because of the experience of a teenage girl in my parish who’s been the brunt of some particularly vicious bullying and obscene name-calling at school. When she made a complaint to a teacher, the response from the school authorities was to suggest to her and to her parents that she should dress “less provocatively” (she doesn’t dress any differently than others of her age and class, by the way). ~ Years ago it was pretty common to hurl the word “queer” at contemporaries who were suspected of being homosexual, but like the Christians of Antioch the LGBT community has embraced the epithet and made it their own. My young parishioner cannot do that; the name-calling being hurled in her direction is simply irredeemable. ~ This is not a case where the victim can take positive action of that sort. But it is a case where the church can take action; if nothing else, as her parish priest I can write a letter of protest to her school authorities, and stand by her and her parents as they wend their way through the bureaucratic nightmare of victim-blaming that is so often the response to bullying in our public schools. That’s one small step in combatting a very big problem. The church as an institution needs to do more. We need to live up to the Antiochene epithet; we need to be excessively virtuous do-gooders in opposition to irredeemable name-calling!

Neither Hot Nor Cold: A Sermon of Ecclesial Disappointment – 12 July 2015

July 11, 2015 / / 0 Comments

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A sermon offered on Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 10B, Track 1, RCL), July 12, 2015, to the people of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day are 2 Samuel 6:1-19; Psalm 24; Ephesians 1:3-14; and Mark 6:14-29. These lessons may be found at The Lectionary Page. Note: The Revised Common Lectionary provides that the first lesson is 2 Samuel 6:1-5,12b-19.)

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Israel-Palestine MapWhy do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. (Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters [New York: Harper & Row, 1982], pp. 40-41.)

I wonder if Ms. Dillard might not have had in mind the episode recounted today in our reading from the Second Book of Samuel. Confession: The Lectionary edited out the verse that describe the death of the priest Uzzah and the circumstances and causes thereof. I put them back in because they explain the sudden reluctance of David to take the Ark of the Covenant into his city, and his three-month delay in doing so. With Uzzah’s death David, as the writer of Second Samuel tells us, got a notion of “what sort of power we so blithely invoke,” of what sort of power he was bringing into Jerusalem, and it frightened him.

After all, what had Uzzah done. Nothing disrespectful of God, that’s for sure. If anything, he saved the Almighty the indignity of the Ark tumbling out of the ox cart and falling to the ground. All he had done was reach out to steady it when it was jostled by the oxen; he was doing only what comes naturally when one is moving a large, heavy object over rough terrain. And for this, for touching the Ark with the most innocent and benign of intentions, he was stricken dead. At first, David was angry with God about that; apparently he cursed up a storm because the place gets renamed “Perez-uzzah” which means “outburst about Uzzah” – could be God’s outburst that killed Uzzah, more likely it’s David’s outburst of anger after Uzzah is dead. Once he vents, however, David becomes frightened; we are told, “David was afraid of the Lord that day; he said, ‘How can the ark of the Lord come into my care?'” So, he leaves the Ark right there in the care of a foreigner, Obed-edom the Gittite, for three months. David has realized that he may need a crash helmet when dealing with the power of the Almighty.

And then there’s John the Baptizer. John knew all too well the Power he’s been dealing with; he’d talked directly with God (“The one who sent me to baptize with water said to me,” he claimed – Jn 1:33) and John spoke to earthly power on God’s behalf. He said to the crowds that came out to him, to the scribes and the Pharisee, the priests and the Sadducees, to all who came to him at the River Jordan, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor;’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Lk 3:7-9) John knew there was danger, terrible danger when one becomes involved with Almighty God. It was the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews who said it, but John knew well, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Heb 10:31) Because even if the power of God doesn’t kill you, the ministry demanded of you by God may well put you in harm’s way . . . and that, in the end, is what happened with John.

Speaking truth to power, John publicly denounced Herod Antipas for his sinful, adulterous relationship with his half-brother Philip’s wife Herodias, who also happened to be Antipas’s niece. For that public reproof, John was arrested and held for a time in prison; the Gospel lesson tells us that Herod protected John after his arrest because he feared him! – Even Herod Antipas felt the danger of involvement with the Almighty at second hand, the danger of dealing with God’s anointed prophet. But in the end, tricked by his own foolish behavior, Antipas must order John beheaded; for John the ax is laid not at the foot of the tree, but at the base of his neck. As Ms. Dillard might put it, “The waking god drew John out to where he could never return.”

We, the Episcopal Church, take this dangerous prophetic step out to where we might never return every time we make a statement or take an action and proclaim to the world, “We do this because we are called to do so by our Lord and our God.” I do it every time I step into this pulpit and dare to preach a sermon. You do it every time you take a stand on an issue or behave in a particular way and say, “I do this because I am a Christian, because I am an Episcopalian.” Our church does it when it meets in deliberative council, in vestry meetings, in diocesan conventions, or as we have just done in our triennial General Convention; we do it when we issue public statements on important issues of the day.

We feel like we have done it now in the aftermath of our 78th General Convention because, for example, we have taken the bold step of opening our marriage liturgies to same-sex couples. However, I would suggest to you that that was not a very prophetic step after all. We had already, several years ago, declared that gay and lesbian persons are beloved children of God entitled to the full ministry of and to full inclusion within the body of the faithful. We underscored that a dozen years ago when we approved the election and consecration of the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. When we declared last week that same-sex couples could marry in the church, we were only continuing down a path we had already been walking, a path which (frankly) the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church in the USA, and the United States Supreme Court had just walked before us. It’s easy to be prophetic when others have already done so before you.

We feel like we have taken a prophetic stance because 1,500 bishops, deputies, and other Episcopalians marched the streets of Salt Lake City to protest against gun violence and to call for rational handgun licensing laws and for background checks on all gun sales including gun show and private transactions. We feel like we have done so because, a few days after that protest march, the General Convention passed a resolution making that same call; but in all honesty it’s a call we have made before. We have been on record as a church in support of reasonable regulation of gun manufacture, sale, and ownership for nearly 40 years; we have passed resolution after resolution urging registration, licensing, and insuring of handguns, as well as the banning of civilian sale and ownership of automatic and semi-automatic weapons since at least 1976. And we have not been alone among the churches in doing so. It’s not particularly original or prophetic to do and say again that which you and many others have done and said many, many times.

We feel like we have been prophetic in the House of Bishop’s election of Michael B. Curry of North Carolina to be our Presiding Bishop, our first black Presiding Bishop! But, folks, we have had black bishops in the Episcopal Church for over 140 years since the consecration of James Theodore Holly to be Bishop of Haiti in 1874. Neither God nor the world would be out of line in telling us that Bishop Curry’s election is not particularly prophetic and asking, “What took you so long?”

It’s not that these are not important and vital issues; they are. It’s not that our voice, added to so many others, is not worth raising about these issues; it is. It’s not that we should not be taking a stand on these matters; we should. We should and we have and we will continue to do so, but we are not being particularly prophetic when we do so. We are merely doing what comes naturally moving a large, heavy institution over the rough terrain of difficult issues. Like Uzzah steadying the Ark of the Covenant, it may be dangerous, but it’s not particularly prophetic.

We did have the opportunity to be prophetic, but we failed to take it. A resolution numbered D016 was offered for our consideration. It would have called upon our church and our leadership to

work earnestly and with haste to avoid profiting from the illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, and [to] seek to align itself with, and learn from, the good work of our Ecumenical and Anglican Communion partners, who have worked for decades in support of our Palestinian Christian sisters and brothers and others oppressed by occupation. (Resolution D016 as originally proposed)

It did not call for divestment from Israeli investments. It did not call for the boycotting of products made in the occupied territories. It did not call for sanctions against Israel. It did not call upon us to join the “BDS” movement as it is called – Boycott, Divest, Sanction. It was opposed on the grounds that it did, but in truth it did not.

We could have taken such action; we could have joined BDS although the resolution did not call for it. Alternatively, we could have proclaimed that, instead of doing that, we would work through positive investment and constructive engagement with both Israelis and Palestinians to foster reconciliation and peace. Or, we could simply have done as the resolution sought and undertaken a time of intentional study and discernment as to what our ministry as a church with important ties to the Holy Land might be, how we might try to encourage healing in that broken, wounded, and bleeding place. We could have done any of those things, any of those prophetic things. But do you know what we did?

We ducked the issue. We played it safe. We closed off debate. We failed to act. The House of Bishops rejected Resolution D016 so the House of Deputies never had a chance to consider it and, thus, we did nothing. – We should know better! As Paul wrote to the Ephesians,

With all wisdom and insight [God] has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. (Eph 1:8b-10)

We know that! We have declared as much in our catechism that “the mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ,” and that “the Church pursues its mission as it prays and worships, proclaims the Gospel, and promotes justice, peace, and love.” (BCP 1979, page 305) We are a church for whom the ministry of reconciliation should come as naturally as reaching out to steady the cargo on an ox cart came to Uzzah. And yet with respect to our brothers and sisters in Israel and Palestine, we did nothing…. We are a church who believes itself to speak like John the Baptizer prophetically to power on any number of subjects. And yet with respect to our brothers and sisters in Israel and Palestine, we said nothing….

As a church meeting in deliberative assembly and praying for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we did nothing, we said nothing to promote justice, peace, love, and reconciliation in the Holy Land.

When John of Patmos had the vision recorded in the Book of Revelation, he was instructed to deliver a message from Jesus to the church in Laodicea. He was told to write these words to them: “I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Rev. 3:16) With regard to those living in the land where Jesus was born, where he lived and taught and loved and died, where he rose from the dead for our salvation . . . with regard to our brothers and sisters living in that land, our General Convention action (or, really, lack of action) was lukewarm; it was tepid; neither hot nor cold, worthy only to be spit out.

I love my church. I love what we do in our synods and our conventions. I love that we take positions, sometimes unpopular positions. I love that we take risks with power, the kind of risks that Uzzah took, the kind of risks that John the Baptizer took, the kind of risks for which we should be wearing crash helmets and life preservers and holding signal flares. But we failed to do that with regard to the occupation of Palestine and the strife existing between our Israeli and Palestinian brothers and sisters, and I am disappointed in the church I love. As the Rev. Winnie Varghese, a priest from New York who was one of the supporters of Resolution D016, wrote after its rejection: “I will never understand why we would not listen … to our brothers and sisters truly on the ground, the lay and ordained Palestinian Christians who have been displaced; who work for justice; and who ask for our help.” (Huffington Post, July 10, 2015) Nor will I. I will never understand.

Let us pray:

Lord our God, the earth is yours and all that is in it, so we lift up our heads, we open our gates, and we give you glory; the Psalmist asked who could stand in your holy places and answered his own question saying, “Those who have clean hands and a pure heart;” give us clean hands and pure hearts that we may follow through on the promises made at our baptism, promises to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ,” to “respect the dignity of every human being,” and to “work for justice and peace;” give us grace that we, as the Episcopal Church, may do so in solidarity with those who have dedicated their lives to justice for Palestinians and security for Israel, that we may be either hot or cold, never tepid or lukewarm; give us the strength to do what should come naturally and to speak prophetically in your name; all this we ask through your Son, our Savior, the King of Glory. Amen.

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

Teaching, Not Nature – From the Daily Office Lectionary

July 11, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the Daily Office Lectionary (Yr 1), Saturday in the week of Proper 9B (Pentecost 6, 2015)
1 Samuel 17
43 The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

Yesterday, I was listening to a news commentary on NPR while there was a discussion of the so-called “Islamic State” (“ISIS”) and whether it had any pretentions of attacking Israel. There have apparently been some arrests of Bedouins in the occupied West Bank and of Palestinians in East Jerusalem who are claimed to be ISIS confederates. An expert “talking head” was being interviewed and in the course of his comments said of Jews and Muslims, “They are natural enemies, of course.” ~ I frequently talk back to my radio . . . and talk back I did: “No!” I shouted. “They are not!” I’m willing to admit that in the animal kingdom there may be a few sorts “natural enemies;” the cobra and the mongoose, for example, seem always to be at odds, and there may be other pairs like them. Between differing species there may be natural enmity, but I am unwilling to say there is natural enmity between groups of the same species, especially between groups of human beings. There may be natural rivalry, but not natural enmity. ~ Enmity is not natural; it must be taught. Even the relationship of predator and prey, though it may be “natural,” is not necessarily one of enmity. The young of predator and prey species, raised together, coexist peacefully. The internet is filled with videos of cats and mice being chummy, of dogs and deer who are best buds, of cats and birds playing together. Unless a parent animal teaches her offspring to hunt and kill their “natural prey,” they will not do so. Unless a parent human teaches his or her offspring to fight and kill those of another group, they will not do so. David the Israelite and Goliath the Philistine need not have been enemies; contemporary Israelis and Palestinians need not be enemies. The former were and the latter are taught to hate, taught to fight, taught to kill. As Lieutenant Cable sings in Rogers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific:

You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

It’s teaching that makes enemies, not nature.

Back at the Beginning – From the Daily Office Lectionary

July 10, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the Daily Office Lectionary (Yr 1), Friday in the week of Proper 9B (Pentecost 6, 2015)
Mark 1
1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Here we are, a little past half-way through the calendar year, somewhat further along in the church’s liturgical year, and we’re starting over. The middle of July and we’re back at the beginning. For an Episcopalian recently returned from the General Convention, this is a good thing! As important as the triennial governing synod is, as vital as the issues we addressed (or failed to address) in our legislative hearings and floor debates are, as necessary as elections and budgets may be, those things are also, in a very real sense, distractions. Jesus once reminded the Jews of his day that “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.” (Mk 2:27) We need the same kind of reminder that the General Convention exists to serve the Gospel, not the other way around; beginning at the beginning does that for us. The General Convention and its results are important, but only to the extent that they serve the church in spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. When the issues of the day take our attention away from our main business, then the General Convention is dangerous distraction. ~ My son and daughter-in-law, both deputies to this recent Convention, took a few days of vacation to hike the mountains of Colorado. Friends (at whose stamina I marvel) flew to their homes from Salt Lake City (the location of this triennium’s synod) and almost immediately boarded other planes to fly to China or to Japan or to the Holy Land. Unlike them, I returned to home and church office and immediately dove into the minutiae of parish ministry. Unlike them, I returned to home and church office and to a barrage of questions about the work of the Convention. Unlike them, I didn’t take the time to clear my head of resolutions, elections, and budgets. I thought they were crazy to embark on vacations with such immediacy; now I see that they were wiser than me. When they return, they will be better able to focus on the beginning of the Good News. Perhaps that should be made a requirement for everyone who serves in any capacity at the General Convention: “You shall take vacation when this is finished! You shall clear your heads of all this stuff!” ~ In any event, the Convention has done its work. We have a new church reality in which to work. We are back at the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Yeah, Not So Much – From the Daily Office Lectionary

July 9, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the Daily Office Lectionary (Yr 1), Thursday in the week of Proper 9B (Pentecost 6, 2015)
1 Samuel 16
14 Now the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.

I can relate. At least to the first part of the verse. How often have I stared at a blank paper or a blank computer screen wondering what to write? Whether it be a letter of condolence to a parishioner who’s lost a family member, note of congratulations to someone, a report to the vestry, or (worst of all) a sermon for next Sunday, what secular authors know as “writer’s block” hits hard and I am left completely uninspired (which, as you know, means that the spirit is absent). That’s been the case most of this week. I’ve had to write two letters of condolence, one newsletter squib, a letter in response to a complaint about a sermon (thank heaven, those aren’t often required), and some sort of something to preach next Sunday, and it’s been like pulling teeth without anesthetic to get the words put together. When I’ve tried to write for this blog . . . nothing; that’s why there’s been no entry for a few days. So I read this verse (or the first half of this verse, anyway) and I can relate. – But “an evil spirit from the Lord”? I don’t get that. What does that mean? If the text simply said “an evil spirit,” it would make sense to me. If it say “an evil spirit from Satan (or the tempter or the devil or Baal or some other agency),” that would make sense. But “an evil spirit from the Lord”? I don’t get that. Does God really send “evil spirits to torment” God’s people? This is, honestly, one of those times when I have to look at the Hebrew Scriptures through the lens of the Gospel, squint, and say, “Yeah. Not so much. I think you got that one wrong.” As one of my seminar professors would have said, “The Gospel trumps the Bible.”

Sacrificing Orthodoxy – From the Daily Office Lectionary (6 July 2015)

July 6, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the Daily Office Lectionary (Yr 1), Monday in the week of Proper 9B (Pentecost 6, 2015)
1 Samuel 15
22 Samuel said [to Saul], “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obedience to the voice of the Lord? Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.”

I’ve just returned from two weeks in Salt Lake City, Utah, attending the 78th General Convention of the Episcopal Church as an alternate deputy for the Diocese of Ohio and working as a legislative aide to the committee on Prayer Book, liturgy, and church music. The Episcopal General Convention is a huge and fairly unwieldy legislative body, bicameral legislature made up of a House of Deputies (four clergy and four lay representatives from each diocese) and a House of Bishops (every bishop whether active or retired). About 1,000 people meet every three years to state the church’s positions on various issues, to adopt or amend canons (church laws), to make changes the church’s constitution or Prayer Book, and to adopt a budget. Parachurch organizations, seminaries, vendors of church wares, religious communities, missionary societies, and hundreds of volunteers come along for the ride. One participant the past fortnight described the convention as “summer camp for adult church geeks;” that pretty much describes it accurately. It’s also very much a big family reunion with a lot of activity, including a good deal of bickering.

The bickering, I think, is the result of a lot of people all trying to heed and obey the voice of the Lord, which each hears in a somewhat different way. Coming away from the convention I had several hours of opportunity to scan the Twitterverse and Facebookistan (terms I learned from a friend) and one huge word kept recurring in the serious posts (there were a lot of fun ones as people’s senses of humor took over): that word was “orthodoxy.” In one conversation thread, I typed in something like, “Oh … groan … I am so tired of seeing that word used as a barrier to communication, as a ‘fighting word”.” I was, in turn, accused of being “dismissive.” But I am tired of this misuse of the word “orthodoxy” and similar terms! I really am! “Orthodoxy” and its synonyms and antonyms have become an epithets which close off discussion.

Originally a word which meant “proper praise of God,” it morphed to mean something like “proper belief about God,” and now has become personalized in most usages into “what I believe to be correct about anything churchy.” So we heard (and will continue to hear) some people claim to hold “orthodox” views about marriage or the Prayer Book or the Hymnal or church investments or whatever, while disparaging others as not “orthodox.” What this really means is that the speaker has closed his or her mind and ears, and is sacrificing open communication on the altar of their personal opinion.

All that “orthodoxy” really means anymore is that each of us, individually or in our small affinity groups, hears God speaking in different ways; each of us seeks to obey the voice of God as we perceive it. Thus, my “orthodoxy” may not be your “orthodoxy.” When someone uses this word, though, they are not claiming to speak only for themselves; rather, they are claiming that their opinion is the agreed-upon opinion of the ancient, historic church. They are covering themselves in a mantle of traditional authority, and that cloak has the unfortunate effect of muffling their hearing so that, if God is speaking through another with a new voice, they cannot hear it. If one cannot hear, one cannot heed and obey.

Here’s an idea. Let’s declare a moratorium on the word “orthodoxy” and all its permutations. If tempted to use the word, say instead, “This is what I believe and what I believe the church to have been teaching throughout the past, what do you believe?” or “This is the metaphor for God that makes most sense to me, what metaphors work for you?” or “This is what resonates in my spirit, what reverberates in your soul?” Let’s hear and heed rather than sacrifice communication on the altar of our personal, allegedly “orthodox” opinion.

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