That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Lent (Page 8 of 10)

Salted with Fire – From the Daily Office – April 8, 2014

April 8, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of Mark:

Jesus said: “For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 9:49-50 (NRSV) – April 8, 2014.)

Fiery Human FiguresAs Mark constructs his version of the story of Jesus, the Lord has just advised his followers to cut off body parts that might cause them to sin saying it is better to enter Heaven maimed than to be thrown into Hell where “the fire is never quenched.” To this admonition, then, Mark adds this statement about salt.

Has Mark just taken some disparate sayings of Jesus both of which talk of fire and put them together? That’s one theory. Or is Mark accurately relaying a conversation between Jesus and his disciples and, if so, is Jesus suggesting that everyone will be “salted” with hellfire and is he saying that this is a good thing?

The hellfire in question is the fire of Gehenna; the Greek word translated as “hell” in the passage is géennan. This is a reference to the valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, where the filth and dead animals of the city were cast out and burned; thus, it is a metaphor or symbol for wickedness and its destruction.

The “salting” of which Jesus speaks may be simple seasoning, or it may be the use of salt as a food preservative. If the latter understanding applies, Jesus would seem to be saying that everyone will be “preserved” through the purging, the burning away of wickedness and sin. And this makes sense immediately following upon his startling admonition to cut off and dispose of hands, feet, or eyes which might cause one to “stumble.”

A common image for living through troubles and hardships is “going through the fire.” It’s a biblical metaphor drawn from the prophet Isaiah: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” (Isa 43:2) Another prophet, Zechariah, understood such “walking through fire” to have the purgative and preservative effect to which Jesus seems to be alluding: ” I will put [the remnant of Israel] into the fire, refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.'” (Zech 13:9)

One of my favorite hymns, How Firm a Foundation, includes a verse based on this prophecy:

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

I believe it is to this “refining by fire” that Jesus’ deceptively simple statement, “Everyone will be salted with fire,” refers. At one time or another, everyone will be “salted” with hellfire, and as troublesome and even painful as that may be at the time, it is a good thing.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

A Present, Close, Immediate Reality – Sermon for Lent 5A – April 6, 2014

April 6, 2014 / / 0 Comments

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This sermon was preached on the Fifth Sunday in Lent, April 6, 2014, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day were: Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; and John 11:1-45. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Valley of Dry BonesLet’s just do a bit of bible study today. I think we’ll see a common theme in the three lessons.

First, the very familiar prophetic vision of the “valley of dry bones” from the Book of Ezekiel. Scholars date this prophecy to about 587 BCE. Ezekiel was one of those taken into exile by the Babylonians ten years earlier in 597 BCE. The Babylonians had laid siege to Jerusalem for almost two years, creating conditions of famine, disease, and despair. They destroyed the city of Jerusalem, razed the temple to the ground, killed many of its inhabitants, and forced the rest to migrate to Babylon. This is how the Babylonian conquest is described in the Second Book of Kings, from the paraphrase entitled The Message:

[In] the ninth year and tenth month of Zedekiah’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar set out for Jerusalem immediately with a full army. He set up camp and sealed off the city by building siege mounds around it. The city was under siege for nineteen months (until the eleventh year of Zedekiah). By the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, on the ninth day of the month, the famine was so bad that there wasn’t so much as a crumb of bread for anyone. Then there was a breakthrough. At night, under cover of darkness, the entire army escaped through an opening in the wall (it was the gate between the two walls above the King’s Garden). They slipped through the lines of the Babylonians who surrounded the city and headed for the Jordan on the Arabah Valley road. But the Babylonians were in pursuit of the king and they caught up with him in the Plains of Jericho. By then Zedekiah’s army had deserted and was scattered. The Babylonians took Zedekiah prisoner and marched him off to the king of Babylon at Riblah, then tried and sentenced him on the spot. Zedekiah’s sons were executed right before his eyes; the summary murder of his sons was the last thing he saw, for they then blinded him. Securely handcuffed, he was hauled off to Babylon. In the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, on the seventh day of the fifth month, Nebuzaradan, the king of Babylon’s chief deputy, arrived in Jerusalem. He burned The Temple of God to the ground, went on to the royal palace, and then finished off the city — burned the whole place down. (2 Kgs 25:1-9)

Ezekiel, a young apprentice priest, experienced this. The religious institution he served, the Jerusalem Temple, was destroyed and he was reduced from a prominent position as a priest in Jerusalem to that of a temple-less priest in exile. God then pegged him to become a prophet to the exile community; he tells us in the very first sentence of his book that he “was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and [he] saw visions of God.” (Ezek 1:1)

But not only did Ezekiel experience this historical trauma common to all the exiles to a greater or lesser extent, he experienced deep personal loss as well: his wife died and God commanded him not to mourn her. Again, I am reading from The Message:

God’s Message came to me: “Son of man, I’m about to take from you the delight of your life — a real blow, I know. But, please, no tears. Keep your grief to yourself. No public mourning. Get dressed as usual and go about your work – none of the usual funeral rituals.” I preached to the people in the morning. That evening my wife died. The next morning I did as I’d been told. (Ezek 24:15-17)

God’s command for him not to mourn her was to serve as an example for the exile community not to mourn the loss of the Temple.

I don’t know about you, but if I had to endure what Ezekiel and his contemporaries went through I would be a deeply depressed person! I would sink into the depths of despair. And that is what the exiles did. The psalms speak eloquently of their desperation: “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered you, O Zion.” (Ps 137:1; BCP version) Other psalms speak for the exiles in their sadness, their weariness settling deep within them. Psalm 31, for example:

Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble;
my eye is consumed with sorrow, and also my throat and my belly.
For my life is wasted with grief, and my years with sighing;
my strength fails me because of affliction, and my bones are consumed.
(Ps 31:9-10, BCP version)

Or Psalm 102:

Incline your ear to me;
when I call, make haste to answer me,
For my days drift away like smoke, *
and my bones are hot as burning coals.
My heart is smitten like grass and withered, *
so that I forget to eat my bread.
Because of the voice of my groaning *
I am but skin and bones.
(Ps 102:2-5; BCP version)

Or Psalm 6:

Have pity on me, Lord, for I am weak; *
heal me, Lord, for my bones are racked.
My spirit shakes with terror; *
how long, O Lord, how long?
(Ps 6:2-3; BCP version)

In these psalms and elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures, the reference to “bones” is an idiomatic way of referring to one’s deepest self, a way for a person or a community to refer to its most essential self. And so we have Ezekiel’s vision of “dry bones,” a vision of the soul of the exile community. “Mortal,” says God, “these bones are the whole house of Israel.”

Since the dry bones represent the living exiles, we can see that this vision is not concerned with death; death here is a metaphor for the soul-deep desperation, the despair of the exiles. The exiles, bereft of their nation, their city, and (most importantly) their Temple, fear that God has abandoned them. Ezekiel speaks to this hopelessness with a startlingly simple metaphor of divine presence, the immediate closeness of breath, the pervading presence of wind. In just fourteen verses, the Hebrew word ruach occurs nine times, translated as “breath” in verses 5, 6, 8, and 10), as “wind” in verse 9, or as God’s own spirit in verse 14. The prophet’s repetitive use of the word drums the point of the message into his hearers’ consciousness: God’s spirit is the key. With God’s spirit, anything is possible. And God’s spirit is as close as the wind, as close as one’s own breath; there is no place on earth, no instant in time, and no situation of sin that can separate God’s people from God’s spirit. Not the loss of one’s country, one’s city, one’s Temple, even one’s beloved spouse; nothing! God’s spirit is always and everywhere present.

Which brings us to the Epistle lesson taken from the eighth chapter of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. “To set the mind on the flesh is death,” writes Paul, “but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” (Rom. 8:6) We need first to understand that Paul’s use of “flesh” is not a reference to the physical body. The body is ethically neutral for Paul; it is neither good nor bad in and of itself. There certainly is nothing wrong with having a body. When Paul writes about the body, he uses the Greek word soma.

In this passage, however, he uses the word sarx, which means “flesh,” as in meat. Paul uses the word in Romans in two ways. First, he uses it to describe physical descent between ancestor and descendant. In the opening greetings of the letter, Paul identifies Jesus as a descendant of David “according to the flesh” (Rom 1:3) and later himself as a Jew because of “Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh.” (4:1) In this sense, it is largely neutral, but in this sense also it can be negative. For Paul salvation or righteousness before God is not an honor due a particular blood line or a family heritage; it is not by the flesh but by the spirit of God that the followers of Jesus, the members of the community of faith receive life and peace.

In the second way in which Paul uses sarx or “flesh,” Paul is influenced by the dualism of his age which considered the flesh to be imperfect because it is capable of deterioration. Under that philosophical influence, Paul assigns to flesh negative characteristics such as death, hostility to God, and an incapacity to live according to God’s law. When a person’s focus in life is on the flesh and its appetites, that is a focus on death because the flesh does not last. “But,” Paul reassures his readers, “you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Notice that, like Ezekiel’s message to the exiles in Babylon, Paul’s message is one for the present; not a promise of a future relationship with God, but an assurance of a present one.

Paul believes that this relationship with God is a present reality; it is not a something that exists somewhere else or that is coming in the future. Paul is certain that it is real, it is here, and it is now; because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ this new reality is here today. Throughout the rest of this Chapter 8 he will develop his argument that we are currently children of the Father, that we are currently brothers and sisters of Christ, that we currently possess the gifts of the Spirit, and that we are currently enjoy the real and present love of God. He concludes this chapter asking:

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? * * * No, 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. (Rom 8:35,37-39)

For Paul and for us, God is everywhere and always present.

And so we come to the Gospel lesson — another familiar story from the Gospel of John — the raising of Lazarus, a story about what it means to be in relationship with Jesus, what it means to love him and be loved by him. Lazarus is identified by his sisters to Jesus as “he whom you love,” (v. 3) and then John underscores this by telling us that “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” So in the way Jesus related to this Bethany family we get a clue of what it is to be in relationship with him. And what we learn, perhaps distressingly, is that doesn’t mean that one is protected from bad stuff. John’s Gospel makes this painfully obvious, for in this Gospel, love is linked inextricably to death.

Remember that what is perhaps the best known verse of Christian scripture is from this Gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son . . . . ” (Jn 3:16) And it is in John’s Gospel that Jesus says, No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn 15:13) So it is with this family; that they love Jesus and he loves them does not mean that bad things, including death, do not happen. Lazarus dies.

And in John’s story, Jesus does not prevent it, nor even arrive until afterward. He is met on the road by Lazarus’ sister Martha who confronts him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (v. 21) In response, Jesus assures her that “your brother will rise again.” (v. 23), but she hears only the promise of a future resurrection: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” (v. 24) And Jesus, “I am the resurrection and the life.” (v. 25) Note, if you will, the verb: Jesus’ reply is in the present tense — “I am . . . .”

The resurrection is not a distant promise; it is not a guarantee of salvation in the future; it is not about an eternal life with God and Jesus in heaven. In the next few chapters of John’s Gospel we will encounter Lazarus reclining at the table with Jesus, sharing food and fellowship. (Jn 13:28) His new relationship with Jesus is intimate and close; it is here and now. For Lazarus and for us, the resurrection is not a future with Jesus; it is a present with Jesus. Jesus is present with Lazarus and his sisters; he is present with us, and through him God is glorified even in that which feels irredeemably bad and painful.

Being in relationship with Jesus, loving him and being loved by him, does not mean that unpleasant things do not happen. It means that when they do, he faces them, even death and grief, with us. It means learning that, in spite of the worst the world can do, the worst that flesh can be subject to, even death and the finality of the grave, Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Nothing is ever so dead that it keeps him from being that in himself and for us. In John, the resurrection is not a future hope; it is the abundant life which is always here, always now. Nothing, as Paul reminded the Romans, not “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, [can] separate us” from it. It is, as Ezekiel prophesied to the exiles, as close as the wind, as close as one’s own breath; it is always and everywhere present.

Amen.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Gathered – From the Daily Office – April 1, 2014

April 1, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Genesis:

When Jacob ended his charge to his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Genesis 49:33 (NRSV) – April 1, 2014.)

Pine Box CoffinHe has kicked the bucket, cashed in his chips, shuffled off this mortal coil, gone the way of all flesh, croaked, gone home, passed away, turned up his toes, ridden the pale horse, fallen off his perch, taken his last bow, entered larger life, joined the choir invisible.

We have so many idioms and euphemisms for the simple reality of death. I suppose that is because death is frightening, although if we take our Christian faith seriously it should not be.

The epistle lesson for the Easter vigil is always a short reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans in which the Apostle reminds us that “we have died with Christ, [and] we believe that we will also live with him.” (Rom. 6:8) There really is nothing to fear. Still, we avoid even mentioning death by using all these idioms and euphemisms (and many more).

As these turns of phrase go, none is quite so lovely as this verse in Genesis describing the death of Israel (Jacob): “He was gathered to his people.” I find something about that very comforting; I’ve never been a big fan of the “going home” euphemism which it resembles (even though there is biblical warrant for it), but I find this image of joining earlier generations inviting. Perhaps that is because of the fond memories I have of childhood family reunions.

In a former parish, I had a congregant who frequently would turn the discussion in bible study or adult education classes to the question of life after death. “I just want to know what happens when I die,” she would say. “Martha,” I would answer, “I don’t know. I haven’t been there yet.”

I don’t know, but I do have faith that our Book of Common Prayer is accurate when it says (in the Preface to the Eucharist to be said at a requiem), “to your faithful people, O Lord, 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.” (BCP 1979, page 381) One of the collects in the Burial Office includes this petition: “Give us faith to see in death the gate of eternal life, so that in quiet confidence we may continue our course on earth, until, by your call, we are reunited with those who have gone before.” (page 493) Until, the writers of Genesis might have said, we are gathered to our people.

Lent begins with a reminder of our mortality: “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” Here in the middle of the season we find another, but rather more comforting, reminder: you are a part of a people and to your people you shall be gathered.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Break the Chains – Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent (Year A) – March 16, 2014

March 16, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Croagh PatrickIn the Education for Ministry (“EfM”)[1] program we engage in a process called “reflection” (“theological reflection” to be precise). In this process, we take a close look at a thing or a story, an incident from life, a passage of scripture, or an object we use everyday. One of the best group reflections I ever took part in started when someone put their mobile phone in the center of the table and said, “Let’s talk about this.”

In part of the process, we draw on what are called the “four sources” to illuminate the subject of our reflection. The sources are experiential – this is the “Action” source: things we do, think, and feel; positional – our attitudes, opinions, beliefs, and convictions; traditional – drawn from our Christian heritage, scripture, liturgy, hymnody, and so forth; and cultural – popular songs, movies, novels, commercials and advertisements, politics, etc.

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The Looking Glass – Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent (Year A) – March 9, 2014

March 9, 2014 / / 0 Comments

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This sermon was preached on the First Sunday in Lent, March 9, 2014, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day were: Genesis 2:15-17,3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; and Matthew 4:1-11. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Eve and the Serpent by Max KlingerToday, as we step further into the season of Lent, this season of self-examination when we liturgically join Jesus for his forty days in the desert, we are treated to what is traditionally known as the “Fall of Man.” Genesis, chapters 2 and 3 set out the Bible’s first story of human temptation and the first act of human disobedience in the garden of Eden, brilliantly portrayed by the Victorian-era lithographer Max Klinger in the etching on the cover of your bulletin in which the serpent presents Eve not just with an apple but with a mirror, a looking glass in which to examine herself.

The popular understanding of this story is that it explains why human beings do not live in a world of perfect comfort, why there is evil in the world, blaming it all on the Devil and on the weakness of the woman. That popular interpretation, however, is based on some frankly erroneous assumptions.

First, that God created an absolutely perfect and static world.

Well, that’s clearly wrong. The world that God has created in the Genesis accounts includes the raging sea, which has been divided into two waters – the water above the firmament and the water below the firmament. In the theological and cosmological understanding of the ancient middle eastern world, the sea was the place of chaos; God’s Spirit moves over and subdues that chaos, declaring to it (as the voice from the whirlwind in the Book of Job puts it), “Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped.” (Job 38:11) Far from static and far from perfect, God’s world contains the chaotic, the unsettled, and the creative.

And let’s not forget the serpent who “was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made;” I’ll come back to him in a moment. He’s a part of this creation, which clearly is neither perfect and static.

The second erroneous assumption often made is that Eden was a luxurious paradise in which humans lived with no responsibilities.

We can only have that incorrect understanding if we overlook the first sentence of our reading: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” (Gen. 2:15, emphasis added) The humans in this garden had work to do! One might quibble with the translation, however.

The traditional rendering of the Hebrew word ‘abad as “till” reflects the agriculturally based culture of 17th Century England; the word has been rendered in this manner (or by the equivalent word “cultivate”) since the Authorized Version of King James I & VI. But the Hebrew is better translated (and more frequently rendered throughout the rest of the Old Testament) as “serve;” it is the root from which the word “slave” derives. The distinction is significant. “Tilling” implies some control of the garden and suggests that the human can make it better or more productive. But the humans were not, in fact, in control at all; they were to be the servants of the soil, working in partnership with it to make the garden fruitful.

And then there’s the word translated “keep” — shamar in Hebrew. In common modern English, “keep” has the sense of ownership, of having a claim on the garden, the Hebrew really means “to keep safe, to guard, or to protect.” The humans were to serve the garden and to protect that which they were meant to serve. They were given neither control nor ownership.

But whether to cultivate and maintain or to serve and protect, the humans were given work and responsibility in this garden. No luxurious paradise, this Eden.

The third incorrect assumption is that the serpent was evil.

Actually, this error is a bit more serious than that. This mistake, in fact, holds that the serpent was Satan intent on bringing evil into God’s perfect creation, one of the central points of the popular interpretation.

But, again, one has to ignore the very words of the text to believe that about the serpent. As I pointed out a moment ago, the serpent is described as a “wild animal that the Lord God had made.” The serpent is a very clever and very conversational animal, but that’s all – an animal. This crafty old snake is just one of God’s own creatures who simply poses some questions and offers some alternative explanations about God to the humans who could have, if they’d chosen to do so, told the serpent that he was full of it and asked him to please go away.

The wily serpent is, one commentator has suggested, a “metaphor, representing anything in God’s good creation that is able to facilitate options for human will and action.” God has created a world in which human beings have choices, alternatives to the will of God. And in this world human choices count; our relationship with God is not predetermined and our response to God is neither coerced nor inevitable. The story reveals that there was and is something in human nature that resonates to the suggestion of suspicion that the serpent offered about the words and actions of God, and we’ll come back to that in a moment. So the serpent is not Satan and he does not bring evil into the picture; he’s a clever animal who introduces the humans to wariness and skepticism.

The fourth traditional, but wrong, supposition is that it was Eve alone who succumbed to temptation and so she alone is responsible for bringing sin into the world.

When we listen to people discuss this story, the impression is that they believe that Eve was all by herself, had this conversation with the snake, ate the apple, gained for herself the “knowledge of good and evil” (more needs to be said about that, by the way), and then went and tempted Adam to do the same. Nothing could be further from the truth!

The plain meaning of the words is that Adam was there all along: “She took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.” Just as, at any point in the conversation, the humans could have told the snake to get lost, Adam could have spoken up, at any point, and suggested to Eve that she discontinue the dialogue with the snake. But he doesn’t. While Eve converses with the serpent, expressing her knowledge of God’s command, Adam just stands there silent, and then he eats with no objection.

And take note! That’s when things start to happen. It isn’t until both of them have consumed the fruit that “the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked . . . .”

That last simply wrong understanding is that the “knowledge of good and evil” has something to do with morality.

It doesn’t. Hadda-‘at towb wara’ is simply idiomatic Hebrew for knowledge of everything; saying “good and bad” in Hebrew is like saying “lock, stock, and barrel” in American English.

The two most important words spoken by the crafty serpent are “God knows,” because they arouse suspicion. They carry a corollary suggestion: “God knows . . . and you don’t.” God, the snake hints, has not told you the full truth. And the surprising thing is that the serpent is telling the truth! The serpent may not tell the whole truth, but then neither has God.

Which brings us back to the question of suspicion. At its deepest level the issue of knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of everything, becomes an issue of trust. Can human beings trust God? Can Adam and Eve, can any human being, trust that God has our best interests at heart?

Until they ate of that fruit, Adam and Eve were oblivious to their nakedness; after eating it, they find themselves hiding from God out of shame. Scholars and sages from the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius to the 20th Century psychologist Eric Erickson have noted the intimate linkage between mistrust and shame. The moment Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of everything, they began to experience a profound sense of vulnerability, a sense of distrust of God, perhaps even a distrust of one another and of the serpent with whom they (well, Eve anyway) have been conversing like old friends.

We all know what happens next, right? God shows up and asks what’s happened. Adam points to Eve, “She did it. She made me eat the fruit.” And Eve points to the snake, “The serpent tricked me!” This sense of shame and mistrust is grounded in their failure to fully realize that they were made in the image and likeness of God.

That is why I put that Victorian etching by Max Klinger on the cover of our bulletins this week. It is one of six panels in a work made by Klinger in 1880 entitled Eva und die Zukunft (“Eve and the Future”). In it the snake is holding a mirror and Eve, standing on tip-toe, is viewing her own image. The serpent’s appeal is to her (and to Adam’s) vanity. “God knows . . . and you don’t.” Invited (as we are during Lent) to examine herself, she cannot see the image of God in the mirror; she can see only her own suspicious visage.

So if this story is the story of a “fall” or “falling,” what sort of falling is it? Is it a falling down from some supposedly higher level of perfection? I think not. The initial creation was not a set-piece of static perfection. Is it a falling up into some greater human maturity as Iranaeus and other early theologians suggested, a leaving behind of some childlike innocence? In the story, the human beings, before the fruit, aren’t really presented as childlike or innocent, and afterwards Adam and Eve certainly don’t exhibit much in the way of adult maturity when confronted by God. So, I don’t really believe that interpretation works either.

The Lutheran theologian Terrence Fretheim has suggested that if this is the story of a “falling” it is a “falling out,” the story of a breach in relationship leading (as the rest of the Bible clearly demonstrates) to estrangement, alienation, separation, and displacement, an ever-increasing distancing of human beings from Eden, from each other, and ultimately from God.

That suspicious alienation is symbolized by the clothing Adam and Eve make for themselves: “they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.” As the ancient Hebrews knew all too well, the leaves of Mediterranean fig would not make a particularly comfortable garment; they have a rather rough and sandpaper texture and their underside is covered with fine spiny “hairs”! Those loincloths would have been scratchy and prickly and uncomfortable — a great metaphor for a relationship broken by distrust and shame.

Which brings us to the Gospel lesson.

The snake in the Genesis story may not have been Satan, but here he is at the beginning of our Lord’s ministry and he’s doing with Jesus exactly what the serpent did with Eve; he’s appealing to his vanity. “Are you the son of God? Well, then, act like it! Show these people! Do something really incredible — turn stones into bread, throw yourself off the Temple steeple, rule the world!”

Jesus, however, turns each temptation aside with a quotation from Scripture. Each is different, but each of his responses boils down to the same thing – “I trust God.” And his life and his gospel will bear that out even to the end. Even then, in the most painful of circumstances when death is imminent, he will live out that trust: “Not my will but yours” (Luke 22:42) . . . “Into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). And, in the end and for eternity, he is clothed as John of Patmos saw him and reported in the Book of Revelation, in a flowing white robe of righteousness, crowned with many crowns, and seated at the right hand of God.

“Great are the tribulations of the wicked,” says our psalm today . . . their tribulation is like wearing a rough and scratchy garment of fig leaves . . . “but mercy embraces those who trust in the Lord.”

In this season of self-examination, in we which are asked to look at ourselves in a spiritual looking glass, like Eve’s mirror in Klinger’s etching, we must ask ourselves the question, “Which is it to be for us?” The rough, painful garment of alienation, or the flowing robes of mercy and righteousness?

We live in a world in which we have choices, and our choices count. Which is it to be? Do you trust God? Amen.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Positively Lenten – From the Daily Office – March 7, 2014

March 7, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Philippians:

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Philippians 4:8 (NRSV) – March 7, 2014.)

Orange and BananasIn thinking about yesterday’s readings, I suggested that the Lenten question we should be asking one another is not “What are you giving up?” but “What are you rejoicing about?” Along comes Paul today and tells the church in Caesarea Philippi, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (v. 4) following up with this list of things to consider, things about which we might rejoice.

As a contrast, today’s Old Testament lesson is from the prophet Ezekiel and focuses our attention on a variety of things one can do in violation of the Law of Moses, things not honorable or just or commendable, and decrees the Lord’s displeasure in such things. The point of the prophet’s words on God’s behalf is turn us away from such things. The reading concludes:

Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live. (Ezek. 18:31-32)

I don’t think the prophet succeeds in redirecting our attention, however. The priest under whom I served my curacy was fond of saying, “What gets your attention gets you.” So, although I know the point of Lent is to “put [us] in mind of . . . the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith” (BCP 1979, pg. 265), I think we might better focus our attention on the things Paul suggests rather than on our sinfulness.

As a Lenten discipline, I suggest focusing each day on one thing we find praiseworthy and honorable — today, for example, I have decided to rejoice in and give thanks for the good work of all the people who make it possible for me, on a cold, snow-covered morning in northeastern Ohio, to enjoy fresh fruit each morning. Yes, I know there are important environmental and social issues raised by our failure to “eat locally” and by our global food industry, but today I’m thankful for the orange and the banana and the kale that just went into my breakfast “smoothie” and for the people who made that possible.

Every dark cloud, it is said, has its silver lining. I choose to focus on the “silver lining” rather than on the “cloud;” perhaps if we do that more often we can do more about the “clouds.” After all that’s what we’re supposed to do in Lent, “turn from [our] wickedness and live.” (BCP 1979, pg. 269) As Johnnie Mercer wrote, “Accentuate the positive [and] eliminate the negative.” That’s positively Lenten!

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

Lenten Rejoicing – From the Daily Office – March 6, 2014

March 6, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Habakkuk:

Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold
and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will exult in the God of my salvation..

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Habakkuk 3:17-18 (NRSV) – March 6, 2014.)

Dry Farm FieldsLent began yesterday and I heard the question at least 50 times: What are you giving up for Lent? It’s a legitimate question given that the church through the centuries has (in the words of the American Book of Common Prayer) invited her members “to the observance of a holy Lent . . . by prayer, fasting, and self-denial.” (BCP 1979, pg 264) We humans just tend to look on the negative side of things and focus on the sense of deprivation this tradition inspires.

Every year for longer than I have been ordained, I have tried to encourage my fellow Christians to see in the “giving up” a making room for something else. Giving up your favorite television program? You now have that hour each week for some other activity, reading the Bible maybe, or taking a walk and enjoying God’s creation. Not eating chocolates? What are you doing with the money saved? If the giving up creates space for something healthier or more productive, is it really privation? Oughtn’t we to give thanks for the opportunities, rather than bemoan the lost pleasures?

So, I’m glad to see my favorite bit of Habakkuk this morning. In a time of forced, not voluntary, privation, he could nonetheless give thanks, rejoice in the Lord, exult in God. That’s the example we should be following during Lent. The proper question is not, “What are you giving up?” The proper question is, “What are you rejoicing about?”

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

Temporary Reminder – From the Daily Office – March 5, 2014

March 5, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Hebrews:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us . . . .

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Hebrews 12:1 (NRSV) – March 5, 2014.)

Ashes on a ForeheadMany years ago, when I was a child growing up in Las Vegas, Nevada, my dad and I went fishing on Lake Mead. I was five years old, but already a pretty good swimmer. After we’d caught a few bass, we decided to go swimming.

I think we must have been somewhere near one of the marinas, because some time during that swim I encountered a slick of oil or motor fuel and found myself coated with a smell film of petroleum distillate of some sort. I tried several times to rinse it off, but once it got on my skin, it wasn’t coming off. My dad and I ruined a couple of my mother’s towels wiping it off, but it didn’t really wipe off.

On the drive home (the seat in my dad’s Thunderbird protected by another of my mom’s towels), the stuff dried, my skin got sticky and kind of stiff feeling. At home, my mother scrubbed me until my skin burned, but that petroleum odor still seemed to stick around for days – other people couldn’t smell it, but I sure could.

When I read this verse of the letter to the Hebrews, I think of that oily stuff — “the sin that clings so closely” — no matter how much rinsing, how much wiping, how much scrubbing, it’s still there. Others may not see it, but we can feel it. Others may not see it, but we can smell it. We know it’s there! The author of the letter encourages us to “lay it aside,” but that is easier said than done. On our own, we can’t lay it aside; we can’t rinse, wipe, or scrub it off. It is permanent! . . . Or is it?

Today is the Day of Ashes, that Wednesday forty days before Easter when we symbolize that sin and our own mortality with a smudge of oily ash on our foreheads — in the same place where the priest at our baptism or the bishop at our confirmation places a cross of oil marking us a Christ’s own, we are marked again with a reminder that we are nonetheless soiled by sin and liable unto death . . . Or are we?

The chrism, the holy oil marking us as an adopted child of God, is there first. Like a shield or a protective skin, it guards us from being permanently stained. Because of that protective buffer (what St. Paul might have called “the armor of light” — Romans 13:12 — or even “the whole armor of God” — Ephesians 6:11) the sin which clings so closely is not permanent; we are not permanently soiled and liable to death! Through the power of Christ, that sin can be set aside.

The smudge is merely a temporary reminder, not a permanent stain.

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

Shrove Tuesday Confession – From the Daily Office – March 4, 2014

March 4, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Proverbs:

Thus says the man: I am weary, O God,
I am weary, O God. How can I prevail?
Surely I am too stupid to be human;
I do not have human understanding.
I have not learned wisdom,
nor have I knowledge of the holy ones.
Who has ascended to heaven and come down?
Who has gathered the wind in the hollow of the hand?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is the person’s name?
And what is the name of the person’s child?
Surely you know!

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Proverbs 30:1b-4 (NRSV) – March 4, 2014.)

Stained Glass Window Portraying ConfessionI am later than usual committing to “paper” my thoughts on a portion of today’s readings, but these first verses of the lesson from Proverbs have been with me all day. Today is Shrove Tuesday, the day before the season of Lent begins, a day on which in the 2,000-year tradition of the church the faithful are encouraged to meet with a priest and make their confessions. The name, “Shrove Tuesday,” comes from the old English verb “to shrive,” which means to absolve of sin.

Several days ago I sent out an email to the members of my parish advising them that they could, if they would like, make an appointment to offer their confession in the formal rite of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I make that invitation every year. In ten years in this parish not a single person has approached me to hear their confession. I’m not surprised; the piety and devotional practice of what is, essentially, a Midwestern Protestant congregation is very different from the nosebleed-high, bells-and-smells, Anglo-Catholic piety and practice of my initial formation as an Episcopalian. These folks are very like my southern Methodist grandparents for whom the very idea of baring their souls to a priest was anathema.

So it’s been a very long time since I have heard someone say to God, through me as a priest, “I am weary, O God, I am weary. I am too stupid; I have not learned wisdom.” That, really, is what every confession boils down to — a recognition that I am burdened by something really incredibly stupid that I have done or failed to do, an acknowledgement that the result of that has wounded my spirit, and an action taken in hopes of relieving the pain of that wound. It isn’t necessary to do this in the formal confines of the confessional, nor is it necessary to do it in the presence of another human being. But sometimes it helps. Confession, like any prayer, is a conversation between the penitent and God; the confessor is there only to aid in the communication.

I’ve had people tell me that they’ve never done (or failed to do) anything that requires confession. I’m dumbfounded when I hear that . . . because I know for sure that I have! And I’ve heard enough confessions in my years as God’s priest to know that I’m not alone and my experience of my own sinfulness and stupidity (and that of others) pretty much convinces me that it is a universal human condition. We all, every single one of us, fall short of the mark. Every single one of us is in debt to God in some way. Very few of us (and certainly no one I know) has ascended to heaven; very few of us can gather the wind in our hands; very few of us can wrap the waters in their garments; and none of us established the ends of the earth. Perfection and universal knowledge is the providence of only one or two . . . definitely not me and, I’m pretty sure, not of anyone I’ve ever met on this earth.

It’s appropriate to acknowledge that occasionally, even if only once a year.

And now I must confess that I didn’t make an appointment with a priest to make my confession this year. I knew what my day would be like; I knew what was on my itinerary through this day. I started early and didn’t write this, my daily meditation, at the usual time — in fact, I didn’t think I’d write one at all. But something I thought would take more of my time than it did is now accomplished and I find myself with a few minutes to spare. So in the absence of a private time with my confessor . . .

Holy God, heavenly Father, you formed me from the dust in your image and likeness, and redeemed me from sin and death by the cross of your Son Jesus Christ. Through the water of baptism you clothed me with the shining garment of his righteousness, and established me among your children in your kingdom. But I have squandered the inheritance of your saints, and have wandered far in a land that is waste.

Especially, I confess to you and to the Church . . .

[Well, let’s just say that there have been some times when I have been too stupid to be human, when I have not had human understanding, when I have not learned wisdom . . . ]

Therefore, O Lord, from these and all other sins I cannot now remember, I turn to you in sorrow and repentance. Receive me again into the arms of your mercy, and restore me to the blessed company of your faithful people; through him in whom you have redeemed the world, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (BCP 1979, page 450)

I haven’t done any of those things the author of proverbs asks about, but I do know who has, and I know the name of that Person’s Child. And knowing that, I know that I am shriven. Thanks be to God!

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

Be a Llama in the Lord’s Flock – From the Daily Office – March 20, 2013

March 20, 2013 / / 1 Comment

From the Gospel according to John:

So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 10:7-10 (NRSV) – March 20, 2013.)

Llama with Sheep“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” This sentence really hit me today for a lot of very personal reasons I won’t get into. As I was doing my morning ablutions, I thought of the thieves who have stolen in and taken away loved ones, family members, and friends. I thought of how obvious those thieves were about it, and yet we passed those thieves off as simple eccentricities and odd behaviors.

The thieves of which I speak have names . . . names like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, glioblastoma, alcoholism, bipolar disorder, drug abuse, and the list goes on and on. When I think of these thieves and the havoc they wreak, I think of my cousin who served honorably in the U.S. Navy and then, after his discharge, slipped away from the family into the embrace of schizophrenia never to be seen again. I think of my father whose alcoholism led him away to death in a one-car motor vehicle accident. I think of my brother whose slightly strange behavior in speaking Italian to his spouse – who didn’t speak Italian – was the first sign of the glioblastoma (brain cancer) that took his life. I think of my mother-in-law whose occasional lapses of memory were the first steps of a slow downhill dance into the darkness of Alzheimer’s Disease. I think of the people I see in shabby clothing pushing supermarket trollies down the street muttering to themselves. They have all been stolen away by thieves, leaving behind families who grieve their loss and who may be in ignorance wondering where their loved ones are.

These thieves slip into the fold under the disguises of eccentricity, oddness, unconventionality, quirkiness, and peculiarity, none of which are the least bit objectionable in themselves. But in someone who isn’t or hasn’t been eccentric or quirky, they are the warning signs, the masks warn by the thieves.

In Nevada where I was born and raised, there was a thriving sheep industry at one time. (There may still be; I haven’t lived in Nevada for many years and really don’t know.) That is the reason there are so many people of Basque descent in Nevada and neighboring states; the Basque shepherds came to tend the flocks. I remember years ago reading that one of the things the shepherds had learned was the use of llamas as guard animals for their flocks. Llamas are accepted by the sheep as one of their own; the sheep are much more comfortable with the llamas than they are with sheepdogs. The llamas can mingle with the sheep and not upset them.

Llamas, however, are very different from sheep. Sheep, of course, are timid and easily frightened; sheep will run from something or someone strange. Llamas, on the other hand, are intensely curious animals and when something unknown approaches the flock, they will go toward it to see what’s up. If a coyote (the most common predator in the Nevada desert) approaches the flock, a llama will move toward it. Predators find this behavior disconcerting and even deadly! They will run away and not bother the sheep.

Llamas react to coyotes threatening the flock in a variety of ways. They begin with with an alert and attentive posture which alarms others in the herd or flock. The animal then makes a special alarm cry and often runs toward the threat. If the llama closes with the coyote, it will place itself between it and the flock, and even kick at the predator. Coyotes have been injured and even killed by llamas. Many shepherds who use llamas as guard animals have reported a 100 percent reduction in predator losses after employing the llamas.

We need to be like llamas. When we observe eccentricity, oddness, unconventional behavior, and peculiar conduct, deportment that is out of the ordinary in friends and loved ones, we need to move toward it, take a good look at it, figure it out. Is it just quirkiness? Or is it the mask of the thief of mental or physical illness.

Our Shepherd has come to give us life and give it abundantly, but there are thieves and predators prowling around – substance addictions, brain dysfunctions, emotional illnesses among them. They threaten to take us and those we love away from the abundant life our Shepherd promises. We can be the llamas in the flock, vigilant, curious, on guard, working with the Shepherd to prevent them from taking away his sheep. Be a llama for your loved ones! Be a llama in the Lord’s flock!

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

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