Category: Ministry (Page 31 of 59)

Of Tombs and Siblings – From the Daily Office – August 14, 2014

August 14, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Acts:

[Stephen the Deacon answered the High Priest in the council and said:] “Joseph sent and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five in all; so Jacob went down to Egypt. He himself died there as well as our ancestors, and their bodies were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 7:14-16 (NRSV) – August 14, 2014)

Icon of the Martyrdom of St Philoumenos Shechem was known as Sychar in Jesus’ time. Near that land that Abraham had bought for use as a tomb, just a short walk south from the traditional location of Joseph’s tomb, is a well that belonged to Jacob. At that well, Jesus stopped to ask a Samaritan woman for a drink; part of the story of that meeting and Jesus’ conversation with the woman (the longest of all the conversations recorded in the Gospels) is today’s Gospel text (John 4:27-42).

Near Sychar the Romans built the Greek-named city of Flavia Neapolis which grew large and encompassed the ancient Jewish and Samaritan city. As the predominant local language changed to Arabic, the Greek name was retained but shortened and Arabicized, and now the modern city of Nablus is among the largest Arab cities in the Holy Land.

Over the site of Jacob’s Well stands the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Photini. The name Photini is given by Orthodox tradition to the Samaritan woman; it means “light bringer” in recognition of her bringing the light of Christ to the people of the city. The first church dedicated to her at the site was built in 311 AD.

There are two tombs at St. Photini Church. One inside houses the remains of Archimandrite Philoumenos, a priest who almost single-handedly restored the ancient church to its present modern condition. In 1979 a group of radical Zionists from a nearby Israeli settlement claimed Jacob’s Well, which is in a chapel inside the crypt of the church, as a Jewish holy place and demanded that crosses and icons be removed. A week later, on November 29, Fr. Philoumenos was hacked to death with an ax in the crypt and the church was desecrated. Although it is widely believed that the settlers were responsible, no one was ever convicted of the priest’s murder. Fr. Philoumenos was ranked among the Saints of the Church of Jerusalem on August 30, 2008, and his feast day set on November 29, the anniversary of his martyrdom.

Fr Justinus's Tomb The second tomb is that of Fr. Justinus, the priest who took over the church from St. Philoumenos and continued his work of restoration. An accomplished artist, Fr. Justinus wrote all of the icons which now decorate the nave, sanctuary, and crypt, including an icon of the martyrdom of St. Philoumenos. Fr. Justinus’s tomb is empty because he is still alive. He built his tomb himself and it is placed just outside the front door of the church; he walks past it everyday coming from his residence in the neighboring monastery to the church. It is a daily reminder of his (and our) mortality and of the dangers he (and many) face in the on-going violence or threat of violence that characterizes the Holy Land today.

If we were to read further in Acts (and we will tomorrow and the day after) we would read of the martyrdom of Stephen. His address to the Sanhedrin (perhaps one would best characterize it as a polemical sermon) so enraged his hearers that “they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him” (Acts 7:58) which resulted in his death. We are told that “devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him” (8:2) but we are not told where his burial place may have been, though surely it is in or near Jerusalem.

Nonetheless, his sermon about Jesus at Jacob’s Well in Shechem-Sychar-Nablus, the well’s location near Joseph’s Tomb and its intimate connection to the martyrdom of St. Philoumenos, and the eventual outcome of Stephen’s address are stark reminders that the Good News of God (whether that be the Covenant of the Old Testament or the Gospel of the New) is not the promise of an easy life. One would not be surprised to hear the Almighty singing the lyrics of that old country song:

I beg your pardon; I never promised you a rose garden.
Along with the sunshine, there’s gotta be a little rain sometime.
When you take you gotta give so live and let live and let go.
I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.

In fact, Jesus did pretty much that when he disabused his disciples, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Mat. 10:34)

The People of God are called to be risk-takers and, sometimes, to risk even death. Christians most surely must know that; we have only the example of our Lord to prove it. But it is also true of all the children of Abraham, not only Christians but also Jews and Muslims. What is sad is that Abraham’s descendants cannot live peaceably among themselves, that it is often our Abrahamic “siblings” from whom we face the greatest danger (sometimes even more so from our brothers and sisters within the same faith group). I believe that this breaks God’s heart!

As he died, Stephen the Deacon “knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’” (Acts 7:60) So should we all pray for those who persecute us, and let us pray especially for all who are the spiritual descendants of Abraham, that there may be peace among Jews, Muslims, and Christians.

(Note: The icon of the martyrdom of St. Philoumenos may be photographed by pilgrims and tourists, and those photographs are to be found widely posted on the internet, the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority will not permit the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem nor the parish church or monastery to reproduce the icon. It is considered politically inflammatory and is therefore censored.)

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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.

Most Definitely – From the Daily Office – August 13, 2014

August 13, 2014 / eric / 1 Comment

From the Book of Acts:

Now during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. And the twelve called together the whole community of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait at tables. Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task, while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.” What they said pleased the whole community, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, together with Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. They had these men stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 6:1-6 (NRSV) – August 13, 2014)

My wife refuses to use the word “coincidence.” She claims there are no such things. The concurrence in time of apparently unrelated but complementary and mutually reinforcing events, she asserts, is the intentional activity of the Holy Spirit. Nothing, “coincidental” (in the popular understanding of the word) about it.

Well, today one of these God-incidents, as she calls them, has occurred. When we are given this passage of scripture to read, we are also treated to the announcement of the Joint Nominating Committee for the Election of the Presiding Bishop (JNCPB) that it has issued a Call for Discernment and Profile for the election of the 27th Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church. (Notice all the “this is terribly important” capital letters in that announcement!) The “Call and Profile” can be found here: it is TWENTY pages long! The coincidence (Sorry, dear!) of this reading and this announcement seems instructive.

Luke (the author of Acts) doesn’t tell us how the apostles and the early Christian community actually called, profiled, [s]elected, and chose the first seven deacons, but I somehow doubt that they spent several months producing a twenty page document detailing the perceived needs, duties, qualifications, objectives, potential ministries, goals, and whatever-else-corporate-America-is-currently-buzzwording-for-CEOs of the job. Granted deacons are not presiding bishops. (Truth be told, I think deacons are more important than presiding bishops.) But diakonia is diakonia at whatever hierarchical level it may be performed.

I think the church has gotten lost. I hate to say that, but I think the church has truly gotten lost in the dark woods of corporate leadership process. We have followed the guidebook of the Harvard MBA and seem no longer to hear (or heed) the promptings of the Holy Spirit. As much as I value the democratic processes that make the Episcopal Church unique among Anglicans and the other branches of the Christian faith which preserve the Catholic Tradition, those processes do not and should not be permitted to make us a religious reflection of a for-profit corporation. What works (assuming it does work) for shareholders, directors, and managers of Wall-Street-traded business entities may not (probably does not) work for the church, but we seem to have adopted those processes and methods lock, stock, and barrel.

We use these methods now to select rectors of parishes, bishops of dioceses, and (now) the Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church. I ask, in all sincerity, have they worked? And my answer would be, “Sometimes.” Sometimes I believe the Holy Spirit uses our business methods and processes to do her work and help us select the best person. And sometimes I think our business processes and methods get in the way, and that the Holy Spirit just shrugs her shoulders, sits back, and waits for next time . . . .

When the Episcopal Cafe made note of the “Call and Profile” and posted that article on Facebook, I made this comment:

Put the names of all canonically eligible bishops in a large chalice then have my yet-to-be-born grandchild (who will be 9 months old and in attendance with his/her deputy parents) – or some other available innocent child – draw one name slip from the chalice. Make that person PB. Trust the Holy Spirit and stop all this corporate-America profiling-and-politicking nonsense.

This is a riff on the method the Coptic Orthodox Church uses to select its popes (as reported by NBC News). I believe it would work for us as well as, if not better than, all the profiling, job describing, nominating, and electing we go through; it is just as likely to be used and guided by the Holy Spirit, and maybe even more so. It was, basically, the method the apostles used to select a successor for Judas (Acts 1:15-26) and, in all honesty, I don’t think we’ve improved on it in nearly 2,000 years of adopting, changing, and monkeying with other methods.

My son is a clergy deputy to the upcoming General Convention (and his wife is a lay deputy). I asked if he thought Jr. Funston would be up to the task of selecting a name from a chalice. He replied, “Most definitely.”

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

Uncounted, Unnamed Children – Sermon for August 3, 2014, Pentecost 8, Proper 13A

August 3, 2014 / eric / 1 Comment

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On the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, August 3, 2014, this sermon was offered to the people of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day were: Isaiah 55:1-5; Psalm 145: 8-9,15-22; Romans 9:1-5; and Matthew 14:13-21. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Tabgha Mosaic - Loaves and Fish Today we are witnesses to one of the great and popular miracles of the gospel story, the feeding of the 5,000, which is actually the feeding of many more than that — notice the last few words of the gospel lesson text: “those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.” (v. 21, emphasis added) Matthew gives little thought to the men’s wives or their uncounted, unnamed children.

I would like to put us in context, both in time and space, so we have a fuller picture of what we have just witnessed. Matthew tells this story in the middle of chapter 14 of his gospel. In chapter 13 he related all those parables told by Jesus sitting in a boat off the shore of the Galilean lake at Capernaum, but at the end of the chapter he doesn’t leave Jesus sitting in the boat. Instead, he tells us that “when Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place [and] came to his hometown,” which would be Nazareth. (Mt 13:53-54) (You may recall that that didn’t go well: Jesus was heard to say that ” prophets are not without honor except in their own country” – v. 57)

Then, at the beginning of chapter 14 Matthew leaves Jesus altogether and tells us about the beheading of John the Baptist, which took place Sebastia, about 36 miles south of Nazareth. Matthew then brings us back to Jesus saying at the beginning of our lesson today that upon hearing the news of John’s execution, Jesus “withdrew in a boat to a deserted place.” (14:13)

Since Nazareth is not on any river or lake, I’m not sure how he did that! Here’s my difficulty: Nazareth is about 20 miles due west of the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee. In order to “withdraw in a boat” he’d have had to walk for a day or two first. It’s possible though.

Near by Nazareth, about four miles away, is the city of Sepphoris, believed to be the Virgin Mary’s hometown. In Jesus’ time it was a Roman city and may have been where craftsmen from Nazareth, like Joseph, worked. There probably was regular commerce between Sepphoris and the Roman city of Tiberias on Galilee; today there is a highway between them. Jesus may have walked to Tiberias and then gotten in a boat to make his way back to Capernaum (about 10 miles north along the shore).

Tradition tells us that the feeding of the 5,000 (or more) took place about three miles south of Capernaum at a place called Tabgha, or al-Tabigha in Arabic, a name derived from the Greek name Heptapegon meaning “seven springs”. As early as the Fourth Century there was a shrine at the identified location. A pilgrim woman from Spain named Egeria chronicled her travels in the Holy Land around the year 384 and, about Tabgha, wrote: “In the same place (not far from Capernaum) facing the Sea of Galilee is a well watered land in which lush grasses grow, with numerous trees and palms. Nearby are seven springs which provide abundant water. In this fruitful garden Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish.” (Egeria, of course, has thought only of the men, not their wives or their uncounted, unnamed children.)

In the floor of that shrine was a mosaic of loaves and fishes which has become famous throughout the Christian world. It is reproduced on your bulletin cover and is now preserved in the floor before the altar of the Church of the Multiplication, a Benedictine monastery church built at the site. The place is about a mile inland from the shore of Lake Galilee.

One last detail must be attended to and that is the question, “Could there really have been that many people there?” Possibly. That’s the best answer one can give. There are many towns and cities close enough to Tabgha that, if word got around that a miracle worker were there, people could have gotten there within a day or less of good solid walking, more quickly if they could ride a donkey or camel. Sepphoris had a population 40,000 or more, and Tiberias may have been of similar size; both were within a day’s journey. Capernaum probably had a population of 2,000 or more. The city of Chorazin, which Jesus (by the way) had cursed, is nearby. Migdala Nunia, the hometown of Mary Magdalene, is nearby. A large, m ixed crowd of Jews, Romans, and other Gentiles could easily have gathered. Matthew may be exaggerating, but even if he has increased the number of men tenfold, we are still witnessing something wonderful. Jesus is able to feed a whole lot more people than he ought with two fish and a few loaves of bread.

So that’s when and where we are as we witness this scene of Jesus providing lunch for an unbelievably huge number of people. We are on a hillside a mile from the Sea of Galilee where Jesus has gone in an attempt to get away by himself. He has just recently had a negative experience in Nazareth; he has just heard about the execution of his cousin John; he has tried to get away from it all, but the people have followed him and now find themselves with nothing to eat. And so they have turned to Jesus’ disciples, to the Twelve (who seem also to have followed him) and asked them for food. And the Twelve are at loss about what to do. They have taken stock and they simply do not believe that they can feed all these men, to say nothing of the women and the uncounted, unnamed children.

So they have a very reasonable suggestion for Jesus: “Send them away. Tell them to go back where they came from, or if that is too far away then to one of the nearer towns, and buy themselves something to eat. We cannot feed all these men and their women and their unnamed, uncounted children.”

Send them away! We do not have enough to share with these children who are fleeing drug wars and violence in Central America and illegally crossing our border and . . . .

O, wait . . . I’m mixing up my stories, sorry. This isn’t the Mexican border. This is the Holy Land. Right . . . .

Send them away! We do not have enough to share with these Palestinian children with their demands for civil liberty and a country of their own and . . . .

O, darn. I’ve done it again, mixed up my stories. This isn’t Gaza; this is the Galilee. Right . . . .

But the stories are easy to mix up. Unnamed people in need, unnamed children in need, and the response at the Mexican border is the response in Gaza is the response on that hillside at Tabgha. Send them away! Get rid of them! And whatever you do don’t count the children, don’t name the children, don’t even think of them as children.

Think of them as “law breakers.” Think of them as “illegal immigrants.” Think of them as “migrant hispanics.” And send them away. Get rid of them.

A few days ago, a major news organization quoted a North Carolina politician as saying (and, as God is my witness, I am not making this up): “To me, they’re breaking the law when they come here. If we can’t turn them back, I think if we pop a couple of them off and leave the corpses laying on the border, maybe they’ll see that we’re serious about stopping immigration.” (Raw Story)

Send them away! Get rid of them! And whatever you do don’t count them, don’t name them, don’t even think of them as children.

A few days after the current fighting in and around Gaza started a U.N. school was bombed — Hamas claimed it was an Israeli shell; Israel claimed it was an errant Hamas rocket; but to the seventeen children who died that was really irrelevant. The numbers of Palestinian dead began to rise and a disproportionate number of the dead every day are kids. By July 23, over 600 Gazans had died, 150 of them children. On that day, international aid agencies were reporting that “a child had been killed in Gaza on average every hour for the preceding two days, and more than 70,000 children had been forced to flee their homes.” (The Guardian)

That week, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem offered for radio broadcast a public service advertisement listing the names of some of the children. The Israeli Broadcasting Authority banned the ad saying its content was “politically controversial.” B’Tselem appealed and in its appeal said: “Is it controversial that the children [aren’t] alive? That they’re children? That those are their names? These are facts that we wish to bring to the public’s knowledge.” Its appeal was denied and the names of the children have never been published in Israel.

Whatever you do don’t count the children, don’t name the children, don’t even think of them as children. Think of them as “collateral damage.” Think of them as “Hamas sympathizers.” Think of them as “dirty Palestinians.” But send them away. Get rid of them.

On learning that the advertisement had been banned, the respected British children’s author Michael Rosen wrote a poem. Rosen, for two years, was British Children’s Laureate and has written more than 140 books for children. He is, incidentally, an ethnic Jew. This is his poetic response to the Broadcasting Authority’s ban:

Don’t mention the children.
Don’t name the dead children.
The people must not know the names
of the dead children.
The names of the children must be hidden.
The children must be nameless.
The children must leave this world . . .
having no names.
No one must know the names of
the dead children.
No one must say the names of the
dead children.
No one must even think that the children
have names.
People must understand that it would be dangerous
to know the names of the children.
The people must be protected from
knowing the names of the children.
The names of the children could spread
like wildfire.
The people would not be safe if they knew
the names of the children.
Don’t name the dead children.
Don’t remember the dead children.
Don’t think of the dead children.
Don’t say: ‘dead children’.
(Don’t Name the Dead Children)

“Send them away,” said the Twelve, “Get rid of them.” Jesus answer took them by surprise: “You feed them,” he said. And he proceeded to show them how they could, to prove to them that with whatever resources they had, they could care for those 5,000 men and their wives and their uncounted, unnamed children.

Lambs About a mile away from the spot where that happened, on the beach of the Sea of Galilee is another church. It is called by two names. One is the Church of the Primacy of Peter; the other is Mensa Domini, the Lord’s Table. It marks the place where, after his Resurrection, the Lord appeared to his disciples and cooked for them a breakfast of broiled fish. As they ate, Jesus asked Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter

said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” (Jn 21:15-17)

On the Mexican border, in the person of our brothers and sisters who work in Episcopal Border Ministry or Episcopal Migration Ministry, we meet those refugee children fleeing violence and death in Central America . . . In Gaza, in the person of our sisters and brothers of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem who work in the hospitals and clinics our own Good Friday offerings support, we meet the Palestinian children facing bombs and rockets and death . . . And when we meet those uncounted and still in the media unnamed children, we are just like the Twelve standing on that hillside at Tabgha looking at those 5,000 men and their wives and their unnamed, uncounted children and wondering, “How are we going to deal with this?” Some of us will want to say “Send them away we can’t handle this,” but Jesus says to us as he said to the Twelve, “Feed them.”

Jesus asks us what he asked Simon, son of John, on that beach, “Do you love me?” And if our answer is “Yes” he will name those children: he will name them “my lambs,” and what he said to Peter he will say to us, “Feed my lambs.”

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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.

Encountering Jesus with Mixed Emotions – From the Daily Office – August 1, 2014

August 1, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Psalms:

When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was stupid and ignorant; I was like a brute beast towards you.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary [Evening Psalm] – Psalm 73:21-22 (NRSV) – August 1, 2014)

Coexist - Religious Symbols I don’t know what to do about Israel and Palestine. Apparently no one knows what to do about Israel and Palestine. There is so much bitterness and emotion on both sides and from all quarters that no one can even talk about Israel and Palestine.

There’s a Facebook meme that I see from time to time: “How to start an argument online.” The instructions are simple: (1) express an opinion; (2) wait. With regard to the fighting and the deaths in Gaza, this is especially true.

Condemn the government of Israel or the Israeli Defense Force for bombing schools and hospitals . . . one is immediately labeled anti-Semitic.

Express sympathy for the people of Israel who have to deal with Hamas’ rockets . . . get called a Right-wing ideologue.

Vent one’s horror at the deaths of Palestinian women and children . . . you are obviously a supporter of Hamas.

Suggest that maybe the two sides should sit down and work out a way to live together . . . clearly one is naive or, worse, delusional.

So much bitterness and heartsickness on all sides; so much stupid brutishness as a result.

In today’s gospel, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go to the tomb, find it empty, and encounter an angel. Even though the angel tells them to not be afraid, they are; they leave the tomb “with fear and great joy.” They have, as my late mother was fond of saying about many things, “mixed emotions.” This ought to be, and probably is, what most people have about the situation in Israel and Palestine.

But what we seem incapable of doing is admitting that, that our emotions are mixed. Instead, we latch on to one predominant emotion and let it color every statement and conversation: horror at the death of children and we become passionate defenders of the Palestinians, unable to see that there is some right on the side of the Israelis; fear for the Jewish homeland and we become passionate advocates for the IDF, unable to see that there is good on the Palestinian side, as well. In the thrall of emotion, as the Psalm says, we become stupid and brutish.

The women, with mixed emotions, encountered Jesus.

One of the things we learned on our recent trip to the Holy Land was that there has been a significant, even drastic drop in the percentage of the population which is Christian. Thirty years ago, about 25% of Palestine’s residents were Christian; today, less than 2%. Israel blames “Muslim extremism” for causing the Christian exodus; Palestinians counter that it results from Israeli government policies. It really doesn’t matter, however; the decrease is a fact.

What is also a fact is that, on the ground — not from government or leadership sources, but from people we met on the street, both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arab Muslims told us in no uncertain terms that they need the Christian presence, that they see in the Christian community the only possibility for peace and reconciliation. They believe that the Christian presence holds the possibility for mediation and a way forward for all.

They made it clear, of course, that by “Christian presence” they mean the traditional churches, the Roman Catholics and the Greek Orthodox, the Lutherans and the Anglicans, not the “Armageddonists,” the fanatics who support the ultra-Orthodox Jews who want to rebuild the Temple, the Dispensationalists who think the recreation of “biblical Israel” will hasten the Rapture, the Tribulation, the final battle, and the return of Christ. The presence of those folks holds only the promise of greater conflict.

No . . . the people we met on the streets and in the shops of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and elsewhere want, with their mixed emotions, with their bitterness and heartsickness, to encounter Jesus in the people of his church. They want to, as the Lutheran bishop in the Holy Land said yesterday, engage in “interfaith dialogue, a dialogue which seeks the common values of peace, justice, co-existence, and non-violence.” (Bishop Munib Younan)

This is why the traditional Christians of Palestine must stay, and why the traditional Christians of other countries must support them with our prayers and encouragement, our financial contributions, and even our presence. We must not be afraid to go to the Holy Land to stand with them and to greet the other children of Abraham, the Jews and the Muslims, to say to all, as Paul said to the Corinthians, that there is a “still more excellent way.” (1 Cor 12:31)

“Without dialogue between religions, extremism will grow and moderates, including Christians, will be sidelined and marginalized in their own societies. It is time not only for governments to assume their responsibilities, but also people of faith.” (Bishop Younan)

We must not allow mixed emotions, bitterness, or heartsickness to turn us brutish and stupid. Rather, with all of our emotion and our intellects, we must encounter Christ and we must be the Christ others encounter.

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

Parables and Women’s Ordination – Sermon for Pentecost 7, Proper 12A – July 27, 2014

July 27, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

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On the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, July 27, 2014, this sermon was offered to the people of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day were: 1 Kings 3:5-12, Psalm 119:129-136, Romans 8:26-39, and Matthew 13:31-33,44-52. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Philadelphia 11 Ordination

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,
Success in circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth’s superb surprise;
As lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.

That’s a wonderful poem, isn’t it? Tell All The Truth by Emily Dickinson: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant;” come at it obliquely, shaded as it were, because “the truth must dazzle gradually” otherwise everyone will be blinded. But for the fact that she wrote it 1868, I would suspect Jesus of having read it and following her advice in today’s gospel discourse. These several parables are very “slanted”!

Of course, it is very unlikely that Jesus related all of these parables at one time, the two we heard the last two Sundays and these five (or is it six) that are in today’s lesson, but that is the way Matthew presents them. Most probably, these seven or eight metaphors for God’s dominion were things Jesus said at different times, but as the oral tradition transmitted them to and through his followers in the years afterward the specific circumstances of each were forgotten. Just the “slanted” sort of weird imagery was remembered, so Matthew writing his gospel tale a few decades later was left to figure out how to fit them in and decided to just put them all together in one teaching session. So we have these five (or is it six) all lumped together on one Sunday, five ways to understand — I use that word advisedly — to understand God’s sovereignty played out “on earth as it is in Heaven.” The holy domain is

like a mustard seed (and the mighty big bush it grows into);
like yeast (leaven) in a lot of flour;
like a treasure buried in a field;
like a pearl of incredible value;
like a dragnet gathering in an abundance of fish; and
(maybe, I’m not sure of this one counts as a parable)
like a scribe tossing out a bunch of stuff, old and new.

As one commentator has suggested, “That is probably four [or is it five] images too many for one sermon.” So let’s deal with the first one primarily, the mustard seed and the tree into which Jesus says it grows.

Tree imagery as a metaphor for empire was well-known in Jesus’ time. There are at least three very important instances of it in the Hebrew scriptures, so it was familiar to the scribes, the priests, the rabbis, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, and those who preached in the synagogues had probably made it fairly well known to their congregations, to folk like those who heard Jesus tell this parable. Those three instances are found in Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Psalms.

In the 17th Chapter of Ezekiel we read:

Thus says the Lord God: I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind. All the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord. I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree; I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I the Lord have spoken; I will accomplish it. (Ez 17:22-24)

In the 4th Chapter of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar of Bablyon tells Daniel of a dream he has had:

Hear the dream that I saw; tell me its interpretation. Upon my bed this is what I saw; there was a tree at the center of the earth, and its height was great. The tree grew great and strong, its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the ends of the whole earth. Its foliage was beautiful, its fruit abundant, and it provided food for all. The animals of the field found shade under it, the birds of the air nested in its branches, and from it all living beings were fed. (Dan 4:9-12)

As Daniel interprets the dream, the tree represents Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom.

And, finally, from Psalm 104, these words would have been sung in the Temple liturgy:

You make grass grow for flocks and herds *
and plants to serve mankind;
That they may bring forth food from the earth, *
and wine to gladden our hearts,
Oil to make a cheerful countenance, *
and bread to strengthen the heart.
The trees of the Lord are full of sap, *
the cedars of Lebanon which he planted,
In which the birds build their nests, *
and in whose tops the stork makes his dwelling.
(vv. 14-18, BCP version)

Yes, metaphors of mighty trees would be part of the spiritual landscape familiar to Jesus’ hearers. But not mustard bushes! The people who first heard Jesus preach this parable must have thought he was crazy, or that he was mocking the prophets, or that he was making a joke at the expense of the priests and the rabbis.

The mustard was not, is not, despite what Jesus said, “the greatest of shrubs [which] becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” The white mustard which grows in the Middle East is an invasive weed, a self-propagating, rapidly-growing, garden-ruining, field-destroying weed. Let it get into your growing space and you will never get rid of it. Jesus’ parable is not, like Ezekiel’s prophecy or the psalm’s liturgical praise, a story of a mighty and stately cedar tree. It is a “frightening tale of an invasive plant sowed perhaps in desperation because it grows and therefore might produce something usable quickly, but with it is the threat that because it is so hard to get rid of it may stultify the land and make it unavailable for future better crops. Once it is grown big it will seed itself again and again….” (English clergyman Christopher Burkett) It can’t be controlled!

And that may be the point of Jesus’ metaphor: the domain of God is like the mustard seed, not because from small things great things may come (the usual interpretation of this parable), but rather because the invasive mustard cannot be controlled. It is like the Wind of God which “blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” (Jn 3:8) Once it gets started, you cannot control it.

It’s one of those Jesus-turns-the-world-on-its-head things, Jesus-tells-the-truth-in-a-slanted-way things, using a perverse and noxious weed as a metaphor for the reign of God.

The parable of the yeast in the dough makes that same point! Our NRSV translation says that the woman “mixed” it into her flour and we assume that this would be so that the bread would rise. However, the Greek verb Jesus uses is not the word for “mix.” It is the word in Greek is engkrupto — the root of our word “encryption” — it means “to hide” or “to conceal.” Like the tiny mustard seed, the yeast could not be seen — it was hidden in the meal, into “three measures” of the meal, which is an important detail.

Yeast, for us, is a useful ingredient in baking. For First Century Jews, however, yeast was a problem; for Jews of Jesus’ day leaven was a symbol of filth and corruption. Anything that was leavened with yeast was forbidden in the Temple. This woman was playing with fire! As a symbol of God’s dominion, this yeast is fire of the Holy Spirit: wherever it is present, things get changed and transformed. A tiny, hidden bit of it can work major changes — when we understand that that “three measures” of flour is enough to make 150 loaves of bread, we get that point! The growth of the yeast and the changes it makes in a huge amount of dough are as uncontrollable as the invasive mustard weed that takes over the field — and the point is the same: you cannot control the reign of God; once it gets started, look out!

Yet another of those Jesus-turns-the-world-on-its-head things, Jesus-tells-the-truth-in-a-slanted-way things, using the foul corruption of leaven as a metaphor for the reign of God.

The hiddenness of the yeast, the small invisibility of the mustard seed, link these parables with the next two — the treasure hidden in the field and the unexpected discovery of the priceless pearl. The reign of God is not only uncontrollable, it is surprising. Hidden, invisible, unexpected, it comes upon us in surprising ways and, uncontrollable though it may be, the changes it makes in our lives are beyond price, more valuable than we could ever imagine.

Which brings us to the last two metaphors, the dragnet full of fish, some good, some bad, in need of sorting out, and the scribe who is like a master of a household sorting old and new. The metaphor of the fish is yet another image of the final judgment, like the separating of wheat from the darnel in the parable of the weeds, or the sorting of the sheep from the goats in Jesus’ description of the Last Day; it is a warning for the sinful, but also a promise for those who faithfully follow the Lord. What, however, are we to make of the master of the house bringing out things old and things new?

This parable, it has been suggested, authorizes the followers of Christ who have been properly instructed, who have studied our catechisms and who have continued to study scripture and church tradition, who are schooled in the scriptures and in our communities’ histories, to re-interpret that scripture and that tradition, to bring out of our treasure of scripture and tradition that which is new, new insights, new interpretations, new ways of being God’s People even though those may not explicitly have been recorded in any previous text, to tell the truth slanted in a way that no one has slanted it before.

This accords with the ancient presupposition that properly trained scribes had the ability to decipher and interpret sacred texts. Followers of Jesus are to be trained scribes. They — WE — are to continuously study the scriptures, to be educated and trained, to have the ability to invoke tradition (the “something old”) and to contribute novel insights that have not previously offered (the “something new”).

On Tuesday, we celebrate the fortieth anniversary of a small, but remarkable event in the life of the church. On July 29, 1974, eleven women were ordained to the priesthood at Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their ordination was not sanctioned by the canons of the church; the ordination of women had been hotly debated in two or three or more meetings of the General Convention, but had not yet been approved. Nonetheless, four bishops decided that they could not wait further parliamentary wrangling on the question.

Newsworks, a Philadelphia news journal, this week published this description of the service:

It was hot that day — July 29, 1974 — and the church was packed with more than 2,000 people — including family, congregants, and media. Not all were friendly.

“There was one protester who was very dramatic and said that these women could offer up nothing but the sight, sound, and smell of perversion,” said [Allison] Cheek [one of the eleven]. “Some in the congregation began to boo and hiss at that moment.”

“On one level it was scary,” said [Nancy] Wittig, another member of the 11. “But it was very clear as we got started that this was not just some vacant daydream by a bunch of women, but indeed a movement that was happening in the church.”

Delivering the sermon was Charles Willie, an African-American professor of education at Harvard University and a member of the Episcopal House of Deputies. He compared the ordination to the civil rights movement.

“This shouldn’t be seen as an act of arrogant disobedience,” said Dr. Willie from the podium. “But an act of tender defiance.” (Newsworks, 24 July 2014)

That “act of tender defiance” changed the church. The next meeting of the General Convention, in 1976, voted to approve the priestly ordination of women and, as Newsworks noted, the decision was “broader than just allowing women to the priesthood — it called for gender equality at all levels of church hierarchy, including bishops.” Today, nearly a third of the priests in our church are women and our current presiding bishop is a woman: the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori.

If the protestor at the ordination of the Philadelphia 11 was right, if there was about it “the sight, sound, and smell of perversion,” it was the perverseness of the mustard seed; it was the corruption of the yeast hidden in three measures of flour; it was the uncontrollable contrariness of the Holy Spirit and it has changed the church.

And for that we give thanks. Let us pray:

God of surprises, you startle us with truth we do not see, as we do not see the mustard seed; with truth that may be hidden from us, as the yeast is hidden in the dough; with truth that is as surprising as the unexpected treasure and as priceless as the great pearl. We thank you for the ministry of women throughout the church, and especially for the ministry of women ordained to the priesthood; we offer you special thanks for the witness and ministry of the Philadelphia 11 and of the bishops and others who supported them in their discernment of your call to priesthood. Amaze us with your power and grace; call us, empower us, and lead us through your uncontrollable Spirit to bring out of our treasure and into service in your world things new and things old, that your Name may be glorified among all people. All this we ask through your Son our savior Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you and that same Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

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

The Dead Matter – From the Daily Office – July 25, 2014

July 25, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel according to Matthew:

After conferring together, [the chief priests used the silver Judas returned] to buy the potter’s field as a place to bury foreigners. For this reason that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 27:7-8 (NRSV) – July 25, 2014)

Shrouded Corpses Until our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary my wife had never traveled overseas. She’d been to Canada, but that was it for foreign travel for her. For our anniversary we went to Ireland, something we’d talked about doing for many years. In fact, it had been my plan for our honeymoon, but that (obviously) didn’t happen.

Since then, we’ve returned to Ireland and we’ve traveled in Israel and Palestine. Each time we’ve gone overseas (and I’ve made two other trips by myself), she has insisted that we up-date our wills, temporarily transfer assets to our children, and make other death preparations before leaving. My wife is afraid of dying in a foreign land and (I suppose) of being buried in a potter’s field.

I’m not. I don’t care where I die and I don’t care where I am buried.

I wonder if that difference between us is because there is a “family plot” where she knows her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins are buried, whereas my deceased family members are just about everywhere.

My father, the first of my nuclear family to die, is buried in Las Vegas. My brother, the next, is buried in his hometown of Winfield, Kansas (his wish and that of his second wife, another Winfield native). My mother and stepfather were cremated and their ashes deposited in a church memory garden in southern California. My mother’s only brother, the only extended family member whose grave I know of (because I handled the arrangements), is buried in Winfield like my brother, but in a different cemetery. I have no idea where my grandparents are buried; my father’s parents are somewhere in Denver, Colorado, and my mother’s somewhere in or near Long Beach, California, I think. Visiting family graves for Decoration Day would be an expensive road trip!

There’s none of these places special enough to me — except maybe my hometown, Las Vegas — that I would want to be buried there, and even Las Vegas is without significant meaning to anyone else in my family. (Our daughter was born there, but she considers Kansas her “home place.”) So I bury me anywhere, even in a foreign country; I don’t care.

In any event, I wonder about those foreigners in that field. Like the man whose betrayal money purchased their graves, their burials would be attended to by non-family. Perhaps, like his, their burials would be hastily arranged and the rituals only partially attended to. Like him, they would be buried in tombs not their own. But did they care? I think not.

Recently, a group of us clergy were talking about funerals and funeral planning. One of our group pointed us to a wonderful essay by undertaker and poet Thomas Lynch entitled Tract: I commend it to you, as well. Interviewed about that piece by Frontline, Lynch said:

[Q] Will you care after your death if they take care of you in death as you did your dad? Will that matter?

[A] Whether or not my family is involved with the care of my body, that’s their business. I’ll be the dead guy, and the dead say nothing. This is a sign to me that they don’t care, that heaven is not having to worry about these things, so I’m determined not to worry about them either.

But, you know, we used to say to my father, who directed a fair few funerals, “What do you want done with you when you’re dead?” and he’d say, “Well, you’ll know what to do.” I think mine will know what to do, too, not because I’ve said, “Do this or that,” but because they have seen life as I have seen it, and they sort of know me and I know them. And so they’ll know what to do.

[Q] And yet you write that beautiful essay Tract in your book, The Undertaking, which is in some way a map, is it?

[A] Well, read it closely, and what I’ve written is that as long as they deal with it, I don’t care what they do. I do not care but that they do it honorably. That they do it for themselves I think is very important. So yeah, I enjoyed writing that piece. And I do think that while the dead don’t care, the dead matter. The dead matter to the living. And at least so far as my experience is concerned, the living who bear those burdens honorably are better off for it.

(Frontline interview)

“The dead don’t care, the dead matter.” I don’t care and when I’m dead I’ll care even less. I really don’t think my scattered family members cared. Those foreigners buried in the potter’s field, once they were dead, didn’t care. But they did and do matter. They matter most to the One whom they were like, the one who had no hole, no next, no place to lay his head (Lk 9:58), not even a grave of his own, the One who like them (and like Moses before them) was “a stranger in a strange land.” (Ex 2:22, KJV)

“The dead don’t care, the dead matter.” And they matter to the One who has gone that way before.

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

Wringing the Past’s Neck – From the Daily Office – July 24, 2014

July 24, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel according to Matthew:

Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. A servant-girl came to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” But he denied it before all of them, saying, “I do not know what you are talking about.” When he went out to the porch, another servant-girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” Again he denied it with an oath, “I do not know the man.” After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you are also one of them, for your accent betrays you.” Then he began to curse, and he swore an oath, “I do not know the man!” At that moment the cock crowed. Then Peter remembered what Jesus had said: “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 26:69-75 (NRSV) – July 24, 2014)

Traveling in Palestine recently, I was accompanied by a priest who had formerly been a Benedictine monk. In religious life, he had taken the name “Peter” and adopted St. Peter the Apostle as his patron.

One day in conversation about some icons in a Jerusalem church, he pointed out that there is almost a chiastic relationship between this story (which John also relates, Jn 18:16-27) and a post-resurrection story in the Gospel according to John.

The latter is the story of the grilled fist breakfast on the beach of the Galilean lake. The disciples, out fishing, see a figure on the shore which they then realize is Jesus. Jesus calls to them and invites them to share some fish he is cooking over a fire. As they are eating, he engages Peter in conversation:

Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)

Peter’s three-fold denial is answered by Jesus’ three-fold commission to tend to the flock. The denial notwithstanding, Jesus affirms Peter’s on-going position as one of (some would say the chief of) his apostles, those he has sent into the world to continue his work. There is a lovely chiastic symmetry to the stories.

My new friend, the former Benedictine, told me that when he took his vows in the order an icon writer created an icon of Peter for him (not the icon illustrating this reflection). In the icon, Peter is wringing the rooster’s neck! In many ways, that simple bit of artistic license underscores for me the humanity of Peter and also illustrates the truth that Jesus’ forgiveness empowers us to overcome the past.

Most of us — probably all of us — have (or will) in one way or another denied Jesus. I’m confident that Jesus has already forgiven us (many times over) for those denials. Thinking of that icon, I believe Jesus has given us the power to “wring the neck” of the circumstances which may have led us to those denials. We may not be able to change the past, but through the forgiveness of Christ and the grace of God we can change the way the past influences the future.

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

At the End, There Is God – From the Daily Office – July 22, 2014

July 22, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Romans:

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Romans 14:7-8 (NRSV) – July 22, 2014)

Coffin in Grave The Book of Common Prayer (1979) lifts these verses and, together with others, uses them in the anthem with which the Burial Office (Rite Two) begins:

I am Resurrection and I am Life, says the Lord.
Whoever has faith in me shall have life,
even though he die.
And everyone who has life,
and has committed himself to me in faith,
shall not die for ever.

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth.
After my awaking, he will raise me up;
and in my body I shall see God.
I myself shall see, and my eyes behold him
who is my friend and not a stranger.

For none of us has life in himself,
and none becomes his own master when he dies.
For if we have life, we are alive in the Lord,
and if we die, we die in the Lord.
So, then, whether we live or die,
we are the Lord’s possession.

Happy from now on
are those who die in the Lord!
So it is, says the Spirit,
for they rest from their labors.

The first paragraph is from Jesus’ conversation with Martha of Bethany when she met him on the road when he came following her brother Lazarus’s death. (John 11:25-26) The second is from Job; it is part of Job’s reply to Bildad the Shuhite. (Job 19:25-27) The conclusion is from Revelation; John of Patmos is told to write this after seeing the “one hundred forty-four thousand” elect and as the angels of God harvest what Julia Ward Howe called “the grapes of wrath.” (Rev. 14:13)

The 1928 Prayer Book had a similar but rather more resigned opening anthem compiled from Scripture, the first two paragraphs being the same, but a third concluding paragraph was taken from 1 Timothy 6:7 and Job 1:21. Where the newer anthem presents the hope of eternal rest, the older feels like a shrug of the shoulders and a sigh of “Oh well, it’s over – it was fun while it lasted.” I’m sure that’s not the original intent of the drafters, but that’s my reaction to it:

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.

I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.

We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

Although the newer anthem is more positive and comforting in my opinion, the theological import of the two is the same; life ends and at its end, there is God.

Both represent a liturgical model of what I find most attractive about the Anglican approach to Scripture. They are theological statements constructed from a holistic understanding of the Bible. They draw from multiple sources within the holy text, from both Hebrew and Christian scriptures, to fashion a statement which succinctly, but memorably summarizes the Christian hope.

Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. At the end, there is God.

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

From Little Things – From the Daily Office – July 17, 2014

July 17, 2014 / eric / 1 Comment

From the Gospel according to Matthew:

Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, “Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 26:6-9 (NRSV) – July 17, 2014)

Building Trust In John’s Gospel, Mary of Bethany is identified as the woman doing the anointing. (Jn 12:3) In John’s telling, Judas Iscariot is identified as the sole disciple who complained about the waste of money (and accused of doing so only because of an imputed intent to steal it for himself). (Jn 12:4-6)

Matthew, however, leaves the woman unnamed and ascribes the financial grumbling to all of the congregation, thus giving us a picture of the earliest beginnings of what have become venerable traditions in the Christian church: waste of church assets without taking personal responsibility, and anonymous grumbling about others’ (usually leadership’s) use (or alleged misuse) church funds. They are the flip-sides of the same coin.

The first doesn’t usually happen so boldly and openly as the woman behaves in this instance. Usually, the church’s property is wasted in anonymous ways. For example, in the men’s room at my church, there is a large hole in the wall behind the door: someone obviously opened the door with rather more force than was necessary and the doorknob smashed through the drywall. Has anyone taken responsibility for that? Not to my knowledge.

Look through the prayer books, hymnals, and bibles in the pew racks of nearly any church, you’ll find one or more bearing the scribbles and drawings of children who entertained themselves during some dull part of the worship. I’ve found such artwork in every parish I’ve worshiped in or served as clergy over the past several decades, but no parent has ever stepped up to me at coffee hour and said, “My child defaced a hymnal.”

Have you ever gone to a supply cabinet, refrigerator, or closet convinced that some item you need will be there, only to find that someone else has used it, taken it, or disposed of it? Who did that? Who knows? And why didn’t that person tell anyone they’d taken or used the last of whatever it was? I’ve stood in church kitchens and supply rooms asking those questions on many occasions.

Why don’t folks step up and admit these things so that they can be taken care of? Is it embarrassment? Is it fear? Is it simple neglect? Is it simple unthinking rudeness? I don’t know, but the end result for the person who must deal with the damage or with the lack of supplies is inconvenience, annoyance, and the beginnings of loss of trust in the community.

Which brings us the flip-side issue, i.e., the complaints (usually voiced in the parking lot) about the manner in which church assets are managed and the way money is spent.

There are people who do step up and take responsibility, the people who get elected to governing boards or who volunteer to oversee ministry programs or who respond to God’s call and end up getting ordained. These folks are then tasked with administering the church and its property, which means they become targets for criticism. It’s almost guaranteed that, whatever decisions they may make, someone in the church is going to follow the example of the disciples and say, “Why this waste? This could have been used for [fill in the blank].” In my experience, however, the folks who make the complaint the loudest are often unwilling to step forward themselves and take on leadership roles in the church. (Notice that none of the disciples offered to take Jesus’ place on the cross . . . in fact, the Gospels tell us that, when the time came to own their allegiance to Jesus, they ran away or, in the case of Peter, denied even knowing him.)

The issue in both the wasting of assets and the grumbling about how others manage them is the same: trust. Communities of faith — indeed, any human community — depends on trust. We human beings can only live together, work together, accomplish anything together, when we trust one another. We have to have enough trust in each other to be able to admit to one another that we have damaged something or used something up without expectation of being found at fault. We have to have enough trust in each other to be able to allow others to run the church’s business without grumbling about the way they do it. And often, we don’t.

A lot of social research has been done with shows rather conclusively that accountability precedes the development of trust in human organizations. This is the way in which these two issues are linked: anonymous damage to, waste of, or use of church property, in other words lack of accountability, deteriorates (or inhibits the development of) trust. Lack of trust leads to the parking-lot grumbling, which encourages the greater loss of trust. The one feeds the other; it’s a circle, a vicious cycle. It takes just a small step, however, to stop it.

That small step is the difference between Matthew’s report of Jesus’ anointing and John’s. When we use the last of something, when we inadvertently damage something, when our kids do what kids do . . . we can identify ourselves, as Mary is identified in John’s Gospel, and take responsibility. This grows trust. When we question leadership’s decisions, we can do so openly, as Judas does in John’s Gospel, this too grows trust — a surprise, perhaps, to see Judas as a positive figure, but there he is. These are a little things, but as many have noted, from little things great things grow. From small acts of accountability, trust grows; from trust, community grows.

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

Particular Social Groups – From the Daily Office – July 16, 2014

July 16, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel according to Matthew:

Jesus said: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 25:31-46 (NRSV) – July 16, 2014)

I don’t usually quote the entire Daily Office Lectionary lesson in these meditations, I try to focus on one image, one metaphor, one statement in one or two verses from one of the lessons or psalms for the day, but today it just seems right to set out the whole end-time, judgment day, sheep-and-goats story that Jesus tells of the Last Day. Here’s why:

A couple of days ago a friend and colleague in ordained ministry posted a link to an essay on her Facebook page. The essay concerned the difficulty the essayist felt in being what he called “a liberal Christian.” He complained (rightly, in my experience) about the fact that among his politically liberal (and not uncommonly agnostic or atheist) friends, he found himself criticized and even ridiculed for his religious faith, while among his religiously Christian (and not uncommonly politically conservative) friends, he found himself criticized and even rejected because of his liberal politics. (The essay is here.)

The very first comment posted by any of her Facebook friends was this, “Chaplain, why not just preach The Word without regard for particular social groups?” (My friend has spent most of her ordained ministry in uniform ministering to American armed forces personnel, which explains why she is addressed as “Chaplain” by the commenter.)

Apart from the ambiguity of whatever it may be that the commenter means by “The Word,” which would be a subject for another meditation perhaps, my reaction to the suggestion was, “Is that even possible?” My faith is a social one (I’m even tempted to say “a political one”); “the word” (here, I mean “the bible”) is almost exclusively about God’s dealing with “particular social groups.” Whenever the prophets of the Old Testament speak, they speak to social classes (usually the ruling class) about the treatment of “particular social groups” (usually the poor). When Jesus deals with individuals (apart from the healing stories), it is usually not about their individual faith or personal behavior, and if it is, it’s almost always about how that behavior affects others.

For example, although in his conversation with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well he and she do mention her personal life he does not focus on that. Instead, he turns the conversation toward the propriety of worship by groups (her Samaritans, his Jews, and eventually “true worshipers”) in various places and at various times. (Jn 4) When the Canaanite (or Syrophoenician) woman seeks healing for her daughter, neither the nature of the illness nor the personal behavior of the woman or the child are the subject of conversation; the discussion focuses on the targets of Jesus’ ministry (“the children” – i.e., the Jews – or “the dogs” – i.e., the Gentiles). (Mt 15:22-28) When Jesus does address matters of individual religious practice, it is usually to criticize it for taking the believer’s attention away from the needs of “particular social groups”:

The Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God ) — then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.” (Mk 7:5-13)

And then today’s Daily Office gospel lesson. How can one “preach The Word without regard for particular social groups” when the Word Incarnate does not do so? Here he specifically tells us that his followers will be (are they not already?) divided into “particular social groups” at the day of judgment, into the “sheep” on his right and the “goats” on his left. And he will address each group with regard to how they treated other “particular social groups” — the naked, the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the imprisoned, the “members of my family.”

I cannot see any way to “preach The Word without regard for particular social groups.” Neither Judaism nor Christianity is an individual faith; neither is concerned exclusively, nor even primarily, with individual behavior and practice, with the individual’s relationship with God. Both have major social components; both are concerned with human beings living in community, in covenant relationship with other human beings, in “particular social groups.” The Jews are nowhere described as “the chosen individuals of God;” they are the People of God. Christians were not told that where one is praying Jesus would be there, but “where two or three are gathered.” (Mt 18:20) Ours is a social, even a political, faith concerned with “particular social groups.”

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

Category: Ministry (Page 31 of 59)

Of Tombs and Siblings – From the Daily Office – August 14, 2014

Most Definitely – From the Daily Office – August 13, 2014

Uncounted, Unnamed Children – Sermon for August 3, 2014, Pentecost 8, Proper 13A

Encountering Jesus with Mixed Emotions – From the Daily Office – August 1, 2014

Parables and Women’s Ordination – Sermon for Pentecost 7, Proper 12A – July 27, 2014

The Dead Matter – From the Daily Office – July 25, 2014

Wringing the Past’s Neck – From the Daily Office – July 24, 2014

At the End, There Is God – From the Daily Office – July 22, 2014

From Little Things – From the Daily Office – July 17, 2014

Particular Social Groups – From the Daily Office – July 16, 2014

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