Category: Politics (Page 19 of 24)

A Politics of Truth – From the Daily Office – March 7, 2013

March 7, 2013 / eric / 2 Comments

From the Gospel according to John:

Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 8:31-32 (NRSV) – March 7, 2013.)

Crossed Fingers Behind the Back “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” There is an undeniable link between truth and autonomy, between authenticity and independence. Those who seek to take away liberty do so by use of falsehood, and most effective untruths are those which are the biggest. Adolph Hitler described the phenomenon:

In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. (A. Hitler, Mein Kampf)

Hitler was not here advocating the big lie, though he and his propagandist made very effective use of it. Rather, he was accusing the Jews of founding their existence on “one great lie, namely, that they are a religious community, where as in reality they are a race.” Hitler made effective use of the big lie in his project to eradicate the Jews, but eventually the truth came out and he did not succeed.

Unfortunately, the lie as a political tool continues to rear its ugly head. We can all think of plenty of examples:

“Sadam Hussein was involved in 9/11. Sadam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. Sadam Hussein is purchasing equipment to refine uranium for weapons.” None of that was true. Thousands of Americans and millions of Iraquis are dead, wounded, or displaced as a result.

“Barack Hussein Obama was not born in the United States.” What a huge waste of time and attention that lie caused.

“Health care reform will include the use of death panels . . . . ” Um, no.

“The government will collapse into chaos if the sequestration is allowed to happen.” We’ve seen some curtailment of programs, some furloughs of government employees, but it all seems rather orderly.

Falsehood is not a very good tool for politics or governance. In fact, it’s an obstacle to both. Falsehood makes it impossible to discuss or debate anything because the productive discourse demands truthfulness. Only if our decision-making processes are based on established facts can we make effective decisions. Actions taken on the basis of falsehood and fantasy are inevitably disastrous.

Truth, on the other hand, as Jesus promised, sets us and our politics free. Free to deal with problems in the real world. Free to find solutions to which all can agree, or which (at least) all can accept. Free to look at the real world in a realistic manner. Free to face facts.

We who are followers of the One who is the Truth, the Way, and the Life, need to rise up and demand of our politicians that they deal in fact, that they live in the real world, that they speak truth to us and to one another. As the now-popular meme puts it, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts. There is one set of facts in the real world in which we all live. Only a politics of truth that faces those facts can solve the problems we have and protect our liberty.

But no politics, not even the most fact-based politics, can truly set us free. Only the Truth can do that.

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

Deceptive Words – From the Daily Office – March 4, 2013

March 4, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Jeremiah:

Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Jeremiah 7:8 (NRSV) – March 4, 2013.)

Trust Me I'm Lying I’ve been thinking about this all day and there is so much to say . . . but this cuts so deeply into so many areas of life that I cannot bring myself to say any of them.

I can only ask every person a question: If you are truly honest with yourself, can you identify the deceptive words – in church, in politics, in the economy, in your work, in your family, in your personal life – that you trust to no avail?

The most important ones, the deceptive words to be most honest about, are the ones we say to ourselves. They are also the most deceptive.

Be honest . . . you know there are many.

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

Reason and Consensus: Biblical Political Values – From the Daily Office – February 26, 2013

February 26, 2013 / eric / 2 Comments

From the Psalms:

How long will you assail a person,
will you batter your victim, all of you,
as you would a leaning wall, a tottering fence?
Their only plan is to bring down a person of prominence.
They take pleasure in falsehood;
they bless with their mouths,
but inwardly they curse.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 62:3-4 (NRSV) – February 26, 2013.)

U.S. Capitol As I read the lessons and Psalms of the Daily Office lectionary for today, this was the passage that spoke loudest to me, but I did not want to write about it. I tried to reflect upon and author a meditation about some other bits of the Scriptures appointed for today, but my thoughts kept returning to this one.

I’m fairly confident that my comments about it will not be readily accepted by, will indeed by rejected by some of my readers, including not a few of my parishioners. But I have to be honest in my understanding and exegesis of the Bible, and its application to our modern world.

I usually use the version of the Psalms from The Book of Common Prayer in these meditations, but today I’ve chosen to use the New Revised Standard Version because the translation is more accurate. The Prayer Book puts these words in the first person, “How long will you assail me . . . ?” The NRSV is closer to the Hebrew which is in the third person, “How long will you assail a man . . . ? The Hebrew is ‘iysh which can mean a male human being, but can also be translated as gender neutral, so the NRSV is not wrong to do so.

The theologian Karl Barth, in an interview with Time Magazine in 1963 advised theologians “to take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.” Three years later, in another interview, he said, “The Pastor and the Faithful should not deceive themselves into thinking that they are a religious society, which has to do with certain themes; they live in the world. We still need – according to my old formulation – the Bible and the Newspaper.”

When I read these words from the Bible, I cannot help but remember these words from the news: “I hope he fails. . . . . I hope Obama fails.” (Radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, The Rush Limbaugh Show, January 16, 2009)

I cannot help but remember these words from the news: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” (Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, National Journal interview, October 23, 2010)

I cannot help but remember these words from the news: “We’re going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.” (Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Oh, Politico, concerning President Obama’s first-term agenda, October 28, 2010)

I cannot do anything but what Professor Barth admonished and interpret these newspaper reports from my Bible, especially when my Bible decries and condemns those whose “only plan is to bring down a person of prominence.”

I make no bones of that fact that I am politically a progressive. I’ve never hidden that from anyone and in today’s current American political climate, especially since I live in a “swing state”, that means that I voted for President Obama, twice. My congregation knows that. In the first election, I put no political bumper stickers on my car, but my wife had an Obama/Biden sticker on hers. In the second election, we both did. If I’d had my druthers, I’d rather have voted for the Green Party but, as I said, I live in a swing state and a vote for the Greens would have been, effectively, a vote for the Republican candidates. I voted for President Obama.

So there they are; my political cards are on the table. In politics, economics, and social values, I’m on the “left” of the spectrum. No secrets.

But this isn’t about left or right, Democrat or Republican. It isn’t really about politics, at all. It’s about consensus building and governing with with reason; it’s about values that are not only political but Biblical.

I take the Bible seriously; I’m fairly conservative when it comes to exegeting Holy Scripture. When a Psalm negatively portrays the sorts of politics we see in modern America, I take it seriously.

I can remember a time, not so long ago, when this wasn’t the way our leaders conducted the country’s business. For example, although I was not (and never will be) a member of his party, I remember with affection and respect Senator Everett Dirksen, R-Ill. His was a voice of reason and compromise; his skillful working with Senators Hubert Humphrey (D-Mn) and Mike Mansfield (D-Mt) led to the end of a Republican filibuster and passage of the Civil Rights Act 1964.

It was a Republican who spoke of “the need to maintain balance in and among national programs – balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage – balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.” That Republican was President Dwight D. Eisenhower giving his farewell address to the nation on January 17, 1961.

President Eisenhower worked well with a Democratic Senate leader, Lyndon B. Johnson, D-Tx. They both had a fondness for government by consensus and reached across party lines to form a close working relationship. One of Johnson’s favorite sayings was “Come, let us reason together;” he spoke it often after he became president himself. It is a quotation from Scripture:

“Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool. If you consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Isaiah 1:18-20, NAS)

Our political parties do not have to play the sort of political games currently being played. They have worked together in the past; they can do so again. Planning only to bring down one’s opponent, refusing to work toward consensus, failing to reason together . . . these are not only bad politics, they are unfaithful.

Scripture is filled with admonitions to work together:

Oh, how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity! (Ps 133:1, BCP version)

Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. (1 Cor. 1:10, NRSV)

Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Eph. 4:1-3, NRSV)

Make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. (Philip. 2:2, NRSV)

Our political leaders who claim the Christian faith should not be governing (in truth, failing to govern) on the basis of “bringing down a person of prominence.” Any who do should be taken to task, but not on the basis of their politics, because on politics people of faith can disagree. No, they should be taken to task because such behavior is unfaithful; it betrays the Biblical witness and the admonitions of Scripture to reason together. Reason and consensus are not only political values; they are Biblical values.

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

Holy Wit: Humor in the Bible – From the Daily Office – February 25, 2013

February 25, 2013 / eric / 4 Comments

From the Prophet Jeremiah:

The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see a branch of an almond tree.” Then the Lord said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Jeremiah 1:11-12 (NRSV) – February 25, 2013.)

Buddy Jesus, from the movie Dogma These two verses have probably caused any number of people to scratch their heads in bewilderment over the centuries. Those who read them in English without looking behind the translation to the original language wonder, “What on earth does this mean?” Those who read them in Hebrew wonder, “How can God have such a terrible sense of humor?”

This is a pun. The Hebrew word for “almond” or “almond tree” is shaqed, while that for “watching” is shaqad. God is playing with words and images in order to impress upon Jeremiah’s mind the seriousness of God’s watchfulness. It worked; Jeremiah remembered (and wrote about) it.

The Irish satirist (and Anglican clergyman) Jonathan Swift said of punning that it “is an art of harmonious jingling upon words, which, passing in at the ears, excites a titillary motion in those parts; and this, being conveyed by the animal spirits into the muscles of the face, raises the cockles of the heart.” Essayist Charles Lamb considered the pun “a noble thing per se. It fills the mind, it is as perfect as a sonnet; better.”

Such praise, however, is far from universal. Often quoted is English poet John Dryden’s aphorism that the pun is the “lowest and most groveling kind of wit,” or Ambrose Bierce’s derision of it as a “form of wit to which wise men stoop and fools aspire.” In all of her work, Jane Austen includes puns in only one, Mansfield Park, and there only to demonstrate the low moral character of the offender, the shallow and evil Mary Crawford.

Holy Scripture, on the other hand, is full of puns and other word play, such as double-entendres. The Law and the Prophets are full of them; Jesus uses them in the Gospels. The problem for modern American readers, however, is that they are in Hebrew and Greek, and simply don’t translate into English. In addition, Scripture is chock full of other forms of humor, including sarcasm and irony, humorous imagery and exaggerations, and plays on the names of people and places. Again, these do not translate well from one language to another.

Although there are no jokes per se in the Bible, the Scriptures are replete with humor; there is an abundance of wit in Holy Writ. Perhaps not all, but most of this humor can only be appreciated if read in the original Hebrew or Greek. To the believer, the conservative believer especially, the Bible is a moral document, not a storybook, so the presence of humor in it comes as a shock to many; in fact, some would deny that there is anything funny about the Holy Book. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, for example, claimed that “the total absence of humour from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all of literature.” Many Christians seem to think the Bible is only a solemn and serious book, full of timeless wisdom but definitely containing nothing even remotely funny. I recently read a sermon by a preacher from the “Christian Right” which derided the use of humor in preaching; among his assertions was this:

There is no amusement in Jesus, nor is there in any of the 66 books of the Bible. God expects his saints to be quite content with straight forward fellowship and sound teaching. Any time the saints seem to get overloaded with good things, the solution is to sing Psalms and spiritual songs. Anything else is mongrel Christianity.

I remember reading a report a couple of years ago of a study by two psychologists which suggested that political conservatives have much less of a sense of humor than do liberals, and another which, disturbingly, showed that conservative evangelical Christians are more likely than not to support torture of suspected terrorists. And I wonder if there is some connection between failure to appreciate the humor in Holy Scripture and Christian conservatism.

As a Christian who generally leans towards political liberalism, I enjoy the word play, the sarcasm, the irony, and all the other humor in the Bible. I believe that humor brings us closer to God and that the holy wit in Holy Writ brings God closer to humankind. The Protestant theologian Karl Barth is reported to have said, “Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.” And the Catholic theologian and writer G.K. Chesterton wrote, “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.” I believe they are right, because “he whose throne is in heaven is laughing.” (Psalm 2:4a, BCP translation)

Maybe God’s doing so because of all those awful puns one finds in God’s book.

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

“Do Not Say To Yourselves…” – From the Daily Office – February 19, 2013

February 19, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Deuteronomy:

When the Lord your God thrusts them out before you, do not say to yourself, “It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to occupy this land”; it is rather because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you. It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to occupy their land; but because of the wickedness of those nations that the Lord your God is dispossessing them before you, in order to fulfill the promise that the Lord made on oath to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Know, then, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Deuteronomy 9:4-6 (NRSV) – February 19, 2013.)

The S.S. Admiral Nakhimov We human beings are so proud, so prone to taking credit we really have no right or basis to claim and, apparently, we’ve been doing it for a long time. Moses’ caution to the Hebrews not to do so, not to think that it is through their own merit that the Promised Land is being given them, is a caution to all of us, for we are all “a stubborn people.” Self-importance and obstinacy are the human condition.

Aristotle once wrote, “Obstinate people can be divided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish.” (Nichomachean Ethics, Bk. VII) Michel de Montaigne is quoted as saying, “Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass?” Lent is a time of self-examination and perhaps this Daily Office lesson is a reminder to take a long, hard look out one’s own arrogant tendency to claim credit where none is due, at one’s one obstinacy. There is a link between the two, between pride and stubbornness.

Consider the case of two Russian ships, the Admiral Nakhimov, an aging passenger liner, and the Pyotr Vasev, a large bulk freight carrier. On the night of August 31, 1986, the two collided in the Black Sea near the port of Novorossiysk. The cause of collision was human stubbornness. Both captains were aware of the other ship’s presence nearby. Either could have prevented it, but neither wanted to give way to the other. Arrogance and stubbornness resulted in the deaths of 64 crew and 359 passengers.

As on the seaways, so on the paths of life. In business, in politics, in our personal lives, pride and obstinacy lead to problems, sometimes to disasters. During these days of Lent, remember Moses’ words, “Do not say to yourself, ‘It is because of my . . . whatever.'”

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

Employers and Employees – From the Daily Office – January 25, 2013

January 25, 2013 / eric / 2 Comments

From the Letter to the Ephesians:

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free. And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Ephesians 6:5-9 (NRSV) – January 25, 2013.)

Victorian Child Labor Photograph So let’s admit right off the bat that we have a problem here. Where the progressives and liberals among us would much prefer to read Paul condemning the institution of slavery, he does not. Instead, he simply admonishes slaves to be good slaves and masters to be good masters, and even goes so far as to analogize a Christian’s relationship with God (or Jesus) to slavery. This just doesn’t sit well in the modern mind and provides plenty of ammunition for those whom Friedrich Schleiermacher addressed as religion’s “cultured despisers.” We would much rather Paul hadn’t said this.

But he did. So what to think of it . . . .

First off, the Greek here is doulos which is most often translated as “slave” as it is here, but it can also refer to a bond-servant, a servant for hire, or to someone who is devoted to another without regard of his or her own interests (the last often metaphorically). It’s unlikely that Paul intended this as either a comment on non-slavery employment relationships or as a metaphorical statement, but we can certainly read it in those ways in our modern context.

Secondly, and this encourages us to read this text as applicable to modern employee-employer relations, the institution of slavery in the First Century Roman empire was an economic, not a racial, reality. We modern Americans, influenced by our own history, hear racial overtones in these verses, but they are not really there. In ancient Rome slaves might be prisoners of war, sailors captured and sold by pirates, slaves bought outside Roman territory, or even the children of desperately poor Roman citizens sold into bond-servanthood by their parents. Further, slaves were commonly and even rather frequently freed; a slave could buy his or her own freedom.

So if we read this text as referring not only to the First Century practice of slavery, but applying also to any economic institution wherein one person works at the behest of and for the benefit of another, it provides guidance for theological critique of contemporary employment practices and related laws. It requires the church to question any employment situation in which workers are inadequately paid, where worker safety is at risk, or which threatens to damage the family life or welfare of the worker and his or her dependents.

In fact, the long struggle to recognize and protect workers’ rights finds its genesis in this and similar biblical texts. In Great Britain and in our own country during the 18th and 19th Centuries (and even into the early 20th Century), children worked in mines and factories; all laborers worked six-day weeks and often 16- to 18-hour days; working conditions were often dangerous; and on-the-job death was a common occurrence. Fans of the series Downton Abbey (or earlier dramas such as Upstairs, Downstairs) need only think of the way in which the servants’ life is portrayed to see a small (and very toned-down) illustration of what a worker’s life was like, always at the beck-and-call of the employer.

The anti-slavery movement in Britain became the movement to bring about just and equitable labor laws, to prevent children from working, to reduce the work day to ten hours per day, and to make employers responsible for working conditions. That movement spread to the United States. In both Britain and America, it was driven by Christians, many of them Christian socialist Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England and the Episcopal Church, who read these texts as demanding the ends they sought.

So we need not apologize to our “cultured despisers” for Paul’s words about slavery. Instead, we are called like our forebears in the faith to see in them our call to champion workers’ rights and just labor laws.

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

One Today – From the Daily Office – January 21, 2013

January 21, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Ephesians:

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Ephesians 4:4-6 (NRSV) – January 21, 2013.)

One Sun I held off offering a meditation on this Inauguration Day, the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday, for a variety of reasons. Throughout the day, however, this particular bit of St. Paul’s Letter to the Church at Ephesus kept returning to my mind. The Episcopal Church uses this in dialogue form in our baptismal liturgy, so it is familiar to us. The idea that we are all in some way united is a part of our Anglican ethos.

In the celebration of President Barack Obama’s second inauguration, poet Richard Blanco focused also on our unity. I think his poem bears repeating here in celebration of unity.

One Today by Richard Blanco

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper —
bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives —
to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches 2
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind — our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello / shalom,
buon giorno / howdy / namaste / or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me — in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always — home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country — all of us —
facing the stars
hope — a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it — together.

We are one today.

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

Understanding the Citizenship Metaphor – From the Daily Office – January 17, 2013

January 17, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Ephesians:

So [Christ] came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Ephesians 2:17-22 (NRSV) – January 17, 2013.)

Ant Hill For many years, I have rather liked Paul’s citizenship metaphor for our participation in the household of God. It made sense . . . but I’m not sure it makes sense any longer because I’m not sure we understand any longer what citizenship is!

A historical review of the understanding of citizenship going back to the earliest Greek city-states suggests that there are two basic classical theories: the humanist and the individualist.

The humanist conception of citizenship emphasizes our political nature viewing citizenship as an active process of involvement in the affairs of the state. Under this theory, being a citizen means being active in government affairs; citizens and the government are mutually interrelated. An ideal citizen is one who exhibits good civic behavior and acts out of a commitment to civic duty and virtue. The individualist view, on the other hand, assumes that human beings act not out of civic morality, but out of enlightened self-interest. Citizens are seen as essentially passive politically, as sovereign, morally autonomous beings primarily focused on their own economic betterment. Nonetheless, between citizen and state there is a mutuality of obligation. The citizen is expected to pay taxes, obey the law, engage in business, and defend the nation if it comes under attack; the state has the duty to respect and protect the civil and political rights of the citizen.

The Enlightenment vision of citizenship, which gave rise to modern democratic republics like the United States, incorporates both of these classical models.

At the recent Emergence Christianity conversation, Phyllis Tickle used the examples of a beehive and an anthill to contrast traditional and emerging notions of leadership. Beehives are hierarchies with a controlling matriarch, the “queen”, and all workers exist to serve her needs and follow her direction. Anthills have “queens” but they are non-directive. The ant queen serves her function in the community (producing young) but does not control what others do. Instead, anthills exhibit a collective intelligence which does not depend upon the decision-making or direction of any one individual or even small group of individuals; in fact, there are no individuals, only the collective. Ms. Tickle suggested that because of the increase in knowledge and communication, which the internet and social media perhaps exemplify best, human society is moving away from the beehive and toward the anthill. One might say we are becoming “ant-i-fied”.

She may be right . . . and that’s the problem with the “citizenship” metaphor now. Neither the beehive nor the anthill understands the concept of “citizen” and if modern human society has been or is becoming patterned on either, Paul’s use of the term to describe our relationship with one another and with God in the context of the church becomes meaningless. Furthermore, if we human beings are becoming nothing more than “ants” in a collective intelligence, there is push back against that, and that push back is also counter to the classical notions of citizenship. The reaction to the “ant-i-fying” of human society is equally destructive of the citizenship metaphor because it has emphasized the individual over against society rather than the individual within and mutually related to society.

We are, Paul wrote, citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. If we do not understand what it is to be citizens of a human society, if we are all simply workers in a beehive hierarchy, or faceless units in an anthill collective, or individuals over against a society, can we make sense of this metaphor? Let us hope we can so that our understanding of Paul’s citizenship model will shape not only the church, but our society as well.

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

We Are Better Than This – From the Daily Office – December 28, 2012

December 28, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Isaiah:

Surely your waste and your desolate places
and your devastated land—
surely now you will be too crowded for your inhabitants,
and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
The children born in the time of your bereavement
will yet say in your hearing:
“The place is too crowded for me;
make room for me to settle.”
Then you will say in your heart,
“Who has borne me these?
I was bereaved and barren,
exiled and put away—
so who has reared these?
I was left all alone—
where then have these come from?”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Isaiah 49:19-21 (NRSV) – December 28, 2012.)

Holy Innocents Icon Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents and the Daily Office Lectionary again chooses lessons that underscore the day’s commemoration. In the midst of Christmas joy, we are reminded of the little children killed by Herod’s soldiers in the king’s attempt to do away with a perceived rival. I am not the first nor the only preacher or pastor to have thought of this story when, two weeks ago, gunman Adam Lanza opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The wanton murder of children at any time makes the country where it occurs desolate and devastated. So today, again, we pray for the repose of the souls of those who died:

Charlotte Bacon, 6;
Daniel Barden, 7;
Olivia Engel, 6;
Josephine Gay, 7;
Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 6;
Dylan Hockley, 6;
Madeline F. Hsu, 6;
Catherine V Hubbard, 6;
Chase Kowalski, 7;
Jesse Lewis, 6;
James Mattioli, 6;
Grace McDonnell, 7;
Emile Parker, 6;
Jack Pinto, 6;
Noah Pozner, 6;
Caroline Previdi, 6;
Jessica Rekos, 6;
Avielle Richman, 6;
Benjamin Wheeler, 6;
Allison N. Wyatt, 6

Rachel Davino, 29;
Dawn Hocksprung, 47;
Anne Marie Murphy, 52
Lauren Russeau, 30;
Mary Sherlach, 56;
Victoria Soto, 27;

And, of course, also Nancy Lanza and Adam Lanza.

We pray for their souls, for comfort for their survivors, and for sanity in our land.

I just watched a public service announcement about our need for rational and reasonable regulation of gun and ammunition sales, gun ownership, and gun use. It includes the tag line, “We are better than this.” I pray God that the makers of the PSA are right, that we are better than this. We have to be. There are too many innocents dead.

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

False Teachings and Guns – From the Daily Office – December 22, 2012

December 22, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter of Jude:

You, beloved, must remember the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; for they said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, indulging their own ungodly lusts.” It is these worldly people, devoid of the Spirit, who are causing divisions. But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on some who are wavering; save others by snatching them out of the fire; and have mercy on still others with fear, hating even the tunic defiled by their bodies

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Jude 1:17-23 (NRSV) – December 22, 2012.)

Glory in the Sky Sort of buried in Jude’s moralizing about false teachers and those who follow them is an Advent message: “Look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.” As I’ve been saying pretty consistently throughout the season, here and in my sermons, Advent is not so much about celebrating the birth of Jesus, wherever it was and whenever it was about 2,000 years ago, as it is about getting ready for his return, the parousia as seminary-educated folks like to say.

It’s kind of humorous that Jude’s letter with its warning about “worldly people, devoid of the Spirit, who are causing divisions” and others for whom we are to have mercy mixed with fear “hating even the tunic defiled by their bodies” should come up today. Yesterday, a lot of those very people were running around convinced the world was going to end because of the Mayan long calendar. It didn’t, we and they are still here . . . and don’t they have egg on their faces (or defilement on their tunics, as Jude might have said).

It is humorous, but it’s also a warning to us that Jude was right. We can be led astray by false and outlandish teachings. In the days since the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, there have been a lot of people saying a lot of things, some of which I agree with and some of which I don’t. And some who should know better have been saying things about the use of violence to curb violence. Even before the NRA’s spokesman yesterday suggested putting armed guards in every school (an idea I find repugnant), I heard Christian clergy suggest the same thing, or some variation on it (such as arming our school teachers).

I don’t want to get into the politics of gun control or the history and meaning of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. (Well . . . I do, but not here.) What I do want to suggest is that those clergy are not building themselves or other church members up on our most holy faith; I suggest that their teaching is false. As I understand the Christian faith, it is not about meeting violence with violence. The One whom we name “Prince of Peace” gave these instructions to his followers: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:27-31) No matter how much I try, I cannot make those admonitions into any sort of support for taking up guns, for arming teachers, for adding to the surfeit of firearms already present in our culture.

Every Sunday, I end the Mass with these words from my parish’s patron saint: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:12,14-18,21)

So far as it depends on me to live peaceably with all, the one thing I cannot do is arm myself nor recommend that others be armed nor countenance those recommendations from others. The words I leave out of Paul’s encouragements to the Christians in Rome include these: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’” (Rom. 12:19-20) I cannot guarantee that I will never avenge myself, but I can take a step in that direction by not preparing in advance to do so.

I know that I have friends and parishioners who disagree with me and with our church’s official teaching on this point (which is in favor of strict gun regulation). I believe they are wrong, but I know they hold their views for what they believe to be good reasons. I can only hope they know the same of me and that we can come to some consensus in our country that honors all points of view and that, at the end of it all, at the parousia we will all “stand without blemish in the presence of God’s glory with rejoicing.” (Jude 1:24)

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

Category: Politics (Page 19 of 24)

A Politics of Truth – From the Daily Office – March 7, 2013

Deceptive Words – From the Daily Office – March 4, 2013

Reason and Consensus: Biblical Political Values – From the Daily Office – February 26, 2013

Holy Wit: Humor in the Bible – From the Daily Office – February 25, 2013

“Do Not Say To Yourselves…” – From the Daily Office – February 19, 2013

Employers and Employees – From the Daily Office – January 25, 2013

One Today – From the Daily Office – January 21, 2013

Understanding the Citizenship Metaphor – From the Daily Office – January 17, 2013

We Are Better Than This – From the Daily Office – December 28, 2012

False Teachings and Guns – From the Daily Office – December 22, 2012

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