From Ecclesiasticus:
Do not grow weary when you pray; do not neglect to give alms.
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Sirach 7:10 (NRSV) – October 22, 2014)
“Do not neglect to give alms.” Alms: “charitable donations of money or goods to the poor or needy” says the dictionary with an etymological note saying it comes from an old Greek word, eleemosyne, meaning “pity, mercy.”
The fancy plates of wood or brass or silver passed down the rows of pews on Sunday morning are called “alms basins” by some. (Others call them “offering plates” or, worse, “collection plates.”) But they really aren’t for alms, are they? I know people want to believe that what they turn loose of in church is used for the benefit of the poor, but look at any church budget and ask “How much of this is used for relief of the poor?” The answer will surprise you.
Most of what is given to the church is used for upkeep of the institution. The two largest expenses for most congregations are (1) upkeep of aging, often-remodeled, energy-inefficient, and frequently under-utilized buildings and (2) paying for professional staff, clergy and lay. Is that the way it should be? As one dependent on the church for my paycheck, I benefit from the current arrangement, but I’m not at all sure that the church is managing the alms given by church members properly.
I offer no answer today; I simply raise the question.
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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.
I suppose that if “an angel of the Lord” told me to “get up and go” that I’d do as Philip did, even in these times when a trip to Gaza would not be the most pleasant journey one could make. I have often remarked at the willingness of the early disciples to drop everything and respond to these calls to ministry. The response of the first of the apostles, of Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, of James and John (the sons of Zebedee), to leave their fishing businesses and take off with Jesus is the same. (Mt 4:18-22) The response of Matthew (or was he called Levi) to leave his tax booth is the same. (Mt 9:9) “Come” and they come; “get up and go” and they go. Modern folk are seldom so swift to respond.
Truth, United States Senator Hiram Johnson observed in 1917, is the first casualty of war. When war becomes nearly universal is truth in danger of being fully obliterated? I don’t think so; I think truth will ultimately survive and prevail. My faith is that the Truth will no doubt prevail, but for the moment, I am speaking neither of grand philosophical concepts nor of the One who made the audacious claim, “I am the Truth.” (Jn 14:6) Rather, I speak simply of factual accuracy and of the intellectual integrity of those who communicate; that truth is suffering some mighty hurtful body blows at present.
I love Psalm 121 for a variety of reasons. It is the psalm which the sanctoral lectionary provides for the feast of St. Francis of Assisi (October 4), always a favorite saint. It is the psalm my late mother chose to be read at her funeral. It is one of the psalms of ascent which pilgrims to the Temple are believed to have sung as they made their way to Jerusalem for the major festivals of ancient Judaism; on pilgrimage in Israel and Palestine, my wife and I recalled it as we rode in a travel coach from Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv to ancient city. There many good memories, some joyful, some sad, all meaningful, associated with it.
Did Jesus actually say these things? Most contemporary bible scholars would probably answer “No.” The author of John’s Gospel has made Jesus say the things a largely Jewish community of the church in the late 1st Century, a church struggling to cope with its separation from traditional Judaism, believed about Jesus; Jesus is thus both the subject and the interpreter of the message of John’s Gospel. In the 21st Century, we might have preferred the author to have included the interpretation of Jesus in the narrative, not in the words spoken by the character of Jesus portrayed here, but that’s not what we’ve got. What we’ve got is the Jesus remembered by a community with a highly developed Christology telling that community, and us, who Jesus was then and now.
John uses the word “believe” three times in this short passage: once quoting Jesus about witnesses to his acts of power and twice regarding the royal official’s state of mind. What, precisely, does John mean by doing so? That is one of the ponderable but unanswerable questions about scripture, the precise meaning of a biblical author. 
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). 
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.
