Category: Spirituality (Page 51 of 116)

Partial Truths and Hamster Wheels – From the Daily Office – June 9, 2014

June 9, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Galatians:

Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Galatians 4:16 (NRSV) – June 9, 2014)

Hamster in a Wheel “What is truth?” asked Pilate. (Jn 18:38)

“The truth will set you free,” said Jesus. (Jn 8:32)

“You can’t handle the truth,” shouted Col. Nathan R. Jessup (Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men).

“Partial truths or half-truths are often more insidious than total falsehoods,” wrote political scientist Samuel P. Huntington (Reconsidering Immigration, November 2000).

Poor Paul! He’s just telling the Galatians the truth and they hate him for it. Thank heaven he didn’t say some post-modern nonsense about “what is true for you isn’t necessarily true for me!” But in his correspondence with these Gentile Christians, is the good apostle communicating the whole truth, or a partial truth? I’m not asking if Paul is being dishonest; I’m asking if, as a rhetorician making a point, is he constructing a narrative with some, but not all, of the pertinent facts. It’s hard to tell from his letter and it’s even harder to determine because we have only his side of the correspondence. But, I suggest, it’s a very valid inquiry because partial truths can create (or exacerbate) discord and enmity.

Recently on our local NPR station, a panel of journalists were discussing a bill recently passed by the Ohio legislature. One insightfully noted that each side of the debate over the bill presented facts in support of its position; each constructed a narrative from easily verifiable data; and each arrived at a “truth” that was convincing to its followers. The “truths” they presented, however, were diametrically opposite in the conclusion to which they led as to whether or not to support the legislation. Why? Because each was partial, each conveniently overlooked facts contradictory to its narrative, and each was partisan. Neither was factually inaccurate, but neither was entirely true.

Fully investigating and fully presenting all the facts of any situation takes time, effort, and resources, and might lead to some conclusion other than that which a partisan is trying to argue. And, anyway, it is much easier to simply go with a few critical facts supporting a partial truth; it lends itself to brevity of argument and to sound-bite news coverage. Furthermore, partial truths are inflammatory; they excite people, rally the troops, and build the cadre of (ill-informed?) supporters. Partial truths do not set free; they entrap and they entangle.

Partial truths make enemies (or, at least, opponents). And this is where we seem to be in American politics and society at the moment. We are in a battle of partial truths. Jon Stewart on The Daily Show recently made the point that partial truths about the Second Amendment have brought us to an intersection “of Open Carry Road and Stand Your Ground Place. * * * You have a right to carry a weapon that may cause a reasonable person to believe they are in danger of great bodily injury, and they have a right, if they feel that way, to respond with deadly force. It’s a perpetual violence machine.” And, I would suggest, the same is true in many other areas of our political and social life. Competing partial truths trap us in perpetual cycles preventing any advance; society ends up like a hamster in an exercise wheel, running to beat the band but going nowhere.

If the truth is really going to set us free, if we are going to be able to handle the truth, we must first determine what it is. In any discussion, listening to any news report, reading any newspaper, one should ask whether important facts have been left out or not, particularly if the report is inflammatory or clearly partisan. It is always wise to pause and consider that not all the facts may be given and that some additional data is likely to change the story significantly. This is worth the effort.

What is truth? It is more than few carefully chosen facts and a well-constructed narrative. The whole truth can set us free and, I believe, we can handle it. We have to make the choice, however, to get out of the hamster wheel and get all the facts.

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

Shoes for Your Feet – From the Daily Office – June 7, 2014

June 7, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Ephesians:

Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. * * * As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Ephesians 6:11,15 (NRSV) – June 7, 2014)

Spit-Polished Military Oxfords Paul’s military armaments metaphor for facing the powers of sin and death is very well known; it’s quite popular with preachers and commentators. In the sixth chapter of the letter to the church in Ephesus we find him going on and on about the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of righteousness, and the sword of the spirit. You can tell he’s really getting into this image; he’s having fun with it. My favorite bit of the whole thing is our shoes are to be “whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.” (v. 15)

However, even with that, I’ve never been a big fan of the military armaments metaphor. This is especially so today as we continue to remember the horrors of World War II and the heroic actions of the D-Day liberators of Normandy, as well as witness the public (and, in my opinion, extremely silly but deeply divisive) debate about the return of Afghan War prisoner Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from Taliban captivity.

The major issue I have with the metaphor is the way it is commonly preached — from an individualist perspective. But Paul does not apply the metaphor to single persons. This is not a call to individual spiritual bravery, an exhortation to individual Christians to become “prayer warriors” (a term often used in sermons based on this passage). Paul very clearly and very pointedly (in the original Greek, anyway) uses the plural “you,” not the singular. The metaphor does not apply to individual believers; it applies to the church as a whole. This is not a description of a singular prayer warrior; it is a portrait of the community of the church, the church militant.

The individualist preaching of this passage, in addition to disregarding the plural “you,” also ignores the passage’s context. The letter to the Ephesians is a treatise on the nature of the church as community. The military armaments metaphor is simply one of several which treat the church as a corporate entity. This is the epistle in which we find three other prominent Pauline metaphors: the church as the body of Christ (1:22-23), the church as a spiritual building (2:19-21), and the church as the bride of Christ (5:25-32). Paul’s concern in the letter to the Ephesian church is the church, not the individual believer.

So all this talk of the armaments and armor of warfare is not for the singular Christian. It is for the entire community, the church envisioned as a cosmic warrior. To treat it in the usual individualistic way betrays both the text and, I believe, the service of real warriors, the soldiers who fought and sacrificed on Normandy’s beaches, in Europe’s fields, in Vietnam’s jungles, in Afghan’s rugged terrain, in Iraq’s deserts, and many, many other places. As important to our individual and corporate well-being as prayer is, it is not the same as risking life and limb in battle. Understanding this metaphor in an individualistic way draws that equation, and it’s wrong. Just wrong. Whatever a “prayer warrior” may be, he or she is not a soldier facing the grim reality of death, his or her own or that of the opposing soldier he or she may encounter.

And that’s the issue with many (if not all) metaphors. They can be misapplied and extended too far; to use another, a metaphor misused often falls off a cliff into an abyss of confusion and misunderstanding, betraying the very purpose of a metaphor which is to clarify and enlighten. In the individual understanding of Paul’s military armaments metaphor, his colorful and imaginative language is misapplied and taken to places Paul never intended. Let’s walk it back from that precipice.

Which brings me back to the shoes — “As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.” (v. 15) I have a suggestion. Let the church put on scholarship and education for its shoes! More than Sunday School for children is an imperative for the church. We need real, in-depth, wide-spread, formal training in understanding the Scriptures, the theology, and the traditions of the church for all Christians. These will help our people avoid the peril of misused and overextended metaphors, strengthen church members reasoned faith, and make the church “ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.”

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

March Forth – From the Daily Office – June 6, 2014

June 6, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Jeremiah:

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord”, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Jeremiah 31:33b-34 (NRSV) – June 6, 2014)

Troops marching at Omaha Beach Can the finite ever truly know the infinite? Can the human mind ever fully grasp the knowledge of God? We have the assurance of Jeremiah’s prophecy, the consolation of God spoken through “the weeping prophet” that it can. And Jeremiah is not alone.

Whenever I read a verse of scripture that speaks of the knowledge of God, I remember a favorite hymn of the rector under whom I served as curate, God Is Working His Purpose Out, sung to the tune Purpose. A repeating text in the hymn, not quite a chorus, is “the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.” It is based on a verse from the prophet Habakkuk: “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab 2:14)

Like Jeremiah, Habakkuk assures us that the time will come when finite human beings will know the infinite Lord. Habakkuk focuses on the overwhelming universality of this knowledge, “as the waters cover the sea,” while Jeremiah focuses on its intimacy, “I will write it on their hearts.” It is Jeremiah’s intimacy that is echoed by Paul in his famous essay on love in the thirteenth chapter of the first letter to the Church in Corinth where we find yet another assurance that despite our limitations we will come to full knowledge of God:

For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor 13:9-13)

Paul links knowledge of God to love using the Greek word agape, that word so poorly translated by our English word “love.” Agape is unconditional, non-judging love which places demands not on the beloved, but on the lover; it requires the lover (as Nazarene theologian Thomas Oord has noted) to act intentionally to promote well-being even, or perhaps especially, when responding to that which creates ill-being. Linking universal but intimate knowledge of God to agape, Paul places a burden on every follower of Christ.

The prophets’ assurance that all will know God, that the universal but intimate knowledge of the Almighty will cover the earth and also be written on individual hearts begs the question of how. Paul’s linkage answers that question: through the ministry of the members of the church. As the Episcopal Catechism says, “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” through the ministry of God’s people. My old boss’s favorite hymn says it more poetically:

What can we do to work God’s work,
to prosper and increase
the brotherhood of all mankind —
the reign of the Prince of Peace?
What can we do to hasten the time —
the time that shall surely be,
when the earth shall be filled
with the glory of God
as the waters cover the sea.

March we forth in the strength of God,
with the banner of Christ unfurled,
that the light of the glorious gospel of truth
may shine throughout the world:
fight we the fight with sorrow and sin
to set their captives free,
that earth may filled
with the glory of God
as the waters cover the sea.

On this 70th anniversary of D-Day, marching forth under the banner of Christ fighting sorrow and sin and setting captives free seems an appropriate metaphor for our ministry. God’s instrument for flooding the world with knowledge, for writing it on the hearts of human beings, is the Church, whose members are called “to bear witness to him wherever they may be; and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world.” (BCP 1979, page 855) March forth, Church, march forth!

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

Power and Authority – From the Daily Office – June 5, 2014

June 5, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel according to Matthew:

When the crowds saw it, they were filled with awe, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to human beings.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 9:8 (NRSV) – June 5, 2014)

The Lords of Lightning Jesus healed a paralytic. More than that, he told him that his sins were forgiven! The scribes became irate, accusing Jesus of blasphemy. Jesus asked them, “Which is easier to tell him his sins are forgiven or to tell him to get up and walk?” As a demonstration of power and authority, Jesus did both.

And then this, Matthew’s description of the reaction of the crowd with that interesting plural ending. I’ve never noticed it until this morning. Matthew could have written “God had given authority to him” or “to a human being” or “to a man” or even “to Jesus.” But he didn’t. He wrote that God has “given such authority to human beings.” Plural.

I have grown someone distrusting of the New Revised Standard Version. In the effort to be non-sexist and inclusive in its language, the translation sometimes adds words or changes constructions from the original Greek. Often when, in the NRSV, one reads “brothers and sisters” the original Greek text merely says, “brethren;” the old use of the masculine plural to encompass all siblings or all humankind no longer being acceptable or understood, the translation enlarges the text to clarify the implication that all persons regardless of sex are included. In other places, it pluralizes singular constructions. I was convinced this would be such a case.

It’s not. The Greek words are toi anthropoi, “to men.” The NRSV correctly broadens the translation to a more comprehensive “human beings,” but the plural is original to the Greek.

What does this mean? A brief search through the online commentaries is unhelpful: they all focus on the power and authority given Jesus and overlook (as I have always done) Matthew’s use of the plural. Certainly, the Father has given this healing power and the authority to forgive sin to Jesus, but Matthew seems to be saying that it is not his alone. It has been given to everyone.

And if one stops to consider that, there is plenty of biblical warrant for such a statement. Just a couple of weeks ago in the Sunday Lectionary, in a reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus had said, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these.” (Jn 14:12) After his Resurrection, he gave what is known as the “power of the keys” to the church in the Gospel lesson that will be read this Sunday, the Feast of Pentecost: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (Jn 20:23; cf. Mt 16:19)

The authority to forgive sins and the power to heal have been given to us, to human beings. I wonder when we’ll realize that and begin to exercise them . . . .

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

We Are One . . . NOT! – From the Daily Office – June 4, 2014

June 4, 2014 / eric / 1 Comment

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) – June 4, 2014)

Fractured Society Here is another piece of Paul’s writing that the Episcopal Church has lifted out of the bible and plugged into The Book of Common Prayer. It is used as the opening dialog of the church’ baptismal service. After a seasonally appropriate greeting, the presider and people converse:

Celebrant — There is one Body and one Spirit;
People — There is one hope in God’s call to us;
Celebrant — One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism;
People — One God and Father of all.
(BCP 1979, page 301)

I must confess that every time I engage in this dialog I am reminded of, and (almost) have to stop myself from singing, a particularly bad example of the sort of music the church produced in the late 1960s, a song entitled We Are One in the Spirit:

We are One in The Spirit,
We are One in The Lord.
We are One in The Spirit,
We are One in The Lord.
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored.
[Chorus]
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love,
By our Love,
Yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.
(©Peter Scholte 1966)

I don’t think that song is bad musically: the tune is catchy; the accompaniment is rather easy; congregations (even those who don’t read music) can pick it up quickly and sing it with gusto. What’s bad about the song is that it’s what I would call ecclesio-narcissistic: it’s all about us! There’s not a single word of praise for God, of thanksgiving, of intercession or petition. It’s all “we are” . . . “we will” . . . we we we: “aren’t we great?” As if we are capable of attaining unity on our own . . . . which is, thank heaven, not the overt message of the baptismal service (although it may be its implication).

Unity, however, is not something human beings seem capable of achieving unaided, especially not the unity-in-diversity which is supposed to be the hallmark of the Christian church. Remember, Paul again: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28)

This is also supposed to be the strength of the United States. We are supposed to be the great “melting pot” society, a nation of immigrants coming together not around ethnicity or some other ancient exclusive and divisive characteristic but around notions of freedom and justice. But just look at us! Torn apart by wing-nut ideologies on both Right and Left. We can’t even be united about the retrieval of an American soldier from enemy hands: I believe that every American, regardless of their politics, should be overjoyed that Bowe Bergdahl is out of Taliban captivity. But that ain’t so . . . and it isn’t so because, left to our own devices (and now we have so many of them) we not only can’t achieve unity, we revel in our fractured disunity. (A friend whose politics are on the Left published a Facebook link to what she call an “epic rant” on this subject, and it is something. Although politically I agree with its premise, as a Christian American I’m saddened by the witness it makes to our brokenness. I’m sure there are equally visceral rants from the Right; I just haven’t seen them. For any who want to read it, here is the link, Stonekettle Station. A word of warning: it’s heated, it’s vulgar, and it’s long.)

In a recent conversation with some members of my parish’s Altar Guild about attending funerals and weddings in other denominations, one of the ladies asked why some (particularly the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod) exclude non-members from Holy Communion. As we explored the meaning of the Eucharist, I suggested that (among other reasons) it might be because in such churches Communion is seen as a sacrament of unity achieved while in the Episcopal Church it is considered a sacrament of unity hoped for. If it is the former, then someone not a part of that “unity” is not welcome; if it is the latter, then everyone who comes seeking Christ, whether member or not, is accepted at the Table.

This can be, should be the churches’ great witness to a fractured secular society, that unity is possible through the grace of God, “who is above all and through all and in all.” Alas, in our fracture ecclesial state, contrary to that ecclesio-narcissistic song, we are unable to make that witness. We are not one! Although we keep hoping . . . .

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

Boxes – From the Daily Office – June 3, 2014

June 3, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Ephesians:

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Ephesians 3:20-21 (NRSV) – June 3, 2014)

Pile of Boxes Several days ago I was driving on the interstate highway when I encountered a man whose load of cardboard boxes had shifted and tumbled out of his truck. Traffic, of course, was slowed down and tangled up, and he was at his wit’s end trying to gather them up. I could tell that what he really wanted to do was just walk away from those boxes.

I thought of him reading these words.

These are the words with which we close the Daily Office. Well, not these words precisely. The Prayer Book uses a somewhat more poetic translation: “Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.” (BCP 1979, page 102) I wonder why we don’t take these verses seriously, especially that part about what God is able to do: “abundantly” or “infinitely” more than we can conceive. (The Greek word Paul uses is hyperekperrissou which means “beyond superabundance”.)

Now I’ll admit that Paul’s letter limits the application of this principle to God’s work “within us,” but that can hardly be understood as a limitation on God’s power. As Paul writes elsewhere, “Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.” (Rom 1:20) So back to my question: why do human beings not take seriously the idea that God is able to do more — abundantly, infinitely more — than we can conceive?

Whenever I witness — I almost wrote “get into,” but the truth is I’ve given up getting into — the creation-vs.-evolution debate, I am perplexed by the human need to wrestle God into a box (or, alternatively, to keep God out of a box) . . . and by the intellectual effort expended on trying to keep God small enough to understand. At least, that’s what I think those who call themselves “young earth creationists” are trying to do. The constant need to explain away contradictory evidence — the speed of light, the calculated age of the universe, the fossil record of dinosaurs, the demonstrable impossibility of fitting two of every living species of animal onto a vessel the size of Scripture’s ark (not to mention the varieties we’ve rendered extinct), and the list goes on — must be exhausting.

God was gentle with Jacob that night at Penuel, I think. Jacob had only to wrestle with “a man” for a limited number of hours. (Gen 32:24-32) The creationists, on the other hand, trying to wrestle God and all those inconsistent facts into the little box of their very limited imaginations must have to work at it constantly. That’s why I’ve given up getting into that debate; it exhausts me and I’ve better things to do with my energy. Unlike God, I don’t have a beyond-superabundant supply time or power.

The other side of the debate — the atheist evolutionists, let’s call them — have the same problem, I think. Their box is bigger and more flexible; they’re willing to open it up and let in new evidence, work with new theories to understand it, and let go of old or conflicting beliefs. Except, of course, God. Their box, as big and flexible as it is, apparently doesn’t have room for God. Like their debating opponents, they need God to be small enough to understand, but since God can’t be observed, measured, tested, and confirmed by repeated experimentation, there’s no room for God in their box. So, again, limited imagination.

The same problem. One side’s restricted imagination leads them try to wrestle God into their little box; the other’s makes them try to keep God out of their big box.

But God is not a God of boxes. God is not interested in our boxes. God, beyond our imaginings, would like to ignore our boxes, I think, if we would let God.

The man on the freeway couldn’t walk away from his boxes . . . but we can abandon ours! We really should. I believe God would be delighted not to have to deal with them anymore!

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

Strong and Courageous – From the Daily Office – June 2, 2014

June 2, 2014 / eric / 3 Comments

From the Book of Joshua:

I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Joshua 1:9 (NRSV) – June 2, 2014)

Suffragettes Marching These are among the words spoken by Yahweh to Joshua son of Nun, the assistant to Moses, as he is commissioned to succeed Moses as leader of the Hebrews and lead them into Canaan.

It occurred to me as I thought about them that they can mean very different things depending on the audience to whom they are spoken, or at least they can seem to. It also occurred to me that although there are similar admonitions given to various people throughout Scripture, none of those people are women. There are women who are lauded for their strength and courage, Deborah the judge and Yael who killed the general Sisera, for example, but they are exceptions to the rule (the Scriptural rule seeming to be that women are to be meek and compliant). But I can think of no instance in which a woman is directly instructed to be “strong and courageous” (or anything similar).

I suppose my thoughts run in that channel this morning because of something I heard during an NPR discussion of the recent mass killing in Isla Vista, California, the motivations of the killer, and the public conversation in the aftermath. Two news analysts were talking about the Twitter hashtag #yesallwomen and one of them quoted novelist Margaret Atwood, “Men’s greatest fear is that women will laugh at them, while women’s greatest fear is that men will kill them.” I’d not heard that comment before, but a look at that Twitter hashtag feed made me appreciate the truth that underlies it.

Reading the various Tweets from women under that hashtag is a real eye-opener! Here are a few (edited to remove Twitter identifiers and vulgarities):

Because I thought I was safe walking 2 blocks home in my town ’til rape reports started piling up last year. I wasn’t safe; I was lucky.

Because this is “humor”: Never trust anything that can bleed for seven days straight and doesn’t die.

Because I was recently told by a man that I was “forcing him to have impure thoughts” by the way I was dressed.

Because I’m made out to be a slut for being a single mother.

Because when I’m walking home at night, instead of self-reflection or self-improvement I think about self-defense.

Because when I walk through a parking lot and get catcalled I’m told to ignore it rather than standup for myself.

Because when my intellect stuns someone, attacking my weight is an obvious second choice.

Because when women share stories of being scared or hurt, some people say “Yeah? Prove it.”

Because when you hit on me, my curves are sexy, and when I reject you, I’m a fat bitch you’d only ____ with a paper bag on.

Because I was advised by a male supervisor to flirt with men to get them to sign a petition.

Because when a guy posts a post-workout pic he’s “confident” but when a girl does the same thing she’s “attention-seeking”.

The other eye-openers on that hashtag thread were the Tweets by men. I simply can’t repeat many of them here! To call them misogynistic would be an understatement; to call them vile would be closer to the truth.

As the child of a single mother and the parent of a single woman living on her own, I thought I appreciated the difficulties of women in our society. I was wrong. I didn’t and I probably still don’t, but what I took away from reading through those Tweets is a more visceral (if still partial) understanding of patriarchy. Those Tweets flesh-out and give substance to what, for most men (I think), can be nothing more than an intellectual concept. I suggest my brethren do as I have done and spend some time reading through those Tweets. You’ll be amazed by the comments of the women and appalled by those of the men. You’ll have to be strong and courageous to read them, but in the end you’ll be better for having done so.

So God told Joshua, “Be strong and courageous,” but I can think of no instance when God gave similar instruction to a woman. It occurs to me that perhaps the reason those words aren’t spoken to women in the Scriptures is that they don’t need to be. Women don’t need to be told to be strong and courageous; they already are. Women growing up and living in patriarchy simply have to be.

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

Rise! Rise! Rise! – Sermon for Easter 7 (Ascension Sunday) – RCL Year A – June 1, 2014

June 1, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

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On the Seventh Sunday of Easter: the Sunday after the Ascension, June 1, 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: Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36; 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11; and John 17:1-11. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

(From And Still I Rise,Maya Angelou, Random House:1978.
Note — The verse beginning “Does my sexiness upset you?” was not read in church.)

The late Dr. Maya Angelou, who died this week and was (in my opinion) one of the greatest of contemporary English-language poets, wrote that poem (entitled Still I Rise) in 1978. Though it speaks out of her experience as a black woman growing up in the segregated South of the mid-20th Century, I believe it also speaks to us in our context today, celebrating the Ascension of Christ into heaven and, also, honoring our five newly minted high school graduates.

The Feast of the Ascension was Thursday. You may have missed it, however; it is a feast largely ignored by the Church. It passes by and we seldom, if ever, give any thought to it. In the Sunday rota it is noted only as the day after which the Seventh Sunday of Easter comes: that’s exactly how today’s collect is titled in The Book of Common Prayer, Seventh Sunday of Easter: The Sunday after Ascension Day. Kind of sad, because the Ascension really is the last event of the Incarnation, the last scene of the last act of the great drama which is “the Christ event.” Fortunately, this year (Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary) we have actually heard the story of the Ascension from the Book of Acts. This is not the case in the other two years of the rotation; in years B and C the Ascension isn’t even mentioned in any of the Sunday readings.

The story of Christ’s Ascension is told not only in Acts, which we heard this morning, it is also found in the Gospels of Mark and Luke. Mark’s account is brief, a single verse: “So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.” (Mk 16:19) Luke’s is also short: “He led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.” (Lk 24:50-51).

Although neither Matthew’s Gospel nor John’s mention the Ascension event itself, both include prophetic references to it. According to Matthew, in his trial before the High Priest just before his Crucifixion, Jesus said, “I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Mt 26:64) In John’s Gospel, after the Resurrected Jesus tells Mary Magdalene not to cling to him, he gives her a message for the Apostles: “Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'” (Jn 20:17) So the fact of Jesus’ Ascension is well attested by Christian Scripture.

This Jesus, whom the powers of his age had (to use Dr. Angelou’s poetic language) tried to “write down in their history with bitter, twisted lies,” had tried to “tread in the very dirt” — this Jesus rose, not only from the grave into a new earthly existence, but into heaven. This Jesus, whom they “wanted to see broken, with bowed head and lowered eyes, with shoulders falling down like teardrops, weakened by his soulful cries” — this Jesus rose into very center of the Godhead. This Jesus, whom they “killed with their hatefulness” rose “out of the huts of the Hebrews’ history of shame,” from Israel’s past, a past “rooted in pain,” “bringing the gifts that his ancestors gave;” he is “the dream and the hope” of every human being enslaved to sin and death. He is our hope and he rose. He ascended into heaven taking our humanity into the very presence of God Almighty.

If the Incarnation (meaning the whole of Jesus’ earthly being, the entire time of God’s being in the flesh on earth) were viewed as a stage play, the drama of salvation would be seen in this way:

Act One — In the Nativity, God becomes a human being offering great promise to humankind.
Act Two — In the life of Jesus, God fully enters human existence in all its aspects making clearer the meaning of the promise.
Act Three — In the death and resurrection of Jesus, God defeats death and opens the way of eternal life to all human beings setting the scene for fulfillment of the promise.
Act Four — In the Ascension, the story comes full circle as a human being becomes God bringing the promise of the Nativity to fruition.
(Pentecost and all that follows it are the epilogue, just as the story of Israel and the words and works of the Prophets are the prologue.)

The Ascension is the denouement of the entire story but, unfortunately, most of the audience, thinking the play concluded, left after Act Three; some may even have left in the middle of that act. The climax of the drama played out on Thursday to a largely empty theater.

One of the Episcopal Church’s collects for today says: “We believe your only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into heaven, so we may also in heart and mind there ascend.” (BCP 1979, page 226) I think this prayer gets it slightly wrong. Our ascension with Jesus is not a future thing that we “may” later attain. Rather, in Jesus’ Ascension we all have already ascended. It is not only Christ’s humanity but our humanity that ascended into heaven. God has already seated us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus; our ascension is not so much an experience to be attained, but a reality to be experienced. As St. Athanasius famously put it, “God became man that man might become God.” This is known theologically as the theosis or deification of humanity, and in the Ascension of Jesus it has already happened.

So here we are, deified human beings capable, as Jesus told us, of doing the very works that he did and, in fact, of doing greater works because he has ascended to the Father and he will do whatever we ask in his name — at least that’s what he promised in the Gospel lesson from John we heard in church two weeks ago (Jn 14:12-13) — but do we actually do them? Do we do the works of power and witness to the truth of the Gospel? Let’s be honest and admit that we usually don’t.

We don’t because we’re a lot like the eleven guys standing on that hilltop in Bethany “gazing up toward heaven.” Like them, as Prof. James Holbert of the Perkins School of Theology has written, “We are too enamored of the ascending Jesus, our necks strained as we peer upward, hoping for a further sign, for a magic act, for a cloud spelling out ‘I love you.'”

Ascension Woodcut It’s my favorite part of the story, really, because it demonstrates just how human the Apostles really were, how much like us. It’s this part of the story that is depicted in the woodcut on the cover of our bulletins. There they are looking up, Jesus’ feet just disappearing, when the “two men” (probably angels) appear and ask them why they are staring into space. In our modern vernacular, the two angels tell them, “Don’t just stand there. Do something!”

Prof. Holbert paraphrases and analyzes what the angels say in this way:

“Why do you stand looking into heaven?” Did you not pay attention to him just a few moments ago? He said, ‘Go,’ and you are rooted on this spot, looking longingly for some further word from him. He will come back in the same way that he went, but you need ask no further questions about when, they imply. “When” is simply not the right question to ask.

Why in heaven’s name (I mean that quite literally!) do so many Christians then spend vast amounts of time, inordinate amounts of energy, immoderate amounts of speculation, asking precisely that very question? We have been asked to be “his witnesses” to the world, not his calculators for his return. It remains a thorough mystery to me why this is so, and has been so throughout Christian history.

But I suppose I do know the answer. It is far safer, far less demanding, to be a speculator than a witness. Speculators write books of calculations, hold seminars that attract thousands, rake in untold piles of loot, while prognosticating a certain time for Jesus’ return. Witnesses, on the other hand, just witness to the truth of the gospel: the truth of justice for the whole world, the love of enemies, and the care for the marginalized and outcast. As Acts 1 makes so clear, the world needs far fewer speculators and far more witnesses. (Speculators or Witnesses)

Which brings me to our five high school graduates . . . . You have finished that part of your education which society has made mandatory. Whatever you do from now on is up to you. You may, if you and your families decide, continue your education at college or university; you may continue it in trade or vocational school; you may continue it as an apprentice in a skilled trade. You may, alternatively, decide to enter the work force immediately and skip any further formal education and training, opting instead for what is known as “on the job training.” And you could, although no one here would recommend it or be happy if you did so, opt to do none of these things and, instead, become a bum, a grifter, a burden on society, in which case you will learn the hard and dangerous lessons of the streets.

Whatever you choose to do, you may have noted that every path means continuing to learn. I hope, as I’m sure everyone here and your parents hope, that you will learn the lessons of faith, hope, and love.

We hope that you will learn the lessons that Dr. Angelou learned and tried to teach us through her poetry — if people tell lies about you, rise above it; if people try to tread you in the dirt, rise above it; if they want to see you broken and weeping, disappoint them and rise above it; if they try to shoot you with their words, cut you with their eyes, or kill you with their hatefulness, rise above it.

We hope that you will learn to be, as Prof. Holbert said, witnesses “to the truth of the gospel: the truth of justice for the whole world, the love of enemies, and the care for the marginalized and outcast,” that you will learn to be (as the Letter of James puts it) “doers of the word, and not merely hearers.” (James 1:22)

That is our hope for you and our prayer.

And now I have a word for the parents of our graduates. I’ve been where you are now, twice. When our eldest, our son Patrick, entered college he went away to the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. We drove him down to Sewanee and, with other freshman parents, we attended a meeting with the school’s president while our children took part in orientation activities. At the end of our meeting, the president was quite blunt: he basically said, “Go away. Get off campus. Let go of your sons and daughters.” Like Mary Magdalene, we were being told not to cling, not to hold on. So we left that meeting, found our son, and said good-bye. After he hugged us both, he turned and walked down the street toward to his dormitory, and he never looked back.

I stood there watching him go and, like those guys on the Mount of Olives, I wanted him to look back; I was “hoping for a further sign, for a magic act, for a cloud spelling out ‘I love you.'” Like them, I didn’t get it. I suppose the Apostles realized at some point as they stared into the sky that their friend, their rabbi, was no longer the man they thought they knew; he was something more. He was, and is, God. Standing on that campus lane at Sewanee, I knew that this young man was no longer the child I thought I knew; he was something more. He was, and is, an adult.

Both of our children, Patrick and Caitlin, are adults. So are yours. I’m proud to say that both of ours are college graduates and, though Caitlin is not working in her chosen field (yet), both are fully employed, productive members of society. So will yours be.

So don’t cling to them and don’t just stand there watching them go away, fading into the distance. You have things to do because, like them, like those eleven guys on that hillside in Bethany, like everyone of us, you too are called to be witnesses “to the truth of the gospel: the truth of justice for the whole world, the love of enemies, and the care for the marginalized and outcast,” to be “doers of the word.”

So graduates, parents of graduates, everyone . . . Remember the implication of the angels at the Ascension.

Don’t just stand there. Do something!

Experience the reality of the Ascension. Christ’s Ascension, our Ascension, your Ascension!

Rise!

Amen.

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

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

We Always Have Choices – From the Daily Office – May 31, 2014

May 31, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel according to Matthew:

There was a leper who came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 8:2-3 (NRSV) – May 31, 2014)

Choices I admit that I’m never quite sure how to read this publicly, what tone of voice to use for Jesus. I suppose I could avoid that question by reading in that dull monotone some lectors chose, or in that “stained glass church voice” many clergy affect. However, the bible is mostly story, and the Gospels are entirely story, and I believe stories are to be read, especially in public, as stories — living, breathing, interesting, engaging stories.

So how to read Jesus in this narrative? Angry? Authoritative and decisive? Amused? I once heard a deacon read this tale in a way that made Jesus sound surprised that he had a choice, with a tone of voice that said, “Really? I don’t have to do this?”

Sometimes it seems to me that the Gospel is presented in such a way as to suggest that Jesus had little, if any, say in anything. “This was God’s design, the plan of salvation from the very beginning, ba-blah, ba-blah, ba-blah . . . .” as if Jesus were simply some preprogrammed automaton. But, of course, Jesus always had a choice; everyday Jesus had to make the decision whether to continue, whether to “set his face toward Jerusalem” even knowing the probable outcome of his choices.

And so it is with all of us. Life is a series of choices. We don’t always get our way; the choices we would like to make a sometimes refused us. Today in the church is the Feast of Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a day set aside to honor Mary’s visit with her cousin Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist. It is the day on which she sang the Magnificat. It is the day I chose to be ordained. However, it was not the day my bishop chose to ordain me. Guess whose choice prevailed.

So, no, we don’t always get our choices, but we always have choices to make. I simply do not understand and cannot accept the sort of religion that denies that. Not to long ago, I read a devotional text in which the writer asserted that “God is strategic. He has laid out an exact plan for our lives right down to the smallest details. God has it all figured out. He is orchestrating your life right down to the very second.” That sort of spiritual belief has always seemed to me a cop out. It lays our bad choices, our poor decisions at God’s feet, denying our own responsibility.

And it is a belief which can’t be sustained. Within a few pages of that statement, the author then wrote that God can “turn any situation around” because “it doesn’t matter how you got there, whether it was by your own poor choices or maybe someone else treated you unfairly.”

Which is it? Either God has a plan for every second of everyone’s life and is orchestrating every detail or human beings have free will and are always making choices; it can’t be both ways. Or perhaps it can. As the great Jewish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer was fond of saying, “We must believe in free will — we have no choice.”

We always have choices.

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

La La La, I Can’t Hear You – From the Daily Office – May 30, 2014

May 30, 2014 / eric / 1 Comment

From the First Book of Samuel:

Hannah prayed and said,
“There is no Holy One like the Lord,
no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God.
Talk no more so very proudly,
let not arrogance come from your mouth;
for the Lord is a God of knowledge,
and by him actions are weighed.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – 1 Samuel 2:2-3 (NRSV) – May 30, 2014)

“The Lord is a God of knowledge” may be the most important assertion in Hannah’s song. Many bible scholars believe her song to be the model of Mary’s song, The Magnificat. Both are sung by pregnant women; both extol the might and power of God; both confirm God’s preference for the poor and lowly over the rich and powerful. Only Hannah’s song, however, includes this description and her accompanying admonition to her hearers to not speak arrogantly. The translation in The Complete Jewish Bible renders her words in this way: “Stop your proud boasting! Don’t let arrogance come from your mouth! For ADONAI is a God of knowledge, and he appraises actions.”

The clear import of Hannah’s words is that actions speak louder than words and that God, “a God of knowledge,” knows both our words and our actions; if our words and actions are not in accord, God will know and judge according to the former no matter what we may say.

This morning, however, the depiction of Yahweh as “a God of knowledge” appealed to me in a different way, not as a description of an attribute of God, but as a statement of what God encourages in others. This is the God who gave human beings the capacity to learn, to engage in science and research, to explore new things, and (most importantly) to reason and apply what they have learned. And this God expects us to use this capacity, to actually do these things. As Galileo Galilei said in a letter written in 1651, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.”

We are not to remain ignorant, either of the nature of the world around us or of the nature of God. In moral theology ignorance is described as either invincible and vincible. Ignorance is considered invincible if a person cannot not overcome it by applying reasonable diligence in seeking its remedy. Ignorance is vincible if the application of reasonable diligence could remove it. (Reasonable diligence is that effort that a conscientious person would exert in seeking the correct answer to a question given (a) the gravity of the question and (b) the particular resources available.)

We seem to live in an age of pretend invincible ignorance. One of my favorite science fiction authors, the late Dr. Isaac Asimov, wrote in an essay for Newsweek magazine in 1980, “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’” In the three decades since, things have gotten worse.

Contemporary logicians, in fact, now use the term to describe what might be the simplest of all logical fallacies, the refusal to face facts, the insistence on the legitimacy of one’s position in the face of contradictory evidence. It’s a pretty good clue that someone is engaging in this fallacy if they say something like “I really don’t care what the experts say; no one is going to convince me that I’m wrong” or “Nothing you say is going to change my mind” or even “Yeah, okay, whatever!”

Children arguing with one another stick their fingers in their ears and shout, “La la la, I can’t hear you.” We live in a world when adults seem to believe this is a proper form of political or religious or scientific argument. It’s not. This is not the invincible ignorance of moral theology, but it is immoral. This is willful ignorance, and willful ignorance is sinful. As Thomas Aquinas wrote in the Summa Theologica:

It is clear that not every kind of ignorance is the cause of a sin, but that alone which removes the knowledge which would prevent the sinful act. … This may happen on the part of the ignorance itself, because, to wit, this ignorance is voluntary, either directly, as when a man wishes of set purpose to be ignorant of certain things that he may sin the more freely; or indirectly, as when a man, through stress of work or other occupations, neglects to acquire the knowledge which would restrain him from sin. For such like negligence renders the ignorance itself voluntary and sinful, provided it be about matters one is bound and able to know.” (Summa, I-II, q. 76, a. 1, a. 3)

The Lord is a God of knowledge; the Lord is not impressed with “La la la, I can’t hear you.”

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

Category: Spirituality (Page 51 of 116)

Partial Truths and Hamster Wheels – From the Daily Office – June 9, 2014

Shoes for Your Feet – From the Daily Office – June 7, 2014

March Forth – From the Daily Office – June 6, 2014

Power and Authority – From the Daily Office – June 5, 2014

We Are One . . . NOT! – From the Daily Office – June 4, 2014

Boxes – From the Daily Office – June 3, 2014

Strong and Courageous – From the Daily Office – June 2, 2014

Rise! Rise! Rise! – Sermon for Easter 7 (Ascension Sunday) – RCL Year A – June 1, 2014

We Always Have Choices – From the Daily Office – May 31, 2014

La La La, I Can’t Hear You – From the Daily Office – May 30, 2014

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