Category: Theology (Page 48 of 94)

Sometimes I Don’t Understand Paul – From the Daily Office – June 25, 2014

June 25, 2014 / eric / 1 Comment

From the Letter to the Romans:

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Romans 4:13-15 (NRSV) – June 25, 2014)

Law of Gravity Strictly Enforced Sometimes I just don’t understand Paul.

I have read this Letter to the Romans on many occasions and when I get to this part of Paul’s theological argument, I get lost. I don’t know what he means by “where there is no law.” He seems to be suggesting that, because the Law of Moses had not yet been given when Abraham responded faithfully to God, Abraham’s righteousness is somehow superior to that of someone who is bound by the Law. But I don’t buy the premise that there is a time when there is “no law.”

I’m a lawyer and I believe in the “natural law” concept of law. I believe that there is a pre-existing law knowable to human beings exercising natural reason. It pre-exists human conventions and divine-human covenants, and is not dependent on them for its authority. It depends instead on the logical relationship in which it stands to an objective morality, and provides natural, objective standards of behavior. So, as far as I can tell, there is no time or place “where there is no law.”

St. Thomas Aquinas distinguished four kinds of law: (a) eternal law; (b) natural law; (c) human law; and (d) divine law. He called eternal law those things necessary for the natural order of the universe; what today we might call “the laws of nature,” the laws of physics, chemistry, etc. Natural laws, which can be thought of as the moral subset of the eternal laws, are objective laws discernible by human reason. Human laws are subjective, dependent upon social convention. Divine laws are those revealed by God and which human beings cannot discover on their own. Is following and living in accord with this pre-existent natural law (type “b”), which human beings have a natural faculty to discern, what Paul is calling “the righteousness of faith”?

If, as Aquinas argued, the natural laws are those moral “rules” of the eternal law governing the behavior of beings possessing reason and free will, then Abraham’s “righteousness of faith” must be living in accord with them, which means that “righteousness” is an active principal of human existence. So Abraham was righteous in that he discerned and followed the natural laws discernible by human reason. He was not righteous, as Paul suggests, separate and apart from any law. In fact, such righteousness would be impossible; to speak of righteousness in the absence of law is oxymoronic. So I don’t know what Paul means by “where there is no law.”

One could also argue that Abraham was also righteous in that he obeyed God’s instruction to depart his homeland and set out for the Promised Land . . . and I wonder how this (obeying God’s directions) is not “following the law.” How is a direct command from the Almighty not equivalent to the Law given at Sinai? So, again, I don’t know what Paul means by “where there is no law.”

Sometimes I just don’t understand Paul. Today is one of them.

[Today I am traveling — headed for Israel and Palestine on pilgrimage. This blog will become travel commentary for the next several days. Hopefully, I’ll have necessary connections and time to post photographs and remarks.]

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

One Is Never Too Old – From the Daily Office – June 24, 2014

June 24, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Numbers:

The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with their households — everyone who belonged to Korah and all their goods. So they with all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol; the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. All Israel around them fled at their outcry, for they said, “The earth will swallow us too!” And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men offering the incense.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Numbers 16:32-35 (NRSV) – June 24, 2014)

Chinese Hair Queue Believe it or not, I’ve actually had the last of these selected verses quoted to me as part of an argument against the use of incense in the church. I was in a conversation with someone about our use of incense in “high church” liturgies, being told (among other things) that incense was fine when we were younger and acting like hippies but now that we are older and mature we should put aside such childish ways, when this chestnut was pulled out. Since I’ve studied the Old Testament (as most clergy have) I knew my critic was misusing the text.

Such a reading is hard to square with other parts of Scripture in which the use of incense as an honorable offering to God is approved. For example, speaking through the Prophet Malachi God says, “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.” (Mal 1:11)

It’s even harder to harmonize with those places were the burning of incense in religious ceremonies is not only approved, it is commanded. For instance, in the Book of Exodus Moses is commanded to make an altar for incense upon which Aaron is to burn incense two times every day: “Aaron shall offer fragrant incense on it; every morning when he dresses the lamps he shall offer it, and when Aaron sets up the lamps in the evening, he shall offer it, a regular incense offering before the Lord throughout your generations.” (Ex 30:7-8)

And more than that, that reading doesn’t accord with the verse’s own context, and that’s what I’m thinking about today. The story of Korah’s and his followers’ destruction at the hand of an angry God has nothing to do with incense. The burning of incense although it figures prominently in the story is really incidental to the story; Korah and his tribe were destroyed because of their pride, because they sought to usurp the priesthood of Aaron which was not and never would be theirs. In the story, Aaron also burns incense to the Lord and his offering is accepted; further, shortly after this incident Aaron stops a plague among the people through the burning of incense. Clearly, incense is perfectly acceptable to God.

So to say that “fire coming out from the Lord and consuming the two hundred and fifty men offering incense” is an indictment of the use of incense in worship is proof-texting of the worst type, inconsistent with other scriptural references and inconsistent with its own context.

I recall a joke (or maybe it’s a true story) about a preacher who abhorred the traditional Chinese men’s hairstyle holding forth in California in the late 1800s urging Chinese immigrants to abandon the queue or “topknot.” All Chinese men, but particularly those who had converted to Christianity, he argued, should cut off their queues because Christ himself had uttered the words, “Topknot go down!” And he was correct, sort of. What Jesus had said was, “Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house . . . .” (Mt. 24:17) Picking and choosing the Bible’s words out of context is not a new phenomenon.

The only way to combat proof-texting is knowing the Scriptures oneself. Jesus is our model in this regard. Tempted by the devil after his baptism, he was able to answer each of Satan’s references to Scripture with counter-references of his own. (Matt. 4) If we are to respond to misuses of Scripture, we must know it ourselves.

Now, I don’t agree with my incense critic about old age and maturity being a reason to give up incense, but I suppose there might be something to that. Perhaps given the respiratory problems some older folks have, one can be too old for incense. However, one is never too old for Christian education and Bible study!

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

Awkward Anglicanism – From the Daily Office – June 23, 2014

June 23, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Romans:

But now, irrespective of law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Romans 3:21-22 (NRSV) – June 23, 2014)

Awkward Great! Here it is, the single phrase in Paul’s writing, the single preposition the translation of which can radically change one’s understanding of the doctrine of justification by faith. But . . . I’m not going to address that doctrine this morning; I’m more interested right now in ambiguity.

And in that vein, what I just wrote about translating the original Greek is not entirely accurate: it’s not how a preposition is translated because, in the Greek, there is no preposition. The Greek of the last phrase (everything after the last comma) is dikaiosene de Theou dia pisteo Iesou Xristou ei panta tou pisteuonta. The construction pisteo Iesou Xristou is what is called the genitive case. The standard translation of this case into English requires insertion of the preposition “of”. However, it can also be understood as a variant called the objective genitive in which the preposition “in” is inserted for interpretation. In other words, Paul’s Greek is ambiguous.

Which means — right? — that we have to figure out which it is. Is the righteousness of God disclosed by our faith or by Jesus’ faith? Are we saved by our trust in Jesus or by Jesus’ trust in his Father?

This is a debate that has gone on for centuries and the church’s traditional answer has been to go with the objective genitive translation and insert an “in” in this sentence (and similar statements throughout Paul’s writing). But doesn’t that put the ball in our court? Doesn’t that say it is something we do, not something Jesus does? Somehow, it seems to me, that that one little preposition — “in” — puts us in charge of the process of redemption; it requires of me that which Jesus once painfully demonstrated even his most ardent followers did not have — faith at least the size of a mustard seed. (Mt 17:20; Lk 17:6)

So, we have to figure this out! Or do we? What if there is no definitive answer to this question? The ambiguous Greek of this otherwise simple phrase cannot be made any clearer. Like much of Holy Scripture it is a matter of interpretation and either reading can find support in other verses of the Bible; whole theologies have been constructed on one reading or the other.

Early in the morning, not yet showered, with only one cup of coffee in me . . . I’m not going to reach any definitive answer nor build a theory of salvation. In fact, wide awake and dressed for battle I wouldn’t be able to do so. And that’s just fine, because in its ambiguity, Paul’s prose probably should be understood in both ways. I believe that Paul (or perhaps the Holy Spirit working through Paul) is being deliberately inexact, forcing his readers to think in alternative and creative ways!

This is both the beauty and the frustration of bible study, the beauty and the frustration of Christian belief. Accepting such ambiguity, and learning to live with it, is why I am an Episcopalian, an Anglican. For me, this is the beauty and delight of Anglicanism. Our theological tradition is sometimes called a “both/and” tradition. Anglicanism is also sometimes caricatured as attempting to be everything to everyone and thereby being nothing to anyone. We Anglicans describe ourselves as a via media (“middle way”) among the various iterations of western Christianity, between the papal authoritarianism of Rome and the paper authoritarianism of the Protestants. This middle position has been called both a strength and a weakness; I tend to view it positively, but I have to admit that it’s often an awkward place to be. Anglicanism is often awkward!

I think that awkward position is precisely where consideration of which preposition to insert when interpreting Paul’s Letter to the Romans puts us, and I think that it’s a good place to be. Between “of” and “in”, between either/or and both/and, between nothing and everything is a place of dynamic tension. It’s not a place to find definitive answers, but it’s a good place to start the day.

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

Broken Clocks – From the Daily Office – June 21, 2014

June 21, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

The span of our life is seventy years,
perhaps in strength even eighty;
yet the sum of them is but labor and sorrow,
for they pass away quickly and we are gone.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 90:10 (BCP Version) – June 21, 2014)

A friend and colleague preparing to sell her home and take up residence with her husband in a retirement community told me recently that she and he had begun disposing of their many possessions. Among the things to which they have said “Good-Bye” is her husband’s collection of clocks.

That got me thinking about two clocks that my wife and I own but which I’ve not seen in several years. I know where one is; the other’s location is a complete mystery.

The first is a handmade seven-foot tall grandfather clock; the actual clock workings are in the top 30″ or so. It is made almost entirely of wood. The gears, teeth, all the inner workings are hand-carved from a variety of hardwoods. Everything is open to view. There is no case, but rather a frame of hand-rubbed mahogany. The face is smoky gray plexiglass with applied hand-carved wooden numerals; one can see the escapement and other parts working away behind. Or … at least … one was able to do that.

The clock, which was made by my stepfather many years ago, was damaged, badly, by the moving company which transported our possessions from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Overland Park, Kansas, in 1993. Because that move was so bizarrely accomplished, with separation of family, temporary quarters, two storage facilities, and a variety of other missteps, we didn’t know about the damage until way too late to file a claim with the movers. But we have kept the clock and moved it to Ohio and now it sits in a storage loft that we visit maybe four times in a calendar year.

I dread opening its crate and looking at it. I will hate myself for what I have allowed to happen to that clock. I should dispose of it, but I can’t bring myself to do so. I’m sure it is unrepairable, yet I can’t let go of something that my stepdad spent so much time creating.

The other is a mantel clock we found in a garage sale many years ago. It is the sort known as an “anniversary” or “400-day” clock. It didn’t work when we bought it, but we had it repaired and it sat on the mantel in our Las Vegas home for several years. Like my stepfather’s clock, its inner workings are all visible through a glass dome. Like my stepfather’s clock, it went into a packing crate with many other things when we moved to Kansas. And like that handmade clock, I’ve not seen it since. To the best of my knowledge we’ve never opened that box; I’ve no idea what else is in it nor even where it is, in fact. (We have unopened moving boxes in a spare bedroom, in our basement, and in that storage facility. Why, I often wonder, do we have all this stuff?)

All these clocks — my colleague’s husband’s collection, my stepfather’s handmade grandfather clock, our long-unseen anniversary clock — came to mind reading today’s Psalm, supposed to be “a prayer of Moses” in which the ancient Hebrew contemplates the nature of time. “So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom,” he prays (v. 12). And we have learned to “number days” with ever increasing exactitude. We measure not only days, but hours, minutes, seconds, fractions of time so tiny that millions pass in the blink of an eye. Scientists have calculated the infinitesimally small life span of sub-atomic particles and the inconceivably long existence of the entire universe (now believed to be something just short of 14 billion years). But do we really understand time?

We can reduce time to days, hours, minutes, seconds, and even smaller units. We can envision months, years, eons, and longer periods. We can measure and divide time into constituent parts just like we could separate the components of my stepfather’s broken clock or the anniversary clock. But we cannot explain time; we don’t really understand its mystery. The most we can say of time is that it exists, it passes, and we can measure it. Albert Einstein is supposed to have said, “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”

Although we experience time as “moving” in only one “direction,” from past through present and into the future, there is no reason that it must do so. The equations of quantum mechanics and superstring theory insist that time can just as well “move” in the opposite direction, although we’ve never seen it and cannot seem to make that happen in the laboratory. Nonetheless, the mathematics are there and the equations make logical sense.

So here we are 1,500 (or whatever) years after Moses still no better able to understand the workings of time than he and the wandering, wondering Hebrews were. The mysteries of time are as hidden from us as my two boxed-up clocks. In another psalm, one attributed to David, we read, “My times are in your hand.” (Ps. 31:15a) So it was for Moses, so it was David, so it was for my stepfather and the maker of the anniversary clock, and so it is for us. Teach us to use our time wisely, Lord.

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

Taste & See – From the Daily Office – June 20, 2014

June 20, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Numbers:

And they came to the Wadi Eshcol, and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them. They also brought some pomegranates and figs. That place was called the Wadi Eshcol, because of the cluster that the Israelites cut down from there.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Numbers 13:23-24 (NRSV) – June 20, 2014)

Cluster of Grapes Have you ever noticed how one of the most common sorts of souvenirs to be brought back from a trip is food? Every time we travel, my wife and I, we bring back food. Sometimes the authorities thwart us, but we try.

For example, when we made our first trip to Ireland a few years ago, we fell in love with some Irish sausages and with Irish bacon. In the duty-free shop at Dublin’s airport, however, we found a big sign on the meat products refrigerator advising that they could not be brought into the United States. We contented ourselves with some chocolates and some Irish whiskey.

When I was a kid, as I may have mentioned before, I spent summers in Kansas with my paternal grandparents. At the end of the summer my grandparents would often drive me back to Las Vegas and then on to southern California to visit their relatives and my maternal grandparents in the Los Angeles metroplex. Leaving Kansas, my grandfather would pack up some vegetables (especially tomatoes) from his garden into an ice-filled galvanized Gott can (the original Gott cans were made in my grandparents’ town).

Along the road, the ice would be replenished and the produce would stay fresh all the way to Nevada and California. When we got to the California border, there was an agricultural check-point on the highway at (I think) Yermo (or maybe it was Barstow). An officer of the state ag service would ask, “Do you have any fresh fruits or vegetables?” and my strict, up-standing Methodist grandfather, with a straight face and his oh-so-honest-sounding voice would answer, “No, officer.” Off we would drive with our illegal booty of garden produce. A little thing like preventing crop blight was not going to prevent our food souvenirs getting to their final destination.

And at the end of their trip those tomatoes and other veggies produced such delight! It was almost religious the way my maternal grandmother would receive her friends’ gift of a vine-ripened tomato, tenderly caress it, wash it gently, slice and serve it with the lunch she had prepared to welcome us. The look of sheer joy on her face as she tasted her first bite of it, the taste of her home town.

The taste of food reminds us of the places we have been; like the sound of music or certain smells, a taste can incite a flood of memories. Food also anticipates. We, my wife and I, are headed to the Holy Land in a short while. A few weeks ago, our tour organizer hosted a dinner at a near-by Middle Eastern restaurant so that we could meet other group members, hear a bit about our itinerary, and in the meal we shared get a foretaste of what we can expect to enjoy when we are there.

Moses sent spies over into Canaan and they came back with grapes, pomegranates, and figs to prove the land the Hebrews were entering was a bountiful one; like them, we are looking forward to entering the Promised Land. They named the place Eshcol (“cluster”) because of those grapes. One presumes that Moses and the other leaders tasted those fruits and knew the goodness of the land and of God who was giving it to them; they anticipated the future.

We do the same sort of thing each time we gather in worship and share the Eucharist. In it is the taste both of memory and of expectation. Every celebration of Holy Communion is both a memorial of what God has accomplished and a preview of what God has promised. In the Eucharist the past and the future irrupt into the present; our fellowship in the Eucharist with God and with all Christians across time and space is both a remembrance of Christ and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good;” says the Psalmist, “happy are they who trust in him!” (Ps 34:8) Taste and see.

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

Creative Conflict: Back to Basics – From the Daily Office – June 19, 2014

June 19, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From Matthew’s Gospel:

[Jesus said] “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 18:15-17 (NRSV) – June 19, 2014)

Two Men in Verbal Conflict If Jesus stands for anything, he stands for community, for the ability of people graced by God to reconcile with one another despite their differences. Yet even he acknowledges that there are times when reconciliation is impossible, that there are people who will not engage in constructive dialog, will not compromise, and will not modify their behavior. His advice is to let such a person go: “Let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector.”

We do a terrible job of following Jesus’ directions in many things, this one most of all. We, church members and church leaders, are so afraid of decline that we try to please everyone so that not only do we not let those go who really ought to go, we actively hang on to them. We try to please everyone for fear of losing anyone when we really should lose a few someones. As a result, we have an epidemic of “niceness” in the church.

By being “nice,” we allow dysfunctional persons to get away with behavior that would be unacceptable in any other organization, group, or workplace. Adult church members are allowed to act in ways that would get children expelled from school, and all the “nice” people look the other way or try to placate them. But we aren’t called to be “nice;” we’re called to love. Sometimes loving both a person and a community means letting go of the person to preserve and safeguard the community, letting “such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector.”

An article published in The Huffington Post a couple of years ago (April 2012) is popping up again on social media sites like Facebook. It reports on a study of over 580 clergy from 39 denominations:

An online study published in the March issue of the Review of Religious Research found 28 percent of ministers said they had at one time been forced to leave their jobs due to personal attacks and criticism from a small faction of their congregations.

The researchers from Texas Tech University and Virginia Tech University also found that the clergy who had been forced out were more likely to report lower levels of self-esteem and higher levels of depression, stress and physical health problems.

And too few clergy are getting the help they need, said researcher Marcus Tanner of Texas Tech.

“Everybody knows this is happening, but nobody wants to talk about it,” Tanner said in an interview. “The vast majority of denominations across the country are doing absolutely nothing.” (David Briggs, Silent Clergy Killers: ‘Toxic’ Congregations Lead to Widespread Job Loss)

I recently read the profile of a congregation in search of a pastor. A survey of the membership was included and, interestingly, the majority had said they wanted a clergy person who would “make creative use of conflict” rather than avoid it. That’s refreshing, but it makes one wonder if they truly mean it and raises the question: what’s lurking underneath that response?

I also wonder why, when Jesus has given us a perfectly good model for dealing with conflict, we think we need to get creative about it. Maybe what we need to do is get back to basics, back to following Jesus’ instructions.

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

Woe to You – From the Daily Office – June 18, 2014

June 18, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From Matthew’s Gospel:

Woe to the world because of stumbling-blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling-block comes!

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 18:7 (NRSV) – June 18, 2014)

Weeping Angel Until I undertook a little bit of Greek language study, I always thought Jesus’ pronouncements of woe were angry condemnations, predictions of doom, and certainly they can be that. On the other hand, they can be understood as something very different. The Greek word translated as “woe” is ouai which can also (and perhaps more properly) be translated as “alas.” The word is onomatopoeic, representing a deep sigh of sorrow or resignation. Perhaps Jesus is not so much condemning as mourning.

I grew up with a picture of Jesus that was internally contradictory. There was the Good Shepherd Jesus who was loving and kind, who healed children, sought out the lost, and wept over the death of friends. On the other hand, there was the angry, condemning Jesus who braided a whip out of cords, overturned tables, pronounced doom-laden “woes”.

Although his earthly post-Resurrection were certainly more the former sort of Jesus, it seemed it was the angry Jesus who really rose because that’s the one John of Patmos said was coming back: “From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.” (Rev 9:15)

Then I studied Greek and read, for example, Luke’s “blessings and woes” rather differently:

Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets. (Lk 6:24-26)

The same ouai, the same deeply sad sigh, the same “alas” as in today’s reading. Now it seems to me that Jesus, rather than venting fury at these people, is saying, “I feel sorry for you rich . . . I fell sorry for you full . . . I feel sorry you who laugh . . . I feel sorry for you who have great reputations.” This Jesus, sadly disappointed rather than angry with those about whom he expresses woe, is not contradictory to the Jesus who heals, who cares, who listens, who feeds, and who weeps.

I still don’t know what to do with that raging horse rider with the sharp sword for a tongue, but I’m feeling a lot better about the Jesus who says, “Woe to you . . . . ”

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

A Fishy Tale – From the Daily Office – June 17, 2014

June 17, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From Matthew’s Gospel:

When they reached Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax came to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the temple tax?” He said, “Yes, he does.” And when he came home, Jesus spoke of it first, asking, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?” When Peter said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the children are free. However, so that we do not give offence to them, go to the lake and cast a hook; take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a coin; take that and give it to them for you and me.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 17:22-27 (NRSV) – June 17, 2014)

Childrens Bible Illustration of the Fish and Coin “O great,” I think, reading this story. “Here’s one of those fairy tales that make the story of Jesus so unbelievable for some people.” Let’s face it, a fish with a silver coin in its mouth that’s just enough to pay the taxes levied by the authorities ranks right up there with Jack’s magic beans, the goose that laid golden eggs, and Rapunzel’s spinning wheel that made gold from straw. It has all the markings of the fantastic and none of the real.

Commentators are all over the board in trying to figure it out, too! They pose all sorts of questions: How did Jesus know the fish would have the coin? How did Peter know where to throw his hook? What is the significance of the fish itself? Or of the coin? And they posit answers: The story shows Jesus’ complete divine knowledge of everything (omniscience). The story shows Jesus’ mastery over nature (omnipotence). The tale demonstrates Jesus’ contempt for the temple authorities. (That last one is probably accurate. I don’t believe that the human Jesus, even though God incarnate, had access to complete divine knowledge or complete control over nature, I can’t agree with so the first two.)

The tale even has a standard name: “The Miracle of the Coin in the Fish’s Mouth.” But here’s the thing . . . .

It never happened!

There is no story of Peter actually following through. There is no story of Peter going fishing. There is no tale of coins actually being found in a fish’s mouth. There is no narrative of Peter paying the temple tax.

All we have is a story of a conversation. After relating the conversation, Matthew immediately shifts scene to the disciples’ discussion about greatness in the kingdom of heaven (ch. 18). Not word is written by Matthew or by anyone about Peter actually going fishing.

If Matthew, a tax collector, actually wrote the gospel bearing his name, it makes sense that he would remember and relate a conversation about taxes; he is the only evangelist to tell of this discussion. If Peter really had caught a fish with a coin and used it to pay a mandated offering to the Temple . . . can we believe that such an incredible occurrence would not have been known to and told about by the other gospel writers? That just sounds fishy!

I want to make the radical suggestion that all of the ink spilled in analysis of the “miracle of the coin in the fish’s mouth” has been wasted, that we should focus our attention on the conversation, not on an event that is never described as having taken place. What might the conversation mean? What was its context? Is Jesus being humorous? Could this conversation (which probably took place sixty years or more before it was written down) been more speculative? Could Jesus really have said something like, “Suppose you went down to the lake, cast a line, and caught this fish . . . . ”

Here’s my thought for the morning: this is not a story about a miracle. It’s not a fairy tale like the beans, the goose, or the spinning wheel. It’s a conversation in critique of the temple tax. I believe Jesus is posing a fantastic hypothetical. — “If you were lucky enough to catch a fish with the exact amount of the tax in its mouth and used that to pay the tax, would that be a worthy offering? The authorities would accept it, but would it truly represent you and me? Would it be a sacrificial gift to God? And if the temple tax can be paid with something you were just lucky to find in the most unlikely of circumstances does it have any meaning?”

If Jesus is about anything, he is about investment in faith; he is about commitment; he is about personal sacrifice. Messing with nature so that Peter would find a coin to pay the tax would be out of character for him; telling a tale to illustrate the inadequacy of the established religion, not so much.

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

Horizontal Faith – From the Daily Office – June 16, 2014

June 16, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Romans:

For I am longing to see you so that I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you — or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Romans 1:11-12 (NRSV) – June 16, 2014)

Wooden Cross Confession: For years I have found Paul’s writing tedious. I read it because the early church reached consensus that his letters would be considered divinely inspired and the contemporary church has mandated that we read his stuff in the Daily Office and Eucharistic lectionaries. But I read it carelessly, not paying much attention.

Only since taking on the discipline of writing these daily meditations on some part of the daily readings have I really read Paul. And I am impressed with his stated reason for wanting to visit the Romans! “That we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” That’s solid.

That is, in fact, what I think Christianity is all about. It’s about mutually encouraging and supporting one another. It’s about sustaining interpersonal relationships. It’s about community. It must be by design that these lessons show up the day after Trinity Sunday when we celebrate the paradigm complete and perfect community which is the Triune Godhead.

So much of modern Christianity seems to focus solely on the individual’s devotion to God in Christ to the exclusion of the faith’s social aspect. Many Christians seem to have forgotten that the cross has two members: a vertical, which represents that earth-to-heaven, human-to-God aspect; and a horizontal, which represents the relationships of human-to-human. Christianity is as much a horizontal faith as it is a vertical one. A prayer for mission in the Daily Office focuses on the horizontal:

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.

I usually reserve this prayer for Fridays, but following Paul’s hope in the horizontality of faith, “that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith,” I said it today.

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

I Arise Today: Sermon for Trinity Sunday – RCL, Year A – June 15, 2014

June 15, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

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On Trinity Sunday, the First Sunday after Pentecost, June 15, 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: Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Canticle 13 (Song of the Three Young Men 29-34); 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; and Matthew 28:16-20. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Triquetra

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity
Through belief in the Threeness
Through confession of the Oneness
Towards the Creator.

Although he probably didn’t actually write it, tradition credits St. Patrick of Ireland with the poetic charm called a “lorica” or “breastplate” which begins with these words, an invocation of the One, Holy, Blessed, and Glorious Trinity whom we today celebrate. Since the time of St. Thomas a Becket, the first Sunday after the Feast of Pentecost has been set aside as day of special veneration of the Triune nature of the Godhead. Becket was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury on the Sunday after Pentecost, and his first act was to decree that the anniversary of his consecration should be commemorated each year in honor of the Holy Trinity. This observance spread from Canterbury throughout the whole of the western church.

Patrick continues:

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension
Through the strength of his descent for the Judgment of doom.

Our Gospel lesson today is the end of Matthew’s Gospel. In it Christ on the mount of the ascension, just before going up into heaven, gives the eleven remaining Apostles what has come to be known as “The Great Commission”:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

For Matthew mountains are what Celtic Christianity refers to as “thin places,” those places where the separation between the spiritual realm and the physical realm is narrowest, where the veil which separates heaven from earth is nearly transparent so that we have the feeling we could reach out and touch, even enter, the holy presence.

On a mountain, in such a place, Jesus calls his followers to a new beginning. The Eleven, standing proxy for all the followers of Jesus then and now, for you and for me, are called to be people moving in mission. It is important for us to note that this mountain is in Galilee, the place where Jesus began his ministry, the place from which he went forth but to which he returned, the place where he was grounded and rooted. The disciples, too, are from this place and their grounding in the Christian story is this same country where their journey began. Like them, we are called to claim our origins, to be rooted in the place where we entered the Christian story, not to be permanently bound there, but to draw strength from it as we venture out in mission into the wider world beyond. The place where we began as members of the community of Christ is, to each of us, an important place of foundation and also, perhaps, a thin place where we encounter the Triune God.

Patrick’s lorica continues:

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim
In obedience to the Angels,
In the service of the Archangels,
In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In prayers of patriarchs,
In predictions of prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of confessors,
In innocence of Holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous [people].

Here, St. Patrick claims membership in the Christian community as his source of strength, as his foundation, as the community in which his mission is grounded and from which it is nurtured.

In a few moments, we will do something we have not done since Lent . . . join together in the General Confession, jointly and publically acknowledging that as individuals and as a community we have failed to live up to our obligations, that we have sinned “by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” And we will be forgiven that failure by God’s absolution which reconciles us and restores us to the community and fellowship of the Church. When, as presiding priest, I pronounce the words of absolution, I speak not on my own behalf but for the whole church to which Jesus gave what is called “the power of the keys” when he said to the Apostles, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Mt 16:19; cf. 18:18)

The words of absolution, which I speak as much to myself as to anyone, loose our sins, but also bind us into the beloved community:

Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life.

The community with which we are reconciled through confession and absolution is the community of the Trinity.

In the Triune Godhead all Christian community begins and finds its perfect expression. Humankind, as our Genesis reading reminded us, was and is created in the image of God. Thus, we are blessed with reason and skill; we are capable of experiencing emotion; and, like God, we have individual will and freedom of action. To be created in God’s likeness also means that we have the possibility of attaining holiness and immortality. To be created in God’s likeness further means that we are created to experience, participate in, and share interrelationship with others, for we are made in the image of the Holy Trinity.

The Doctrine of the Trinity is not a static principal of faith; it is the way in which the church, through the revelation of God, has come to appreciate and express of the significantly dynamic nature of God in the relationship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. If we have been created in the image of God and if God is Trinity then at the deepest level of our being, we are communitarian, created not for ourselves, but for one another, for relationship with each other and with God.

Many look at the mystery of the Trinity as if it were a problem in differential calculus. They seem to have the attitude that if one solves the equation, they will have figured out God and earned their entry into heaven. But, as Benedictine poet Killian McDonnell writes, God is not a problem to be solved:

God is not a problem
I need to solve, not an
algebraic polynomial equation
I find complete before me,

with positive and negative numbers
I can add, subtract, multiply.
God is not a fortress
I can lay siege to and reduce.

God is not a confusion
I can place in order by my logic.
God’s boundaries cannot be set,
like marking trees to fell.

God is the presence in which
I live, where the line between
what is in me and what
before me is real, but only God

can draw it. God is the mystery
I meet on the street, but cannot
lay hold of from the outside,
for God is my situation,

the condition I cannot stand
beyond, cannot view from a distance,
the presence I cannot make an object,
only enter on my knees.

Which brings us back to confession, to reconciliation, and to community.

The community to which and in which we are to be reconciled is not only that of the church or that of the human commonwealth, it is the community of the whole of creation. This is why our round of readings from Sacred Scripture bids us on Trinity Sunday to hear the long lesson from Genesis recounting the days of creation as each part of the natural order is ordained by God and pronounced good. This is the community that Matthew’s Jesus claims when he asserts that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” “Heaven and earth” is a figure of speech called a merism, a manner of speaking by which the whole of something is referenced by enumerating its constituents or traits. In the Genesis creation story, heaven and earth comprise a single entity — God’s whole creation. We are a part of that community of creation and it is to that universal community that Patrick next looks in his lorica:

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun
Brilliance of moon
Splendor of fire
Speed of lightning
Swiftness of wind
Depth of sea
Stability of earth
Firmness of rock.

The whole of nature comprises the foundational community of strength and support upon which a follower of Jesus may depend, because this community finds its strength and support in paradigm community of the Holy Trinity by whom it was creation.

Genesis insists that there is one God, who is sovereign and powerful. Unlike the gods of other peoples in the ancient Middle East, the God of Israel had no specified area of competence. The creation in the first chapter of Genesis is, as one commentator has said, “fiercely monotheistic,” yet even in its insistence on the one God, not limited in space or time, Genesis reveals the Trinity. From this god, the God, a wind, the Holy Spirit, came forth and spread across the void. This god, the God, created everything. This god, the God, simply spoke the Word (“in the beginning was the Word,” said John of Jesus) and creation happened. It is to this god, the God that Patrick looks for strength and protection:

I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me:
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me,
God’s host to secure me
against snares of devils
against temptations of vices
against inclinations of nature
against everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and anear,
alone and in a crowd.

But we are never truly alone, nor are we ever really beset by these and the many other spiritual and physical dangers that Patrick goes on to list. St. Paul blessed and reminded his readers, “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit” are with us all. Jesus promised and reminded the Eleven (and through them, us), “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

These are not mere blessings or simple an appeals to get along with one another; these are exhortations to be the new creation that the Spirit of God equips us to be, a foundational community patterned on the Holy Trinity. Just as the Persons of the Divine Trinity are never alone, human beings are created with a need for one another, a need to communicate with one another. Our thirst to communicate ourselves to others, to be in authentic relationship with each other is never exhausted. The only difference between our community and that of the Trinity is that God’s Triune relationship is perfect and total whereas in our human reality communication and relationship are imperfect and partial. Paul’s appeal for the presence of Christ’s grace, God’s love, and the Spirit’s fellowship is an appeal to enter more to the divine love that creates and sustains the church, that perfects and completes our relationships. The Trinity is the very source of our life in Christ, and in Christ we are a new creation with whom Christ promises always to stay.

So in the lorica, Patrick extols the totality of Christ’s presence, the inescapabilty of Jesus’ promise, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Patrick writes:

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ where I lie,
Christ where I sit,
Christ where I arise,
Christ in the heart of every [person] who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every [person] who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

Patrick concludes as he began, invoking the One, Holy, Blessed, and Glorious Trinity whom we today celebrate:

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Towards the Creator.

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen.” (2 Cor 13:14 as used to conclude the Daily Office in The Book of Common Prayer, page 102)

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

Category: Theology (Page 48 of 94)

Sometimes I Don’t Understand Paul – From the Daily Office – June 25, 2014

One Is Never Too Old – From the Daily Office – June 24, 2014

Awkward Anglicanism – From the Daily Office – June 23, 2014

Broken Clocks – From the Daily Office – June 21, 2014

Taste & See – From the Daily Office – June 20, 2014

Creative Conflict: Back to Basics – From the Daily Office – June 19, 2014

Woe to You – From the Daily Office – June 18, 2014

A Fishy Tale – From the Daily Office – June 17, 2014

Horizontal Faith – From the Daily Office – June 16, 2014

I Arise Today: Sermon for Trinity Sunday – RCL, Year A – June 15, 2014

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