That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Theology (Page 52 of 94)

God’s Butt – From the Daily Office – May 14, 2014

May 14, 2014 / / 2 Comments

From the Book of Exodus:

The Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” And the Lord continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Exodus 33:17-23 (NRSV) – May 14, 2014)

Detail of Sistine Chapel - God's backsideThe translators of the NRSV are a bunch of prudes; a better translation of the last verse of this section would be “. . . you shall see my butt.”

The term “my back” is a translation of the Hebrew term ‘achowr which, incidentally, is a plural noun; when this is used of an animal, the translation is usually “hindquarters” or something of that nature, which apparently is inappropriate with respect to God. In the 3rd Century Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, it is translated into the odd construction ta hopiso mou, “the behinds of me.” When St. Jerome translated the Vulgate Latin version in the 4th Century, he also retained the plural, posteriora mea, “my posteriors.” The translators of the Authorized version of 1611 did so, as well, “my back parts.” In other words, my backside, my ass end, my buttocks!

So the NRSV editors are just a bunch of prudes! Or maybe they are just being prudish for a contemporary American audience which has become obsessed with . . . what? sex? nudity? titillation?

Recently there was a news article about an attractive 17-year-old young woman who was expelled from a homeschoolers’ prom event because, although her dress met the dress code requirements, it was considered to titillating for the fathers watching the dancers from the balcony! I hesitate to say that this event was billed as a dance for “Christian” homeschoolers, because the published reports reveal a good deal of unchristian behavior from the leering of the fathers to the disrespect shown the young lady and her escort by the chief chaperone of the event. (The Cleveland Plain Dealer‘s report yesterday of the incident is here.)

And the question of respect is really what this episode between Moses and God raises for me.

I’m not sure when the “look at God’s face and die” notion arose among the Hebrews, but it isn’t there in the earliest stories of the bible. Adam and Eve seem to carry on face-to-face conversations with God with no ill effect and, when God shows up in the guise of three strangers at the oaks of Mamre, Abraham sits and talks with them over a lamb dinner and does not succumb. But, in any event, the Hebrews somehow got the idea that one shows greatest respect for God by averting one’s gaze and thus this story and, later, Isaiah’s fear that he will die because of his experience in seeing a vision of God in the heavenly throne room: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isa 6:5)

Human cultures differ on how to show respect to elders. Some adopt this averted-gaze position; others (my forebears among them) insist on looking people in the eyes. I can remember quite vividly both of my grandfathers forcefully insisting that I look them squarely in the face when in conversation; looking away even briefly was considered either as disrespect or as possible evidence of untruthfulness.

What this suggests to me is that we humans don’t actually know how to respect one another! The story of the really (in my opinion) bad treatment of the young woman at the prom is simply more evidence of that. And, if we don’t know how to respect another human being, we certainly do not know how to respect God.

Respect requires maturity; showing proper respect to another person, human or god, is a mark of adulthood. Perhaps that is the point of today’s story of Moses and God, neither Moses nor the Hebrews (nor, for that matter, any of humanity) were yet mature enough to have a respectful face-to-face relationship with the Almighty, so God did what God could.

Moses is permitted to see God’s butt because God was lowering God’s self to develop a relationship with Moses and, through him and the Hebrews, with all humanity, a relationship that hopefully would grow and mature. In giving Moses this vision, God revealed both a special affection for his favorite and a hope for the eventual adulthood of the human race. The gaze of those lustful old men in the balcony focused on the young prom-goer’s butt suggests we still have a long way to go!

The indecorous nature of God’s backside reveals the extent to which God is willing to humble God’s self out of respect for human beings; someday, perhaps, we’ll learn to show respect as well.

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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.

I Don’t Know – From the Daily Office – May 13, 2014

May 13, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Exodus:

Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them?” And Aaron said, “Do not let the anger of my lord burn hot; you know the people, that they are bent on evil. They said to me, ‘Make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ So I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off ‘; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Exodus 32:21-24 (NRSV) – May 13, 2014)

Golden Calf“I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

I chuckle every time I read this story and get to this point. In fact, when the story of the golden calf has been read in church and the reader gets to Aaron’s disclamation of responsibility, I’ve been known to laugh out loud.

Once, years ago, in a bible study group reading Exodus, I asked, “How old was Aaron?” No one knew, but we were all pretty certain that Moses and his brother were not young children at the time of this story. Nonetheless, a young child is exactly what Aaron sounds like: “I threw the gold in the fire, and out came this calf!” No mention of his forming the mold, pouring the molten the gold, breaking the mold, polishing the casting, and all the rest that goes into the making of a metal statue. The calf just “came out.”

There was a phantom in our house when my children were very young. We’d find that someone had opened the orange juice and not only taken some, but also spilled a good deal on the kitchen counter and floor. “Who did this?” we would ask. “I don’t know,” would be the answer. The contents of my wife’s purse were spilled there was lipstick smeared on things. “Who did this?” we demanded of the little girl with red all over her face. “I don’t know,” she told us. Someone once tried to make sand castles in the cat box. “Who did this?” we asked the little boy with sand fingers. With a straight face he replied, “I don’t know.”

We never caught I Don’t Know doing any of these things (or many others), but there was plenty of evidence of his (or was it “her”?) existence. I Don’t Know was a very active sprite! Apparently, I Don’t Know was much older than we thought. He or she appears to have been with the Hebrews in the desert. — “Who made this golden calf?” — “I don’t know. I threw the gold in the fire and out came this calf!”

In the modern adult world, I Don’t Know has gotten more adapt at hiding his or her identity. “Who made that decision?” we ask. The answer is often one of I Don’t Know‘s alter egos: a committee, the vestry, the (unnamed) higher-ups, the council, management, the administration. Could it be that I Don’t Know is being scapegoated?

Imaginary friends are a healthy part of maturing. Research shows that children with imaginary companions tend to be less fearful, laugh more, smile more, engage more with peers, and are better able to imagine how someone else might think. An imaginary friend can aid a child to handle fear, explore ideas, or gain a sense of competence, but children with imaginary friends will sometimes blame them for misbehavior in an attempt to dodge the displeasure of adult authority. I Don’t Know is not exactly an imaginary friend, but disclaiming responsibility and deflecting blame is certainly child-like (if not childish) behavior.

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child,” wrote St. Paul, “I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” (1 Cor 13:11) Jesus once told a story about someone who decided to stop blaming I Don’t Know. The man in the story “put an end to childish ways” and said to himself, “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.'” (Lk 15:18)

We human beings of all ages when challenged still seem invoke I Don’t Know to avoid personal responsibility on a pretty regular basis. Christian maturity, coming (as Paul said) “to the measure of the full stature of Christ,” (Eph 4:13) no longer laying things at the feet of I Don’t Know is something for which we all need to strive. We need to give up being like Aaron; we need to put an end to childish ways.

Is that going to happen on a general basis any time soon?

I could answer, “I don’t know.” But the truth is, I think I do.

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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.

Wrestling in Prayer – From the Daily Office – May 12, 2014

May 12, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Colossians:

Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you. He is always wrestling in his prayers on your behalf, so that you may stand mature and fully assured in everything that God wills.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Colossians 4:12 (NRSV) –May 12, 2014)

Hercules and Diomedes by Vincenzo de Rossi“Wrestling in his prayers” seems such an odd turn of phrase! Aren’t prayers supposed to be peaceful? The image of prayer as athletic competition (and vigorous, muscular, and very personal competition, at that) just seems contradictory. But the contradiction calls to mind two thoughts.

The first is that I remembered Jacob: “Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.” (Gen 32:24-25)

Doing early morning study of Koine Greek is probably a mistake . . . but I wondered, “Does Paul use the same word to describe Epaphras as the Septuagint uses to describe Jacob?” Short answer — no. Long answer — In Genesis, the wrestling contest is described using the word palaío; in Colossians, the word is agonizomai. The former is specific; the latter refers in general to athletic competition and may also mean “to struggle” or “to labor.”

Nonetheless, I wonder if Paul is calling Jacob’s late-night wrestling match with God to mind. If Jacob’s dream-time contest is a metaphor for prayer (and I think it is), then there is a striking contrast between first-party prayer (petition) which leaves the supplicant limping, and third-party prayer (intercession) which permits the subject to “stand mature and fully assured.” I don’t know what to make of this. Is there a suggestion that the prayers of others are more effective for our well-being than our own?

An Indian guru once said, “Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness.” Was Jacob’s hip put out of joint by his encounter with God? Or was it always out of joint and the encounter merely led to a recognition or an admission of that fact? Prayer for oneself always does, in my experience, bring one up face-to-face with one’s own inadequacies. And, I have to say, I rely much more upon the prayers and prayerful support of others than upon my own. So perhaps there is something in the contrast Paul may be making.

The second, unrelated thought, is how often I struggle to find the “right words” with which to pray, both in private meditation and in public worship. As a priest, I am often asked to pray in public and, when that happens, I am grateful that, as an Episcopalian, I have been steeped in the language and cadences of The Book of Common Prayer. When I cannot think of anything original to say, I can rely on the prayerful words of generations of Anglicans and, from memory of the prayer book’s beautiful phrases, cobble something quickly together.

It is not always so in my private devotions. But that same Indian guru said of prayer, “It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” So if my struggle to find the right words is unsuccessful, I just let it go and sit quietly, sure that God will understand me.

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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.

Grandparental Nicknames – From the Daily Office – May 10, 2014

May 10, 2014 / / 1 Comment

From Matthew’s Gospel:

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake — for they were fishermen.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 4:18 (NRSV) –May 10, 2014)

Grandfather NicknamesSometime this fall, probably during October, my wife and I will become grandparents for the first time. Last night, a friend asked, “What will you be called?” Because the question came out of the blue (we hadn’t been discussing children or grandchildren), I didn’t know what he was asking — and my face must have shown it. “As grandfather,” he clarified, “what will you be called as a grandparent?”

Good question. Is it really up to me? Do I get to say, “I want to be called [something]”? If so, I’d like to be called by one of the Irish nicknames: “Daideó” (pronounced “DAH-doe”) or “Móraí” (pronounced “MO-ree”) or “Papaí” (pronounced “PAH-pee”). The actual word for “grandfather” in Irish is seanathair which means “old father” or (in older Irish) “wise father”; an alternative is athair mór which means “great father” (“great” here is more akin to “big” than to “wonderful”).

But is it really up to me? Families have long-running traditions about naming grandparents, I think. Every grandmother (for the three generations I have known) on both sides of my family was known as “Grammy” — my mother called hers “Grammy Buss” and “Grammy Sargent”; mine were “Grammy Grace” and “Grammy Edna” (we were a less formal generation, I guess), and my mother was “Grammy Betty” to our children.

Grandfathers were less uniformly addressed. I don’t know what my greatgrandfathers were called; both were long dead when I was born. My maternal grandfather, Richard Sargent, was “Daddy Rich” (a combination of what my mother and grandmother called him); my paternal grandfather was “C.E.” (what everyone called him) or, less frequently, “Granddad.” My father was deceased when his grandchildren were born, so if he was referred to at all it was as “your grandfather, York”; my stepfather, Stan Shivers, was called “GrandStan” by my niece and nephew and my children.

One thing I’ve noticed is that the first-born grandchildren get to make the decision. My brother was nearly ten years older than me, and I had two older paternal cousins, so by the time I came along grandparental names were pretty much cast in stone. We have nieces and nephews several years older than our own children, so they had settled the issue on both sides long before our kids had a say.

All of this comes to mind this morning because of “Simon, who is called Peter.” It was Jesus who gave him that name: “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” (Mt 16:18) For many years, I wondered why Jesus gave Simon this nickname and thought it was simply out of affection — it’s nearly the equivalent of “Rocky” and since Simon Peter often seems as dense as a bag of rocks, that made sense.

But I’ve come recently (while studying the prophets with an Education for Ministry group) to believe that Jesus is following in the tradition of Isaiah and, since he has no son to name, he is giving Simon a symbolic prophetic nickname in the same way that prophet named his children. Isaiah named his sons Shear-jashub, which means “the remnanet shall return,” and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, which means “he has hurried to plunder,” as signs against Judah and Jerusalem. I think Jesus gave Simon the new name Peter in a similar way, as a prophetic sign to the church.

Shear-jashub, Maher-shalal-has-baz, and Simon Peter had no say in the matter. So I still wonder with respect to this question of grandparental naming, is it really up to me?

And I wonder if grandparental naming is a prophetic activity. Does the name chosen shape the relationship? Does it portend what the relationship will be? Certainly, one would suspect that if a child is taught to call its grandfather “Grandfather,” that relationship will be rather different than that of a child who calls his or her grandfather “Grampa.” But do “Granddad” or “Papaí” or “Nano” shape the bond differently? And, if so, how?

This matter of choosing a grandparental nickname is serious stuff . . . assuming it really is up to me.

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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.

The Sacrament of Money – From the Daily Office – May 9, 2014

May 9, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Exodus:

The Lord said to Moses: Tell the Israelites to take for me an offering; from all whose hearts prompt them to give you shall receive the offering for me. This is the offering that you shall receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze, blue, purple, and crimson yarns and fine linen, goats’ hair, tanned rams’ skins, fine leather, acacia wood, oil for the lamps, spices for the anointing-oil and for the fragrant incense, onyx stones and gems to be set in the ephod and for the breastpiece. And have them make me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Exodus 25:1-8 (NRSV) – May 9, 2014.)

Gold silver and bronze barsADDED LATER: Oops!!! I just realized late on May 9 that I had read the lessons for May 10 one day ahead of time. This lesson is actually for the next day . . . . mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! Apologies, faithful readers!

It occurred to me as I read this passage this morning that God is ordering Moses to conduct the first capital campaign.

In 24 years of ordained ministry I have been involved in three major capital campaigns in as many parishes. Each time, the parish leadership turned to professional fundraising consultants to assist them and each consultant told us the same thing: capital campaigns do not impact regular financial stewardship because people give to the operating budget out of income, but they give to the capital campaign out of wealth. In other words, our regular weekly support of our churches comes from our paychecks, but what we give to capital projects we take from savings and investments.

How is it that the Hebrews have all this wealth? These people are wandering around Sinai not carrying enough food to feed themselves — hence the manna and the quail in Exodus 16 — and yet they have gold, silver, bronze, spices, incense, and precious stones? That raises all sorts of issues for me about human priorities and the spirituality of possessions and wealth.

So, too, does Tuesday’s report that the 25 highest-earning hedge fund managers in the United States took home a total of $21.15 billion in compensation last year! That’s an average annual take-home for those investment advisors of $860 million each! That kind of compensation blurs the distinction between “income” and “wealth.” I would argue that this is not “income;” it is, rather, transfer of “wealth.”

In my most recent experience of capital campaigning, our goal was $500,000; we didn’t quite make it – we raised about 76% of the goal in five-year pledges. Because the work we were undertaking could not be postponed, our governing board made the “leap of faith” decision to finance the rest. For us, this was a difficult and painful decision. For any of those 25 hedge fund managers, it would have meant spending less than 6/10 of one percent of their annual compensation.

It has been suggested that money is a sacrament: it is a sign of the work we do, a symbol of our sweat and toil, an indicator of our values. I think I would refine that argument, however, to say that income is a sacrament of these things. Which then raises the question, of what is wealth a sacrament? Our security? Our faith in the future? Our faith in God? And just how sacramental (either as income or wealth) is a transfer of more millions of dollars than most people can even imagine, or an expenditure of less than one percent of our compensation?

I figured it out. 6/10 of one percent of my wife’s and my combined annual income is almost exactly what I spent a couple of days ago on a tankful of gasoline. That purchase was not a gut-wrenching decision; it required no thought at all, no spiritual or emotional investment, no “leap of faith” like the vestry’s decision to go forward with our recent capital improvement project. One of those hedge fund managers could have paid for that project with as little thought or spiritual reflection as I spent pumping gas into my car.

And, I suggest, that lack of thought and reflection about income and wealth permeates our society. A confession: This is the second time in a few months that I’ve read this passage of Exodus. The first was in the context of a bible study group at church. The first time the question of what the Hebrews were doing carting around that sort of wealth as they wandered the desert for forty years never occurred to me. It didn’t occur to me until it was juxtaposed with the report of hedge fund manager compensation and the inordinate wealth transfer it represents. But it should have. I should have, we all should have a spirituality of money, a theology of wealth and income.

And a theology of money, at the very least, should demand that we pause and engage in at least a bit of thought and spiritual reflection on what we do routinely — filling our tanks, buying books for leisure reading or study, letting the bank automatically pay our internet access fees. It requires us to get some perspective, to step back and think about the course we are charting, to consider what our spending says about us, what our saving says about us. What is money as a sacrament saying? What are the gold, silver, bronze, spices, incense, and precious gems we cart around our particular deserts saying about us?

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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.

Pain – From the Daily Office – May 8, 2014

May 8, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Colossians:

I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Colossians 1:24 (NRSV) – May 8, 2014.)

Hip PainToday, the Feast of Dame Julian of Norwich, is the 24th anniversary of my ordination to the diaconate. I am spending it, at least the morning, in the company of several fellow presbyters and a few deacons at a clergy conference. I am also spending it in some discomfort because yesterday morning I slipped and fell in the hotel bath; I wrenched my back and it appears I did something (only soft-tissue-ish, I hope) to my right hip.

I am also discomfited by Paul who “rejoiced” in his suffering and claims in this verse to do something I really don’t think needed to be done nor was (nor is) possible to do: “complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” In fact, I’m not even sure I understand what he is trying to say by that phrase and I find it so annoying I’m not even sure I can! Just who does Paul think he is? Who is he to suggest that something is “lacking” in the afflictions of the Lord? Who is he to think he can “complete” them?

It has been argued that this verse is more rhetorical than substantive. Paul, it is suggested, is not implying that Christ’s suffering and death failed in some way or fell short. Rather, he is simply submitting that Christ left work for us (Paul and all subsequent disciples through the ages) to do, and that whatever suffering Paul has been put through is a part of that work. OK . . . maybe so. I don’t have as much confidence in Paul’s humility as the commentator who made that argument seems to have had, but I’ll be charitable and give Paul the benefit of the doubt.

Does that mean I can claim my hip and back pain, the result of taking part in a clergy conference, are also contributing in some manner to the work of the church, to the world’s salvation? I certainly hope so, although I would never really make that claim. But perhaps my brother and sister clergy and I can make that claim about the deep-seated pain we often feel as we go about our ministry, the misery and turmoil we feel as we empathize with and enter into the pains of our parishioners, the doubt and conflict we feel about whether what we do and how we are doing it make any difference at all, the soul sickness we feel when we know that we have failed in some way to address the needs of those among whom we minister, the anger (and then the remorse and spiritual malaise) we feel when the expectations of the church are unwarranted and unreasonable. Perhaps some of that pain is salvific.

I love being a priest. There is great joy in ordained ministry. That was what I expected when I was made a transitional deacon 24 years ago and a priest a year later. I thought I knew there would be discomfort; I had no idea it would be as frequent or as painful as it has been. I wish there were a way to convey to ordinands that that is going to be the way it is, but I don’t think that can be done. You have to live through standing at a bedside with a family “pulling the plug” on a beloved parent or child, leaving the hospital convinced that everything you did and said was hopelessly inadequate. You have to live through watching an active parishioner abandon your congregation because of some stupid, silly thing you did or said. You have to live through being treated badly by people you thought were friends and being excluded from the social events and parties of parishioners who didn’t think you were. You have to live through shrinking budgets, declining attendance, and cold shoulders. You have to live through the pains of ordained ministry. Being told about them just isn’t enough.

After I’d been in parish ministry as a priest for about seven years, I started working with a spiritual director who was also a parish rector and had been in ministry for many years. When I would bemoan the pains of ministry (like making that list in previous paragraph), he’d ask, “And how did they treat Jesus?” and give me a look that fairly shouted, “And you expect them to treat you any better?” It was therapeutic. With his guidance, I came to believe that that pain is actually hope. It’s hopeful caring. I once broke down in tears telling my late mother about the difficulties I had experienced as a priest. Her response was, “If you didn’t care so much, it wouldn’t hurt so much.”

So I know who Paul was to make the statement he made in this verse; he was a fellow worker in ordained ministry and I suspect his suffering and pain was not just hip pain from falling in the shower; I think it was the soul-deep pain of hoping beyond hope that something you are doing is “completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.”

At clergy conferences we tell each other our stories; we share the pains we have lived through and we share the joys we have known. The science fiction author Spider Robinson once wrote, “Shared pain is lessened. Shared joy is increased. Thus we refute entropy.” Or, as Dame Julian might have said, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

There are great benefits to clergy conferences. Shared joy is one of them. Shared pain is one of them. Hip pain from falling in the shower is not.

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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.

Cleaving to Dust – From the Daily Office – May 7, 2014

May 7, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

My soul cleaves to the dust; give me life according to your word.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 119:25 (BCP Version) – May 7, 2014.)

Handful of DustThe Gospel lesson today is the baptism of Jesus as told by Matthew. With it, for the evening, is coupled a portion of Psalm 119 which includes this verse. This image of a soul clinging to the dirt caught my attention. I wonder if baptism is efficacious if the soul being baptized steadfastly and stubbornly “cleaves to the dust” of its pre-baptismal life.

I sometimes wonder about my own baptism, which happened when I was 14 years of age and attending a private, residential high school affiliated with the Episcopal Church.

As part of the religious instruction required of all students, I had taken the confirmation class offered by the chaplain and was, thus, included in the list of young men upon whom the bishop was to lay hands during his official visit at one Thursday evening chapel service. Earlier in the day, going over his records, the chaplain noticed he had not record of my baptism.

That was not surprising since I’d not been baptized. Growing up in a largely unchurched home with a father estranged from the Methodist Church and a mother who’d been reared in (but left) one of those traditions that practice “believers’ baptism,” there had been no encouragement of nor opportunity for baptism.

So, in a hastily arranged private afternoon ceremony at the back of the chapel after gym class, with two members of the faculty standing as sponsors, I was quickly sprinkled and informed that I was now a Christian, eligible to be confirmed as an Episcopalian. That done, I went to my room to shower and dress for dinner and the obviously more important confirmation service later that evening.

What exactly happened that afternoon? Did my soul turn loose of the dust, or did it cleave to the dirt from which it was supposed to be cleansed? Does it matter? I’m not even going to try to answer those questions this morning, but the pairing of the baptismal story and the image of the soul clinging to the dust is certainly an odd lectionary coincidence.

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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.

Ancestor Abraham – From the Daily Office – May 6, 2014

May 6, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Gospel according to Matthew:

Do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 3:9 (NRSV) – May 6, 2014.)

StonesJohn the Baptizer is speaking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, warning them against the very common human practice of relying upon the piety of our forebears instead of practicing our own faith. Relying on the religion of our ancestors is weakens and attenuates our own spirituality. One might as well be rocks lying by the roadside.

A few days ago, in what I consider a badly reasoned decision, Town of Greece v. Galloway, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the practice of beginning secular legislative body meetings (in the particular case, a city council) with sectarian prayer. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, reasoned: “Legislative prayer has become part of our heritage and tradition, part of our expressive idiom, similar to the Pledge of Allegiance, inaugural prayer, or the recitation of ‘God save the United States and this honorable Court’ at the opening of this Court’s sessions.” He might as well have said, “We have Abraham as our ancestor.”

I’ve no problem with public prayer. I lead it on a pretty regular basis. I have a problem with prayer offered in a secular legislative body in a nation that is supposed to have a separation of church and state. The First Amendment to our Constitution includes two clauses which work that separation. One is known as “the establishment clause” and provides that government “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The other is called the “free exercise clause” and provides that government shall do nothing “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion.

A legislative body’s rule of procedure requiring prayer at the opening of its sessions violates at least the first of these clauses; it is a law establishing a religious practice. Arguably, it also violates the second clause although (as Kennedy and others have noted) no one is forced to participate in the prayer and, one supposes, could absent oneself from the session until the prayer was concluded.

My concern, in light of today’s reading from Matthew, is not with the Constitutional issue of public governmentally-sponsored prayer. Rather, it is with the notion that somehow the religiosity of our nation is dependent upon practices of government and the (mistaken) notion that our Founders (our equivalent of Abraham) intended this to be a “Christian nation.” This is the argument often made and now being repeated in innumerable online discussions of this ruling.

I can find no difference between “The Founders intended this to be a Christian nation” and “We have Abraham as our ancestor.” Both rely upon the supposed faith of long-dead forebears rather than the lively faith of living people. Any number of prayers may be recited at city council meetings or in state or national legislative chambers; unless and until the people of the nation begin actually living and practicing whatever religion they claim to hold — actually participating in religious events and, more importantly for Christians, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and housing the homeless — those prayers are no better than the protest of the Pharisees and Sadducees, “We have Abraham as our ancestor.”

This is especially true when Christian prayer opens a legislative session in which the legislators proceed to enact legislation which flies in the face of Jesus’ commands — when funds are stripped from feeding programs, when homelessness is made a crime, when public assets are diverted to the benefit of the rich at the expense of the poor. The prayer and the faith which it represents are rendered meaningless, with as little life as a pile of rocks.

There is a place for prayer, but it is not in the halls of government and it is not in the historic and attenuated traditions of long-dead forebears. It is in the hearts and lives of living persons acting out their faith. Relying on government-sponsored prayer is nothing more than claiming Abraham as our ancestor, nothing more than being dead stones.

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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.

College of Presbyters – From the Daily Office – May 5, 2014

May 5, 2014 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Exodus:

When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, while all the people stand around you from morning until evening?” Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make known to them the statutes and instructions of God.” Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Exodus 18:14-18 (NRSV) – May 5, 2014.)

An Epistle being read in assemblyApparently Moses didn’t learn anything from his experience at the battle with Amelek when he needed Aaron and Hur to hold up his hands, so his father-in-law Jethro has to remind him that he can’t do it all alone and that, if he tries to do so, he will wear himself out. Smart man, Jethro!

Jethro’s recommendation is that Moses create a hierarchy: “Look for able men among all the people, men who fear God, are trustworthy, and hate dishonest gain; set such men over them as officers over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Let them sit as judges for the people at all times; let them bring every important case to you, but decide every minor case themselves.” (vv. 21-22) Essentially, Jethro is suggesting what has become known as decentralization or subsidiarity in which matters are to be handled at the lowest possible level of the hierarchy by the least centralized authority capable of addressing them effectively; a matter beyond the competency of the authority is referred upward and only the most serious of matters come to the highest level.

This is good advice and a workable solution to the problem of Moses’ potential exhaustion, but another factor is not addressed, and that is the matter of collegiality. Even with a hierarchical organization and application of subsidiarity, the leadership at the highest level can burn out without sufficient collegial support. This is why bishops in the Episcopal Church are required by canon law to have councils of advice, standing committees and diocesan councils, and it is why the church should also have colleges of presbyters.

When a priest is ordained in the Episcopal Church among the charges he or she is given is “to work as pastor, priest, and teacher, together with your bishop and fellow presbyters, and to take your share in the councils of the Church.” (BCP 1979, page 531) This means more than working with the vestry and taking part in the annual diocesan convention. Among other things, it should also mean meeting regularly with the other presbyters of the diocese in conference with the bishop as a college of presbyters.

In a diocese where I once served, where there was a formal college of presbyters during my tenure, the college no longer exists. The regular meeting of clergy with the diocesan bishop no longer bears that title; the formal meeting of the college of presbyters has been replaced by a “gathering of clergy.”

While I’m sure (or at least I hope) that much the same conversation and consultation on ecclesial matters still takes place, I am also convinced that language and the words we use are important. A “gathering” is a social event without leadership authority; a “college” is an assembly of colleagues engaged in meaningful activity together. When a bishop meets his or her clergy in a “gathering,” they’re just having a drink; when a bishop meets with the college of presbyters, a council of the church is in session. What comes out of a “gathering” can be ignored; what comes out of the college must be taken seriously. If clergy only get together in a “gathering,” the bishop is acting like the early Moses and failing to take Jethro’s advice; if the clergy meet with the bishop as a college, the bishop is acting like the later Moses and honoring Jethro’s advice.

We need more colleges of presbyters in the Episcopal Church and fewer gatherings.

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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.

Jesus the Jedi – Sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Easter (Year A) – May 4, 2014

May 4, 2014 / / 0 Comments

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This sermon was preached on the Third Sunday of Easter, May 4, 2014, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day were: Acts 2:14a,36-41; Psalm 116:1-3,10-17; 1 Peter 1:17-23; and Luke 24:13-35. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Broken BreadSince the early 1970s this day, on the Episcopal Church calendar, this day on which we hear the story of Jesus’ appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus has been known as Star Wars Sunday. It’s because Jesus is very much like a Jedi in this story. I mean, think about it . . .

In the Star Wars movies, Luke Skywalker is mentored first by Obiwan Kenobi, who dies, then by Yoda, who also dies. But both Obiwan and Yoda come back! They appear to Luke and others after their deaths, continue to teach and give sage counsel, and disappear. That’s what happens with Jesus in the story Luke tells us this morning.

It’s still Easter Sunday. (For us, we’re three weeks down the road, but for them it’s the afternoon of the same day on which Mary Magdalene and the others found the empty tomb.) Two disciples, one named Cleopas and the other unnamed (let’s call him “Bob” — although some feminists scholars suggest that the reason this disciple is not named is because she is a woman, so it might be “Bobbie”) are on their way to a village called Emmaus. Luke tells us this village is seven miles from Jerusalem; that’s a long walk — two or three hours. Sometime during this long afternoon journey, they are joined by a stranger whom they do not recognize; the stranger, Luke reveals, is Jesus but Cleopas and Bob can’t recognize him. They have a long talk with him about all the thing that have happened in Jerusalem in recent days, and he gives them sage counsel about the meaning of scripture, particularly the messianic prophecies. They arrive in Emmaus early in the evening and encourage their traveling companion to join them at dinner.

They sit down at an inn for the evening meal and the stranger takes the lead. He takes the bread served by the innkeeper, offers a blessing, and breaks the bread. Now, Cleopas and Bob realize who this is. As he does the same thing he had done with his followers just a few days before, their memory is tweaked and their eyes are opened (which suggests that Cleopas and Bob were in the upper room in Jerusalem on Thursday evening). That’s when they recognize him; that’s when they think they’ve figure out who he is — he’s Jesus the Jedi. And that’s when Jesus vanishes.

Why do you suppose that is? Why does Jesus disappear?

Well . . . let me remind you of what happened earlier in the day as the story is told by John. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning, found it empty, and told Simon Peter. Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved (another unnamed follower!) also found it empty, and then returned to their home to tell the others. Mary, however, hung behind and encountered Jesus but, like Cleopas and Bob on the road to Emmaus, she did not recognize him; she thought he was the gardener. Only when he addressed her by name (perhaps because of the tone of his voice) was something in her memory triggered and she realized who he was. She called him “Rabbouni” (which means teacher) and apparently fell at his feet and grabbed hold of them, for Jesus says to her, “Don’t hold on to me.” I think he did so for the same reason he disappeared from the table at the Emmaus inn.

Similarly, remember what happened before they arrived in Jerusalem, when Jesus took Peter and James and John up the mount of the Transfiguration. While they were on the holy mountain, the three disciples witnessed Jesus in conversation with Elijah and Moses. Peter wanted to memorialize the event by building booths, monuments to concretize the moment. Jesus said, “No. We’re not going to do that.” Again, I think for the same reason he disappeared in Emmaus.

That reason is that we cannot pin Jesus down. Jesus cannot be contained; he will not fit neatly into our boxes. When we think we have him figured out, we find out we are wrong. Jesus . . . God is bigger than any notion of him we may have; God is bigger than our conceptions, bigger than our doctrines, bigger than our creeds. And every encounter with Jesus is singular and unique. We cannot hold onto him; we cannot concretize and cast the moment in stone.

We just sang as our sequence hymn the old chestnut In the Garden, and that hymn makes this very point. We, the singer, say that we would like to stay there in that garden, but Jesus will not allow that:

I’d stay in the garden with Him,
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.

We cannot pin him down! We cannot cast the moment in stone. When we think we’ve got hold of him, we find we are wrong; he disappears and what we are left with are our own notions, our own ideas, our own doctrines, our boxes. Our boxes, however, are too small; God is too big for them.

And the chorus of the hymn reminds us of the singularity and uniqueness of every meeting with our Lord:

And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

Every time we encounter Jesus, the experience is unique; none other (not even our earlier selves) has ever had that experience before.

I think that is why it is significant that Cleopas and Bob recognized Jesus as he broke bread. Every loaf of bread is unique, similar perhaps to other loaves but never, ever identical. And every occasion on which bread is share is singular and unique. It may be a family meal or a celebration of the Eucharist; it may be a formal banquet or just friends having a bite. Whatever the circumstances, the situation is one unto itself, not like any other, never to be repeated.

A couple of Christmases ago, Evelyn gave me a set of books about the elements of the Eucharist. One volume is entitled The Spirituality of Wine; the other, which I have here, is The Spirituality of Bread by Donna Sinclair. The author is a Christian (in fact, I think she is an Anglican). I’d like to read you some of what she has to say about the symbolism of bread. About bread and community, she writes:

Jesus may have been lent significance by his association with other gods of bread. But that doesn’t acount for the power of his celebration, which persists daily around the world.

Everywhere, the words are similar: “He took a loaf of bread and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them and said, ‘Take, this is my body.'” And, everywhere, people line up, blue-jean clad or robed, young or old, to receive bits of bread; or they sit in pews and pass tiny chunks on a plate; or they stand in a circle and murmur a blessing as a broken loaf moves from hand to hand.

Sometimes they gather around a sickbed.

Once, I sat in a circle of friends, in a smoky cabin in the bush, after a weekend of tending a woodstove and talking about dreams. We passed the bread around as gently as if it were the heart of the other, which it was.

The ritual has power. I get uneasy if I think I might be left out. Once, reporting on an event, I slipped up to take a photo of Archbishop Desmond Tutu serving Communion, and then paused anxiously. He winked and held out the bread.

Perhaps inclusion is this ceremony’s strength. This bread offers an enormous community, a family that stretches around the world and through the centuries. We don’t want to be left out.

We don’t want to be left out because we don’t want to miss the opportunity for that unique and singular encounter with Christ. Every celebration of Eucharist, like every sharing of bread and every meeting with Jesus, is a moment unto itself never to be repeated, never to be duplicated. We realize that in some way, that this encounter with Christ in the breaking of the bread will never happen again, and we don’t want to be left out.

With regard to bread and sacrifice, Ms. Sinclair writes:

The celebration of Communion is also a powerful experience of metaphor. Bread as body. Wine as blood. Love as sacrifice.

In the Jesus story, it is clear that love has great requirements. There is a price to pay, in an oppressive era, for feeding the unwanted.

It may help to see another story, that of the Celtic Earth goddess Tailtiu, queen of the Fir Bolg, one of the ancient peoples of pre-Christian Ireland.

When Tailtiu saw that her people were starving after an insufficient grain harvest, she took up an axe and, for a solid year, cleared a forest: “the reclaiming of meadowland from even wood by Tailtiu, daughter of Magmor,” is the way it is reported by the anonymous bard of The Dindsenchas, poems about Irish place names.

After the trees had been cut down, “roots and all, out of the ground,” the land became “a plain blossoming with clove,” presumably suitable for planting grain. But the cost was appalling. Tailtiu’s heart “burst in her body from the strain beneath her royal vest,” the bard says. The Celts loved their sacred groves, and the destruction to the enchanted richness of her forest must have broken Tailtiu’s heart.

Aware that she is dying, her courtiers gather around, and Tailtiu whispers her last command. She wants funeral games to be held in her honour each year, just before the harvest. And they are to be peaceful, she says, “without sin, without fraud, without reproach, without insult, without contention, without seizure, without theft.”

Thanks to her faithful foster-child Lugh (later associated with a bountiful harvest), Tailtiu’s wish came to pass. There was always an “unbroken truce” at her fair, and “men went in and came out without any rude hostility. Corn and milk in every stead, peace and fair weather for its sake, were granted to the heathen tribes of the Greeks for maintaining of justice.”

Tailtiu had given up her beloved forest and her life for a vision not too different from that of Archbishop Oscar Romero or of Mondawmin, who brought corn to the Ojibway. “Unbroken truce” and “corn and milk in ever stead,” represent the commonwealth of peace, the kingdom Jesus told his friends was close by. New parents get a glimpse of this kingdom looking at their tiny baby. Their sudden understanding that they would do anything to keep this child safe is the closest we can come, perhaps, to understanding the sacrifice that is part of love’s potential.

Perhaps that’s the power of Communion bread. Some say that it commemorates Jesus offering himself as a sacrifice for our sins, but I don’t think so. I would be appalled by a god who asked for the death of his child, or any child. But like any parent, I believe I would die for my children’s lives, even as absurdly grown-up as they are now.

Perhaps this bread simply expresses our wish to live little closer to the ideal of Tailtiu, Jesus, or Mondawmin, who died to give their people enough to eat. None of us can stand up to greed or selfishness as strongly as we wish. But eating this ceremonial bread with others, who also want to be just and loving, makes us brave enough to try.

Maybe that’s why I am sometimes overwhelmed at these ceremonies. Maybe I am simply terrified by the high sacrifices love assumes. Certainly the part most touching to me in the story of my own bread-god, Jesus, is not his death, but his constant focus on compassion. “Love one another as I have loved you,” he commands. “Love your enemies.”

Every encounter with this God who commands us to love, every encounter with love is unique and singular. Every encounter with this God who commands us to love, every encounter with love is larger than we can describe. We cannot constrain love in our boxes. Whatever our notions, our doctrines, our creeds, our understandings . . . they are too small to contain love, to pin love down, to hold onto and control love. When we try, love disappears, and that is why Jesus disappeared from the dinner table in that inn in Emmaus.

Now . . . I have to confess that, on the church’s calendar, this really isn’t Star Wars Sunday. But as every Star Wars aficionado knows, today is Star Wars Day: “May the Fourth be with you.”

But may Jesus the Jedi . . . Jesus, known in the breaking of the bread . . . Jesus, whom we cannot hold onto and pin down . . . Jesus, unique and singular . . . may Jesus be with you. 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.

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