Category: Theology (Page 87 of 95)

Faith in the Face of Nothing – From the Daily Office – November 20, 2012

November 20, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Habakkuk:

Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold
and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
will exult in the God of my salvation.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Habakkuk 3:17-18 (NRSV) – November 20, 2012)

"Faith" Inscribed on a Granite Block Giving thanks at a time privation, that’s what these two verses from Habakkuk’s prophecy are about. Habakkuk describes a situation in which he (and all the people of Jerusalem) have lost everything. Just look at what he lists in verse 17: figs, grapes, and olives, the year-round fruit crops of the area; the fields, which is to say the annual crops, the grains and staple foods; flock and herd, which means sheep and cows. All their their produce is gone, all their livestock are dead.

This is a society utterly destroyed. Habakkuk’s situation is worse than anything we can imagine in our time and place. In Habakkuk’s time, there was no “safety net”, no social service agencies, no homeless shelters, no food stamps, no church food pantries, no well-off relatives (everyone is suffering the loss of the crops and livestock). For Habakkuk and his kindred, this all means starvation. It means death. None of us, I’m sure, has ever been in quite the situation Habakkuk experiences, though I do know that many have, for example, faced death their own possible in the form of cancer or of battlefield danger, and others have handled the death of loved ones.

Nonetheless, in face of the virtual certainty of destruction, Habakkuk can say, “I will rejoice in God; I will give thanks to my Lord.” It is easy to give thanks and rejoice when we have things; Habakkuk does so when he has nothing. I think we sometimes confuse thankfulness for the things we receive from God for faith in God God’s-self. Habakkuk has no things to be thankful for; it is in God’s self that Habakkuk rejoices. It is in God, not God’s gifts that Habakkuk trusts. This is more than gratitude for stuff. This is more than optimism and positive thinking. This is faith.
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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Vision and Salt – From the Daily Office – November 19, 2012

November 19, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Habakkuk:

The Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end, and does not lie.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Habakkuk 2:2-3a (NRSV) – November 19, 2012)

Vision Road Sign There are two passages of Scripture that I always think of when vestries or other church governing boards begin to discuss a vision for the church’s mission and ministry. One is the King James version of Proverbs 29:18a – “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” – the other is this passage from Habakkuk. I really like the image of the vision being written so large that someone running by can read it and make sense of it; the church’s vision needs to be as big, expansive, and attention-getting as a billboard.

To catch a fish, one must cast one’s line into the water in a manner that will attract the fish. To lead and perform an effective ministry, the church and its leadership must cast a vision of the future far and wide – write it large – in such a way as to attract and retain members and co-ministers who will see that vision through, buy into it, act upon it, make it a reality. Vision casting in the church means discerning God’s purpose for the church or program and then making it known. Vision, as Habakkuk makes clear, must be presented in a way that motivates, inspires, and encourages; the people rushing by, running to and fro attending to the demands of daily life, need to catch the vision and really believe in it.

The process is not easy, but it is necessary. In the absence of vision, as the verse from Proverbs says, the people perish. The parish perishes. I’m reading a book about church administration in which the author makes the point that a congregation needs direction, a vibrant energetic center of action and service to give the congregation its particular and peculiar identity. Without that God’s people are, as God’s Son said, like salt that has lost its savor.

Write God’s vision as big as a billboard! Without it, the church will founder and die; without it, the church is good for nothing but trampling under foot like unusable salt.

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

The Valley of Decision – From the Daily Office – November 17, 2012

November 17, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Joel:

Multitudes, multitudes,
in the valley of decision!
For the day of the Lord is near
in the valley of decision.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Joel 3:14 – November 17, 2012)

Desert Hiking The “valley of decision” is probably another name for the Valley of Jehoshaphat referred to in an earlier verse of this chapter of the Prophet Joel. Jehoshaphat (a Hebrew name pronounced “yeh-hoh-shah-faht”) is a compound word of two other Hebrew terms, Yahweh (one of the names of God) and shaphat (meaning “to judge” or “to decide”). Jehoshaphat, therefore, means “God will judge” or “God will decide”. Geographically, the valley of Jehoshaphat, the valley of decision, lies between the city of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.

It seems to me that the image, “the valley of decision,” makes a marvelous metaphor for the whole process of making judgments in life. We speak of “mountain-top experiences” to describe those “Aha! moments” when insight or revelation comes upon us suddenly; the metaphor of passing through a valley seems an apt image for the alternative of the mundane decision-making in which every person engages every day.

How do people make decisions? How do we sift through piles of information without being overwhelmed by the plethora of alternatives? What are the factors that lead us in a certain direction? As I pondered the image of the “valley of decision,” I recalled my college days when a weekend away with friends usually meant a back-packing foray into the Anza-Borrego Desert east of San Diego or the Agua Tibia Wilderness Area northeast of the city. Often these hiking excursions took us to places where few human beings had walked before; we had compasses and topological maps to guide us, but often there was no trail picked out by earlier hikers. We had to forge the trail ourselves. Often we found ourselves at the top of a hill overlooking a desert valley with no clear path. “How are we going to get down there?” was a frequent question.

Years after those college-day hikes, I went to graduate school and received a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Nevada. Among the things we studied (and supposedly learned) were the steps of management decision-making. The decision-making process, we were taught, involves the following steps:

Define the problem.
Identify limiting factors.
Develop potential alternatives.
Analyze the alternatives.
Select the best alternative.
Implement the decision.
Establish a control and evaluation system.

Standing at the top of a hill in the middle of the desert carrying a 50-pound pack at the end of a day of hiking, one does not stop to engage in that formal a process! Making our way downhill into the valley did mean carefully considering the path not only as a way down, but also as a potential exit route since we had no idea what we might find below or on the other side. However, we had to get down the hill and did so by making small, individual choices as we took each step down into the valley.

When we make big decisions, we do not have infinite resources and we frequently do not have a lot of time to gather information and analyze data. Furthermore, we human beings are significantly limited in the amount of complexity with which we can cope. So even though we may try to make decisions on the basis of some formal, rational process, we often resort to simplifying assumptions; we accept that our information is limited; and we settle for a less-than-thorough analysis of available data. We constantly use simplifying and confidence-sustaining mental short cuts that psychologists call “heuristics”; these reduce the complexity of our decision making. They are like the small individual choices we hikers made step-by-step going down into those desert valleys.

When we reached the bottom of the hill, when we were down in the valley, we had answered the question, “How are we going to get down there?” We had entered into and reached the bottom of our “valley of decision,” made the decision, not in one grand effort of rational analysis and pre-planning following the logical steps of that graduate school management class, but simply by taking a series of small steps.

Life is like that. There are very few mountain-top “Aha!” experiences. There are a lot of valleys of decision and not a few steep hills of decision, as well. We go through life taking small steps down into valleys and up onto hills, reaching decisions we may not even realize we are making. Everybody does it! Multitudes, multitudes are in the valley of decision every day.

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

Doubt and Double-Mindedness – From the Daily Office – November 15, 2012

November 15, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter of James:

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – James 1:5-8 – November 15, 2012)

Road Signs at the Crossroads of Faith and Doubt I suppose I take issue with Scripture more often than I should, but this is one of those bits that I just can’t agree with. I vehemently disagree with James’s equation of “doubt” with what he calls “double-mindedness”. The Greek word translated “double-minded” is dipsuchos , from dis , meaning “twice,” and psuche , meaning “mind.” James use of it to describe someone who has doubts suggests that such a person is divided in his or her interests or loyalties, wavering, two-faced, and half-hearted.

When I think of those “qualities”, I think of hypocrisy, not doubt. That’s another Greek word. In the Greek theater, actors would speak (krinomai) from behind a mask (hypo). Together the Greek words for speak and mask form hupokrisis; from that we get our word “hypocrisy”. The dictionary defines “hypocrisy” thusly: “a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.” The thesaurus lists these synonyms: “affectation, bad faith, bigotry, cant, casuistry, deceit, deception, dishonesty, display, dissembling, dissimulation, double-dealing, duplicity, false profession, falsity, fraud, glibness, imposture, insincerity, irreverence, lie, lip service, mockery, pharisaicalness, pharisaism, phoniness, pietism, quackery, sanctimoniousness, sanctimony, speciousness, unctuousness.” This is all very different from doubt.

To doubt, says the dictionary, is “to be uncertain about; consider questionable or unlikely; hesitate to believe.” Doubt is an honest state of uncertainty, not the dishonest state of double-minded divided loyalties, not the hypocritical state of two-facedness. Unfortunately, James equation of doubt with “double-mindedness” and his contrast of doubt with faith (like the post-Resurrection story of “doubting Thomas”) unnecessarily villifies those who have legitimate questions, those who hestitate to believe because of genuine uncertainty.

But faith and doubt are not opposites! The current Pope once wrote a book entitled Introduction to Christianity in which, using a stageplay about a shipwrecked priest as a metaphor, he took up the question of belief, faith, and doubt. He wrote:

Just as the believer does not live immune to doubt but is always threatened by the plunge into the void, so now we can discern the entangled nature of human destinies and say that the nonbeliever does not lead a sealed-off, self-sufficient life either . . . Just as the believer is choked by the salt water of doubt constantly washed into his mouth by the ocean of uncertainty, so the nonbeliever is troubled by doubts about his unbelief, about the real totality of the world he has made up his mind to explain as a self-contained whole.

Faith is the decision to believe in the face of doubt. The atheist would say that religious faith is the choice to believe something for which there is no evidence; the believer would say that refusal to believe in God is itself a faith based on ignoring evidence. Both must admit that their belief or unbelief is subject to uncertainty. This is not double-mindedness. It is intellectual and spiritual honesty.

Faith and doubt are not opposites; they go hand in hand with one another. The very nature of faith requires that we acknowledge doubt, that we acknowledge that we believe with less than 100 percent certainty. We all wrestle with the challenges, questions, and blessings of life; faith in the midst of doubt and doubt examining faith are simply part of that struggle.

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

The Future of Sheep & Coins – From the Daily Office – November 14, 2012

November 14, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of Luke:

Jesus told a parable: “What woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Luke 15:8-10 – November 14, 2012)

A Handful of Ancient Coins This story of the woman seeking her lost coin follows on the heels of the parable of the lost sheep in which the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to seek the lost one. That story is much more familiar and, I suppose, is more popular because of romantic notions of some emotional bond between sheep and shepherd, supported no doubt by those lovely Sunday School images of Jesus carrying a lamb on his shoulders. As we modern (and now post-modern) 21st Century urban Christians have moved further and further from agrarian reality, those romantic misconceptions deepen and the less-palatable aspects of the parable’s metaphor are forgotten.

Sheep are not the shepherd’s beloved pets! He is not going to take the animal into his home (unless, perhaps, it is sick and needs to be nursed back to health). He is going to use the animal for his (or his employer’s) economic gain. At best, the sheep will be fleeced and/or milked on a regular basis. It will be bred and its lambs will be taken from it to be slaughtered for food, sold in the markets for profit. At the worst, it will find itself slaughtered, its meat sold as mutton, its hide used for leather. Surely these aspects of the sheep-shepherd relationship are outside the scope of Jesus’ metaphor; he did not mean us to see in them an analogy to the human-God relationship! And yet, there they are, background to the parable, limiting its scope and possibly confusing our understanding.

The parable of the woman seeking the lost coin is much more open ended, much richer in possibilities. Where the shepherd’s sheep have their limited future, the woman’s coins have a future that is wide open. What might she do with them? Anything! Taken to the marketplace, they could be spent with any vendor, purchase any product, follow any path of commerce. And the vendor then can similarly pass the coin on to any of a variety of other vendors, and so on into the future. Stretching before the coin I see a future filled with the branches of an unlimited decision tree, filled with unlimited possibilities, not unlike the myriad futures and alternative realities of quantum mechanics and superstring theory!

For the sheep . . . the future is fleecing and possibly slaughter. For the coin . . .the future is the multiverse! Of course, neither sheep nor coin has any say in what their future may be. As human co-creators with God, we do. Neither the sheep nor the coin has any choice in whether to cooperate with the shepherd or the woman. As human co-creators with God, we do. But like the sheep, we are not as knowledgeable as the shepherd; like the coin, we are not as wise as the woman. So like both, we must trust in the wiser, more knowledgeable Lord who saves us. A prayer in The Book of Common Prayer speaks of this; when I think of the future faced by either sheep or coin, I think of this prayer:

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee; and then use us, we pray thee, as thou wilt, and always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (BCP 1979, Prayer 61, “Of Self-Dedication,” page 832)

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

Cooperating with Angels – From the Daily Office – November 13, 2012

November 13, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Revelation:

The angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.” Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow-servant with you and your comrades who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Revelation 19:9-10 – November 13, 2012)

The Annunciation, fresco by Fra Angelico Perhaps among the most familiar words from St. John’s apocalypse, “Blessed are they who are invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb.” They are used as a fraction anthem or invitation to communion in many churches. But in this brief passage from Revelation, the most powerful image for me today is the angel saying, “I am a fellow-servant with you and your brothers and sisters.”

All too often, I think, we go through our daily lives with no an awareness of, nor gratitude for the work of the holy angels in our midst and on our behalf. Modern Christians, especially Protestants and Anglicans, seem to be a reluctant to acknowledge the angelic ministry or to call upon the angels (or the saints) for help. But angels are God’s first creatures; created to sing God’s praise and glory, they are God’s ministering spirits, sent as messengers to God’s people (as Scripture witnesses again and again) and to assistance us as heirs of salvation. The effectiveness of the angels’ work in our lives depends upon our cooperation; the more we cooperate, the better.

So, how do we do that? How do we cooperate with the angels? At the very foundation of angelic cooperation is regular prayer and contemplation of God and God’s messengers. Openness of spirit and readiness of will are the proper attitudes of our prayer.

In Carmina Gadelica, a large collection of hymns, prayers, charms, poetry and rituals gathered from the people of the Highlands and islands of Scotland in the late 19th century by Alexander Carmichael, one finds this charming blessing, which we have used as a dismissal at church services:

The love and affection of the angels be to you.
The love and affection of the saints be to you.
The love and affection of heaven be to you,
To guard you and to cherish you.

We cooperate best with the angels when we accept their love and affection in the spirit of the Blessed Virgin: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)

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

‘Til Earth and Heaven Ring – From the Daily Office – November 9, 2012

November 8, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Sirach:

Then the singers praised [God] with their voices
in sweet and full-toned melody.
And the people of the Lord Most High offered
their prayers before the Merciful One,
until the order of worship of the Lord was ended,
and they completed his ritual.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Sirach 50:18-19 – November 9, 2012)

Engraving of a Latin Schola Chapter 50 of Ben Sira’s book is a description of a temple liturgy led by “the high priest, Simon son of Onias.” (v. 1) It is filled with poured-out wine, sumptuous vestments, the shouting of priests, the blowing of trumpets, the people falling on their faces. Not the sort of ho-hum run-of-the-mill worship service one finds in most Christian churches these days.

A committee in my parish is studying the whys and wherefores of worship, what we do, how and why we do it, how we might do it better. Music, to which these verses briefly refer, has been an on-going topic of discussion. Tastes in music vary, emotions around music are passionate, commitments to one style or another are rock-solid.

“Open the gates of hell,” a clergy colleague once quipped, “and out will march an army of music directors!” I’ve never had any conflict with the music directors with whom I’ve served, but I know clergy who have. I’ve heard tales of such conflicts from both sides, from musician friends and from clergy colleagues. Battles between clergy and musicians are not uncommon. Battles between worship leaders and congregations about music are also not uncommon. Changing, or even supplementing, a congregation’s musical repertoire is something to be approached with fear and trembling.

The purpose of music in worship is to bring glory to God; therefore, the hymns the congregation sings, and the anthems the choirs prepare, should be centered on God, aesthetically pleasing, and thoughtful. The musicians and choristers should be technically competent and well-rehearsed. The chief instrument in the worship of God should be the human voice. It is the one instrument we have in common and it is capable of great beauty and resonance. But the use of musical instruments should not be shunned; the Scriptures are filled with references to trumpets and horns, stringed instruments, drums, and other instruments. These add beauty and diversity to our songs. The style of music or the type of instrumentation does not matter; vibrancy, depth, and quality of performance do (at least for the anthems or other “performance pieces” that may be offered). For songs with words, whether performed by the choir or sung by the congregation, the theological content of the lyrics should also be of concern.

Some congregations are great at singing hymns; in other churches, only a few people dare to open their mouths. This is a great sadness. Everyone has a voice that was given them by God and God expects that voice to be used. In a former parish, we hung a sign in our entryway – “If you can’t sing good, sing loud!” – we invited everyone to sing. Whatever flaws our individual voices may have, when they are raised together in song those flaws disappear. When the Body of Christ sings, when every voice is lifted, the effect is wonderful and, I’m sure, pleasing to God. St. Augustine of Hippo is often quoted as having said “He who sings, prays twice.” Singing is much to be encouraged.

So, as that great and wonderful hymn by James Weldon Johnson says, “lift every voice and sing ’til earth and heaven ring!”

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

Majority of One – From the Daily Office – November 7, 2012

November 8, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From Luke’s Gospel:

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Luke 13:10-17 – November 7, 2012)

Jesus Heals the Crippled Woman Doing that which is right in the face of an opposition which has tradition and law on its side. That’s what this gospel story is about. This is not simply another story of Jesus’ healing someone.

This healing occurred on the sabbath, a day when one was not supposed to do work. Treating the sick was considered work. Jesus’ worked on the sabbath. The synagogue ruler was outraged. But Jesus made a comparison. Untying knots was also considered work, but on the sabbath one would do that to untie a farm animal so that it might drink; can one do less for a human being? The synagogue ruler, and the tradition and the law which he represented, were silenced.

President Andrew Jackson is reported to have said, “One man with courage makes a majority.” In an essay entitled Civil Disobedience in 1849, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.” They might have used Jesus in this story as an illustration.

A majority of one is not an isolated individual. The person who is committed to standing for and doing that which is right, even in the face of tradition and law, demonstrates a commitment to a way of thinking and feeling, a spritual depth that influences the consciousness of others. By the force of its truth, Jesus compassion for the crippled woman shamed his opponents and converted the crowd to his way of thinking, to his way of being. A person does need not to be the Son of God to do this; he or she needs only to be a majority of one.

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

The Most Important Election . . . NOT! – Sermon for Election Day – November 6, 2012

November 8, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

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This sermon was preached on Tuesday, November 6, 2012, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(Lessons selected for the Mass were Isaiah 26:1-8, Romans 13:1-10, and Mark 12:13-17, from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer’s lectionary for various occasions, “For the Nation”; the gradual, Psalm 146, was selected by the preacher.)

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Romney Campaign Button "Most Important Election" “This election is the most important, ever. If that candidate is elected, it will be the end of the world!” The first time I heard that was during the campaign of the first presidential election I paid attention to: the race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. I heard it as my family watched the televised debate; it was said by my older brother who was then a freshman studying history and political science at the University of Texas, so of course he knew everything. “That candidate,” by the way, was Richard Nixon. We heard it again in 1964; remember the television commercial with the little girl plucking petals from a daisy and the atomic explosion? “If Barry Goldwater is elected,” it suggested none too subtly, “it will be the end of the world.” We hear it every election, “This election is the most important election of our lifetimes.” And, to be honest, that is a correct statement. Those in the past are no longer important; they’re done and other with. Only this election can impact the future so, at this time, up to now, it is the most important. But truth be told . . . none of them, including this election, are really all that important in the grand scheme of things.

In the Daily Office Lectionary of the Episcopal Church, the cycle of bible readings to be read each morning, today’s New Testament reading was from the Book of Revelation which records the vision St. John of Patmos had of “the new Jerusalem,” of heaven. In the lesson, this is what John reports:

I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb:
“Great and amazing are your deeds,
Lord God the Almighty!
Just and true are your ways,
King of the nations!
Lord, who will not fear
and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship before you,
for your judgments have been revealed.” (Revelation 15:2-4)

This song of praise was a wonderful reminder with which to begin Election Day: God is the king of the nations; he alone is holy. As we went to the polls today, we were casting our ballots for political leaders, not religious ones, and certainly not a savior. Today we chose between candidates for various offices, all of whom are simply human beings like ourselves, fallible human beings whom we hope will strive to overcome whatever their faults and frailties may be, and govern to the best of their abilities. Whether the candidates for whom you or I happened to vote are elected is not, at this point, of any real importance; what is of importance is that we respect and honor our system of governance, and support and pray for whichever candidates are ultimately placed in office.

The Psalm which we recited just a few minutes ago reminds us:

Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them.
When they breathe their last, they return to earth, and in that day their thoughts perish.
(Ps. 146:2-3, BCP version)

We are admonished not to rely, although we surely do, on our earthly leaders. We repose more trust, and certainly more expectation, than we ought in our elected leaders, forgetting that they are no different from, nor more perfect than we.

This evening we do not celebrate nor do we extol any political party, any platform, any candidate, any elected office holder. Instead, we give thanks for the freedoms we enjoy, for the country we love, and for the electoral process which allows us to maintain both through peaceful changes in government. We give thanks for the wisdom of our Founding Fathers, for the insight of the framers of the Constitution, for the bravery and sacrifice of those who have defended our rights and liberties, and for the commitment of our fellow citizens who have participated in our democracy and voted in this election. We give thanks for all these things to the one upon whom all this rests, to the one who is the foundation of our existence, to the one who is our ultimate concern, to the one in whose service we find perfect freedom.

When we gather to give thanks for and to pray for our national life, the lectionary of our church asks us to hear and consider the story of the Pharisees and Herodians asking Jesus about taxes: Is it lawful to pay them to Caesar? To which Jesus’ makes his famous reply, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” This gospel story, says theologian Daniel Deffenbaugh

. . . calls us to be neither enemies of the state nor its staunch allies. Rather, we should think of ourselves, in the words of Stanley Hauerwas, as “resident aliens. ” We do not refuse to give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, even when – much to our dismay – their utilization defies our most deeply held convictions. This is as true of the right as it is of the left, and in this we can take some solace. But the affections of our hearts and minds must always, and with greater fervor, be focused on the more urgent clause in Jesus’ directive: “give to God the things that are God’s.” (Allies or Enemies?

This, he says, leaves us in a “posture of perpetual discernment,” constantly trying to distinguish our steadfast devotion to God from our obligations to the nation.
The Cathechism of the Roman Catholic Church interprets this gospel tale as teaching that we should “give to God everything, but give Caesar his due.” Thus, we are called to take part in our national culture for the common good. “It is necessary that all participate, each according to his position and role, in promoting the common good. This obligation is inherent in the dignity of the human person.” (CCC 1913) To the best of our ability, we should all participate in the public arena for the good of the society. Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees and Herodians gives each person freedom to act in that public sphere, but with that freedom come awesome responsibilities, none more awesome than the privilege and obligation to participate in democratic elections, even if we do so in a “posture of perpetual discernment.”

We do our best in that state of constant decision-making. We study the issues and the candidates. We make our choices. We participate in the public arena. We vote. And then we trust . . . not in rulers, not in political parties, not in the candidates, not in any child of earth . . . We render our trust not to Caesar nor anything that is Caesar’s, but to God. It is not that our vote is unimportant, but it is not of ultimate concern.

In the Anglican Communion on November 6, we commemorate one of our greatest theologians, Archbishop William Temple, who served as Archbishop of Canterbury near the Second World War. He served in that post only two years, from his appointment in 1942 to his death in October, 1944. He served in the episcopate for 23 of his 63 years, first as Bishop of Manchester, then as Archbishop of York, and finally in the See of Canterbury. Throughout his life, he was a prolific author of philosophy and theology.

While serving in York, he addressed the 1938 Lambeth Conference, the decennial gathering of Anglican bishops, with these words which, I think, are a good reminder for us today:

While we deliberate, God reigns.
When we decide wisely, God reigns.
When we decide foolishly, God reigns.
When we serve God in humble loyalty, God reigns.
When we serve God self-assertively, God reigns.
When we rebel and seek to withhold our service, God reigns –
The Alpha and the Omega, which is and which was,
And which is to come, the Almighty.

John of Patmos in his apocalypse, the Psalmist in Psalm 146, Archbishop Temple in his address to the gathered bishops . . . they all remind us that no matter how we decide, no matter who is elected today, God reigns. As the graphic on the cover of our bulletin says, “No matter who is president, Jesus is king.”

Let us pray.

O God of light and love, inspire us, we pray, that we may rejoice with courage, confidence, and faith in the Word made flesh, Jesus our King, and that through our participation in our national culture and our democratic processes we may establish that society which has justice for its foundation and love for its law; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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

The Sun Will Rise on Wednesday – From the Daily Office – November 6, 2012

November 6, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Revelation:

I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb:
“Great and amazing are your deeds,
Lord God the Almighty!
Just and true are your ways,
King of the nations!
Lord, who will not fear
and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship before you,
for your judgements have been revealed.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Revelation 15:2-4 – November 6, 2012)

This song of praise from the Revelation to St. John of Patmos is a wonderful reminder on Election Day: God is the king of the nations; he alone is holy. Remember that when you go to the polls today. We are electing political leaders, not religious ones, and certainly not a savior.

In the Psalms there is another such reminder:

Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them.
When they breathe their last, they return to earth, and in that day their thoughts perish.
(Ps. 146:2-3, BCP version)

Today just happens to be the commemoration of one of Anglicanism’s greatest theologians, Archbishop William Temple, who served as archbishop of Canterbury near the end of the Second World War. He served in that post only two years, from his appointment in 1942 to his death in October, 1944. He was a prolific author of philosophy and theology, and served in the episcopate for over twenty years (Bishop of Manchester, 1921-29, and Archbishop of York, 1929-42).

Addressing the 1938 Lambeth Conference (a decennial gathering of Anglican bishops), he said:

While we deliberate, God reigns.
When we decide wisely, God reigns.
When we decide foolishly, God reigns.
When we serve God in humble loyalty, God reigns.
When we serve God self-assertively, God reigns.
When we rebel and seek to withhold our service God reigns –
The Alpha and the Omega, which is and which was,
And which is to come, the Almighty.

John of Patmos, the Psalmist, Archbishop Temple . . . they all remind us, as does the graphic annexed to this little bit of prose, that no matter who is elected, Jesus is king; no matter how we decide, God reigns.

Or as Jesus would say, the sun will rise on Wednesday.

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Coffee with Jesus is from Radio Free Babylon’s Facebook page.

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

Category: Theology (Page 87 of 95)

Faith in the Face of Nothing – From the Daily Office – November 20, 2012

Vision and Salt – From the Daily Office – November 19, 2012

The Valley of Decision – From the Daily Office – November 17, 2012

Doubt and Double-Mindedness – From the Daily Office – November 15, 2012

The Future of Sheep & Coins – From the Daily Office – November 14, 2012

Cooperating with Angels – From the Daily Office – November 13, 2012

‘Til Earth and Heaven Ring – From the Daily Office – November 9, 2012

Majority of One – From the Daily Office – November 7, 2012

The Most Important Election . . . NOT! – Sermon for Election Day – November 6, 2012

The Sun Will Rise on Wednesday – From the Daily Office – November 6, 2012

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