Category: Daily Office (Page 30 of 70)

Meeting Together – From the Daily Office – January 31, 2014

January 31, 2014 / eric / 2 Comments

From the Letter to the Hebrews:

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Hebrews 10:23-25 (NRSV) – January 31, 2014.)

Attendance is down. No one in the church really needs to be told this, although church ministry pundits have been making a good living for the last couple of decades reporting on it and diagnosing the reasons for it.

A recent New York Times op-ed piece pointing it out (and repeating a lot of old complaints that supposedly explain it) has been reprinted and shared electronically a lot the past few weeks; I must have seen it posted on Facebook at least twenty times.

It’s not news, however. Over the past several years (for a few decades, in fact) attendance figures in all mainline churches have been falling. Some congregations have bucked the trend, but even they are beginning to notice that fewer people are filling the pews, chairs, couches, or whatever seating alternative is provided.

For a while, the various denominations looked inward for the problem. My own Episcopal Church went through a period of fairly rapid change starting in the 1970s — prayer book revision, ordination of women, acceptance of LGBT persons, ordination of LGBT persons — which erupted in internal conflict. Episcopal pundits pointed to each of these developments, or to the conflict that arose over them, or to the allegedly heretical theology behind them and blamed these interiorities for declining memberships and lower attendance.

Being of a fairly ecumenical bent, I read the press from other denominations. During the same period of time the other American mainline churches were experiencing the same sort of decline and — guess what? — their denominational press was laying the blame at the feet of whatever their particular conflict du jour might have been.

Then along came a secular sociologist, Robert Putnam, who pointed out that it was happening across the board . . . and not only among churches! Fraternal and public service organizations, social clubs, and even bowling leagues were all experiencing the same sort of decline. Putnam’s book Bowling Alone graphically demonstrates the congruence of membership growth-and-decline curves for all organizations that depend on and sustain what he calls “social capital.” Every church leader should read it!

Unfazed, the church growth-and-decline “experts” are at it again, this time laying the blame at the feet of age cohorts. The ecclesial blogosphere is rife with punditry blaming the Boomers, Gen-X, Gen-Y, or Millennials. And for every such essay there are a dozen or more answering pieces explaining why it isn’t “my generation’s” fault! It seems like everyone in the church is singing this old song by The Who from nearly 50 years ago:

People try to put us down
(Backbeat line: Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
Just because we get around
Things they do look awful cold
I hope I die before I get old

My generation
This is my generation, baby

Why don’t you all fade away
Don’t try to dig what we all say
I’m not trying to cause a big sensation
I’m just talkin’ ’bout my generation

My generation
This is my generation, baby

Why don’t you all fade away
And don’t try to dig what we all say
I’m not trying to cause a big sensation
I’m just talkin’ ’bout my generation

My generation
This is my generation, baby
My, my, my, my generation
My, my, my, my generation

People try to put us down
Just because we get around
Things they do look awful cold
Yeah, I hope I die before I get old

My generation
This is my generation, baby
My, my, my, my generation
My, my, my, my generation

Talkin’ ’bout my generation
(My generation)
Talkin’ ’bout my generation
(My generation)
Talkin’ ’bout my generation
(Is my generation baby)
Talkin’ ’bout my generation
(This is my generation)

Somehow, somewhere someone is going to knock this off! Active church people have to stop pointing the finger of blame and start working with one another on solutions. We’ve had enough punditry diagnosing (or misdiagnosing) the causes — now we need to work on reframing the Christian message for a new generation that hasn’t heard it. In the words of the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews we have to “meet together . . . encouraging one another.”

What “meet together” means in the 21st Century is another issue, however. With social media of all the various sorts, and newer versions developing nearly every day, and existing versions being tweaked and modified — Facebook seems to change hour by hour — it’s an on-going, and never-ending struggle to keep up and figure that out. But “meeting together” probably no longer means (as a colleague puts it) “butts in the pews.” “Average Sunday attendance” may have become a meaningless metric (if it ever was one).

There is value, of course, in face-to-face meeting, in getting to know one another as physical beings, in joining together in (what another colleague once called) “meat space;” for those of us for whom sharing the Bread and Wine of Holy Communion is of paramount importance, it’s imperative! But if that isn’t happening on Sunday morning, let’s accept that it isn’t, move on, and find new and different ways to be church, new and different ways to mark and follow the admonition in Hebrews. It’s time for the hand-wringing, finger-pointing, blame-calling, and excuse-making to end, and for creative solutions to begin. It’s time for us to meet together . . . somewhere, sometime . . . and encourage one another!

(The social media cartoon is by David Hayward aka Nakedpastor.)

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

Herding Cats – From the Daily Office – January 30, 2014

January 30, 2014 / eric / 1 Comment

From the Gospel of John:

[Jesus said,] “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 5:46-47 (NRSV) – January 30, 2014.)

The Church Today - Jesus Herding Cats Is it just me, or does this speech of Jesus (the verses are part of a long, long address to “the Jews”) just drip with frustration? And it makes me wonder – did Jesus really express such frustration? Or is it John who is frustrated and does his frustration color the way he presents the gospel story?

I’ll admit it . . . I have a problem with the Gospel according to John. I view it with suspicion. Its Jesus is at one and the same time too holy, too divine, but also too combative, too confrontational, and too given to these frustrated and frustrating condemnations of those whom he has not persuaded.

It’s not that I don’t think Jesus was divine; I believe that whole-heartedly. I am convinced that he was and is the incarnation of God. And it’s not that I don’t think the human Jesus had his moments (as the Rolling Stones’ devil put it) of doubt and pain, moments of sheer human frustration and anger. I’m certain that he did. It’s just that the way Jesus is presented by John is hard to understand.

He’s almost too hard to accept; he’s confusing and frustrating. I get as frustrated trying to understand this Jesus as he seems to get with his audiences. John’s Jesus is sublimely holy — the Logos of God (1:14) — who is also presented as just plain rude to his mother — “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?” (2:4) He is compassionate to a woman caught in adultery — “I do not condemn you” (8:11) — yet dismissive, even condemnatory, of others — “There is no place in you for my word.” (8:37) He heals a stranger he happens upon in Jerusalem — the man at the pool of Beth-zaida (5:9) — but declines to help Lazarus whom he is said to love until after he’s gone through the pain of death just to make an example of him — “I am glad I was not there.” (11:15)

David Hayward, who blogs and draws church cartoons under the name “the naked pastor,” has done a drawing of Jesus attempting to herd cats (an expression which was a favorite of my late grandfather) with the caption “the church today.” In one simple picture, Hayward captures the frustrations of the modern pastor, but it seems to me he also depicts the difficulty I have of getting a handle on John’s Jesus! John’s Jesus is not one of the “cats” and he knows it; he can do and does things no “cat” could ever. He says as much at one point, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” (8:23) And sometimes he seems not to like the cats very much!

John’s Jesus is holy, rude, compassionate, condemnatory, dwelling in the world, not of the world, loving to strangers, using his friends . . . he’s confusing, contradictory, complex, and incredibly frustrating!

Trying to understand John’s Jesus, in all his contradictory complexity, is definitely like herding cats!

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

Punctuation and Spirituality – From the Daily Office – January 29, 2014

January 29, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of John:

[Jesus said:] “Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out — those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 5:25-29 (NRSV) – January 29, 2014.)

Punctuation Saves Lives There are times when I’m reading one or another of the Gospels and I am pulled up short; I just have stop and say, “Really? Jesus said that? Really?”

This is one of those times! Did Jesus really say (and I paraphrase), “We’re going to get people up out of their graves just so we can punish them.” That’s what verse 29 is saying with that weird turn of phrase “the resurrection of condemnation”; all the dead will be raised, some to life and some to condemnation. (Whether that means an eternity of punishment or simply annihilation is another issue I’ve dealt with before and won’t address again today.)

Maybe what Jesus said ended before this verse; maybe this is John interpreting what Jesus said. Perhaps the quotation from Jesus should end with the words “because he is the Son of Man” and the part that starts “Do not be astonished” is John’s commentary. Could be. It’s an issue that could be solved by judicious use of punctuation. Unfortunately, John didn’t use punctuation and where to insert quotation marks, periods, commas, etc. is left to the “best guess” of modern translators based on noun declensions, verb tenses, and a colloquial understanding of the original language.

You see, punctuation is a modern invention. So are spaces between the words, although they have been around longer than colons, semi-colons, and full stops. Spaces were the bright idea of Irish monks working in early medieval scriptoria about 1400 years ago; punctuation marks came along about a thousand years later. They weren’t even all that common when the translators of the Authorized (“King James”) version made their estimations of where to put them in the biblical text in 1611.

The lack or improper placement of punctuation can lead to interesting misunderstandings. A popular t-shirt design noting that “punctuation saves lives” demonstrates its point with two similarly worded but radically different sentences:

“Let’s eat Grandma.”

versus

“Let’s eat, Grandma.”

Scripture itself contains an example of a misunderstanding which punctuation might have cleared up. In Mark’s Gospel, the writer applies a prophecy of Isaiah to John the Baptizer saying that his is “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'” (Mk. 1:3) Isaiah, however, seems to have said something slightly different: “A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.'” (Isa. 40:3) Matthew and Luke, relying on Mark, repeat his slightly altered quotation — compare Matt. 3:3 and Luke 3:4. Is the voice crying out in the wilderness or is the way of the Lord in the wilderness? The gospellers and the prophet seem to have a disagreement.

So which is it in John’s Gospel? Should the quotation from Jesus be ended a sentence earlier and the bit about getting people out their graves only to condemn them be attributed to the writer instead? To do so would, I admit, fly in the face of centuries of understanding of Jesus’ words to the Jewish authorities when they confronted him in the Temple following the healing of the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda, from which this text is taken. But it’s at least a possibility to consider, and it highlights how carefully one must read scripture.

Punctuation, as the t-shirt says, can save lives. It can also have a significant impact one’s spirituality!

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

Make the Circuit – From the Daily Office – January 27, 2014

January 28, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

Make the circuit of Zion; walk round about her;
count the number of her towers.
Consider well her bulwarks; examine her strongholds;
that you may tell those who come after.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 48:11-12 (BCP Version) – January 28, 2014.)

Look Crosswalk Pavement Sign I’m intrigued that, near the end of what is a pretty standard hymn-of-praise sort of psalm, there is this admonition to be a careful observer. Jesus will echo this admonition, not in its exact words but in intent, several times in the gospels.

Jesus often urges his followers to pay attention to things and to observe carefully; each of the gospels includes at least one such admonition:

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.” (Matt: 24:32; cf. Mark 13:28)

“Be alert at all times . . . . (Luke 21:36; cf. Mark 13:33)

“Pay attention to what you hear . . . .” (Mark 4:24; cf. Luke 8:18)

“Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.” (John 4:35)

In the novel Stranger in a Strange Land, the science fiction author Robert Heinlein invented the profession of “Fair Witness.” This is an individual trained to observe events and report exactly what he or she sees and hears, making no extrapolations or assumptions; the Fair Witness draws no conclusions and makes no inferences from what is observed. At one point in the story, a Fair Witness is asked the color of house. She replies, “It is white on this side;” she refuses to venture an opinion as to the color of the sides which cannot be seen.

When I first read Stranger, I was intrigued with that idea and when I was a practicing trial lawyer, I often wished that I could call a Fair Witness to the stand. Practicing attorneys are well aware of how poorly most people observe, recall, and report what happens in the world around them. Although traditionally valued by the courts, eye-witness testimony is notoriously inaccurate!

So the Bible’s admonitions to carefully observe, to “make the circuit” of the subject, to walk around it, to count its features, to examine, and to consider well are good ones. But it is not “Fair Witness” observation to which we are encouraged, not simply the accurate gathering of facts. It is, rather, to intelligent consideration and contemplation, to the drawing of inferences, and to the making of conclusions on the basis of observed data. A modern reader might even say that the Bible urges us to make use of the scientific method!

A Cambridge University scientist, William Beveridge, in his book explaining The Art of Scientific Investigation (1957) wrote, “Interpreting the clue and realizing its possible significance requires knowledge without fixed ideas, imagination, scientific taste, and a habit of contemplating all unexplained observations.” I believe that this is as true of religion as it is of science. It applies to consideration of one’s faith and one’s spirituality, as well as to observation of the physical world. This is why the Bible encourages us to pay attention.

Like science, religion is hampered by “knowledge with fixed ideas,” by lack of imagination, and by failure to contemplate the unexplained. I also think it is imperative that a religious person have what Beveridge calls “scientific taste,” which I understand to mean a passion for observation, a commitment to being alert at all times, a delight in taking the time to “make the circuit of Zion.”

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

Different Strokes – From the Daily Office – January 27, 2014

January 27, 2014 / eric / 1 Comment

From the Letter to the Hebrews:

But Jesus has now obtained a more excellent ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted through better promises.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Hebrews 8:5 (NRSV) – January 27, 2014.)

A cartoon showed up on Facebook this morning:

Who's a good boy? Canine preacher

It immediately brought to mind a cartoon from years ago, which I posted in answer to my friend who offered the first; I captioned it with a question — “Another denomination?”

Hellfire & Dalmatians - Canine preacher

And then the writer to the Letter to the Hebrews comes along in the Daily Office readings with his suggestion that the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus has created “a better covenant” than that made by God with the Hebrews at Sinai. He even goes so far as to say, in a few verses that God “has made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear.” (v. 13) I don’t actually believe that’s so, as history has shown that Judaism is not likely to disappear. But what this has me thinking about is denominationalism and our tendency to think that our way of being Christian, whatever it may be, is better than some other way of being Christian.

Back in the 1970s we had a saying — “Different strokes for different folks” — which I’ve always thought a good reason for there to be differing expressions of the faith. I grew up in a multi-denominational household: my mother was reared in the Disciples of Christ; my father was a Methodist; my step-father was Baptist who had converted to Roman Catholicism; my brother joined the Missouri Synod Lutherans and then married a member of the United Church of Canada. And nearly all of them, by the time I became an Episcopalian, were non-practicing. So none of those traditions seemed any “better” than the others; they were simply different.

Yesterday we held the annual meeting of our parish. We heard reports from staff and program leaders about the past year and plans for the coming year; we elected members of the governing board; we appointed representatives to our larger judicatory; we received a budget. Then we held a worship service – the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, shared a meal, and went home. We did all these things the way Episcopalians do them. We could have done them the way Baptists or Lutherans or Methodists do them, but we didn’t. Because we’re Episcopalians. Our way isn’t “better;” it’s simply different.

From time to time members of our evangelism and growth teams will suggest that we do something like the big evangelical non-denominational church down the street or in another town. Usually the reason is because that church is bigger than we are, so they must be “doing something right.” The implication is that what that bigger church is doing is “better.” Maybe it is . . . but it may just be that it’s different.

The unfortunate problem with denominationalism is that sort of judgmentalism about which denomination, which way of being Christian, is “better” always seems to creep into the conversation! We need to remember that old saw from the 1970s — “Different strokes for different folks” — and recognize that not everyone is fed by our particular style of worship, governance, fellowship, or theology. For some, the church which emphasizes “Who’s a good dog? Who wants a cookie?” feeds their spirit; for others, the church which preaches “He said unto them ‘No, No'” makes more sense. Neither is better; they’re simply different.

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

Extraordinarily Ordinary – From the Daily Office – January 25, 2014

January 25, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of John:

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 4:39-42 (NRSV) – January 25, 2014.)

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well by Guercino These few verses are the end of the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well which led to his two-day sojourn in the Samaritan city of Sychar. Whenever I have heard this story preached (and, I confess, when I have preached it myself), the emphasis seems always to be on the Lord’s daring to speak with a woman, and a Samaritan woman, at that! The focus is his unconventionality, his willingness to step outside the Law, and his abrogation of ethnic and sexual norms. We are told how extraordinary this encounter was.

What strikes me this morning is how very ordinary it really was. The water remains water. The woman is not saved from an angry, legalistic mob. No one is healed; no one walks on water; no large crowds are fed. The dead are not returned to life. Despite its radical breaking of boundaries, this is a very boring story with a remarkable ending: two people meet, they talk, one of them talks to other people, the other people talk to the second person, and many people come to faith and belief as a result.

Immediately after this event, Jesus returned to his home territory, to Cana in Gallilee, and complained of a royal official, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” (John 4:48) And even if there are “signs and wonders,” belief may not result. In John’s telling of the events of Holy Week he says of one crowd which Jesus confonts, “Although he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him.” (John 12:37) The contrast between faith which depends on miracles (and may not come even when they are accomplished) and faith which comes from simple conversation is striking and instructive.

It’s also reassuring. It means that a simple person like me, unable to convert water to wine or to heal with a touch, can nonetheless effectively communicate the word of Lord. It means that anyone can do so; if an unremarkable (and, in fact, semi-outcast) woman can bring many to belief simply by telling her story, then anyone can. We don’t need a flashy show of signs of power; we just need to tell our story with integrity and authenticity.

For all its radical social message, the story of Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman at Sychar is simply the story of two people talking. It is extraordinarily ordinary.

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

Kintsugi Gospel – From the Daily Office – January 24, 2014

January 24, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind; I am as useless as a broken pot.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 31:12 (BCP Verson) – January 24, 2014.)

Kintsugi Repaired Blue-Green Bowl It might strike some as odd that of all the myriad metaphors and poetic images in the Psalter this this one, “I am as useless as a broken pot,” speaks to me most loudly.

About 15 years ago, serving in a different parish than the one where I am now rector, I suffered a period of severe depression. A couple of years of treatment on anti-depressant medication, cognitive therapy, and (most importantly) working with a spiritual director got me through it.

What didn’t get me through it was the support of the church as a community. There was none to speak of.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. There were church members who were great and on whom I could (and did) rely. But, in general, as a community, the parish where I’d been rector for five or so years at that point was of little or no support. In fact, when I informed the vestry and then the whole congregation of my diagnosis (after trying to hide it for several months), there was an influential woman in the parish who said to the senior warden (knowing full well I could overhear), “We’ll have to ask the bishop to pull him out of here. We can’t afford to support him while recovers; we don’t even know if he will recover.” She was not alone in her sentiment.

Truthfully, I almost agreed with her. I was as useless as a broken pot! What parish would want me to be their priest?

Thing about broken pots, however, is that they aren’t really useless. Even if broken beyond repair, the busted shards can still be put to use. And if the pot can be repaired, it can be even more useful than before.

In Japan, they practice the art of kintsugi. The word translates as “golden joinery” and refers to the art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer resins containing powdered precious metals. It has been called “talismanic proof that imagination has the power to make ill fortune good.” Its legendary origins date to the late 15th century, when the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa sent a damaged tea bowl back to China for repair. It was returned fixed with ugly metal staples. Japanese craftsmen, offended by the ugliness of the repair, sought and found method of fixing the broken pottery that could make a broken piece look as good as, or better than, new.

The possibilities presented by kintsugi, the new beauty it brings to the repaired broken pot, help us to see the value of a broken vessel. Where we might previously have seen in a broken pot or a broken person only trash, something or someone to throw away because we can’t afford to keep it or support the person, kintsugi permits us to see the possibility, even the likelihood, of a greater strength that follows healing. Kintsugi is good news for the broken. In a real sense, it is gospel and the gospel is kintsugi.

If we can see with “kintsugi eyes,” we may be more gentle with the people and the things around us that experience brokenness. And when we are broken ourselves, the promise of kintsugi, the promise of the gospel allow us to be hopeful.

I am grateful to those in my prior congregation who didn’t listen to the influential member and seek my removal, who were willing to give me time to heal, who believed in the possibility of repair. It was a learning experience; it was kintsugi for me. It taught me to believe in, preach, and try to live by a kintsugi gospel.

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

The Bible Is Fun! – From the Daily Office – January 23, 2014

January 23, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Genesis:

The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Genesis 11:5-6 (NRSV) – January 23, 2014.)

Construction of the Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder I’ve never quite understood the story of the tower of Babel. I get that it’s an etiological myth to explain the variety of languages spoken by human beings, but the picture of God that it paints is (shall we say?) less than positive. Might it have been better to cast someone else (say the Tempter?) as the “bad guy” who thwarts the plans of the tower builders?

As the story of God and God’s People develops over time and through the pages of Scripture, we learn that God’s goal is that “they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you,” or at least that’s what Jesus said (John 17:21). The apostle Paul proclaimed this Good News setting out that the goal was that all people, indeed all things, be put in subjection under the Christ and ultimately under the one God “so that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). And his colleague, Peter, argued that preachers should speak as if speaking the very words of God so that “God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11).

It’s not just the New Testament that proclaims this goal of universal solidarity. Solomon proclaimed in prayer that the goal of his kingdom was “that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other” (I Kings 8:60). The prophet Isaiah proclaimed that “in days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it” (Isaiah 2:2).

So, if that has been God’s goal all along, isn’t God’s fit of pique at the plain of Shinar just a wee bit counterproductive?

Playing with questions like that is why I so enjoy studying the Bible; the Bible is fun! So, I get really annoyed when someone treats it as some sort of scientifically or historically accurate text, and robs it of its capacity to provide fun and enjoyment.

It’s a bunch of stories and other sorts of literature! It’s a bunch of often contradictory stories, myths, poems, histories, memoirs, and so forth which, despite their contradictions (and often because of them) point to a truth that transcends our mundane perceptions. Sure, if I were writing a single text to tell the story of God, I’d use the Babel story quite differently and tell it from a very different perspective. But that’s not how the Bible came to be and, thanks be to God, I don’t have to write God’s story! Suffice to say that the Bible is not a history book; it’s not a scientific text. It’s a library, a collection of all different sorts of literature.

These texts must be read in light of each other. The prophet’s vision of the nations streaming to a temple on a hill and Jesus’ prayer for unity among all peoples (the prayer is not just about his followers) provide lenses through which we view the myth of the tower at Babel; the story of the tower provides a critical backdrop and foundation for the prophecy and the prayer. So, I may not understand the story of the tower of Babel standing alone, but I understand it in context. I understand it as a part of a synthetic whole (synthetic in the sense of dialectic synthesis, not as “artificial” or “unnatural”).

I’m not going to write a synthesis of these stories this morning (and probably not ever), but I am going to start the day acknowledging that, if the Bible is anything, it is fun!

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

Toxic Church – From the Daily Office – January 22, 2014

January 22, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Hebrews:

Ground that drinks up the rain falling on it repeatedly, and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and on the verge of being cursed; its end is to be burned over.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Hebrews 6:7-8 (NRSV) – January 22, 2014.)

West Virginia Toxic Chemical Storage Tanks The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews is speaking of folks (the “ground”) who have received the Gospel of Jesus Christ (the “rain”) and have either produced some sort of fruit of good works (a “useful crop”) or have fallen away from the church (producing “thorns”). Of the latter, he says they are “impossible to restore” because “they are crucifying again the Son of God.”

It’s a hard metaphor and a harsh judgment that doesn’t leave any room for repentance and reconciliation. It seems a denial of hope, frankly.

But the writer’s original intent is not what attracts me to his metaphor of ground, rain, and plant growth this morning.

It’s been more than a week since I scribbled down a poem. In fact, it’s been more than a week since I even made any notes that might later become a poem.

I keep a notebook in which I write down things that occur to me, images that I’ve seen or conceived, emotions that have been oddly triggered, anything. Driving down the road I may see (as I recently did) an overturned birdbath and begin playing with that image – it will go in the notebook. Singing along with the radio or a hymn in church I may get choked up with emotion for reasons not entirely apparent at the time – emotion and lyric will go into the notebook. In conversation with someone or just standing in line in the grocery store I may hear an odd turn of phrase from someone, a thought put into words in a way I wouldn’t have put it – it will go into the notebook. Eventually some of what is in the notebook will work its way into a sonnet or a work of free-verse (my usual form).

My time the past week, however, has been devoted to preparations for my congregation’s annual parish meeting. Which means I’ve been reviewing attendance figures and financial reports and numbers of communions, baptisms, weddings, funerals, etc. Not, for me, the stuff of wonder and delight. Not the stuff that goes in the notebook and, to be honest, nothing has gone into the notebook while I’ve been working on these reports.

While I’ve been doing the statistical and financial work (and not keeping the notebook), the news has been filled with the story of a chemical leak, a spill of toxic waste in West Virginia that poisoned a river and left 300,000 people unable to use their household water for anything other than flushing toilets.

And reading this morning’s metaphor of ground, rain, and plant growth, it occurs to me that although the ground may be ready, and though it might usually produce a useful crop, if it is not watered with the proper rain, it will produce nothing good. In fact, it may produce nothing at all! Perhaps, for me, the seeds of images, feelings, lyrics, and odd phrases are not growing into poems (nor even getting planted in my notebook!) because they are not being watered correctly. I’m not suggesting that year-end statistics and financial reports are toxic, but they certainly don’t nurture the muse!

Sometimes, it isn’t the ground’s fault that it’s not producing. And it isn’t the rain’s fault that it’s not falling on the ground that isn’t producing. Sometimes there’s something blocking the rain, or adulterating the rain. It is the church’s job to see that the rain of the Gospel falls on the ground of people free of toxic adulteration . . . but all too often the church is guilty of adding the poison! (These are church statistics and church finances, I’m dealing with!) All too often it isn’t the fallen-away that need to repent and be reconciled to the Gospel; it’s the church. The toxic church . . . .

The metaphor and the judgment of the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews is hard and harsh. And, like most metaphors, it can be stretched too far. I don’t think I’m doing so, however, because, like the writer, I am “confident of better things . . . things that belong to salvation.” Although the church can be, and often is, toxic, I still believe that it is also the Body of Christ and the means of salvation. We can, by the grace of God, clean up our toxic spills. (And get passed the annual meeting with its statistics and financial reports and maybe get back to some poetry!)

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

Hell can go to Hell! – From the Daily Office – January 21, 2014

January 21, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of John:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 3:16-17 (NRSV) – January 21, 2014.)

Outsourcing Abuse Meme Making the rounds of Facebook these days is an anti-religious meme which basically equates religious teaching to child abuse. It says:

If parents constantly told their children:

“We will love you forever . . . as long as you do what we tell you to do and never disagree with our views. But if you disobey , we will make sure to torment you until the grinding of your own teeth makes you cry; we will lock you up in a dark place where you’ll be strangled by snakes, and we will see that you burn in a lake of fire.”

We would recognize it as child abuse.

So why do we keep thinking that, by outsourcing the job to a deity, it becomes something else?

There’s nothing in the meme which specifically mentions Christianity, but because members of our faith so often evangelize by fear, by threatening Hellfire and damnation on those who fail to convert, I’m fairly confident that we can assume the Christian faith to be the target. I wish it weren’t so and I wish I weren’t so sympathetic to the producers of the meme! But, let’s face it, there’s a good deal of really awful theology and really bad evangelism out there.

The truth, however, is that an awful lot (nearly all, in fact) of the mythology of Hell is not found in Holy Scripture. The English word Hell is derived from an ancient Germanic word (hel), which in Norse mythology named a place of eternal punishment. When the Greek Hades (used in the New Testament to name the place of dead) and the Hebrew terms Gehenna or Sheol (used in the Old Testament for the same purpose) were translated into English using this Germanic word, that resulted in a transfer of the pagan concept into Christian theology and its vocabulary.

Then along came poets like Milton and Dante and added all sorts of wonderful, fantastic, and clearly non-biblical imagery to the popular imagination — and, voila! — a full-blown picture of Hell featuring brimstone, lakes of fire, and tormenting demons ruled over by the fallen angel Lucifer, and inhabited by poor human souls condemned to an eternity of pain. One must admit that segments of the church have made full use of this as a scare-tactic mechanism to encourage conversions and to keep the faithful in line, but it was and is wrong to do so. Neither the New Testament Hades nor Old Testament Gehenna had any attached meaning of eternal torment; the Greek signified the place where all the dead, the good, the bad and the indifferent, were thought to go, while the Hebrew terms signified a place of disposal, a place of ending.

It is true that Jesus used imagery of an after-life fire to describe the punishment of unrighteous, but the implication is of annihilation and destruction, not eternal punishment. (See, for example, Matthew 13.) His parables, such as the tale of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16), cannot be the basis of a theology of eternal torment; parables are metaphoric or analogic teaching tools of limited application and to stretch them beyond their immediate point is to misunderstand and misuse them.

This is especially so when we have his own direct testimony in the Gospel of John. Because of signs displayed in the crowds of many sporting events, many people are familiar with John 3:16 — “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” And many of us were required to memorize this verse in Sunday School. Few, however, know or memorize the next verse — “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Two things must be observed and emphasized about how these verses describe the mission of the Christ. First, in verse 16 the alternatives are not an eternal life of joy versus an eternal life of punishment; the alternatives are “perishing” (i.e., annihilation and ending) or “eternal life.” Second, the purpose of Jesus’ life, teaching, death, resurrection, and ascension is not to condemn but to save.

The meme, so far as it goes, is accurate. There is way too much bad theology threatening people with Hellfire and damnation; to my way of thinking, any such theology is too much. But the meme is as wrong as those who promulgate the pagan mythology of Hell as a part of the Christian faith. It isn’t and we need to expunge it from our theology and from our vocabulary.

In a word, Hell can go to Hell!

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

Category: Daily Office (Page 30 of 70)

Meeting Together – From the Daily Office – January 31, 2014

Herding Cats – From the Daily Office – January 30, 2014

Punctuation and Spirituality – From the Daily Office – January 29, 2014

Make the Circuit – From the Daily Office – January 27, 2014

Different Strokes – From the Daily Office – January 27, 2014

Extraordinarily Ordinary – From the Daily Office – January 25, 2014

Kintsugi Gospel – From the Daily Office – January 24, 2014

The Bible Is Fun! – From the Daily Office – January 23, 2014

Toxic Church – From the Daily Office – January 22, 2014

Hell can go to Hell! – From the Daily Office – January 21, 2014

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