That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

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Bombast and Bluster: American Political Discourse – From the Daily Office – July 31, 2012

July 31, 2012 / / 1 Comment

From the Psalms:

Those of high degree are but a fleeting breath, *
even those of low estate cannot be trusted.
On the scales they are lighter than a breath, *
all of them together.
Put no trust in extortion;
in robbery take no empty pride; *
though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 32:10-12, BCP versification – July 31, 2012)

WARNING: I reveal my politics in this post. If you don’t want to read about them, don’t continue!

There are no words that can adequately convey how thoroughly disgusted I am with the tone and content of political discourse in the United States of America as we approach the November 2012 elections. I make no bones of the fact that I am a liberal or a “progressive” as the Left now calls itself. My favorite senator is Bernie Sanders of Vermont. If there were a functioning Socialist Party in the US, I’d probably be a member. As it is, I’m an independent who tends to vote for Democrats, but frequently I find myself not voting for any standing candidate.

I am not one of those who goes in for the false equivalency of saying, “Both sides do it.” Yes, there are some on the Left who go overboard in their rhetoric, but in my estimation and opinion it is the Right, the Republican Party and the so-called Tea Party, who engage in the worst of the political nonsense. Much of what one finds on the internet coming from those quarters is racist and inflammatory; it is ill-informed; it is downright false and untrue. The words of our president or other Democrats are taken out of context and twisted completely away from their original meanings . . . the gullible, party-faithful fall for it and parrot it back without ever checking the facts. Statistics are distorted and history is ignored. It’s shameful!

But the worst of it all is the constant barrage of bombast in favor of continuing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans on the grounds that they are “job creators”! They are not! Money put into the pockets of people who already have plenty of money does not make its way into the marketplace. Money in the pockets of business owners does not encourage them to hire people. It is only money given to those who actually spend it, to the middle-class consumers who create product demand, that creates jobs. This is simple economics which our politicians are simply ignoring.

Which brings me to the admonitions of today’s Psalm: “Though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it.” Increasing the wealth of those of “high degree” who are “but a fleeting breath” is not the way to increase the prosperity of the people. It accomplishes none of the good we are to accomplish under the Law of Moses or the mandate of the Gospel! It does not further love of God nor of our neighbor. It does not feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked, nor heal the sick; it does not increase care of the widow or the orphan or the stranger who is in our land. It accomplishes nothing, not a shred of those things the Bible commends society to do. So long as our political discourse focuses only on questions of wealth and its increase, it serves no good purpose, whether it is the bombast of the Right or the bluster of the Left.

There are no words that can adequately convey how thoroughly disgusted I am with the tone and content of political discourse in the United States of America as we approach the November 2012 elections, but these will have to do: our political discourse does not honor God; it does not honor our neighbor; it does not honor our country. It is an embarrassment.

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

In Praise of Anonymous Church Members – From the Daily Office – July 30, 2012

July 30, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Paul wrote to the Romans:

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Romans 16:1-2 – July 30, 2012)

As the letter to the Romans draws to a close, Paul sends greetings to several persons by name: Phoebe (named here), Prisca, Aquila, Epaenetus, Mary, Andronicus, Junia, and many others. As I read through there names, I cannot help but wonder who these otherwise forgotten church members were. What were their roles in the church? What did they do outside the church?

Each Sunday in my congregation, following the tradition of the Episcopal Church, we pray for

The Universal Church, its members, and its mission,
The Nation and all in authority
The welfare of the world
The concerns of the local community
Those who suffer and those in any trouble
The departed . . . . (BCP 1979, page 35)

We prepare a master prayer list for the Prayer Leader which includes various names under each of these categories: other congregations, dioceses, and provinces together with their clergy and bishops; the president, our governor, soldiers serving overseas; those who are celebrating birthdays or anniversaries; those who are ill or injured; those who have died and those who are bereaved. As these names are read out, most in the congregation know who some of them are, but probably no one knows them all. And in a few years time, and certainly after a century or more, someone reading the prayer list will have little if any idea who any of them are. The list will be as strange and curious as Paul’s extended greetings at the end of this letter.

And yet, these people are the church! Without such people there would be no church. The church is nothing without the people. It is not the buildings; it is not the organization or the hierarchy. The church is the people of God, nothing else. The church consists of these unremarkable individuals who go about their daily lives trying to do what is right, trying to serve one another and the world around them, praying for one another and for others, doing their best to live out the gospel as they understand it.

I am reminded of Ben Sira, the author of the apocryphal book called Ecclesiasticus, who after praising the great and memorable added, “Of others there is no memory; they have perished as though they had never existed; they have become as though they had never been born, they and their children after them. But these also were godly men, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten.” (Ben Sira 44:9-10)

So as we come to the end of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome with his greetings to those important church members who have otherwise been forgotten, let us praise church members who go quietly through their days doing their best to serve God, giving time and treasure as they are able, whose names will not be remembered or known beyond a small circle of fellow Christians, but who are the true pillars of the church. Let us praise them and thank them, and thank God for them.
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Father Funston in the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Infinite Abundance – Sermon for Pentecost 9, Proper 12B – July 29, 2012

July 29, 2012 / / 0 Comments

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This sermon was preached on Sunday, July 29, 2012, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(Revised Common Lectionary, Proper 12B: 2 Kings 4:42-44; Psalm 145:10-19; Ephesians 3:14-21; and John 6:1-21)

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How many of you have ever attended a potluck supper or potluck luncheon in this parish? Let’s have show of hands. OK – hands down. Those of you who have done so . . . have you ever known there to be an insufficiency of food at any such event? Ever? Keep that in mind, please, as we take a look at these lessons today.

First of all, a story about the prophet Elisha from the Second Book of Kings. This the fourth in a series of miracles which are set out in Chapter 4 to prove that Elisha is a spokesman for God. In the first story, one of Elisha’s disciples dies leaving a widow with two children to raise by herself; her only possession, we are told, is a jar of oil. Elisha instructs her to borrow as many vessels from her neighbors as she can and to pour the oil from her jar into the borrowed vessels. She and her children fill vessel after vessel with the oil from her jar. When all the borrowed vessels are filled, the miraculous supply of oil stops. Elisha then instructs her to sell the oil, pay her debts, and live off the remaining money. It is a story of over-flowing abundance.

In the second story, Elisha promises a barren woman who has provided him hospitality that she will conceive and bear a son, which she does. Sometime later, however, the son becomes ill and dies. The woman, after placing the body in the room of her house where Elisha had stayed, finds Elisha and tells him what has happened; he offers to send his servant Gehazi but she insists that the prophet himself must come. He does so and raises the son from the dead. Again, it is a story of over-flowing grace.

The third and fourth stories are tales about food. In the third, we learn that on his return from raising the boy a time of famine has come upon his land of Gilgal, but Elisha nontheless orders his disciples to make a big pot of stew. One of the students goes into the field to gather herbs. Along with other ingredients he brings some gourds from a wild vine. As they eat the stew, apparently some fall ill and die as the men cry out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” Elisha, by the simple expedient of throwing some flour in the pot, “cures” the stew. Once again, the prophet brings life out of death. Perhaps more importantly, when his disciples were without food, God through Elisha’s ministry was able to provide them with what they needed.

And then we come to our reading for today at the end of the chapter. In this fourth story, twenty loaves of barley bread and some undefined but clearly small amount of grain feed a hundred people with plenty left over. This story differs from the first three in that it specifically mentions the commandment of God. The instruction to give the loaves and grain to the people and to eat and have some left over are not Elisha’s, they are the Lord’s.

This series of miracles accomplished through Elisha proves his legitimacy as a prophet of God, but beyond that in each of these events God meets and satisfies a significant human need. Saving orphaned children and their widowed mother from poverty and possibly slavery, providing a son to a barren woman and then raising that child from the dead, and feeding the hungry with more than enough are accomplished in these miracles. These are not demonstrations of power for the sake of impressing an audience; these are acts of abundant compassion and love flowing from God.

These stories, especially the one chosen by the Lectionary this morning, form a backdrop to the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. This story was so important to and had made such an impression upon the first Christians that we find it in all four of the Gospels – each of the the Evangelists puts a different “spin” on the story, but there it is in every Gospel. In fact, it is the only miracle of Jesus that is reported in all four Gospels. John, whose version we heard today, uses it to introduce a lengthy discourse on the “bread of life” from which we will hear pieces read over the next five weeks, but for now let’s just concentrate on story itself.

As John tells the story, Jesus had gone off to be by himself after a particularly intense period of ministry. However, the crowds followed him: “Jesus,” writes John, “went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. . . . . [Then] he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him.” This isn’t the sermon on the mount; it’s not a teaching event; he hadn’t encouraged this group of people to come to this place. In fact, as John tells it, there is almost a suggestion that Jesus didn’t want these people around, but there they are! There they are in a wilderness area at the end of the day, tired, hungry, and apparently without food.

“How are we going to buy food to feed these people?” he asks Phillip. Notice that there is no doubt or hesitation about whether or not he and his disciples have any responsibility to do so; it’s not even a question worth asking or thinking about. These people are here; they need to eat; what are we going to do about it? And Phillip’s immediate response is, “We don’t have enough money.” Meanwhile, Andrew pops up with the fact that there is a boy present with five loaves fish and two loaves, but then immediately observes (like Elisha’s servant in the story from Second Kings) that that clearly isn’t enough food for the number of people to be fed.

Elisha’s servant could not see how twenty loaves could feed a hundred men; Philip and Andrew could not see past the probably out-of-reach cost of sufficient supplies or the meagerness of the boy’s five loaves and two fish. And we, even though we regularly experience episodes of improbable and exorbitant abundance (remember those potluck meals I asked you to keep in mind), are much like them. We base many of our decisions on an assumption of scarcity and on our fear of insufficiency; we hoard and save and worry and end up living our lives, personally and corporately, in small and safe (but largely boring and ineffective) activities. We pull back when we should push forward. We give in to our fear of a shortfall rather than exercising faith in God’s profligate generosity. Elisha and Jesus, out of God’s overflowing abundance, gave the people what they needed.

These miracles, Elisha’s feeding of his 100 disciples and Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000, demand that we as the church face squarely this question: “Do we believe that God will provide what we need to do the ministry God wants done?” Note the essential qualifiers – what we need, not necessarily what we want, and the ministry God wants, not necessarily the ministry we’ve planned. Another way to ask the question: Do we operate according to a mind-set of abundance or of scarcity? The former engenders generosity, joy, and hope; the latter brings anxiety, fear, and decline. These stories encourage us to rely about God’s infinite abundance, to live in God’s world of generosity and hope, in God’s world of infinite possibility.

These stories demonstrate that will of God for God’s people, throughout both the Old and the New Testaments, is profligate generosity; God’s will for God’s people is the same today. God wants to meet our human needs. We face no problems that are any different from those faced by God’s people in the past; the problems we face can and will be resolved when we rely upon God’s generous abundance without fear of scarcity or insufficiency. Our problems are not our problem! Our problem is really believing that God is still able and willing to enter into our lives to meet our needs.Our problem is in really internalizing what we are saying when we repeat the words of the Psalm: “You open wide your hand and satisfy the needs of every living creature.”

And yet we have our own experiences of that abundant provision. Elisha told his servant to feed the 100 men with the twenty loaves of bread: “He set it before them, they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.” Jesus had the people sit down; he took five loaves and two fish from the boy, gave thanks to God, and distributed the food. After everyone had eaten, “he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ So they gathered them up, and . . . filled twelve baskets.”

That’s exactly what happens when we have those potlucks I asked you to keep in mind! When we have shared suppers in this parish, no one has ever gone away hungry. There are always plenty of leftovers. They don’t always go home with the people who brought them either – they are sent home with our seniors who live alone, with struggling young families with children to feed, or with the family whose breadwinner has recently lost his job. At our potlucks we personally experience of the very stories we read in the Bible. God not only meets our needs, God overfills them with profligate generosity.

With that experience, we really should have no trouble believing that God is able and willing to enter every area of our lives to meet our needs, not just at our potluck suppers but in every thing we do as individuals and together as the church. We should have no trouble comprehending, with all the saints, the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ and the fullness of God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Amen.

The Peaceable Thing? – From the Daily Office – July 20, 2012

July 20, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Paul wrote to the church in Rome:

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Romans 12:9-18 – July 20, 2012)

I once served under a bishop who used a slightly edited version of this text as his final blessing at the conclusion of a eucharist, adding “and may the blessing of God Almighty (etc.)” to Paul’s admonitions. Whenever he would recite these words, my mind would stumble over that last sentence: “If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” Doesn’t it always depend on us? Isn’t that the point of the gospel mandate, to live peaceably with all even when they don’t want to? Isn’t that what “turn the other cheek” and “give even your cloak” and “go the extra” (Matt. 5:39-41) mile are all about? It is always in our power to do the peaceable thing.

As I read this lesson and contemplate its meaning and find this minor disagreement with Paul, I am also mindful of last night’s dreadful events in Aurora, Colorado, another mass killing. At last report, 14 killed and 50 or more injured by a gunman at a movie theatre.

On our parish’s Facebook page this morning, I posted the same picture I am attaching here, together with this prayer which I edited out of the New Zealand Prayer Book:

O Lord, we commend those killed and injured in the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, into your loving care. Enfold them in the arms of your mercy. Bless those who died in their dying and in their rising again in you. Be with those who are injured and give wisdom and skill to those who care for them. Bless those whose hearts are filled with sadness, that they too may know the hope of resurrection; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

How is it possible to bless and not curse the killer? How is it possible to “live in harmony” in this instant? I confess that I do not know and that the lawyer part of me, the litigator, wants to see him hanged from the gallows as soon as possible. But the Christian part of me reads this lesson and struggles not to be on the side of repaying evil with evil. The best I can do is to pray for the victims and, as for the shooter, offer the prayer that Jesus taught us: “Thy will, O Lord, be done.” That’s the best I can do. I hope that it will suffice as the peaceable thing today.

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

Always the Poor – From the Daily Office – July 19, 2012

July 19, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From Matthew’s Gospel:

Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, “Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 26:6-11 – July 19, 2012)

In yesterday’s gospel lesson Jesus told the story of the king separating the righteous form wicked as a shepherd separates sheep from goats and saying “As you care for the poor, you care for me.” It reminded me of a few cogent remarks that have been made about the measure of society – From Samuel Johnson: “A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.” From Mahatma Ghandi: “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” From Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide for those who have too little.”

Now is Jesus giving up? “You will always have the poor with you.” Is he saying, “No matter how much you do for the poor, it won’t be enough”? And then he says, “But you won’t always have me,” which excuses the act of costly worship performed by the unnamed woman. So fancy rituals are to be preferred to service to those in need? Is that what this means?

I think not, at least I hope not. I believe that Jesus is making reference to an observation in the Book of Deuteronomy: “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.'” (Deut. 15:11) What appears to be going on in this incident is an illustration of timeliness and priority. Service to the poor is a constant obligation but, at that particular time and place, service to Jesus as he prepared to die took priority.

Worship and adoration of God are a priority; in fact, they may be the central priority of the church. An occasional foray into what we might call “pure” worship (the sort of ritual and ceremony Christians do on Sunday morning, for example) is certainly needed, but constant worship as an activity of everyday life is what is enjoined, constant worship in the context of constant service. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.” (Philip. 4:4) The key word is “always” – not just in the special moments when take time to wash and anoint his feet. We must, as Brother Lawrence admonishes, accustom ourselves to continual conversation with God; this can and should be done in all we do, especially in and during our service to poor whose feet also need washing (remember Bishop Weston’s words quoted yesterday).

Recently, I heard a preacher suggest that a way to understand Jesus’ reference to Deuteronomy, his statement that “you always have the poor with you,” is that it is with the poor that Jesus’ followers will be found; if we truly live out his gospel, we always will be found among and serving the less fortunate of society. This is as much worship as the Mass on Sunday.

So there is no real dichotomy; there was no “giving up”. There was, simply, a recognition of time and place and priority. And the statement of an unfortunate truth: we always have the poor with us.

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

The Heart of the Gospel – From the Daily Office – July 18, 2012

July 18, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Jesus told of the separation of sheep and goats:

The king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 25:34-40 – July 18, 2012)

More than any other story in all of the gospel accounts, this one underscores for me what is at the heart of the Good News of Jesus Christ: love of neighbor, service to others, care for those who are unable to care for themselves, and in so doing to demonstrate our love of God.

The First Letter of John sums it up beautifully: “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” (1 John 4:20-21)

Samuel Johnson was quoted by his biographer, James Boswell, as saying “A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.” A similar sentiment, “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members,” is attributed to Mahatma Ghandi. In his second inaugural address, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide for those who have too little.”

In the sacristy of the first church I served as a cleric (which was also the parish that raised me up as a candidate for Holy Orders) was a quotation from the Rt. Rev. Frank Weston, Bishop of Zanzibar from 1908 until his death in 1924. Speaking at the conclusion of a worldwide Anglo-Catholic Congress in London the year before his death, Bishop Weston had reminded his listeners, “You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the Tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slum.” He concluded his speech with these words:

You have got your Mass, you have got your Altar, you have begun to get your Tabernacle. Now go out into the highways and hedges where not even the Bishops will try to hinder you. Go out and look for Jesus in the ragged, in the naked, in the oppressed and sweated, in those who have lost hope, in those who are struggling to make good. Look for Jesus. And when you see him, gird yourselves with his towel and try to wash their feet.

This message has been proclaimed by many speakers in many ways and at many times, but however it is said, it all boils down to the simple fact that as and what we do for the least in our community, we do for God. If we fail to provide for them, all our words and rituals count for nothing. This is the heart of the gospel.

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

Risky Talents – From the Daily Office – July 17, 2012

July 17, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Jesus told the parable of the talents:

The one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.” But his master replied, “You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 25:24-27 – July 17, 2012)

You know this story. A rich man goes away for some period of time entrusting huge amounts of wealth to his servants. To one he gives five talents, an amount of silver roughly the value of one hundred years of work of an ordinary laborer. To another two and to the third one. The first two use the money and double it. The third, timid and fearful of his employer’s reprisal should he lose it, buries it in the ground. Upon the owner’s return, he is punished for failing to invest the money.

It seems unfair that he should be punished for giving back exactly what he was given. He hasn’t wasted the property; he hasn’t squandered it or take it for his own. The rich man got back every thing he left with him.

I’ve always thought that if the servant had invested the money and lost it, there would have been no punishment. I believe that if the investment had been well thought out, even if it failed, the rich man would have shrugged it off and said, “Fair play!” This isn’t a story about rewarding success; it’s a story about rewarding risk. It’s a story which encourages us to move out of our comfort zones, take a risk, and try something. Jesus wants his followers to take risks; he certainy took plenty of them himself.

It’s been said that Christianity is an adventure of the spirit or it is not Christianity. Christians are called to eschew safety and security, and do the tasks that only Jesus’s people can do. We are called into ministries that take us out of our comfort zones and stretch us beyond the circle of relationships and practices with which we are familiar in our usual faith communities. All around us there are opportunities for extraordinary and life-changing interaction with other people, but require that we move into greater uncertainty and engage in activities in which we have a great chance of feeling discomfort, encountering resistance, or being required to make personal sacrifice.

The author Jack London once wrote:

I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark burn out in brilliant blaze than it be stifled by dry rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of man is to live, not exist.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.

Whatever talents we have been given, we are to use them, not bury them in the ground.

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

A Prostitute & An Unscrupulous God – From the Daily Office – July 16, 2012

July 16, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Joshua:

Joshua son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” So they went, and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and spent the night there.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Joshua 2:1 – July 16, 2012)

This is one of the things that I find so captivating about the Old Testament: its heroes and heroines are not supermen and superwomen. They aren’t even regular, run-of-the-mill folks. They are often, as here, the outcasts and sinners, the morally flawed, the ethically ambiguous, the folks who were looking out for themselves as much as they were trying to do something good (sometimes a lot more the former than the latter). “A prostitute whose name was Rahab” was as capable of doing God’s work as was a Levite, a priest, or a great military leader.

Furthermore, the manner in which she did the Lord’s work is, to be brutally honest, a bit suspect; at best her motives and her methods were morally questionable. Not only did she allegedly practice an immoral profession, she was disloyal to her city, lying to the civil authorities and striking a bargain with the enemy for favorable treatment for her self and her family. Nonetheless, she holds a place of honor in the story of God’s People. According to tradition, she became a true and sincere convert to the religion of Yahweh, married Joshua, and became the ancestress of several priests and prophets, including Jeremiah.

Recently, a friend quoted a familiar aphorism sometimes attributed to Abigail Van Buren (the “Dear Abby” pen name of Pauline Phillips): “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum of saints.” The story of Rahab is a case in point. To be one of God’s people doesn’t require perfection. One need not be morally pristine or ethically pure; one’s motives need to be immaculate. What is required is faithfulness, not spotlessness. As the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews made note, “By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish . . . .” (Heb. 11:31)

Human beings are rarely pure in any way and in most things our motives are mixed. God is more than willing for us to come into God’s company as sullied as we may be. In fact, God is not above using our imperfections! C.S. Lewis hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.” (Surprised by Joy) The story of Rahab just proves his point.

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

A Prophetic General Convention – Sermon for Pentecost 7, Proper 10B – July 15, 2012

July 15, 2012 / / 3 Comments

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This sermon was preached on Sunday, July 15, 2012, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(Revised Common Lectionary, Proper 10B: Amos 7:7-15; Psalm 85:8-13; Ephesians 1:3-14; and Mark 6:14-29)

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In our lessons today, we have two stories about silencing the prophetic voice. First, a snippet of the not-very-familiar story of the Prophet Amos which is, frankly, cut from its context so badly that some explanation really is necessary. Second, the almost-too-familiar story of the beheading of John the Baptizer.

Amos, as he is at pains to say to the priest Amaziah, is not a professional prophet: “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees.” Nonetheless, Amos was commissioned by God in the middle of the 8th Century before Christ to leave his home in the southern kingdom of Judah, travel to the northern kingdom of Israel, and deliver there a condemnation of Israel, its monarch and its people. In this portion of his story, he tells of God showing him four quick visions, of which the plumb line is the third. First, he is shown a swarm of locusts, illustrating that God will wipe out Israel just as locusts wipe out a crop. Second, he is shown a shower of fire that would “eat up the land.” After each of these, Amos speaks up in defense of Isreal and God relents. Third is the vision we heard in the lesson, the plumb line; Amos, however, does not defend Israel after this vision. Instead, the series of visions is interrupted by the tale of the priest Amaziah and his attempt to silence this prophet.

Amos has delivered his message to Amaziah, a message to the whole of the country, but Amaziah, who is high priest at the king’s shrine at Bethel, has edited it before delivering it to the king. Instead of a message to the whole of society, he has made it sound like nothing more than a personal threat against the king and now, certain of the king’s reaction, he warns Amos to flee, to return to the south to make his living as a prophet there, but never to prophecy again in Israel. This is where Amos protests that he is not a professional prophet, but earns his living in agriculture; and this is where the lectionary reading ends. But it is not where the story ends.

Because of his attempt to silence the prophecy, Amos speaks a word from God for Amaziah, predicting that his family will fall in ruin and dishonor and that he himself will die “in an unclean land.” Amos then tells of the fourth of his visions, a bowl of fresh fruit which God explains illustrates that God’s patience with Israel is at an end. It’s a pun in Hebrew, the word for fruit being qay’its and that for end being qets. In English, I suppose, we would say that God is calling it quits with these people. The story ends with God’s final word to Amaziah, to the all of Israel, and to anyone who would muzzle his prophets: “Be silent!” Those who would interfere with God’s word to God’s people are themselves to shut up or face consequences like those promised Amaziah!

Which brings us to the gospel lesson and the beheading of John the Baptizer. It’s so familiar it hardly needs rehearsing, but let’s just refresh our memories, anyway.

Herod imprisoned John in an attempt to appease his wife Herodias because John had been raling against her and her marriage to Herod, who was her brother-in-law before he was her spouse and, therefore, John considered the marriage adulterous. (Some suggest that Herod did so to prevent Herodias from killing John herself.) At a birthday party he threw for himself, Herod witnessed a dance by his step-daughter and was so taken that he made a rash promise to give her anything she might ask for, up to half his kingdom. Consulting her mother, the girl asks for John’s head on a platter. Hoist on the petard of his public promise, Herod has no choice but to give her what she asks, even though he was quite fearful that John was, indeed, a prophet of God. Not recorded in the Bible is the fact that not too long after the events portrayed in the Gospels, Herod was deprived of his kingdom and all his property, and died in squalid poverty exiled to Gaul. Silencing God’s prophets, again, is obviously a really bad idea!

While I would be the last to suggest that the Episcopal Church or any of its leaders are equivalent to Amos or John the Baptist, I do believe that from time to the Church does speak with a prophetic voice. I believe that, in part, because of Christ’s promise that “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matt. 18:20) and because it has been the tradition and belief of the church since the very first Ecumenical Counsel that (as some Lutheran bishops recently put it) “we trust that God’s Spirit will form the wisdom of God’s faithful people gathered in deliberative assembly.” (ELCA Conference of Bishops, March 10, 2009)

Over 1,000 Episcopalians on Thursday concluded the bicameral deliberative assembly known as The General Convention of the Episcopal Church: 165 bishops participated as voting members of the junior house; 844 lay and clergy deputies, as voting members of the senior house. They were presented with over 440 pieces of business ranging from courtesy resolutions commending the host hotel’s staff to the adoption of a budget for the next three years to the approval of new liturgies to the election of new leadership. Much of that was done quickly, with little fan-fare and hardly any notice. Much of it was done with the boring, long-drawn-out tedium that careful legislative work often seems to entail, but again with little notice. Some of it has received and will receive the attention of a secular press itching for scandal and sensationalism, eager to sell its advertising by selling the world a picture of a church gone (as Bishop Michael Curry of North Carolina, in fact, urged it in his keynote sermon) crazy! (Of course, Bishop Curry was encouraging the church to go “crazy for Christ,” something the secular press will overlook.) Some of what the church did at the 77th General Convention will, I believe, be seen in years to come to be truly prophetic, in the best sense of that word, speaking God’s Truth to a world in need of hearing it, and I suspect that there will be those who try to silence the Convention’s message or stop its actions as Amaziah and Herodias did those of Amos and John the Baptist.

Of all the work done by the Convention, there were three areas in which I believe its actions are the most important. First, it acted in regard to marriage and the promises couples make to one another when forming life-long, loving, and committed relationships. Second, it affirmed the church’s traditional understanding of the dominical sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist. Third, it committed the church to structural and organic reform.

With regard to life-long interpersonal commitments, the Convention called for an in-depth study and proclamation of the church’s contemporary theology of marriage. This, in my opinion, has been needed for many years. Holy Matrimony is one of the five sacramental rites of the church which our Articles of Religion tell us arise from “states of life allowed in the Scriptures” but which have neither “visible sign [n]or ceremony ordained of God.” (Art. XXV, BCP page 872) Marriage is one of those “Traditions and Ceremonies” that it “is not necessary . . . be in all places one, or utterly like.” (Art. XXXIV, BCP page 874) Since it was first identified as a sacrament in about the 10th Century, marriage practices “have been divers,” and the Articles of Religion assure us “may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men’s manners.” (Ibid.) After a thousand years of monkeying about with marriage willy-nilly, and believe me we have done just that throughout the church’s history, taking a good, hard, methodical look at our theology and practice is a great idea!

In the same area, the Convention approved a provisional rite for the blessing of the committed, life-long relationships of same-sex couples. This is the one action that I am sure will be most discussed and most mischaracterized in the secular press. The Standing Liturgical Commission, which developed this rite, and the deputies and bishops who adopted it, have been quite clear that this is not marriage liturgy; it does not confer the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. Furthermore, it is a provisional rite, which means it may only be used provided certain conditions are met. I confess that I have not read the enabling legislation, but it is my understanding that this liturgy may only be used in those States or foreign jurisdictions where the civil authorities have either made the legal state of marriage open to same-sex couples or have created some other form of legally recognized civil union for such couples. Furthermore, it may only be used with the permission of the local bishop.

The second area of important action was in regard to the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. There was a motion put forward by the Diocese of Eastern Oregon to change the canons of the church so as to permit, as a regular matter, those who are not yet baptized to receive the Sacrament of the Altar. This would have changed what has been the practice and tradition of the church since its very beginning; there has never been a time when it was not considered necessary that a person be baptized before being invited to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ. While we do not check ID’s at the altar rail or communion station, and while we do now open our communion to all who are baptized in any Christian tradition (no longer restricting the Eucharist to those confirmed in the Episcopal Church), the General Convention was not willing to make that change. Instead, in a substitute resolution, the bishops and deputies affirmed that it is the normative practice and expectation of this church that Baptism precede reception of Holy Communion, and affirming that the Episcopal Church invites everyone to be baptized into the saving death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.

The third and, I believe, most important of what I have called the prophetic actions of the General Convention is to take the first step toward reorganization and restructuring of the Episcopal Church. We have a national, provincial, and diocesan structure which is often top-heavy, unwieldy, and counter-productive. One of the buzz-words of recent Convention was “nimble” – that is not a word that in any way, shape, or form describes the Episcopal Church! It doesn’t even describe one of our parishes let alone the entire national organization! All too often we find ourselves standing in our own way, tripping over our own feet. In passing the resolution to re-imagine and restructure the church and calling for a task force made up of new and younger leaders to do so, the General Convention has said that we will get out of the way; we will get out of the Spirit’s way; we will get out of our own way!

There is much work to be done, but it seems to me that the hardest work will be the letting-go and stepping-aside . . . letting go of old ways of doing and being church, letting go of expectations of how things have always been done and how we think they ought to be done, letting go of office and power by those who have governed the church for generations, letting go of the hurt and pain of change . . . stepping aside to allow those newer, younger leaders to come forward, stepping aside to let the Holy Spirit come in, stepping aside to free the center so that it may be filled with something new and different. I hope that the hard work of letting-go and stepping-aside will get done, although I’m not convinced that it will.

Shortly after adopting that resolution, the House of Deputies was given an opportunity to elect newer and younger leadership. It chose instead to elect as its president someone who has been a General Convention deputy eight times and who has had a seat in the highest councils of the church for years. It elected as its vice-president someone who has been a deputy at every General Convention since 1973. I know both of these individuals and I know that they are faithful, dedicated, and capable, but I have to be honest – these folks are part of the well-entrenched, long-experienced cadre of church governors; this is leadership that is anything but new or young (and it pains me to say that since the new president and I are essentially the same age). Still, I live in hope that they can and will, in fact, facilitate and accomplish the change that is needed, because (as I said earlier) I trust that God’s Spirit forms the wisdom of God’s faithful people gathered in deliberative assembly.

So let me bring us back to our lessons for today. What might they be teaching us about how to respond to the actions of our recently-concluded General Convention?

Well . . . first, I suggest that the story of Amos and Amaziah, and the story of the Baptizer and Herodias, these stories in which someone sought to silence the prophetic word encourage us to be aware of the distortions we may hear from both the religious and the secular media. Just as Amaziah misrepresented and tried to silence Amos’s prophecy when relaying it to King Jeroboam, so too may we find the reports distorting the actual words and actions of the Convention in an attempt to undermine and stop them. Just as Herodias sought to behead John, so too we may find the detractors of our church trying to assassinate the character of our leaders.

Secondly, the defense of prophecy in the Book of Amos with its pronouncement of judgment against Amaziah or the end to which Herod and Herodias came might stand as cautionary tales against our own tendency to silence whatever it is that we find unpalatable in the prophetic voices of our church’s Spirit-led Convention, voices calling us to change in those areas in which we as a church and as individuals may be in the greatest need of reformation.

Finally, we might find encouragement that we, like Amos and John, despite the dangers in doing so, might heed God’s call to exercise our own prophetic voices in our communities, in our workplaces, or among our circles of friends speaking on behalf of our church which welcomes all and proclaims the Good News that God loves everyone, no exceptions.

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