That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Page 105 of 131

The Blessed Wedding at Cana – From the Daily Office Lectionary – August 10, 2012

August 10, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From John’s Gospel:

Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 2:2-11 – August 10, 2012)

Marriage at Cana by Giotto, 14th centuryA year ago I was in Ireland, camped out in a cottage outside of the village of Banagher, County Offaly, on sabbatical. As my study project, I was translating old Irish hymns into metrical, rhyming English such that they could be sung to the music of the original. The hymns were published in the early 20th Century in a collection titled Dánta Dé Idir Sean agus Nuadh compiled by Uná ní Ógáin. Dánta Dé includes a communion hymn which elaborates on John’s story of the wedding feast; it is entitled The Blessed Wedding at Cana and is attributed to Maighréad ní Annagáin. I found I could not directly translate the hymn, so instead I wrote a poem of my own. Reading this story today, I recall working on that piece and offer it again.

This is my poem inspired by the gospel story and the old Irish hymn:

King of love,
King of glory,
King of graces, guest at a wedding.
With his mother, with his friends,
seated at the marriage feast waiting.
Came the word: “There is a problem!”
Mary told her son to help them.
“What is this to me?” he asked her;
but to servants she was speaking.

“There is no wine
for the feast.
Do as he says, no hesitation.”
Empty vessels standing there
for the rites of purification.
“Fill them,” he says, “with plain water;
and then draw some for the steward.”
“What is this now?” asks the steward,
“Finest wine in the nation!”

Blessed Mary,
Virgin pure,
Mother of God, you knew that even
that your Jesus was the Christ;
that he was the High King of Heaven.
But did you know he would become
the free way for us to our home?
Through baptism buried with him,
we, too, shall all be risen!

O Lord Jesus,
glorious King,
holy savior who bore the Thorn Crown,
you were beaten, crucified,
killed, and buried, layed in the cold ground.
In fulfillment of the promise,
you broke the bars closed against us.
With your own blood you have freed us!
Death is conquered! Life is newfound!

Your own Body
and your Blood
give us sinners true liberation;
Bread of Heaven, Blessed Cup,
holy table, feast of salvation.
Giving blessings beyond measure;
wedding banquet, splendid treasure.
At the marriage feast of the Lamb,
we are God’s new creation!

For those interest in the hymn as Gaeilge, here is the Irish original:

Ag an bpósadh bhí i gCána bhí Rí na ngrás ann i bpearsain,
É féin is Muire Máthair, is nárbh áluinn í an bhainfheis?
Bhí cuideacht ós cionn chláir ann, agun fíon orra i n-easnamh,
‘S an t-uisge bhí h-árthaibh nár bh’áluinn é bhlaiseadh?

A Dhia dhíl, a Íosa, ‘s a Rí ghil na cruinne,
D’iomchuir an choróin spíne is iodhbairt na Croise,
A stolladh is a straoilleadh idir dhaoinibh gan cumann,
Na glasa do sgaoilis, a d’iadhadh n’ár gcoinnibh.

Is ró-bhreágh an stór tá ag Rígh na glóire dúinn i dtaisge,
A chuid fola agus feóla mar lón do na peacaigh’.
Ná cuirigidh bhur ndóchas i n-ór bhuidhe nó i rachmas
Mar is bréagán mar cheó é, seachas glóire na bhFlaitheas.

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

Traditional Biblical Marriage: Say What!? – From the Daily Office – August 9, 2012

August 9, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From John’s Gospel:

Now Gideon had seventy sons, his own offspring, for he had many wives. His concubine who was in Shechem also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech. Then Gideon son of Joash died at a good old age, and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash at Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Judges 8:30-32 – August 9, 2012)

Wedding RingsOK. I know I shouldn’t get into this . . . I know that someone is going to give me a hard time; I can almost predict that someone will tell me they are planning to “leave the church” over this. But here goes.

I am sick and tired of hearing the words “traditional biblical marriage” bandied about by those who oppose the legal and religious recognition of the committed relationships of same-sex couples. Absolutely fed up with it. Because there is no such thing! Read these three verses from the Book of Judges slowly and carefully because they describe the marriage (or should one say marriages . . . or perhaps “sexual relations”) of one of the greatest heroes of the Bible. And what they describe is a far cry from what the proponents of so-called “traditional biblical marriage” think they are talking about about; Gideon was very definitely not in a “one man, one woman” marriage. The text doesn’t tell us how many wives he had, but with seventy sons I would estimated that he had at least fifteen if not a lot more! And he had at least one concubine! It’s entirely possible that he married his wives as part of some political arrangement with their families or tribes, and that it was his concubine who was his actual love interest.

I need not rehearse here the variety of marital arrangements one finds in the Holy Scriptures. Esther J. Hamori, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Union Theological Seminary has already done a superb job of that in an article for the Huffington Post, Biblical Standards for Marriage. Suffice to say that there are all sorts of culturally conditioned settlements . . . and that’s the significant point, “culturally conditioned”. Our Bible does not and never has set down one sort of standard (for interpersonal relationships or for most other things) that is immutable and permanent; the Bible is a collection of stories of changing norms of behavior stretching over centuries. These changeable and changing behavioral norms may be grounded in a set of ethical or religious principles, but they adapt as cultures and conditions change.

I should also note, but will not dwell upon, the history of marriage (or “matrimony”) as a sacrament of the church. It wasn’t one for about the first millennium of the Christian era! The church wasn’t involved in overseeing marriages at all, but as the clergy became society’s record-keepers, and as the rising post-Empire royalty and aristocracy needed some control on the descent of property and titles, the church became involved. Initially it was only as record-keepers, but then ceremonies and rituals were devised and then, eventually, someone began theologizing about the marital estate and the church’s role in helping it be contracted . . . and, before you know it, Voila! It’s a Sacrament . . . and it’s “always” been one. And, of course, it is now incumbent upon all of society, not just the upper crust, to have church-approved marriages.

We live in a different world from Gideon, so fifteen wives and one or more concubines probably probably would not be an acceptable (or practical) living arrangement for a modern man. We live in a different world from medieval Europe. Marriage is no longer (usually) a political arrangement as it generally was in both those times; today, our concept of marriage honors the emotional attachment of the parties. Today, we know that that emotional attachment, that affective attraction is not universally a heterosexual one; we know that some definite percentage of the human species is affectively attracted to members of their same sex. We know that this is not a deviation from the norm; it is the norm. And knowing that, our culture is changing and the culturally conditioned normative behavior of marriage is changing with it.

The task ahead for religious people is not to insist upon enforcing as unchangeable the cultural norms of a long-departed world like Gideon’s. The task is, rather, to re-apply the underlying ethical and religious principles to our new situation. For Christians, this means looking to the two greatest commandments as stated by Jesus: Love God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. (Matt. 22:37-40) Given that, how can we not re-assess our understanding of marriage? How can we not extend our blessing to the committed relationships of same-sex couples? How can we not give up some false notion of “traditional biblical marriage” and instead embrace Christ’s ethic of loving God and loving our neighbor?

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

God-Talk By Any Name – From the Daily Office – August 8, 2012

August 8, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From John’s Gospel:

John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 1:32-34 – August 8, 2012)

I Love Theology T-shirtThe word appears twice in these three verses: testify. According to the dictionary it means to make a public declaration of belief, a statement of faith, an affirmation of fact. I wonder how many church members ever “testify” during the normal course of their daily lives. Not many, would be my guess. In fact, my initial response to my own question is “Damn few!” Members of the Episcopal Church are admittedly reticent to talk about religion, theirs or anyone elses.

We do not have a time during our worship when personal testimony is encouraged or invited. Since the earliest days of its existence, the Christian church has ritualized testifying by incorporating a corporate statement of faith, the Nicene Creed or the Apostle’s Creed, into the its liturgy. While this has had the salutary effect of unifying the church around a single set of understandings of God, it has also gotten Christians out of the habit of talking about God and faith in their own words; in other words, it has encouraged us to not testify.

The great re-awakenings of faith seem always to have started when someone started doing just that – talking about God. Giving up on the ritual, they simply gave utterance to the important questions in their lives and how God had helped or was helping or ought to help answer them. Martin Luther nailed his questions to a chapel door; John Wesley preached about his questions and answers in country fields; Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield held emotional revivals encouraging others to talk about faith. Talking about God, that’s all they were doing.

There’s another word for that, by the way – theology – from two Greek words, theos and logos, god and word – words about God, theology, testifying; it’s all the same thing. People who testify, who talk about God in their lives, are simply doing theology.

I’ve a friend who thinks we need to change our worship to add a time for personal testimony, but I’m not convinced. If talking about God in church worked, it would already have worked because we talk about God a lot in church. Adding or taking away from what we do in church isn’t the answer. There are already plenty of churches doing that; it’s not our tradition and not our style and if we tried to do it, it wouldn’t be authentic. We should do what we do, but do it with greater integrity and better quality.

In The Church Creative: How To Be a Creative Gathering in the 21st Century, John C. O’Keefe makes the point that the answer to the question of increasing religious activity is not adding glitz to worship, the answer is reimagining God’s role in our lives – the answer is talking about God outside of church in everyday life.

When we think in terms of creativity and productive solutions we need to go beyond just hanging cool pictures, listening to different music, showing movie clips, developing a catchy sermon series, or using flood lights and fog machines in worship. It means we see things in a different way; we view life and issues we face from multiple directions and learn to re-imagine, rethink. (The Church Creative, page 186.)

We need to hear more people in more situations saying, “I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.” We need more God-talk by whatever name we call it.

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Father Funston in the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio. (Fr. Funston has no commercial interest in or connection to Zazzle or the I-Heart-Theology T-shirt; the link is provided simply to acknowledge the origin of the graphic.)

Missing Millennials – From the Daily Office – August 7, 2012

August 7, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From the Psalms:

He gave his decrees to Jacob
and established a law for Israel, *
which he commanded them to teach their children;
That the generations to come might know,
and the children yet unborn; *
that they in their turn might tell it to their children;
So that they might put their trust in God, *
and not forget the deeds of God,
but keep his commandments.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalms 78:5-7 (1979 BCP Version) – August 7, 2012)

Just a few days ago the Public Religion Research Institute issued a new report entitled A Generation in Transition: Religion, Values, and Politics among College-Age Millennials. A “millennial” is somone currently 18 to 24 years of age, the youngest cohort of adults. (From my point of view at nearly 60 years of age these are children; my son and daughter are both older than this group!) According to the report, these young adults are more likely then the general population to be religiously unaffiliated; one-quarter of them so identify themselves. Interestingly, most of those who do so were reared in religiously affiliated households. The greatest movement away from religious affiliation was seen among those raised in Catholic and white mainline Protestant families. It would appear that we have not been doing a very good job of teaching our children “that they in their turn might tell it to their children”!

Exactly what the causes of this movement are is anyone’s guess. A lot of author’s have made suggestions. Ross Douthat in his recent book Bad Religion blames it on the churches’ movement away from conservative dogma toward a liberal agenda. Diana Butler Bass in Christianity After Religion, on the other hand, suggests a failure of religious institutions to continue an awakening begun in the mid-20th century, falling instead into a reactive fundamentalism reinforcing conservative dogma in the last quarter of the century. Local pastors give anecdotal evidence of parishioners drifting away from Sunday church services to other alternatives including youth soccer and little league, major league sports offerings, Sunday morning TV programs, or spending the morning with the New York Times; they say American families have become “over programmed” and have relegated religion to the hopper of optional activities. Everybody has a different story to tell about what’s gone wrong with American religion; everybody has a different story to tell about how someone else has gotten it wrong.

I don’t know which of these and many other suggestions is most accurate, which story truly tells the tale of the American church. I suspect that to some extent they are all correct and that for every person, millennial or older, who has left “organized religion” behind there is a mix of stories reinforcing one another. And what this means for the church is that the answer to attracting the millennials is not going to be a single program, a single style of worship, a single ministry style, a single outreach, a single anything. There is no silver bullet, no quick and easy answer.

I nearly wrote “attracting the millennials back” in that last paragraph and then stopped myself, because a lot them were never here in the church to begin with. They represent a new mission field, not a lost membership group. They claim to be “spiritual but not religious” because, truly, they’ve never been a part of religion. They may be spiritual; all human beings are if St. Augustine of Hippo was right that “our hearts are restless till they find their rest in” God. If we in the church are to attract them to a religious expression of that spirituality, it is going to take hard work, time, and most of all its going to take integrity.

The past half-century has seen the church lose its integrity. Various parts of the church have taken up competing political and societal positions, so that the church has fractured even beyond the denominational divides of the Reformation. Instead of focusing upon the core values and teachings of the undivided church, we have taken up social causes that, though important, have divided us. Each faction seems to be telling a different story, so that the church can no longer claim (as it once could despite denominational differences) to be one. Because of the differing stories, the church can no longer lay claim to a unity based on shared moral and ethical principles. The church needs to recover that, to stop fighting with itself, to stop telling these contradictory stories.

If we could just do that, we’d be a much more attractive venue where the millennials (and everyone) could explore the spirituality they claim and clearly have. Just that . . . if we could just stop the internal bickering and fighting, stop telling stories about each other and, instead, tell stories of God. Wouldn’t that be novel?

Well, no . . . as the psalm suggests, it’s an idea that’s been around for a few years. “He commanded them to teach their children, so that they might put their trust in God, and not forget the deeds of God.”

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

God, Words, Responsibility – From the Daily Office – August 6, 2012

August 6, 2012 / / 4 Comments

John’s Gospel begins:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 1:1-5 – August 6, 2012)

Pulpit, Exeter CathdralReading these oh-so-familiar words in the introduction to John’s Gospel, I remember other words I read on another blog yesterday:

If the Church was meeting the deepest needs and yearnings of spiritual people, it would be a priority in their lives. But it is not, and it chooses to ignore everything except the obvious. Evelyn Underhill, the great Anglican mystic of the early 20th century, said that the “only really interesting thing about religion is God.” People aren’t staying away from the Church to play football or shop – they’re staying away because they aren’t finding God. (Do Anglican Churches Really Want to Survive?)

Reading those words I felt like I’d been gut punched, knifed, shot in the head. Not because they are wrong, but because I fear they are probably right, and I wonder what I and my fellow clergy have been doing for the past several decades.

Well, that’s not exactly true. When I read those words I didn’t wonder about other clergy at all . . . I just wondered about me. What have I been doing? Worship in the Episcopal Church takes the effort of lots of people – musicians, choir singers, lay assistants who read lessons, lead prayers, and help at the altar, sacristans who set things up and clean them up after its all done, ushers, greeters, and so forth . . . but it is the priest who designs the liturgy within the broad outlines of The Book of Common prayer, who presides at the altar, and who stands in the pulpit preaching the word. In 22 years of ordained ministry, I’ve done all of that and said a lot of words . . . a lot of words! If in what is happening on Sunday people are not finding God, it is in large part the priest’s responsibility, my responsibility.

Not solely the priest’s, by any means, but in large measure. Especially in a church which follows the catholic tradition of Holy Orders as sacramental and, by its rubrics and canons, makes the parish priest the final arbiter of all worship experiences. Yes, one could recruit and work with a worship committee, and yes, one does work with the musician and all those good volunteers, but in the final analysis, as our canons put it, the senior pastor has “full authority and responsibility for the conduct of the worship and the spiritual jurisdiction of the Parish.” There is even a canon declaring that, in regard to worship, the ordained minister in charge of a congregation, “shall have final authority in the administration of matters pertaining to music.” So I say again, if in what is happening on Sunday people are not finding God, it is in large part the priest’s responsibility.

In 22 years of ordained ministry I’ve said a lot of words, sung a lot of words, heard a lot of words, quoted a lot of words. I hope that God was in some of them.

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

Carb Loading on Jesus – From the Daily Office – August 5, 2012

August 5, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Judges:

Gideon went into his house and prepared a kid, and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour; the meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the oak and presented them. The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that it was the angel of the Lord; and Gideon said, “Help me, Lord God! For I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you; do not fear, you shall not die.” Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it, The Lord is peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Judges 6:19-24 – August 5, 2012)

It is intriguing how often in stories of Holy Scripture food plays a role. From the “apple” in the Garden, to Abraham offering a meal of cakes and meat to the three men (who turn out to God) at the Oaks of Mamre, to this story of Gideon, to David and his men eating the Bread of the Presence, to all the food items listed as items of sacrifice in Leviticus, the Old Testament (indeed, the whole Bible) is food focused. The People of God define themselves through the annual reenactment of a ritual meal celebrating the Passover; the new People of God define themselves (in my tradition and others) by the weekly reenactment of a ritual meal celebrating the death and Resurrection of Christ and anticipating his return. It’s intriguing but not surprising. The Jewish and Christian faiths are not, in the long run, about following rules of ritual or moral conduct; they are about being in an intimate relationship with that which is the source of being, that which we call “God” and address as “Father” or brother or redeemer. And, other than sex, there is probably no more intimate activity two or more people can share than eating together.

Today the gospel lesson for the Eucharist is from John’s lengthy “treatise on bread” section in which Jesus describes himself as the “bread of life,” an image which continues this focus on food. (John 6:24-35) My son Patrick was our guest preacher this morning; he extemporized a sermon around bread as a carbohydrate food. He called to mind the practice of long-distance competitive runners, the folks who run marathons and compete in triathlons, to “carb load”, involves greatly increasing the amount of carbohydrates you eat several days before a high-intensity endurance athletic event. The purpose is to increase the level of glycogen stored in one’s muscles. Usually, only enough glycogen to sustain 60-90 minutes of physical activity is stored, but through carbohydrate loading an athlete, particularly male athletes, can often double the glycogen in their systems.

Noting that the church is in a dynamic period of change, figuring out how it will minister in a new century in a radically different social context, Patrick suggested the period ahead of us is going to be like running a marathon. In the past, the church has been like a sprinter, dashing along quickly with this new program and then dashing again with another new program. But now, the long, hard sustained work of reimagining and restructuring for a new ministry paradigm requires that we “carb load” on the bread of life, Jesus our Lord. Only he can provide the life energy the church needs at this time in its existence.

As I listened to him preach, I thought of this Daily Office lesson and how Gideon’s altar is said to stand “to this day.” I firmly believe that the church will stand, in one way or another, through the years to come. It may not be very much like the church of my youth, or the church in which I currently minister. The era of the parish church, of the congregation with a dedicated single-purpose building, of the local church with a full-time paid priest may be coming to an end, but in some form or another the church will stand. It will endure. It will “run the race that set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,” (Heb. 12:1-1) the bread of life which sustains us.

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

Raunchy, Glorious Hope – From the Daily Office – August 4, 2012

August 4, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Judges:

Most blessed of women be Jael,
the wife of Heber the Kenite,
of tent-dwelling women most blessed.
He asked water and she gave him milk,
she brought him curds in a lordly bowl.
She put her hand to the tent-peg
and her right hand to the workmen’s mallet;
she struck Sisera a blow,
she crushed his head,
she shattered and pierced his temple.
He sank, he fell,
he lay still at her feet;
at her feet he sank, he fell;
where he sank, there he fell dead.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary. – Judge 5:24-27 – August 4, 2012)

Jael and Sisera by Artemisia Gentileschi (1620)“Most blessed” be a murderess? What is this? Yesterday, a friend and colleague who was only a little older than I am passed away after several months of pancreatic cancer, so I’m a little sensitive on the subject of death this morning. So, really! What is this?

This is part of the song sung by the judge Deborah and Barak, whom she had made commander of the Israelite forces, as they celebrated victory over King Jabin of Hazor’s Canaanite forces of whom Sisera was the commander. I think folks can be surprised and somewhat taken aback by how bloodthirsty some of our Holy Scriptures are, how much death there really is in the Bible.

We never read these parts in church on a Sunday, even if Morning Prayer is used for the main service of the day (a rarity among Episcopalians now that the Eucharist has taken a central place in our worship). These bloody, violent bits of the story are not found in either the Sunday Eucharistic lectionary nor the Sunday readings for the Daily Office. As a result, tent pegs driven into skulls, she-bears tearing apart children (2 Kings 2:23-24), and babies being dashed against rocks (Psalm 137:9), biblical images of violent, bloody death seldom, if ever, enter the perceptions of church-goers. About the most violent we ever get in church is wreaking vengeance on the nations, binding their kings in chains, and putting their nobles in irons. (Psalm 149:7-8, Proper 18 in Year A and All Saints Day in Year C)

What we have on Sundays is a whitewashed and sanitized religion, cleaned of its gorier, more violent, deadly images – except, of course, the scourging and crucifixion of Christ, but that was done by others, the Romans and the Temple authorities, not by the “good” people. We never learn that “blessed” Jael drove a tent peg into Sisera’s skull, or that the “man of God” Elisha was protected from children’s taunts by wild bears, or that God’s People who batter infants to death are “happy”. Maybe if we did, maybe if these serious images of violence and death were more widely known, these gruesome reminders of how the brutalities of life can also be part of God’s plan for the world (or at least of God’s people’s life in the world), perhaps then religion would not be considered the “fantasy” many think it is, the “pie in the sky by-and-by” irrelevancy some believe it to be.

The religion of the God of Israel is, as the late Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple famously remarked, “the most materialistic religion in the world.” He meant that Christians (and Jews) believe more about matter, believe more positively about matter, and do more with matter than do the devotees of any other religious systems. But beyond that the religions of the Bible face the fact of the dirtiness of life, the downright violent filth of it, and assert that even from that can good come. And if something good can come from the deaths of children torn apart by murderous animals or of infants bashed against rocks by battle-enraged warriors, then perhaps something good can come from the crap, the utterly awful shit that happens in every human life. That, at its raunchiest, basest worst, is the glorious hope present in biblical faith, that even from the very worst of human suffering something good, something happy, something blessed can come. Thanks be to God!

May my friend and colleague Kelly (who I know has been greeted with those welcome words, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”) rest in peace and rise in glory!

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

How Is It We Hear? – From the Daily Office – August 3, 2012

August 3, 2012 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Acts:

“How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs – in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 2:8-11 – August 3, 2012)

These are the words spoken by the great crowd of Jews and others who thronged the streets of Jerusalem for the Festival of Shavu’ot when the Twelve, empowered by the Holy Spirit, begin to tell the story of Jesus in languages they had never before spoken. Shavu’ot is a celebration with both agricultural and historical significance in Judaism. It is known as the “festival of the first fruits,” a harvest feast when the first fruits were brought as offerings to the Temple; it is also known as the “festival of the giving of the Law,” a celebration of the handing down of Torah on Mt. Sinai. It was called Pentecost, a Greek word meaning “fiftieth”, because it always falls on the fiftieth day after the Passover. That year it fell on the fiftieth day after the Resurrection and, thus, the Christian feast of the Holy Spirit carries that name, as well.

Twenty centuries later, the Jews still celebrate Shavu’ot and Christians still celebrate Pentecost, but what a different world we inhabit. Can we still find meaning in the notion of offering the first fruits to God? Does the giving the Law still have significance? And what of all those languages and the Apostles’ unprecedented immediate linguistic skill?

For us North American Christians an agricultural feast seems a distant and remote idyllic pastoral fantasy. We are no longer connected to the land. Our culture has moved away from an agrarian basis, through the industrial revolution, even beyond a manufacturing basis; we now live in what is being called a “service economy”. We no longer generally produce anything tangible! What are the “first fruits” of non-productive labor in a service economy? It just boils down to money, I guess.

And what about the myth (a word I use with no disrespect intended and with no suggestion that the story’s point is untrue) of God giving the stone tablets to Moses? In a time when that Law has been largely set aside by Christians and even many Jews – in a time when most people have separated the secular civil laws of everyday life from religious observance and custom – in a time when we conceive of the law as something made (“like sausage”) by a group of bickering, nasty, polarized, do-nothing elected officials – in such a time, how are we to give thanks for “the law”? Do we even want to?

Which leaves me to ponder that gift of languages? There are still plenty of them and there are more, in a sense, than ever before; even as actual, spoken tongues die out for lack of use, new means of communication arise – emoticons and email abbreviations have birthed tweets and hashtags – Facebook and LinkedIn and their ilk are the new “crowded streets” – night-time Twitter conversations are held by church people discussing ways “social media” can be used to spread the Gospel – tongues of flame seem to dance on computer monitors and laptops, on tablets and smartphones.

How is it we hear? How is it we understand? How is it we grasp the ancient truths of receiving the Law, the offering the first fruits, experiencing God’s deed of power? I’ve no doubt that hearing and understanding and comprehension are going on . . . but I often wonder if the church (the institution, not the people) is playing any part in that process of communication and comprehension. I hope and pray the Holy Spirit will alight upon us all and give us the gifts we need to do so, so that all may hear and understand in whatever “language” they best comprehend.

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

Ordained Ministry: The Full Inclusion of Women – From the Daily Office – August 2, 2012

August 2, 2012 / / 1 Comment

From the Book of Judges:

At that time Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the Israelites came up to her for judgement.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Judges 4:4-5 – August 2, 2012)

So . . . how is it (would someone please explain to me) that people have a problem with women in leadership roles in religious communities? Say, for example, as presbyters or bishops in the church? Today’s Daily Office reading is but one example of women in the Holy Scriptures exercising leadership among God’s People. If Deborah could be a prophetess and a judge over Israel, what is it that prevents a woman from being a priest and an overseer over the church?

Ordination of the Philadelphia ElevenThis past Sunday, the Episcopal Church marked the 28th anniversary of the women known as “the Philadelphia Eleven” who were ordained on July 29, 1974. Four retired bishops (Daniel Corrigan, Robert DeWitt, Edward Welles and George Barrett) chose to defy the General Convention of the Episcopal Church which, at its regular triennial meeting in 1973, had voted against opening the priesthood to women; women were already eligible for ordination as deacons. Joined by male presbyters who supported them and the candidates, they ordained eleven women deacons to the priesthood: Merrill Bittner, Alla Bozarth-Campbell, Alison Cheek, Emily Hewitt, Carter Heyward, Suzanne Hiatt, Marie Moorefield Fleisher, Jeannette Piccard, Betty Bone Schiess, Katrina Martha Swanson, and Nancy Hatch Wittig. Shortly thereafter, four additional women were also “irregularly” ordained: Eleanor Lee McGee, Alison Palmer, Betty Powell, and Diane Tickell. A firestorm of controversy erupted in the church: charges were filed against these dissident bishops (Daniel Corrigan, Robert DeWitt, Edward Welles and George Barrett) and an emergency meeting of the Episcopal House of Bishops was convened on August 15, 1974.

However, the “stained glass ceiling” had been shattered. The next meeting of the General Convention was held in September 1976, and a resolution to change the church’s canon law to allow the ordination of women for all three orders of ministry (bishop, priest, and deacon) was adopted. Since then women’s ordained ministry has been recognized not only in the Episcopal Church but in several provinces of the Anglican Communion and has proven a great blessing to the Church.

The Rev. Florence Li Tim-OiThese women were not the first to be ordained to the Anglican priesthood, however. During the Second World War, Florence Li Tim-Oi was ordained to the presbyterate on January 25, 1944, by the Rt. Rev. Ronald Hall, Bishop of Hong Kong, in response to the crisis among Anglican Christians in China caused by the Japanese invasion. No male clergy could be found who were willing to take on the onerous ministry, but Ms. Li was, so she was ordained and served with distinction. After the war, the Archbishop of Canterbury sought to make the bishop and the priest rescind the ordination, but neither did. Ms. Li voluntarily ceased serving as a priest until more than 30 years later when she immigrated to Canada where the Anglican Church, following the Episcopal Church’s lead, had begun to ordain women. Her priesthood was recognized and she served as an honorary canon in Toronto, ministering among the immigrant Chinese population.

These women have stood in the footsteps of Deborah and other women described in Scripture (in both the Old and New Testaments) who led and served God’s People. The great women leaders of the Bible demonstrate, as do the fruits of ministry of these women and the many who followed them, I believe, that there is and should be no impediment to the full inclusion of women in all orders of the church’s ministry. I simply do not understand how anyone could believe otherwise.

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

“Magic and Superstition”? Not At All – From the Daily Office – August 1, 2012

August 1, 2012 / / 1 Comment

From the Acts of the Apostles:

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 1:6-11 – August 1, 2012)

Salvador Dali, Ascension of ChristHave you ever done that thing on a public street corner where a couple of people stand there looking up and pretty soon some passing pedestrian, wondering what they are gazing at, will stop and look up, and then another and then another and so on until a lot of people are looking up into the sky at nothing for no reason? I have an image of that in my mind when I read the this passage, although in this case the “men of Galilee” are not looking at nothing for no reason. They are looking at something they can no longer see, except in their minds’ eye, and it is certainly not “for no reason” that they are doing so. Something phenomenal has happened to them; someone they thought had been killed by the authorities had returned from the dead, had eaten with them, talked with them, appeared to them over the course of over seven weeks, and now he had “ascended into heaven.” They had plenty of reason to stand there staring into the sky into which he had apparently gone.

In the past few days, I read a critique of a recent gathering of “emergent church” leaders in which the author lambasted the presentations made there as fitting “very neatly into a 4th century church gathering.” He then went on to say that as a “progressive” Christian he rejected the notion that Christians “have to believe in the Trinity, incarnation, substitutionary death, literal physical resurrection/empty tomb, and imaginary Santa Claus in the clouds.” And he concluded saying that he is “very impatient with magic and superstition that passes for religion in the 21st century.”

I am left to wonder what of Christianity is left after rejecting very nearly every doctrine set forth in the Nicene and Apostle’s Creeds. One may agree with him about the substitutionary atonement theories of what occurred in Christ’s death and resurrection, and needless to say one thoroughly agrees that God is not an “imaginary Santa Claus in the clouds” – but I ask again, rejecting the other things in the list, what of Christianity is left? The men of Galilee clearly would have been looking up into the sky at nothing for no reason if this fellow is correct in his rejection of the “magic and superstition” that he apparently believes creedal and doctrinal Christianity to be.

But I don’t believe that it is that, at all! During the past couple of weeks, I have been re-reading the theology of Dorothy L. Sayers. In one of her essays entitled The Greatest Drama Ever Staged she tackles the assertion that the Christian story is “dull”. After briefly rehearsing (in her own inimitable style) the story of Jesus as related in the synoptic Gospels she writes:

So that is the outline of the official story – the tale if the time when God was the underdog and got beaten, when He submitted to the conditions He had laid down and became a man like the men He had made, and the men he had made broke Him and killed Him. This is the dogma which we find so dull – this terrifying drama of which God is the victim and hero.

If this is so dull, then what, in Heaven’s name, is worthy to be called exciting?

In another of her essays, Creed or Chaos?, she writes:

It is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality, unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology. It is a lie to say that dogma does not matter; it matters enormously. It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vague idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and uncompromising realism.

And here Ms. Sayers answers my question about the “progressive” Christian’s dismissal of the “magic and superstition” of dogma, of creed and doctrine; what is left is simply “a mode of feeling” and “a vague idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind.” What is left, in my opinion, is indeed dull and not worthy to be called religion!

It seems to me that gathering for “Christian” worship in such a context would be not too much different from standing on the street corner looking up at nothing. If you only thought of God as an imaginary Santa Claus in the clouds, and didn’t believe in the Incarnation or the Resurrection, what would you be looking to? And if someone joined you, what could you point them toward? No, the men of Galilee were not standing there staring up into the sky looking at nothing for no reason, and neither are we. They were staring in bemused amazement and wonder that they had been privileged to be in the company of the Creator of the Universe who had been pleased to call them and us “friends” and had given them and us the task of changing the world! And that is what our dogmas, our creeds, and our doctrines signify. They are not “magic and superstition”; they are, as Miss Sayers said, “first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe.”

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

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