From the Daily Office Readings
We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.
(2 Corinthians 4:7-10 – March 30, 2012)
I can’t read Paul’s words “treasure in clay jars” without thinking of this old Indian parable. ~ Once upon a time, there was a man who lived on a hillside high above the river. He had to fetch his water from the river every day. He did this with two large earthen jars slung from a yoke carried across his neck. The jars were heavy and it was a long path with many switchbacks down to the river, but the path was bordered by flowers and he didn’t mind the walk or the work at all. Both of the water jars were large and held several gallons, but there was a tiny crack in one so that the water would gradually leak out of that jar and splash on to the side on the path. The cracked jar was very sad that it lost half its water on the way back from the river each time. After many years the jar spoke to the man and apologized for being such a failure. “Why should you feel like that?” asked the man, ” I knew all about that crack; in fact, I made use of it.” “What do you mean?” asked the jar. “Well look,” he replied, “Do you see the flowers growing by the side of the path?” The jar looked and, sure enough, there were beautiful flowers growing all along the way. “Those flowers are there because I knew you had that small leak. I sowed some flower seeds along the side of the path and as I walked, the water leaking from your small crack watered them. For years now I’ve enjoyed those flowers as I walk, and I’ve been able to pick fresh flowers every day to decorate my home. I couldn’t have done that if you hadn’t watered them through that little crack. So, you see, I like you just the way you are. You are a very treasured water jar!” ~ Like the earthen jar carrying water, we carry in our cracked and faulty bodies the death of Jesus. And like the water that leaked from the jar, the life of Jesus flows out from us to accomplish his work in the world. This extraordinary power does not come from us, but we are the conduit (even and often when we don’t realize it). ~ As a preacher, I continue to relearn this each time someone refers to “something you said in a sermon”. I never remember my sermons! I look back on notes or scripted sermons from which I’ve preached and think, “Did I say that?” Apparently I did … and apparently it made a difference in someone’s life, watered some flowers along their path! So to preachers especially but to everyone, be assured – you are an earthen jar, probably a flawed one, carrying the death of Jesus in yourself that you may spread the life of Jesus to those around you, even though you may not realize it.
Threading a needle…. That used to be a simple task for me. I was very, very near-sighted. I could barely see a school bus twenty feet away without my pop-bottle-bottom spectacles. But I could thread a needle! I could do anything that required close-up detail work; I had marvelous up-close vision. Then one day in 1995 (I think it was 1995) my mother saw my glasses. “Good Heavens! Are your eyes that bad?” – “Yes, Mother, they always have been.” – “Why don’t you have that Lasik surgery?” – “Because I can’t afford it, Mother.” – “You get it done. I’ll pay for it.” ~ (Side comment: My mother was a depression child born in 1919. As a result of spending her formative pre-teen and teen years in the years of the Great Depression, she was one of the most tightfisted people I’ve ever known when it came to spending money on herself or her spouse, my step-father. She would not spend a dime on her own healthcare, even when she felt badly. But she was generous to a fault with her children, her grandchildren, her friends, and her church. If she’d been less generous to us and more generous to herself, she might still be alive. But that’s another story.) ~ So I talked with my ophthalmologist, who had earlier been quite negative about PK and RK and other forms of keratotomy, and he thought Lasik would be a good option. He referred me to a surgeon. A couple of weeks later, I was able to do everything without glasses … everything except thread a needle. Now I needed a pair of dime-store “cheaters” to do what had once been easy, and even though I squinted and used those magnifying lenses I had difficulty. Getting anything through the eye of a needle, much less a camel, is no mean task! ~ About thirty years before that surgery, I visited the Cathedral at Chartres on my first trip to Europe. I was 16 years old at the time. I walked the labyrinth there. Since that first time I’ve walked many replicas of that deceptively simple path and other forms of labyrinth. Threading one’s way through the labyrinthine path requires concentration (especially in a cathedral full of tourists, but really at any time, even when completely alone). It is a careful endeavor not unlike threading a needle; one might even say it is a soulful endeavor. ~ Perhaps the most famous labyrinth in history or myth is the one built on Crete to house the Minotaur. King Minos’s daughter Ariadne fell in love with Theseus, an Athenian who was to be a sacrificial victim of the Minotaur. She gave Theseus a ball of thread to unwind as he made his way through the labyrinth, which showed him the path to by which he could leave once he had done battle with the beast (assuming he killed it, which he did). It was her thread of love which helped Theseus thread his way through the labyrinth. ~ Our walk through a spiritual labyrinth is said represent our way through life. Victor Hugo once said, “He, who every morning plans the transactions of the day, and follows that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through a labyrinth of the most busy life.” I’m not so sure that’s true, however; plans are too often subject to change! Like the odd turnings of the Chartres labyrinth, we meet with obstacles which change our direction; when we seem to be headed for our goal, suddenly the way changes; even though we squint and use magnifying glasses, the way through is unclear. We may not be able to follow our plans and we may not see the way ahead, but we are threaded through the unexpected and unknown path of life if we trust and rely on God’s guidance. Like Ariadne’s thread of love, God’s love threads us through life’s labyrinthine ways. Following God’s guidance is a careful, soulful endeavor, but “with God all things are possible.”
Last Sunday the Year B Revised Common Lectionary for the 5th Sunday in Lent called for a reading from the Prophet Jeremiah which included these words from God, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” (Jer. 3:33) My son Patrick, who is a priest in Kansas, preached 
“They did not understand … and were afraid to ask him.” I had really hoped when I first studied this passage some years ago that the word afraid was really something like “reluctant” or “hesitant” in the original Greek of the New Testament. But, in fact, the Greek word is phobeo, the adjectival form of the word from which we get phobia in English; it really is afraid. In fact, the principal meaning of the word is to fear something to the extent of fleeing! Only secondarily does it mean the extend reverence, veneration, or respect to something or someone. I trust that Mark means the latter emotion, but I’m not sure. ~ I know there are times when I am in conversation with someone, often with several someones, and something will be said that I don’t fully understand. My usual tactic is not to ask, but rather to smile and nod, to try to look sage, and to hope that further comments will clarify things for me. I don’t want to look stupid, after all! Maybe that’s what Mark is suggesting, that the disciples were afraid of looking like idiots…. ~ Isn’t that nearly a universal feeling? Human beings just seemed predisposed to fear looking stupid; we don’t like being wrong; we don’t want to be embarrassed; we’re afraid of failure; we are constantly worried about what others think of us, especially those we respect. There is one word that describes this human condition: anxiety. ~ Paul wrote about anxiety to the Philippians: “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philip. 4:6-7) Paul makes it sound so simple, but even those who knew Jesus first-hand, who were with him day by day, found it hard to do. “They did not understand … and were afraid to ask him.” Don’t beat yourself up if you sometimes don’t understand. Don’t beat yourself up if you are sometimes anxious. But don’t be afraid to ask; make your requests known to God!
It was an extremely busy weekend. Our parish youth group held its Second Annual Homeless Awareness Sleep-Out with kids from several other parishes. Dozens of kids and adult chaperones slept in self-made cardboard shelters on the front lawn of the church to call attention to homelessness in our community. They raised more than $500 for Project Homes (our local shelter program) by “panhandling” on the town square. That was Saturday night.
This is the fifth and last Lenten sermon addressing a question posed by a parishioner and, in fact, I will try to answer succinctly two related questions that two parishioners asked. One was “What does the word catholic mean when we say it in the Nicene Creed?” and the other was “What do you (meaning me, Father Funston) mean when you describe the Episcopal Church as being ‘in the Catholic tradition’?” (If you could see the way I have typeset these sermon notes, you would see that I have capitalized the “C” in catholic in the second question, but not in the first. That’s an important point which I will address shortly. But let me start with a basic definition in answer to the first inquiry.
So here we are, the fugitive murderer is getting his commission to return to Egypt and speak truth to power, and he responds with a question probably every human being ever born has asked at least once, “Who am I that I should do this?” ~ A sense of inadequacy seems to inform Moses’ the question, “Who am I?” He’s been hiding out in Midian for forty years; he’s taken on a whole new identity as shepherd and husband and father. Now he is challenged by God’s commission to engage the deepening complexity of understanding himself. ~ It makes perfect sense for Moses to seek a deeper sense of himself in this situation. Whenever we are called to a new role in life it seems eminently prudent to become more aware of one’s thoughts, feelings, hopes, and fears, to take an inventory of one’s abilities, talents, skills, and knowledge. But just as the Moses who stands before the Burning Bush is not the same Moses who came to Midian as a fugitive from Egyptian justice, so the Moses who will confront Pharaoh and lead the Hebrews across the desert will not be the same Moses who is just now being commissioned by God. Human identity is an on-going process. The self constantly changes; it is perpetually being reframed, reorganized, rethought. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer once confronted this question in a poetic essay:
One candidate has been married three times and divorced twice (cheating on the first two spouses before each of those divorces). Another strapped his dog to the top of his car and drove several hundred miles while on vacation, and seems to change his position on everything depending on his audience. The incumbent was fathered by a Muslim foreigner, attended a church pastored by a fire-brand preacher, and worked as a (sinister stage whisper) community organizer. These incidents in and facts from their pasts are seen by many as disqualifiers, reasons they should not serve as the leader of their people. None of them, to my knowledge, killed a man and then hid the body like the guy in today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures. ~ I find it amusing the mental and exegetical gymnastics some commentators go through to excuse Moses this breach of the Sixth Commandment (“Thou shalt not kill”) which, of course, was yet to be given (probably the best defense Moses has, retroactive application of a law being frowned on in most civilized cultures). I believe the text saying that “he looked this way and that” describes a furtive looking about to make sure he wouldn’t be seen, but I’ve read commentaries suggesting that Moses was simply looking for a supervisor to come discipline the wayward Egyptian. There’s even a venerable midrash to that effect (see Midrash Exodus Rabbah 1:29). I’ve also heard a preacher suggest that Moses simply spoke to the Egyptian with a “voice of command” and the poor man died of fright! Seriously! My unspoken response to that homiletic assertion: “Yeah, right!” ~ Let’s read the text honestly. He made sure no one was watching; he killed a man; he hid the body. And then he ran away, holed up with the yokels in Midian, worked as a shepherd, married the boss’s daughter, and stayed there for 40 years! (As a fugitive, he puts Dr. Richard Kimble’s run to shame!) It’s then that he encounters the Burning Bush and is commissioned by God to liberate the Hebrew slaves from Egypt. A murdering fugitive who’s been on the run and in hiding for four decades is chosen by God to lead God’s People. ~ So what does this tell us about God, God’s choices in leadership, and our own processes for selecting of leaders? Does it not suggest that God forgives past foibles, even pretty serious ones, and sees potential in even the least likely of candidates? Does it not suggest that God is not simply forgiving but incredibly forgiving? ~ As I recall, many of us have memorized a prayer which, in its most modern interpretation, includes this petition: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” I’m not entirely convinced that a politician’s sexual pecadilloes and divorces, or another’s insensitivity to animals, or another’s aggressive social activism are sins against me (or all of us), but assuming they are, if we are honest in saying that prayer, shouldn’t we forgive them and move on? Now, I have to admit that I’m not good at this. I’m politically partisan and when some past sin of the other party’s candidate comes to light, I take inordinate delight; schadenfreude should by my middle name! But I am also aware that I need to work on getting rid of and passed this. I truly do believe that we should focus on our current leadership needs and not on potential candidates’ past mistakes, even as I find that personally difficult to do. I believe that because that’s what God, speaking from the Burning Bush, seems to have done with the fugitive murderer named Moses.
There’s a lot of talk of war these days, and I don’t mean about any on-going or planned military conflicts between sovereign states. Rather, harking back to at least the 1930s when FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover declared a “war on crime” and continuing in the 1960s when Pres. Lyndon Johnson declared a “war on poverty”, the war metaphor has been used again and again, officially and unofficially, until now it is ubiquitous! Pres. Nixon declared a “war on cancer” and another “war on drugs” (which Pres. Reagan later re-declared). Borrowing a phrase from philosopher William James, Pres. Carter called for the “moral equivalent of war” in dealing with the energy needs of the nation during the 1977 oil crisis. Pres. G.W. Bush declared the apparently still continuing “war on terrorism” (or “war on terror”; the exact name and nature of the enemy have never been clear). The so-called Christian Right has claimed for a few years that there’s been a “war on Christmas” being waged by the Left and now the Left is claiming that the Right is waging a “war on women” (or on women’s reproductive rights). Yesterday afternoon I happened to hear a discussion on NPR about the unfortunate killing of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida; in that conversation, one of the participants asserted that “there is a war on young, black men in this country.” ~ After Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot in January 2011, there was a hue-and-cry for the ratcheting back of the violence and violent imagery of political rhetoric; it was and remains largely ineffectual. But I believe the underlying thought of that call was valid and worthy of continued consideration; I believe we need to give up this talk of war, this reliance on a metaphor of violence. ~ And let’s be clear, that’s what any talk of a “war on something” is! War is defined as “open armed conflict between two or more parties, nations, or states.” Wars are declared by national leaders and fought by citizens, often by citizens with no personal stake in whatever the underlying dispute between their countries’ leaders might have been, citizens who will end up either dead or wounded (emotionally if not physically), citizens who may suffer the trauma of taking another’s life. So regardless of what we or our society or our political opponents may do apropos of Christmas or drugs or women’s rights or whatever, unless it involves the actual taking up of weapons and killing people in open conflict … it’s not war! ~ Today’s reading from Exodus relates Pharoah’s orders to kill the male Hebrew children. It’s a terrible story, but nowhere does scripture suggest that Pharoah was involved in a “war on the Hebrews.” The Psalmist today complains of “those who hate me without a cause” but does not complain that they are “warring” against him. In today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel, Peter opposes Jesus’ plan to go to Jerusalem, but Jesus does not accuse him of waging a “war” on that plan. This rhetoric of “war” is overused by our political leaders and pundits; those who use it do so because they think it is the only way to get the American people “fired up” about something. That “war talk” does rally the masses, but surely it is not the only way to accomplish that. Surely the thoughtful people of our country can be energized by something other than “going to war.” In that speech (and later essay) of William James from which Pres. Carter got his phrase, the philosopher asserts: “It would be simply preposterous if the only force that could work ideals of honor and standards of efficiency into English or American natures should be the fear of being killed by the Germans or the Japanese. Great indeed is Fear; but it is not, as our military enthusiasts believe and try to make us believe, the only stimulus known for awakening the higher ranges of men’s spiritual energy.” In that same essay, James also argued, “Strenuous honor and disinterestedness abound everywhere. Priests and medical men are in a fashion educated to it, and we should all feel some degree of its imperative if we were conscious of our work as an obligatory service to the state.” ~ It’s that sense of having an “obligatory service to the state” that seems lacking in our society. It is that sense of being a “body,” such as Paul describes, in which all the parts, all the members work for the good of the whole that is missing. The church is supposed to be the model for such an understanding of community, for a society in which love and cooperation are as energizing as the politicians and pundits believe talk of fear and war to be …. but are we? When people look at the church today, do they see a body where conflict is considered counterproductive, a body which functions through the good work of all its members? Although I hope so, I sort of doubt it. Until the church fulfills that role, I’m afraid we’ll keep hearing about a “war on this” and a “war on that.”
The lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures the past several days have been leading us through the story of Joseph who was sold into slavery by his brothers but rose to power in Egypt. This little bit is from the end of the story. I suppose it’s because I’ll be 60 years old this year that I’ve begun to ask myself questions like, “Where will I spend retirement?” and “Where will I be buried?” 60 really isn’t very old in today’s world, but in my family it’s a ripe old age. Although my paternal grandfather lived to be over 90, that hasn’t been so with the younger generations of the family tree. His oldest (of two sons), my uncle Scott died at 55 from cancer. My father died at 38 in a motor vehicle accident. My only sibling, my older brother, died of cancer at 49. So 60 looks pretty old. But age isn’t really what attracted me to this ending of Joseph’s story; rather, I’m intrigued by Joseph’s sense of place. ~ Of course, a sacred tie to land is part and parcel of the Hebrew story; I understand that. The thing is that I’ve never really felt such a tie to a place. I have sort of a tie to the whole state of Nevada – I was born in Las Vegas and lived there until I was 8, then returned at age 24 and stayed until age 41, but I have no particular attachment to Las Vegas. I realized when I was 37 and filling out a security clearance form that I’d had 36 addresses in those 37 years! Since then I’ve had six more. ~ I don’t have a single place where a significant number of family members are buried. My dad is buried in Las Vegas; my mother, in southern California; my brother, in southeastern Kansas. I don’t even know where my grandparents are buried. ~ So this reading in which Joseph insists an being returned in death to a special place, and in which his family actually swears to do so, somehow really strikes me today. I wish I really had the sense of place to which this scripture bears witness. A funny thing … as I think about this … the place where I have felt most at home is a place I’ve never really lived; it’s Ireland. I love that country, which I’ve been privileged now to visit four times for several weeks at a time, but I can’t really say that I have a “sense of place” about it in the way that Joseph had a sense about the promised land. My wife (I think) has that sense of place: her family roots are deep in northeastern Nevada. Her father still lives in the home he built 70 or so years ago, the home in which she grew up. She loves to return, and she can spend hours talking about her home town and region. ~ Buckminster Fuller once said, “The most important thing to teach your children is that the sun does not rise and set. It is the earth that revolves around the sun. Then teach them the concepts of North, South, East, and West, and that they relate to where they happen to be on the planet’s surface at that time. Everything else will follow.” I believe my spouse was better able than I to teach our children that sense of place, that tie “to where they happen to be on the planet’s surface.” They learned that lesson growing up in Kansas, where I served a parish for ten years and where I lived in one place for the longest single stretch in my life; thus, they are Kansans (even though my daughter now lives in Missouri). I’m glad they are; a tie to the land is important and it’s good they feel that tie. ~ Theologian and biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann has written, “Place is a space which has historical meanings, where some things have happened which are now remembered and which provide continuity and identity across generations. Place is space in which important words have been spoken which have established identity, defined vocation and envisioned destiny. Place is space in which vows have been exchanged, promises have been made, and demands have been issued. Place is indeed a protest against the unpromising pursuit of space. It is a declaration that our humanness cannot be found in escape, detachment, absence of commitment, and undefined freedom.” ~ I hope you have Joseph’s “sense of place” and feel the humanness that flows from it. Someday, perhaps, I may find my place.
