That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

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Neither Island nor Mist – From the Daily Office Lectionary

September 4, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Neither Island nor Mist

From the Daily Office Lectionary for Friday in the week of Proper 17, Year 1 (Pentecost 14, 2015)

James 4:14 ~ Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

I’m going to have to disagree with James. People are not mere “mists” (atmis is the Greek, also translated as “vapor”) which appear briefly then disappear. Our lives are more substantial than that and when we die we leave much more behind than does the fog.

In the past six days I have received notices of the deaths of four old friends: two clergy colleagues, one former law partner, and a former long-time parishioner. Although none of us had been in close contact for years (although the clergy had recently been my Facebook friends), they impacted my life and many others much more than a mist. My former partner and I did not separate on good terms and if you’d asked us if we were friends, despite our 15 year association in the law, I am certain the answer from either would have been “No.” Nonetheless, his death diminishes me as much as do the others. Their lives have touched mine much more substantially than would have a vapor.

Another Anglican priest expressed this much more eloquently than I can:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
(John Donne, Meditation 17, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions)

Neither island nor mist, but rather human beings of whom God is mindful and whom God seeks out, whom God has made “but little lower than the angels . . . with glory and honor,” and to whom God has given “mastery over the works of [God’s] hands.” (Ps 8:5-7)

You are neither island nor mist, and when you “vanish” the loss will be palpable. Be aware, therefore, of the lives you touch.

Compositional Amenities – From the Daily Office Lectionary

September 3, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Compositional Amenities

From the Daily Office Lectionary for Thursday in the week of Proper 17, Year 1 (Pentecost 14, 2015)

1 Kings 11:1-2 ~ King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the Israelites, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you; for they will surely incline your heart to follow their gods;” Solomon clung to these in love.

Today in a New York Times editorial I learned about “compositional amenities,” which the editorialist defined as “the comfort of a common religion and language, mutually shared traditions, and the minimization of cultural conflict.” Bingo! This pegs the concern of the Deuteronomic historians over Solomon’s many wives, as well as the comment made earlier in the First Book of Commons about his offering sacrifice and incense “at the high places,” that is at the places of worship dedicated to Canaanite (and other) gods. (1 Kings 3:3)

In fact, a good deal of the Law’s concern with marriage outside of tribal and clan boundaries, with dietary restrictions, and with other matters can be understood as concern with “compositional amenities.” So, too, can the histories of conquest with ascribe to God the command to thoroughly cleanse the Land of its former inhabitants, including not only all human beings but also all livestock. For example, in the story of Joshua’s victory over the city of Jericho, we are told that the Israelites “devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.” (Josh 6:21) Saul is ordered by Samuel (speaking on God’s behalf), “go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” (1 Sam 15:3)

Compositional amenities. It is a concept that explains much in the Hebrew Scriptures, as it explains much in modern social and political behavior. The editorialist used it to understand the supporters of certain American political candidates; the scholars he cited applied it to analysis of European attitudes toward immigration.

Jesus had something to say about “compositional amenities.” He told a story about a traveler who was mugged, left at the side of the road, and eventually aided by someone who overlooked “compositional amenities.” That one, said Jesus, was the victim’s neighbor. In other words, we are to abandon “compositional amenities.” Solomon obviously did! Yet more evidence of his wisdom.

An Egotistical Cabaña Boy – From the Daily Office Lectionary

September 1, 2015 / / 0 Comments

An Egotistical Cabaña Boy

From the Daily Office Lectionary for Tuesday in the week of Proper 17, Year 1 (Pentecost 14, 2015)

Psalm 36:1 ~ There is a voice of rebellion deep in the heart of the wicked; there is no fear of God before his eyes.

Earlier this week I listend to Krista Tippett on NPR interview Grace Lee Boggs. At the beginning of the interview, philosopher Boggs opined: “What is the difference between a revolution and a rebellion? … A rebellion is mainly an explosion of anger and revolution is a tremendous leap forward, a tremendous evolution in consciousness and responsibility, a new way of thinking.” I’m not, by any stretch, anywhere near as versed in philosophy as Dr. Boggs and I am loath to contradict so venerable a sage, but I think she’s wrong.

I don’t believe a rebellion is “an explosion of anger.” That, I think, would be a riot or a revolt. There may be a component of anger in rebellion, but I would posit that rebellion is an explosion of ego, even when rebellion involves a large group.

I suggest the Psalmist is wrong, too, though not in what he says. The Psalmist is wrong in what he implies, in the suggestion that the “voice of rebellion” is found only in the hearts of the wicked. I believe there is a “voice of rebellion” in the heart of every human being. The wicked give in to that voice; the righteous listen to another.

St. Augustine of Hippo wrote in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” In his Pensées, Blaise Pascal offered, “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?” This emptiness Pascal called an “infinite abyss [which] can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”

But human beings try to fill that “God-shaped hole,” as some have called it, with other things. Standing next to that hole “deep in the heart” of humankind is the ego, waiting like a cabaña boy to dive into the pool at a trendy upscale spa. The dive . . . that’s rebellion calling with its siren song to the cabaña boy of the human soul; the wicked answer that call and take the dive putting themselves, their egos, in the place of God.

Rebellion is not “an explosion of anger.” It’s the dive of an egotistical cabaña boy!

Silence, Morpheus! (Love in Old Age) – A Poem

September 1, 2015 / / 0 Comments

rumpled-bed

Silence, Morpheus! (Love in Old Age) – A Poem

It is not passionate, this companionship of ours.
Not often physical, but it is comfortable.
Shared solitude stretching for endless hours,
Lovingly, we languish in stillness amiable.

Eros once eagerly found our bed; Agape tended board.
Phileo, surely, has been with us, and Storge often hovered near.
Now old friends of passing ‘quaintance ‘casionally restored,
They, like us, relaxed in wonder, softly murmur, “Oh, my dear!”

There was another long ago, long before I knew your name;
Another whose heart I treasured, another body that I prayed
Would lay beside me in the dark and to my body would stake claim.
That other now is gone, departed; but you have never strayed.

Silence, Morpheus! Be gone, thou tempter with thy silken touch.
I want not thy former dreams! I have my love with whom I share so much.

By C. Eric Funston – 1 September 2015

Oh Come On Now! Really? – From the Daily Office Lectionary

August 31, 2015 / / 2 Comments

O Come On Now! Really?

From the Daily Office Lectionary for Monday in the week of Proper 17, Year 1 (Pentecost 14, 2015)

2 Chron. 7:5 ~ King Solomon offered as a sacrifice twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep.

The writer (or writers or editors or redactors or whomever) of the Second Book of Chronicles includes this hyperbolic detail in the account of King Solomon’s dedication of the Temple in one of the many verses of Scripture that just make me cringe. It’s not the death of so many innocent animals that does so because, frankly, I don’t think it’s true. It’s the fact that I don’t think it’s true, that I just want to roll my eyes and say, “Oh come on now! Really?”

There is plenty of fiction in the Bible already. The whole creation myth (both of them, although the first one – which is probably the more “modern” of the two being more sophisticated – has more the sense of theological poetry than of mythology) are clearly not meant to be taken as factual despite the fact that there are plenty of literalist Bible readers who do take them as such. Esther and Ruth are probably fiction; Joshua, Job, and Jonah are certainly fiction. There’s nothing wrong with faction in Holy Scripture. Fiction, poetry, lover letters, metaphoric prophecy can all convey truth; the testimony of truth isn’t limited to facts. The writers of history, however, really don’t need to add exaggerated details which detract from their message.

I have several Palestinian Muslim friends who, because of details like this, argue that the entire claim of the Jewish people to what the Muslim’s call the Haram al-Sharif (“the Noble Sanctuary”), which the Jews call Har HaBáyit (“the Temple Mount”) is entirely invented. They believe it to be a fiction, in spite of the fact that there is archeological evidence for at least the Second Temple if not Solomon’s structure. This is the very problem with hyperbolic exaggeration in the histories; they make them unbelievable.

And there are plenty of such details. So what are we to do with them. The literalists claim, with some justification, that as soon as one starts claiming some part of the Scriptures are not factual it’s a “slippery slope” to concluding that the entire library of the Bible is untrue. The Bible, however, is not an either-or, black-and-white, take-it-or-leave-it thing! At one end of a spectrum of understanding is the literalist position that everything in it is factually accurate; at the other end is the conclusion that nothing in it is true. One encounters error at either extreme. Somewhere in the middle, recognizing the variety of genres the Bible incorporates and that its authors and editors had differing agendas at differing times, is the truth.

Determining that truth is an act of discernment, of critical, educated, willing-to-be-wrong, open-to-mystery, and accepting-of-ambiguity discernment. That’s a tough thing to do and that’s why being in that somewhere-in-the-middle place is often uncomfortable, often a place where one cringes and moans, “Oh come on now! Really?”

Turn, Turn, Turn: Sermon for Pentecost 14 (Proper 17B) — 30 August 2015

August 29, 2015 / / 0 Comments

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A sermon offered on Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 17B, Track 1, RCL), August 30, 2015, to the people of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day are Ecclesiastes 3:1-15; Psalm 15; James 1:17-27; and Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23. The Ecclesiastes lesson may be found in the Oremus Bible Browser; the others may be found at The Lectionary Page.)

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Clock face and calendar composite“This is neither the time nor the place . . . .”

Have you ever heard anyone say that? My mother and her mother were very fond of that saying. If you were doing something they didn’t approve of, that was the sure fire way to stop it. If you were asking something they didn’t want to answer, that was the answer you got. If you wanted to discuss something they didn’t want to talk about, that put an end to the conversation.

“This is neither the time nor the place . . . .” (I learned very early on that, in my mother’s and grandmother’s estimation, there were somethings that never had a time or a place!)

Three weeks ago, you may recall, we heard part of the story of the rebellion of King David’s son Absalom who had set himself up as a rival king leading to a civil war in ancient Israel. At the beginning of the Proper 14 reading from the Second Book of Samuel, David is sending out his army and giving instructions to his generals: “The king, David, ordered Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying, ‘Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.’” (2 Sam 18:5) But Joab fails to follow the king’s orders and Joab’s armor bearers kill Absalom. As the army is returning to Jerusalem, a Cushite messenger runs ahead and informs the king of his son’s death and, at the end of that reading, we are told:

The king was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as he went, he said, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Sam 18:33)

What we did not read on that Sunday but were given to read this year in our Daily Office lessons is Joab’s rebuke of the king for his mourning. You see, when his soldiers returned they found their king weeping and so, says the writer of Second Samuel, “the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the troops.” (2 Sam 19:2) Joab tells the king “you have covered with shame the faces of all your officers who have saved your life . . . . You have made it clear today that commanders and officers are nothing to you.” (vv. 5-6) He tells David to “go out at once and speak kindly to your servants; for I swear by the Lord, if you do not go, not a man will stay with you this night; and this will be worse for you than any disaster that has come upon you from your youth until now.” (v. 7)

In other words, what Joab says to David is, “This is neither the time nor the place . . . .”

So David did what Joab advised him and nowhere again do we read about him mourning the death of his son. But I have a feeling that David was left to wonder, “If that wasn’t the time, when is it? If that wasn’t the place, where is it? When is the time to mourn the death of one’s child?”

There must be one because elsewhere in Scripture, in the Book of Ecclesiastes, we are told:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: . . . a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance . . . . (Eccl. 3:1,4)

When is the time to weep and mourn the death of one’s child? When is the time to shake one’s fist at reality and exclaim, “It isn’t supposed to be this way! Parents are not supposed to outlive their children!?”

I don’t know the answer to a lot of questions I get asked as a priest, but I do know the answer to that one as I have lived with it most of my life. Both my father and his only brother died before their parents, my grandparents. My only brother died before our mother. I know that the answer to that question is, “All the time and any time.” Oh, one doesn’t cry and carry on every minute of every day, and though pain of loss is never gone it’s not always present, either. One gets on with life, like King David did because as Qoheleth the Preacher (as the author of Ecclesiastes is called) says, there is also a time to laugh and a time to dance and times for all those other things that make up our lives.

Today, we will formally accept and dedicate gifts from two of our parish families who, like my mother and my grandparents, have lived through the loss of their children in whose memory these gifts are given. Susan and Paul _________ have given us a new set of green vestments and hangings in memory of Susan’s son Paul who died of cancer; Nancy and Michael ____________ have given us our new piano in memory of their son Colin who was lost to an immune-deficiency disorder. We are grateful to them for their generosity and hope that, in some way, their ability to make these gifts in memory of their sons eases their weeping and pours some small amount of the oil of joy onto their mourning.

The reading from Ecclesiastes which we heard to as our Old Testament lesson this morning is not the reading prescribed by the Lectionary. I chose to deviate from the Lectionary and use this text for a couple of reasons. One of which will become clear in a bit, but mostly I chose it because several years ago, Evelyn and I had the great misfortune to attend the funeral of a 6th Grade boy who had accidentally killed himself with his father’s handgun. He was a school friend and fellow Boy Scout of our son. The preacher at the funeral used this text, or really I should say “misused this text,” to deliver the message that the boy’s death was “God’s will and we just have to accept it.” I cannot tell you how angry that sermon made me. Death of a child by whatever means, accident or disease or whatever, is never, ever God’s will! “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God,” in the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel (Ezek 18:32). This first part of 8th Chapter of Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, so I hated to see it misused that way; I want to set the record straight!

The great folksinger Pete Seeger set the words of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 to music in the late 1950s and in 1965 the British rock group The Byrds covered it and had a No. 1 hit. I’m told Turn, Turn, Turn is the No. 1 pop song with the oldest lyrics. I’ll bet most us who sang along with them during the rebellious 1960s had no idea we were singing words from the Bible. Anyway, it’s a great song with a great message . . . and that message is not that everything happens according to some mysterious and arbitrary plan of God that we just have to accept and it is not that “everything happens for a reason.”

Among those who believe that there is a God and that God created all that is, there is a spectrum of understanding about the involvement of God in the running of the universe. At one end of the spectrum is so-called “Deist” position; this is the belief that was held by many highly educated people in the 18th Century, among them most of the Founding Fathers of our nation. Deists held that God was less in the nature of a father-figure intimately involved with his children, and more like a clockmaker who had set the world running, wound up its spring and then let it function; this clockmaker God really takes little or no notice of what is happening in the lives of human beings. At the other extreme is the notion that “God has a plan for your life … for everyone’s lives” … and that everything that happens in anyone’s life is in accordance with that plan, everything is predetermined, and everything happens for a reason, which is God’s reason and we should just accept that.

The truth is, most likely, somewhere in between and that’s clearly where Qoheleth is. “Things and actions have their time,” he says, “then they pass and other things and actions have their time;” there is a natural cycle to things. (P. Tillich, The New Being, Scribner’s Sons, 1955) Qoheleth starts his enumeration of these things, these natural cycles, with birth and death. The natural cycles of time are beyond human control. We cannot control them and whatever control we may have of time is limited by them. They are the signposts which we cannot trespass.

Ecclesiastes is best known, perhaps, for its refrain, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!” (Eccl 1:2) In this regard, Qoheleth is testifying that “any human attempt to change the rhythm of birth and death, of war and peace, of love and hate and all the other contrasts [which he lists] in the rhythm of life is” a vanity. (Tillich) Instead, Qoheleth encourages us to be aware of these cycles, to understand that within them there is a “right time” to do one thing and not to do another. He does not suggest, in any way, that God is the micro-manager of every human life. Rather, he counsels us to follow these cycles as we exercise responsibility for our lives, do our own planning, and exercise our limited control according to them.

Qoheleth’s assurance that there is a time for everything is part of what another preacher has called “the background operating system of [our] faith,” the core truth that there is a God who is good and that existence. But this “operating system, this core truth “doesn’t come with the assumption that all things, (including all the horrors we might encounter here), have a purpose,” that “everything happens for a reason” known only to God.

That other preacher, the Rev. John Pavlovitz (who writes for Relevant Magazine), suggests such a distortion paints a picture of a god who makes us suffer for sport, who throws out obstacles and injuries and adversities “just to see what we’ll do, just to toughen us up or break us down.” To me, statements that “everything happens for a reason” or that something “is just the will of God” describe an arbitrary god who decides that this child will die of cancer while that one will become a star football player, or that this person will die of an accidental gun shot in the 6th Grade while that one will live to be 91. That is not the God in whom I believe and it is not the God testified to in these verses from Ecclesiastes. Qoheleth’s God and ours does not arbitrarily micro-manage our lives. Rather, God wants to be “be happy and enjoy [our]selves as long as [we] live,” for “it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all” that we do (vv 12-13).

To believe otherwise leads to the religion of what James, in today’s epistle, calls “hearers” who “on going away, immediately forget,” rather than to the religion of “doers” who practice a holy generosity. To believe otherwise leads to the sort of religion that Jesus condemns in today’s Gospel, a religion of arbitrary rules, of “washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles” as Mark puts it, a religion of vain worship “teaching human precepts as doctrines” as Jesus puts it quoting Isaiah. To believe otherwise leads to “wickedness, deceit . . . envy, slander, pride, folly” and all those other “evil things [that] come from within and . . . defile a person.”

Qoheleth’s list of contrasting times, as one commentator has put it, “provides structure rather than a calendar,” a structure within which “individual human moral decision making is possible.” Ecclesiastes challenges us “to be wise, to be ethical, to discern when [our] actions are in keeping with God’s time and then to act decisively.” (NIB, Vol. V, page 308) Then, in the words of the Psalmist, we “may dwell in [God’s] tabernacle,” we “may abide upon [God’s] holy hill.” (Ps 15:1)

“This is neither the time nor the place . . . .” My mother and my grandmother were probably right about that most of the time. But Ecclesiastes is also right, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven . . . .”

I don’t know why some children die before their parents, and some live to ripe, old age; I don’t know why some people get cancer, and some don’t; I don’t know why some people get shot, or have to deal with disability, or suffer with mental illness. I don’t know why there have to be hurricanes, and earthquakes, and parasitic worms that eat children’s eyeballs. But I do know that these things do not happen for some arbitrary God-determined reason, that these things are not the will of God.

What is the will of God is that there is a time to deal with such things and there is a time to live life in spite them. Remember what Qoheleth wrote: “[God] has made everything suitable for its time; moreover [God] has put a sense of past and future into [our] minds . . . . [Therefore,] there is nothing better for [us] than to be happy and enjoy [our]selves as long as [we] live.” The Indian poet and sage Kalidasa, about 400 years before the time of Christ, expressed the same thought:

Listen to the exhortation of the dawn!
Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the
verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
the glory of action,
the splendor of beauty;
for yesterday is but a dream,
and tomorrow is only a vision;
but today well lived makes
every yesterday a dream of happiness,
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
look well therefore to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn!

Now is the time and now is the place when we give thanks with and to Nancy and Michael, and Susan and Paul, as they remember their sons, not their deaths but their lives, not with mourning but with joy, not with weeping but with generous acts of giving. May we all look well to this and every day and never be overthrown. Amen.

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

Under the Protection of the Dioscuri – From the Daily Office Lectionary

August 28, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Under the Protection of the Dioscuri . . . .

From the Daily Office Lectionary for Friday in the week of Proper 16, Year 1 (Pentecost 13, 2015)

Acts 28:11 ~ Three months later we set sail on a ship that had wintered at the island, an Alexandrian ship with the Twin Brothers as its figurehead.

One of the things I most love about Holy Scripture are the odd little details that its writers throw in; this is true for both Hebrew and Christian Scriptures in the Bible, and it is true for the Scriptures of other faiths. I sometimes wonder if there is point to them, or if they are just odd little details, the sort of thing someone would write down in their diary without much thought other than to report a stray fact.

This is particularly so with Luke’s mention of the ship’s figurehead of the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux. Is this just something he noted in his journal and then repeated when transcribing his diary notes into his history for Theophilos? Or is he saying something about the faith of the Alexandrian ship captain and his crew? Something about Paul’s (and his own) open-mindedness in sailing on a Gentile ship under the protection of pagan demi-gods? Something about the Dioscuri themselves.

The myths about the Twins, the children of Leda and Zeus (who seduced their mother in the form of a swan) are varied and contradictory. One story holds that both are the sons of Zeus; another version says that only Pollux is and that Castor is the son of Leda’s earthly husband Tyndareus. Thus, only Pollux is “naturally” a demi-god but it is said that Pollux bargained with his father to give like status to his half-twin Castor. They have an ambiguous relationship with immortality being required, after their earthly life, to spend half of their time in Pluto’s realm of the dead, Hades, while allowed to spend the other half alive on Olympus with Zeus. They are said to be helpers of humankind, particularly of travelers and sailors; their intervention is sought during times of crisis.

Is Luke suggesting something, some parallelism perhaps, in specifically noting that he and Paul are bringing to Rome the Gospel of the Son of Yahweh on board a ship under the protection of the sons of Zeus? Probably not; his mention of the figurehead of the Twin Brothers is probably just one of those odd little details one records in a diary.

The Priest at Home in the Dark – A Poem, 27 August 2015

August 28, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Gin_and_Tonic

The Priest at Home in the Dark

In the darkness, the tears fall silent to the table,
keeping company the pool of melted ice and gin.
Today I lunched and laughed with tutors wanting money;
I had to tell them no, though I really want them to win.
They do good things with disadvantaged children,
an unfunded effort in the local middle school.
I listened to their story, their very praise-worthy story,
but had to tell them no. We parted; I felt like a fool.
And then the phone call from another parish, asking for advice.
“We have a small endowment. What should we do with it?”
Give it to the tutors, I wanted to say, give it to the tutors!
“How shall we invest it?” No! Give it to the tutors; they can use it!
I didn’t say what I wanted to say; I talked about the brokers,
the learned advisers who counsel sound and solid savings.
I should have told them to give it away; use it for the poor,
but if I had said that they’d have thought me mad and raving.
And then … home to news of an old friend’s death so far away
and another friend’s email about his new cancer diagnosis
and a call from an old friend whose job is a shambles, his life a mess.
I put down the phone … and picked it up,
but I had no one to call, no number to dial.
I remembered someone once asked
“Who cares for the caregivers?
Who ministers to the priests?”
and no one answered.
I had no one to call, no number to dial …
and if I had
no one would answer.
I filled a glass.
In the darkness, the tears fall silent to the table,
keeping company the pool of melted ice and gin.
– By C Eric Funston, 27 August 2015

Solomonic Justice – From the Daily Office Lectionary

August 27, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Solomonic justice . . . .

From the Daily Office Lectionary for Thursday in the week of Proper 16, Year 1 (Pentecost 13, 2015)

1 Kings 3:24-25 ~ So [Solomon] said, “Bring me a sword”, and they brought a sword before the king. The king said, “Divide the living boy in two; then give half to one, and half to the other.”

There’s a term in law (and in common speech) which describes a compromise judgment: Solomonic justice. It describes exactly what Solomon doesn’t do here. The “Solomonic justice” solution to the quandary presented by the two women who each claim the baby as her own is to split the baby. This would not have worked justice and it is not what Solomon did, so term is entirely ironic.

And yet we often seek compromise as a solution to disputes. I recall a law school professor opining that compromises are the worst of solutions because everyone loses something in a compromise and no one is ever satisfied with them; the better way, he said, is to seek consensus. This rang true (and still does) as it recalled to me the observation by the pioneer of organizational theory Mary Follett, some of whose works I had read while pursuing an MBA.

Follett used the term “integration” rather than “consensus,” but her point was the same when she observed that every dispute has three possible outcomes: domination, in which one side gets what it wants; compromise, in which neither side gets what it wants; or integration, in which a was is found by which both sides may get what they wish. The justice displayed in the Bible’s story of Solomon and the two women is domination, neither the compromise of “Solomonic justice” nor a way in which both women could be satisfied.

It is often said of current American politics that we live in a world where compromise has become impossible. I wonder, however, if it might be that we live in a world where compromise has become to common, where people have been compromised to a point of fundamental frustration, where we have been required again and again to give up a little here, give up a little there, until we have nothing more to give up. Mahatma Ghandi once said there can be no compromise on fundamentals, to compromise on fundamentals is merely surrender. Having been asked to compromise, to give up bits and pieces until it feels there are no bits or pieces left to give, have we reached a place where all that remains are fundamentals which cannot be surrendered?

Perhaps so, and perhaps this is the place where consensus or, to use Follett’s word, integration can begin. If we can define fundamentals on which both sides agree, perhaps we can move on from there. The issue then becomes one of overcoming the frustration and anger existing on both sides. We cannot talk, negotiate, or explore consensus and integration until that anger is diffused.

That is the true “Solomonic justice” on display in today’s Bible story. The king used the shock of the threat of bloody infanticide to defuse (at least on one side) anger and frustration, and revealed the deceit on the other. This may be what we need now, a slap in the face to shock us into facing reality.

And, maybe, given the quality (or lack thereof), character (or lack thereof), and sheer ridiculousness of some current “politicians,” it’s what we’re getting.

There’s always an “only” – From the Daily Office Lectionary

August 26, 2015 / / 0 Comments

There’s always an “only” . . . .

From the Daily Office Lectionary for Wednesday in the week of Proper 16, Year 1 (Pentecost 13, 2015)

1 Kings 3:3 ~ Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David; only, he sacrificed and offered incense at the high places.

Yessireebob! The Deuteronomic historians responsible for the Books of Kings loved Solomon . . . except for that one little thing: he didn’t restrict his worship to the Jerusalem Temple (which he built) and he married all those foreign wives with their foreign gods (and maybe – hint, hint, nudge, nudge – participated in their religious activities).

Those historians are a lot like . . . well . . . everyone. There always seems to be an “only” or an “except” or a “but” – often unspoken – annexed to every human word of praise or expression of love. As a parish priest, I preside at weddings from time to time (really pretty frequently) and, under the rules of the Episcopal Church, I cannot do so unless the couple has undertaken a course of premarital counseling with me. I use a testing instrument (“It’s NOT a test!” I tell every couple, but it really is – it doesn’t test their compatibility or likelihood of success; it tests their communication) which each partner completes separately; it allows each, through indications of his or her level of agreement with several statements, to express any “excepts,” any “onlies,” and any “buts” in ways which are non-threatening to his or her partner. They don’t even realize that that is what they are doing, but I do. I see it in the scoring of the instrument. We deal with it, to some extent, in the course of the counseling.

To love unconditionally, with no “onlies” and no “excepts,” with “no ifs, ands, or buts” as my late mother liked to say, is not a human capacity. The Deuteronomic historians were incapable of it. The couples I counsel in advance of their nuptials are incapable of it. You are incapable of it. I am incapable of it.

God, on the other hand . . .

I have a bumper sticker on my car which reads “God Loves You. No Exceptions.” Yesterday, I took my car to the local dealer for service. As I pulled into the garage, another customer, a woman whom I would guess to be in her late 40s or early 50s, greeted me and said, “I love your bumper sticker.” I thanked her and chatted about the PR campaign of my diocese which produced the stickers and about my church. I gave her my card and invited her to join us on Sunday. It was one of those great, unplanned encounters when one can do that. We had a great conversation.

I love the opportunity to talk with people like that woman, only . . . I don’t really expect her to show up on Sunday. See? There’s always an “only”.

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