That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

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Honor Upon the Lawgiver – From the Daily Office – July 4, 2013

July 4, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Sirach:

A wise magistrate educates his people,
and the rule of an intelligent person is well ordered.
As the people’s judge is, so are his officials;
as the ruler of the city is, so are all its inhabitants.
An undisciplined king ruins his people,
but a city becomes fit to live in through the understanding of its rulers.
The government of the earth is in the hand of the Lord,
and over it he will raise up the right leader for the time.
Human success is in the hand of the Lord,
and it is he who confers honor upon the lawgiver.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Sirach 10:1-5 (NRSV) – July 4, 2013.)

American FlagIndependence Day is one of the few secular holidays to have lessons of its own in both the Eucharistic and Daily Office Lectionaries of the Episcopal Church. There is a set of lessons in the regular Daily Office schedule of readings for today, as well, and I am intrigued that the way the calendar falls this year the Gospel for that set is the unjust trial of Jesus. One could meditate for hours on the meaning to be drawn from that juxtaposition.

However, the reading from the apocryphal book The Wisdom of Jesus, Son of Sirach (a book also called “Ecclesiasticus”) has caught my attention because of a recent (and unfortunately repeated) incident at my church. The lines of particular import are: “As the ruler of the city is, so are all its inhabitants;” and “It is [God] who confers honor upon the lawgiver.”

In every form of the Prayers of the People in the American Book of Common Prayer (1979) there is a petition included for our civil leaders. According to the rubric in the service of Holy Communion (page 359 of the BCP), we are bidden to pray for “the Nation and all in authority.” At my church, we do so by name, listing our president, state governor, and city mayor, and conclude with a general petition for other elected legislators, judges, and executive department officials.

At my church, as well, we share leadership of the prayers. A single person reads the major biddings of the various forms, but additional petitions are read by members of the congregation. As worshipers arrive, our ushers and greeters ask if they would like to read a sentence or two of additional intercessions. Most readily agree.

However, from time to time someone will decline to do so and occasionally someone will specifically (and sometimes venomously) refuse to read the petition naming the president. This has only happened since the election of the current incumbent. My heart sinks when I hear these refusals or when I am told about them later. It’s an indication of how poorly I have taught the Christian ethos to this congregation.

“As the ruler of the city is, so are all its inhabitants.” If Jesus ben Sirach is correct, then we should very definitely be praying for our rulers and leaders, for they set the example and the tone for the entire populace. And yet people decline to do so . . . .

My parish is dedicated to St. Paul, the writer of most of the New Testament, and Paul was very clear on the duty Christian folk have with respect to secular authorities and civic leaders. He wrote to the young bishop, Titus of Crete, instructing him to teach his congregation to respect civil rulers:

Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. (Titus 3:1-5)

He wrote to the Romans in a similar vein:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing. (Romans 13:1-6)

And with regard to praying for our secular leadership, he was very clear in his instructions to another young bishop, Timothy of Ephesus:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

I quite understand disliking secular authorities; I don’t understand disliking one so much that we refuse to follow the clear mandate of Holy Scripture and the tradition of our church! Anyone who has ever had even the shortest political conversation with me knows that, in my opinion, George W. Bush was the worst president in U.S. history. Nonetheless, every day of his eight years in office I prayed for him by name, twice a day. (I even pray for the vice-president by name and during those years that was an even more difficult thing to do!) I prayed for Bill Clinton even though his sexual pecadillo with Monica Lewinsky was more than a little off-putting. I pray for Barack Obama even though I am very disappointed with many aspects of his performance as president.

The point is that my prayers have nothing to do with my personal dislike or approval of any of these politicians. My prayers have nothing to do with them at all! My prayers have everything to do with me and my discipline as a follower of Jesus Christ. I am pretty sure that Jesus had some personal problem with the political authorities of his day, with Caiaphas the High Priest, with Herod the Tetrarch, with Pilate the Roman governor, and yet he prayed for them: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) As a disciple of Christ, I can do no less than to pray for the civil authorities in power over me!

“As the ruler of the city is, so are all its inhabitants.” If Jesus ben Sirach is correct, and I think he is, our prayer for our leaders is a prayer for ourselves. Any prayer is, in truth, a prayer for ourselves. We do not pray to bring to God’s attention something God has overlooked, nor do we pray to change God’s mind about something, to get God to do what we want. We pray to conform our wills to God’s Will; we pray that we might have what Paul called “the mind of Christ.” (1 Cor. 2:16) We pray that we might be like him who, on the cross, prayed for the civil authorities who hung him there.

On this day especially, let us pray for the Nation and all in authority; let us pray for them by name! For “human success is in the hand of the Lord, and it is he who confers honor upon the lawgiver.”

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Seven Times a Day? – From the Daily Office – July 3, 2013

July 3, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

Seven times a day do I praise you, because of your righteous judgments.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 119:164 (BCP Version) – July, 2013.)

Book of Common Prayer (1979)The Book of Acts, the earliest church history, tells us that the followers of Jesus practiced daily prayer: “Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts.” (Acts 2:46) Eventually, the Christians were excluded from Jewish worship assemblies, either by their own choice or by action of the authorities, and in an unrelated development, the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD. Where, then, did Christians pray together? Or, for that matter, alone?

It is likely that there were ascetics who sought solitude away from the cities and what they perceived as a sinful society around them from the start of the Christian community. They may have emulated John the Baptizer and his followers, the Jewish Essenes, or other esoteric communities. However, the first historically verifiable hermit (or “anchorite”) seems to be St. Anthony of Egypt. Unfortunately for him, others were attracted to his lifestyle and he found himself surrounded by disciples following his example. During Anthony’s lifetime, one of his followers, St. Pachomius established the first community for ascetics living together, “cenobites,” during the early part of the Fourth Century. By the end of the Fifth Century, these monks had developed the practice of gathering together for prayer and the early outlines of a Liturgy of the Hours composed of seven “offices” had emerged. It is possible that number of services was chosen because of this (and similar) verses in Scripture.

The foundation of modern western monasticism was the Rule of St. Benedict, authored by Benedict of Nursia in the 6th century. As part of his design for monks living in community, he adopted the practice of regular hours of prayer, adding an eighth. The eight monastic hours are the following:

  • Matins (during the night, usually at midnight; sometimes called Nocturns)
  • Lauds (at dawn, or 3 a.m.)
  • Prime (approximately 6 a.m.; this is the hour added by Benedict)
  • Terce (approximately 9 a.m.)
  • Sext (approximately 12 noon)
  • None (approximately 3 p.m.)
  • Vespers (approximately 6 p.m., “at the lighting of the lamps”)
  • Compline (approximately 9 p.m., before retiring)

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the genius behind the Anglican Prayer Book tradition, took bits and pieces of these monastic hours to create the offices of Daily Morning Prayer and Daily Evening Prayer included in The Book of Common Prayer of 1549 and in every revision of the Prayer Book since. It was Cranmer’s idea that individuals and families, like monks in community, would say these offices every day, coming together with others on Sundays to celebrate the Holy Communion.

It was, I’m afraid, a wonderful but never realized vision; I doubt very seriously that there has ever been a time since the Reformation when Anglicans, in general, stop during their days for even a single instance of regular, corporate, liturgical prayer, let alone twice a day, let alone seven or eight times a day. Nonetheless, the Anglican ethos is one of constant daily prayer deriving from the Scriptural witness of the Psalms.

It is my practice to say the Daily Offices at morning and evening and, occasionally, Compline before retiring. The current American Prayer Book of 1979 includes two forms of Morning Prayer, an office for Noonday Prayer, two forms of Evening Prayer, an order for Compline, and four short forms for individual prayer throughout the day. Our tradition is steeped in the monastic tradition!

But how many of us can say this verse of Psalm 119 with complete authenticity? I know that I can’t! Two times a day? Usually. Seven times a day? It just doesn’t happen! It probably should, but it doesn’t.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Mix Faith with Frustration – From the Daily Office – July 2, 2013

July 2, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the Gospel of Luke:

They said, “If you are the Messiah, tell us.” He replied, “If I tell you, you will not believe; and if I question you, you will not answer.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Luke 22:67-68 (NRSV) – July 2, 2013.)

Frustration Relief KitIn the assembly of the elders of the people, the chief priests and the scribes, Jesus is asked, “Are you the Messiah?” and in response he gives vent to some very real human frustration.

I recently read an article about frustration as a plot element in writing fiction. The author suggested that frustration is, in fact, the most important emotion in fiction because nothing happens in a novel or short story unless the plans, wishes, or desires of the protagonist are frustrated. If Ahab had killed the white whale on his first attempt, Moby Dick would have been a very short tale, indeed. The author of the article pointed out, however, that frustration “is seldom a ‘pure’ emotion. It can come mixed with many others: anger (‘How dare they!’), hurt (‘Why won’t they help me?’), fear (‘I’ll never get what I want’), self-blame (‘I’m not good enough to succeed’), resignation (‘Can’t win ‘em all’), or bitterness (‘Life sucks’).”

One of my favorite episodes of The West Wing was about a submarine crisis off the coast of North Korea. The White House staff brought in an expert on submarine warfare to advise President Bartlett; Hal Holbrook played the character with droll dullness, droning on and on about difference experiences. In one scene, the expert and Leo McGarry were sitting on the sofas in the Oval Office talking; Leo was listening, the expert droning on. From off camera came the sound of a rhythmic thump – thump – thump. The camera pulled back to reveal the President banging his head on his desk . . . . I’m not sure what the President’s frustration might have been mixed with, but clearly that is not the best way to handle frustration!

With what, we might ask, is Jesus’ frustration mixed? I think the answer must be, “Faith.” Jesus is convinced that whatever happens, his God is with him. The night before this questioning, all the other emotions with which this frustration might have been mixed were sweated out in Garden of Gethsemane, leaving only faith: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) To be true to his mission (whatever we might now believe or understand it to be), to be true to his God, Jesus could not allow any other emotion to taint his frustration.

In any given situation, with what are our frustrations mixed? Too often they are like that article author described, mixed with emotions that result in negative or self-defeating outcomes. Our task is to spend some Gethsemane-time, sweating out those impurities, leaving only faith.

I think frustration mixed with faith might best be named “resolve,” which the dictionary defines as “firmness of purpose.” That certainly describes Jesus in the assembly of the elders (and throughout the Passion).

In an address at the University of Maine in October 1963, President John F. Kennedy exhorted his listeners: “Let us resolve to be masters, not the victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions.” The example of Jesus suggests that, in some ways, we may still be “victims” no matter what we resolve and no matter how strong our faith may be. But our Lord’s example and the Christian faith also demonstrate that “victimization” to those who stand firm in their mission is a temporary state; on the other side one finds resurrection and redemption.

Frustration is a very real and very human situation. What we choose to mix with our frustrations is the determiner of outcome; followers of Jesus mix faith with frustration.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Leopards Changing Spots – From the Daily Office – July 1, 2013

July 1, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Acts:

They dragged [Stephen] out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 7:58 (NRSV) – July 1, 2013.)

LeopardThis is the first appearance in the Christian story of the man who will become the early church’s greatest evangelist and the author of most of the New Testament. We are told that as he witnessed the martyrdom of the first deacon, “Saul approved of their killing him.” (Acts 8:1)

Saul would take the Gentile form of his name, Paul, when baptized and under that name would spread the Christian faith among non-Jews. One assumes that, from time to time, he might have told the story of witnessing Stephen being killed – it would make a powerful sermon illustration, don’t you think? He obviously told it to someone because eventually it got to Luke, who included it in his little history of the church.

This story of a public execution brought to mind a conversation I had with a parishioner just a few days ago. Texas recently executed its 500th death-penalty convict since resuming executions in 1980s; that news led us into a discussion of the death penalty. I am opposed to the death penalty on several grounds; my parishioner favors it. In the course of our conversation he put forth the argument that execution rids society of criminals who will kill again. He’s convinced that killers don’t change: “The leopard never changes his spots,” he said.

He certainly has the Bible (or at least the the Old Testament on his side. This old shibboleth comes from word of God spoken through the prophet Jeremiah! Lamenting the sinfulness of God’s People, the Lord asks: “Can Ethiopians change their skin or leopards their spots?”(Jer. 13:23, NRSV). Of course, the message of the prophet would suggest that the answer to that question is “Yes” else why call the people to repentance? And therein lies the theological and ethical issue I have with the death penalty. (I have legal, economic, and practical issues with it, as well.)

The death penalty denies the power of God in Christ to redeem, restore, and transform human existence. It precludes any possibility of repentance and amendment of life. When the capital punishment is imposed, the life of the convicted person is devalued and all possibility of change is ended. When the government undertakes capital punishment on behalf of the people (on my behalf), the people are implicated in that judgment and we are made to share in an ethic we may not accept (one which I do not accept). An ethic which says, as my congregant put it, that “leopards cannot change their spots.”

But that is not the Christian ethic (nor is it the ethic of the Old Testament in which that image is first spoken). The Christian ethic says that repentance is always possible. It is, in a very real sense, the whole message of Christ: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 3:2) The leopard can change its spots and the Christian hope is always that it will.

After all, Saul – who held the cloaks of the executioners and approved their killing of Stephen – changed his!

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Give No Thought to Donkeys – From the Daily Office – June 29, 2013

June 29, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the First Book of Samuel:

As for your donkeys that were lost three days ago, give no further thought to them, for they have been found.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – 1 Samuel 9:20 (NRSV) – June 29, 2013.)

Donkeys in the DesertThis advice not to worry about his donkeys is given by Samuel to Saul when Saul arrives at Ramah. It seems oddly out of place. Saul has been sent by God to Samuel, and God has informed Samuel that the man he will have sent to him is to be king over Israel. So Saul has had his cook set aside a special portion of meat and otherwise prepared to meet and anoint the man who would one day rule the country. Samuel comes to the town where he expects to find the man of God, and this statement is part of their first conversation:

Saul approached Samuel inside the gate, and said, “Tell me, please, where is the house of the seer?” Samuel answered Saul, “I am the seer; go up before me to the shrine, for today you shall eat with me, and in the morning I will let you go and will tell you all that is on your mind. As for your donkeys that were lost three days ago, give no further thought to them, for they have been found. And on whom is all Israel’s desire fixed, if not on you and on all your ancestral house?”

Again, the admonition about the donkeys seems oddly out of place. And, yet, I don’t think it is.

I think it’s Samuel’s way of telling Saul, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” The lost donkeys are not important. They don’t matter right now; they have bigger, more important business to take care of. We all have bigger, more important business to take care of, yet we often get hung up worrying about missing donkeys. As Samuel has told Saul, someone else is seeing to them. Give them no further consideration; focus on what’s important!

So remember, give no further thought to your donkeys!

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Taking the Train to God’s Picnic: A Homily for a Requiem – June 25, 2013

June 25, 2013 / / 2 Comments

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This sermon was preached at the Requiem Mass on June 25, 2013, for Charlie Stehno, a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(Episcopal Church Lectionary, For Burials: Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalms 23; Revelation 21:2-7; and John 14:1-6. These lessons were selected by the family from among the options set forth in The Book of Common Prayer. All options can be found at The Lectionary Page.)

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Steam LocomotiveAre you familiar with those visions of the afterlife in which the dearly departed, clothed in flowing white robes lounge around on fluffy, white cotton clouds playing harps? I have to be honest with you that I cherish a very dear hope that such visions are 100% absolutely wrong! I cannot imagine any existence more boring than an eternity of cloud-floating and harp-playing, and if my ten years of knowing Charlie Stehno have given me a clue of anything about Charlie it is that he would most likely feel the same way. If he has gotten to the Great Hereafter only to find himself fitted out with a flowing white robe and issued a harp to play and cloud to lounge upon, I suspect that he is (as my grandmother would say) “fit to be tied.”

But I don’t really think there’s any danger of that! I believe that larger life in God’s Presence is quite a bit different from that beatific vision of robe wearing, harp playing, and cloud floating. As I spent the past few days contemplating the lessons that Kathy selected for today’s Requiem — this wonderful vision of Isaiah’s of a feast on a mountain top; John of Patmos’s vision of the new Jerusalem where our home will be with God, where hunger and thirst will be no more, where there will be these wonderful springs overflowing with the water of life, and where God will wipe away every tear; and most importantly Jesus’ promise that in God’s home there is a place for all of us — as I contemplated these readings and as I thought about Charlie’s life selling the heavy machinery that moved the rolling stock on the railways of this and several other countries, I kept having a childhood memory. It is a memory that informs my vision heaven, that shapes my belief about what lies through that doorway of death. I’d like to share it with you, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I spend a few minutes sharing something about my family as a means to come to terms with the grief and loss experienced by the Stehno family.

My parents were raised in a small town in southeastern Kansas and when I was very young my paternal grandparents and many members of my extended family on both sides still lived in and around that town. On my mother’s mother’s side, my great-grandfather, Hinrich Buss, had emigrated from the German farm country of Ostfriesland in the 1860s when he was about 20 years old. He settled in that area of Kansas and homesteaded several thousand acres, raising not one but three families. I am descended from him and his third wife, Harmke (who bore Hinrich 15 children who lived to adulthood).

Each summer of my childhood I would spend several weeks with my father’s parents, but for one day of each summer I would cease being a “Funston” and, instead, I become one of the several hundred “Buss cousins.” That one day was like a parenthetical note in my life: “This is Eric Funston – open parenthesis – who is also a Buss – close parenthesis.” Those parentheses were, if you will, represented by railroad journeys.

That day would start early in the morning when my great-uncle and great-aunt Roy and Blanche Buss would collect me from my Funston grandparents’ home and we would drive to the Santa Fe Train Station and catch the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad for the ancestral home, which was outside the next town to the west, an hour’s train ride away. Open parenthesis! When the train pulled out of station, I was no longer a Funston; I was a Buss.

When the train arrived, we would disembark to be picked up by other Buss cousins and driven to the farmhouse which had been and still was (and still is) the Buss family home.

As soon as we arrived, Blanche would join the other women in the farmhouse kitchen; Roy would go off with the other men to walk the fields and look at the livestock and smoke cigarettes and talk about the news of the day; and I would join the other kids swimming in the farm pond (which, to be honest, was pretty yucky, but we were kids, we didn’t care).

Around midday trestle tables would be set up in the yard and in pretty short order they would be overflowing with sauerbraten, and schnitzel, and wursts of all sorts, with sauerkraut and potato salad and fresh garden tomatoes, and more kinds of homemade bread and rolls and biscuits than you can imagine. Someone would say a prayer, and we would all dig in and eat way more than we should and, afterward, fall asleep in the shade of the barn.

A little later the older kids and the younger men would get up a football game. Because there were more of us descended from Greatgramma Harmke than from Hinrich’s first two wives it was usually organized as the third family against the first two. And there would be much cheering and yelling and arguing over plays and goals and whether someone is in-bounds or out; you know the sort of thing that happens in those sorts of games.

Sometime during the fourth quarter, the women would disappear back into that farmhouse kitchen and as the game came to its inevitable end, those trestle tables would again be loaded to overflowing, but this time with homemade pies, and cakes, and cookies, and even homemade ice cream. And, once again, we would all eat way more than a person ought . . . .

But in not-too-long a time, the sun would begin to set. And that would be the signal that Great-uncle Roy and Great-aunt Blanche and I would have to leave. We’d be driven back into town to catch the evening train back to my parents’ hometown. When we got there, I went back to being a Funston. That eastbound train ride was the end of my day of being a “Buss cousin.” Close parenthesis.

You know, there are a lot of songs about trains, and among those are a lot of songs about trains going to heaven. That’s another thing that kept coming to mind as I thought about what I might say here today. There’s Woody Guthrie’s familiar tune:

This train is bound for glory, this train.
This train is bound for glory, this train.
This train is bound for glory,
Don’t carry nothing but the righteous and the holy.
This train is bound for glory, this train.

And there’s Boxcar Willie’s wonderful song of a hobo’s last train ride:

I’ll ride that last train to heaven
On rails of solid gold
In a boxcar lined with satin
Where the nights are never cold
Where a hobo’s always welcome
Even in his ragged clothes
I’ll ride that last train to heaven
When the final whistle blows.

And my personal favorite is Curtis Mayfield’s great song:

People get ready there’s a train comin’;
You don’t need no baggage, just get on board.
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin’;
You don’t need no ticket, just thank the Lord.

In the 23rd Psalm, David thanks the Lord for shepherding us as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, for setting an abundant table for us in the midst of our enemies, and for pledging in God’s mercy and goodness that we will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. Jesus affirms that in that home there are rooms for all of us, and both Isaiah and John of Patmos assure us that the abundance of that table will continue, that God will lay out a feast of “rich food . . . and well-aged wines strained clear,” that there will no hunger or thirst of any kind.

It will be like a family reunion, God’s family reunion, where everyone we’ve ever loved is present, and everyone they’ve ever loved (including us) eventually will be, “where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting,” and where “God will wipe away the tears from all faces.” St. Paul, the patron of this parish, explained it this way in his First Letter to the Corinthians:

Since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Cor. 15:21-26)

As a song I know was special to Charlie might put it:

The enemy must yield,
We’ll fight just like our ancestors
and march right down the field!
(University of Toledo Fight Song; Charlie was an alumnus and former football start of Toledo U.)

Charlie has marched down that field; he has finished his walk through the valley of the shadow of death. He has won the victory! He has gotten on board that train bound for glory, that last train to heaven; he’s left this life’s crippling, painful baggage behind, and he has arrived in that larger life where, as Isaiah assures us, he has not found a cloud or a harp.

No, he’s taken that train to a great family reunion, where the picnic tables are eternally laden with God’s overflowing abundance, where the faithful swim not in some yucky farm pond but in the clear river that flows from the springs of the water of life, where the family home has room for everyone, and where (if there isn’t one already, Charlie will make sure) there’s a football game going on.

And the greatest and most wonderful thing is that there will be no sunset and there will be no train going back to anywhere; there will be no “close parenthesis.”

Thanks be to God! Amen.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Change Is Life – From the Daily Office – June 25, 2013

June 25, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the Book of Acts:

“I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them — in that case you may even be found fighting against God!”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 5:38-39 (NRSV) – June 25, 2013.)

Emerging Monarch ButterflyThe Pharisee Gamaliel gave sound advice to the Sanhedrin: “Leave them alone. If their movement is of God, you will not be able to stop it.” It’s advice the church, which benefited from it, has often failed to heed. We ought to follow it more often than we do . . . but there is that other rule the church more frequently follows: “Any change, at any time, for any reason, is to be deplored.” (Often attributed to an otherwise unidentified Victorian-era “Duke of Cambridge.”)

Episcopalians are said to be the poster children for this rule. The old joke asks, “How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?” . . . .

“Change! My grandmother gave that lightbulb!”

None of us are really comfortable with change. I suspect that most people, if they had their druthers, would just keep things mostly the same. For most of us the status quo is comfortable and staying the course gives us a sense of security. A read recently about a guy who bought a new radio, brought it home, placed it on the refrigerator, plugged it in, turned it to a station coming out of Nashville, home to the Grand Ole Opry, and then pulled all the knobs off. He had he wanted and had not intention to change.

But life without change isn’t life. It’s death. If there is one constant in this world it is that living things change; only lifeless things are static. And life, as Scripture tells us, is God’s will for God’s People. Isaiah prophesied, “No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.” (Isa. 65:20)

Take heed of Gamaliel’s words to the Sanhedrin. Change is evidence of life, and life is the will of God, so change may be of God and, if so, you will be unable to overthrow it.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

The Festal Shout – From the Daily Office – June 24, 2013

June 24, 2013 / / 3 Comments

From the Psalter:

Happy are the people who know the festal shout!
they walk, O Lord, in the light of your presence.
They rejoice daily in your Name;
they are jubilant in your righteousness.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 89:15-16 (BCP Version) – June 24, 2013.)

Amen Corner“Festal shout” . . . the Hebrew is teruwah, a technical term for a liturgical response. (The root word is ruwa which is a verb meaning “to shout an alarm.”) It was probably something along the lines of “Hallelujah!” although it was probably not that particular Hebrew exclamation.

Episcopalians are well familiar with liturgical responses. We are almost programmed to make them. Say, “The Lord be with you,” to an Episcopalian, and it will prove very unlikely that he or she cannot help but say, “And also with you!” (Unless, of course, the person may be an old time traditional, in which case “And with thy spirit” will leap off the tongue.) However, familiar was we may be with liturgical responses, shouting them is something we simply don’t do, although in a crowded church we might be a little louder than usual.

And shouting out on our own in response to, say, a sermon? Out of the question!

Several years ago I had the privilege of preaching in a parish of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. I had gotten maybe two paragraphs into my prepared text when a member of the congregation called out, “Amen, preacher!” I must admit to being taken aback; I “stumbled” a bit, but got back on track pretty smoothly. Then it happened again! What had started as a typical Episcopal lecture-style homily turned into a dialog between the preacher and the congregation. We had fun together speaking the word of God to each other; there was joy and jubilation in that church It was great! I loved it! I’d never had a preaching experience like that before, and I’ve not had one since.

I don’t think we Episcopalians need to start shouting spontaneous responses to our sermons (although that might be fun), but I do think we need to cultivate that same sense of joy and jubilation, the vibrancy and liveliness that was evident in that AME congregation. We need to learn the “festal shout,” or at least find its spirit in our worship.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

Legion . . . Silence: A Contrast – Sermon for the 5th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7C) – June 23, 2013

June 23, 2013 / / 1 Comment

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This sermon was preached on the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, June 23, 2013, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(Revised Common Lectionary, Pentecost 5 (Proper 7, Year C): 1 Kings 19:1-15a; Psalms 42 and 43; Galatians 3:23-29; and Luke 8:26-39. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Schizophrenia Illustration from Vimeo At the beginning of the sermon, following the reading of Gospel lesson, five readers scattered among the congregation, rose and loudly read the following five passages simultaneously:

Voice One: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

Voice Two: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Voice Three: “You can’t do anything right and never will be able to. Everyone hates you. You have no friends. You are the most useless, worthless human being on the planet. You know this is true, and you are powerless to change it. You should just end it right now. There’s no reason for you to keep living.”

Voice Four: “In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, white sugar and two teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. Fold in pecans. Pour into prepared pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.”

Voice Five “Mr. Dursley, a well-off Englishman, notices strange happenings on his way to work one day. That night, Albus Dumbledore, the head of a wizardry academy called Hogwarts, meets Professor McGonagall, who also teaches at Hogwarts, and a giant named Hagrid outside the Dursley home. Dumbledore tells McGonagall that someone named Voldemort has killed a Mr. and Mrs. Potter and tried unsuccessfully to kill their baby son, Harry.”

One of the many ways in which modern scholars try to make sense of the story of the Gerasene Demoniac is the suggestion that he was, in fact, schizophrenic. For example, the Dean of St. Alban’s Cathedral in England, Jeffrey John, writes:

Anyone presenting the symptoms of the Gerasene demoniac today would be rapidly committed for treatment of multiple schizophrenia – and quite rightly. It would be very foolish to do otherwise, or to discount the huge, God-given progress that has been made in our understanding and treatment of mental illness since biblical times. (The Meaning in the Miracles, p. 91, Eerdmans:2004)

A Roman Catholic writer who identifies himself only as “John” tells of accompanying a priest making his Eucharistic ministry rounds at a psychiatric hospital. He describes what happened when they arrived at the ward where the most seriously disturbed patients were housed:

My friend began to say the prayers and all was relatively calm until he raised the Eucharist. This very motion acted like a trigger for one of the patients who began to shout expletives, spit and hiss. This set off most of the others; he had to be restrained while we administered the Eucharist to those who wanted it and lined up to receive it. Amidst the cacophony I heard one thing that he shouted which remains with me to this day; he shouted “why are you coming in here tormenting us?” (John’s Ramblings)

He then comments, “It wasn’t until some time later that when meditating on the Healing of the Gerasene Demoniac . . . that I shuddered to a halt and recalled that event in the psychiatric hospital.”

Schizophrenics hear voices. This is the most common type of hallucination in schizophrenia. The voices may talk to the person about his or her behavior; they may order the person to do things; they may speak warnings of danger. Sometimes the voices talk to each other; sometimes they talk over one another, several voices speaking at once. What we experienced as these five people read these differing texts was a crude demonstration of what some schizophrenics experience, or what the Gerasene Demoniac seems to have suffered.

The great English author, C. S. Lewis, once wrote that we human beings are a “myriad of impulses, a cauldron of evil desires.” The Gerasene Demoniac certainly was. When Jesus asked him (or the demon within him) his name, the answer was, “We are legion.”

That is a very scary answer! That word, legion, is a Roman military term. In the Roman army, a legion consisted of six thousand men. We heard only five voices in our little demonstration. Can you imagine what it must have been like to hear thousands upon thousands of demonic voices? No wonder he would break his chains and shackles and run into the wilds to live in the cemetery among the tombs!

John, the Roman Catholic blogger, suggests that “all disorder, all conflict whether we call it civil, political, doctrinal, psychiatric, psychological, social or personal disorder, . . . anything that creates or contributes to disorder or conflict is the presence of evil at work in the world.” I believe he is correct, the message of the Prophets is that that disorder, that chaos is not, and never will be, the last word.

As dramatic counterpoint to the Gospel story today, we have another story of the Prophet Elijah. The Lectionary, as you remember, has had us bouncing around in the First Book of Kings reading stories of Elijah, but not in the order they are presented in that book. Instead, we have been getting the texts from First Kings as they may relate to the stories from Luke’s Gospel; today’s pairing seems to be a good example. What we see here is the stark difference between the chaotic disorder of evil, represented by demon possession (or schizophrenia), and the order of holiness, represented by the “sheer silence” in which Elijah encounters God.

You recall the story. Elijah has just killed the 450 prophets of Ba’al, which has royally angered the wicked Queen Jezebel. She has sent word to Elijah saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” In other words, “Look out, Dude! I’m gonna kill you!” So Elijah, in fear, flees into the desert and in a fit of depression prays that God will take his life. However, an angel appears and tells him that’s not going to happen. He is instructed to eat something and then travel to “Horeb, the mount of God.” This is understood to be the very same place where Moses received the Tablets of the Law. When he gets there, God asks what his problem is: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah answers that all the prophets of Yahweh have been killed (by Queen Jezebel and her army) and only he is left. So God tells him to stand at the mouth of his cave because God will pass by.

He does so and there is a storm, and then an earthquake, and then a fire. All of these things represent that disordered chaos which the Demoniac in the Gospel experiences, and God is in none of them. Instead, God is in the “sheer silence,” as the New Revised Standard Version translates the Hebrew. A literal translation of the Hebrew would be “the sound of gentle blowing,” and the King James Version translated this by that wonderful turn of phrase “a still small voice.”

So we have this wonderful juxtaposition of an image of loud, confusing, demonic chaos — the Gerasene Demoniac, a person in a situation which is overwhelmingly evil, permeated with and being buffeted by a legion of devils, thousands of incoherent voices, pulling him in every direction, ruining his life — with an image of calm, peaceful, gentleness — the still small voice of God present in sound of sheer silence, the sound of gentle blowing.

We, I hope, are not possessed of demons, nor suffering from schizophrenia or some other form of delusional mental illness. But we all inhabit a world of many, many voices, all talking to us, all telling us what to think, or do, or say. No matter how old we are, we will always have the voices of parents and grandparents playing in our heads; we have the voices of politicians, news reporters, bosses, spouses, our own children, their teachers, doctors, lawyers, tax advisers . . . and occasionally preachers . . . all telling us what to do. There are times when all of that noise can get us down, when we can all relate personally to the lament in today’s gradual psalm: “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me?”

Several years ago, there was a job opening on a cruise ship; a new communications officer was need. There were several applicants seeking the position and all were told to come to a particular office at the same time on the same day. They arrived and were shown in to a waiting room. While they waited to be interviewed, the conversed with one another and soon the room was filled with the sounds of conversation. After quite a long wait, another applicant who was late came in and sat down; everyone else was busy talking, so she just quietly waited for a few minutes, but then suddenly, she jumped up and walked through a door marked “Private.” A few minutes the personnel manager walked out of that door and announced that the position had been filled; the late-arriving applicant had been hired. The other applicants were extremely angry, “We were here first! How could she go ahead of us and get the job?” To which the personnel manager replied, “Any of you could have gotten the job if you had just been quiet long enough to pay attention to the message on the intercom.” “What message?” “All the time you were talking the intercom was broadcasting in Morse Code, ‘A ship’s communications officer must always be on the alert. The first person who gets this message and comes directly into my office will get the job.'”

I believe that God’s still small voice is like that coded message. It’s there if we will but take a few moments of silence and listen for it. And if it seems like we do not have the power to do so on our own, if we are unable to still the storms, the earthquakes, the fires, the voices . . . the story of the Gerasene Demoniac reminds us that Jesus can, because personal exorcism is not what this story is really about. “Rather,” as Jeffrey John reminds us, “it is about the promise . . . of God’s ability to defeat and re-order the disordered powers that afflict both individuals and communities.”

Life can sometimes, indeed, life can often be permeated with great evil that is almost beyond human comprehension and beyond our ability to handle. In those moments, we may be tempted to just give up and give in to the intensity of evil around us. Like the Psalmist we may cry out, “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me?” Like Elijah we may be tempted to just sit down in the desert and say, “Let me die.” But God does not give up; Jesus does not give up. Jesus faces the demons with his healing and his peace. There is no situation so bad that Jesus cannot or will not bring his healing power.

Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God;
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
Amen.

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

The Dark Lining of Joy – From the Daily Office – June 21, 2013

June 21, 2013 / / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

My friend and my neighbor you have put away from me,
and darkness is my only companion.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 88:19 (BCP Version) – June 21, 2013.)

On Your Ordination Anniversary CardToday is the 22nd anniversary of my ordination as a priest in the Episcopal Church. It is also the 20th anniversary of the death of my older (and only) sibling, Rick.

Rick Funston died on Father’s Day 1993 of a cancer called Glioblastoma Multiforme Stage IV. Glioblastoma is an aggressive, extremely invasive, and invariably fatal form of primary site brain cancer; “primary site” means that it is not metastasized from some other location, as most brain cancers are (or so I’m told). Glioblastomas grew rapidly and are the sort of tumors that give cancer its name. Not many people know that cancer is called that because of invasive tumors’ resemblance to the many-legged crab. Cancer is the Latin word (derived from the Greek karkinos) for “crab.”

When Rick was diagnosed, I did some research and learned that the median survival time was about six months from date of diagnosis with nearly all patients passing away within two years. I just checked the current literature and see that the median has lengthened to 12 months and that 3-5% of patients survive as long as three years; they are called “long-term survivors.” Rick was not a long-term survivor.

His first symptoms appeared in October of 1992 and were initially misdiagnosed as a stroke. An accurate diagnosis was made in February of 1993; he died four months later.

Rick was nearly 10 years older than me. He went away to live with our grandparents and attend a private high school in my parents’ Kansas home town when I was 4 years old, so I really have almost no memory of him as a child. We next lived together, only very briefly, when he decided to leave the University of Texas in his sophomore year and attend UCLA; he moved into our parents’ and my home (our mother and stepfather; our father died when I was 5 years old) for a few months. We only really became close after I graduated from high school; he and his wife Janet and I toured Europe together the summer after my graduation.

I miss my brother a great deal. He had a wicked sense of humor. He was incredibly smart. His B.A. and M.A. were in American history; his Ph.D., in political science with a specialization in Constitutional law. He taught at San Diego State University and, at the time of his death, was the vice-president of the university. Somewhere along the line, he’d taken a few hours off from academe and gotten a J.D. as well. He spoke German, French, and Italian, and had more than a passing familiarity with Latin and Greek.

His cancer had attacked the part of the brain that controls speech. For pain relief and to extend his life as long as possible, surgery was done to remove as much of the tumor as could be gotten. This professor who spoke six languages, who lectured nearly every day, who had published several books and authored many articles lost his ability to form sentences and to converse easily. He couldn’t remember the names of colors; he couldn’t remember his children’s names. Sitting and talking with him you could see the frustration and anger, and the fear, in his eyes; he knew what he wanted to say, but he couldn’t get the words put together. It was maddening!

He set himself the goal of seeing his oldest child, my niece Saskia, graduate from college. He made that goal.

Every year on the anniversary of my ordination, I spend more time thinking about the brother I miss than about the ministry I have enjoyed. The last verse of the morning psalm, as a result, grabbed me by the throat! “My friend and my neighbor you have put away from me, and darkness is my only companion.”

Ordained ministry is lonely work. Clergy have very few friends or close companions, even among our colleagues in ministry. (A 1991 survey of clergy found that 70% of ordained ministers claimed to have no close friendships; a 2001 survey reported that 51% of clergy feel “lonely.”) During my first two and a half years of clergy life (one year as a deacon and eighteen months of priesthood before his diagnosis), my closest friend and adviser was my brother. He’d given some thought himself to becoming a pastor in the Lutheran tradition (something he was, and the entire Lutheran tradition should be, glad he didn’t pursue). I’ve not had a better, or even an equal, adviser since his death.

I won’t go so far as the psalmist and claim that “darkness is my only companion,” but there is a dark lining to the joy I feel remembering my ordination. I miss you, Rick, I really miss you!

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A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!

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

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