Category: Ephesians (Page 5 of 7)

Temporary Reminder – From the Daily Office – March 5, 2014

March 5, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Letter to the Hebrews:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us . . . .

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Hebrews 12:1 (NRSV) – March 5, 2014.)

Ashes on a Forehead Many years ago, when I was a child growing up in Las Vegas, Nevada, my dad and I went fishing on Lake Mead. I was five years old, but already a pretty good swimmer. After we’d caught a few bass, we decided to go swimming.

I think we must have been somewhere near one of the marinas, because some time during that swim I encountered a slick of oil or motor fuel and found myself coated with a smell film of petroleum distillate of some sort. I tried several times to rinse it off, but once it got on my skin, it wasn’t coming off. My dad and I ruined a couple of my mother’s towels wiping it off, but it didn’t really wipe off.

On the drive home (the seat in my dad’s Thunderbird protected by another of my mom’s towels), the stuff dried, my skin got sticky and kind of stiff feeling. At home, my mother scrubbed me until my skin burned, but that petroleum odor still seemed to stick around for days – other people couldn’t smell it, but I sure could.

When I read this verse of the letter to the Hebrews, I think of that oily stuff — “the sin that clings so closely” — no matter how much rinsing, how much wiping, how much scrubbing, it’s still there. Others may not see it, but we can feel it. Others may not see it, but we can smell it. We know it’s there! The author of the letter encourages us to “lay it aside,” but that is easier said than done. On our own, we can’t lay it aside; we can’t rinse, wipe, or scrub it off. It is permanent! . . . Or is it?

Today is the Day of Ashes, that Wednesday forty days before Easter when we symbolize that sin and our own mortality with a smudge of oily ash on our foreheads — in the same place where the priest at our baptism or the bishop at our confirmation places a cross of oil marking us a Christ’s own, we are marked again with a reminder that we are nonetheless soiled by sin and liable unto death . . . Or are we?

The chrism, the holy oil marking us as an adopted child of God, is there first. Like a shield or a protective skin, it guards us from being permanently stained. Because of that protective buffer (what St. Paul might have called “the armor of light” — Romans 13:12 — or even “the whole armor of God” — Ephesians 6:11) the sin which clings so closely is not permanent; we are not permanently soiled and liable to death! Through the power of Christ, that sin can be set aside.

The smudge is merely a temporary reminder, not a permanent stain.

====================

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

A Theology of Gift Giving – Sermon for the Second Sunday of Christmas – January 5, 2014

January 5, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

====================

This sermon was preached on the Second Sunday of Christmas, January 5, 2014, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The Revised Common Lectionary, Christmas 2A: Jeremiah 31:7-14; Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a; Psalm 84; and Matthew 2:1-12. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

====================

Gifts of the Wise Men Very recently in the church office mail there was this small envelope addressed to me personally — the address has been typed out on a separate sheet of paper, cut therefrom, and glued onto the envelope. There is no return address and the postmark is a Cleveland, OH, cancelation. Inside there was no personal note of any kind, just a page torn from the last quarter’s Forward Day by Day devotional. One side, as you can see, has been scribbled all over; clearly not the side I am supposed to read. The other is the meditation for October 30, 2013, which begins:

Have you ever suffered because you sat through a really boring, abstract, incoherent, and disconnected sermon? Most of us have. Believe it or not, some people report that after enduring something like that, they decide never to go back to that particular church or any church at all. Sermons can make or break some people’s relationship with the church.

(The entire meditation can be read at Forward Day by Day.)

I have to be honest — my first reaction on receiving this was to think, “Well, that’s not something I wanted to get!” And immediately I was reminded of one Christmas when our children were quite young.

Our family tradition is to wait until Christmas morning to open our packages, so even if we’d been to the Midnight Mass we would rise early to see what Santa had brought. On the Christmas I recalled, our daughter rushed down the stairs from her second-floor room to the tree set up in our first-floor den and tore open the largest of her gifts, ripping to shreds the wrapping paper with obvious excitement. However, when she saw what was under the wrapping her expression changed to disappointment and she cried out, “That’s not what I wanted!” I don’t remember what she had wanted; I don’t even remember what we had given her. But I remember that reaction.

It got me to thinking about the reasons we give things to one another, the how of it and the why of it. What is the “theology of gift giving?” The gifts of the wise men to the Christ-child help us to explore that question.

The first element of such a theology would be the recognition that the giving of gifts is perfectly acceptable! There are some who teach that it is not, but we have plenty of examples in Scripture including, of course, the very story we are told in today’s gospel reading of the visitation of the Magi. More basically, we have God’s own example starting with the gift of life to plants, animals, and human beings as described in the Creation stories and exhibited most clearly in God’s self-giving in Jesus Christ. Generosity and charity are fundamental to an active Christian faith. Giving is the very thing that defines our belief: God-made-human gave himself entirely so that we might be free to give ourselves entirely back to God. As James said, “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” (James 1:17, NRSV) Gift-giving, in a sense, is the purpose of the Incarnation, so it is something strongly encouraged.

The second element of a theology of gift giving is that giving gifts allows us to be ministers of grace, the free and undeserved help of God. The gifts of the wise men were symbolic: the hymn “We Three Kings” lays out in verse what these are. Gold is a symbol of kingship, frankincense (used for incense in worship) is a symbol of deity, and myrrh (an embalming oil) is a symbol of death. (By the way, did you know that that hymn is quintessentially Episcopalian? It was written by John J. Hopkins in 1857 for a Christmas pageant at General Theological Seminary, the Episcopal Church divinity school in New York City.) In other words, they are symbolic of the full grace and mercy of God incarnate in Jesus. Every gift we receive, especially those from God but really from anyone, is a demonstration of God’s grace because, after all, grace is undeserved. How many times have you opened a present and sat there with the gift still in the box, looking at the giver with eyes and thinking to yourself, “What done to deserve this?” That question, of course, is rhetorical. The answer is “Nothing.” Gift giving is a form of grace by which we imitate the behavior of God and model the character of God.

The third element of a theology of gift giving is that it give us opportunity to display the love of God. “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver,” wrote Paul to the Corinthians. (2 Cor. 9:7, ESV) And, of course, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” (John 3:16, NRSV) Every gift should be a reflection of that love. If a gift is a real gift it is given with no thought of return. It’s not about starting an endless series of gift exchanges. It’s not about buttering someone up. It’s not about impressing someone or trying to get someone to do something for you. A real gift is an act of unconditional love, with no demands, no hints, no requirements of any return. Love, as Paul reminds us in the First Letter to the Corinthians,

is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. (1 Cor. 13:4-6)

Our gift-giving character should be one of genuine love. By giving a gift, we are symbolically recalling the gift of Christ for our salvation because “God so loved the world.”
The final element of a theology of gift giving, the element to which the first three point, is that it is relational. When the Magi encountered the Christ-child, they worshiped him: “On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage.” Worship is an expression of relationship at its deepest. However we define the word worship, it has its center in how we relate to God; it is the very reason, Scripture tells us, that we were created.

As I think I’ve mentioned before, one of my favorite poets is the African American James Weldon Johnson. At funerals, I often use one the poems from his collection God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. Another poem in that book is entitled The Creation; it explores this truth of our creation. The poem begins —

And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
“I’m lonely —
I’ll make me a world.”

The poem continues, as Genesis does, detailing the creation of earth, the seas, the plants, the animals . . . and then goes on —

Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that He had made.
He looked at His sun,
And He looked at His moon,
And He looked at His little stars;
He looked on His world
With all its living things,
And God said, “I’m lonely still.”

Then God sat down
On the side of a hill where He could think;
By a deep, wide river He sat down;
With His head in His hands,
God thought and thought,
Till He thought, “I’ll make me a man!”

Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in His own image;
Then into it He blew the breath of life,

And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.

“Like a mammy bending over her baby . . . .” We are created for relationship — relationship with God and relationship with each other. Like the gift giving of the Magi, that’s what our gift giving to one another is all about. It is a tangible expression of relationship; although gifts are given out of love with no expectation of reciprocation, they do provoke a response. They are relational, and in the way we relate to each other, especially in our giving of gifts to each other, we exhibit how we relate to God.

I’ll be honest. I was upset by this anonymous gift. But in the end I’m grateful for it because it is a reminder of this most important element of the theology of gift giving, this relational aspect. After that rather brutal opening paragraph, the Forward Day by Day meditation examines what it calls “Jesus’ methodology” of preaching by story-telling and then concludes, “In spite of all of our media gadgets, communications systems, and technological tools, we still need to truly perceive, listen, and understand.”

My mentor, the late Fr. Karl Spatz, taught me to think of a sermon as a conversation and as a gift. A sermon is not a lecture and it has many participants. Preaching is grounded in community, and like gift giving is relational. Preaching is not me or any clergy person standing in the pulpit telling you what we think that you should hear. A sermon is an exploration of the things we all struggle to understand, the troubles we all have to deal with, the things we all try to do better, the joys we all celebrate. A sermon is a priest’s prayerful and considered reflection upon these things, offered humbly as a gift to the gathered community. The congregation’s part in the conversation is to receive the gift and, as the meditation says, make the effort “to truly perceive, listen, and understand.” That may sometimes mean that we continue the conversation at a later time, perhaps through notes like this one — but we can only really continue the conversation that if I know who you are . . . .

When all is said and done, any gift giving (including any preaching) is an imperfect thing. It is an imperfect thing that seeks the perfection of the one true gift, the gift of Jesus for the salvation of the world. Amen.

====================

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!

====================

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

Filthy Clothes – From the Daily Office – December 18, 2013

December 18, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Zechariah:

Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.” And to him he said, “See, I have taken your guilt away from you, and I will clothe you in festal apparel.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Zech. 3:3-4 (NRSV) – December 18, 2013.)

Dirty Shirt Clothing is a common metaphor in Holy Scripture. Clean clothing is often a portrayal of righteousness or forgiveness. Everyone is familiar with the vision of John of Patmos recorded in the Book of Revelation:

One of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Rev. 7:13-14)

I’m not aware of any other use of “filthy clothes” to represent sin or guilt, although Paul comes close in his admonition to the Ephesians: “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice. . . .” (Eph 4:22) The Greek verb translated here as “put away” is the same that would be used to describe the act of removing one’s clothing, airo.

In Zechariah’s vision, angelic attendants remove Joshua’s filthy clothes, but in our lives it is up to us to do it ourselves, to “put away” such things as Paul lists.

There is one week left until the celebration of the Nativity. In that week, getting ready for Christmas, what “filthy clothes” do I need to take off?

====================

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

I’m sorry? – From the Daily Office – December 11, 2013

December 11, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 38:18 (NRSV) – December 11, 2013.)

Repentance of St Peter by Guido Reni I thought, “Surely, this is wrong! There can’t be anything as weak and lifeless in Scripture (especially in the Psalms) as the plaintive little cry, ‘I’m sorry . . . .'” So instead of the New Revised Standard Version, I turned to The Book of Common Prayer, sure that I would find a stronger statement, perhaps “I repent.” But, no. The BCP version of this psalm is really even worse because it renders the verb in the future tense: “I will confess my iniquity and be sorry for my sin.” Come on! “I will be sorry”? Really?

I couldn’t sit there in my pajamas disconcerted by such a feeble, apologetic rendering of what must surely be a more forceful statement in the Hebrew. I turned to my old interlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament and my Hebrew lexicon; I had to climb the stairs to the second floor study because those are not close to hand next to the recliner in the den. It was worth the effort; I breathed a sigh of relief. The Hebrew is da’ag, which means “to fear, be anxious, be concerned, be afraid, be careful.” In fact, the American Standard translation (which is what my interlinear uses) renders this verse: ” I am full of anxiety because of my sin.” In the Complete Jewish Bible (which I also snagged while I was upstairs), the translation is similar: “I am anxious because of my sin.” To be fearful or to be filled with anxiety because of one’s sinfulness is a lot more than merely being sorry! But even that doesn’t seem quite strong enough . . . .

I’m not sure why the words “I am sorry” set my teeth on edge, but they do. When my children were younger like all children they committed youthful indiscretions; when called on the carpet, their first words were always, “I’m sorry.” My response was almost always, “Don’t be sorry. Change your behavior.” Feeling badly about one’s wrong-doing is simply not enough! What is called for by Scripture, what is called for by the process of growing to maturity, is repentance. “Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin,” says Ezekiel (Ezek. 18:30) In another place, the Psalmist proclaims, “If one does not repent, God will whet his sword.” (Ps. 7:12) “Repent,” says Jesus, “for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matt. 4:17)

To repent is to lament one’s guilty state, turn away from it, change one’s mind and purpose, and undertake amendment of life and behavior. It is so much more than simply being sorry! It is to take action to alleviate one’s deep-set feelings of anxiety and fear. “Don’t be sorry. Change your behavior.”

Although Advent is not the penitential season that Lent is, there is in it a call to contrition. Last Sunday and next at the weekly celebration of the Eucharist we hear of John the Baptizer who came “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” and announcing the arrival of the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. (Luke 3:3,16) In Advent, we do our best once again to heed his call and prepare again for the Messiah’s arrival.

There is so much more required than simply a weak plea of “I’m sorry,” and certainly more the Prayer Book’s promise to be sorry in the future! Only with true repentance, right now, and amendment of life, now and in the future, can we “come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” (Eph. 4:13)

====================

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

Cleaning the Windshield — Sermon for All Saints Sunday, RCL Year C – November 3, 2013

November 3, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

====================

This sermon was preached on All Saints Sunday, November 3, 2013, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The Revised Common Lectionary, All Saints: Daniel 7:1-3,15-18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1:11-23; and Luke 6:20-31. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

[Note: The Revised Common Lectionary Old Testament reading for All Saints in Year C is an edited pericope; I had the reader at Mass read the entire thing, verses 1 through 18.]

====================

Windshield with Bugs Today is the first Sunday in November which means that instead of the normal sequence of lessons for Ordinary Time, we are given the option of reading the lessons for All Saints Day, which falls every year on November 1. So today we heard a very strange reading from the Book of Daniel, a to-my-ear very troubling gradual psalm (in which we sing of wreaking vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, of binding king in chains, and of inflicting judgment on the nobles bound in iron), a bit of Paul’s letter to the Church in Ephesus extolling the riches of the inheritance of the saints, and to Luke’s version of the Beatitudes in which Jesus not only blesses the poor, the hungry, and the weeping, he sighs woefully over the future plight people like ourselves – the comparatively wealthy, those whose bellies are full, and those in relatively good state of mind.

I asked our Old Testament reader this morning to read a somewhat longer lesson from Daniel than you find in your bulletin insert because the edited (or, more accurately, gutted) version there (which are the verses required for the day by the Revised Common Lectionary) includes only the introduction of a dream or vision experienced by Daniel and then skips immediately to the interpretation. We would have heard none of the apocalyptic imagery of the dream, but I think it important that we listen to and consider Daniel’s troubling vision of four strange beasts and the coming of one “like a son of man,” else how are we to understand the interpretation given by the “attendant.”

Early in my meditations and study for preaching today, I thought I would explore with you the meaning of the beasts and so on, but the more I thought about that, and especially as I began actually organizing my thoughts and writing out my sermon, I decided against doing so. It would I think be a distraction from the focus of the day. I was thinking that the reading as edited in the Lectionary presents us with a passage that makes little sense, but after reading and hearing again the full Daniel’s story of seeing a winged lion, a tusked bear, a four-headed leopard, and a ten-horned and iron-toothed monster, I guess that’s what we have in the longer reading, too! A lesson that distracts us, as so much in the Bible can do; so many people focus on these arcane details that they miss the bigger picture the Bible tries to show. As result, we get such non-Biblical nonsense as the various forms of “tribulationism” and the story of “the Rapture;” we get “one-issue Christians” who refuse to recognize as members of the same faith Christians who disagree with them. We get exactly the opposite of what the Feast of All the Saints is supposed to underscore.

So, instead of dealing with this troubling bit of the Bible right now, what I’d like you to do is come with me for a drive. Let’s just set the Bible aside and go get in our car and head off down the road. It’s a country road, a hard-pack dirt country road out in the farm country. We’re taking a country drive on a fine, beautiful spring day. It’s been raining, but it’s not raining now. Now the sun is shining and the birds are singing and insects of all sorts are buzzing and humming and chirping. In fact, there are loads of insects. It’s one of those days when the damsel flies are swarming, doing their brief romantic aerial ballets to attract mates and perpetuate their species. It’s one of those days when the grasshoppers are doing their best to eat everything in sight. It’s one of those days with yellow swallow-tails and monarchs and viceroys and white cabbage butterflies are flittering all over the place.

As we drive along, we’re traveling at a pretty good clip and, as you might expect with all those bugs around, the windshield is getting pretty messy. And since it just stopped raining and the dirt road is still a bit muddy, a lot of that has splashed up onto the windows and the windshield, as well. In fact, we can barely see through the windshield! We put the wipers on and twist the knob so the washer fluid sprays onto the glass, but the bug juice is sticky and there’s a lot of mud, so the washers only clear a little of the muck away, and the windshield is now not only covered with dead bugs and muck, it’s streaky, too!

Still, we peer through the streaks of bug blood and mud, and keep our eyes on the road ahead. Eventually we come to a filling station and we pull in. In a bygone era, a man in coveralls with a greasy rag tucked in his pocket would have run out and begun filling our tank with gas, and he would have checked under the hood, and he would have carried out a bucket of soapy water with a large sponge and a squee-gee, and he would have washed our bug-be-splattered, mud-streaked windshield and cleaned away all that distracting muck that was keeping us from seeing our way ahead.

A few days ago, I was reviewing a Vacation Bible School curriculum based on the story of Jonah and in the sales literature the publisher had written these words: “The Bible is a window that shows us God’s heart. In the stories, in the writings, and in the Gospels we see what God is like. The Bible reveals God to us, just like the windows in a car or in a building reveal what is going on outside.”

Isn’t that a great image for Holy Scripture: “The Bible is a window that shows us God’s heart.” Now I don’t know about you, but when I am driving in a car on a day like I described to you, a day when the windshield gets are splattered and messy with dead bugs and mud, I have a hard time looking beyond that cloudy window in front of me. I get distracted by the details on the window; I focus on them and not on the road out in front of me.

But so long as I focus on the window, the window is not serving its purpose. The window is not there to be the object of my attention; it is there to let me see what is happening on the other side. So it is with the Bible.

The Education for Ministry group that I have the privilege to mentor in this parish is made up of all first year students, so everyone in the group is working through study of the Old Testament. We are about six weeks into reading Genesis and Exodus now, and one of the things we’ve noticed is that the stories of the Patriarchs and the first Hebrews are not very pretty: Abraham is a liar; Jacob is a cheat; Joseph’s brothers are petulant bullies who nearly kill him; Moses whines a lot; and Aaron (Moses’ brother), although he is the first high priest, is the one who turns the people away from God and fashions the golden calf for them to worship! We are all, I think, finding it difficult to look past the peccadillos of the Patriarchs in order to see the God who is behind the stories; just like its difficult to look past the bugs and the mud on the windscreen!

And then today, along comes Daniel with his weird vision, the Palmist with his bloodthirsty delight in vengeance and revenge, and Jesus telling us that those of us who are fairly well off are destined to be hungry and in mourning! It’s hard to look past all of that understand where God is. As one commentator on Daniel noted, we who read this story in the Bible are “in the midst of bewildering events that affright and confuse.”

We find this all hard to accept and difficult to look through because we want the Bible to be clear! We want the Bible to be the answer book, to lay it all out for us in simple and easy-to-follow instructions; we want to be able to say, as our Sunday School children sang last week, “The B-I-B-L-E, that’s the book for me! I stand alone on the word of God, the B-I-B-L-E!” We just want it to be clear! But the Bible doesn’t exist to be the object of our devotion; the Bible doesn’t exist to be regarded on its own and for itself. The Bible is a window through which God is reveals Godself to us and, like any window, its got some distracting stuff we have to look past.

It does so because it is book (several books, actually) full of human stories, and human stories are messy. So we end up with stories of people who are sometimes liars and cheaters; people who can sometimes whine and be unfaithful. We end up with stories of weird hallucinations and frightful dreams. We end up with poetry by someone who’s been hurt so badly that vengeance and revenge can look like a gift of God. We end up with troubling warnings that we might, probably will, face hunger and grief. How do we look past that to see, as Paul encouraged the Ephesians, with the eyes of our hearts enlightened, so that we may know what is the hope to which God has called us?

Well, when we were on our drive through the countryside with our windshield spatted with bug goo and mud, we pulled into a gas station, and a mechanic came out and washed all of that away. Remember? Today is the day that we remember those who help clean away all of the distractions, the filling station attendants of the faith. Today we remember the saints who help to clear our vision of God. Broadly speaking, of course, the saints are all those who are baptized, who follow Jesus Christ, and who live their lives according to his teaching, which would include all of us here today. Church tradition, however, also uses the term more narrowly to refer to especially holy women and holy men who are heroes of the faith, who through lives of extraordinary virtue reveal the Presence of God to us, who clean that window through which we all look.

Cleaning a Windshield The saints whom we celebrate on this day (and the many who are given special days of individual recognition) were people who tried to live according to the Bible as they understood its teachings. Like us, they read it and encountered those troubling visions, those petulant patriarchs, those bloodthirsty psalms, and somehow looked past them and through them to see the God of faith, the God who Incarnate in Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” We extoll the virtues of those saint and we celebrate their lives and their witness because they help us to do the same. By their lives and their examples, they clean the windshield for us; they clean away the bug blood and the mud, so that we no longer focus on the window, but on the God the window shows us.

This is not to suggest that we should not study nor seek to understand the murkiness and cloudiness that we find on the window, the questionable and troublesome visions of Daniel, the lying and cheating of the Patriarchs, the bloodthirstiness of the Psalmist, or the petulant pettiness of the Prophets. Certainly, we should for we can learn thereby of the graciousness of the God who overlooked and overcame those faults, who regarded and redeemed those men and women! But following the example of the saints before us, we should not let ourselves be distracted by them so that we fail to see and appreciate that same God.

Today we give thanks for the saints, the filling station attendants of the faith, who help us clean our windshields.

O God, the King of saints, we praise and glorify your holy Name for all your servants who have finished their course in your faith and fear: for the blessed Virgin Mary; for the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs; and for all your other righteous servants, known to us and unknown; and we pray that, encouraged by their examples, aided by their prayers, and strengthened by their fellowship, we also may be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP 1979, Burial of the Dead, page 504)

====================

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

A Comprehensive Redemption – From the Daily Office – May 28, 2013

May 28, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Second Letter to the Corinthians:

Do I make my plans according to ordinary human standards, ready to say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time?

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – 2 Cor. 1:17b (NRSV) – May 28, 2013.)

Yes No Three words come to mind as I read Paul’s question: indecision, duplicity, and dialectic. Each could be described as “saying ‘Yes, yes’ and ‘No, no’ at the same time.”

Indecision or indecisivenss is simply the inability to come to a decision, bouncing back and forth between alternatives, wavering between “yes” and “no” without ever coming to a conclusion. This would not describe Paul, but it certainly does describe many people. Sometimes it’s OK not to make a choice; in fact, sometimes it’s downright necessary! Decisions need to be made at the proper time. Years ago I was a cadet in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). I don’t remember a good deal of that training, but I do remember this: “When it’s not necessary to make a decision, it’s necessary to not make a decision.” Read that again carefully: “When it’s not necessary to make a decision, it’s necessary to not make a decision.” In other words, don’t jump the gun. Don’t commit to an action before you have to. On the other hand, as William James said, “When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.” While Paul certainly called for his listeners and correspondents to make decisions and faithful choices, and even though he introduces this question with the words, “Was I vacillating,” I don’t believe that simple indecision is what Paul refers to in this passage.

Indecision may be morally neutral; duplicity, however, is not. Duplicity is deliberate deceptiveness: saying one thing and meaning another, or saying one thing to one person and something different to another. Deceitfulness is one synonym; hypocrisy is another. I suspect that this, rather than mere indecision, is the “ordinary human standard” to which he refers and which, by implication, he eschews. He may be referring to Jesus’ words about oath-taking from the Sermon on the Mount which the Christian community remembered and later recorded in Matthew’s Gospel: “Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.” (Matt. 5:37) In any event, dishonesty is probably Paul’s issue here.

Post-modern Anglican that I am, however, I can’t help but go a step further and wonder, “But why is in an either/or thing? Why not look at this as both/and?” Saying “Yes, yes” or “No, no” at the same time may be way of working through two opposing theses to arrive at a synthesis; in other words, a dialectic process may be at work here. Paul is such a black-and-white kind of guy that I don’t think he’d have made a very good Anglican dialectician. The “both/and” thing just doesn’t seem to be his style, but as we read his words we can move beyond them to a greater comprehensiveness.

As Paul continues his letter to the Corinthians he writes, “In [Jesus Christ] it is always ‘Yes.’ For in him every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes.’” (vv. 19-20) This is not simply a contradiction of a human “no” with some more powerful yet still human “yes.” Beyond either our “no” or our “yes” is a comprehensive divine affirmation. As Paul elsewhere wrote to the Colossians, “Christ is all and in all!” (Col. 3:11), and similarly to the Ephesians, “[God’s plan is] to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10), and earlier to the Corinthians, “[The plan of salvation is that] God may be all in all.” (1 Cor. 15:28). In other words, the divine “Yes” is a comprehensive synthesis which more than contradicts our human “No” and more than affirms our human “Yes.” Instead, it integrates both in a divine dialectic that produces something new that is neither our “No” nor our “Yes” but God’s redemption.

Reading Paul this morning, I am reminded of the need to make decisions in the best way and at the best time that we can, doing so honestly, but always remembering that even our best, most honest decisions may (and definitely will) be inadequate; all our decisions await God’s comprehensive redemption.

====================

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

“Be” not “Go” 24/7 – From the Daily Office – February 27, 2013

February 27, 2013 / eric / 2 Comments

From the Gospel of John:

The man [from the pool at Beth-zatha] went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 5:15-18 (NRSV) – February 27, 2013.)

I go to vs I am Graphic Recently, a graphic has been making the rounds on Facebook. I received it from another church and posted it on my parish’s Facebook page about 24 hours ago with the caption, “Something to think about.” As of the moment I am writing, this graphic has been “liked” 235 times. It has been shared 1,412 times. And according to Facebook’s calculations, it has been seen over 132,400 times. That’s only as originating our page. It is being posted and shared on other pages and, no doubt, has even larger numbers than these at some of those other pages.

The graphic in question is the illustration of this meditation. It suggests a distinction between what it calls “the consumer church” and “the missional church.” The first is characterized by an attitude in its members of “I go to church;” the second, by a realization that “I am the church.”

“My Father is still working, and I also am working.”

When I read these words, they spoke to me of the same thing, the difference in paradigm between “going to church” and “being church.” For Jesus, his ministry on this earth among the People of God was not simply something he was doing; it’s who he was. It wasn’t work he could walk away from, go home from at night, take a day off, or go away on a long weekend. His Father was working “24/7” and, so, so was he. This is the difference between “going to” and “being.”

Theologically, this difference is most often discussed in connection with ordained ministry, in distinguishing between a “functional” view of ordination and an “ontological” theology of Holy Orders.

Ontology deals with the nature or substance of thing. It answers the question, “What is it?” The ontological view holds that ordination works a permanent and indelible change in the character of the deacon, priest, or bishop ordained. It is a sacrament which, like baptism, cannot be repeated, nor can Holy Orders be conferred temporarily. The ontological view is that ordination places one in an exclusive position in the community of the church, not a better or privileged place, but one from which the clergy person is to live exclusively in service of the people of God. This view is summarized in the aphorism “Once a priest always a priest.”

Orthodox theology holds that this is also the nature of baptism, the sacrament of membership in the church. According to St. Gregory of Nyssa, a real metaphysical, ontological change takes place in the baptized person, if the baptized person lives a virtuous life and makes his or her baptism effective in faith. Again, the church’s understanding is that once one is baptized, one remains forever baptized.

At the other end of the spectrum of understandings of these sacraments is the “functional” or “relational” view. As to ordination, it is a view that the sacrament is nothing more than a license to perform the functions of ordained ministry within the context of the local church community; apart from his or her relation to that community, the ordained minister is nothing and possesses nothing. According to the functional view, any of the tasks normally performed by the ordained could be performed by others within the church if properly authorized by the local community. When the ordained minister ceases to function in that role, he or she ceases to be ordained.

However, there is no “functional” theology of baptism. To the best of my knowledge, all Christian traditions hold that once a person has been baptized with water “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19 NRSV), they are then and forever baptized. They may quibble about whether immersion is needed; they may describe the effect of baptism differently, as the “washing away of sin” or as conferring an indelible “mark” or “seal.” But once baptized, always baptized: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6 NRSV)

At least that’s the theology . . . the lived reality is often something different. For many church members, baptism is something that “was done” to them; they do not view it as defining who they are. For these Christians, church is a place they “go” not a Body to which they belong, not something they “are.” This morning, a member of my parish governing board brought this up in the context of contributions and offerings, budgets and bills. She made particularly note of the many church members who make an offering when they attend, but do not consider the church’s financial need when they are absent. “They are like people buying a service,” she said. Church is a place they “go;” church is not who they “are.”

I think this is why the graphic has proven so popular. There are many, many church members who “are the church,” who do not merely “go to church.” The graphic resonates with them. They realize that their Father is always working and that they, like Jesus, are also always working. Their Christian identity is a 24/7 thing.

In baptism, says The Book of Common Prayer, by water and the Holy Spirit God bestows upon God’s servants the forgiveness of sin and raises them to the new life of grace. The newly baptized person is “sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” (BCP 1979, page 308)

During this season of Lent, as the baptized are invited to observe “a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word” (page 265), I hope that all baptized persons will come to believe that church is who they are, not simply someplace they go.

====================

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

Reason and Consensus: Biblical Political Values – From the Daily Office – February 26, 2013

February 26, 2013 / eric / 2 Comments

From the Psalms:

How long will you assail a person,
will you batter your victim, all of you,
as you would a leaning wall, a tottering fence?
Their only plan is to bring down a person of prominence.
They take pleasure in falsehood;
they bless with their mouths,
but inwardly they curse.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 62:3-4 (NRSV) – February 26, 2013.)

U.S. Capitol As I read the lessons and Psalms of the Daily Office lectionary for today, this was the passage that spoke loudest to me, but I did not want to write about it. I tried to reflect upon and author a meditation about some other bits of the Scriptures appointed for today, but my thoughts kept returning to this one.

I’m fairly confident that my comments about it will not be readily accepted by, will indeed by rejected by some of my readers, including not a few of my parishioners. But I have to be honest in my understanding and exegesis of the Bible, and its application to our modern world.

I usually use the version of the Psalms from The Book of Common Prayer in these meditations, but today I’ve chosen to use the New Revised Standard Version because the translation is more accurate. The Prayer Book puts these words in the first person, “How long will you assail me . . . ?” The NRSV is closer to the Hebrew which is in the third person, “How long will you assail a man . . . ? The Hebrew is ‘iysh which can mean a male human being, but can also be translated as gender neutral, so the NRSV is not wrong to do so.

The theologian Karl Barth, in an interview with Time Magazine in 1963 advised theologians “to take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.” Three years later, in another interview, he said, “The Pastor and the Faithful should not deceive themselves into thinking that they are a religious society, which has to do with certain themes; they live in the world. We still need – according to my old formulation – the Bible and the Newspaper.”

When I read these words from the Bible, I cannot help but remember these words from the news: “I hope he fails. . . . . I hope Obama fails.” (Radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, The Rush Limbaugh Show, January 16, 2009)

I cannot help but remember these words from the news: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” (Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, National Journal interview, October 23, 2010)

I cannot help but remember these words from the news: “We’re going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.” (Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Oh, Politico, concerning President Obama’s first-term agenda, October 28, 2010)

I cannot do anything but what Professor Barth admonished and interpret these newspaper reports from my Bible, especially when my Bible decries and condemns those whose “only plan is to bring down a person of prominence.”

I make no bones of that fact that I am politically a progressive. I’ve never hidden that from anyone and in today’s current American political climate, especially since I live in a “swing state”, that means that I voted for President Obama, twice. My congregation knows that. In the first election, I put no political bumper stickers on my car, but my wife had an Obama/Biden sticker on hers. In the second election, we both did. If I’d had my druthers, I’d rather have voted for the Green Party but, as I said, I live in a swing state and a vote for the Greens would have been, effectively, a vote for the Republican candidates. I voted for President Obama.

So there they are; my political cards are on the table. In politics, economics, and social values, I’m on the “left” of the spectrum. No secrets.

But this isn’t about left or right, Democrat or Republican. It isn’t really about politics, at all. It’s about consensus building and governing with with reason; it’s about values that are not only political but Biblical.

I take the Bible seriously; I’m fairly conservative when it comes to exegeting Holy Scripture. When a Psalm negatively portrays the sorts of politics we see in modern America, I take it seriously.

I can remember a time, not so long ago, when this wasn’t the way our leaders conducted the country’s business. For example, although I was not (and never will be) a member of his party, I remember with affection and respect Senator Everett Dirksen, R-Ill. His was a voice of reason and compromise; his skillful working with Senators Hubert Humphrey (D-Mn) and Mike Mansfield (D-Mt) led to the end of a Republican filibuster and passage of the Civil Rights Act 1964.

It was a Republican who spoke of “the need to maintain balance in and among national programs – balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage – balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.” That Republican was President Dwight D. Eisenhower giving his farewell address to the nation on January 17, 1961.

President Eisenhower worked well with a Democratic Senate leader, Lyndon B. Johnson, D-Tx. They both had a fondness for government by consensus and reached across party lines to form a close working relationship. One of Johnson’s favorite sayings was “Come, let us reason together;” he spoke it often after he became president himself. It is a quotation from Scripture:

“Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool. If you consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Isaiah 1:18-20, NAS)

Our political parties do not have to play the sort of political games currently being played. They have worked together in the past; they can do so again. Planning only to bring down one’s opponent, refusing to work toward consensus, failing to reason together . . . these are not only bad politics, they are unfaithful.

Scripture is filled with admonitions to work together:

Oh, how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity! (Ps 133:1, BCP version)

Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. (1 Cor. 1:10, NRSV)

Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Eph. 4:1-3, NRSV)

Make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. (Philip. 2:2, NRSV)

Our political leaders who claim the Christian faith should not be governing (in truth, failing to govern) on the basis of “bringing down a person of prominence.” Any who do should be taken to task, but not on the basis of their politics, because on politics people of faith can disagree. No, they should be taken to task because such behavior is unfaithful; it betrays the Biblical witness and the admonitions of Scripture to reason together. Reason and consensus are not only political values; they are Biblical values.

====================

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

Wedding Wine, Multiple Universes, Lenten Speculation – From the Daily Office – February 18, 2013

February 18, 2013 / eric / 8 Comments

From the Gospel of John:

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

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 2:1-11 (NRSV) – February 18, 2013.)

Seems strange, doesn’t it, that the lectionary on the first Monday of Lent, this season of self-denial, would have us read a story of Jesus supplying a lot of really good wine for a party? Strange indeed! But I’m used to reading strange things.

Anyone who knows me well knows that there are two sorts of literature that I read for recreation and relaxation: science fiction and theoretical physics. I’ve been reading science fiction (and watching SF movies and TV shows) as long as I can remember. My bachelor’s degree is, officially, in “Contemporary English and American Literature” but, if truth be told, it’s really in science fiction; I went to university that allowed students to design their own major curricula, so that’s what I put in mine.

I might have gotten a degree in physics if I’d been able to understand the math. However, barely passing three courses in integral and differential calculus convinced me that the sciences weren’t going to be my life’s work. They would remain an active interest, but they would never be a career choice. (It always surprises people when I tell them that my first “real” job was as a laboratory assistant to two experimental physicists in the University of California system. It surprises me, too!)

One of the sub-genres of science fiction literature that I have particularly enjoyed over the years is the group of novels that explore the concept of multiple universes or alternate realities. Robert Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast and Glory Road, Roger Zelazney’s Chronicles of Amber, C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and S.M. Stirling’s Conquistador are of this sort. So, too, is a novel given me by my son and daughter-in-law at Christmas, The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Steven Baxter. In the latter novel, people known as “steppers” move among millions or billions or possibly an infinite number of parallel worlds, either by natural ability or by using a simple “step box” powered by a potato (remember, Terry Prachett is a co-author).

This “parallel universe” idea has been a favorite of science fiction authors for years. What’s great fun these days is that it is now gaining some credence with the science fact folks, too! With the advent of superstring theory and then m-theory, the idea of alternative universes, in fact an infinity of them, is finding justification in the mathematics of theoretical physics. Last month, the science website Space.com published an article entitled 5 Reasons We May Live in a Multiverse which began:

The universe we live in may not be the only one out there. In fact, our universe could be just one of an infinite number of universes making up a “multiverse.”

Though the concept may stretch credulity, there’s good physics behind it. And there’s not just one way to get to a multiverse — numerous physics theories independently point to such a conclusion. In fact, some experts think the existence of hidden universes is more likely than not.

By now, I’m sure that anybody reading this is wondering what any of this has to do with Jesus changing water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Well . . . as one of the characters on the British sit-com Miranda is fond of saying, “Bear with! Bear with!” I’m going to make a sideways step for a moment and then pull this together.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the execution of the 16th Century Dominican friar and condemned heretic Giordano Bruno; he was burnt at the stake on February 17, 1600, for among other things suggesting an infinite number of parallel worlds.

Yes, you read that right. A Dominican friar more than four centuries ago proposed as reality a staple of 20th Century science fiction and a theoretical construct of 21st Century physics, and he did so in the context of a theological meditation. In 1584, he published De l’Infinito, Universo e Mondi (“On the Infinite Universe and Worlds”). In it, he argued that there are an infinite number of worlds inhabited by intelligent beings. The universe, he said, reflects God in God’s infinite nature, thus God must exist everywhere, not as a singular remote heavenly deity. Bruno is quoted as writing:

God is omniscient, perfect, and omnipotent and the universe is infinite. If God is all-knowing, he must be able to think of everything, including whatever I am thinking. Since God is perfect and completely actualized, he must create what he thinks. I can imagine an infinite number of worlds like the earth, with a Garden of Eden on each one. In all these Gardens of Eden, half the Adams and Eves will not eat the fruit of knowledge, but half will. But half of infinity is infinity, so an infinite number of worlds will fall from grace and there will be an infinite number of crucifixions. Therefore, either there is one unique Jesus who goes from one world to another, or there are an infinite number of Jesuses. Since a single Jesus visiting an infinite number of earths one at a time would take an infinite amount of time, there must be an infinite number of Jesuses. Therefore, God must create an infinite number of Christs. (Weisstein)

What if Bruno was right? Or at least partially right. What if there are an infinite number of worlds, as m-theory mathematics suggests there are? But instead of a single, unique Jesus needing “an infinite amount of time” to go from world to world, what if that single, unique incarnation of the Godhead had (and has always had) instant access to all of the infinite worlds? (I realize that words like always and instant become problematic when we begin to speculate about infinite parallel universes.) What if Jesus could “step” like the characters in Pratchett’s and Baxter’s The Long Earth, not in the limited way those characters can but in an omnipotent way, instantly from any of the infinite worlds to any other? What if Jesus were able in some way to bring into this disordered universe the proper, unfallen reality of a parallel creation? He could, when coming down from the mountain of the Transfiguration, heal the epileptic boy by bringing the reality of his good health from a parallel world into this world. He could, when feeding the 5,000, reach into an alternate reality of abundance and bring its plenty into this world of scarcity to more than feed the gathered crowd. He could, when the wedding party ran out of wine, supply this world’s need with the overflowing vintage of a parallel existence.

Perhaps that is why the lectionary steers us, at the beginning of Lent, to the contemplation of a wedding reception where the Lord provided an abundance of wine, to considering a story of God’s power and grace that, as Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20) I’ll admit that this all may be a flight of fancy, a fit of fantasy, but the question of God’s omniscience or omnipotence, attributes that classical theology insists God must have, becomes all the more intriguing if we do live in a multiverse rather than a universe, if creation is multiform rather than uniform. And our Lenten meditations become much more fun!

====================

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

Employers and Employees – From the Daily Office – January 25, 2013

January 25, 2013 / eric / 2 Comments

From the Letter to the Ephesians:

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free. And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Ephesians 6:5-9 (NRSV) – January 25, 2013.)

Victorian Child Labor Photograph So let’s admit right off the bat that we have a problem here. Where the progressives and liberals among us would much prefer to read Paul condemning the institution of slavery, he does not. Instead, he simply admonishes slaves to be good slaves and masters to be good masters, and even goes so far as to analogize a Christian’s relationship with God (or Jesus) to slavery. This just doesn’t sit well in the modern mind and provides plenty of ammunition for those whom Friedrich Schleiermacher addressed as religion’s “cultured despisers.” We would much rather Paul hadn’t said this.

But he did. So what to think of it . . . .

First off, the Greek here is doulos which is most often translated as “slave” as it is here, but it can also refer to a bond-servant, a servant for hire, or to someone who is devoted to another without regard of his or her own interests (the last often metaphorically). It’s unlikely that Paul intended this as either a comment on non-slavery employment relationships or as a metaphorical statement, but we can certainly read it in those ways in our modern context.

Secondly, and this encourages us to read this text as applicable to modern employee-employer relations, the institution of slavery in the First Century Roman empire was an economic, not a racial, reality. We modern Americans, influenced by our own history, hear racial overtones in these verses, but they are not really there. In ancient Rome slaves might be prisoners of war, sailors captured and sold by pirates, slaves bought outside Roman territory, or even the children of desperately poor Roman citizens sold into bond-servanthood by their parents. Further, slaves were commonly and even rather frequently freed; a slave could buy his or her own freedom.

So if we read this text as referring not only to the First Century practice of slavery, but applying also to any economic institution wherein one person works at the behest of and for the benefit of another, it provides guidance for theological critique of contemporary employment practices and related laws. It requires the church to question any employment situation in which workers are inadequately paid, where worker safety is at risk, or which threatens to damage the family life or welfare of the worker and his or her dependents.

In fact, the long struggle to recognize and protect workers’ rights finds its genesis in this and similar biblical texts. In Great Britain and in our own country during the 18th and 19th Centuries (and even into the early 20th Century), children worked in mines and factories; all laborers worked six-day weeks and often 16- to 18-hour days; working conditions were often dangerous; and on-the-job death was a common occurrence. Fans of the series Downton Abbey (or earlier dramas such as Upstairs, Downstairs) need only think of the way in which the servants’ life is portrayed to see a small (and very toned-down) illustration of what a worker’s life was like, always at the beck-and-call of the employer.

The anti-slavery movement in Britain became the movement to bring about just and equitable labor laws, to prevent children from working, to reduce the work day to ten hours per day, and to make employers responsible for working conditions. That movement spread to the United States. In both Britain and America, it was driven by Christians, many of them Christian socialist Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England and the Episcopal Church, who read these texts as demanding the ends they sought.

So we need not apologize to our “cultured despisers” for Paul’s words about slavery. Instead, we are called like our forebears in the faith to see in them our call to champion workers’ rights and just labor laws.

====================

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

Category: Ephesians (Page 5 of 7)

Temporary Reminder – From the Daily Office – March 5, 2014

A Theology of Gift Giving – Sermon for the Second Sunday of Christmas – January 5, 2014

Filthy Clothes – From the Daily Office – December 18, 2013

I’m sorry? – From the Daily Office – December 11, 2013

Cleaning the Windshield — Sermon for All Saints Sunday, RCL Year C – November 3, 2013

A Comprehensive Redemption – From the Daily Office – May 28, 2013

“Be” not “Go” 24/7 – From the Daily Office – February 27, 2013

Reason and Consensus: Biblical Political Values – From the Daily Office – February 26, 2013

Wedding Wine, Multiple Universes, Lenten Speculation – From the Daily Office – February 18, 2013

Employers and Employees – From the Daily Office – January 25, 2013

Looking for Something …. ?

The Archive

Subscribe

Blogroll

News Sources

Administration

Copyright

Looking for Something …. ?

The Categories

The Archive

Subscribe

Blogroll

News Sources

Administration

Copyright