Category: Palestine (Page 4 of 6)

An Aquifer – From the Daily Office – August 19, 2014

August 19, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come?

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 121:1 (BCP Version) – August 19, 2014)

Aquifer I love Psalm 121 for a variety of reasons. It is the psalm which the sanctoral lectionary provides for the feast of St. Francis of Assisi (October 4), always a favorite saint. It is the psalm my late mother chose to be read at her funeral. It is one of the psalms of ascent which pilgrims to the Temple are believed to have sung as they made their way to Jerusalem for the major festivals of ancient Judaism; on pilgrimage in Israel and Palestine, my wife and I recalled it as we rode in a travel coach from Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv to ancient city. There many good memories, some joyful, some sad, all meaningful, associated with it.

Its first verse seems particularly appropriate this week as the world has come through and continues to experience the tragedy of conflict in Gaza, the carnage that is the on-going fighting in Iraq, and the violence that has erupted in Ferguson, Missouri. I can imagine people on every side of every one of those situations lifting their eyes and wondering where help is going to come from.

Help, the psalm assures us, comes from the Lord, “the maker of heaven and earth.” But I sometimes think that many (if not most) find that about as helpful as Job did: “Oh, that I knew where I might find him . . . If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him.” (Job 23:3a,8-9) We live in a world where people do not know where to find God, do not know where to look for strength.

I would suspect that most who acknowledge the objective reality of God when asking the question posed in this psalm look for help “out there somewhere” hoping to find God swooping in like Superman bounding tall buildings, or more disturbingly like American bombers defending an Iraqi dam. On the other hand, those who deny the reality of God either don’t bother to look at all or (more commonly) also look “out there somewhere” expecting never to see anything.

A few, however, will know that (as St. Bernard de Clairvaux observed) our spiritual nourishment comes from the place where we think, pray and work, that we begin our spiritual journey where we are and not somewhere else. Moses promised his people that God was bringing them “into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills,” (Dt 8:7) and while that may have been the promise of real and tangible place it is also a metaphor for the spiritual reality of God’s help and strength. Jesus told the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well that he would give those who asked the water of life which would become in them “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (Jn 4:14)

God’s help, God’s strength, God’s spirit is like an aquifer underlying the soil of our lives. We tap that help and strength by going within, by searching the core of our being, not by looking “out there somewhere.” Yes, like the psalmist, we lift up our eyes to hills as we wonder where to find help, but we must turn our gaze around to actually discover it.

Certainly the people of Gaza, Iraq, and Missouri are right to look for help from outside, but such help is contingent and temporary; it cannot produce any real, lasting, long-term solution. Real change will only come when all people look deep within and tap that spiritual aquifer to which we all have access, that underground stream of living water, that spring of eternal life which has been promised all along.

From where is my help to come? From the Lord, deep within not “out there somewhere.”

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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.

Of Tombs and Siblings – From the Daily Office – August 14, 2014

August 14, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Acts:

[Stephen the Deacon answered the High Priest in the council and said:] “Joseph sent and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five in all; so Jacob went down to Egypt. He himself died there as well as our ancestors, and their bodies were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 7:14-16 (NRSV) – August 14, 2014)

Icon of the Martyrdom of St Philoumenos Shechem was known as Sychar in Jesus’ time. Near that land that Abraham had bought for use as a tomb, just a short walk south from the traditional location of Joseph’s tomb, is a well that belonged to Jacob. At that well, Jesus stopped to ask a Samaritan woman for a drink; part of the story of that meeting and Jesus’ conversation with the woman (the longest of all the conversations recorded in the Gospels) is today’s Gospel text (John 4:27-42).

Near Sychar the Romans built the Greek-named city of Flavia Neapolis which grew large and encompassed the ancient Jewish and Samaritan city. As the predominant local language changed to Arabic, the Greek name was retained but shortened and Arabicized, and now the modern city of Nablus is among the largest Arab cities in the Holy Land.

Over the site of Jacob’s Well stands the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Photini. The name Photini is given by Orthodox tradition to the Samaritan woman; it means “light bringer” in recognition of her bringing the light of Christ to the people of the city. The first church dedicated to her at the site was built in 311 AD.

There are two tombs at St. Photini Church. One inside houses the remains of Archimandrite Philoumenos, a priest who almost single-handedly restored the ancient church to its present modern condition. In 1979 a group of radical Zionists from a nearby Israeli settlement claimed Jacob’s Well, which is in a chapel inside the crypt of the church, as a Jewish holy place and demanded that crosses and icons be removed. A week later, on November 29, Fr. Philoumenos was hacked to death with an ax in the crypt and the church was desecrated. Although it is widely believed that the settlers were responsible, no one was ever convicted of the priest’s murder. Fr. Philoumenos was ranked among the Saints of the Church of Jerusalem on August 30, 2008, and his feast day set on November 29, the anniversary of his martyrdom.

Fr Justinus's Tomb The second tomb is that of Fr. Justinus, the priest who took over the church from St. Philoumenos and continued his work of restoration. An accomplished artist, Fr. Justinus wrote all of the icons which now decorate the nave, sanctuary, and crypt, including an icon of the martyrdom of St. Philoumenos. Fr. Justinus’s tomb is empty because he is still alive. He built his tomb himself and it is placed just outside the front door of the church; he walks past it everyday coming from his residence in the neighboring monastery to the church. It is a daily reminder of his (and our) mortality and of the dangers he (and many) face in the on-going violence or threat of violence that characterizes the Holy Land today.

If we were to read further in Acts (and we will tomorrow and the day after) we would read of the martyrdom of Stephen. His address to the Sanhedrin (perhaps one would best characterize it as a polemical sermon) so enraged his hearers that “they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him” (Acts 7:58) which resulted in his death. We are told that “devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him” (8:2) but we are not told where his burial place may have been, though surely it is in or near Jerusalem.

Nonetheless, his sermon about Jesus at Jacob’s Well in Shechem-Sychar-Nablus, the well’s location near Joseph’s Tomb and its intimate connection to the martyrdom of St. Philoumenos, and the eventual outcome of Stephen’s address are stark reminders that the Good News of God (whether that be the Covenant of the Old Testament or the Gospel of the New) is not the promise of an easy life. One would not be surprised to hear the Almighty singing the lyrics of that old country song:

I beg your pardon; I never promised you a rose garden.
Along with the sunshine, there’s gotta be a little rain sometime.
When you take you gotta give so live and let live and let go.
I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.

In fact, Jesus did pretty much that when he disabused his disciples, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Mat. 10:34)

The People of God are called to be risk-takers and, sometimes, to risk even death. Christians most surely must know that; we have only the example of our Lord to prove it. But it is also true of all the children of Abraham, not only Christians but also Jews and Muslims. What is sad is that Abraham’s descendants cannot live peaceably among themselves, that it is often our Abrahamic “siblings” from whom we face the greatest danger (sometimes even more so from our brothers and sisters within the same faith group). I believe that this breaks God’s heart!

As he died, Stephen the Deacon “knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’” (Acts 7:60) So should we all pray for those who persecute us, and let us pray especially for all who are the spiritual descendants of Abraham, that there may be peace among Jews, Muslims, and Christians.

(Note: The icon of the martyrdom of St. Philoumenos may be photographed by pilgrims and tourists, and those photographs are to be found widely posted on the internet, the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority will not permit the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem nor the parish church or monastery to reproduce the icon. It is considered politically inflammatory and is therefore censored.)

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

Tomato Juice Bombs – From the Daily Office – August 9, 2014

August 9, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

So teach us to number our days
that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary [Morning Psalm] – Psalm 90:12 (BCP Version) – August 9, 2014)

Dog Washed in Tomato Juice “In the tragedies in Iraq, Western Africa and Gaza, the waters of chaos are overwhelming us. My personal response right now is to keep my eyes on our Lord. My prayers ascend for all. Save us Lord.”

— The Rt. Rev. Nicholas Knisely, Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island (posted as a Facebook status this morning)

This prayer and its good advice from the bishop dovetails with the morning psalm. Keep our eyes on the Lord that God may teach us and we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Because what we’ve been applying our hearts to hasn’t been working.

I wrote a poem about that a few days ago: it’s entitled Tomato Juice Bombs

“Tomato juice!”
Every time the dog
encounters a skunk
and ends up stinking
to high heaven
of volatile compounds
and skunk musk
the cry goes up,
“Tomato juice!”

It doesn’t really work.
Those near the dog,
washing the dog,
covered themselves
in tomato juice
suffer olfactory fatigue;
they think it works.
“Tomato juice!”
It doesn’t really work.

“Bombs and soldiers!”
Every time the world
encounters fanatics
and ends of stinking
to high heaven
of rocket fuel
and murdered children
the cry goes up,
“Bombs and soldiers!”

It doesn’t really work.
Those near the bombs,
dropping the bombs,
covered themselves
in dirt and blood and smoke
suffer ethical fatigue;
they think it works.
“Bombs and soldiers!”
It doesn’t really work.

Dogs and fanatics,
Skunks and rockets,
Tomato juice bombs,
don’t really work.
It all still stinks
to high heaven.

Please, Lord, help us keep our eyes on you; teach us, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom and learn to do something that works.

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

Uncounted, Unnamed Children – Sermon for August 3, 2014, Pentecost 8, Proper 13A

August 3, 2014 / eric / 1 Comment

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On the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, August 3, 2014, this sermon was offered to the people of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(The lessons for the day were: Isaiah 55:1-5; Psalm 145: 8-9,15-22; Romans 9:1-5; and Matthew 14:13-21. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Tabgha Mosaic - Loaves and Fish Today we are witnesses to one of the great and popular miracles of the gospel story, the feeding of the 5,000, which is actually the feeding of many more than that — notice the last few words of the gospel lesson text: “those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.” (v. 21, emphasis added) Matthew gives little thought to the men’s wives or their uncounted, unnamed children.

I would like to put us in context, both in time and space, so we have a fuller picture of what we have just witnessed. Matthew tells this story in the middle of chapter 14 of his gospel. In chapter 13 he related all those parables told by Jesus sitting in a boat off the shore of the Galilean lake at Capernaum, but at the end of the chapter he doesn’t leave Jesus sitting in the boat. Instead, he tells us that “when Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place [and] came to his hometown,” which would be Nazareth. (Mt 13:53-54) (You may recall that that didn’t go well: Jesus was heard to say that ” prophets are not without honor except in their own country” – v. 57)

Then, at the beginning of chapter 14 Matthew leaves Jesus altogether and tells us about the beheading of John the Baptist, which took place Sebastia, about 36 miles south of Nazareth. Matthew then brings us back to Jesus saying at the beginning of our lesson today that upon hearing the news of John’s execution, Jesus “withdrew in a boat to a deserted place.” (14:13)

Since Nazareth is not on any river or lake, I’m not sure how he did that! Here’s my difficulty: Nazareth is about 20 miles due west of the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee. In order to “withdraw in a boat” he’d have had to walk for a day or two first. It’s possible though.

Near by Nazareth, about four miles away, is the city of Sepphoris, believed to be the Virgin Mary’s hometown. In Jesus’ time it was a Roman city and may have been where craftsmen from Nazareth, like Joseph, worked. There probably was regular commerce between Sepphoris and the Roman city of Tiberias on Galilee; today there is a highway between them. Jesus may have walked to Tiberias and then gotten in a boat to make his way back to Capernaum (about 10 miles north along the shore).

Tradition tells us that the feeding of the 5,000 (or more) took place about three miles south of Capernaum at a place called Tabgha, or al-Tabigha in Arabic, a name derived from the Greek name Heptapegon meaning “seven springs”. As early as the Fourth Century there was a shrine at the identified location. A pilgrim woman from Spain named Egeria chronicled her travels in the Holy Land around the year 384 and, about Tabgha, wrote: “In the same place (not far from Capernaum) facing the Sea of Galilee is a well watered land in which lush grasses grow, with numerous trees and palms. Nearby are seven springs which provide abundant water. In this fruitful garden Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish.” (Egeria, of course, has thought only of the men, not their wives or their uncounted, unnamed children.)

In the floor of that shrine was a mosaic of loaves and fishes which has become famous throughout the Christian world. It is reproduced on your bulletin cover and is now preserved in the floor before the altar of the Church of the Multiplication, a Benedictine monastery church built at the site. The place is about a mile inland from the shore of Lake Galilee.

One last detail must be attended to and that is the question, “Could there really have been that many people there?” Possibly. That’s the best answer one can give. There are many towns and cities close enough to Tabgha that, if word got around that a miracle worker were there, people could have gotten there within a day or less of good solid walking, more quickly if they could ride a donkey or camel. Sepphoris had a population 40,000 or more, and Tiberias may have been of similar size; both were within a day’s journey. Capernaum probably had a population of 2,000 or more. The city of Chorazin, which Jesus (by the way) had cursed, is nearby. Migdala Nunia, the hometown of Mary Magdalene, is nearby. A large, m ixed crowd of Jews, Romans, and other Gentiles could easily have gathered. Matthew may be exaggerating, but even if he has increased the number of men tenfold, we are still witnessing something wonderful. Jesus is able to feed a whole lot more people than he ought with two fish and a few loaves of bread.

So that’s when and where we are as we witness this scene of Jesus providing lunch for an unbelievably huge number of people. We are on a hillside a mile from the Sea of Galilee where Jesus has gone in an attempt to get away by himself. He has just recently had a negative experience in Nazareth; he has just heard about the execution of his cousin John; he has tried to get away from it all, but the people have followed him and now find themselves with nothing to eat. And so they have turned to Jesus’ disciples, to the Twelve (who seem also to have followed him) and asked them for food. And the Twelve are at loss about what to do. They have taken stock and they simply do not believe that they can feed all these men, to say nothing of the women and the uncounted, unnamed children.

So they have a very reasonable suggestion for Jesus: “Send them away. Tell them to go back where they came from, or if that is too far away then to one of the nearer towns, and buy themselves something to eat. We cannot feed all these men and their women and their unnamed, uncounted children.”

Send them away! We do not have enough to share with these children who are fleeing drug wars and violence in Central America and illegally crossing our border and . . . .

O, wait . . . I’m mixing up my stories, sorry. This isn’t the Mexican border. This is the Holy Land. Right . . . .

Send them away! We do not have enough to share with these Palestinian children with their demands for civil liberty and a country of their own and . . . .

O, darn. I’ve done it again, mixed up my stories. This isn’t Gaza; this is the Galilee. Right . . . .

But the stories are easy to mix up. Unnamed people in need, unnamed children in need, and the response at the Mexican border is the response in Gaza is the response on that hillside at Tabgha. Send them away! Get rid of them! And whatever you do don’t count the children, don’t name the children, don’t even think of them as children.

Think of them as “law breakers.” Think of them as “illegal immigrants.” Think of them as “migrant hispanics.” And send them away. Get rid of them.

A few days ago, a major news organization quoted a North Carolina politician as saying (and, as God is my witness, I am not making this up): “To me, they’re breaking the law when they come here. If we can’t turn them back, I think if we pop a couple of them off and leave the corpses laying on the border, maybe they’ll see that we’re serious about stopping immigration.” (Raw Story)

Send them away! Get rid of them! And whatever you do don’t count them, don’t name them, don’t even think of them as children.

A few days after the current fighting in and around Gaza started a U.N. school was bombed — Hamas claimed it was an Israeli shell; Israel claimed it was an errant Hamas rocket; but to the seventeen children who died that was really irrelevant. The numbers of Palestinian dead began to rise and a disproportionate number of the dead every day are kids. By July 23, over 600 Gazans had died, 150 of them children. On that day, international aid agencies were reporting that “a child had been killed in Gaza on average every hour for the preceding two days, and more than 70,000 children had been forced to flee their homes.” (The Guardian)

That week, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem offered for radio broadcast a public service advertisement listing the names of some of the children. The Israeli Broadcasting Authority banned the ad saying its content was “politically controversial.” B’Tselem appealed and in its appeal said: “Is it controversial that the children [aren’t] alive? That they’re children? That those are their names? These are facts that we wish to bring to the public’s knowledge.” Its appeal was denied and the names of the children have never been published in Israel.

Whatever you do don’t count the children, don’t name the children, don’t even think of them as children. Think of them as “collateral damage.” Think of them as “Hamas sympathizers.” Think of them as “dirty Palestinians.” But send them away. Get rid of them.

On learning that the advertisement had been banned, the respected British children’s author Michael Rosen wrote a poem. Rosen, for two years, was British Children’s Laureate and has written more than 140 books for children. He is, incidentally, an ethnic Jew. This is his poetic response to the Broadcasting Authority’s ban:

Don’t mention the children.
Don’t name the dead children.
The people must not know the names
of the dead children.
The names of the children must be hidden.
The children must be nameless.
The children must leave this world . . .
having no names.
No one must know the names of
the dead children.
No one must say the names of the
dead children.
No one must even think that the children
have names.
People must understand that it would be dangerous
to know the names of the children.
The people must be protected from
knowing the names of the children.
The names of the children could spread
like wildfire.
The people would not be safe if they knew
the names of the children.
Don’t name the dead children.
Don’t remember the dead children.
Don’t think of the dead children.
Don’t say: ‘dead children’.
(Don’t Name the Dead Children)

“Send them away,” said the Twelve, “Get rid of them.” Jesus answer took them by surprise: “You feed them,” he said. And he proceeded to show them how they could, to prove to them that with whatever resources they had, they could care for those 5,000 men and their wives and their uncounted, unnamed children.

Lambs About a mile away from the spot where that happened, on the beach of the Sea of Galilee is another church. It is called by two names. One is the Church of the Primacy of Peter; the other is Mensa Domini, the Lord’s Table. It marks the place where, after his Resurrection, the Lord appeared to his disciples and cooked for them a breakfast of broiled fish. As they ate, Jesus asked Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter

said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” (Jn 21:15-17)

On the Mexican border, in the person of our brothers and sisters who work in Episcopal Border Ministry or Episcopal Migration Ministry, we meet those refugee children fleeing violence and death in Central America . . . In Gaza, in the person of our sisters and brothers of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem who work in the hospitals and clinics our own Good Friday offerings support, we meet the Palestinian children facing bombs and rockets and death . . . And when we meet those uncounted and still in the media unnamed children, we are just like the Twelve standing on that hillside at Tabgha looking at those 5,000 men and their wives and their unnamed, uncounted children and wondering, “How are we going to deal with this?” Some of us will want to say “Send them away we can’t handle this,” but Jesus says to us as he said to the Twelve, “Feed them.”

Jesus asks us what he asked Simon, son of John, on that beach, “Do you love me?” And if our answer is “Yes” he will name those children: he will name them “my lambs,” and what he said to Peter he will say to us, “Feed my lambs.”

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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.

Encountering Jesus with Mixed Emotions – From the Daily Office – August 1, 2014

August 1, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Psalms:

When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was stupid and ignorant; I was like a brute beast towards you.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary [Evening Psalm] – Psalm 73:21-22 (NRSV) – August 1, 2014)

Coexist - Religious Symbols I don’t know what to do about Israel and Palestine. Apparently no one knows what to do about Israel and Palestine. There is so much bitterness and emotion on both sides and from all quarters that no one can even talk about Israel and Palestine.

There’s a Facebook meme that I see from time to time: “How to start an argument online.” The instructions are simple: (1) express an opinion; (2) wait. With regard to the fighting and the deaths in Gaza, this is especially true.

Condemn the government of Israel or the Israeli Defense Force for bombing schools and hospitals . . . one is immediately labeled anti-Semitic.

Express sympathy for the people of Israel who have to deal with Hamas’ rockets . . . get called a Right-wing ideologue.

Vent one’s horror at the deaths of Palestinian women and children . . . you are obviously a supporter of Hamas.

Suggest that maybe the two sides should sit down and work out a way to live together . . . clearly one is naive or, worse, delusional.

So much bitterness and heartsickness on all sides; so much stupid brutishness as a result.

In today’s gospel, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go to the tomb, find it empty, and encounter an angel. Even though the angel tells them to not be afraid, they are; they leave the tomb “with fear and great joy.” They have, as my late mother was fond of saying about many things, “mixed emotions.” This ought to be, and probably is, what most people have about the situation in Israel and Palestine.

But what we seem incapable of doing is admitting that, that our emotions are mixed. Instead, we latch on to one predominant emotion and let it color every statement and conversation: horror at the death of children and we become passionate defenders of the Palestinians, unable to see that there is some right on the side of the Israelis; fear for the Jewish homeland and we become passionate advocates for the IDF, unable to see that there is good on the Palestinian side, as well. In the thrall of emotion, as the Psalm says, we become stupid and brutish.

The women, with mixed emotions, encountered Jesus.

One of the things we learned on our recent trip to the Holy Land was that there has been a significant, even drastic drop in the percentage of the population which is Christian. Thirty years ago, about 25% of Palestine’s residents were Christian; today, less than 2%. Israel blames “Muslim extremism” for causing the Christian exodus; Palestinians counter that it results from Israeli government policies. It really doesn’t matter, however; the decrease is a fact.

What is also a fact is that, on the ground — not from government or leadership sources, but from people we met on the street, both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arab Muslims told us in no uncertain terms that they need the Christian presence, that they see in the Christian community the only possibility for peace and reconciliation. They believe that the Christian presence holds the possibility for mediation and a way forward for all.

They made it clear, of course, that by “Christian presence” they mean the traditional churches, the Roman Catholics and the Greek Orthodox, the Lutherans and the Anglicans, not the “Armageddonists,” the fanatics who support the ultra-Orthodox Jews who want to rebuild the Temple, the Dispensationalists who think the recreation of “biblical Israel” will hasten the Rapture, the Tribulation, the final battle, and the return of Christ. The presence of those folks holds only the promise of greater conflict.

No . . . the people we met on the streets and in the shops of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and elsewhere want, with their mixed emotions, with their bitterness and heartsickness, to encounter Jesus in the people of his church. They want to, as the Lutheran bishop in the Holy Land said yesterday, engage in “interfaith dialogue, a dialogue which seeks the common values of peace, justice, co-existence, and non-violence.” (Bishop Munib Younan)

This is why the traditional Christians of Palestine must stay, and why the traditional Christians of other countries must support them with our prayers and encouragement, our financial contributions, and even our presence. We must not be afraid to go to the Holy Land to stand with them and to greet the other children of Abraham, the Jews and the Muslims, to say to all, as Paul said to the Corinthians, that there is a “still more excellent way.” (1 Cor 12:31)

“Without dialogue between religions, extremism will grow and moderates, including Christians, will be sidelined and marginalized in their own societies. It is time not only for governments to assume their responsibilities, but also people of faith.” (Bishop Younan)

We must not allow mixed emotions, bitterness, or heartsickness to turn us brutish and stupid. Rather, with all of our emotion and our intellects, we must encounter Christ and we must be the Christ others encounter.

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

Talking of Michelangelo – From the Daily Office – July 31, 2014

July 31, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel according to Matthew:

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 27:57-62 (NRSV) – July 31, 2014)

One evening during our recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land, while we were staying at the guest house of the White Sisters of Nazareth in Nazareth, our tour director took a group of us into the basement of the convent and then deeper underground. We entered an excavation in which a First Century home and, nearby, a tomb had been discovered and were preserved by the Sisters with little fanfare or public acknowledgment.

The tomb was the sort known as a “bench tomb” containing an outer room, where the bodies would be prepared, wrapped in linen and anointed with spiced, aromatic oils, and an inner room, where the bodies would be laid on stone benches carved in the walls. The bodies would repose for a few years while desert air, insects, and the processes of decay did their work. Later, perhaps after about four years, the bones would be removed, placed in an ossuary, and the ossuary taken to a necropolis for their permanent rest.

Our guide referred several times to the outer room as “the room where women wept.” It was the women’s job to attend to the bodies of the dead, to prepare them for their time of decay on the tomb’s stone benches. Each time he said it, I thought of a couple of lines from a poem by T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.”

And I wondered, what would the women have talked about as they went through the task of washing the bodies of the dead, anointing them with the oils, wrapping them with the linen bindings?

Would they talk only about the deceased? Or would the conversation move on to cover other things of daily life — marriages and births, departures from the village, illnesses and aches-and-pains? Would it stray into less familiar territory — philosophy and art, “talk of Michelangelo,” current politics, synagogue governance?

What might Mary Magdalene and the other Mary have discussed if they had had the opportunity to perform their ritual task that Friday afternoon? The gospels give us no clue and we are left with only our imaginations to fill in the gap. That is the frustration, as well as the beauty and wonder, of religion. True faith does not seek to answer every question, fill in every space, but leaves room for the believer’s active fancy to flesh out the story. What might the women have talked about? Use your imagination!

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

“Joshua” Is Not a Plan for Government – From the Daily Office – July 26, 2014

July 26, 2014 / eric

From the Book of Joshua:

Joshua summoned all Israel, their elders and heads, their judges and officers, and said to them, “I am now old and well advanced in years; and you have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you. I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations that remain, along with all the nations that I have already cut off, from the Jordan to the Great Sea in the west. The Lord your God will push them back before you, and drive them out of your sight; and you shall possess their land, as the Lord your God promised you. Therefore be very steadfast to observe and do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right nor to the left, so that you may not be mixed with these nations left here among you, or make mention of the names of their gods, or swear by them, or serve them, or bow yourselves down to them, but hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day. For the Lord has driven out before you great and strong nations; and as for you, no one has been able to withstand you to this day. One of you puts to flight a thousand, since it is the Lord your God who fights for you, as he promised you. Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Joshua 23:2-11 (NRSV) – July 26, 2014)

Map of Palestine 2007 For the past several days, the Daily Office Lectionary has required us to read sections of the Book of Joshua detailing the conquest of the land “from the Jordan to the Great Sea in the west.” I have dutifully read those lessons every day. I have been deeply troubled by them and by the suggestion (which I have seen some make on Facebook and other online sources) that the “history” set out in the Book of Joshua demonstrates God’s approval of the conquest of “biblical Israel” by the modern state of Israel. I have avoided writing anything about these lessons in these daily reflections on this blog.

I’ve decided I cannot be silent any further. I must protest such a gross misunderstanding these stories and at least two distortions on which it is based.

First, the modern state of Israel is not the ancient nation of Israel. One cannot say that strongly enough. The modern state of Israel is NOT the ancient nation of Israel. That ancient nation ceased to exist centuries ago; its people were dispersed through several other nations — this is what the term “the diaspora” refers to — its government collapsed — its territory was absorbed into a series of empires.

The modern state of Israel was created in 1948 following the campaign by modern Zionists, themselves mostly secular rather than religious Jews, for a Jewish homeland. That campaign pre-dated the Nazi holocaust, but the holocaust gave the Zionist program added urgency. In November 1947, bowing to intense lobbying by Zionist organizations and after years of terrorist activities by the Jewish Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi organizations in Palestine, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181 calling for the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The final vote was 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions and 1 absent. European Zionists welcomed the plan; the Arabs of Palestine rejected the vote immediately, but their objections were ignored.

In a civil war extending from 1947 into 1949, the modern state of Israel was born. Nearly one million Arabs lost their homes and become refugees in other parts of Palestine or elsewhere in the Arab world. The new government of Israel shortly passed two laws: the Law of Return (1950), which grants citizenship to any Jew from anywhere in the world who immigrates to Israel, and the Entry into Israel Law (1952), which prevents the return of Palestinian refugees.

This is the modern state of Israel. It is NOT the ancient nation of Israel. There is no biblical mandate for the modern country’s existence, nor for its laws and actions. It is a modern political reality which the world, including the Arab world, must accept and with which it must deal, but it is not a God-endorsed, biblically-mandated reality.

The second distortion is the idea that the Book of Joshua is history. It is not. Technically, it is what is known in literary scholarship as an etiological myth. These are stories which provide a mythological explanation for certain events and customs (or natural phenomena) the origin of which has long been forgotten or is not understood. Other stories of this type are the Greek Illiad and Odyssey, the Irish stories of Cúchulainn, or even the American folk tales of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe. Joshua is the ancient Hebrew equivalent of Achilles, Odysseus, Cúchulainn, or Paul Bunyan.

The Book of Joshua tells us something about human beings, something about human understandings of God, something about how humans behave in community (and in war); it tells us something of what some of the ancient Hebrews believed about their origins (which is partially contradicted by what others of them believed and is recorded in the Books of Chronicles). It tells us nothing, however, about actual historical events, nor about God’s endorsement or condemnation of them or of any of their enemies.

To suggest that modern governance of territory in the Middle East should be based on (or understood through the lens of) the Book of Joshua makes as much sense as suggesting that the modern governance of Greece should be based on Homer’s poems, that Irish foreign policy should be evaluated through the Cúchulainn stories, or that American environmental policy should derive from the tales of Paul Bunyan.

These are spiritual stories, not political ones. These are myths, not histories. These stories reveal truths, not facts. They should trouble us, perhaps inspire us, not direct us nor determine modern national governance.

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

Wringing the Past’s Neck – From the Daily Office – July 24, 2014

July 24, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Gospel according to Matthew:

Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. A servant-girl came to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” But he denied it before all of them, saying, “I do not know what you are talking about.” When he went out to the porch, another servant-girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” Again he denied it with an oath, “I do not know the man.” After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you are also one of them, for your accent betrays you.” Then he began to curse, and he swore an oath, “I do not know the man!” At that moment the cock crowed. Then Peter remembered what Jesus had said: “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 26:69-75 (NRSV) – July 24, 2014)

Traveling in Palestine recently, I was accompanied by a priest who had formerly been a Benedictine monk. In religious life, he had taken the name “Peter” and adopted St. Peter the Apostle as his patron.

One day in conversation about some icons in a Jerusalem church, he pointed out that there is almost a chiastic relationship between this story (which John also relates, Jn 18:16-27) and a post-resurrection story in the Gospel according to John.

The latter is the story of the grilled fist breakfast on the beach of the Galilean lake. The disciples, out fishing, see a figure on the shore which they then realize is Jesus. Jesus calls to them and invites them to share some fish he is cooking over a fire. As they are eating, he engages Peter in conversation:

Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)

Peter’s three-fold denial is answered by Jesus’ three-fold commission to tend to the flock. The denial notwithstanding, Jesus affirms Peter’s on-going position as one of (some would say the chief of) his apostles, those he has sent into the world to continue his work. There is a lovely chiastic symmetry to the stories.

My new friend, the former Benedictine, told me that when he took his vows in the order an icon writer created an icon of Peter for him (not the icon illustrating this reflection). In the icon, Peter is wringing the rooster’s neck! In many ways, that simple bit of artistic license underscores for me the humanity of Peter and also illustrates the truth that Jesus’ forgiveness empowers us to overcome the past.

Most of us — probably all of us — have (or will) in one way or another denied Jesus. I’m confident that Jesus has already forgiven us (many times over) for those denials. Thinking of that icon, I believe Jesus has given us the power to “wring the neck” of the circumstances which may have led us to those denials. We may not be able to change the past, but through the forgiveness of Christ and the grace of God we can change the way the past influences the future.

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

Bless [All] the People of Israel – From the Daily Office – July 23, 2014

July 23, 2014 / eric / 3 Comments

From the Book of Joshua:

All Israel, alien as well as citizen, with their elders and officers and their judges, stood on opposite sides of the ark in front of the levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Joshua 8:33 (NRSV) – July 23, 2014)

Soldier at Mt Gerizim Two weeks ago, I stood on Mt. Gerizim with 17 friends looking over to Mt. Ebal. We read this text; we read Deuteronomy 27 in which the explicit curses to be read from Mt. Ebal are set forth. We pondered what it means for a people to live in a land divided by blessings and curses. Lost in our thoughts, we were startled when we turned around and found a young Israeli soldier standing behind us in full battle gear, an Uzi loaded and held at the ready.

Some of us found him threatening, but we were told that he was there for our protection. The lookout is a spot where Jewish pilgrims also like to come and remember their heritage; it is in full view of the Arab city of Nablus and a sniper on the city’s outskirts with a high-powered rifle could pick off someone standing at the lookout. I don’t know if that has ever happened, but the young soldier was there to make sure it didn’t or that, if it did, the gunfire would be answered.

I’m sure there might be some radical lunatic who might try such a thing, but in the three days we spent in Nablus, walking its streets, eating in its restaurants, greeting its people, I certainly never met or encountered anyone whom I thought to be such a threat.

In any event, I wonder about that young soldier now. Has he been transferred the fifty or so miles from his outpost on the ancient mountain to the modern battleground on the border with the Gaza Strip? Is he safe? Has he been wounded or killed? Is he preparing for a ground battle in Gaza? I’ll never know, of course, but I wonder.

There was a report recently that in Sderot, an Israeli community less than three miles from the Gaza community of Beit Hanoun, the Jewish residents sat in their lawn chairs watching the bombing of their Palestinian neighbors, laughing and cheering as the bombs exploded. An Australian CNN reporter filmed them doing so.

I couldn’t help but think about that when I read today’s story of Joshua. I couldn’t help but remember standing on Mt. Gerizim and wondering what it must have been like to hear from the mountain across the valley the voices of Joshua and others yelling out the curses. Ancient Jews on a hillside pronouncing curses on the land a couple of miles away; modern Jews on a hillside laughing derision and cheering destruction on the land a couple of miles away. Ancient history come to life in modern Palestine; an ancient ritual now played out as if in some obscene parody with modern weapons of terrible vengeance. Would the residents of Sderot have laughed and cheered if they knew that young soldier might be in danger where those bombs were exploding? Did it matter to them that other young soldiers, not to mention women, children, elderly people, disabled people, and other civilians, were dying where those bombs were exploding?

I don’t ask to imply or suggest any condemnation of them. God knows Americans have no high moral ground to stand on in this regard! It’s a well-known fact of American history that the residents of Washington DC took picnic baskets out to the hillside overlooking Bull Run to watch what became the first Civil War battle at that site. And, more recently, many of us cheered and partied in the streets when we learned of the death of Osama bin Laden. Laughing derision and cheering the destruction of those we consider our enemies is a universal human behavior. We just don’t consider them to be quite like us.

But they are like us. They have lives like ours. As Shakespeare’s Shylock pointed out when contemplating the differences (or lack of differences) between Jew and Gentile:

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute — and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. (Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1)

Is that what is happening now? In unknowingly acting out that bizarre caricature of the curses from Mt. Ebal, in carrying out their “containment” of the Palestinians behind a “security barricade,” in bombing the herded-together densely-packed residents of Gaza (1.8 million people on a piece of land only 139 square miles in size; 13,000 people per square mile) is that what Israel is doing? Bettering the instruction that Gentile society, Christian Europe specifically, has taught the Jews? Is that what is happening? The abused become the abuser and doing it “better”? The accursed become the curser and doing it “better”?

I am commended by Scripture to “bless the people of Israel.” I am commended by Scripture to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. I can only do so if I include in my blessing all the people of Israel, Jew and Arab, Muslim and Christian, secular Jew and Orthodox, Amenians and Greeks, all the people of the land. I can only do so if my prayer is for a peace which is just to all and in which all are secure, “alien as well as citizen.”

Bless the people of Israel and pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

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

The Covenant of Guesthood – From the Daily Office – July 15, 2014

July 15, 2014 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Psalter:

“Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry; do not hold your peace at my tears.
For I am your passing guest, an alien, like all my forebears.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 39:12 (NRSV) – July 15, 2014)

Welcome Guest Parking Sign The Prayer Book version of this verse (which is differently numbered as often happens in the BCP) is this:

Hear my prayer, O Lord,
and give ear to my cry;
hold not your peace at my tears.
For I am but a sojourner with you,
a wayfarer, as all my forebears were.
(BCP 1979, page 639, Ps 39:13-14)

Now, generally, I prefer the BCP version of the Psalms — they chant better than the NRSV and seem more poetic — but in this instance, I think the translators of the NRSV hit one out of the park! “I am your passing guest” is simply brilliant! Modern folks don’t really know what a “sojourner” is (other than, maybe, the title of a liberal Christian magazine edited by Jim Wallis), so the more poetic BCP psalm doesn’t hit one with the impermanency and provisionality of our journey through this world the way the NRSV’s “passing guest” does.

The dictionary, of course, defines a “sojourner” as a “temporary resident”; one dictionary suggests “occupant” or (interestingly) “occupier” as antonyms.

As a biblical metaphor for our inhabiting of the places we live, especially in this time of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians over occupation of the place we call “the Holy Land”, “passing guest” is more than thought provoking; it is earth-shattering! So much of the conflict between Jews and Muslims, when it is justified theologically (as if it could be justified theologically), boils down to claims on the land going back to Abraham:

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.” (Gen 15:18-21)

Interestingly, the Qur’an confirms this grant:

O my people! Enter the holy land which Allah has prescribed for you and turn not on your backs for then you will turn back losers. (Surah Al-Ma’idah’ 5:21)

We settled the Children of Israel in a beautiful dwelling place, and provided for them sustenance of the best. (Surah Yunus 10:93)

Dwell securely in the land of promise. (Surah Al-Isra’ 17:104)

The common Christian (and Jewish) understanding of the Abrahamic Covenant is that the grant flowed from Abraham to his descendants through Israel, Abraham’s child by Sarah. Some Muslims argue that the grant flows instead or in addition to the descendants of Ishmael, Abraham’s first born through the servant woman Hagar. All seem to suggest that the covenant grant is a permanent arrangement, but what if that is not the case? What if the covenant is conceived, as the Psalmist suggests, not as one of ownership, but as one of guesthood?

While preparing for my recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I read several travel blogs and in one the author encourage American tourists to consider themselves guests in the countries they visit, asking themselves three questions:

(1) “What am I saying, what is my conduct demonstrating, to non-Americans, about ‘American Tourists’?”

(2) “What am I learning about the host culture? How many personal interactions am I actually having with regular local people? How much ‘inside information’ am I taking away from my travel experience?”

(3) “If the above two issues are meaningless to me, why am I a tourist?” (Americans as Tourists: Adventures in Guesthood)

Those are good questions and they can be simplified, and theologized, as follows. Perhaps all the descendants of Abraham, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian, should ask themselves these questions:

(1) What am I saying by my conduct about religious believers, about heirs to the covenant, which status I claim?

(2) What am I learning about my host, the Lord God? How many personal interactions am I actually having with others who claim heirship with the covenant, with others who are guests in this land? How much information am I taking away from this covenant experience?

(3) If these two issues are meaningless to me, why do I claim to be a descendant of Abraham?

If we are all guests, all wayfarers, all sojourners . . . if our claims to the land (or anything else) are all temporary, provisional, and impermanent . . . is there any reason to fight about them? Is it not better to hold what we have temporarily been given gently and in unison so that it will be here for those who come after us? Should we not help one another to do so rather than snatching it away from each other?

Can we look beyond our accepted understandings and the metaphors of ownership to embrace this different metaphor, the metaphor of guesthood, and thereby embrace one another?

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

Category: Palestine (Page 4 of 6)

An Aquifer – From the Daily Office – August 19, 2014

Of Tombs and Siblings – From the Daily Office – August 14, 2014

Tomato Juice Bombs – From the Daily Office – August 9, 2014

Uncounted, Unnamed Children – Sermon for August 3, 2014, Pentecost 8, Proper 13A

Encountering Jesus with Mixed Emotions – From the Daily Office – August 1, 2014

Talking of Michelangelo – From the Daily Office – July 31, 2014

“Joshua” Is Not a Plan for Government – From the Daily Office – July 26, 2014

Wringing the Past’s Neck – From the Daily Office – July 24, 2014

Bless [All] the People of Israel – From the Daily Office – July 23, 2014

The Covenant of Guesthood – From the Daily Office – July 15, 2014

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