September 24, 2023
Pentecost 17 – Ted Hackett
Today’s Gospel…usually called “The Laborers in the Vineyard”
…is one of Jesus’ best-known parables,
… But also one of his most baffling… It is a story Jesus told… And it seems…frankly….unfair….
The story goes that it’s harvest time…and this guy who owns a vineyard needs day-workers to pick grapes… He goes to the market early in the morning and hires some guys. They agree on a denarius…a fair wage for that time…and off they go to pick grapes.
It was hot…there were a lot of grapes and the work went more slowly than usual… So the owner went out again…at noon and again at 3:00 and found men at the market and hired them. He told them he’d pay them what they were worth… At five o’clock….there were still grapes on the vines…so the owner went out to the market again and found some guys hanging around and told them to go pick grapes. He’d pay them whatever was fair.
Twilight closed in, the grapes were in a wagon and the guys lined up for their pay… The ones who came at five…got a denarius… And so did others… But when the ones who started work at dawn….and worked in the Palestinian heat all day came up… They …quite naturally… expected more… After all…it was only fair! They had worked for 12 hours In the sweltering sun… And the lazy louts who only put in a couple of hours got as much as they did!
September 17, 2023
Proper 19A – George Yandell
From the Exodus reading – Israel is saved by a tsunami that God uses to kill all the Egyptian warriors and their armaments. God was angry that pharaoh had enslaved and mistreated the Hebrew people for generations. We are created in God’s image, so anger comes naturally to us. Anger and forgiveness are two poles of human nature. The one, anger, is a natural human emotion. Some child psychologists think it’s anger at not getting our way as one- and two-year-olds that creates distinctive, innovative character in adults. How we cope with our anger makes us either disciplined or despairing, self-blaming or other-blaming. Anger drives much of our behaviors throughout life. One mentor of mine said that anger is a resultant emotion- that the primary emotion is fear, and very often anger rises unbidden out of our fears.
Forgiveness is an acquired attitude of action. Where anger happens, it comes unbidden into us, as do all emotions. Forgiveness is a learned behavior, learned at great price. Forgiveness requires sacrificing anger and pride, and accepting others, and God, in humility.
Is it any wonder that so much of human energy is devoted to getting even? You and I spend ½ of our tax dollars helping our country prepare for revenge. We have defensive weapons and systems that keep our capability for revenge as high as possible. Anger is a defensive emotion. It helps animals survive when threatened. The Medieval Church labeled anger as one of the 7 deadly sins.
September 10, 2023
Proper 18 – Bill Harkins
Good morning and welcome to each of you! Grace to you and peace on this 15th Sunday in Pentecost. The texts given to us today can be challenging in a number of ways. If we understand sin as somehow “missing the mark” in relation to one another—a definition based on a Greek archery term—then we quickly understand that we are all in need of grace, because no one among us is perfect. We all miss the mark at times. The Good News is that we hear in this text an invitation: right now, as we are, we can do the good, hard, messy work of looking at ourselves as members of the Body of Christ, and this includes people who are every bit as difficult as we are. Any good 12-step program has a variation on a theme of acknowledging that, often, the things that most bother us about other people—the ways others “miss the mark” can be the very things we don’t like about ourselves; those things, that is, that most need our attention in the form of what Carl Jung called “shadow work.” And the ultimate goal of wrestling with these things is reconciliation—with our own shadow selves, and with one another and the world. As Christians, we believe that Christ is reconciling us to God and to one another… an outward and visible sign of a grace. Even church conflict can be an opportunity to practice reconciliation; it can be sacramental.
September 3, 2023
Proper 17A – George Yandell
What’s in a name? From early childhood, I was told ‘George’ means ‘farmer.’ Now no offense to anyone who farms, but I was a city boy, and I didn’t like thinking my name meant ‘farmer.’ The only farms in E TN I’d visited were dirty, the farmers’ lives were tough, there was manure everywhere, and they smelled bad to me. Only later, when I began to study Greek in seminary, did I find my name ‘ge-or’gos’ meant also ‘gardener, vinedresser, husbandman.’ So I began to realize a deeper significance to my name. And now I’ve come to love growing herbs, tending plants, getting dirt on my hands. (And you know preachers are known for how they can spread the manure.) I guess I’ve come full circle.
In the early history of the Hebrew people, the name for God was ‘El.’ One of the first conversations I had with a man named Elroy, was about his name, which can mean ‘child of God.’ Beth-el in Hebrew means ‘house of God.’ From the time of Abraham, about 2000 BCE forward, the Hebrew people called God ‘El.’ Ancient times. Then around 1250 BCE a most intriguing change happens. The Hebrew people began to call God a new name. How and why?
The Hebrew people migrated from Canaan to Egypt @ 1650 BCE. You remember the story- Jacob’s 12 sons sold Joseph into slavery. He was carried to Egypt, rose to become Pharaoh’s second-in-command, and then gave sanctuary to all his father’s and brothers’