February 1, 2024
The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple – George Yandell
40 days after He was born, Luke tells us Jesus was presented in the temple by Mary and Joseph. “Every 1st born male shall be designated as holy to the Lord.” This event harkened back to the law of Moses in Leviticus (12:6 ff): “When the days after the [ritual] purification are completed, whether for a son or a daughter, [the mother] shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb in its first year for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering. He shall offer it to the Lord and make atonement on her behalf…. If she cannot afford a sheep, she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering, and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean.”
The rules for purification after birth were different for the mother if a female child was born- then it stretched twice as long- to 74 days- emphasizing that a male child didn’t occasion the lengthier time of separation from the clan before she presented her child. Luke’s point is that Mary and Joseph presented the minimum offering- they couldn’t afford the lamb.
The real depth of the gospel’s lengthy narrative is the songs and prophecies that Simeon and then Anna spoke. They were both guided by the Holy Spirit- Simeon intercepted the Holy Family,
January 28, 2024
Epiphany 4 – The Rector’s Annual Report – George Yandell
In my annual reports over the past thirteen years, I have said these words, and I’ll say them again: This is your parish. I serve God with you, guided by the Spirit of Jesus. I want to tell what I perceive God has done, is doing, and what God may be leading us to do together.
Our parish has done remarkably well considering all the changes we’ve lived through. If the parish is the bridge for us in living into our baptisms in the company of Jesus, you have been resilient and devoted in serving Christ. Where is the parish headed? That’s what the newly reconstituted vestry will continue to discern after they start their work in the meeting after this all-parish meeting.
We are now into our 38th year as a parish- the founding parents are almost gone. New members are finding Holy Family and becoming part of the ministering body. The results of our pledge campaign have surprised me and made me most grateful.
We added new 4 members in 2023. 6 members transferred out. Our total active membership now is 253. There was 1 Marriage, noBaptisms and 6 Burials in 2023. We’ll remember the faithful departed by name in the annual meeting. Our average Sunday attendance in 2019 was 169. In 2020, our average attendance before we began worshipping outside and online was 146. It was tailing off by early February.
January 21, 2024
Epiphany 3 – George Yandell
We hear today of a succession- a succession of leadership in Galilee. While John the baptizer appears in all four gospels, only Mark and Matthew note his arrest as a catalyst for Jesus’ public ministry. And it’s only in the Markan passage today that Jesus is not specifically singled out by John himself as the one who is to come after him.
Matthew states that John had been baptizing for repentance because, as he said, “The kingdom of heaven has come near- prepare the way of the Lord!” When Jesus came to be baptized, John said, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let it go for now. After all, in this way we are doing what is fitting and right.” Then John deferred to Jesus. [Translation from The Five Gospels by the Jesus Seminar, p. 132.] It’s not clear if anyone if anyone else besides Jesus sees the heavens opened and the hears the voice from above, “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.”
In Luke’s gospel John’s father Zechariah had a vision in the temple that told him he was to name his son John and that his son would live as a Nazarite, not drinking wine or strong drink, like Samson generations before him. John’s diet of locusts and wild honey might have derived from his Nazarite tradition.
John doesn’t seem much of an organization builder.
January 14, 2024
Epiphany I B — George Yandell
The church keeps time differently from the wider culture. The calendar tracks the life of Jesus from his conception, through his birth and the visit of the magi when he was 12 days old. We observed the feast of the Epiphany Last Sunday. And in seven short days, Jesus has gone from being newly born to about 32 years old at his baptism by John.
In today’s gospel, what does this sentence mean? “The heavens were opened to Jesus and he saw the spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him.” It was Jesus’ Epiphany of Spirit. (An epiphany is a manifesting, a showing forth.) Two big things happened for Jesus. He was baptized by John and his worldview, rather his God-view, changed.
The Hebrews, like many other eastern religions, knew heaven to be the canopy of the sky which was stretched across the cosmic ocean to prevent its water from overflowing into the envelope of dry ground we live on. In Akkadian and Arabic languages the word for heaven is the root for the words for “rain.” The Greek word for heavens or heavEen is uronos- that’s where the planet Uranus gets its name.
When leaders of the Hebrews, Moses, Elijah et al wanted to commune with God they went to the highest peaks to do so. And they must have shivered with fear when the heavens did yield their God, because it meant that the seams of reality were near to coming undone,