July 16, 2023
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 10 – George Yandell
When I was 15 I couldn’t wait to get my learner’s permit to start driving. My good friend Ned was (and still is) 2 months older than I, so he got his permit in mid-fall. I asked him how it was going, eager to get some tips. He said, “Turning or going around a long curve is hard. I keep making corrections to keep the car in the lane. I end up making little jagged moves of the steering wheel. The curve ends up looking like a circular saw blade – jagged edges instead of a smooth rounded path.” Two months later I could relate to Ned’s experience – I kept nervously making little mistakes and nervously correcting them. It drove my mother crazy. Maybe you can relate?
The story of the two brothers Jacob and Esau is a classic example of how God faces the dilemma of determining who shall carry on Abraham’s line and serve God’s purposes. God intends to develop a model of society for the world. Jacob and Esau share both good and bad traits upon which to try to build leadership for the future. Jacob and Esau are like the ragged edges of the turns – they keep having to be corrected in the paths they’re taking.
The Genesis story leaves us with the problem of trying to understand the choice between two flawed individuals and what that means for us, the readers and students of the Bible in every generation.
July 9, 2023
Pentecost 6, Proper 9A – George Yandell
How many of you are frustrated by the drop-outs in cell phone service? Irritated at the scratchy reception at the edge of your transmission area? It seems to be the rule for me that the more technology advances the more frustration increases. The general rule is the greater the distance from the transmission point the poorer the clarity of transmission, the more gaps in our reception.
Jesus gives us a curious teaching about gaps this morning. “I praise you father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants (or better, untutored ones (or even better, babies still nursing)). Yes, indeed, Father, for this is the way you want it.” Paul reports gaps in his ability to live free from sin. He writes, “I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind.”
I hear Jesus, then Paul, teaching us about gaps with God. It’s all about our mindset.
Our minds can convince us of our importance even when the facts instruct humility. The ways we assume ourselves to be important (to be wise, to be engaged in doing good, to be quick to see God in our actions and those of others)—those assumptions distance us from the transmission point. We lose God’s clarity and replace it with fuzzy logic.
July 2, 2023
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – Year A – Byron Tindall
We, the citizens of these United States, have been blessed by God with one of the best countries ever to have been formed on the face of the earth. Yes, we have had and still have some massive problems. We will have our difficulties in the future as well. We are, after all, humans.
In 2019, I was asked to read the Declaration of Independence at a July Fourth celebration here in Jasper. I read a “Readers Digest” version at that time, omitting some of the specific grievances listed by the framers of the document.
I got to thinking a short time after reading it, that was the first time I’d either heard it read or read it myself since a civics class when I was in high school. I graduated in 1959. How long has it been since you either heard it or read it?
I think it’s very fitting to hear it on occasion. It’s a major and very important part of our heritage. So here goes.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
June 25, 2023
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost – Year A – Byron Tindall
My goodness: there are some pretty harsh words in the Gospel lesson this morning from the Gospel According to St. Matthew.
The lesson this week picks up where the optional portion from last week left off.
The first portion of today’s lesson doesn’t cause me any problem. But the further we get into this portion of Matthew’s gospel, the more troubling it becomes at first reading.
No, the student doesn’t have to become smarter or better than the teacher. Occasionally, a student will surpass the master or teacher, but that isn’t necessary for success.
It’s obvious to me that we are not to keep what we’ve learned about the Kingdom of God to ourselves, but rather we’re to spread the Good News by what we say and through the way we live wherever we find ourselves.
I have no argument with God knowing about everything that happens.
Then suddenly the questions start flowing when we reach the second half of today’s lesson.
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Wait a minute. Is this the same person we call “The Prince of Peace?” Is this the same Jesus who preached in the sermon on the mount, found recorded in Matthew 5 and 6 and said, among other things,