May 28, 2023
Pentecost A – George Yandell
Jesus had a predictable habit. In his daily walks, talks, and teachings, anytime he met new people, particularly those in distress, he engaged them where they were. He didn’t ask them about their faith, or question their belief, he simply asked about the circumstances of their lives. His empathy was his calling card. He was a canny observer of the behaviors, manners and speech of those around him. Often the questions he asked about the life-situations of those he met cut to the core of their beings, agitated them, and opened them to change. But only after he’d gotten to know them.
Since ancient times, after Yahweh gave the law to Moses, the Jews all over the Mediterranean region and beyond observed a major religious festival 50 days after Passover, on a Sunday in spring. City-dwelling Jews who lived outside Israel after Alexander’s conquests spoke Greek as their common language, in addition to the regional languages they grew up with. Some might also have known some Hebrew, as well as some Aramaic, the everyday language of Jews in Jerusalem and Judea. In Greek, the name for the spring festival was Pentecost, meaning simply “50 days”: 50 days after Passover. In Hebrew it was called ‘the festival of weeks’, when the first-fruits of the corn harvest were presented. This great feast also recalled how Yahweh gave the law in covenant to the people Yahweh had chosen to serve the Lord.
On that Sunday in 30 a.d.,
May 21, 2023
Easter 7A – George Yandell
In the Acts reading, we are with Jesus and His apostles after his resurrection. He is offering his final words to them before his Ascension, which the church calendar observed last Thursday, 40 days after his resurrection. He said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” As his friends watched he was lifted up into the clouds. Then two angels garbed in white appeared beside them. They asked, “Why are you men from Galilee looking up into heaven- this Jesus will come again the same way you saw him taken up.” The apostles returned to Jerusalem and with the women who’d followed Jesus, devoted themselves to prayer. Luke has them waiting for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day we call Pentecost (50 days after the resurrection).
Jesus’ departure and the outpouring of Spirit enable his disciples to be at once in the world, yet not of the world, yet for the world as Jesus had been in his earthly life. [This sentence adapted from Preaching the New Lectionary, p.199, by Reginald Fuller, 1971 by the Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN] This is the launching pad for our ministries as his disciples today.
May 14, 2023
Easter 6A – George Yandell
A visitor to a congregation I served in the mid-1980’s sought me out in the coffee hour. His name was John. He said, “I was taught the commandments in the Church I grew up in. I was taught to fear God, because God punishes those who don’t keep God’s commands. I have heard those same words from Jesus. But the people of your congregation worship in a way that downplays fear and highlights love. Why is that?” I talked with John further and found he indeed had much to fear. He had lost his job and his medical insurance, his marriage had ended in divorce, and he had just been diagnosed with an illness that required immediate treatment, but he couldn’t find a doctor to treat him without insurance. He believed God was punishing him because he hadn’t been a good enough Christian.
If you listen closely to the reading from the Acts of the Apostles this morning, you might realize Paul’s address to the people in Athens keyed on their fear. All the idols Paul pointed to in the Areopagus showed what the people loved: their gods and their virtues, the blessings and graces the gods bestowed. The idols also demonstrated what they feared – those same gods were jealous of attention shown to the other gods, and would become angry and call down violence on their worshippers if they failed to worship each god properly. Of all that Paul saw,
May 7, 2023
Easter 5A – George Yandell
Only fruity Christians really live the love of Jesus. Or to put it better, the fruit of Christian living is love. The song, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love,” puts it well. Love = agape. Love is easy to talk about, easy to agree with. But for you and me, is love only a philosophical abstraction? Is it only about intimate caring with family and friends? Is love only for bleeding hearts? The love Jesus offers demands a closer look, else loving itself becomes only sentimental and private.
Jesus laid out a covenant to his friends, “I am the way, the truth and the life. If you know me, you know my Father also.” If the disciples understood nothing else from him, Jesus wanted to MAKE SURE they understood love. He washed their feet as a common servant in the passage just prior to this one, which we read on Maundy Thursday. He spoke of love as the greatest command he would give them. “Love one another as I have loved you.”
How did Jesus come to be such a great lover? Was it born in him, or did he develop great love? He said, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” I’d call that a chain of love- or as scholars have put it, interpenetration/ interpenetration of loving.
Jesus learned loving from God- the kind of loving the prophets described. The love God intended for the whole world means acting for justice. As Paul Tillich put it in his landmark book Love,