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,
April 30, 2023
Easter 4A – George Yandell
Growing up in Knoxville, my parents had Church friends outside of town on Watts Bar Lake. We’d often visit Glenn and Charlie West on their small farm and fish off their dock. They had a cow or two, some chickens, two sheep and a goat. The goat’s name was ‘Stupid.’ My brother and I loved looking through the fence at Stupid as he ate odd things and roamed around. Charlie said we couldn’t go into the fenced area without him because Stupid sometimes ran up and butted interlopers.
How many of you have known any sheep up close and personal? Any goats? The first congregation I served solo was as vicar of St. James the Less in Madison TN. In a mission council meeting, the Sr. Warden said to me after my first year, “George, you came here expecting to be a shepherd to the sheep, but you now realize you’ve got a lot of goats.” Of course I thought of Stupid.
When John’s gospel recounts the parable of the good shepherd, John uses an interesting image. In the reading today, Jesus says, “I am the gate for the sheep.” And then we hear him say just after this passage, “I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep, and they know me. I lay down my life for the sheep.” These are interesting metaphors, and the last completely unprecedented in our Bible. No shepherd of Israel before Jesus is known to have given his life for his sheep. And no prophet ever claimed,
April 23, 2023
Easter 3A – George Yandell
How do we followers of Jesus recognize him today? Maybe in those who ask us “What have you been talking about? What’s on your minds?” Those two disciples assumed they knew much more than the stranger who joined them. And often in the stories about Jesus and his disciples, when a named male is joined by another unnamed disciple, that unnamed one is female.
Jesus’ first action after the discussion on the road is significant: “He walked ahead as if he were going on.” In Near Eastern customs, the guest was obligated to turn down an invitation like Cleopas and his companion/wife gave until it was vigorously repeated. Theologically, Jesus’ action demonstrates that he never forces himself on others. Faith must always be a spontaneous, voluntary response to God’s grace. Luke’s Jesus was always going further, unless invited to stay for a while. [From the New Interpreters’ Bible, Vol.9, p. 479]
Frederick Buechner interprets Emmaus as “the place we go in order to escape – a bar, a movie, wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, ‘Let the whole [darn] thing go hang. It makes no difference anyway.’ …Emmaus may be buying a new suit or new car… or reading a second-rate novel or even writing one. Emmaus may be going to church on Sunday. Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred: that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die;
April 16, 2023
Easter 2A – George Yandell
“Peace to you,” said Jesus to his disciples, huddled in the room in fear on Easter evening. Salem, in Aramaic, Shalom in Hebrew. They feared those who’d collaborated with the Roman officials to have Jesus crucified, they feared living without Jesus. They were scared enough to lock the doors and hide out. Maybe rumors of the empty tomb had reached them – maybe they were just still too traumatized by Jesus’ crucifixion to venture out of a safe place. But Jesus came, stood among them, and said, Salem. And he said it again. “Peace to you.”
Interestingly, he and the disciples were gathered in Yarusalem, the city whose name means “Foundation of God.” I think the disciples may have heard two complementary messages when Jesus spoke to them, and we might as well. 1) Jerusalem, the city of Zion, was the site of the crucifixion, and the resurrection. It became the foundation for their faith in the resurrected Jesus. 2) When Jesus spoke “Peace” to them, they also might have heard echoes of Salem, a name for God. I think they may have been quaking, seeing Jesus alive, and they may have realized that everything is different, the foundation of God has shifted, everything is new. All is right!! Jesus lives!
The peace Jesus spoke is the new foundation of the new city of God. Poor Thomas – he’d missed the appearing of Jesus, so no wonder he didn’t get it. How could he? He had to hear the word himself from Jesus,