May 22, 2022
Easter 6 C – George Yandell
Xenophobia. X-e-n-o-phobia. “Fear of the strange, the foreign, the different.” Xenophobia rises naturally in humans, it seems. It creates the need for humans to overcome their fears of the differences between them, if they want to co-exist and cooperate with one another. Xenophobia drives the need for “the healing of the nations” in the Revelation to John. Human tendencies to xenophobia drive Jesus to promise in the gospel, “Peace I leave with you, my own peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”
I have read science fiction novels by C.J. Cherryh for some time. (The genera now called ‘Speculative Fiction’ by some.) In one 5-book series called “The Chanur Saga”, the characters in far off galaxies are all afraid of one another and they distrust particularly the dark, large, long-snouted, rat-like, tough-skinned beings called “the Kiff”. Brrr. The Kiff smell like ammonia, they are ruthless fighters, and seem always to make off with the prize when either wars or treaties are made. The problem is that every species’ trade routes are being upset by another species- (spider-like methane-breathing creatures- ugh!). The only progress they can make is when they overcome their differences and unite with a common front. But they all have this fear, an incredible fear, of those different from themselves. Even the Kiff fear those they themselves consider less formidable, less threatening. Where their fear comes from I don’t know. They seem to have no reason to fear anyone.
May 15, 2022
Easter 5 C – George Yandell
Since God blessed Abraham and commissioned him and Israel to be a blessing to all nations, God’s dream has been to renew the earth, modeled after heaven. All Jesus preached was a new creation, evolved from the old. So what happens when God’s people erect walls to separate themselves from the other peoples of the world? Let’s listen to the passage from the Acts of the Apostles.
When summoned by the circumcised believers of the Way of Jesus in Jerusalem, they asked Peter, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Peter tells them of the trance he fell into at Joppa – how God let down a sheet with all sorts of animals forbidden for human consumption under Jewish law, and told Peter, “Get up, kill and eat. What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Now what did Peter do? He replied not to the question regarding circumcision from the elders in Jerusalem, but how God gave him a vision and corrected Peter- God made the animals good to eat. He replied not to their concern about circumcised vs. uncircumcised, but about table fellowship.
What is Peter doing? He’s leapfrogging over the question of separation between the circumcised and uncircumcised men, and going back to the beginning. He points out that God recalls in the vision of the sheet containing the animals, the very beginning of creation where God created all manner of things and pronounced them good- and calls the Jerusalem leaders to recognize that God intended Israel to be a blessing to the nations,
May 8, 2022
Easter 4 C – George Yandell
The scene in the gospel has Jesus at the Festival of the Dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem. Jewish leaders query Jesus, “Are you the messiah? Tell us plainly.” He uses a figure that was in the minds of the people- from intertestamental writings, from the psalms and prophets- “You don’t get it, because you don’t belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice- I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life- no one will snatch them out of my hand.” Jesus ends with the radical statement, “The Father and I are one”.
The scene occurs in winter at the temple, in the City of David and the Seat of Orthodoxy. Right out there, in front of God, the doctors of orthodoxy (and anyone else who happened to be on hand), Jesus utters the unthinkable to the strict Hebrew monotheists. Yes, he and the Father God of Israel are one. One in spirit? One in being? One in like-mindedness? One in personality? The particulars are not mentioned. But enough is enough. Even to insinuate, even to give the slightest impression that this hillbilly rabbi from Galilee who speaks with an accent is equivalent to the HOLY ONE of Israel is beyond laughable; it is dangerous blasphemy of the highest order. Somehow, Jesus escapes a stoning on the spot—only to endure death by crucifixion a short time later. [Adapted from King Oehmig’s article in Synthesis,
May 1, 2022
Easter 3 C – George Yandell
It was around 34 C.E. Paul was in his early 30’s. From the passage in Acts we read, Paul was converted in or near Damascus, Syria. But contrary to popular interpretation, he was not converted from a Jew to a Christian, but it was a conversion within Judaism, a deepening of his own tradition. He was very devout as a youth, raised a Pharisee, and knew Hebrew and Greek. His hometown of Tarsus on the coast of today’s Turkey was a Greek-speaking environment. Tarsus is roughly 400 miles north of Jerusalem. Damascus is @ 150 miles north of Jerusalem.
Paul was a Pharisee, according to his own account. To be a Pharisee, one had to have an intense religious impulse. After the Damascus road experience, Paul had repeating, frequent mystical experiences of Jesus resurrected. Unlike other followers of Jesus, he experienced only the risen Christ, not Jesus during his earthly ministry. Our view today is: if the crucified Jesus can be experienced alive by a Pharisee who was persecuting followers of Jesus, then God had said yes to Jesus – God had vindicated Jesus against the forces of the empire when God resurrected Jesus. Paul was transformed in Damascus to proclaim that vindication. Paul stands as the most persuasive witness of resurrection the world has known.
Together with Peter, featured in today’s gospel reading, they were the two best fishers of humans to follow the resurrected Jesus. As John tells the story,