Month: July 2025

Memorial, St. Benedict

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for July 11, 2025

Genesis 46:1-7, 28-30, Psalm 37:3-4, 18-19, 27-28, 39-40, Matthew 10:16-23

After sitting with these readings this week what strikes me is the consistent care and concern that God has for his people no matter where they go or what they do. The Genesis story tells of the Israelites being uprooted to go far from home so they can survive the famine. In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus is sending his disciples to places unknown.

Yet in both stories God is going to be there. In Genesis Jacob hears God say explicitly not to be afraid to go to Egypt because God will be with him. There is even the promise to bring them back. What more can you tell someone who is going away to comfort and encourage them but that they will return home safely. In Matthew, Jesus doesn’t say being a disciple is going to be easy. Rather he warns his disciples that they are going out among wolves. But no matter what happens God will tell them what to say and when they “endure to the end” they will be saved.

I also don’t think this is pie in the sky stuff. It is not a Pollyanna view of the world where people are simply reassured that everything will be “all right.” Jesus says disciples must be wise as serpents, simple as doves. He knows families will be divided and suffer from the loss. He doesn’t suggest they take on futile causes, so if one town rejects them they are to move to the next. And we know that once the Israelites go to Egypt not everything is going to work out well the whole time they are there. But we know that God does keep God’s promise, the Israelites, led by Moses, do return from Egypt to prosper as a nation.

It suggests to me that just because God is close to us and part of our lives, that doesn’t remove the difficulties or challenges or decisions that life presents. But it does say that if we are open to it. God will comfort us and care for us in ways that will surprise us and free us. I think it suggests exactly what the Psalm says, “The LORD watches over the lives of the wholehearted; their inheritance lasts forever. They are not put to shame in an evil time; in days of famine they have plenty.” God will help us be our best selves.

 Whether we have plenty right now or if we are starving in some way, what we need to do is look for the God who took Jacob to Egypt and brought him home. The God who brought Joseph, the son believed to be dead, back to see his father, so they could cry on each other’s shoulder. The God who saw his own son slaughtered on a cross but who seeks to provide our every need. This God, the Psalmist says delivers the just from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him. Are we taking our refuge in God? Are we giving God the chance to act in our lives? Are we asking for help when we need it? Do we let others in to be a part of what we need? Are we there when others have the courage to ask for the help they need? We heard what the Psalmist said this morning, “Do good that you may abide forever, for the Lord loves what is right and does not forsake his faithful ones.” God and us we’re in this life together.

Tuesday, Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for July 8, 2025

Genesis 32:23-33, Psalm 17:1b,2-3,7-8,15 and Matthew 9:32-38

Today’s world is complicated. That is a blessing and a curse. Our choices are many but we can’t have it all. I believe one popular phrase is, “Fear of missing out,” FOMO. How do we sort through the wonderfully varied choices and find what is best for us? Some things are good for us and some things aren’t. What’s more, the longer we live the more things change around us and within us as well. It’s not easy to understand, much less manage, the world and our feelings and desires.

I’m talking about this primarily because of Jesus’ observation in Matthew’s Gospel today, “And when he saw the crowds he felt sorry for them because they were harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd.” I think we can understand harassed and dejected all too well. We may not know about sheep and shepherds but we understand the idea. We need some kind of guide or guiding principle to help us sort out what’s important from what’s not.

One of the things about the Bible is how concrete it is. The stories are very specific. Sometimes that can get in the way of understanding them because it’s all set in times long, long ago. However, the point of concrete, specific stories about what happens to people is that they are trying to tell us where to look for our answers. Where? In the absolutely specific, concrete events of our lives. What is happening for us? Are things getting better or worse? Are we happy or not?

The question about people being dejected comes right after Jesus has driven out a devil from a person who couldn’t speak and then could. Matthew says, “the people were amazed and said, ‘Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.’” I suggest we have to take seriously what we see happening around us and within us. This is a question of seeing. Are we looking or trying to avoid what we see? Can we be honest with ourselves about what we see? That is not always easy to do.

That’s the message in the Genesis story. Jacob has lots going on in his life: two wives, eleven children to get across the river and all his possessions as well. He’s not some person taking time out to go on a retreat to find himself. Stuff is happening right now. In the midst of that activity someone starts a wrestling match with him in the middle of the night. Jacob stays with it all night. He has no idea who he’s contending with. But come morning things have changed, his opponent has wounded him but the fight produces a new man. No longer Jacob, he’s now Israel. To have your name changed in Biblical stories is to be a different person.

Jacob in the dark of night, when he couldn’t see anything, didn’t know who was challenging him, was fighting through a time of uncertainty, unknowing and confusion. Jacob keeps going until dawn when he can see, recognize the challenges and amazingly ask for a blessing. Genesis says, he won’t let go until what is hurting him blesses him. He gets his new name, becomes a new person, because, “you have contended with divine and human beings
and have prevailed.”

It’s not easy to acknowledge what is keeping us down but fighting until we know where the good things are is what we need to do. We need to get through the night until dawn no matter how hard that is. Like Jacob, we may find it God was with us all along in ways we didn’t understand.

Today’s Psalm sums it up, “Though you test my heart, searching it in the night, … on waking, I shall be content in your presence.”