Innerdriving

Trinity Sunday St. Matthias May 27, 2018 The Rev. John Stewart, Deacon Two of the things I remember most about my Daddy's workshop were his soldering iron and his can of 3 in 1 Oil.  The soldering iron had been retired from the phone company and was the size of a small baseball bat to my young eyes.  It really was about a foot long and the solder smelled like a cross between burning metal and pine trees.  The 3 in 1 Oil was even more fascinating to a 6 year old.  It came in a little can and made a very appealing "tip-tap-blump" noise when Daddy mashed the can, and then a drop of oil came out.  He used it on bike chains, car and door hinges and anything else than squeaked or what he said "had binded up." 3 in 1 oil was invented in 1894 to lubricate bike chains.  The oil is a mixture of three ingredients:  Spindle oil, Citronella oil and a corrosion inhibitor.  The name refers to the inventor's purpose to provide an oil to, "clean, lu...

St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Boligee, Alabama is one of the historic parishes in our Diocese.  Formed in 1834, the current building was constructed in 1854.  Today, members gather on the 4th Sunday of most months, along with the congregation from the local Presbyterian Church, to worship.  The Rev. John Stewart, Deacon, and I are fortunate to minister to this historic and lively parish on the western edge of Alabama. Trinity Sunday John 3:1-17 May 27, 2018 A few years ago, a series of television commercials featured well-known celebrities using Mastercard. Christy Brinkley, the fashion supermodel, went shopping.  James Coburn was looking for exciting and exotic vacation spots. And Pierce Brosnan wanted to remodel his house. There was Angela Lansbury, Jerry Seinfeld, and even the late Jackie Gleason all touting MasterCard as the credit card for any and everything.  But what really made these commercials famous was that at the end – the star ...

T his morning I was riding the Expresso Bike at the YMCA and watching TV which of course meant commercials and most of those were political ads.  After about 10 minutes during one commercial break, it struck me ...    they all look and sound the same! and in every commercial, the candidate was clear that she or he ABSOLUTELY , FULLY , and WITHOUT ANY RESERVATION  supported the 2nd Amendment.  You know that's the one that says... A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Now, I'll save the gun control debate for another blog post (way) in the future, but it struck me on the bike at the Y, "What about the other Amendments?"   Do the candidates support the 6th Amendment as well?  Do they even know what the 6th Amendment says?  I couldn't remember so I looked it up while eating my Special K with some blueberries.  It says... ...

Pentecost, Year B Ezekiel 37:1-14 May 20, 2018 St. Matthias Not too long ago, I FASTED - for over 24 hours.  Now I would like to tell you that this was all part of my spiritual discipline - intended to feed my soul by giving up nourishment for the body.  Oh, that I could inspire you with a sermon about the benefits of meditation, prayer, and self-denial.  But, I can’t !   I fasted - because the doctor told me not to eat.  I had one of those medical procedures where you can’t eat or it will mess up the results and then you have to go back and do it all over again.   Now I do have to say it wasn’t as bad I thought it would be.  But have you ever noticed how many fast food commercials there are on T.V.  I was hungry from the moment I started.  Soon I had decided I could feel myself growing weaker.  All I could do was lie on the couch, waiting for Phyllis to come home so I would have someone to listen to my wailing and have s...

Tis the season...  Yet another election cycle has begun and the stage is filled with a cast of eager candidates.  As expected in Alabama - more are Republican than Democrat.  Already the roads are cluttered with billboards and signs.  Every other television commercial seems devoted to extolling the virtues (or not) of one candidate or another.  I don't often listen to the radio but hear the same is true across the dial.  Then there are the posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.   Tis the season and it will be long. InnerPolitics I vote and I don't think I've missed voting in any election in recent memory.   I will tell you that I consider myself a liberally conservative moderate or maybe I'm a moderately liberal conservative.  I don't watch the 24-hour news channels and I don't listen to radio talk shows.  I still read the newspaper and get the rest of my news from the internet (so it must be true). ...

Easter 7B Acts 1:15-17, 21-26 St. Matthias May 13, 2018 Last year, about this time, John Stewart reminded us how close our parish came to being named St. Joseph called Barsabbas, also known as Justus Episcopal Church !   We would have needed a bigger sign out front!  But instead - fortunately perhaps -  it was St. Matthias who became the 13 th Apostle.  Our first reading from Acts tells the story of how the two men were considered by the Apostles to replace Judas, then the apostles prayed, lots were cast, and Matthias was chosen.  Both of these men had been with Jesus throughout his ministry on earth.  They were each one of the 70 disciples called in the 10 th chapter of Luke and sent out in pairs to spread the Gospel.  Both were in Jerusalem and there at the crucifixion.  And perhaps most important of all, these 2 disciples were witnesses to the Resurrection.  Now, of course, we usually focus on Matthias when this r...

Easter 6B 1 John 5:1-6 Ascension May 6, 2018 A train leaves Philadelphia at 3 pm on Tuesday traveling west at 65 miles an hour.  Another train departs Kansas City at 4:00 pm on the same day traveling east at 70 miles an hour.  What time will they pass?  Several of you – no doubt – just had flashbacks to your high school math class.  The very thought of word problems when I was in 11 th grade sent cold chills up my spine.  You may as well have asked what time it was in Greenland?  Late in life, I have discovered that I actually enjoy math.  And I’m pretty good at it when it comes to bookkeeping and flying airplanes.  NOW it all makes sense.  But when I was in high school, I just couldn’t make the connection.  What do two imaginary trains have to do with ledger entries at the Abbey?  I did not know in 1973 that speed and time tell you how far you’ve gone which is especially helpful on a cloudy night in an airplane....

I have never been able to resist a good Far Side comic.  There will be another with this Sunday's sermon which I will post on Monday.  Gary Larsen's vision of heaven is great! Jesus was no Angel! I borrowed the title of this post from Thomas Long's commentary on Hebrews in the Interpretation series.  What a great line both because of the shock value and its true!  As I said n the first week - every book of the Bible, every sentence, every word is about God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Everyone else is but a supporting actor - including the angels.  Our writer of Hebrews is convinced (and so should we be) that Jesus is the Son of God!  I am always amused at our attempts to describe an infinite and eternal God using finite and limited words.  "God is ..." has stumped more preachers and followers than perhaps any other statement we can make.  The same is true of Jesus and our Hebrews writer tells us this from the very 1st chapter....

  Apologies for taking so long to get these notes on the web.  Teaching and writing what you taught are different.  It's like a sermon - sometimes it hits you and other times it takes a while.  The lesson took a while. Did you expect monks as in monasteries.  Sure, they have written many wise things about Hebrews, but at this point I want to turn to another Monk, the  obsessive-compulsive private detective played masterfully by Tony Shalhoub.   For Monk, the detective, nothing could be out of place.  His foot would not touch a crack in the sidewalk.  Cleanliness was Godliness.  He saw the smallest details and would piece together the logic of a killer and a crime scene when everyone else (especially the police) were stumped.   Now if Monk had a favorite book of the Bible, it would likely be the Epistle to the Hebrews.  The writer takes the smallest, seemingly most confusing details about sin and sacrifice and ...