With the Mob (a Steve Orr Bible reflection)

“I’m with you.” 

 

No matter who is saying it, when you need to believe that, you want to believe that. In the Steve Martin comedy My Blue Heaven, it’s a mid-level mafioso saying it to an FBI agent. Can the agent believe it? Should he believe it? 

 

If he were skeptical, would you blame him?

 

The FBI agent, Barney Coopersmith, is assigned to keep the mafioso, Vinnie Antonelli, out of trouble until he can testify against one of his Mafia bosses. It proves to be anything but simple. In the scene where Vinnie tells Barney, “I’m with you,” the audience knows Vinnie is trying to leverage himself out of having been caught committing credit card fraud—while in Witness Protection! 

Is he just manipulating Barney? Perhaps. But for someone in his “profession,” Vinnie has some flaws. He makes and keeps friends. He likes children. He is a romantic. He is loyal. He likes to help people. 

 

He tells Barney, "Now when I say 'I'm with you,' I don't mean it like an expression, like I'm saying 'I understand what you mean.' I mean: I'm. With. You." 

 

And soon, we begin to think he really means it. Time and time again, Vinnie acts beneficially toward Barney: teaching him how to dance the méringue (yes, named after the dessert), how to woo the woman he loves—even how to dress for success. And, perhaps most important, how to relax and enjoy life.

 

Vinnie really is with Barney. He makes himself part of Barney's life—all the parts of Barney's life—and Barney is the better for it. No, it’s not a smooth process (and where would be the fun in that?). But over the course of their time together, Vinnie becomes Barney's friend—a true friend. The very person any of us would want in our life, even if that person made us a bit uncomfortable from time to time—even if we couldn't control him or predict his behavior. 

 

The relationship would be worth it.  

 

The message from God in this week's selection from the Prophet Haggai is: "Take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you…My spirit abides among you; do not fear."

 

God is not just present, and His declaration is not just "an expression." He is saying He will be with His people through everything that is coming, the good and the bad. He plans to "abide" with them, to come and to stay. Long before Jesus came to earth, God declared "Immanuel" to His people. 

 

God said to them and is saying to us: 

 

"I'm. With. You." 

 

 

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PHOTO: Adobe Express filtered through Photoshop Express 

How real life mobster, Henry Hill, inspired “My Blue Heaven” and “Goodfellas”):

https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/my-blue-heaven-vs-goodfellas-henry-hill-gangster-movies

 

Fats Domino sings My Blue Heaven:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=3akQV1tgxyk&pp=ygUhbXkgYmx1ZSBoZWF2ZW4gbW92aWUgb3BlbmpuZyBzb25n

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Join us at DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast on Friday morning. We meet at 8:00 on Zoom.* and in person at Our Breakfast Place. We would love for you to join us. The food's tasty, but the real treat is getting to spend time with each other. See you there?

 

If you’re in Witness Protection—Don’t tell us!

Blessings,

Steve

 

*Zoom link (Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.)

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414

 

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK 

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?y=384&z=p&d=84

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Cx_Proper27.pdf

 

Haggai 2:1-9

Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21 or Psalm 98

Job 19:23-27a

Psalm 17:1-9

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

Luke 20:27-38

Proper 27 (32) (November 9, 2025)

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New Habits for Old? (a Steve Orr Bible reflection)

One day in the early 1960s, Dad finished a pack and declared he was done smoking cigarettes. 

Dad was medically trained and believed the reports that were starting to circulate: Smoking was a danger to health. Even though many in the medical field disagreed with those early studies, Dad thought they had validity. So, he quit.

 

It didn’t go all that well. He was always grumpy and out of sorts. He held out almost a month before he resumed smoking. Close to a year went by before he decided to try again. You could call that first try a failure. But Dad didn’t. He said he learned important lessons—the main one: a person needs a new habit to replace an old one. Previously, Dad quit "cold turkey." This time, he had an actual plan. 

 

Each time Dad found himself wanting a cigarette, he worked on the house. He scraped off old paint. He swiped on new paint. He sealed widows against the cold. He crawled under the house to check the plumbing and electrical connections, and then re-wrapped all of it, correctly. 

 

When our house was as good as it was going to get, Dad moved on to the houses of our elderly relatives. He replaced roof tiles, re-hung screen doors, poured concrete, scraped, painted, sealed. 

 

Next up: the car.

 

Each new urge to smoke was met with a new project. It was fast and furious for a time. Then one day, Dad's home care, elder care, and car care activities began to slow. Oh, he still did some repairs now and again, but he no longer needed to replace smoking with a new habit. He had beaten it. 

 

Dad never smoked again.

 

It's this kind of "replacement" therapy God requires of us in the way we treat each other. When it comes to bad behaviors, he never asks us to just quit "cold turkey." Instead, as this week's Isaiah selection says, "Cease to do evil, learn to do good." See how that works? It's not "stop doing evil and start doing good." It's "stop the bad and learn the good." Who knows us better than God? He knows we need new habits to replace our old, bad ones. So, He directs us to start the change process by learning how to do good.

 

The passage tells us how to start that learning process: Seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. We find its reflection in Jesus quoting Hosea. (“Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice." Matt 9:13 and 12:7)

 

If you want to start this process, the Bible is chock full of replacement activities, brand new habits we can practice—applying the gifts God has given us—until they are second nature to us. And we can keep on practicing them until we no longer feel the tug of those old life-threatening habits.

 

No need to try to quit cold turkey. God is with us and wants us to succeed.

 

"Cease to do evil, learn to do good."

 

 

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PHOTO: Adobe Express filtered through Photoshop Express 

QUOTE: “We are what we repeatedly do.” 

—Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, 1926 (explaining Aristotle on habits)

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Can you be with us Friday morning for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast? We're learning to do good as we peruse God's word, discuss it, and continue replacing bad habits with good ones. Join us at 8:00 on Zoom* and in person at Our Breakfast Place. Food, fellowship, and fun—all squeezed into an hour like no other.

 

Blessings,

Steve

 

*Zoom link (Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.)

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414

 

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK:

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?y=384&z=p&d=82

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Cx_Proper26.pdf

 

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4

Psalm 119:137-144

Isaiah 1:10-18

Psalm 32:1-7

2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12

Luke 19:1-10

Proper 26 (31) (Sunday, November 2, 2025)

 

ALTERNATE SCRIPTURES 

All Saints Day (often celebrated the first Sunday in November)

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?y=384&z=p&d=83

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Cx_AllSaintsDay.pdf

 

Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18

Psalm 149

Ephesians 1:11-23

Luke 6:20-31

Attack of the Birds! (a Steve Orr Bible reflection)

It's not really giving anything away to reveal that the film The Birds concerns birds run amuck. Of his 1963 movie masterpiece, director Alfred Hitchcock said, "It could be the most terrifying motion picture I have ever made!" 

Even though it looks a bit dated now, especially in the area of special effects, the terror of unexplained bird attacks comes through undiminished! 

The film’s source material is less widely known. Evan Hunter (known to many as Ed McBain, the author of more than 60 police procedural novels set in the fictional 87th Precinct) wrote the screenplay. He was asked to base it on the 1952 novelette by Daphne Du Maurier. 

 

Even less well known is that Hitchcock lived near an actual event of unexplained bird attacks that took place on the California coast in 1961. Equally as weird is that such events occurred at least two more times along the California coast in subsequent years, triggering serious scientific investigation into the phenomena. Some later instances of aggressive avian behavior were discovered to be due to the birds ingesting poisonous algae.

 

In the Bible, we have no such instances. In fact, birds have other, less threatening roles in scripture.  

 

Witness the humble sparrow. People purchased sparrows to use as sacrifices in the Temple. When Jesus referenced them during His ministry, He pointed out that His audience could buy "two for a penny" and "five for two pennies." The Law of Supply and Demand would suggest that, at that price, they must have been very common indeed. In this week's scriptures, sparrows and swallows stand in for the common and most humble among us. 

Psalm 84 declares that at God’s altar, even the sparrow finds a home, that the swallow builds a nest “where she may lay her young.” The point: Everyone, even the lowliest, even those marked for sacrifice, are welcome to rest in God’s house.

 

In the Luke passage, Jesus clarifies: The humble (like the despised tax collector) are far more welcome in God's house than those (like the Pharisee) who are pleased with their own moral performance and look down on other people.

 

Perhaps you haven’t lived a life filled with excitement and rewards. Perhaps you aren’t the model of moral perfection. Maybe quite the opposite. If you find yourself feeling like an imposter, feeling that your own complement of shortcomings may overwhelm you, and that you can only cry to God for mercy, know that God welcomes you as He does the sparrow. 

 

Come and rest. There is always a place for you at God’s altar.

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PHOTO of sparrow: Adobe Express, filtered through Photoshop Express 

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Join us for food and fellowship on Friday mornings at DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We meet on Zoom* and in person at Our Breakfast Place. All are welcome.

 

And should there be, you know, some kind of unexplained bird attack, well, at least we're inside… 

 

Blessings,

Steve

 

*Zoom link (Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.)

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414

 

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK 

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?y=384&z=p&d=81

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Cx_Proper25.pdf

Joel 2:23-32

Psalm 65

Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22

Psalm 84:1-7

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

Luke 18:9-14

Proper 25 (30) (October 26, 2025)

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