Yesterday (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

The recent film, Yesterday, is about Jack Malik, a would-be rocker who remembers the Beatles. The problem: he has miraculously awakened to a world where he is apparently the only person who remembers them.

In an early scene, Jack, still unaware of what has transpired, sings “Yesterday” to some of his friends. They are stunned. The song is far better than anything Jack has ever written. They are bowled over by the sense of longing the song so perfectly conveys through both lyrics and music. Yet, they assume it’s his song since they’ve never heard it before. As I watched the scene, and listened to actor Himesh Patel sing, I found I could easily imagine that I, too, was hearing it for the first time.

“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.
Now it looks as though they're here to stay.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be.
There's a shadow hanging over me.”

And there it was: a deep, deep desire to, somehow, turn back the clock, to travel back in time to something and somewhere that could no longer be.

Would you like to travel to the past?

Time is like a river ... or so Einstein thought. He believed it flowed; sped up and slowed down. His contemporaries thought time might have banks like a river, that the past was back there ... just out of sight, around a bend. They believed that if someone had great desire to do so, really wanted to go, he or she could travel back the way the "river" had come, back around the bend, so to speak, to the past. They could "return" to a place and time to which they may never have even been before; likely a place/time only their ancestors had known.

As strange as it may sound, this is the theme tying together several of this week's scriptures. Not time-travel, per se, but the almost overwhelming desire to return to the past. This is particularly true of Psalm 137 where the Psalmist captures the laments of the Israelites, enslaved by Babylon and exiled far from home (Don't read this one to young children; the ending is very harsh). It is also reflected in the first passage from Lamentations. To fully appreciate the overwhelming sadness of their situation, their longing to return, listen to this song ("Babylon") from the TV show, Mad Men: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsVCjykMHVw&app=desktop

The real problem, of course, is not the years, and it's not the miles, but rather the distance one has traveled from God. The Israelites mourned for Israel, not fully grasping that Israel was nothing without its relationship to God. That's why they were in exile in the first place: they had drifted away from God and needed time and circumstance to teach them that lesson.

Do you sometimes feel that almost overwhelming sense of melancholy for a time and place in the past? Could it be that what you really desire is a closer relationship with God? The selections from Lamentations 3, Habakkuk, and Psalm 37 provide us some relief and point us toward some true solutions to our longing.

As believers, we have a different situation than those exiled Israelites. As we find underscored in the Second Timothy passage, we have the Holy Spirit flowing within us, connecting us to God in ways we cannot even fully understand. Like a river, it brings life and nourishment to us. And when we feel ourselves drifting from God, we can pray in that Spirit for whatever is needed to fully reconnect us.

For Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. No time-travel needed.

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PHOTO: Adobe Spark Post

Jack Malik sings Yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlAZniSQ9mY&app=desktop

How Paul McCartney Wrote Yesterday: https://www.esquiremag.ph/culture/music/beatles-yesterday-history-a1926-20190913-lfrm

A somewhat different version of this, (Would you like to travel to the past?), appeared in 2016.

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 22 (27) (October 6, 2019)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//texts.php?id=282

Lamentations 1:1-6
Lamentations 3:19-26 or Psalm 137
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
Psalm 37:1-9
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10

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Join us if you can, Friday morning, at Lectionary Breakfast. We still gather at Our Breakfast Place (formerly the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant). We start at 8:00 and wrap things up about an hour later. The food is good, but the scripture, discussion, fellowship, and laughter are better.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

Al Capone Does My Shirts (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

It's 1935. Moose Flanagan and his family have just moved from the middle of the country to Alcatraz Island so that his father can take a job as a prison guard. Having a job, any job, is an accomplishment, even six years after the great stock market crash of 1929. But this job comes with both a decent salary AND a place to live. All of the guards at Alcatraz must live on the island, so quarters are provided for them and their families.

As important as those things are, though, there is another reason for them moving away from all that is familiar to them. Moose's sister, Natalie, needs a special school, and one of the few such schools, perhaps the best of them all, is located just across the Bay in San Francisco. Moose's Dad and Mom uprooted their family, made the move, took the dangerous job, agreed to live on the island, all pinned on the hope she will be admitted.

Al Capone Does My Shirts is one of my favorite reads. I recommend it to all (and I can hardly wait the few more years until I can read it with my grandson!). Gennifer Choldenko's novel has it all: dangerous criminals and trustees, family life and school, a Warden and prison guards, a likable main character and baseball, and, of course, Alcatraz and Al Capone.

But it also has some other things: uncertainty, yearning, forced relocation (for Moose), and not knowing who your true friends are.

And in these things, we find a connection to this week's Lectionary passages. I am particularly thinking of the upheaval being experienced by the Israelites who were forced to move to a foreign land, are captives there, and who must find their way, somehow, until they are released.

They yearn for the home they left behind.

I wished I could have reached into the novel and shared with Moose the comforting words Jeremiah wrote for God's people in Lamentations:

"But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:21-24 ESV)

When the Lord is our portion, it doesn't matter where we are, and we can place in God all our hopes for ourselves and our loved ones. God's faithfulness always exceeds whatever we lack.

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http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu

Who SAYS we never shake things up? Eric switched his sermon source for this week and last. This week, he will use the Lectionary passages intended for October 6, 2013. Next week, we will be back on track.

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 22 (27) (October 6, 2013)

Lamentations 1:1-
Lamentations 3:19-26 or Psalm 137
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
Psalm 37:1-9
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10

I hope to see you Friday morning at Lectionary Breakfast. We will gather at the Waco Egg and I restaurant at 8:00 to share food and fellowship.

Please leave your laundry at home.

Enjoy the week!
Steve