Friday, July 11, 2025
Memorial of Saint Benedict, Abbot
Evie’s birthday
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Caves
Israel set out with all that was his.
Two generations earlier Abram “set out with all that was his.” Their journeys in opposite directions, to Canaan and then away, isn’t (perhaps) how God intended things to be. We humans have trouble pursuing his plans for us to the end, even when we think we know what they are. God rescues us, with dreams and visions, and just plain old what we call “luck.”
In a vision by night God spoke to Jacob.
“Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt,
for there I will make you a great nation.
Not only will I go down to Egypt with you;
I will also bring you back here, after Joseph has closed your eyes.”
Well, God did bring his family back – for Jacob’s burial. And Egypt was where the twelve children of Israel multiplied and became a nation. But the Egyptians made them slaves, to be led eventually back to Canaan by Moses, after God’s plagues terrified and decimated the Egyptian people.
The Israelites’ short trip lasted forty years, a time of repentance and purification for the people who left Egypt. Forty years wasn’t long enough, of course. For each of us a lifetime of repentance and purification is not enough.
Trust in the LORD and do good,
that you may dwell in the land and be fed in security.
Take delight in the LORD.
This is the feast day for St. Benedict (moved from the day of his death in March to avoid the fasting of Lent). He lived in sixth century Italy, for awhile in Rome as a student but then in a cave as a hermit, where he met Romanus, a monk who cared for him for three years.
Benedict traveled forty miles, not forty years, but listening like Abram and Jacob for the call of God. His famous Rule (or constitution) emphasized humility and hospitality. Monasteries throughout Europe eventually adopted as their own.
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you to all truth and remind you of all I told you.
As difficult as either of these golden rules are to live by, God has given them to us anyway at all times and in all places, from Abram’s tent overlooking Sodom to our own homes and houses wherever we live in 2025.
Today is our friend Evie’s birthday, and after celebrating with her parents last week and camping with Marc at Turkey Run this week, will be with us this evening to celebrate one more time. Her humility and hospitality often inspires all of us; it marks her way of being a friend.
My friend Sam traveled to India this year after spending too many years at a Lutheran monastery in Michigan. Like Benedict, Sam needed to get away to a cave for awhile, and before he left he sent me stories of a cave where, like Benedict, a monk lived alone for several years, extending hospitality to passersby, but always returning to his solitude.
Being an extravert I have always sought company, but solitude attracts me more and more. I imagine this rhythm of social and silent life to be true of all our Bible heroes.Today’s story from near the end of Genesis hinges on Jacob’s night vision, given to him in solitude, in which God sends him out into the world. To be with God AND with others, following the rules of humility and hospitality, will always be a struggle, and also always be what God demands from us, within and outside the Garden of Eden.
Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves,
so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.
Do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
You will be hated by all because of my name,
but whoever endures to the end will be saved.
(Genesis 44, Psalm 105, Mark 1, Matthew 10)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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