Above: Shoppers at Walmart, Klamath Falls, Oregon, Gray Thursday (Thanksgiving Day), 2013
Image Source = bobjgalindo
This Corrupt Generation
DECEMBER 11, 2023
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Collect:
Stir up our hearts, Lord God, to prepare the way of your only Son.
By his coming strengthen us to serve you with purified lives;
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 19
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Assigned Readings:
Isaiah 26:7-15
Psalm 27
Acts 2:37-42
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
When evildoers came upon me to eat up my flesh,
it was they, my foes and my adversaries, who stumbled and fell.
–Psalm 27:2, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.
–Acts 2:40b, New Revised Standard Version (1989)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We read of evildoers. They receive grace yet continue to deal unjustly and to fail to recognize the majesty of God. They practice and/or condone unnecessary violence. They exploit the poor and act without compassion. They are corrupt.
Human nature is, for better and for worse, constant. Thus every generation is “this corrupt generation.” I survey my North American dominant culture and find reasons for both optimism and pessimism. On one hand, for example, women can vote, Jim Crow laws are dead, and homosexuals have more rights than they once did. On the other hand, racism continues to permeate sections of society, homophobia survives, income inequality is becoming worse, and certain big-box retailers with dodgy ethical reputations as public citizens begin to display Christmas items before Halloween. I have, without resorting to perpetual grumpiness, escaped to a man cave with many books, compact discs, and DVDs. I subscribe to no television, satellite, or similar service, so I am functionally popular culturally illiterate. Yet I know much about history, theology, liturgy, and classical music. Mine is the better lot, complete with Christmas shopping at thrift stores. In some ways I never dropped in, In other ways I have dropped out. So be it.
One challenge of being a Christian is to transform the world for the better. God will save it, but we mere mortals can at least leave it better than we found it. We cannot transform the world either by condemning it from afar or by becoming indistinguishable from it. Those who retreat from the world can also play a vital role, for convents and monasteries have preserved knowledge, sheltered orphans and abandoned children, provided medical care, et cetera. So may nobody criticize monastics unjustly. We need more of them, in fact.
How is God calling you, O reader, to make this corrupt generation better? May you fulfill that vocation well.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
OCTOBER 26, 2014 COMMON ERA
PROPER 25: THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
THE FEAST OF SAINT ALFRED THE GREAT, KING OF THE WEST SAXONS
THE FEAST OF SAINT CEDD, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF LONDON
THE FEAST OF DMITRY BORTNIANSKY, COMPOSER
THE FEAST OF PHILLIP NICOLAI, JOHANN HEERMANN, AND PAUL GERHARDT, HYMN WRITERS
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/this-corrupt-generation/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
Pingback: This Corrupt Generation | BLOGA THEOLOGICA