The Fourth Sunday of Advent is, appropriately, a time to focus on the Messiah. As I wrote in the previous post, Zephaniah 3:14-20 is not a messianic prophecy. Micah 5:105 is, however.
The Magnificat is a beautiful and a familiar text. Perhaps the main problem one has when reading a familiar text is going on autopilot. I challenge you, O reader, as much as I challenge myself, to resist that temptation. Read the Magnificat again, with eyes as fresh as possible. Consider the theme of reversal of fortune; that theme is prominent in the Gospel of Luke. Does that portrayal of God make you uncomfortable? Does it challenge any of your values?
The Magnificat is one of the texts that remind me of an observation I read on the back of a church bulletin years ago:
The purpose of the Gospel is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.
That description applies to the Gospel of Luke.
Then turn with me, O reader, to Hebrews 10:5-10, usually a text for Good Friday. One may recall that the Passion Chorale is present in the Christmas Oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach. Reading Hebrews 10:5-10 on this Sunday and hearing Hans Leo Hassler‘s Passion Chorale in the Season of Christmas reminds us of why the Incarnation occurred.
That becomes very uncomfortable quite quickly. If we find it uncomfortable, we need to consider how Jesus felt on the cross.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MARCH 11, 2020 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF JOHN SWERTNER, DUTCH-GERMAN MORAVIAN MINISTER, HYMN WRITER, HYMN TRANSLATOR, AND HYMNAL EDITOR; AND HIS COLLABORATOR, JOHN MUELLER, GERMAN-ENGLISH MORAVIAN MINISTER, HYMN WRITER, AND HYMNAL EDITOR
THE FEAST OF SAINT AENGUS THE CULDEE, HERMIT AND MONK; AND SAINT MAELRUAN, ABBOT
THE FEAST OF SAINT EULOGIUS OF SPAIN, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF TOLEDO, CORDOBA; AND SAINT LEOCRITA; ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYRS, 859
THE FEAST OF FRANCIS WAYLAND, U.S. BAPTIST MINISTER, EDUCATOR, AND SOCIAL REFORMER
THE FEAST OF SAINT PAL PRENNUSHI, ALBANIAN ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MARTYR, 1948
that we may receive you in joy and serve you always,
for you live and reign with the Father and
the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 20
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The Assigned Readings:
Genesis 25:19-28
Psalm 113
Colossians 1:15-20
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Who is like the LORD our God, who sits enthroned on high,
but stoops to behold the heavens and the earth?
He takes up the weak out of the dust
and lifts up the poor from the ashes.
He sets them with the princes,
with the princes of his people.
He makes the woman of a childless house
to be a joyful mother of children.
–Psalm 113:5-8, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
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To read of God granting a barren woman children is appropriate just a few days prior to December 25. Unfortunately, Jacob and Esau, the twin children of Isaac and Rebekah, were not paragons of peace and reconciliation, although they did resolve their differences eventually.
The pericope from Colossians functions as a counterpoint to the reading from Genesis. We humans struggle with each other, “hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,” as Colossians 1:21 (The New Revised Standard Version, 1989) says. Yet we can have reconciliation with God and each other through the killed and resurrected Jesus if we persist in faithfulness. We humans are creatures of habit. May we encourage each other in pursuing good habits, therefore, so that we, exercising freedom in God, may come nearer to the proper spiritual destination in Christ. Yes, clinging to hostility does prove appealing much of the time, but that luggage is too heavy to carry on the journey with Jesus, the celebration of whose birth we approach.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
AUGUST 21, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF JOHN ATHELSTAN LAURIE RILEY, ANGLICAN ECUMENIST, HYMN WRITER, AND HYMN TRANSLATOR
One of the great virtues of High Churchmanship is having a well-developed sense of sacred time. So, for example, the church calendars, with their cycles, tell us of salvation history. We focus on one part of the narrative at a time. Much of Protestantism, formed in rebellion against Medieval Roman Catholic excesses and errors, has thrown the proverbial baby out with the equally proverbial bath water, rejecting or minimizing improperly the sacred power of rituals and holy days.
Consider, O reader, the case of Christmas–not in the present tense, but through the late 1800s. Puritans outlawed the celebration of Christmas when they governed England in the 1650s. Their jure divino theology told them that since there was no biblical sanction for keeping Christmas, they ought not to do it–nor should anyone else. On the other hand, the jure divino theology of other Calvinists allowed for keeping Christmas. Jure divino was–and is–a matter of interpretation. Lutherans, Anglicans, and Moravians kept Christmas. Many Methodists on the U.S. frontier tried yet found that drunken revelry disrupted services. Despite this Methodist pro-Christmas opinion, many members of the Free Methodist denomination persisted in anti-Christmas sentiment. The holiday was too Roman Catholic, they said and existed without
the authority of God’s word.
Thus, as the December 19, 1888 issue of Free Methodist concluded,
We attach no holy significance to the day.
–Quoted in Leigh Eric Schmidt, Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), page 180. (The previous quote also comes from that magazine, quoted in the same book.)
Many Baptists also rejected the religious celebration of Christmas. An 1875 issue of Baptist Teacher, a publication for Sunday School educators, contained the following editorial:
We believe in Christmas–not as a holy day but as a holiday and so we join with our juveniles with utmost heartiness of festal celebration….Stripped as it ought to be, of all pretensions of religious sanctity and simply regarded as a social and domestic institution–an occasion of housewarming, and heart-warming and innocent festivity–we welcome its coming with a hearty “All Hail.”
–Quoted in Schmidt, Consumer Rites, pages 179 and 180
Presbyterians, with their Puritan heritage, resisted celebrating Christmas for a long time. In fact, some very strict Presbyterians still refuse to keep Christmas, citing their interpretation of jure divino theology. (I have found some of their writings online.) That attitude was more commonplace in the 1800s. The Presbyterian Church in the United States, the old Southern Presbyterian Church, passed the following resolution at its 1899 General Assembly:
There is no warrant for the observance of Christmas and Easter as holy days, but rather contrary (see Galatians iv.9-11; Colossians ii.16-21), and such observance is contrary to the principles of the Reformed faith, conducive to will-worship, and not in harmony with the simplicity of the gospel in Jesus Christ.
–Page 430 of the Journal of the General Assembly, 1899 (I copied the text of the resolution verbatim from an original copy of the Journal.)
I agree with Leigh Eric Schmidt:
It is not hard to see in this radical Protestant perspective a religious source for the very secularization of the holiday that would eventually be so widely decried. With the often jostling secularism of the Christmas bazaar, Protestant rigorists simply got what they had long wished for–Christmas as one more market day, a profane time or work and trade.
–Consumer Rites, page 180
I affirm the power of rituals and church calendars. And I have no fear of keeping a Roman Catholic holy day and season. Thus I keep Advent (December 1-24) and Christmas (December 25-January 5). I hold off on wishing people
Merry Christmas
often until close to Christmas Eve, for I value the time of preparation. And I have no hostility or mere opposition to wishing anyone
Happy Holidays,
due to the concentrated holiday season in December. This is about succinctness and respect in my mind; I am not a culture warrior.
Yet I cannot help but notice with dismay the increasingly early start of the end-of-year shopping season. More retailers will open earlier on Thanksgiving Day this year. Many stores display Christmas decorations before Halloween. These are examples of worshiping at the high altar of the Almighty Dollar.
I refuse to participate in this. In fact, I have completed my Christmas shopping–such as it was–mostly at thrift stores. One problem with materialism is that it ignores a basic fact: If I acquire an item, I must put it somewhere. But what if I enjoy open space?
I encourage a different approach to the end of the year: drop out quietly (or never opt in) and keep nearly four weeks of Advent and all twelve days of Christmas. I invite you, O reader, to observe these holy seasons and to discover riches and treasures better than anything on sale on Black Friday.
Pax vobiscum!
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 25, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SQUANTO, COMPASSIONATE HUMAN BEING
THE FEAST OF JAMES OTIS SARGENT HUNTINGTON, FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF THE HOLY CROSS
–Martin Luther; translated by William James Kirkpatrick
Yesterday I sang in my parish choir’s performance of the Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah. We dropped “His yoke is easy and his burden is light,” culminating instead in the Hallelujah Chorus. The concert was glorious and spiritually edifying for many people.
There are still a few days of Advent left. So I encourage you, O reader, to observe them. Then, beginning sometime during the second half of December 24, begin to say
Merry Christmas!
and continue that practice through January 5, the twelfth and last day of Christmas. And I encourage you to remember that our Lord and Savior was born into a violent world, one in which men–some mentally disturbed, others just mean, and still others both mean and mentally disturbed–threatened and took the lives of innocents. Names, circumstances, empires, nation-states, and technology have changed, but the essential reality has remained constant, unfortunately.
The Hallelujah Chorus, quoting the Apocalypse of John, includes these words:
The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.
That is not true yet, obviously. But that fact does not relieve any of us of our responsibilities to respect the Image of God in others and to treat them accordingly. We must not try to evade the duty to be the face and appendages of Christ to those to whom God sends us and those whom God sends to us. We cannot save the world, but we can improve it. May we do so for the glory of God and the benefit of others.
May the peace of Christ, born as a vulnerable baby and executed as a criminal by a brutal imperial government, be with you now and always. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 17, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF MARIA STEWART, EDUCATOR
THE FEAST OF EGLANTYNE JEBB, FOUNDER OF SAVE THE CHILDREN
THE FEAST OF FRANK MASON NORTH, U.S. METHODIST MINISTER
Stir up the wills of your faithful people, Lord God,
and open our ears to the words of your prophets,
that, anointed by your Spirit, we may testify to your light;
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
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The Assigned Readings:
Malachi 3:16-4:16
Psalm 125
Mark 9:9-13
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Show your goodness, O LORD, to those who are good
and to those who are true of heart.
As for those who turn aside to crooked ways,
the LORD will lead them away with evildoers;
but peace be upon Israel.
–Psalm 125:4-5, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
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Malachi 3:16-4:6 (as Protestant versification labels it), or 3:16-21 (as Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox versification calls it), speaks of divine judgment and mercy–the former for evildoers and the latter for the righteous. The evildoers, back in Malachi 3:14-15, had said:
It is useless to serve God. What have we gained by keeping His charge and walking in abject awe of the LORD of Hosts? And so, we account the arrogant happy: they have indeed dared God and escaped.
—TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985)
Certain forces of wickedness attempted to kill the prophet Elijah. Some of their successors succeeded in executing St. John the Baptist then Jesus. Yet, as Malachi wrote:
All the arrogant ones and those doing evil will become straw.
–4:1b/3:19b, Common English Bible (2008).
Jesus died, but the Resurrection followed. Elijah went to Heaven directly. St. John the Baptist remained dead, but his legacy has survived to today. Executing a person is easier than killing an idea. Arrogant people and evildoers have been slow to learn this lesson.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
OCTOBER 27, 2014 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF ARTHUR CAMPBELL AINGER, ENGLISH EDUCATOR, SCHOLAR, AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINT AEDESIUS, PRIEST AND MISSIONARY; AND SAINT FRUDENTIUS, FIRST BISHOP OF AXUM AND ABUNA OF THE ETHIOPIAN ORTHODOX TEWAHEDO CHURCH
THE FEAST OF THE VICTIMS OF THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS
Hannah’s Song from 1 Samuel 2, a partial basis for the Magnificat, is fitting to read during Advent and with these lections. The birth of Isaac was a miracle, as was the birth of Samuel. And we read an allegory of Isaac and Ishmael in Galatians. The essence of the allegory is this: In grace there is freedom, not slavery–freedom to serve God.
Among the underlying principles of the Law of Moses was that everything belongs to God. Therefore we are tenants on this planet and slaves of God, a kindly (at least some of the time) master. God, in the Bible (both Testaments) does have quite a temper. God, in both Testaments, exercises both judgment and mercy. And, in the Law of Moses, there was mercy in exchange for obedience to the Law, which spoke of mutual responsibilities of people to each other. If all were slaves of God, none was better than anyone else. And nobody had the right to exploit anyone else.
There was, of course, the long list of stonable offenses (many of which I have committed), from working on the Sabbath day to showing disrespect to parents. If one were subject to such laws, who would live into or past adolescence? Obviously, executing someone does not indicate mercy toward him or her. I mention these matters to avoid even the appearance of committing prooftexting and to acknowledge the complexity of the texts. But my earlier point remains accurate.
That point–responsibility to each other–runs through the Galatians lessons also. There is a consistent biblical testimony on the topic of what we owe to each other as social beings who bear the Image of God. The well-being of the community is crucial to this theology, for none of us is, as John Donne said, an island. So, just as surely as we ought not to endanger the community, the community has no right to crush us for simply not conforming to every rule. Diversity enriches the whole and individualism and communitarianism can co-exist peacefully and respectfully. Besides, if everybody were alike, much that is essential would not get done. If that were not bad enough, the community and the world wold be incredibly dull.
May this Advent be a time to renew our commitments to God and each other to labor faithfully for the greater good in interesting and perhaps even quirky ways.
Advent receives inadequate attention. The season is certainly not commercial. Indeed, Christmas receives much commercial attention even before Halloween, for retailers need the money from Christmas-related sales to sustain stores through other times of the year. I admit to being of two minds. On one hand I do my rather limited Christmas shopping at thrift stores, so my deeds reveal my creed. Yet I know that many jobs depend on Christmas-related sales, so I want retailers to do well at the end of the year. Nevertheless, I am not very materialistic at heart; the best part of Christmas is intangible. And nobody needs any more dust catchers.
Observing Advent is a positive way of dropping out of the madness that is pre-December 25 commercialism. The four Sundays and other days (December 2-24 in 2012) preceding Christmas Day are a time of spiritual preparation, not unlike Lent, which precedes Easter. Garrison Keillor used the term “Advent Distress Disorder” (ADD) in a monologue last year. Indeed, finding positive news in the midst of apocalyptic tones of Advent readings can prove difficult. Yet the good news remains and the light shines brightest in the darkness.
So, O reader, I invite you to observe a holy Advent. Embrace the confluence of joy and distress, of darkness and light. And give Advent all the time it warrants through December 24. Christmas will arrive on schedule and last for twelve days. But that is another topic….
Pax vobiscum!
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 6, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF WILLIAM TEMPLE, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
THE FEAST OF TE WHITI O RONGOMAI, MAORI PROPHET
THE FEAST OF SAINT THEOPHANE VERNARD, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, MISSIONARY, AND MARTYR IN VIETNAM
John of Patmos interpreted natural disasters as calls to repentance. As I tire of writing repeatedly yet think I must do anyway, repentance is changing one’s mind or turning around. It is active. Apologizing is part of repentance much of the time, yet let us never mistake it for all of repentance.
Back to my main thread….
John of Patmos interpreted natural disasters as calls to repentance. As I wrote in the December 18 devotional post in this series, sometimes we interpret disturbing events (natural or otherwise) correctly; at other times we add two and two, arriving at a sum of five. But let us remain focused on the main point: God desires that we repent. This indicates that God has not given up on us. Otherwise there would be just destruction.
God’s self-description in Isaiah 40-41 repudiates idols. An idol is anything which distracts us from God. We all have a collection of them. We might not call them statues of Baal or another ancient imaginary deity, but we might have an excessive habit of watching television or playing video games. For many people the Bible itself is an idol because they treat it as one.
An icon, in contrast, is something through which we see (or hear) God. An icon can be religious artwork, a loved one, or the Bible, for example. The Bible, in fact, is properly an icon.
May we repent of our idolatry and replace our idols with icons.
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
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