The readings from the Hebrew Bible hail from different times. Psalm 80 is a national lament from the final days of the northern Kingdom of Israel. One may recall that the theology written into much of the Old Testament regarding the Assyrian and Babylonian Exiles was that persistent, collective sin had brought them on. Isaiah 64 comes from the Third Isaiah portion of the Book of Isaiah, after return from the Babylonian Exile. The text, which one understands better if one reads Isaiah 63 first, indicates collective disappointment with the shambles the ancestral homeland had become.
Good news follows bad news in Mark 13. In a passage that obviously invokes the descent of “one like a Son of Man” in Daniel 7, Jesus will return. Yet one also reads a note of caution (“Keep awake.”) in the context of language to which one can correctly add,
or else.
St. Paul the Apostle anticipated that day was he wrote to the argumentative congregation in Corinth. Before he pointed out their faults he remined them that God had granted them awareness of the truth regarding God and Jesus Christ, as well as the means to speak of that truth.
The two great themes of the Hebrew Bible are exodus and exile. When exile ends, we may find that we have new problems. Yet we can rely on God, who continues to perform loving, mighty acts. Will we accept divine liberation, or will we exile ourselves?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JUNE 5, 2019 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT DOROTHEUS OF TYRE, BISHOP OF TYRE, AND MARTYR
At first glance the readings David Ackerman has appointed for the First Sunday of Advent do not fit well together. However, upon further reflection, one might realize that they do. The message is that we–individuals, institutions, societies–ought to rely on God, not on our own devices.
In David 2 we have an interpretation of a dream. There are four successive empires–traditionally Chaldean/Neo-Babylonian, Median, Persian, and Macedonian–of declining value. The fifth in the sequence is the divided empire of the late Alexander the Great. At the end of that sequence, according to Daniel 2, God’s reign on earth will commence.
O, if only it had!
The Roman Empire is the power in Mark 11. Jesus curses a fig tree for producing no figs. The text notes that this happened outside of fig season. The story, however, is symbolic. It follows directly from the Triumphal Entry of Jesus and wraps around the cleansing of the Temple. The fig tree relates to the Temple. Just as the fig tree is producing just leaves and not small green figs (as it ought to do), the Temple is barren of anything of spiritual worth. The fig tree is also a recurring Biblical symbol of Israel itself, as in Jeremiah 8:13, Hosea 9:10, Joel 1:7, and Micah 7:1. One can therefore reasonably read the cursing of the fig tree as a scathing critique of the religious life of Israel.
When we turn to the Church at Laodicea in Revelation 3 we find another scathing critique. The congregation relies on its wealth, not on God, who literally vomits (although many translations render the verb “spits”) that church out. The church has succumbed to the temptation to convert material wealth into an idol.
The text from Psalm 38 explains itself.
In Beyond the Lectionary (2013) Ackerman emphasizes
the importance of awakening the insights that God provides
(page 8).
Those insights tell us both individually and collectively not to trust in military forces, in governments, in wealth, or in imagined righteousness when we ought to acknowledge our complete dependence on God. To do anything other than to rely completely on God is to commit idolatry. That is a difficult and strong statement, I know. I also acknowledge that I have long been guilty of this idolatry and continue to be so. I confess this sin here, in this post, readily. Fortunately, grace abounds, so all of us have hope.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
APRIL 28, 2017 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT PETER CHANEL, PROTOMARTYR OF OCEANIA
In Malachi 1 YHWH complains (via the prophet) that many people are taking their sacrifices lightly, offering unfit food and creatures in violations provided in the Torah. (Consult Exodus 12:5 and 29:1 as well as Leviticus 1:3 and 10; 3:1; and 22:17-30 plus Deuteronomy 15:21 regarding animal sacrifices). People in many lands honored God, but, in Persian-dominated Judea, where, of all places, that reverence should have been concentrated, many people were slacking off.
St. Zechariah, the father of St. John the Baptist, certainly revered God. The old man was a priest at the Temple at Jerusalem. He and his wife, St. Elizabeth, the Gospel of Luke tells us,
were upright ad devout, blamelessly observing all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord.
–1:6, The Revised English Bible (1989)
In an echo of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 17:15-22 and 18:1-15, each account coming from a different source), the elderly priest learned that he and his wife would become parents against all odds. He was predictably dubious. The prediction of a miracle and a marvel, to borrow language from Hebrews 2:4, came true.
Hebrews 2:3 provides a timeless warning against neglecting
such a great salvation
—The New Jerusalem Bible (1985).
That salvation is the offer of God, who made the aged Abraham and Sarah parents and did the same for the elderly Sts. Zechariah and Elizabeth. It is the offer of God, who chose St. Mary of Nazareth to become an instrument of the Incarnation. It is the offer of God, the name of when many people all over the world honor. May we revere God and strive, by grace, to offer our best, not our leftovers and spares in sacrifice.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
AUGUST 19, 2016 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF ANNE HUTCHINSON, REBELLIOUS PURITAN
THE FEAST OF WILLIAM HAMMOND, ENGLISH MORAVIAN HYMN WRITER
Above: Mattie Ross on Blackie, Her Fine Horse, in True Grit (2010)
A Screen Capture via PowerDVD and a legal DVD
The Faithfulness and Generosity of God, Part I
DECEMBER 1-3, 2021
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The Collect:
Stir up your power, Lord God, to prepare the way of your only Son.
By his coming give to all the world knowledge of your salvation;
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 3:5-12 (Thursday)
Malachi 3:13-18 (Friday)
Malachi 3:19-24/4:1-6 (Saturday)
Luke 1:68-79 (All Days)
Philippians 1:12-18a (Thursday)
Philippians 1:18b-26 (Friday)
Luke 9:1-6 (Saturday)
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NOTE REGARDING VERSIFICATION:
Malachi 4:1-6 in Protestant Bibles = Malachi 3:19-24 in Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Bibles.
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Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. The author of all things watches over me, and I have a fine horse.
–Mattie Ross in True Grit (2010)
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A person who remembers the ending of that movie should understand that Mattie’s fine horse did not prevent her from losing part of one arm. One might also recognize the irony of the last sentence.
The author of all things watches over me
seems to indicate trust in God, but
I have a fine horse
constitutes a contradictory thought.
The instructions of Jesus to his twelve Apostles emphasize complete dependence on God, who provides via people much of the time. In Mark 6:8 each man may carry a staff, but Matthew 10:10 and Luke 9:3 forbid that item. The Apostles’ mission was an urgent one for which packing lightly and depending upon the hospitality of strangers were essential. Such light packing also emphasized solidarity with the poor, who were most likely to be the ones extending hospitality, given the fact that they lived on the edges of towns. The Apostles were to announce the Kingdom of God, not to press the issue where they were unwelcome.
The ethic of trusting God, especially during difficult times, exists in the readings from Malachi and Philippians. Locusts (in Malachi) and incarceration (in Philippians) were the background hardships. Yet trust in the generosity of God, the prophet wrote. St. Paul the Apostle noted that his period of incarceration (wherever and whenever it was; scholars debate that point) aided the spread the gospel of Jesus.
Zechariah prophesied that his son, St. John the Baptist, would be the forerunner of the Messiah. Both John and Jesus suffered and died at the hands of authorities, which we remember in their context. Officialdom was powerless to prevent the spread of the good news of Jesus in those cases and in the case of Paul. Mortal means can prove useful, but they pass away in time. The faithfulness and generosity of God, however, are everlasting. To live confidently in the latter is a wise course of action.
Of all the illusions to abandon, one of the most difficult to leave behind is the idea that one must be in control. The illusion of control might boost one’s self-esteem, but so what? Control remains an illusion. On the other hand, recognizing that God is in control is liberating. It frees one up to live as one ought to live–
in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ
–according to Philippians 1:27b (The New Revised Standard Version, 1989).
I know this struggle well. The idol of the illusion of control was precious to me. Then circumstances forced me to learn the reality of my powerlessness and to trust God, for I had no feasible alternative. Sometimes dire events prove to be necessary for spiritual awakening to occur.
God has given each of us important tasks to complete. May we lay aside all illusions and other incumbrances, pack lightly, and labor faithfully to the glory of God and for the benefit of those to whom God sends us and to those whom God sends to us. May we trust in the faithfulness and generosity of God, not in ourselves.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
AUGUST 11, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT GREGORY THAUMATURGUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF NEOCAESAREA; AND SAINT ALEXANDER OF COMANA “THE CHARCOAL BURNER,” ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR AND BISHOP OF COMANA, PONTUS
THE FEAST OF AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY, ANGLICAN PRIEST AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINT CLARE OF ASSISI, FOUNDER OF THE POOR CLARES
THE FEAST OF MATTHIAS LOY, U.S. LUTHERAN MINISTER, EDUCATOR, HYMN WRITER, AND HYMN TRANSLATOR; AND CONRAD HERMANN LOUIS SCHUETTE, GERMAN-AMERICAN LUTHERAN MINISTER, EDUCATOR, 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
Triumphal highways were symbols of Chaldean/Babylonian imperial power. Thus they were, for exiles, symbols of oppression. But the highway in Isaiah 40:3-5 is one of liberation. It is the highway of Yahweh. It is the road exiles will travel to their ancestral homeland.
John 1:23 draws on this imagery in reference to Jesus. Instead of Chaldeans/Babylonians, with their highways, there are the Romans, with their network of highways. Although Jews live in their homeland, they are not free. No, they live under foreign occupation. Liberation, St. John the Baptist tells people, is nigh.
But it was not a political liberation, as history attests. No, it was a spiritual liberation. The Temple system, in cahoots with the Roman Empire, was corrupt. Purity codes marginalized the vast majority of Palestinian Jews and reassured an elite population of their imagined sanctity. The destruction of that corrupt Temple system, with its purity codes, accomplished violently by Roman forces in 70 CE, was a crucial event in Jewish and Christian history. And the Romans were still in power.
Jesus defined discipleship as following him–taking up one’s cross and following him. The crucifixion and resurrection of Our Lord and Savior placed him beyond any human power. What more could anyone do to him? So, as St. Paul the Apostle wrote, if we die with Christ (literally or metaphorically) we will rise with Christ. In Jesus there is life which no power on the planet can take away from us. We have new life–eternal life–in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
This is not merely for individuals. No, it is a collective liberation. May we refrain from imposing anachronistic worldviews on texts. Holiness was for the community in the Law of Moses. Liberation is for the community in Jesus, for what we do affects others. As Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded us prophetically,
Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.
Likewise, true holiness and liberation are inherently communal. How can they be otherwise?
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
Humility towards one another must be the garment you all wear constantly, because God opposes the proud but accords his favour to the humble. Bow down, then, before the power of God now, so that he may raise you up in due time; unload all your burdens on him, since he is concerned about you.
–1 Peter 5:5b-7, The New Jerusalem Bible
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The reading from Isaiah spells out doom for Israel (the northern kingdom), Judah (the southern kingdom), and the Assyrian Empire. Embedded among that gloomy news is yet another condemnation of economic injustice. If I seem to beat this drum often in my devotional posts, I do; so do the texts from which I write many devotions. The repetition of this theme ought to tell us to pay attention, correct our ways, and reform our legal, economic, and political systems accordingly.
Each of us bears the image of God. This, I am convinced, constitutes the best basis of equality and mutual respect and humility. God cares for all of us, so we ought to care for each other, not to use each other for selfish goals. As the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded us,
…injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.
What happens to my brother or sister affects me, for my brother or sister and I, although physically distinct, are not as separate as we might seem. We are all connected to others, so what affects one person has consequences for others.
May we, by grace, make them positive effects.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 3, 2011 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF JOHN OWEN SMITH, UNITED METHODIST BISHOP IN GEORGIA
THE FEAST OF SAINT FRANCIS XAVIER, ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONARY IN ASIA
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
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