According to the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship (ILCW) Lectionary (1973), as contained in the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) and Lutheran Worship (1982)
For improved comprehension of Isaiah 11:1-10, O reader, back up to 10:32b-34. There we read that God will destroy the Neo-Assyrian Empire, built on militarism, cruelty, and exploitation. Isaiah 10:34 likens that empire to majestic cedars of Lebanon, cut down by God. Then Isaiah 11 opens with the image of the Messiah, depicted as a twig sprouting from a tree stump.
The Messiah–the ruler of the fully-realized Kingdom of God in Isaiah 11–has much in common with the ideal king in Psalm 72. Both monarchs govern justly. They come to the aid of the oppressed and punish the oppressors. Judgment and mercy remain in balance.
The ethics of the Kingdom of God–whether partially-realized or fully-realized–contradict the conventional wisdom of “the world” and its great powers. The Roman Empire, built on militarism, cruelty, and exploitation, continues as a metaphor to apply to oppressive powers–not only governments–in our time. Spiritual complacency remains a problem. And how we mere mortals treat each other continues to interest God.
Real life is frequently messy and replete with shades of gray. Sometimes one must choose the least bad option, for no good options exist. Whatever one does, somebody may suffer or perhaps die, for example. We live in an imperfect world. But we can, by grace, make the best decisions possible then act accordingly. We can, by grace, love one another selflessly and self-sacrificially. We can, by grace, act based on mutuality and the Golden Rule. We can, by grace, welcome those whom God welcomes. We can, by grace, confront those whom God confronts. We can, by grace, make the most good from an imperfect situation.
May we do so.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JANUARY 6, 2022 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
In TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985) the first word of the reading from Isaiah 11 is “but.” This is an invitation to back up into Isaiah 10, where one reads of God cutting down arrogant Assyrian forces. The metaphor at the end of Isaiah 10 is cutting down the cedars of Lebanon. That makes sense if one knows the background of that portion of scripture.
The prophet uses the term Lebanon trees ironically: Assyrian kings boasted in inscriptions that they cut down these mighty cedars on their heroic journeys to despoil the forests of Lebanon to obtain wood for their building projects in Mesopotamia, but here Assyrians themselves become the ax’s victim.
—The Jewish Study Bible, Second Edition (2014), 789
Then we arrive at our reading from Isaiah 11.
But a shoot shall grow out of the stump of Jesse,
it begins. This is a prophecy of a time when an ideal king will rule justly and the society will be peaceable. This is similar to the high hopes in Psalm 72. Matthew 3:1-12 evokes this prophecy of Isaiah (in spirit, at least) and has St. John the Baptist apply it to Jesus, whom he baptizes in 3:13-17.
Romans 15:12, which follows a call to think about others first ad to work for the common good, quotes Isaiah 11:10. The Pauline point is plain: God seeks for all people to praise, follow, and set their hope on Him. The family of God is diverse; some branches of it dislike other branches–even consider some of them to be heretical at best. Some individuals within that family cannot or will not get along with other members thereof.
This has always been true. Nevertheless, the divine mandate to work for the common good, to put other people before oneself, has never ceased to be relevant. For nearly two millennia we have had a role model–Jesus, who went so far as to die.
May we love one another as we love ourselves, recognizing that the common good is indeed that to which God calls us in society. Building ourselves up by exploiting others violates divine commandments and provokes the anger of God, as it should.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MARCH 14, 2018 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF FANNIE LOU HAMER, PROPHET OF FREEDOM
THE FEAST OF ALFRED LISTER PEACE, ORGANIST IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND
THE FEAST OF HARRIET KING OSGOOD MUNGER, U.S. CONGREGATIONALIST HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF NEHEMIAH GOREH, INDIAN ANGLICAN PRIEST AND THEOLOGIAN
Sovereignty over the world has passed to our Lord and his Christ, and he shall reign for ever.
–Verse 15b, The Revised English Bible (1989)
Nevertheless, we must wait until Chapter 21 for that sovereignty to become apparent.
The sovereignty of God is indeed a challenging concept. In the Gospels the Kingdom of God is already partially present. The Roman Empire and its agents, one of whom goes on to order the execution of St. John the Baptist, born in Luke 1, is fully present.
Truly bad people who wield authority always seem to present somewhere. Nebuchadnezzar II, hardly a nice man, is a figure of ridicule in the Book of Daniel. He is fickle and seems unaware of the extent of his authority at times. He is willing to send people to die for refusing to serve the gods, so how nice can he be? He, as monarch, can change the law, too. Later in the Book of Daniel (Chapter 4) he goes insane. Also troubled and in one of the readings (sort of) is King Saul, a disturbed and mentally unwell man. The not attached to Psalm 57 contextualizes the text in 1 Samuel 22-24 and 26, with David leading a group of outlaws while on the run from Saul. In the story David saves the life of the man trying to kill him. (Aside: Chapters 24 and 26 seem to be variations on the same story. The Sources Hypothesis explains the duplication of material.)
One might detect a certain thread common to three of the readings: The lives of the faithful are at risk. That theme is implicit in Luke 1. God will not always deliver the faithful, hence the martyrs in Revelation 14. The sovereignty of God will not always be obvious. But we who claim to follow Christ can do so, by grace, and proclaim God among the peoples in a variety of circumstances.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
APRIL 29, 2017 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINTS BOSA OF YORK, JOHN OF BEVERLEY, WILFRID THE YOUNGER, AND ACCA OF HEXHAM, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS
THE FEAST OF SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA, ROMAN CATHOLIC NUN
THE FEAST OF TIMOTHY REES, ANGLICAN BISHOP OF LLANDAFF
In most of the readings for this day we read of grumbling against God and/or Moses despite God’s proven track record, frequently in the presence of those who go on to grumble. Miriam and Aaron question the authority of Moses in Numbers 12. Miriam becomes ritually unclean because of this (Do not question Moses!), but her brother intercedes for her. People witness then seem to forget God’s mighty acts in Psalms 95 and 106, as well as in Hebrews 3. And, in Numbers 20, Moses disobeys instructions from God. He is supposed to speak to a rock to make water come out of it, but he strikes it instead.
By word and act Moses is thus appropriating to himself an act of God. In doing this he is undoing the message that God and Moses himself have been conveying to the to the people up to this point. The people have continuously directed their attention to Moses instead of to God….Until this episode Moses has repeatedly told the people, “It is not from my own heart,” and “You are congregating against YHWH,” but now his words and actions confirm the people’s own perception.
–Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah with a New English Translation and the Hebrew Text (2001), page 495
Moses was generally trustworthy in the sight of God, per the positive assessment of him in Hebrews 3. At Meribah he gave into human weakness. All of us have caved into our own weaknesses on multiple occasions, have we not? Have we not, for example, sought our own glory instead of that of God? Have we not yielded to the temptation to be spectacular, which Henri J. M. Nouwen identified in The Way of the Heart (1981) as one of Satan’s temptations of Jesus in Luke 4 and Matthew 4? If we have lived long enough, yes, we have.
And you, my child, will be called Prophet of the Most High,
for you will be the Lord’s forerunner to prepare his way
and lead his people to a knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of sins:
for in the tender compassion of our God
the dawn of heaven will break upon us,
to shine on those who live in darkness, under the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet in the way of peace.
–St. Zechariah in Luke 1:76-79, The Revised English Bible (1989)
St. John the Baptist grew up and became one who admitted the truth that he was not the Messiah (Luke 3:15-17 and Mark 1:7-8). He pointed to cousin Jesus instead (Matthew 3:13-14 and John 3:25-36).
The spiritual vocations of Christians vary in details, but the common threads run through those calls from God. We who call ourselves Christians have, for example, a responsibility to glorify God, not ourselves, and to point to Jesus. We also have an obligation to lead lives defined by gratitude to God, not rebellion against God. We can succeed, by grace.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
AUGUST 20, 2016 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF JOHN BAJUS, U.S. LUTHERAN MINISTER 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 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
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The Assigned Readings:
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 85:8-13
Acts 11:19-26
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Show us your mercy, O LORD,
and grand us your salvation.
I will listen to what the LORD God is saying,
for he is speaking peace to his faithful people
and to those who turn their hears to him.
–Psalm 85:7-8, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
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Jeremiah had a difficult vocation: to prophesy to people who ignored his message at best and tried to kill him at worst. The prophets’ youth was a serious problem, from his initial perspective. Yet the power of God proved sufficient, as it always does. Those whom God calls, God qualifies. And why should youth function as a handicap when many foolish elders walk the earth?
Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, played a pivotal role in the early Christian Church. He accompanied St. Paul of Tarsus to a meeting with the Apostles at Jerusalem and spoke on behalf of the former persecutor. Joseph settled at Antioch, where people called him “Barnabas,” or “son of encouragement” or “son of consolation.” There he encouraged and consoled Jewish and Gentile Christians alike. He also traveled to Tarsus to retrieve St. Paul, with whom he traveled later. St. Paul would not have become the great figure he became without St. (Joseph) Barnabas, properly an Apostle also.
Sometimes I read of allegedly self-made people. The truth, however, is that we depend on God and each other. Everything comes from God, of course. And we rely on each other from the womb to the tomb. St. Paul needed St. (Joseph) Barnabas, with whom he argued sometimes. And we modern Christians owe a great debt of gratitude to both of these great men. The prophet Jeremiah came to understand that he depended on God for his life. He argued with God frequently, but theirs was an honest relationship. (I have no problem with arguing faithfully with God. In fact, I think that Jeremiah made some valid points.)
Jeremiah was the weeping prophet and St. (Joseph) Barnabas was the son of encouragement or consolation. Jeremiah preached a harsh yet necessary message, but St. (Joseph) Barnabas declared an inclusive and positive Gospel. Both men suffered for their faithful actions. Jeremiah died in exile; St. (Joseph) Barnabas became a martyr. Yet the book of Jeremiah survives in Bibles, as do accounts of St. (Joseph) Barnabas, encourager of St. Paul and many other Christians. Both men bequeathed living legacies to the human race.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
OCTOBER 20, 2014 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF MARY A. LATHBURY, U.S. METHODIST HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINT BERTILLA BOSCARDIN, ROMAN CATHOLIC NUN AND NURSE
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
For very soon My wrath will have spent itself, and My anger that was bent on wasting them.
–Isaiah 10:25, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures
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But without [goodness, understanding, self-control, perseverance, devotion, and kindness to brothers with love], a person is blind or short-sighted, forgetting how the sins of the past were washed away.
–2 Peter 1:9, The New Jerusalem Bible
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God will destroy the Assyrian Empire, Isaiah told his audience. Not only that, a remnant of Judah will return and God’s anger will run its course. One might flip forward to Isaiah 40 and read:
Comfort, oh comfort, My people,
Says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
And declare to her
That her term of service is over,
That her iniquity is expiated,
For she has received at the hand of the LORD
Double for all her sins.
–Isaiah 40:1-2, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures
Divine anger which led to the destruction of Assyria will end. Divine anger which led to the Assyrian and Babylonian Exiles will run its course. But Assyria did not rise again. In contrast, exiles from Judah did return to their ancestral homeland.
The author of 2 Peter told his audience to lie in goodness, understanding, self-control, perseverance, and devotion, and to be kind to one’s Christian brothers (and sisters) in love. By so doing, he wrote, the knowledge of Jesus Christ would be neither ineffectual nor unproductive. Yet without them, one forgets that God has washed our sins away.
If we live as if God has not forgiven certain sins, we go about our lives entrapped in our ignorance and illusions. We become prisoners of a lie, or at least a misunderstanding. We live in a self-imposed exile. This is most unfortunate. What might we do for God if we were living as the free people we are?
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
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