Genesis 1 divides the first six days of creation into two groups–the creation of generalities and domains (the first three days’ work) and the creation of the specifics or the inhabitants of those domains (the work of the fourth, fifth, and sixth days). The seventh day is the time of the creation of the sabbath. The sovereignty of God is a theme that pervades this great myth.
God also deserves much love. As the other three readings tell us, that love (or absence thereof) is manifest in how we behave toward other human beings. These other human beings also bear the image of God (Genesis 1:27). I know I am getting ahead of the continuous readings in Genesis. I am staying on topic, though.
Whoever says he is in the light, yet hates his brother, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother remains in the light, and there is nothing in him to cause a fall. Whoever hates his brother is in darkness; he walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because darkness has blinded his eyes.
–1 John 2:9-11, The New American Bible–Revised Edition (2011)
That text explains itself.
According to a story that may be apocryphal, the elderly St. John the Evangelist was due to visit a congregation somewhere. The members gathered in great anticipation on the appointed day. They watched as men carried the infirmed apostle into the space and sat him down in front of the congregation. Then St. John said,
My children, love one another.
Immediately, he motioned for the men to carry him out. One member of the congregation ran after St. John and asked, in so many words,
That’s all you came here to say?
The apostle replied,
When you have done that, I will tell you more.
Loving one another can be very difficult. Deciding to love one another can also prove challenging, albeit easier than effectively acting on the goal. We need grace to succeed, of course. Yet grace requires our desire to love one another. Free will and grace are partners.
I write this post during a period of prolonged and intensified political polarization. Even the definition of objective reality, as in X caused Y, and Z happened, is often contentious. More so than in the past, many disagreements start at the point of assuming that those who differ from one are bad, if not evil. The more generous judgment that that those who disagree are probably good yet misinformed and misguided is increasingly rare.
I notice this unfortunate pattern in topics that range far beyond science, religion, and politics. I detect this regarding science fiction (one of my favorite topics), too.
Do you enjoy that series? Do you not enjoy that movie? What kind of person are you? You certainly aren’t a real fan. I’m a real fan!
Many criteria can define tribalism.
Whenever we erect idols, whether tangible or intangible, we set ourselves up for this. We do this to ourselves and each other. We can choose never to do this. We can also choose to cease and desist from doing this. We can opt to repent of our idolatry and tribalism.
May we do so. May we love God. May we love ourselves and each other.
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
By your merciful protection awaken us to the threatening dangers of our sins,
and keep us blameless until the coming of your new day,
for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever . Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 18
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The Assigned Readings:
Micah 4:1-5 (Monday)
Micah 4:6-13 (Tuesday)
Psalm 79 (Both Days)
Revelation 15:1-8 (Monday)
Revelation 18:1-10 (Tuesday)
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Do not remember against us the sin of former times:
but let your compassion hasten to meet us, for we are brought very low.
–Psalm 79:8, The Alternative Service Book 1980
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Psalm 79 prays for divine violence against enemies while seeking forgiveness for sins and deliverance from the consequences of sin. Micah 4 and Revelation 18 speak of that deliverance, which comes with divine violence in Micah 5 and Revelation 15 and 18. Yet I recall Jesus teaching in Matthew 5:43-48 (The Jerusalem Bible):
You have heard how it was said: You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; in this way you will be sons of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on bad man as well as good, and his rain to fall on honest and dishonest men alike. For if you love those who love you, what right have you to claim any credit? For the tax collectors do as much, do they not? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? Even the pagans do as much, do they not? You must therefore be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.
“Perfect,” in this case, indicates being suited to one’s purpose. Thus a sacrificial animal which met the standards was perfect, even though it had some physical imperfections. If our purpose as human beings is to love, glorify, and enjoy God forever, as the Westminster Catechisms tell us, that is our standard of perfection. Grace will enable us to attain it.
We cannot be suited to our high calling if we carry grudges around. This baggage is too heavy a burden and a distraction from our sacred vocation. Yes, sometimes oppressors refuse to cease oppressing, so good news for the oppressed is dire news for the oppressors, but the righteous ought not to rejoice in the bad fortunes of others. The Dalai Lama, a Tibetan Buddhist, has compassion for the Chinese oppressors of Tibetans. The Chinese oppressors are hurting themselves also, he says correctly. He puts many Christians to shame with regard to Christ’s teaching about loving one’s enemies. He puts me to shame in this matter.
Recognizing that a problem exists is the first step in the process of correcting it. I know well the desire for vindication at the expense of those who have wronged me. I also know the spiritual acidity of the desire for revenge. God has intervened in my life with regard to this issue. Grace has arrived and continues to be necessary, for I am weak. Yet I keep trying to become stronger. Even a minimal effort is something which God can use, I am convinced. A humble beginning plus ample grace equals wonderful results.
This is a devotion for Advent, the season of preparation for the arrival of Jesus. Liturgically the build-up is to Christmas (December 25-January 5), but the assigned readings include references the Old Testament Day of the Lord and to the Second Coming of Jesus. The expectation in such lessons is that Yahweh or Jesus will replace the old, corrupt, and exploitative human order with the new, divine, and just order. This has yet to happen, obviously, but that vision of how things ought to be should propel we who call ourselves Christians to oppose all that exploits our fellow human beings and denies them all that a proper respect for human dignity affords them. The test of whether we should support or oppose something comes from Jesus himself: Is it consistent with the command to love others as ourselves?
A perhaps apocryphal story tells of the aged St. John the Evangelist/Divine/Apostle. He visited a congregation, the members of which anticipated what he might tell them. The Apostle said,
My children, love one another.
Then he left the room where the congregation had assembled. One person followed John and asked an ancient equivalent of
That’s it? Is there not more?
The Apostle replied,
When you have done that, I will tell you more.
Often we cannot even love those similar to ourselves, much less pray for our enemies. Thus we are not suited to our divine calling. We can be so, however. May Christ, who entered this world long ago on a mission of mercy, find in many people metaphorical stables in which to continue arriving among us.
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
As I have written recently, holiness in the Law of Moses was for the community, not isolated individuals. Indeed, what one person does affects others directly and indirectly? We social humans live in a web of mutual responsibility. Any impression to the contrary is mistaken.
Most recent lections in this series have focused on divine mercy following divine judgment. The reading from Isaiah 24 gives us a dose of judgment explained as what follows long-term, rampant, and communal disregard of the covenant. Communal life and holiness is also a prominent theme in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12. Adultery, for example, is not a solitary act. So it, by definition, affects those involved directly and indirectly, frequently damaging or destroying marriages and breaking up families. But even what we do in private affects others. That understanding prevents me from becoming a wholesale Libertarian.
I used to be more individualistic, especially during my adolescence. But, as I have aged and learned, I have realized that rugged individualism is a great lie. It is a popular cultural and political force in my nation-state. But it is still a great lie. We all depend on God for everything. And we all depend on each other in matters material and spiritual. May we, by grace, take good care of each other. That is our covenant with God. If we break it often enough, destruction will result.
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
Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.
Put on the robe of righteousness that comes from God;
put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;
for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven.
For God will give you evermore the name,
Righteous Peace, Godly Glory.
Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;
look toward the east,
and see your children gathered from west and east at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that God has remembered them.
For they went out from you on foot,
led away by their enemies;
but God will bring them back to you,
carried in glory, as on a royal throne.
For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low
and the valleys filled up, to make level ground,
so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.
The woods and every fragrant tree
have shaded Israel at God’s command.
For God will lead Israel with joy,
in the light of his glory,
with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.
Malachi 3:1-4 (Revised English Bible):
I am about to send my messenger to clear a path before me. Suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight is here, here already, says the LORD of Hosts. Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand firm when he appears? He is like a refiner’s fire, like a fuller’s soap; he will take his seat, testing and purifying; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver, and so they will be fit to bring offerings to the LORD. Thus the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as they were in former days, in days long past.
RESPONSE
Canticle 16 (The Book of Common Prayer, 1979)
Luke 1:68-79 plus the Trinitarian formula
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;
he has come to his people and set them free.
He has raised up for us a mighty savior,
born of the house of his servant David.
Through his holy prophets he promised of old,
that he would save us from our enemies,
from the hands of all who hate us.
He promised to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant.
This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham,
to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
Free to worship him without fear,
holy and righteous in his sight
all the days of our life.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
SECOND READING
Philippians 1:3-11 (Revised English Bible):
I thank my God every time I think of you; whenever I pray for you, my prayers are always joyful, because of the part you have taken in the work of the gospel from the first day until now. Of this I am confident, that he who who started the good work in you will bring it to completion by the day of Christ Jesus. It is only natural that I should feel like this about you, because I have great affection for you, knowing that, both while I am kept in prison and when I am called on to defend the truth of the gospel, you all share in this privilege of mine. God knows how I long for you with the deep yearning of Christ Jesus himself. And this is my prayer, that your love may grow ever richer in knowledge and insight of every kind, enabling you to learn by experience what things really matter. Then on the day of Christ you will be flawless and without blame, yielding the full harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
GOSPEL READING
Luke 3:1-6 (New Revised Standard Version):
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanius ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the words of the prophet Isaiah,
The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
The Collect:
Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
St. John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus in more way than one. Not only did John pave the way for Jesus’s ministry, he also functioned as a forerunner by dying.
The Book of Baruch, written in the name of the Prophet Jeremiah’s scribe, dates to a later time, the reign of Seleucid monarch Antiochus IV Epiphanes, circa 168 BCE. Antiochus had captured and desecrated the Jerusalem Temple and launched a campaign of forced Hellenization and persecution of observant Jews. The author of Baruch drew from Babylonian Exile-era imagery to make sense of his contemporary situation. Circumstances will improve, for God will intervene, the author of Baruch said.
Judea/Palestine was occupied territory at the time of Jesus and St. John the Baptist. Hellenized Romans were firmly in charge. The imagery from Isaiah and Baruch proved germane: God would intervene. But the Messiah was not the national liberator many people expected. One must, for the sake of accuracy, avoid stereotyping the Judaism of first century CE Judea/Palestine, for there were Judaisms there. Some Jews sought a national liberator, but others looked for a more spiritual leader.
God intervenes in a violent world where prophets face the death penalty, empires occupy foreign (to them) territories, and enforce peace at the points of weapons. In the midst of all this, however, hope remains. God is acting; do we perceive it? And, if prophets face the death penalty and tyrants rule, we humans bear responsibility for those realities. We have free will. In the words of a poster of which I heard years ago, we cannot not decide. The social, economic, and political realities are human creations. So we are responsible. What will we do about that?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 10, 2011 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN ROBERTS, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MARTYR
THE FEAST OF KARL BARTH, SWISS REFORMED THEOLOGIAN
THE FEAST OF THOMAS MERTON, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MONK
The lovely and familiar reading from Isaiah flows immediately from the end of Chapter 10. God will topple mighty cedars of Lebanon (poetic stand-ins for Assyria),
But a shoot shall grow out of the stump of Jesse,
A twig shall sprout from his stock.
–Isaiah 11:1, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures
The twig will be the ideal king who will mete out justice, punish the wicked, and raise up the downtrodden. God’s peace will reign and exiles will return.
The state of affairs was not nearly as rosy when exiles did return; read Ezra and Nehemiah for details. What, then, are we supposed to make of this prediction? That time has yet to come; this is my proposed answer.
We read in Isaiah 11:1-12:6 of what God will do. By the time of 2 Peter 2, Jesus had come and gone, having fulfilled his mission. That was another thing God had done. Yet the Roman Empire remained firmly in control. The ideal kingdom was still in the future tense. The author of 2 Peter reminded his audience of some more of God’s past deeds, namely sparing Noah and family as well as destroying the equal-opportunity would-be rapists (heterosexual and homosexual) of Sodom of Gomorrah. God had rescued the just then; God would do it again.
So we continue to wait for the ideal kingdom of God. The evil still oppress the good. Those who act righteously still suffer because of unintended consequences of well-intentioned laws and of flaws in legal systems. Many people who think that they are righteous actually oppress the righteous. Maybe even we have committed evil unwittingly while trying to perform good deeds.
The most basic good deed I know is one consistent with compassion and measured objectively according to results. We can know a tree by its fruits. This is a matter of results, not ideology, which is often oblivious to evidence.
So, as we do our best to act compassionately, may we not lose hope that divine promises of deliverance of the good are reliable. God’s timing, after all, is not ours.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 10, 2011 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN ROBERTS, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MARTYR
THE FEAST OF KARL BARTH, SWISS REFORMED THEOLOGIAN
THE FEAST OF THOMAS MERTON, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MONK
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
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