That is the theme uniting the assigned readings. The call is both individual and collective, and always in the context of community.
The righteous and the unjust suffer. Does God afflict faithless people with physical ailments. My theology answers, “no.” Much of the Hebrew Bible disagrees with me, of course. My disgust with bigoted televangelists who have have attributed diseases and natural disasters (such as Hurricane Katrina, 2005) to the wrath of God informs my opinion. Sometimes people are merely unfortunate. On other occasions. some people suffer the consequences of their actions. I do not that interpret that as God smiting people. No, I understand that as people smiting themselves.
We will suffer as surely as we breathe. May we, by grace, not suffer because of our sins, individually. Given that we live in community, each of us will suffer because of the actions and inaction of others. Not one of us can change that reality. Each one of us can, however, trust God and follow Jesus. Each of us can use our spiritual gifts properly, for the glory of God and for the common good. Each of us can be a conduit of divine love. If we do not think doing so will prompt certain others to target us, we deceive ourselves, unfortunately.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MARCH 18, 2020 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT LEONIDES OF ALEXANDRIA, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR, 202; ORIGEN, ROMAN CATHOLIC THEOLOGIAN; SAINT DEMETRIUS OF ALEXANDRIA, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP; AND SAINT ALEXANDER OF JERUSALEM, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP
THE FEAST OF SAINT CYRIL OF JERUSALEM, BISHOP, THEOLOGIAN, AND LITURGIST
THE FEAST OF ELIZA SIBBALD ALDERSON, POET AND HYMN WRITER; AND JOHN BACCHUS DYKES, ANGLICAN PRIEST AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINT PAUL OF CYPRUS, EASTERN ORTHODOX MARTYR, 760
THE FEAST OF ROBERT WALMSLEY, ENGLISH CONGREGATIONALIST HYMN WRITER
The pericope from 1 Corinthians 14 contains a troubling passage which might be a later addition to it. In the context of cautions against seeking glory for oneself and thereby causing disruption in the church we read that women (actually, wives, in Greek) should be silent and subordinate in church. The meaning is probably that a wife who disagrees with or contradicts her husband in church will cause discord in the congregation, maybe by embarrassing him. Furthermore, some women in the Corinthian congregation were questioning speakers during worship. On the other hand, St. Paul the Apostle worked well with other women (such as St. Prisca/Priscilla, wife of St. Aquila), who taught, and many of the troublemakers in the Corinthian congregation were men. (For details regarding St. Prisca/Priscilla, read Acts 18:1-28; Romans 16:3; 1 Corinthians 16:19; and 2 Timothy 4:19.) One might also refer to Pauline assertions of equality in Christ, as in Galatians 3:27-29. And, with respect to the pericope from Judges 5, Deborah was a chieftain of the Israelites.
One of the contexts in which to interpret a passage of scripture is the entirety of the Bible. Another is the immediate environs (textual, historical, and geographical) of the passage. Nevertheless, sexist attitudes consistent with patriarchy permeate the Bible. I refuse to validation. Each of us learns from culture. This curriculum is of mixed quality. May we recognize the bad, reject it, and refuse to call it holy.
Meanwhile, may we refrain from causing disruptions in church.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
OCTOBER 9, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT DENIS, BISHOP OF PARIS, AND HIS COMPANIONS, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYRS
THE FEAST OF SAINT LUIS BERTRAN, ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONARY PRIEST
THE FEAST OF ROBERT GROSSETESTE, SCHOLAR
THE FEAST OF WILHELM WEXELS, NORWEGIAN LUTHERAN MINISTER, HYMN WRITER, AND HYMN TRANSLATOR; HIS NIECE, MARIE WEXELSEN, NORWEGIAN LUTHERAN NOVELIST AND HYMN WRITER; LUDWIG LINDEMAN, NORWEGIAN LUTHERAN ORGANIST AND MUSICOLOGIST; AND MAGNUS LANDSTAD, NORWEGIAN LUTHERAN MINISTER, FOLKLORIST, HYMN WRITER, AND HYMNAL EDITOR
One of the recurring biblical themes is the coexistence of divine mercy and judgment. It is evident in 2 Kings, where King Josiah deferred yet did not cancel out via national holiness (however fleeting) the consequences of successive generations of national depravity and disregard for holiness. The Hollywood tacked-on happy ending, in the style of The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) after the studio took the film away from Orson Welles, would have been for forgiveness to wipe away everything. Yet judgment came–just later than scheduled previously.
I would like to be a Universalist–a Christian Universalist, to be precise. Yet that would be a false choice. No matter how much grace exists in Jesus, the reality of the Incarnation does demand a response to the question,
Who do we say Jesus is?
(Thanks to Professor Phillip Cary, in his Teaching Company course on the History of Christian Theology for making the point that the Synoptic Gospels pose that question to audiences.) And, as C. H. Dodd, while explaining Realized Eschatology in The Founder of Christianity, wrote of Jesus in that book:
In his words and actions he made men aware of [the kingdom of God] and challenged them to respond. It was “good news” in the sense that it meant opportunity for a new start and an unprecedented enrichment of experience. But when a person (or society) has been presented with such a challenge and declines it, he is not just where he was before. His position is the worse for the encounter….The coming of the kingdom meant the open opportunity of enhancement of life; it also meant the heightening of moral responsibility.
–1970 Macmillan paperback edition, page 58
So, regardless of the number of challenges and severity thereof we might face due to our fidelity to God, may we find encouragement to continue to follow Christ, our Lord and Savior, who suffered to the point of death and overcame that obstacle.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
OCTOBER 10, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN LEONARDI, FOUNDER OF THE CLERKS REGULAR OF THE MOTHER OF GOD; AND SAINT JOSEPH CALASANCTIUS, FOUNDER OF THE CLERKS REGULAR OF RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS
Liturgical time matters, for it sacramentalizes days, hours, and minutes, adding up to seasons on the church calendar. Among the frequently overlooked seasons is the Season after Epiphany, the first part of Ordinary Time. The Feast of the Epiphany always falls on January 6 in my tradition. And Ash Wednesday always falls forty days (excluding Sundays) before Easter Sunday. The Season after Epiphany falls between The Feast of the Epiphany and Ash Wednesday. In 2013 the season will span January 7-February 12.
This season ought to be a holy time, one in which to be especially mindful of the imperative to take the good news of Jesus of Nazareth to others by a variety of means, including words when necessary. Words are meaningless when our actions belie them, after all. Among the themes of this season is that the Gospel is for all people, not just those we define as insiders. No, the message is also for our “Gentiles,” those whom we define as outsiders. So, with that thought in mind, I encourage you, O reader, to exclude nobody. Do not define yourself as an insider to the detriment of others. If you follow this advice, you will have a proper Epiphany spirit.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 9, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF MARTIN CHEMNITZ, GERMAN LUTHERAN THEOLOGIAN
THE FEAST OF BARTON STONE, COFOUNDER OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH (DISCIPLES OF CHRIST)
I have combined the readings for February 7 and 8 to keep Eliphaz the Temanite material together. Doing this has another effect: keeping miracle at Cana and the Johannine account of the cleansing of the Temple together. Shall we proceed?
Job had bad excuses for friends. Exhibit A is Eliphaz the Temanite, who defended his concept of God by insisting that Job must have done something to warrant suffering. After all, in Eliphaz’s view, the good prospered and the bad suffered. This was demonstrably false theology. Just look around: Truly bad people prosper and morally sound people suffer. The Gospel of John, like all canonical Gospels, written from a post-Resurrection perspective, places a prediction of our Lord’s suffering at the beginning of our Lord’s suffering at the beginning of the text. If Eliphaz was correct, Jesus should not have suffered. But he did. So Eliphaz was incorrect.
There is more to John 2:1-25. The story of the miracle at Cana speaks of extravagance. In Jesus, it tells us, was something new–well, old really–but new relative to the perspective of the people at the time–and unstinting. This was not a rejection of Judaism; rather it emerged from Judaism. Jesus was, after all, a practicing Jew. Yet the cleansing of the Temple–placed at the beginning of our Lord’s ministry in John, in contrast to the Synoptic chronology–did indicate a rejection of the Temple system, which placed undue burdens on those who could least afford them. Money changers profited from the religious imperative to exchange idolatrous Roman currency before buying a sacrificial animal. But Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice in time.
The character of Eliphaz the Temanite experienced cognitive dissonance over Job’s sufferings. Eliphaz resolved that dissonance by doubling down on his ideology, even though evidence contradicted it. The emergence of Jesus pointed to a new (to humans) approach to God. In each case predictable conservatism clung to the old ways of thinking. But the dogmas of the past were inadequate to the demands of the then-current reality. Conservatism is not inherently bad; it is just not appropriate at all times and in all places. The question concerns what one seeks to conserve. Sometimes a revolutionary is just what God ordered.
May our assumptions–especially those so deeply embedded that we do not think of them as assumptions–not prevent us from recognizing God’s ways of working. And may these assumptions not blind us to our own errors.
Until the next segment of our journey….
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
APRIL 13, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT HERMENEGILD, VISIGOTHIC PRINCE AND ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR
THE FEAST OF SAINT HUGH OF ROUEN, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP, ABBOT, AND MONK
THE FEAST OF SAINT MARTIN I, BISHOP OF ROME
THE FEAST OF MIKAEL AGRICOLA, FINNISH LUTHERAN BISHOP OF TALLINN
Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints (2010), of The Episcopal Church, contains an adapted two-years weekday lectionary for the Epiphany and Ordinary Time seasons from the Anglican Church of Canada. I invite you to follow it with me.
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Once again I have changed translations, something I do from time to time. It is good to read biblical texts, especially ones with which one is familiar in one version, in a different one. The act of translating a biblical text out of its original language is also one of interpreting it, for there are shades of meaning in ancient Hebrew and Greek. Which shade of meaning does one emphasize? So a very helpful way of reading the texts, which I like to type out, is to have at least one other translation available and to compare and contrast the renderings.
The versions I use for this week are:
TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985), of the Jewish Publication Society,
and
The New Testament in Modern English, Revised Edition (1972), by J. B. Phillips.
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1 Kings 8:1-13 (TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures):
Then Solomon convoked the elders of Israel–all the heads of the tribes and the ancestral chieftains of the Israelites–before King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD from the City of David, that is, Zion.
All the men of Israel gathered before King Solomon at the Feast, in the month of Ethanim–that is, the seventh month. When all the elders of Israel had come, the priests lifted the Ark and carried up the Ark of the LORD. Then the priests and the Levites brought the Tent of Meeting and all the holy vessels that were in the Tent. Meanwhile, King Solomon and and the whole community of Israel, who were assembled with him before the Ark, were sacrificing sheep and oxen in such abundance that they could not be numbered or counted.
The priests brought the Ark of the LORD’s Covenant to its place underneath the wings of the cherubim, in the Shrine of the House, in the Holy of Holies; for the cherubim had their wings spread out over the place of the Ark, so that the Cherubim shielded the Ark and its poles from above. The poles projected so that the ends of the poles were visible in the sanctuary in front of the Shrine, bu they could not be seen outside; and there they remain to this day. There was nothing inside the Ark but the two tablets of stone which Moses placed there at Horeb, when the LORD made [a covenant] with the Israelites after the departure from the land of Egypt.
When the priests came out of the sanctuary–for the cloud had filled the House of the LORD and the priests were not able to remain and perform the service because of the cloud, for the Presence of the LORD filled the House of the LORD–then Solomon declared:
The LORD has chosen
To abide in a thick cloud:
I have now built for You
A stately House,
A place where You
May dwell forever.
Psalm 132:6-10 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
6 “The ark!” We heard it was in Ephratah;
we found it in the fields of Jearim.
7 Let us go to God’s dwelling place;
let us fall upon our knees before his footstool.”
8 Arise, O LORD, into your resting-place,
you and the ark of your strength.
9 Let your priests be clothed with righteousness;
let your faithful people sing with joy.
10 For your servant David’s sake,
do not turn away the face of your Anointed.
Mark 6:53-56 (J. B. Phillips, 1972):
And when they had crossed over to the other side of the lake they landed at Gennesaret and tied up there. As soon as they came ashore, the people recognised Jesus and rushed all over the countryside and began to carry the sick around on their beds to wherever he was. Wherever he went, in villages or towns or hamlets, they laid down their sick right in the marketplaces and begged him that they might “just touch the edge of this cloak”. And all those who touched him were healed.
Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
From June 1982 to June 1985 my father served as pastor of the Hopewell United Methodist Church, outside Baxley, Georgia, on Red Oak Road, in Appling County. I was in the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Grades at the time. Being young and generally well-trained, I deferred to my elders much of the time, even when I knew they were factually mistaken. Some of my Sunday School teachers were poorly informed, yet I stayed quiet when I heard them make a basic mistake, such as what the “ninth hour” was in relation to Christ’s crucifixion. One Sunday School teacher did not know that this was 3:00 P.M., for example. And at least one Sunday School teacher misinterpreted “to this day” references in the Bible to apply to the early 1980s.
1 Kings 8:8 uses “to this day” to refer to the position of the Ark of the Covenant’s position (and the position of its poles) in the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple. Yet Solomon’s Temple has not stood since 587/586 B.C.E., and the Ark of the Covenant had ceased to be at the Temple before then. So “to this day” helps one date the writing of that verse. The statement was accurate when the author wrote that line. As a history buff, I find such markers quite helpful.
The reading from 1 Kings 8 is part of the description of Solomon’s dedication of the First Temple. The lesson conveys a sense of great mystery and reverence, down to the cloud, an indication of the divine presence, filling the House of the LORD. I do not know what actually happened, for the prose poet in me suspects that words were inadequate to describe well what really occurred. But it was, simply put, mystical. That satisfies me.
Yet God seems both close and distant in 1 Kings 8. “God is here, so we cannot perform our service,” the priests seemed to have said to themselves in Hebrew. As a Christian, I believe in approaching God with reverence, but consider God approachable nonetheless. God has come to us as a baby who grew up and became a craftsman who worked with stone and wood. This craftsman also healed many people (as in the reading from Mark), uttered many wise sayings and great moral truths, suffered, died, rose from the dead, and atoned for human sins.
By the act of the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity as Jesus of Nazareth, God approached us, so I feel free to approach God–reverently, of course, but quite personally. In fact, my preferred way of addressing God is “You.” I mean the second person singular and informal pronoun; if I were speaking in French, I would call God Tu, a practice consistent with every French translation of the Bible I have seen.
God has approached us. That is true to this day, Monday, June, 20, 2011, when I write these words, and afterward. A reciprocal response is appropriate and respectful. That is also true to this day.
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in;
who brings princes to naught,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
To whom then will you compare me?
or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and see:
Who created these?
He who brings out their host and numbers them,
calling them all by name;
because he is great in strength,
mighty in power,
not one is missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
My way is hidden from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my God?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
Psalm 147:1-12, 21c (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
1 Hallelujah!
How good it is to sing praises to our God!
how pleasant it is to honor him with praise!
2 The LORD rebuilds Jerusalem;
he gathers the exiles of Israel.
3 He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
4 He counts the number of the stars
and call s them all by their names.
5 Great is our LORD and mighty in power;
there is no limit to his wisdom.
6 The LORD lifts up the lowly,
but casts the wicked to the ground.
7 Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving;
make music to our God upon the harp.
8 He covers the heavens with clouds
and prepares the rain for the earth;
9 He makes grass to grow upon the mountains
and green plants to serve mankind.
10 He provides food for flocks and herds
and for the young ravens when they cry.
11 He is not impressed by the might of a horse;
he has no pleasure in the strength of a man;
12 But the LORD has pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who await his gracious favor.
21c Hallelujah!
1 Corinthians 9:16-23 (New Revised Standard Version):
If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! For if I do this on my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. When then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free if charge, as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.
For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.
Mark 1:29-39 (New Revised Standard Version):
As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him,
Everyone is searching for you.
He answered,
Let us go on to the neighboring towns , so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.
And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
The Collect:
Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
In the Autumn of 1991, during my first quarter at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, Tifton, Georgia, my father was the newly appointed pastor the Sumner United Methodist Church, Sumner, Georgia. I did not know it yet, but I was on the cusp of converting to The Episcopal Church, which I did at St. Anne’s Church, Tifton, on December 22, 1991. In the meantime, however, I was still a United Methodist. One Sunday morning, while teaching adult Sunday School, I offended someone by accident.
You, O reader, might wonder what terrible thing I said, what utterly offensive comment I made. I will tell you. I was discussing grace, especially the prevenient variety, by which God brings us into the Christian fold. God does beckon us, after all. I offered a scenario: God is beckoning a non-Christian man, who responds favorably and obediently to God’s prevenient grace yet dies before making a profession of faith. Does the man go to Heaven or to Hell? In other words, will God be faithful to this man, who had responded favorably to him? Most people said that the man would go to Heaven. But two visitors, a daughter and son-in-law of a member, said that he would go to Hell, for he had not made a profession of faith and been baptized yet. I made clear in a polite and civilized way, in a pleasant and conversational tone, and free of any insult or hint thereof, that I disagreed.
That was my offense. I disagreed. I learned after the fact that the visitors had taken offense. I was unapologetic then, as I remain, for another person’s thin theological skin is not my responsibility.
And I remain convinced that we human beings ought to admit that the only limits on grace and divine forgiveness are those God imposes on them, and that only God knows what those limits are. Or, as David said in 2 Samuel 24:14,
…let us fall into the hand of the LORD, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man. (Revised Standard Version–Second Catholic Edition)
Grace is of the essence. With that summary, let us work through the readings for this Sunday.
The lesson from Isaiah 40 predicts the liberation of Jews from the Babylonian Exile. This is a chapter of comfort, as it begins with these words:
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.
(Isaiah 40:1-2, Revised Standard Version–Second Catholic Edition)
The God of Isaiah 40 and Psalm 147 is the Creator, the judge who also shows mercy, looks favorably upon the faithful, and is infinitely wise. The chapter, which begins with “…comfort my people,” ends with the promise that God will grant “power to the faint.”
That power enabled Paul the Apostle to persist faithfully through death threats, beatings, imprisonments, and a shipwreck, all the way until an employee of the Roman Empire cut his head off. Grace moved Paul from the “right side of the law” and placed him in risky situations. This was not cheap grace, that which demands nothing of one and is therefore useless. No, it was costly grace–free in so far as Paul received it freely–but costly in terms of what it demanded of him. The restrictions of Torah law no longer applied to him, but the law of the love of Christ demanded his all.
Jesus, of course, was perfect as well as fully human and fully divine. Yet even he needed to get away, find quiet time, and pray. A day full of healing will take a great deal out of a Messiah, I suppose. He was grace incarnate. It was Christ whom Paul preached and followed from his conversion to his execution. It is Jesus whom we ought to follow, if we are not doing so already, and to whom God beckons people.
And if even Jesus needed to be quiet and to pray, how much more do we need to do these? I live in a technology-soaked society, where many people are never really “away from it all” (except when sleeping) because somebody can contact them the rest of the time. This is not healthy. We need to nourish ourselves with peace, quiet, and God. Otherwise, we will nothing constructive to offer anyone else.
Paul had a vocation as an evangelist and ultimately a martyr. I have my vocation, and you, O reader, have yours. The details of our vocations will vary according to various factors, but the principle is the same: to glorify God, to be a light of God to others, to encourage our fellow Christians in their discipleship, to attract others to our Lord and Savior, to understand that there is no distinction between evangelism and positive social action. As Shirwood Eliot Wirt, a close associate of Billy Graham wrote in the final chapter of The Social Conscience of the Evangelical (1968):
James was not wrong when he demanded that Christians show their faith by their works. Jesus Christ was not wrong when he told his listeners in effect to stop sitting on their hands and to get to work doing God’s will. He did not come to earth to split theological hairs, but to minister to a world in need and to save men out of it for eternity. It is time the air is cleared. To pit social action against evangelism is to raise a phony issue, one that Jesus would have spiked in a sentence. He commanded his disciples to spread the Good News, and to let their social concern be made manifest through the changed lives of persons of ultimate worth. (Page 154)
If I love my neighbor as I love myself, I cannot say honestly that I do not care about the injustice he or she endures, that he or she does not earn a living wage, that a flawed justice system convicted and sent him or her to prison unjustly, that he or she suffers under the weight of undue stigma, et cetera. Grace demands me to care about all this and to act accordingly as well as whether my neighbor has a positive, growing relationship with Jesus of Nazareth. These are some of my responsibilities. They are also yours.
God’s hands are my hands–and yours. God’s voice is my voice–and yours. May they be useful and eloquent, respectively.
Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints (2010), of The Episcopal Church, contains an adapted two-years weekday lectionary for the Epiphany and Ordinary Time seasons from the Anglican Church of Canada. I invite you to follow it with me.
Let the water swarm with a swarm of living beings, and let birds fly over the earth on the face of the space of the skies.
And God created the big sea serpents and all the living beings that creep, with which the water swarmed, by their kinds, and every winged bird by its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying,
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the water in the seas, and let birds multiply in the earth.
And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
And God said,
Let the earth bring out living beings by their kind, domestic animal and creeping thing and wild animals by their kind.
And it was so. And God made the wild animals of the earth by their kind and the domestic animals by their kind and every creeping thing on the ground by their kind. And God saw that it was good.
And God said,
Let us make a human, in our image, according to our likeness, and let them dominate the the fish of the fish of the sea and the birds of the skies and the domestic animals and all the earth and all the creeping things that creep on the earth.
And God created the human in His image. He created it in the image of God. He created them male and female. And God blessed them, and God said to them,
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and dominate the fish of the sea and the birds of the skies and every animal that creeps on the earth.
And God said,
Here, I have placed all the vegetation that produces seed that is on the face of the earth for you and every tree, which has in it the fruit of a tree producing seed. It will be food for you and for all the wild animals of the earth and for all the birds of the skies and for all the creeping things on the earth, everything in which there is a living being; every plant of vegetation, for food.
And it was so.
And God saw everything that He had made, and, here, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
And the skies and the earth and all their array were finished. And in the seventh day God finished His work that He had done ceased in the seventh day from all His work that He had done. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because He ceased in it from doing all His work, which God had created.
Psalm 8 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
1 O LORD our Governor,
how exalted in your Name is all the world!
2 Out of the mouths of infants and children
your majesty is praised above the heavens.
3 You have set up a stronghold against our adversaries,
to quell the enemy and the avenger.
4 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
5 What is man that should be mindful of him?
the son of man that you should seek him out?
6 You have made him but a little lower than the angels;
you adorn him with glory and honor;
7 You gave him mastery over the works of your hands;
you put all things under his feet:
8 All sheep and oxen,
even the wild beasts of the field,
9 The birds of the air, the fish of the sea,
and whatsoever walks in the paths of the sea.
10 O LORD our Governor,
how exalted is your Name in all the world!
Mark 7:1-13 (J. B. Phillips, 1972)
And now Jesus was approached by the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem. They had noticed that his disciples ate their meals with “common” hands–meaning that they had not gone through a ceremonial washing. (The Pharisees, and indeed all the Jews, will never eat unless they have washed their hands in a particular way, following a traditional rule. And they will not eat anything brought in the market until they have first performed their “sprinkling”. And there are many other things which they consider important, concerned with the washing of cups, jugs, and basins.) So the Pharisees and the scribes put this question to Jesus,
Why do your disciples refuse to follow the ancient tradition, and eat their bread with “common” hands?
Jesus replied,
You hypocrites, Isaiah described you beautifully when he wrote–
“This people honoureth me with their lips,
But their heart is far from me.
But in vain do they worship me,
Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.”
You are so busy holding on to the precepts of men that you let go the commandment of God!
Then he went on,
It is wonderful to see how you can set aside the commandment of God to preserve your own tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honour thy father and thy mother” and ‘He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death.’ But you say, ‘if a man says to his father or his mother, Korban–meaning, I have given God whatever duty I owed to you’, then he need not lift a finger any longer for his father or mother, so making the word of God impotent for the sake of the tradition which you hold. And this is typical of much of what you do.
Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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Last night, after the 6:00 PM Holy Eucharist at my parish, St. Gregory the Great Episcopal Church, Athens, Georgia, I told my priest, Beth Long, that I never cease to be amazed by how many points of departure one can take from one day’s lectionary texts. Invariably, my posts on a Sunday’s readings cover different ground than her sermons. Both are valid, for the material is rich and varied. I think of this point now because I detect many wonderful points to make, based on the assigned readings for Tuesday in the Week of 5 Epiphany, Year 1. Yet I chosen just one path. Perhaps the others will come up in future posts, for the Bible contains many recurring themes.
What is good religion? Or, to state the question differently, what makes one religious in a good way? To cite the Markan account, there is nothing wrong with washing one’s hands before eating. Indeed, this is healthy. Jesus was not referring to public health regulations, however; he had bigger fish to fry. And germ theory was not known at the time. The ceremonial washing of hands was part of an elaborate theology of ritual cleanliness and uncleanliness, for which Jesus had no use. Our Lord and Savior looked more deeply than that.
The late William Barclay wrote the following paragraph is his commentary on the Gospel of Mark:
There is no greater religious peril than that of identifying religion with outward observance. There is no commoner religious mistake than to identify goodness with certain so-called religious acts. Church-going, bible-reading, careful financial giving, even time-honored table-prayer do not make a man a good man. The fundamental question is, how is a man’s heart toward God and towards his fellow-men? And if in his heart there are enmity, bitterness, grudges, pride, not all the outward religious observances in the world will make him anything other than a hypocrite.
Who can stand before God as anything other than a hypocrite or an unrepentant sinner? There might be a few of us on the planet who can do this, but I am not among them. As for you, O reader, you must answer for yourself: Are you among this rare, perhaps hypothetical population? But thanks be to God, who has mercy on us and knows that we are all broken and “but dust.” Yet it is also true, as the psalm and Genesis tell us, that we bear the image of God and rank above the other creature on the planet. There is hope for us, and the source for this hope is God. So may we refrain from placing too much emphasis on either the “dust” description or the “little lower than the angels” description.
But what makes religion good, and what makes one a practitioner of good religion? The answer is love, which, as the Greek language makes clear, exists in various forms. There is agape, God’s unconditional love for us. And there is phileo, or brotherly love. One might also experience storge, which exists between a parent and a child. And, of course, there is eros, which is sexual love. Each love has its proper place, and is good in that place.
I take my point from St. Paul the Apostle, who wrote the justly famous 1 Corinthians 13, which I quote verbatim from the New American Bible:
If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present, I know partially; then I shall know fully as I am known. So faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
The consistent Greek word for love in this passage is agape; “…the greatest of these is agape.” Agape, which makes religion good, is available to us only via grace. So let none of us boast, but trust God instead. The outward signs will follow; they will flow from love.
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
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