As I heard growing up, God does not call the qualified. No, God qualifies the called. King Saul came from the tribe of Benjamin, the smallest of the twelve tribes of Israel. He was self-conscious of this fact. In 1 Timothy 3 not being puffed up is among the qualifications for being a bishop. All that we have comes from God, whom alone people should revere and hold in sacred awe.
Self-righteousness is something to avoid. Each of us is sinful and broken. The tax collectors (who lived off that they stole from their fellow countrymen and women in excess of the tax rates) and other sinners were no more or less sinful and broken than the scribes and Pharisees who criticized Jesus for dining with them. The major difference seems to have been that some broken sinners were conscious of their brokenness and sinfulness while others were not.
Tradition can be useful and beautiful; it frequently is just that. There are, however, bad traditions as well as good traditions which have become outdated or which apply in some settings yet not in others. Even good traditions can become spiritually destructive if one uses them in that way. A holy life is a positive goal, but certain ways of pursuing it are negative. Defining oneself as a member of the spiritual elite and others as the great unwashed–as people to shun–is negative. Pretending that one is more righteous than one is leads one to overlook major flaws in oneself while criticizing others for major and minor flaws.
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.
–Matthew 7:3-5, The New Revised Standard Version (1989)
Here ends the lesson.
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
and called the world from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Out of Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth;
our God comes and will not keep silence.
Consuming fire goes out before him
and a mighty tempest stirs about him.
He calls the heaven above,
and the earth, that he may judge his people:
“Gather to me my faithful,
who have sealed my covenant with sacrifice.”
Let the heavens declare his righteousness,
for God himself is judge.
–Psalm 50:1-6, The Book of Common Prayer (2004)
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The readings for these three days weave together two themes: the reality of God and the influence of holy people. Often these holy people were prophets of God; I point to Ahijah of Shiloh (1 Kings 11 and 14) and Jehu son of Hanani (1 Kings 16), who were instrumental in establishing and replacing monarchs. There were many others, such as St. Paul the Apostle (2 Corinthians 2), pseudo-Paul (1 Timothy 1), and Jesus himself (Luke 19). The messenger is crucial, as is the message. If someone refuses to deliver a message from God, another will accept the mission. The message will go forth.
To ponder divine mercy is pleasant, but that statement does not apply to God’s wrath. God is not a teddy bear, so to speak; if one thought to the contrary, one was in serious error. May we have a balanced perspective, one which takes into account both divine judgment and mercy in proper proportions. (This is possible by grace, not human power.) And may we remember that Jesus sought forgiveness for those who had him crucified.
I do not pretend to know the details of every person’s spiritual vocation from God. Sometimes, in fact, my vocation from God confuses me. Yet I am confident that all such vocations for Christians include, in the words of St. Paul the Apostle, being:
…the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.
–2 Corinthians 2:15-16a, The New Revised Standard Version (1989)
May we bear the aroma of Christ faithfully.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 4, 2014 COMMON ERA
THE FIFTH DAY OF ADVENT, YEAR B
THE FEAST OF JOSEPH MOHR, AUSTRIAN ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINT BARBARA, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS, HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN CALABRIA, FOUNDER OF THE CONGREGATION OF THE POOR SERVANTS AND THE POOR WOMEN SERVANTS OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE
The reading from Proverbs 6 contains maxims regarding how to and how not to behave toward others ethically. None of our actions affect just us, for, as John Donne told us centuries ago,
No man is an island.
So we ought to consider carefully how our attitudes, which fuel our actions and inactions, affect those around us. They are, after all, our neighbors. And God is watching us.
Sometimes our perfidy–even violence or threats or promises thereof–flow from the motivation to confirm in our own imaginations our illusory righteousness. Those whose words and mere existence make plain our wretchedness offend us, so they threaten our self-images. And we might, if we are honest with ourselves, know this to be true. Nevertheless, acknowledging our sin and repenting of it is more difficult than deepening that sin. But we must, if we are to obey God, do the former, not the latter.
May we not sacrifice others on the altar of our ego structures or anything else.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
OCTOBER 17, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF ALL CHRISTIAN ARTISTS
THE FEAST OF SAINT IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP
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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1 Kings 11:1-13 (TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures):
King Solomon loved many foreign women in addition to Pharaoh’s daughter–Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Phoenician, and Hittite women, from the nations of which the LORD had said to the Israelites,
None of you shall join them and none of them shall join you, lest they turn your heart away to follow their gods.
Such Solomon clung to and loved. He had seven hundred royal wives and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned his heart away. In his old age, his wives turned Solomon’s heart after other gods; and he not as wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God as his father David had been. Solomon followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Phoenicians, and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
Solomon did what was displeasing to the LORD and did not remain loyal to the LORD like his father David. At that time, Solomon built a shrine for Chemosh the abomination of Moab on the hill near Jerusalem, and one for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites. And he did the same for all his foreign wives who offered and sacrificed to their gods.
The LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him about this matter, not to follow other gods; he did not obey what the LORD had commanded. And the LORD said to Solomon,
Because you are guilty of this–yo have not kept My covenant and the laws which I enjoined upon you–I will tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants. But, for the sake of your father David, I will not do it in your lifetime; I will tear it away from your son. However, I will not tear away the whole kingdom; I will give your son one tribe, for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.
Psalm 132:11-19 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
11 The LORD has sworn an oath to David;
in truth, he will not break it:
12 ”A son, the fruit of your body
will I set upon your throne.
13 If your children keep my covenant
and my testimonies that I shall teach them,
their children will sit upon your throne for evermore.”
14 For the LORD has chosen Zion;
he has desired her for his habitation:
15 ”This shall be my resting-place for ever;
here will I dwell, for I delight in her.
16 I will surely bless her provisions,
and satisfy her poor with bread.
17 I will clothe her priests with salvation,
and her faithful people will rejoice and sing.
18 There will I make the horn of David flourish;
I have prepared a lamp for my Anointed.
19 As for his enemies, I will clothe them with shame;
but as for him, his crown will shine.”
Mark 7:24-30 (J. B. Phillips, 1972):
Then he got up and left that place and went off to the neighbourhood of Tyre. There we went into a house and wanted no one to know where he was. But it proved impossible to remain hidden. For no sooner had he got there, than a woman who had heard about him, and who had a daughter possessed by an evil spirit, arrived and prostrated herself before him. She was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she asked him to drive the evil spirit out of her daughter. Jesus said to her,
You must let the children have all they want first. It is not right, you know, to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.
But she replied,
Yes, Lord, I know, but even the dogs under the table eat the scraps that the children leave.
Jesus said to her,
If you can answer like that you can go home! The evil spirit has left your daughter.
And she went back to her home and found the child lying quietly on her bed, and the evil spirit gone.
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.
The theology of 1 Kings holds that faithlessness to God led to the decline of the Jewish kingdoms of the Old Testament. The truth is not quite that simple, I maintain, for one must consider economic factors in the mix. Marxian analysis rounds out the historical analysis nicely. I covered some of that ground in the previous post.
There is also the question of how to relate to Gentiles. The author of 1 Kings 11 preferred to stay away from them. But Jesus went to them in Mark 7. Tyre was, simply put, Gentiles Central. Thus I propose that, if our Lord had wanted to avoid Gentiles, he would not have chosen to visit Tyre. With that social context in mind, what might seem like an insult comes across as a statement meant to elicit a faithful response, which it did.
The proper question is not whether one is a Jew or a Gentile, but whether one is faithful. A home ought to be a place for the nurturing of faith, so marrying within the faith makes sense to me, assuming that marriage is one’s vocation. (There is nothing wrong with remaining single if that is one’s call from God.) Nurturing faith is also the proper work of a congregation and certain other social support system one has. Religion, which is somewhat personal, is also inherently public, not that this fact ought to lead to the establishment and maintenance of a theocracy. Besides, mutual forbearance and toleration where respect fails at least has the virtue of fostering civility. And, as Roger Williams, a minister and a colonial advocate of the separation of church and state, said, a prayer one utters under compulsion is meaningless.
As for me, I stand by and for certain propositions, but I do so without being habitually cranky. Most of my professions, many of which I offer via this and other weblogs, are positive. The grace of God is for all people–Jews and Gentiles. The Apostle Paul and James, Bishop of Jerusalem, stirred up controversy by welcoming Gentiles. These great men were correct, of course. Simon Peter came to realize in Acts 10 that purity codes separating Jews from Gentiles were null and void.
I, as a Gentile, stand on the shoulders of these men.
An enduring lesson I offer you, O reader, is this: Who are your “Gentiles,” those you consider impure, assuming, of course, that you make such judgments? Like Peter, Paul, and James, and Jesus, may you reach out to them and welcome them in God’s Name, to the glory of God and for the benefit of your “Gentiles.”
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.
These are the records of the skies and the earth when they were created: In the sky that YHWH made earth and skies–when all produce of the field had not yet been in the earth, and all vegetation of the field had not yet grown, for YHWH God had not rained on the earth, and there had been no human to work the ground, and a river had come up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground–
YHWH God fashioned a human, dust from the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living being.
And YHWH God planted a garden in Eden at the east, and He set the human whom He had fashioned there. And YHWH God caused every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for eating to grow from the ground, and the tree of life within the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and bad.
…
And YHWH God took the human and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to watch over it. And YHWH God commanded the human, saying,
You may eat from every tree of the garden. But from the tree of knowledge of good and bad: you shall not eat from it, because in the day you eat from it: you’ll die!
Psalm 104:25, 28-31 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
25 O LORD, how manifold are your works!
in wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
28 All of them look to you
to give them their food in due season.
29 You give it to them; they gather it;
you open your hand, and they are filled with good things.
30 You hide your face, and they are terrified;
you take away their breath,
and they die and return to their dust.
31 You send forth your Spirit, and they are created;
and so you renew the face of the earth.
Mark 7:14-23 (J. B. Phillips, 1972):
Then he called the crowd close to him again, and spoke to them,
Listen to me now, all of you, and understand this. There is nothing outside a man which can enter into him and make him “common”. It is the things which come out of a man that make him “common!
Later, when he had gone indoors away from the crowd, his disciples asked him about this parable.
He said,
Oh, are you as dull as they are? Can’t you see that anything that goes into a man from outside cannot make him ‘common’ or unclean? You see, it doesn’t go into his heart, but into his stomach, and passes out of the body altogether, so that all food is clean enough. But,
he went on,
whatever comes out of a man, that is what makes a man ‘common’ or unclean. For it is from inside, from men’s hearts and minds, that evil thoughts arise–lust, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly! All these evil things come from inside a man and make him unclean!
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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One of the advantages to reading Biblical passages, especially those familiar to one, in translations (not just one version) is finding shades of meaning emphasized in various ways. The J. B. Phillips New Testament in Modern English, the second edition of which I have quoted, is wonderful in that it fulfills this function well.
Compare the Phillips translation to other versions. Phillips says “make a man ‘common.'” More traditional translations say “defile him.” What is it about being “common” that is allegedly defiling? Ritual uncleanliness–in this case, tied to the washing of one’s hands before eating–was part of a purity code. To be pure ritually was to be separate from–excuse the double entendre–the great unwashed. I think of a parable Jesus told elsewhere. A Pharisee and a tax collector (a tax thief and a Roman collaborator) were praying in the same space. The Pharisee thanked God that he was not like the tax collector and listed a catalog of his good works. But the tax collector was humble before God, and he went away justified.
I have DVDs (available from the Learning Company) of Luke Timothy Johnson teaching about the Gospels. Professor Johnson states that one of the themes in Mark is that the seeming insiders really are not insiders. This analysis holds up well, based on my reading of that canonical Gospel. What is more seemingly “inside” than the religious establishment? Many of these people liked to cling to notions of ritual purity. But, as Jesus tells us, that misses the point. What is inside makes us pure or impure; what we consume does not.
The first part of the second creation myth from Genesis tells us that God breathed life into Adam. I leave the details of life and evolution to scientists, and the specifics of theology to theologians. Each is a different way of knowing, and both are valuable. The myth does contain truths, and among them is this one: we are all precious in the eyes of God. We have that in common.
Imagined purity functions to define the allegedly pure as such and the different others as impure. It reinforces class systems and religious prejudices. Yet God, as the prophet Samuel said, does not look at us as we look at each other; God looks at who and what we really are. Therein lies our purity or lack thereof.
Our challenge today is to examine ourselves and check ourselves for any indication of a fixation on ritual purity, regardless of the form it takes. Are we viewing others as God perceives them, or in a way conducive to reinforcing our egos?
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
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