According to the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship (ILCW) Lectionary (1973), as contained in the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) and Lutheran Worship (1982)
Third Isaiah, in Isaiah 60, applied motifs of the Davidic Dynasty, not to the Messiah, but to the Israelite nation as a whole. (The “you” in Isaiah 60:1-6 is plural.) There is no Messiah in Third Isaiah, which teaches that in the future, God will rule directly on Earth.
Yet we have this assigned reading on the Feast of the Epiphany, about Jesus, the Messiah.
Psalm 72, originally for a coronation, describes the ideal Davidic monarch. He will govern justly, defend the oppressed, crush the extortioners, and revere God, we read. His renown spreads far and wide, we read. These sentences describe few of the Davidic monarchs. They do not even describe King David. The Christian tradition of reading Jesus into every nook and cranny of the Hebrew Bible interprets Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of the text, though.
Call me a heretic if you wish, O reader, but I resist the tendency to read Jesus into every nook and cranny of the Hebrew Bible. Call me a heretic if you wish; I will accept the label with pride. I even own a t-shirt that reads:
HERETIC.
Father Raymond E. Brown, whom I admire and some of whose books I own, argued against the historicity of the birth narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. I take this point while disagreeing with another one: Brown considered the account in the Gospel of Luke closer to reality than the one in the Gospel of Matthew. I reverse that. I posit that there may have been a natural phenomenon (poetically, a star) that attracted the attention of some Persian astrologers. This scenario seems plausible.
I, being a detail-oriented person, as well as a self-identified heretic, also wince at the depictions of the shepherds and the Magi together at Bethlehem. Even if one mistakes the germane accounts in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke for historical stories, one may notice that up to two years separated the stories. St. Dionysius Exiguus, for all his piety, counted badly. Herod the Great died in 4 B.C.E. If one accepts the Massacre of the (Holy) Innocents as being plausible (as I do), then one may wish to notice that the Roman client king ordered the deaths of boys two years old and younger at Bethlehem. This story, therefore, places the birth of Jesus circa 6 B.C.E. Either way, St. Dionysius Exiguus still place the birth of Jesus “Before Christ.” (This is why I use B.C.E. and C.E.)
Whoever wrote or dictated the Epistle to the Ephesians, I am grateful to St. Paul the Apostle, the great evangelist to the Gentiles. I, as a Gentile, am happy to be in the club of Christ. I also acknowledge that I, as a Christian, stand on the shoulders of Judaism, a faith I refuse to malign.
The Epiphany–set on the old Eastern date of Christmas–reminds us that God seeks to attract as many followers as possible. We Gentiles, grafted onto the tree of faith, need to remember that we are a branch, not the trunk, of that tree. The limits of divine mercy exist, but I do not know where the borders are. I assume that Judaism and Christianity are the two true faiths. Yet I do not presume to know who God’s “secret friends”–secret to me–are.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JANUARY 17, 2022 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT ANTONY OF EGYPT, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT AND FATHER OF WESTERN MONASTICISM
THE FEAST OF SAINTS DEICOLA AND GALL, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONKS; AND SAINT OTHMAR, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT AT SAINT GALLEN
THE FEAST OF JAMES WOODROW, SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER, NATURALIST, AND ALLEGED HERETIC
THE FEAST OF SAINT PACHOMIUS THE GREAT, FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN COMMUNAL MONASTICISM
THE FEAST OF RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE FEAST OF THOMAS A. DOOLEY, U.S. ROMAN CATHOLIC PHYSICIAN AND HUMANITARIAN
That is a prominent theme of the Feast of the Epiphany and the season that ensues.
Psalm 72 is a coronation text. It describes the ideal monarch–one who judges with justice, brings prosperity, defends the poor, delivers the needy, crushes the oppressor, and therefore deserves great respect. I, as a student of history, cannot identify any world leaders, past and present, whom that vaunted description fits.
The reading from Isaiah 60 makes the most sense in the context of the rest of the chapter. The historical context is the end of the Babylonian Exile and the return of exiles to a glorified, exalted Jerusalem. We read, in the voice of God:
For though I struck you in anger, in mercy I have pitied you.
–Isaiah 60:10b, The Jerusalem Bible (1966)
One reason we read Isaiah 60:1-6 on this occasion is the reference to camels in verse 6. That element segues nicely into Matthew 2, in which Persian, Zoroastrian Magi arrived about two years after the birth of Jesus. In Matthew 2 we meet the disturbed and violent client king Herod the Great, far removed from the ideal monarch in Psalm 72. We read of these Gentiles, responsive to the direction of God, unlike the half-Jewish Idumean client king, a man clinging to power desperately.
Who are really the insiders? Who are really the outsiders? The answers, according to God, might shock many of us. After all, the justice of God is superior to human justice, even the highest, most moral variety of it.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MARCH 18, 2018 COMMON ERA
THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT, YEAR B
THE FEAST OF SAINT LEONIDES OF ALEXANDRIA, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR; 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 SAINT PAUL OF CYPRUS, EASTERN ORTHODOX MARTYR
THE FEAST OF ROBERT WALMSLEY, ENGLISH CONGREGATIONALIST HYMN WRITER
The readings for this day, taken together, teach that God acts toward us according to who we are, not from where we hail. Proverbs 3:5-8 encourages us to trust only in God. Isaiah 56:3-5 tells us that faithful foreigners are equal to other faithful people in the eyes of God. We read of one controversy regarding welcoming Gentiles into the nascent Church in Acts 15. Last, but not least, we read of a lack of hospitality toward Jesus among members of his own ethnic group.
The Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the sharing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with Gentiles. On such a day these readings fit well. These readings are also appropriate at any time one seeks to exclude those who are different in some way yet known to God favorably. These readings remind me of a cartoon I have seen. People are drawing lines with pencils, but Jesus is erasing lines.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
APRIL 30, 2017 COMMON ERA
THE THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR A
THE FEAST OF JAMES MONTGOMERY, HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF JOHN ROSS MACDUFF AND GEORGE MATHESON, SCOTTISH PRESBYTERIAN MINISTERS AND AUTHORS
One should read Deuteronomy 4 in the knowledge that someone wrote it long after the time of Moses then placed it in the great man’s mouth. Thus one will read that text while knowing what the real audience is a later generation of Hebrews. “Learn from the past and refrain from repeating those mistakes,” the text really says. Unfortunately, as we know, that message fell mostly on deaf ears, and the negative consequences of actions ensued.
Rejection of Jesus occupies the readings from John and 1 John. In John 5 Jesus was speaking to a hostile Jewish audience. Nevertheless, as in Deuteronomy 4, the text came from a later time and the actual audience was contemporary to the time of composition. The text still challenges audiences. Do we rest on our spiritual laurels while lacking the love of God in ourselves? If we have the love of God in ourselves, we will act on it with regard to others. We will seek their best and have compassion for them. We will, to cite 1 John 2, keep the commandments of Jesus. If they seem new, we have not been paying (sufficient) attention, for they are old.
Whoever claims to be in light
but hates his brother
is still in darkness.
Anyone who loves his brother remains in light
and there is in him nothing to make him fall away.
But whoever hates his brother is in darkness
and is walking about in darkness
not knowing where he is going,
because darkness has blinded him.
–1 John 2:9-11, The New Jerusalem Bible (1985)
The Feast of the Epiphany is about the light of Christ shining among Gentiles. May we who bear that light do so as effectively as possible, by grace. May we glorify and enjoy God forever, and thereby inspire others to do the same.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
SEPTEMBER 2, 2016 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT WILLIAM OF ROSKILDE, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP
THE FEAST OF DAVID CHARLES, WELSH CALVINISTIC MINISTER AND HYMN WRITER
The author of Ecclesiastes was a realist. I, as a student and teacher of history, recognize the truth of 1:10-11 (TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures, 1985):
Sometimes there is a new phenomenon of which they say, “Look, this one is new!”–it occurred long since, in ages that went by before us. The earlier ones are not remembered; so too those that will occur later will no more be remembered than those that will occur at the very end.
If all is “futility” (to quote TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures) and “vanity” (to quote The New Revised Standard Version), to whom should we cling? Is life a morass of postmodern uncertainty or do we have access to a ground for sound theological epistomology? The author of Ecclesiastes advised trusting in God.
St. Paul the Apostle agreed with Koheleth. Human wisdom and power are nothing compared to God, St. Paul wrote. The power of God is saving those who are not perishing. The only proper boast is in God, whose wisdom is foolishness to many people and whose foolishness is wiser than human wisdom. God is reliable. As Martin Luther counseled, may we rely on the faithfulness of God.
This ethos contradicts much “received wisdom” in the United States of America, where rugged individualism is a perceived virtue. Reality belies rugged individualism, however. We rely on each other in society. For example, I drive my car to work. I rely on mechanics to keep my car in working order. (Fortunately, the vehicle is reliable, needing mostly routine maintenance.) I also rely on those who maintain the roads on which I drive to work. Beyond that concrete example, the social ethos of the Law of Moses is to acknowledge our total dependence on God, our responsibilities for each other, and our duties to each other. This ethos precludes exploiting any person.
Only God can inaugurate such a society, but we mere mortals can labor to approach it. We, after all, are society. If we were to take more seriously our duties to God, to each other, and for each other, I wonder how much better society would be. Such visions are not futile, if enough people, trusting in God, act faithfully.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
SEPTEMBER 21, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT MATTHEW THE EVANGELIST, APOSTLE AND MARTYR
Holy God, creator of light and giver of goodness, your voice moves over the waters.
Immerse us in your grace, and transform us by your Spirit,
that we may follow after your Son, 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 22
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The Assigned Readings:
1 Samuel 16:1-13 (Friday)
1 Kings 2:1-4, 10-12 (Saturday)
Psalm 29 (Both Days)
1 Timothy 4:11-16 (Friday)
Luke 5:1-11 (Saturday)
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The LORD shall give strength to his people;
the LORD shall give his people the blessing of peace.
–Psalm 29:11, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
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The LORD shall give his strength and his bless of peace to his people to equip them to do that which he has called them to do. What people do with that call and that blessing is not always with a faithful response to God, however. Let us, O reader, consider King David, formerly a shepherd. The work of a shepherd was crucial, so may nobody dismiss it. Yet David had a greater destiny, to which God called him via Samuel. Nevertheless, David had a dark side, which remained evident until his final advice to Solomon. (The lectionary pericope from 1 Kings 2 omits the verses in which David gives advice to kill people.) And the reigns of David and Solomon contained abuses of power. Solomon existence because of an abuse of David’s power, in fact. If David was truly a man after God’s own heart, I harbor reservations about the proverbial divine heart.
In the New Testament we read of Apostles and St. Timothy. Sts. James and John (sons of Zebedee and first cousins of Jesus) and St. Simon Peter were fishermen. That was an honest and necessary profession, but it was not their destiny. They were, of course, flawed men (as all people have flaws), but they did much via the power of God. The advice (in the name of St. Paul the Apostle) to St. Timothy not to let anyone dismiss him because of his youth applies to many people today. God calls the young, the middle-aged, and the elderly. God commissions and empowers people from a variety of backgrounds. God is full of surprises.
Sometimes God surprises us in ways we dislike. I think of a story which, if it is not true, ought to be. In the late 1800s, in the United States, a lady on the lecture circuit of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) spoke in a certain town. She completed her speech about how God wants people to avoid alcohol at all times. Then entered the Q & A part of her presentation. One man asked,
If what you say is true, how do you explain Jesus turning water into wine?
The speaker replied,
I would like him better if he had not done that.
Sometimes the call of God in our lives is to deal properly with ways in which God makes us uncomfortable. (This presupposes the ability to discern from the reality of God and our inaccurate perceptions thereof, of course.) If Jesus seems to agree with us all of the time, we are relating not to the real Jesus but to an imagined Christ we constructed for our convenience. The genuine article is a challenging figure who should make us uncomfortable. And we should seize the opportunity to grow spiritually regardless of any factor, such as age, experience, inexperience, or background.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 15, 2014 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT ALBERT THE GREAT, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF REGENSBURG
THE FEAST OF JOHANN GOTTLOBB KLEMM, INSTRUMENT MAKER; DAVID TANNENBERG, SR., GERMAN-AMERICAN MORAVIAN ORGAN BUILDER; JOHANN PHILIP BACHMANN, GERMAN-AMERICAN MORAVIAN INSTRUMENT BUILDER; JOSEPH FERDINAND BULITSCHEK, BOHEMIAN-AMERICAN ORGAN BUILDER; AND TOBIAS FRIEDRICH, GERMAN MORAVINA COMPOSER AND MUSICIAN
THE FEAST OF MARGARET MEAD, ANTHROPOLOGIST
THE FEAST OF PHILIP WILLIAM OTTERBEIN, COFOUNDER OF THE CHURCH OF THE UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST
The daily lectionary from Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006) pairs two stories of God calling people in extraordinary ways. Most followers of God never hear a divine voice, much less get knocked to the ground by God. But Samuel and Saul/St. Paul the Apostle had unusual experiences. And both of them did great things for God. Their legacies survive them long after they died. Those last two facts regarding those men impress me the most.
My experience of God has been the opposite of dramatic. I have never even had so much as a “born again” experience. No, God, has dealt with me (and continues to do so) in a quiet, gradual manner punctuated with occasional periods of more noticeable activity. In 2007, when the bottom fell out of my life, In felt God’s presence and activity more acutely, for I needed that different form of presence and activity then, for example.
My points are these:
We all need God.
God relates to people in a variety of ways.
God relates to the same people differently over time.
So nobody ought to assume that his or her experience of God is mandatory for everyone.
Yet it is mandatory that we respond favorably to God and do great things for God.
The variety of these great things is part of the spice of Godly life. What are the flavors you, O reader, God is calling you to contribute to the stew?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
SEPTEMBER 3, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF ARTHUR CARL LICHTENBERGER, PRESIDING BISHOP OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH
Psalm 72 is a coronation prayer. The king is responsible for assuring the physical safety and well-being of his people. This mandate includes economic justice and deliverance from violence. Such an accomplishment will earn the monarch international respect.
But who is the king in each reading? He is probably Solomon in Psalm 72. The king delivering the exiles in Isaiah 60 is Yahweh via a human monarch, Cyrus II of the Persians and the Medes. There are two kings in Matthew 2. One is Herod the Great, a client ruler for the Roman Empire, a violent man, and a mentally unstable person. The other king is young Jesus, who receives visitors–Persian scholar-astrologers who have put their lives on hold for a long time to undertake the perilous journey. They do not understand much about the boy, but they know more than others do and act affirmatively toward him.
God’s wisdom, Ephesians 3:10 (The New Jerusalem Bible) tells us, is
many-sided.
That passage, in The Revised English Bible, speaks of
the wisdom of God in its infinite variety.
The New Revised Standard Version mentions
the rich variety
of divine wisdom. And the Common English Bible speaks of
the many different varieties
of God’s wisdom through the church. This wisdom God makes known to people via the church.
This many-sided divine wisdom which exists in rich, infinite variety is for all people, although not everyone will embrace it. And one need not understand completely to receive and accept such wisdom, for nobody can grasp it fully. There are spiritual mysteries too great for human minds to comprehend ; so be it. Such mystery comforts me, for it reminds me that there is much in the exclusive purview of God.
And this multi-faceted divine wisdom is for people are are like us and for those who are very different from us. God loves us all, even when we do not love ourselves, much less each other. God moves well beyond our comfort zones. If that bothers us, the fault lies with us, not God.
Each of us carries prejudices, probably learned from friends, relatives, and classmates. We like to draw a small circle of acceptability, being sure to include ourselves and those like us inside it. But egocentric “purity” is a huge lie and a spiritual detriment. God seems to prefer larger circles–even those which include some Zoroastrian Persian astrologers, a heroic Canaanite prostitute, a Moabite woman, and many Samaritans. How scandalous this is to self-righteous purists! As St. Simon Peter told the household of St. Cornelius the Centurion in Acts 10:34-35:
I now understand that God has no favourites, but that anybody of any nationality who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
—The New Jerusalem Bible
If you, O reader, arrive in heaven, whom might you be surprised to encounter there? That question gets to the heart of the meaning of the Feast of the Epiphany.
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)
This is a devotion for the Feast of the Epiphany. On this day we commemorate the Magi and focus on the taking of the Christian Gospel to the Gentiles. The Feast of the Epiphany speaks of the universality of Christ.
The reading from Luke begins with a brief account of our Lord’s baptism and consists mainly of one side of his family tree. This is material which most readers (often including me) skip. The temptation (in Chapter 4) is more interesting.
We read in Isaiah 66 that God does not need a temple or sacrifices from we mere mortals. As a note on page 913 of The Jewish Study Bible (2004) says,
…the Temple exists for the sake of humanity, not the benefit of God.
The link between these two readings is that God acted in time. The Second Person of the Trinity became incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth. He is our Temple, our high priest, and our sacrifice. He is Christus Victor–for our benefit, not that of God. That is a message worth proclaiming to the nations.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
FEBRUARY 23, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT WILLIGIS, ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF MAINZ, AND SAINT BERNWARD, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF HILDESHEIM
THE FEAST OF SAINT DOSITHEUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONK
THE FEAST OF SAINT POLYCARP, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF SMYRNA
THE FEAST OF SAMUEL WOLCOTT, U.S. CONGREGATIONALIST MINISTER
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
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