By your merciful protection alert us to the threatening dangers of our sins,
and redeem us for your life of justice,
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:
Isaiah 1:24-31
Psalm 90
Luke 11:29-32
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So teach us to number our days
that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.
–Psalm 90:12, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
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The readings for this day invite us to repent. Despite the clear testimony of scripture to the definition of repentance–changing one’s mind, turning around–the misconception that repentance is synonymous with apologizing continues. No, apologizing is much easier than repenting.
The text from Isaiah 1 is somewhat ambiguous. In verses 27 and 28 we read:
Zion shall be saved in the judgment;
Her repentant ones, in the retribution.
But rebels and sinners shall all be crushed,
And those who forsake the LORD shall perish.
—TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985)
(That passage fits well with texts for the previous two posts–1 and 2— in this series.)
The stern tone in verses 29-31 raises some questions. Verse 29 begins:
Truly you shall be shamed…
Who is “you”? Does “you” include the repentant ones? A note in The Jewish Study Bible–Second Edition (2014) proposes an answer:
The prophet leaves the answer unclear, perhaps intentionally; it will be given by the inhabitants of Jerusalem themselves through their behavior, and they will lead God to decide whom to punish.
–Pages 769-770
One will know a tree by its fruits. What kind of tree are you, O reader? Do you seek to love your neighbor as you love yourself? We all stumble, for that is the human condition. Moral perfectionism is unrealistic, but the expectation that one will trust God and strive to improve on one’s performance for the glory of God and the benefit of one’s family, friends, community, and society is realistic. Grace is free yet not cheap. We cannot purchase or earn it, but accepting it imposes certain responsibilities upon us. The details will vary from person to person, but the principles to love one’s neighbor as one loves oneself, to respect the dignity of others (as bearers of the image of God), and to avoid the error that Christianity is a solely individualistic matter are constants. We human beings, depend entirely upon God and partially upon each other. We are responsible to and for each other and to God. We live in community, not to ourselves. None of us is an island. Will we be responsible members of our communities, for the glory of God and for the common good?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
AUGUST 10, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF WILLIAM WALSHAM HOW, ANGLICAN BISHOP OF WAKEFIELD AND HYMN WRITER; AND HIS SISTER, FRANCES JANE DOUGLAS(S), HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF EUNICE SHRIVER KENNEDY, FOUNDER OF THE SPECIAL OLYMPICS
THE FEAST OF SAINT LAURENCE OF ROME, ROMAN CATHOLIC DEACON AND MARTYR
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
Isaiah 54:1-10 speaks of the return of exiles who have never known their ancestral homeland to that homeland. God will act, the text says, and all will be better than it has ever been. Sin might have led to the exile, but the faithful descendants of those sinners will have a fresh start.
A fresh start will follow what God will do, as described in the reading from Matthew 24. The text does not cover that fresh start, but said fresh start will occur nevertheless.
It is common for lectionaries to assign apocalyptic readings for Advent. May we who follow these lectionaries grasp the liturgical setting–preparation for the First Coming of Jesus at Christmas. Therefore some readings about the Second Coming are appropriate at the end of the calendar year, especially over two thousand years after the First Coming. And may we remember that a fresh start for humankind followed that event, which we will (if we do it properly) celebrate December 25-January 5 in Western Christianity. (The Eastern Orthodox have their own calendar.) May we keep the impending fresh start in mind when we ponder the Second Coming.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JUNE 10, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF THE INAUGURATION OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (U.S.A.), 1983
THE FEAST OF THE INAUGURATION OF THE UNITED CHURCH OF CANADA, 1925
THE FEAST OF SAINT EPHREM OF EDESSA, ROMAN CATHOLIC DEACON AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINT LANDERICUS OF PARIS, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP
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
I have covered the reading from Isaiah already, so I refer you, O reader, to the labeled links for them. At this time and place I choose to say the following: A pressing question for many Christians in the latter portion of the first century C.E. was whether one could be both a good Christian and a good Roman. Also, the author of 1 Peter assumed that Jesus would be back quite soon to sort out the world order. As I write these words, our Lord has not returned. The world order is what we have made it; may we exercise our agency responsibly to improve it. This does involve resisting authority sometimes, as in the case of tyrannical governments. Dietrich Bonhoeffer plotted to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Many faithful Christians–Protestants and Roman Catholics–sheltered Jews and resisted the Third Reich. And, throughout church history, bishops have called monarchs to account.
We who read and interpret the Bible must be careful to read it as a whole, not to fixate so much on certain passages that we ignore inconvenient ones and distort the composite meaning of the texts. There is something called confirmation bias, which means that we tend to pay attention to evidence which supports our opinions and ignore or dismiss that which does not. I look for this in myself and try to safeguard against prooftexting, the confirmation bias method of misreading the Bible.
I keep returning to the example Jesus set. (I am a professing Christian, literally a “partisan of Christ.”) He violated many religious customs, some of them from the Law of Moses itself. He seems to have favored compassion over any other factor when they came into conflict. And he taught this ethic with his words. So we have in our Lord the union of words and deeds favoring compassion above all else in guiding our actions toward others. Compassion trumps all else.
As much as I disagree with those aspects of Christian traditions which deal favorably with tyrants and dictators, justify servitude, and smile upon gender inequality, I find Jesus to be the strong counterpoint to them. Somewhere–very soon after our Lord’s time on the planet ended–the church began to accommodate itself–frequently in ways inconsistent with Christ–to the Roman Empire. Jesus was a subversive. I mean this as a compliment. I follow the subversive, or at least I try to do so. If I am to be an honest Christian, this is what I must do.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 3, 2011 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF JOHN OWEN SMITH, UNITED METHODIST BISHOP IN GEORGIA
THE FEAST OF SAINT FRANCIS XAVIER, ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONARY IN ASIA
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
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