Above: Mohandas Gandhi Leading the Salt March in India, 1930
Image in the Public Domain
Loving Our Enemies
JANUARY 5, 2024
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The Collect:
Almighty and ever-living God, you revealed the incarnation of your Son by the brilliant shining of a star.
Shine the light of your justice always in our hearts and over all lands,
and accept our lives as the treasure we offer in your praise and for your service,
through 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 21
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The Assigned Readings:
Proverbs 22:1-9
Psalm 110
Luke 6:27-31
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The king at your right hand, O Lord,
shall smite down kings in the day of his wrath.
In all his majesty, he shall judge the nations,
smiting heads over all the wide earth.
–Psalm 110:5-6, Common Worship (2000)
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Luke 6:27-31 uses hyperbole to make crucial ethical points:
God’s love extends to our enemies and oppressors (Psalm 110 not withstanding), and
We ought to have a benevolent attitude toward them. Whatever we do, it must be in the best interest of our oppressors and enemies. Since whatever we do to others we do to ourselves, what could be better for oppressors than to cease oppressing?
Gandhian nonviolence serves an excellent example of Luke 6:27-31 in action. I think especially of those bold African-American men and women who chose not to fight racist violence with their own violence during the Civil Rights Movement. Their nonviolence denied their attackers any pretense of moral justification and troubled the consciences of many of those who committed violence against them. Hopefully such nonviolence detracted many from committing more violence.
Proverbs 22:8-9 tells us:
He who sows injustice shall reap misfortune;
His rod of wrath shall fail.
The generous man is blessed,
For he gives of his bread to the poor.
—TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985)
We reap what we sow. Our fruits will reveal what kind of tree we are. May we sow righteousness and compassion. May we be healthy trees.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 10, 2014 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF EDWIN HATCH, ANGLICAN PRIEST, SCHOLAR, AND HYMN WRITER
The vision of Jerusalem in Isaiah 4 is that of a city purified from moral corruption, such as economic exploitation (3:13-15). The purified city, which the text describes in imagery reminiscent of the Exodus, will be a glorious place.
That is all very nice, but I become nervous when mere mortals become judges of purity. Then, in the worst cases, people undertake inquisitions, Donatism, and allegedly holy wars in the name of God. Less extreme cases also offend me greatly, for they violate the inclusive spirit of Acts 11:1-18. Besides, I fail the purity tests which other people design. I recall something which Philip Yancey wrote in a book. He attended a Bible college in the 1960s. That institution’s grooming standards for men would have excluded Jesus, as artists have depicted him traditionally. And there was no emphasis on social justice, such as civil rights.
So may we strive, by grace, to love our neighbors as ourselves and to respect the dignity of every human being. May we not be too afraid to act compassionately toward each other. May mere human decency be a hallmark of our behavior. And may we leave matters of purity to God.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
OCTOBER 26, 2014 COMMON ERA
PROPER 25: THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
THE FEAST OF SAINT ALFRED THE GREAT, KING OF THE WEST SAXONS
THE FEAST OF SAINT CEDD, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF LONDON
THE FEAST OF DMITRY BORTNIANSKY, COMPOSER
THE FEAST OF PHILLIP NICOLAI, JOHANN HEERMANN, AND PAUL GERHARDT, HYMN WRITERS
But when Moses repeated those words to the Israelites, they would not listen to him, because of their cruel slavery, they had reached the depths of despair.
Active faith by which we follow God has changed the world for the better. In the United States of America, for example, it fueled the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Such active faith overturned Apartheid in the Republic of South Africa. This continues to compel people to work for social justice all over the planet.
Yet passiveness born of resignation stymies progress. Giving up on improving conditions in this world and seeking a better lot only in the afterlife does nothing to work for a just society on this plane of reality. The Hebrew prophets condemned social injustice. Our Lord and Savior did likewise. Indeed, seeking to improve this reality is part and parcel of loving one’s neighbor and pursuing the great Jewish ethic of healing the world.
So may each of us never make peace with oppression. May all of us take to heart and act on the following prayer:
O God, your Son came among us to serve and not to be served, and to give his life for the life of the world. Lead us by his love to serve all those to whom the world offers no comfort and little help. Through us give hope to the hopeless, love to the unloved, peace to the troubled, and rest to the weary, through 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 60
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
OCTOBER 22, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF FREDERICK PRATT GREEN, BRITISH METHODIST MINISTER, POET, AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF BARTHOLOMEW ZOUBERBUHLER, ANGLICAN PRIEST
The assigned readings for these days tell us of Biblical heroes of faith, from Moses to Joshua son of Nun to Rahab the prostitute–quite an assortment! I perceive no need to repeat their stories today, for the Bible does that better than I can. And I have other matters on my mind.
If I were to amend the hall of fame of faith in the Letter to the Hebrews, part of my addition would read as follows:
By faith abolitionists challenged racial chattel slavery in the United States. By faith Harriet Tubman risked life and limb to help her people, who called her “Moses.” By faith Sojourner Truth spoke out for the rights of women and African Americans alike, as did William Lloyd Garrison. By faith Frederick Douglass challenged racism and slavery with his words, deeds, and very existence.
By faith members of subsequent generations challenged racial segregation. These great men and women included A. Philip Randolph, Charles Hamilton Houston, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bayard Rustin, Vernon Johns, and Martin Luther King, Jr. They challenged the United States to confront its hypocrisy, to live up more closely to its stated ideals, and to guarantee civil rights. By faith Thurgood Marshall fought the good fight in courts for decades. By faith brave students, supported by their courageous parents and communities, integrated schools with hostile student bodies and administrators.
By faith Nelson Mandela confronted Apartheid and helped to end it. By faith he encouraged racial and national reconciliation as a man and as a President.
All of these were courageous men and women, boys and girls. There is no room here to tell their stories adequately. And the names of many of them will fade into obscurity with the passage of time. Some of their names have faded from collective memory already. But they were righteous people–giants upon whose shoulders we stand. They were agents of divine grace, which transformed the world, making it a better place.
May the light of God, incarnate in each of us, shine brightly in the darkness and leave the world–if only one “corner” of it at a time–a better place. May we cooperate with God, for grace is more about what God does than what we do. We ought to work with God, of course. Doing so maximizes the effects of grace. But grace will win in the end. That is wonderful news!
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JULY 24, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF THOMAS A KEMPIS, SPIRITUAL WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINTS JOHN BOSTE, GEORGE SWALLOWELL, AND JOHN INGRAM, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYRS
Job could have cursed God, with some justification. The Book of Job does tell us that God sanctioned Job’s sufferings. Yet Job cursed the day of his birth. And John the Baptist could have identified himself as the Chosen One of God. Many people would not have known the difference between such a claim and the truth. Yet each figure acted according to an internalized sense of integrity.
How we behave when few others would know truth from fiction or nobody is watching indicates much about our integrity. This principle extends far beyond individualistic issues; it applies to questions such as how our actions affect the environment. (Environmental stewardship is a biblical mandate.) And the problems of others are also ours, as ours are theirs. We human beings are social creatures, thus what one person does affects others. Simply striving to treat others as people who bear the image of God (which they are) can lead one to violate social conventions and cause trouble for one. As a student of civil rights history, I know that segregation was the social order in the South. Thus resisting it could be risky, to state the case mildly.
The highest state of morality is following internalized morality instead of the consensus. May you, O reader, demonstrate integrity and morality of the highest order.
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
My discomfort with Zechariah and Titus continues. (See link.) As for the former, God’s reign of holiness arrives only after rapes, battles, and plagues. And, in Titus, instructions for slaves to obey their masters coexist with a beautiful summary of God’s saving love. When one thinks that Christ might return soon, reforming one’s society and emancipating slaves seems unimportant, I suppose. But that was nearly 2,000 years ago. History has rendered its verdict, has it not?
To be holy is to be “called out.” In the name of being holy many people have committed and/or condoned violence. In the name of being holy many people have looked down upon their neighbors. In the name of being holy many people have obsessed over minor details–such as ritually pure pots, long skirts, and short hair–while ignoring social injustice, such as racism and economic exploitation.
The kindness and love of God our Saviour for humanity (Titus 3:4, The New Jerusalem Bible)
requires us to move, by grace, toward thinking of our fellow human beings in those terms. Thus the length of a skirt or one’s hair ought to matter less than whether the courts are corrupt or economic exploitation is a current problem. I think of Philip Yancey’s comments about the Bible college he attended in the 1960s. Civil rights were not on the agenda, but his hair had to be short and women’s skirts had to be long. And, judging from pictures of Jesus, the Lord’s haircut would have kept him out of the college.
Holiness ought to be a high standard, not a petty one.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
APRIL 12, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF ALFRED LEE, PRESIDING BISHOP OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH
THE FEAST OF ALAN PATON, NOVELIST AND WITNESS FOR CIVIL RIGHTS IN SOUTH AFRICA
THE FEAST OF SAINT JULIUS I, BISHOP OF ROME
THE FEAST OF WILLIAM OF OCKHAM, PHILOSOPHER
THE FEAST OF WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN, SOCIAL ACTIVIST
The words of Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, one of the priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. The word of the LORD came to him in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign, and throughout the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah son of Josiah son of Judah, when Jerusalem went into exile in the fifth month.
The word of the LORD came to me:
Before I created you in the womb, I selected you;
Before you were born, I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations.
I replied:
Ah, Lord GOD!
I don’t know how to speak,
For I am still a boy.
And the LORD said to me:
Do not say, “I am still a boy,”
But go wherever I send you
And speak whatever I command you.
Have no fear of them,
For I am with you to deliver them
–declares the LORD.
The LORD put out His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me:
Herewith I put My words into your mouth.
See, I appoint you this day
Over nations and kingdoms:
To uproot and to pull down,
To destroy and to overthrow,
To build and to plant.
Psalm 71:1-6 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
1 In you, O LORD, have I taken refuge;
let me never be ashamed.
2 In your righteousness, deliver me and set me free;
incline your ear to me and save me.
3 Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe;
you are my crag and my stronghold.
4 Deliver me, my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the clutches of the evildoer and the oppressor.
5 For you are my hope, O Lord GOD,
my confidence since I was young.
6 I have been sustained by you ever since I was born;
from my mother’s womb you have been my strength;
my praise shall be always of you.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (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.
Luke 4:21-30 (The Jerusalem Bible):
And he [Jesus] won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips.
They said,
This is Joseph’s son, surely?
But he replied,
No doubt you will quote the saying, “Physician, heal yourself” and tell me, “We have heard all that happened in Capernaum, do the same here in your own countryside.”
And he went on,
I tell you solemnly, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.
There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah’s day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of those; he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha’s time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.
When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and walked away.
The Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The love in 1 Corinthians 13 is agape. There are four types of love in the New Testament, with agape being the highest form. For a description of agape I turn to Volume X (1953), page 167 of The Interpreter’s Bible:
Agape is another kind of love which roots in the undeserved goodness men have received in Christ.
Agape is a type of love which extends to one’s enemies, looks past mutual interests, and is not merely sentimental. It is the love which God has for us. Thus agape is crucial, greater even than faith and hope, which are also commendable and of God.
This was the love which qualified Jeremiah and kept him company on his difficult vocation, one fraught with rejection. And this was the love which Jesus, also rejected, embodied in a unique way. This was the love those who tried to kill him at Nazareth lacked.
Agape is hard for many people to practice, for we are flawed. This statement applies to me. But I like agape; I seek to come nearer to living it. One poetic expression of the essence of agape is the George Herbert poem I have quoted in this post. My choir at St. Gregory the Great Episcopal Church, Athens, Georgia, has sung the Ralph Vaughan Williams setting of it. The text speaks to me of what I have received and continue to receive from God. I can do better, by grace, and I am. And I have much room for improvement.
Agape is also intolerable for many people. They seek to destroy it. The reason for this, I suppose, is that it reminds them of their shortcomings. And, instead of admitting those failings, some people react defensively and fearfully. Thus violent people have, throughout history and into the present day, persecuted pacifists, from Quakers to Anabaptists to Mohandas Gandhi to Martin Luther King, Jr. New England Puritans hanged Quakers in colonial times. Anabaptists in Europe and elsewhere have attracted a host of foes. There was, for example, state-sanctioned persecution of Amish and Mennonite conscientious objectors in the United States during World War I. And Gandhi and King became victims of assassins. Before King’s death many of his self-identified conservative coreligionists condemned his stances on civil rights and the Vietnam War. (I have notecards full of citations, quotes, and summaries from back issues of The Presbyterian Journal, which midwifed the Presbyterian Church in America in the early 1970s. The Journal, publishing immediately after King’s death, continued to condemn him.)
Our human intolerance for agape has caused quite a body count to accumulate. May God forgive us.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
APRIL 11, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT DIONYSIUS OF CORINTH, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP
THE FEAST OF SAINT ANTHONY NEYROT, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR
THE FEAST OF GEORGE AUGUSTUS SELWYN, ANGLICAN PRIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND
THE FEAST OF SAINT STANISLAUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF KRAKOW
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 11:29-32; 12:19 (TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures):
During that time Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem went out of Jerusalem and the prophet Ahijah of Shiloh met him on the way. He had put on a new robe; and when the two were alone in the open country, Ahijah took hold of the new robe he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces.
Take ten pieces,
he said to Jeroboam.
For thus said the the LORD, the God of Israel: I am about to tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hands, and I will give you ten tribes. But one tribe shall remain his–for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel….
…Solomon dies and Rehoboam succeeds him and maintains and makes more severe his policies regarding “the harsh labor and the heavy yoke,” per 12:4 and 12:11…
Thus Israel revolted against the House of David, as is still the case.
Psalm 81:8-16 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
8 Hear, O my people, and I will admonish you:
O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
9 There shall be no strange god among you;
you shall not worship a foreign god.
10 I am the LORD your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt and said,
“Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.”
11 And yet my people did not hear my voice,
and Israel would not obey me.
12 So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their hearts,
to follow their own devices.
13 Oh, that my people would listen to me!
that Israel would walk in my ways!
14 I should soon subdue their enemies
and turn my hand against their foes.
15 Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him,
and their punishment would last for ever.
16 But Israel would I feed with the finest wheat
and satisfy him with honey from the rock.
Mark 7:31-37 (J. B. Phillips, 1972):
Once more Jesus left the neighbourhood of Tyre and passed through Sidon towards the Lake of Galilee, and crossed the Ten Towns territory. They brought to him a man who was deaf and unable to speak intelligibly, and they implored him to put his hand upon him. Jesus took him away from the crowd by himself. He put his fingers in the man’s ears and touched his tongue with his saliva. Then, looking up to Heaven, he gave a deep sigh and said to him in Aramaic,
Open!
And his ears were opened and immediately whatever had tied his tongue came loose and he spoke quite plainly. Jesus gave instructions that they should tell no one about this happening, but the more he told them, the more they broadcast the news. People were absolutely amazed, and kept saying,
How wonderfully he has done everything! He even makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.
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.
Reign of Solomon, a.k.a. Jedidiah or Yedidiah, King of (united) Israel = 968-928 B.C.E.
Reign of Rehoboam, King of Judah (southern kingdom) = 928-911 B.C.E.
Reign of Jeroboam I, King of Israel (northern kingdom) = 928-907 B.C.E.
Reign of Hoshea, last King of Israel = 732-722 B.C.E.
Reign of Zedekiah (Mattaniah), last King of Judah = 597-586 B.C.E.
–courtesy of The Jewish Study Bible, page 2111
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“What,” [King Rehoboam] asked [the elders who had served his father Solomon], “do you advise that we reply to the people who said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father placed upon us’?” And the young men who had grown up with him answered, “Speak thus to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, now make it lighter for us.’ Say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. My father imposed a heavy yoke on you, and I will add to your yoke; my father flogged you with whips, but I will flog you with scorpions.'”
–1 Kings 12:9-11 (TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures)
Rehoboam obeyed that advice, to the detriment of his kingdom, which sundered during a predictable and predicted rebellion. The leader of that uprising was Jeroboam, a former underling (in charge of forced labor in the House of Joseph–1 Kings 11:28) of Solomon who had been living in exile in Egypt. There was popular support for Jeroboam, soon to become King Jeroboam I, but there might also have been Pharonic support, for Egypt attacked Rehoboam’s Judah but not Jeroboam’s Israel. And, during the dueling reigns of Rehoboam and Jeroboam I, the two Jewish kingdoms were openly hostile to each other, fighting a war.
The text lays much of the responsibility for this state of affairs upon Solomon, but does not let Rehoboam off the hook either. The new monarch of the House of David could have done as his people asked of him, but he chose not to do so. For the best explanation of what happened immediately after the death of Solomon I turn to Voltaire:
Injustice in the end produces independence.
And, with two Jewish kingdoms, where there used to be one, fighting among themselves off and on, it became easier for foreign and more powerful powers to play them off each other and subdue and conquer them.
None of this had to happen. It occurred because people in positions of power made certain decisions, which had consequences. As the Gospel of Mark quotes Jesus in a different context,
…If a kingdom is divided against itself, then that kingdom cannot last…. (Mark 3:24, J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English, Revised Edition, 1972)
There is an obvious lesson here for leaders of nations, regardless of geography, timeframe, or political persuasion. But what ought the rest of us learn from it? What can we take away from it and apply in our public lives?
I am a student of ecclesiastical history. In ancient Church history I point to the Donatist controversy, which divided northern African Christianity from the time following the Diocletian persecution to the spread of Islam. Beginning in the early 300s, there was a raging and divisive question: Should the Church have forgiven and readmitted to its fellowship those who had repented of buckling under the harsh Diocletian persecution? They had managed to avoid suffering by renouncing their faith. The Roman Church, being in the forgiveness business, accepted heartfelt confessions. This did not satisfy the holier-than-thou Donatists, however, so they broke away. The Donatist schism persisted long after the original cause, weakening Christianity in that part of the world.
Modern-day Donatists of various types are with us today. Every time some group breaks away to the ideological right (Church schisms are usually to the right.), there is Donatism of a sort. Every time an exclusionary message leads to a denominational or congregational split, one sees evidence of Donatism of a sort. Donatism in any age is that message which says, “Those people are not pure enough to be part of my church, for they are too lax.” In the context of the Civil Rights Era U.S. South, some white congregations chose to exclude African Americans from membership. That was also Donatism. “Those people are not pure enough to be part of my church, for they are not white.” There should be standards in the church, of course, but there is no way for loving Christian discipline to coexist with a holier-than-thou attitude. And there should never be room for racism in the Church.
The Church is stronger when it is relatively unified, maintaining a balanced discipline while remaining in the forgiveness business. We Christians have much work to do: people to visit, feed, clothe, convert, and disciple. This work is more than sufficient to keep us busy. So I must conclude that, when we find the time to argue about issues Jesus never addressed, we are falling down on our jobs. When we become so concerned about being theologically correct that we choose not to accept sincere confessions of sin and to forgive others, we have gone wrong. Did not Jesus associate in public with disreputable and repentant people?
Here are the probing questions with which I leave you, and which only you, O reader, can answer: Are you a Donatist? If yes, what will you do about that?
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 2:1-4, 10-12 (Revised Standard Version–Second Catholic Edition):
When David’s time to die drew near, he charged Solomon his son, saying,
I am about to the way of all the earth. Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn; that the LORD may establish his word which he spoke concerning me, saying, “If your sons take heed of their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail you a man on the throne of Israel.”
…
Then David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David. And the time that David reigned over Israel was forty years; he reigned seven years at Hebron, and thirty-three years in Jerusalem. So Solomon sat upon the throne of David his father; and his kingdom was firmly established.
Psalm 132:10-19 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
10 For your servant David’s sake,
do not turn away the face of your Anointed.
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 6:7-13 (Revised Standard Version–Second Catholic Edition):
And he called to him the Twelve, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. And he said to them,
Where you enter a house, stay there until you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them.
So they went out and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.
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The Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
We have come to the end of David’s story, according to 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, and 1 Kings. David gives happy, righteous advice in the portion from 1 Kings 2 the Canadian Anglican lectionary specifies. But open a Bible and read 1 Kings 2:5-9, in which the dying king advises Solomon to kill Joab, or as the Revised Standard Version–Second Catholic Edition renders one line, “not let his gray head go down to Sheol in peace” (6b). “Obey God,” David says, “and kill Joab very soon.” I do not feel better.
Anyhow, it is vital to understand the nature of 1 and 2 Kings. As Ziony Zevit wrote in the introduction to 1 Kings in The Jewish Study Bible,
Kings is not a history in the contemporary sense of the word, that is, a factual description of past events and an explanation for their occurence that a modern reader might expect. It is, in the main, an extended theological essay, written by a person of persons with passionately held beliefs, convinced that the destruction of the Northern Kingdom and the fall of the southern one were due to the misguided policies of their kings. The author described past events selectively, commenting or summarizing them as illustrations that he believed they taught.
The author maintained that the LORD, the God of history, made His will known to Israel with regard to specific key issues, that punishments are preceded by warnings through prophets, and that people are responsible for the consequences of their choices. He further maintained that kings were responsible for the fate of their people. For him, it was axiomatic that those ruling over the tribes of Israel were obligated to maintain the centrality of the Jerusalem Temple as the unique place where offerings acceptable to God might be made and to eliminate the illegitimate worship of any deity other than the LORD. The author’s composition demonstrated how all northern and most southern kings failed to follow their obligations and how all adversity, from minor disasters to the final catastrophe, followed as a consequence of this failure. (Page 669)
I side with the existence of authors, not a single author, by the way, but let us not quibble. Rather, may we focus on the main idea.
And what is the main idea? Thank you for asking. The main idea is that, according to 1 and 2 Kings, originally one book on two scrolls, Solomon laid the foundation for the division of the kingdom after his death and the downfall of each successor kingdom. We will get to details as the lectionary takes the grand tour of 1 Kings during the Weeks of 4 Epiphany and 5 Epiphany (at this weblog, obviously) and Propers 5, 6, and 7 (at ORDINARY TIME DEVOTIONS, to which I plan to return after updating this weblog for this church year then doing the same for LENTEN AND EASTER DEVOTIONS). There will also be a healthy sampling of major and minor prophets, an understanding of whose writings and dictations depends on a grasp of the books of Samuel and Kings.
The key aspect of 1 Kings 2 to remember is that the promise of God to fulfill the promise to David was conditional. The Davidic line would not end if members of it it governed properly. “If” is a very big word, despite consisting of only two letters.
There is an application for you, O reader, and for me today. God loves us always; nothing can change that. But an overly indulgent parent is a bad one, hence the necessity of proper discipline. We err, and we reap consequences of our actions, but God gives us another chance. What will we do with it? Also, our choices will affect others, for we are social creatures. So our decisions are not purely individual. What will we decide? Whatever it is, may it be wise.
I dwell on the social justice end of the Christian spectrum. My Lord and Savior has commanded me to love my neighbor as I love myself. This entails caring about my neighbors’ needs then acting, as I am able and circumstances present opportunities. It is no accident that the U.S. Civil Rights Movement was related closely to many churches in the Twentieth Century and Abolitionism to Christian work in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Morality consists of far more than being careful of what one does and with whom, although that is part of it. Moral living is inherently public, concerned with those Jesus called “the least of these.”
In the 1990s I read an interesting news story in an early 1980s issue of The Christian Century. Staffers of the denominational headquarters of the Church of Brethren, one of the historic peace churches, pooled the money they received from the Reagan tax cuts. They bought thirty pieces of silver and mailed them to the White House with a letter protesting increased military spending and decreased funding for social programs. They received a bland letter thanking them for their concern. At least they spoke up. Their example remains germane in the United States of June 2011, when I write these words.
The greatest failure of most of the kings of Israel and Judah was that they did not act in the best interests of their poor and vulnerable subjects. Instead, they sought dubious foreign alliances, some of which backfired terribly, wasted their money on foreign wars, and delivered the bill for all this to those who could least afford to pay. If this sounds contemporary and scary, it is.
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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Genesis 2:18-25 (Richard Elliott Friedman, 2001):
And YHWH God said,
It’s not good for the human to be by himself. I’ll make for him a strength corresponding to him.
And YHWH God fashioned from the ground every animal of the field and every bird of the skies and brought it to the human to see what he would call it. And whatever the human would call call it, each living being, that would be its name. And the human gave names to every domestic animal and bird of the skies and every animal of the field. But He did not find for the human a strength corresponding to him.
And YHWH God caused a slumber to descend on the human, and he slept. And He took one of his ribs and closed flesh in its place. And YHWH God built the rib that He had taken from the human into a woman and brought her to the human. And the human said,
This time is it: bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. This will be called ‘woman,’ for this one was taken from ‘man.’
On account of this a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his woman, and they become one flesh.
And the two of them were naked, the human and his woman, and they were not embarrassed.
Psalm 128 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
1 Happy are they all who fear the LORD,
and who follow in his ways!
2 You shall eat the fruit of your labor;
happiness and prosperity shall be yours.
3 Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine from within your house,
your children like olive shoots round about your table.
4 The man who fears the LORD
shall thus indeed be blessed.
5 The LORD bless you out of Zion,
and may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.
6 May you live to see your children’s children;
may peace be upon Israel.
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.
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Tyre was a splendid city in the time of Jesus. Today the ruins from that time are treasures of archaeology. The city, located today in southern Lebanon, was also a Gentile domain. Jesus seems not to have had qualms about being surrounded by Gentiles, who were “the other,” according to many of his co-religionists. Jews were the Chosen People; Gentiles were not. There were parts of the Jerusalem Temple complex Jews could enter but Gentiles could not. And Gentile “God fearers,” who believed in the Jewish deity, were marginal because religious authorities decided they were.
Based on the internal evidence of the story and its placement within the Markan Gospel (immediately after a discourse on ritual cleanliness and uncleanliness), I conclude that the comments about feeding dogs were not sincere. Rather, they constituted a test; they were a prompt for the Syrophoenecian woman to provide the desired rebuttal. And Justa (as tradition calls her) secured deliverance for he daughter (known to tradition as Bernice) and became emblematic of the fact that Gentiles, too, may partake of grace. Grace is inclusive, not exclusive.
Today we read this story and this analysis. I, as a Gentile, agree that grace extends to me, as well as to the Jews. But I should not stop there, and neither should you. Part of the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that it continues to challenge our comfort zones. Are we listening to these challenges, though? So I ask you, as I ask myself the same question: Who are our (my) Gentiles?
The psalm and the reading from Genesis speak of men and women. The beautiful creation mythology from Genesis (so far) speaks of primordial innocence and gender equality. This is apparent in the Hebrew, in which “helper” can also mean “strength;” thus the woman is the man’s “corresponding strength.” And, in the Hebrew, as Richard Elliott Friedman writes in his commentary, Genesis 2:23 can also read in English as, “…This will be called ‘woman,” for this one was taken from ‘her man.” This is parallel to “his woman” just one verse later. The possessive pronoun does not indicate domination of one over the other.
Much of the narrative of the Christian Bible consists of the consequences of the end of primordial paradise and the divine efforts to restore humans to that state. The human story in the Bible begins with paradise and ends with the New Jerusalem. So we ought not to internalize socially defined concepts of inequality (with regard to race, gender, et cetera) and think that they are God’s will. We should treasure and delight in each other, for everyone bears the image of God. This is hard, and all fall short of the mark.
I am a history buff. As such I recall a speech Sandra Day O’Connor, now retired from the United States Supreme Court, gave years ago. She was working as an attorney in Arizona in the 1960s. By state law, her husband received her paycheck. Many people today like to criticize feminism, but feminists (literally those who believe in the equality of men and women) got such unjust laws overturned. As a feminist and a heterosexual, I affirm that women are wonderful, many are beautiful, and all are equal to men. Any individual or institution which does not affirm this equality in practice is in error. Thus I affirm the ordination of women, for example.
Which prejudices do I affirm, consciously or unconsciously? I need grace to make these and the error of them obvious to me, as well as to purge them. Which prejudices do you affirm, consciously or unconsciously? You, too, need grace to make these and the error of them obvious to you, as well as to purge them. May the purging commence, or continue.
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
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