Above:   A Checklist

Image in the Public Domain

Compassion, Not Checklists

JANUARY 2, 2022

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ,  who lives and reigns

with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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Isaiah 57:14-19

Psalm 106:47-48

1 John 3:11-14a; 4:1-6

Luke 1:1-4

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The assigned readings for this Sunday, taken together, speak of the importance of knowing God.  Those who love God keep divine commandments, or at least attempt to do so.  One can succeed by grace, fortunately.  The faithful who receive the crown of martyrdom are still more fortunate than those who trust in idols.

Discerning divine commandments does seem difficult sometimes.  As I read 1 John 3:14b-24, I find some guidance regarding that topic:

1. Do not hate.
2. Love each other so much as to be willing to die for each other.
3. Help each other in financial and material ways.
4. Do not mistake lip service for sincerity.

Those instructions are concrete, not abstract.  And, by acting accordingly, we demonstrate the presence of the Holy Spirit within ourselves.

I notice the emphasis on compassion, not checklists.  Legalism is a powerful temptation.  Indeed, many who fall into that trap do so out of the sincere desire to honor God.  Yet they wind up fixating on minor details and forgetting compassion frequently instead of remembering the big picture:  compassion, such as that of the variety that Jesus modeled all the way to the cross.

Living compassionately is far more rigorous a standard than is keeping a moral checklist.

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

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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2017/04/30/compassion-not-checklists/

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Above:  Moses Strikes the Rock in Horeb, by Gustave Dore

Image in the Public Domain

Pointing to God, Not Ourselves

DECEMBER 10, 2023

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ,  who lives and reigns

with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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Numbers 12:1-16 or 20:1-13 (14-21) 22-29

Psalm 106:(1) 7-18, 24-18 (43-48) or Psalm 95

Luke 1:(57) 58-67 (68-79) 80

Hebrews 3:1-19

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Many times he delivered them,

but they were rebellious in their purposes,

and were brought low through their iniquity.

Nevertheless he regarded their distress

when he heard their cry.

–Psalm 106:43-44, The New Revised Standard Version (1989)

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Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,

as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,

when your ancestors tested me,

and put me to the proof, though you had seen my work.

–Psalm 95:8-9, The New Revised Standard Version (1989)

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In most of the readings for this day we read of grumbling against God and/or Moses despite God’s proven track record, frequently in the presence of those who go on to grumble.  Miriam and Aaron question the authority of Moses in Numbers 12. Miriam becomes ritually unclean because of this (Do not question Moses!), but her brother intercedes for her.  People witness then seem to forget God’s mighty acts in Psalms 95 and 106, as well as in Hebrews 3.  And, in Numbers 20, Moses disobeys instructions from God.  He is supposed to speak to a rock to make water come out of it, but he strikes it instead.

By word and act Moses is thus appropriating to himself an act of God.  In doing this he is undoing the message that God and Moses himself have been conveying to the to the people up to this point.  The people have continuously directed their attention to Moses instead of to God….Until this episode Moses has repeatedly told the people, “It is not from my own heart,” and “You are congregating against YHWH,” but now his words and actions confirm the people’s own perception.

–Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah with a New English Translation and the Hebrew Text (2001), page 495

Moses was generally trustworthy in the sight of God, per the positive assessment of him in Hebrews 3.  At Meribah he gave into human weakness.  All of us have caved into our own weaknesses on multiple occasions, have we not?  Have we not, for example, sought our own glory instead of that of God?  Have we not yielded to the temptation to be spectacular, which Henri J. M. Nouwen identified in The Way of the Heart (1981) as one of Satan’s temptations of Jesus in Luke 4 and Matthew 4?   If we have lived long enough, yes, we have.

And you, my child, will be called Prophet of the Most High,

for you will be the Lord’s forerunner to prepare his way

and lead his people to a knowledge of salvation

through the forgiveness of sins:

for in the tender compassion of our God

the dawn of heaven will break upon us,

to shine on those who live in darkness, under the shadow of death,

and to guide our feet in the way of peace.

–St. Zechariah in Luke 1:76-79, The Revised English Bible (1989)

St. John the Baptist grew up and became one who admitted the truth that he was not the Messiah (Luke 3:15-17 and Mark 1:7-8).  He pointed to cousin Jesus instead (Matthew 3:13-14 and John 3:25-36).

The spiritual vocations of Christians vary in details, but the common threads run through those calls from God.  We who call ourselves Christians have, for example, a responsibility to glorify God, not ourselves, and to point to Jesus.  We also have an obligation to lead lives defined by gratitude to God, not rebellion against God.  We can succeed, by grace.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

AUGUST 20, 2016 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF JOHN BAJUS, U.S. LUTHERAN MINISTER AND HYMN TRANSLATOR

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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2016/08/20/pointing-to-god-not-ourselves/

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Above:  Eyes

Image in the Public Domain

Justice

JANUARY 12, 2022

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The Collect:

Almighty God, you anointed Jesus at his baptism with the Holy Spirit

and revealed him as your beloved Son.

Keep all who are born of water and the Spirit faithful in your service,

that we may rejoice to be called children of God,

through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns

with the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

—Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 22

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The Assigned Readings:

Numbers 27:1-11

Psalm 106:1-12

Luke 11:33-36

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Happy are those who uphold justice,

who do what is right on every occasion.

–Psalm 106:2, The Psalms Introduced and Newly Translated for Today’s Readers (1989), by Harry Mowvley

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The reference to human eyes in Luke 11:33-36 might prove confusing.  The assumption regarding eyes in that text was one common to the Hellenistic world in which the Gospel According to Luke originated.  That assumption was that one’s inner darkness or light shone in the eyes.  The concern of the text, therefore, is one’s inner life.  Does light or darkness dominate?  As Jesus said elsewhere in the Gospels, that darkness which comes from within a person, not that darkness which enters one from outside, defiles one.

The reading from Numbers 27 refers to the rebellion of Korah against Moses in Chapter 16.  The perspective of the Book of Numbers is that Moses was God’s anointed, so to oppose Moses was to resist God.  Numbers 16:31-35 describes the unfortunate fate of those rebels.  Among those followers was Zelophehad, who had only female heirs.  Other ancient cultures in the region had liberal inheritance laws permitting women to inherit even when male heirs existed.  Ancient Israel was an especially patriarchal society, though, so an exception benefiting women, such as the daughters of Zelophehad, came into being.

Standards of justice are concrete, for particular cases define them.  Does one seek to do the right thing?  Does one succeed in that goal?  Or does one create or perpetuate injustice?  How one treats vulnerable people is a fine standard of justice.

SEPTEMBER 22, 2015 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF JOHN CAMPBELL SHAIRP, SCOTTISH POET AND EDUCATOR

THE FEAST OF PHILANDER CHASE, PRESIDING BISHOP OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

THE FEAST OF SAINT THOMAS OF VILLANOVA, ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF VALENCIA

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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2015/09/22/justice/

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Above:  Deborah

Image in the Public Domain

Relying on God’s Power

JANUARY 10 and 11, 2022

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The Collect:

Almighty God, you anointed Jesus at his baptism with the Holy Spirit

and revealed him as your beloved Son.

Keep all who are born of water and the Spirit faithful in your service,

that we may rejoice to be called children of God,

through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns

with the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

—Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 22

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The Assigned Readings:

Judges 4:1-16 (Monday)

Judges 5:12-21 (Tuesday)

Psalm 106:1-12 (Both Days)

Ephesians 6:10-17 (Monday)

1 John 5:13-21 (Tuesday)

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Though God delivered them many times

they, for their part, went on planning rebellion

and so sank deeper into sin.

Yet he looked kindly on their distress

whenever he heard them cry.

To help them he recalled his covenant with them,

so deep was his devotion that he took pity on them.

He saw to it that they received compassion

even from those who had taken them captive.

Save us, LORD, our God,

gather us in from among the nations

so that we may acknowledge you as the Holy One.

and take pride in praising you.

–Psalm 106:43-47, The Psalms Introduced and Newly Translated for Today’s Readers (1989), by Harry Mowvley

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I know that the portion of Psalm 106 I have quoted follows verse 12, but those verses seem more applicable to the readings from Judges 4 and 5 than Psalm 106:1-12.  If I had quoted from the first 12 verses of Psalm 106 I would have selected verse 10, set in the context of the Exodus from Egypt:

He rescued them from their foes,

he reclaimed them from enemy hands.

–Harry Mowvley translation

The story in Judges 4 and 5 is consistent with a motif in that book:

1. The Israelites have fallen into pervasive sin.
2. YHWH permits a foreign group to oppress the Israelites.
3. The Israelites cry out to YHWH.
4. YHWH sends a leader or leaders to resist the oppressors.
5. The oppression ceases.
6. The Israelites follow God for a time.
7. The cycle repeats.

As a note in The Jewish Study Bible–Second Edition (2014) informs me, nowhere does the text of Judges 4 and 5 identify any of the human protagonists–Deborah the prophetess, Barak the army commander, and Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite–as the deliverer of the Israelites.  Each of those individuals played a crucial role in the liberation, but God delivered the Israelites from oppression.  That theme occurs elsewhere in the Book of Judges and other portions of the Bible, as in the Exodus and the end of the Babylonian Exile.

A motif in the Bible is that God works through people much of the time.  These might be upstanding individuals or they might be scoundrels, at least on their bad days.  Some of these instruments of God are not even believers.  These realities point toward the power and sovereignty of God.

As much as I find Martin Luther to have been a morally troublesome character, his theology of relying on the faithfulness of God is beyond reproach.  We who follow God are children of God, members of the household of God, so we ought to act boldly and confidently in righteousness.  Such righteous confidence should banish faithless and selfish fears (distinct from well-reasoned fears, such as that of touching hot surfaces), enabling us to love our neighbors (both near and far) selflessly.  We have the spiritual armor of God, of which St. Paul the Apostle  or someone writing in his name imagined as being like the armor of a Roman soldier.  Every piece of the armor is God’s.  If it is good enough for God, it is good enough for mere mortals.  After the reading from Ephesians 6 comes this advice:

Constantly ask God’s help in prayer, and pray always in the power of the Spirit.

–Ephesians 6:18, The Revised English Bible (1989)

After all, we depend on God’s power, not our own.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT MATTHEW THE EVANGELIST, APOSTLE AND MARTYR

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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2015/09/21/relying-on-gods-power/

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Above:  Jeroboam I and His Golden Calves

The Real Thing and Poor Substitutes

FEBRUARY 10, 2024

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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 12:26-33; 13:33-34 (TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures):

Jeroboam said to himself,

Now the kingdom may well return to the House of David.  If these people still go up to offer sacrifices at the House of the LORD in Jerusalem, the heart of these people will turn back to their master, King Rehoboam of Judah.

So the king took counsel and made two golden calves.  He said to the people,

You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough.  This is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!

He set up one in Bethel and placed the other in Dan.  That proved to be a cause of guilt, for the people went to worship [the calf at Bethel and] the one at Dan.  He also made cult places and appointed priests from the ranks of the people who were not of Levite descent.

He stationed at Bethel the priests of the shrines that he had appointed to sacrifice to the calves that he had made.  And Jeroboam established a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month; in imitation of the festival in Judah, he established one at Bethel, and he ascended the altar [there].  On the fifteenth day of the eighth month–the month in which he had contrived of his own mind to establish a festival for the Israelites–Jeroboam ascended the altar that he had made in Bethel.

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Even after this incident, Jeroboam did not turn back from his evil way, but kept on appointing priests for the shrines from the ranks of the people.  He ordained as priests of the shrines any who so desired.  Thereby the House of Jeroboam incurred guilt–to their utter annihilation from the face of the earth.

Psalm 106:19-22 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):

19  Israel made a bull-calf at Horeb

and worshiped a molten image;

20  And so they exchanged their Glory

for the image of an ox that feeds on grass.

21  They forgot God their Savior,

who had done great things in Egypt,

22  Wonderful deeds in the land of Ham,

and fearful things at the Red Sea.

Mark 8:1-10 (J. B. Phillips, 1972):

About this time it happened again that a large crowd collected and had nothing to eat.  Jesus called the disciples over to him and said,

My heart goes out to this crowd; they have been with me three days now and they have no food left.  If I send them off home without anything, they will collapse on the way–and some of them have come from a distance.

His disciples replied,

Where could anyone find the food to feed them here in this deserted spot?

Jesus asked them,

How many loaves have you got?

They replied,

Seven.

So Jesus told the crowd to settle themselves on the ground.  Then he took the seven loaves into his hands, and with a prayer of thanksgiving broke them, and gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people; and this they did.  They had a few small fish as well, and after blessing them, Jesus told his disciples to give these also to the people.  They ate and they were satisfied.  Moreover, they picked up seven baskets of full pieces left over.  The people numbered about four thousand.  Jesus sent them home, and then he boarded the boat at once with the disciples and went on to the district of Dalmanutha.

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The Collect:

Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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Some Related Posts:

Week of 5 Epiphany:  Saturday, Year 1:

https://adventchristmasepiphany.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/week-of-5-epiphany-saturday-year-1/

Matthew 15 (Parallel to Mark 8):

https://adventchristmasepiphany.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/fourth-day-of-advent/

Aaron’s Golden Calf:

https://adventchristmasepiphany.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/week-of-3-epiphany-friday-year-1/

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The story from 1 Kings 12  and 13 is one in which King Jeroboam I is consolidating his power.  He faces a hostile Kingdom of Judah to his south, and so he does not like the fact that many of his subjects keep visiting the Jerusalem Temple.  In response Jeroboam erects his own substitute sites, each with a golden calf (echoing Aaron’s idolatry in the Sinai Desert) and unqualified priests.  It was not the same.  It was not nearly as good.  But it was politically expedient.

Biblical authors and editors condemned Jeroboam I and other kings for not wiping out worship outside that of Yahwistic bounds.  These authors and editors lived and died long before my forebears accepted and enshrined such wonderful concepts as liberty of conscience and the separation of religion and state.  Read the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  There one finds a clause forbidding the establishment of a state religion.  There is a fascist wing of the Christian Right.  Members of this wing are quite open about their opposition to the separation of church and state and their desire for a Fundamentalist theocracy.  Yet I suspect that they constitute a minority of the Christian Right, most members of which I guess oppose a theocratic regime, much to their credit. They prefer to achieve their goals by other means.

Religious toleration was, for many biblical authors and editors, not a virtue.  But imagine, from a post-Enlightenment Western liberal perspective, how you would respond if your national government were to destroy houses of worship.  That is essentially what some biblical authors and editors wish certain kings had done.

Now that I have criticized the text and the worldview it espouses, I come around to admitting a basic truth the text contains:  Idolatry is bad.  There is a God-shaped hole inside each of us.  Sometimes we fill it with bad religion or with sports or with drugs.  There is nothing inherently idolatrous about sports, but how often have people admitted that a sport (basketball in Indiana, football in the U.S. South, hockey in Canada, soccer in many other places, etc.) is or is almost or is like a religion?  Anything can become an idol if one transforms into that.  I suspect that the most common idol in the U.S. South, apart from football, is the Bible, for many people seem to have filled their God-shaped hole with it.  The Bible is, at its best, a means to an end, but many people treat it as if it is the end toward which they strive.   God, of course, is the end toward which people ought to strive.

May we accept no substitutes.

KRT

http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/the-real-thing-and-poor-substitutes/