Above:  Landscape with the Parable of the Sower, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Image in the Public Domain

Grace

FEBRUARY 11, 2024

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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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Job 42:1-17 or Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Psalm 48

James 5:12-20

Mark 4:1-20

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At the end of the Season After the Epiphany or the beginning of the Season After Pentecost (depending on the year), we finish hopping and skipping through three books–Job, Deuteronomy, and James.  If we pay attention, we notice that Job granted his daughters the right to inherit from his estate–a revolutionary move at that time and place.

Overall, when we add Psalm 48 and Mark 4:1-20 to the mix, we detect a thread of the goodness of God present in all the readings.  Related to divine goodness is the mandate to respond positively to grace in various ways, as circumstances dictate.  The principle is universal, but the applications are circumstantial.

Consider, O reader the parable in our reading from Mark 4.  The customary name is the Parable of the Sower, but the Parable of the Four Soils is a better title.  The question is not about the effectiveness of the sower but about the four soils.  Are we distracted soil?  Are we soil that does not retain faith in the face of tribulation or persecution?  Are we soil into which no roots sink?  Or are we good soil?  Do we respond positively to grace, which is free yet not cheap, or do we not?

Job 42:11 tells that all Job’s “friends of former times” visited him and “showed him every sympathy.”  (Job is a literary character, of course, so I do not mistake him for a historical figure.)  I imagine Zophar, Bildad, Eliphaz, and even Elihu, who went away as quickly as he arrived, having realized their errors, dining with Job in shalom.  That is indeed a scene of grace.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 19, 2019 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF JAMES ARTHUR MACKINNON, CANADIAN ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MARTYR IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

THE FEAST OF ALFRED RAMSEY, U.S. LUTHERAN MINISTER AND HYMN TRANSLATOR

THE FEAST OF CHARITIE LEES SMITH BANCROFT DE CHENEZ, HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF WILLIAM PIERSON MERRILL, U.S. PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER, SOCIAL REFORMER, AND HYMN WRITER

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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/grace/

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Above:  Pool at Bethesda

Image Source = Library of Congress

Job and John, Part VIII:  Inadequate God Concepts

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

FEBRUARY 14, 2024 = ASH WEDNESDAY

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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 everlasting 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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The Assigned Readings:

Job 9:1-35 (February 13)

Job 10:1-22 (February 14)

Psalm 15 (Morning–February 13)

Psalm 36 (Morning–February 14)

Psalms 48 and 4 (Evening–February 13)

Psalms 80 and 27 (Evening–February 14)

John 4:46-54 (February 13)

John 5:1-18 (February 14)

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Job, in the speech which encompasses Chapters 9 and 10, feels powerless before God, whom he understands as being omnipotent.  The speaker demands to know why God has done what God has done and is doing what God is doing relative to himself (Job):

I say to God, “Do not condemn me;

Let me know what you are charging me with….”

–Job 10:2, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures

This is, in the context of the narrative, understandable and justifiable.  The Book of Job does open with God permitting Job’s sufferings.  The text offers no easy answers to the question of the causes of the suffering of the innocent.

John 4:46-5:18 offers us happier material.  Jesus heals a royal official’s son long-distance then a poor man paralyzed for thirty-eight years up close and in person.  Unfortunately for our Lord, he performs the second miracle on the Sabbath and speaks of himself as equal to God, prompting some opponents (labeled invectively as “the Jews”) to plot to kill him.  I said that the material was happier, not entirely joyful.

The paralyzed man and the observers probably understood his disability to have resulted from somebody’s sin.  The Book of Job, of course, repudiated that point of view.

It occurs to me that Job’s alleged friends and our Lord’s accusers had something in common:  Both sets of people were defending their God concept, one which could not stand up to observed reality.   J. B. Phillips wrote a classic book, Your God is Too Small (1961), which I most recently too long ago.  In this slim volume he pointed out that inadequate God concepts and attachments to them cause dissatisfaction with God and blind us to what God is.  Our Lord’s critics in the Gospel of John were blind to what God is and found Jesus unsatisfactory.  And, in the Book of Job, as we will discover as we keep reading, all of the mortals who speak have inadequate God concepts.  Yet Job’s is the least inadequate.

Until the next segment of our journey….

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

APRIL 26, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINTS REMACLUS OF MAASTRICHT, THEODORE OF MAASTRICHT, LAMBERT OF MAASTRICHT, HUBERT OF MAASTRICHT AND LIEGE, AND FLORIBERT OF LIEGE, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS; LANDRADA OF MUNSTERBILSEN, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBESS; AND OTGER OF UTRECHT, PLECHELM OF GUELDERLAND, AND WIRO, ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES

THE FEAST OF CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, POET

THE FEAST OF SAINT PASCHASIUS RADBERTUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT

THE FEAST OF ROBERT HUNT, FIRST ANGLICAN CHAPLAIN AT JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/job-and-john-part-viii-inadequate-god-concepts/

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Above:  A Bullseye

Image Source = Alberto Barbati

Cleansing and Restoration

JANUARY 16 and 17, 2024

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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 everlasting 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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The Assigned Readings:

Ezekiel 38:1-23 (January 16)

Ezekiel 39:1-10, 17-29 (January 17)

Psalm 15 (Morning–January 16)

Psalm 36 (Morning–January 17)

Psalms 48 and 4 (Evening–January 16)

Psalms 80 and 27 (Evening–January 17)

Romans 7:1-20 (January 16)

Romans 7:21-8:17 (January 17)

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…the good thing I want to do, I never do; the evil thing which I do not want–that is what I do.  But every time I do what I do not want to do, then it is not myself acting, but the sin that lives in me….What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body doomed to death?  God–thanks be to him–through Jesus Christ our Lord.  So it is that I myself with my mind obey the law of God, but in my disordered nature I obey the law of sin.

–Romans 7:19-20, 24-25, The New Jerusalem Bible

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A note on page 1115 of The Jewish Study Bible tells me that Gog, leader of the land of Magog, might have been “Gyses, a 7th-century ruler of Lydia in Asia Minor.”  Anyhow, Ezekiel 38 and 39 (which I have kept united for the sake of clarity; the lectionary splits the passage into two parts over as many days) speaks in apocalyptic terms of the divine defeat of the cleansing of the land of Judea, then the restoration of the Jews in their ancestral homeland.  One must be careful not to use such texts to justify blind Zionism, therefore excusing the abuses which the present State of Israel has perpetrated against the Palestinians; the Golden Rule applies to everyone.  Yet the text does indicate the reliability of divine promises.

The concepts of cleansing and restoration (in a different context, of course), apply also to Romans 7:1-8:17.  We human beings are mixed bags of good and bad.  We are, as the Lutheran confessions tell us, capable only of civic righteousness on our own power; we cannot save ourselves from ourselves.  “Sin” is not an abstraction; it is “missing the mark.”  And we are naturally inaccurate spiritual archers.   We find God by a combination of grace and free will.  And the existence of the latter is a function of the former, so everything goes back to grace.  Through this grace we have cleansing and restoration.  May we, by grace, cooperate with God so that we may become what God has in mind for us to become.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MARCH 25, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION OF OUR LORD

THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT, YEAR B

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/cleansing-and-restoration/

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Above:  Adoration of the Shepherds, by Gerard van Hornthorst

Waiting for Complete Deliverance

JANUARY 2, 2024

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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 everlasting 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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The Assigned Readings:

Isaiah 62:1-12

Psalm 48 (Morning)

Psalms 45 and 29 (Evening)

Luke 2:1-20

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Some Related Posts:

How Can I Fitly Greet Thee:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/how-can-i-fitly-greet-thee/

O Little Town of Bethlehem:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/o-little-town-of-bethlehem/

A Christmas Prayer:  Immanuel:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/a-christmas-prayer-immanuel/

O Blessed Mother:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/o-blessed-mother/

A Christmas Prayer:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/a-christmas-prayer/

A Christmas Prayer:  God of History:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/a-christmas-prayer-god-of-history/

Christmas Blessings:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/christmas-blessings/

A Christmas Prayer of Thanksgiving:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/a-christmas-prayer-of-thanksgiving/

The Hail Mary:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/the-hail-mary/

Joy to the World:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/joy-to-the-world/

Christmas Prayers of Praise and Adoration:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/christmas-prayers-of-praise-and-adoration/

Christmas Prayers of Dedication:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/christmas-prayers-of-dedication/

A Prayer of Thanksgiving for Christmas:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/a-prayer-of-thanksgiving-for-christmas/

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…Your Deliverer is coming!….

–Isaiah 62:11c, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures

The passage from Isaiah 62 addresses a conquered nation, one delivered by God and the Persians and living within the borders of the Persian Empire.  Redemption for the Jewish nation is partial as of Isaiah 62; full redemption will follow.

Likewise, in Luke 2, the birth of Jesus marks partial redemption.  The Roman Empire is still in power in Luke 2.  In fact, the Roman Empire was in power at the time of the writing of the Gospel of Luke, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

The world remains a violent place, a site of injustice.  Our full redemption remains a matter of the future.  How it will come to pass is a matter for God to decide and to accomplish.  May we be faithful while we wait.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

FEBRUARY 22, 2012 COMMON ERA

ASH WEDNESDAY

THE FEAST OF ERIC LIDDELL, SCOTTISH PRESBYTERIAN MISSIONARY TO CHINA

THE FEAST OF SAINT PRAETEXTATUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF ROUEN

THE FEAST OF RASMUS JENSEN, LUTHERAN MISSIONARY TO CANADA

THE FEAST OF SAINTS THALASSIUS, LIMNAEUS, AND MARON, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONKS

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/waiting-for-complete-deliverance/

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Above:  Sunrise of Mount Sinai

The Approachable God

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

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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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Hebrews 12:18-24 (Revised Standard Version–Second Catholic Edition):

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers entreat that no further messages be spoken to them.  For they could not endure the order that was given,

If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.

Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said,

I tremble with fear.

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel.

Psalm 48:1-3, 7-9 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):

1 Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised;

in the city of our God is his holy hill.

2 Beautiful and lofty, the joy of all the earth, is the hill of Zion,

the very center of the world and the city of the great King.

3 God is in her citadels;

he is known to be her sure refuge.

7 As we have heard, so have we seen,

in the city of the LORD of hosts, in the city of our God;

God has established her for ever.

8 We have waited in silence on your loving-kindness, O God,

in the midst of your temple.

9 Your praise, like your Name, O God, reaches to the world’s end;

your right hand is full of justice.

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.

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An understanding of the reading from Hebrews requires a firm grasp of the Hebrew Scriptures.  Most of the images come from the accounts of the time during which Moses was on Mount Sinai, communing with God.  The emphasis on the majesty of God led to a sense of terror of a deity perceived as unapproachable.  And the reference to the blood of Abel is to the fact the shedding of his blood led to vengeance, but the shedding of the blood of Jesus leads to reconciliation.

In the reading from Mark Jesus sends out his Apostles.  They are to pack lightly and to trust God to provide their needs.   Not only did God provide the Apostles’ needs, God empowered these men to perform great deeds.

God is majestic, of course, but this reality need not distract us from the approachability of God.  Indeed, God, especially in the form of Jesus, has acted to make approachability plain.  The Incarnation demonstrates approachability in an impressive way.  And sending Apostles out to the people constitutes approachability of a different form.

Lest anyone think that divine approachability is absent from Jewish texts, I refer you to Psalm 121, just to choose a passage off the top of my head:

The LORD is your keeper;

the LORD is your shade

on your right hand.

(verse 5, Revised Standard Version, 1952)

God has approached us in love.  Have we responded?  If so, how?  If we have not done so already, may we respond in love and awe.  May this response be evident in how we think of and treat ourselves and others.  If we have done this already, may we continue to do so.

It is what Jesus would have us do.

KRT