Archive for the ‘Ritualism’ Tag
Above: The Marriage at Cana, by Paolo Veronese
Image in the Public Domain
Deeds and Creeds
JANUARY 30, 2022
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Amos 5:18-24 or Proverbs 3:5-18
Psalm 117
1 Timothy 3:1-13
John 2:1-12
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Rituals are part of religion. The Law of Moses specifies elements of ritualism, down to priestly vestments and certain details of sacred spaces. May we human beings shun Puritanical and Pietistic excesses as we focus on the point of Amos 5:18-24. That point is that sacred rituals are not talismans. They do not shield people from the consequences of a lack of righteousness–in this case, manifested in the exploitation of the vulnerable and in corruption.
Divine judgment and mercy exist in balance. We may praise God for having merciful love (as in Psalm 117), but divine justice is catastrophic for the habitually unrighteous (as in Amos 5). Therefore, blessed and happy are those who find wisdom (as in Proverbs 3).
1 Timothy 3, somewhat bound by cultural context, does contain a timeless element, too. Ecclesiastical leaders have a duty to lead by example. They must have fine character. Their deeds must not belie the sacred truth.
Hypocrisy offends, does it not? I recall a news story from years ago. A minister had preached against gambling. Then someone caught him gambling in a casino.
Deeds reveal creeds. Words may deceive, but deeds to not lie. In Jewish theology, God is like what God has done and is doing. The same principle applies to human beings.
In the Gospel of John, Christ’s first miracle was turning water into wine at Cana. This was no mere parlor trick. Yes, Jesus saved his host from embarrassment. Christ also pointed to his glory, that is, God’s presence in him. Jesus pointed to God.
Divine grace is extravagant. It saves us from sins and from ourselves. Sometimes it may save us from embarrassment. Do we accept that grace and point to God? Do we accept that grace and love our neighbors as we love ourselves? Or do we reject that grace?
Our deeds will reveal our creeds.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 30, 2020 COMMON ERA
THE SIXTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS
THE FEAST OF ALLEN EASTMAN CROSS, U.S. CONGREGATIONALIST MINISTER AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF JOHN MAIN, ANGLO-CANADIAN ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MONK
THE FEAST OF FRANCES JOSEPH-GAUDET, AFRICAN-AMERICAN EDUCATOR, PRISON REFORMER, AND SOCIAL WORKER
THE FEAST OF WILLIAM ADAMS BROWN, U.S. PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER, THEOLOGIAN, AND SOCIAL REFORMER
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2020/12/30/deeds-and-creeds-iv/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Above: Landscape with the Parable of the Sower, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Image in the Public Domain
Spiritual Journeys
FEBRUARY 11, 2024
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 8:34-9:13
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Pietism is an error-ridden system of thought. One of its gravest mistakes is the rejection of ritualism, often due to a misinterpretation of Psalm 50. The sacrificial system, commanded in the Law of Moses, is not the problem in Psalm 50. No, the divorce between sacrifices and morality is the offense. Mistaking sacrifices and other acts of public piety for a talisman is wrong. People need to walk the walk, in other words. Their acts of public piety will be genuine.
Speaking of sacrifices, the context of the Transfiguration in Mark 8-9 is the foretelling of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The prose poetry of the account tells us of Elijah (representing the prophets) and Moses (representing the Law) appearing with the glorified Jesus. This is, in context, an apocalyptic scene, as anyone steeped in the culture of Palestinian Judaism would have known. The attempt to institutionalize such a moment is always misguided, for one should keep on moving with Jesus, toward Jerusalem. Faith is a journey, not a permanent shrine.
My journey will not be identical to yours, O reader, nor should it be. Our journeys will properly contain many of the same landmarks, though. The destination will also be the same–God in Christ.
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
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/spiritual-journeys/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Above: Part of a Certain Hymn from Pilgrim Hymnal (1935)
Image Source = Kenneth Randolph Taylor
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.
–Luke 2:8, The New Revised Standard Version
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I collect hymnals and service books. Exploring them and finding treasures is a wonderful hobby, one which brings joy to me. And sharing those gems sheds that joy abroad. That is the rationale for my GATHERED PRAYERS weblog, which links into this one. Some hymns, however, are not prayers, so I seek and fine other venues for sharing them.
William Allen Knight (1863-1957) was a U.S. Congregationalist minister and author. Yesterday, for example, I found some books he wrote available at archive.org:
Knight also wrote the following Christmas hymn in 1915:
Come, my heart, canst thou not hear it,
Mid the tumult of thy days?
Catch the old sweet song of angels,
Join thy voice to swell their praise!
Hast thou never shared the blessing,
Never known kind Heaven’s gift?
Bethlehem thy Saviour cradled!
Heart of mine, a song uplift.
+++++
First to hear were watching shepherds,
Sore afraid that winter’s night;
Soon their Bethlehem’s low manger
Changed the song to wondrous sight!
Ever since, all they who hear it
Find a Saviour where they dwell;
Sing it, heart! Who knows what toilers
Thou the Christward way shalt tell!
+++++
Long ago the angels vanished–
But their song is sounding still!
Millions now with hope are singing,
“Peace on earth, to men good will.”
Sing, my heart! Tho’ peace may tarry,
Sing good will mid human strife!
Till that old sweet song of angels
Shall attune to heav’n our life.
I keep hearing about a war on Christmas. Yet I note that many, if not most, of those who speak and write at length on that subject seem oblivious to the liturgical calendar and many well-documented facts. “Xmas” is not a way to remove “Christ” from Christmas. No, “X” is an abbreviation derived from the Greek alphabet. I have, for example, squeezed “Xian” into a tiny gap when taking notes and meaning “Christian.” And I do not hear many of these self-appointed defenders of Christmas against the great secular hordes speak of Advent or twelve days of Christmas often. Thus many self-appointed defenders of tradition violate the tradition they claim to affirm. I love the irony.
Talk is cheap and frequently annoying. But keeping holy seasons quietly and sincerely is where, as an old saying goes, the rubber meets the road. We can start by dropping out of the rat race or never entering it. And we can live daily in the awareness that time is sacred–something of which the older, more formalistic Christian denominations tend to engender better than the iconoclastic schools of Protestantism.
The angels’ song is sounding still. Thanks be to God! But do we hear it over the din of pointless arguments and of hustle and bustle?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 23, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE TWENTY-THIRD DAY OF ADVENT, YEAR A
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN OF KANTY, ROMAN CATHOLIC THEOLOGIAN
THE FEAST OF SAINT CHARBEL, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MONK
THE FEAST OF GERALD R. FORD, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE FEAST OF PERCY SUTTON, CIVIL RIGHTS PIONEER
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Adapted from this post:
http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/a-christmas-message-come-my-heart-canst-thou-not-hear-it/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Above: The Beginning of the Draft of This Post
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And Mary said,
My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior….
–Luke 1:46-47, The New Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition (1993)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
https://adventchristmasepiphany.wordpress.com/nineteenth-century-evangelical-support-for-a-secular-christmas/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Adapted from this post:
http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/11/25/advent-and-christmas-message/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Above: Washing Hands With Soap
Image Source = Serenity
Deeds and Rituals
FEBRUARY 3 and 4, 2023
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Collect:
Lord God, with endless mercy you receive
the prayers of all who call upon you.
By your Spirit show us the things we ought to do,
and give us the grace and power to do them,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 22
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Assigned Readings:
Isaiah 29:1-12 (Friday)
Isaiah 29:13-16 (Saturday)
Psalm 112:1-9 [10] (both days)
James 3:13-18 (Friday)
Mark 7:1-8 (Saturday)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Light shines in the darkness for the upright;
the righteous are merciful and full of compassion.
It is good for them to be generous in lending
and to manage their affairs with justice.
–Psalm 112:4-5, Book of Common Worship (1993)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ritualism, in and of itself, is positive. It, paired with lived faith in God–the kind of faith which finds expression in, among other things, an active concern for what James 3:18 (The New Jerusalem Bible) calls
a harvest of justice,
is consistent with the witness of Hebrew prophets who decried judicial and political corruption and economic exploitation. In fact, the instructions for the house of worship in the Law of Moses indicate a space designed for ritualism. But the Law of Moses (when it does not call for stoning people or reflect a negative view of female biology) speaks of lived holiness for the community.
Many activities are positive. Among these is washing one’s hands before eating–certainly a sanitary action. Yet sanitation was not the concern Jesus addressed in Mark 7. No, our Lord and Savior discussed tradition for its own sake and the sake of making some people appear holier than others. He knew that washing hands could not purify one’s self-righteous attitude. So rituals ought not to function as totems, which people imagine vainly will protect them from the wrath of God or merely from the consequences of their bad deeds and sins of omission.
May each of us engage in good deeds and rituals.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
OCTOBER 10, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN LEONARDI, FOUNDER OF THE CLERKS REGULAR OF THE MOTHER OF GOD; AND SAINT JOSEPH CALASANCTIUS, FOUNDER OF THE CLERKS REGULAR OF RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS
THE FEAST OF SAINT PAULINUS OF YORK, ARCHBISHOP
THE FEAST OF VIDA DUTTON SCUDDER, WRITER
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/deeds-and-rituals/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
You must be logged in to post a comment.