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READING THE BOOK OF PSALMS

PART XLII

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Psalms 56, 116, 117, and 118

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Psalms 56, 116, 117, and 118 are similar to each other.

The superscription of Psalm 56 has two interesting features.  The first is:

on yonath elem rehokim.

The Hebrew text translates literally as:

The mute dove of distant places

or as:

The Dove of the Distant Gods

or as:

The Dove of the Far-Off Terebinths.

This is a musical term of uncertain meaning in 2023.  One may reasonably assume, however, that the meaning of the term was clear in antiquity, when someone wrote the superscription.

The superscription may also link Psalm 56 to 1 Samuel 21:11-16,

when the Philistines seized [David] in Gath.

If so, Psalm 34 has that in common with Psalm 56.  Alternatively, the superscription refers to a story about David not recorded in the canon of Hebrew scripture.  I remain skeptical of many superscriptions in the Book of Psalms, though.

All four psalms praise God for hesed–steadfast love.  Psalm 117, being brief (only two verses) is the only one of these four texts not to contextualize this praise of God in deliverance from peril–illness in Psalm 116, individual enemies in Psalm 56, and a battle in Psalm 118.

Famously, Psalm 118 contains a frequently quoted verse:

The stone which the builders rejected

has become the chief cornerstone.

–Verse 22, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures

Competing interpretations of the identity of the chief cornerstone exist.  The Jewish Study Bible–Second Edition (2014) tells me that is a

metaphor of reversal of expectations

and that Israel is the cornerstone.  That volume also points to the use of other architectural imagery (gates and gateway) in verses 19-20.  Robert Alter identifies the cornerstone as the psalmist, standing in the temple and comparing himself

in his former abject state to a stone at first considered unfit by the builders but then made the chief cornerstone of a grand edifice.

And, of course, there is the traditional “Where’s Waldo?” interpretation that the chief cornerstone is Jesus.  My skepticism of locating Jesus in every other nook and cranny of the Hebrew Bible is on the record in this series and elsewhere at this weblog.

Regardless of whether the chief cornerstone is Israel or the author of Psalm 118, this metaphor testifies to the hesed of God, present in all four psalms.  God’s love is the cause of the reversal of fortune in Psalms 56, 116, and 118.  This grace is not just for any particular person or persons.  No, it is for the benefit of many people, if not all people.  Blessings are for sharing, after all.

I will pay my vows to the LORD

in the presence of all His people,

in the courts of the house of the LORD,

in the midst of Jerusalem.

Hallelujah!

–Psalm 116:18-19, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures

Psalm 117 contains a universalist theme:

Praise the LORD, all you nations;

extol Him, all you peoples,

for great is His steadfast love toward us;

the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

Hallelujah.

—TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures

YHWH is no tribal deity.  No, YHWH is the only deity.  Divine grace falls where it will, all over the world.  It falls upon Jews and Gentiles.  Divine grace falls upon people like me and different from me.  It falls upon people who think like you, O reader, and people who think differently than you.  May all our songs of praise to God for grace and hesed merge into a chorus and benefit as many people as possible.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JANUARY 16, 2023 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT ROBERTO DE NOBOLI, ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONARY IN INDIA

THE FEAST OF SAINT BERARD AND HIS COMPANIONS, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYRS IN MOROCCO, 1220

THE FEAST OF EDMUND HAMILTON SEARS, U.S. UNITARIAN MINISTER, HYMN WRITER, AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR

THE FEAST OF EDWARD BUNNETT, ANGLICAN ORGANIST AND COMPOSER

THE FEAST OF SAINT JUANA MARIA CONDESA LLUCH, FOUNDER OF THE CONGREGATION OF THE HANDMAIDS OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, PROTECTRESS OF WORKERS

THE FEAST OF TIMOTHY RICHARD MATTHEWS, ANGLICAN PRIEST, ORGANIST, AND HYMN TUNE COMPOSER

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READING THE BOOK OF PSALMS

PART XXVI

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Psalm 34

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That day David continued on his flight from Saul and he came to King Achish of Gath.  The courtiers of Achish said to him, “Why, that’s David, king of the land!  That’s the one of whom they sing as they dance:

‘Saul has slain his thousands;

David, his tens of thousands.'”

These words worried David and he became very much afraid of King Achish of Gath.  So, he concealed his good sense from them; he feigned madness for their benefit.  He scratched marks on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down his beard.  And Achish said to his courtiers, “You see the man is raving; why bring him to me?  Do I lack madmen that you have brought his fellow to rave for me?  Should this fellow enter my house?

–1 Samuel 21:11-16, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures (1985, 1999)

This is the reference in the superscription of Psalm 34:

Of David, when he feigned madness in the presence of Abimelech, who turned him out, and he left.

–Psalm 34:1, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures (1985, 1999)

The discrepancies in the king’s name may be a minor matter.  I can think of more than one Biblical character with more than one name.  Examples include Saul of Tarsus/St. Paul the Apostle, St. Simon/Peter/Cephas, St. Joseph/Barnabas, and St. John/Mark.  The alternative explanation–that the author of the superscription was confused about the name of the King of Gath–is also feasible.

Anyway, I regard the superscription as a tacked-on piece of prose.  I am also dubious of Davidic authorship, given the frequent habit of composing a text and attributing it to a famous and revered dead person.

So, as a spiritual mentor of mine from decades past liked to ask when studying or discussing the Bible,

What is really going on here?

Psalm 34 extols divine rescue.  This is a theme we have encountered in previous psalms and that we will find repeated frequently before the termination of this series.

Yet divine rescue is not what is really going on here.  Walter Brueggemann classifies the Psalms into three categories in The Message of the Psalms:  A Theological Commentary (1984).  Psalms of orientation indicate trust, joy, and delight in God.  Psalms of disorientation reflect suffering, hurt, and alienation.  He classifies Psalm 34 with the psalms of new orientation, or expressions of hope.  The instruction in Psalm 34 explains how to consolidate and sustain the new orientation.  This instruction sits within the frame of divine rescue of the faithful.

This instruction is for the people.  They are to hold God in awe, keep their tongues from evil and their lips from speaking deceit, swerve from evil and do good, and seek and pursue peace/amity (depending on translation).

The newly oriented Israel must engage in society building, to develop forms of behavior which sustain the gift of new social possibility.

–Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms:  A Theological Commentary (1984), 133

The newly oriented people are free in God to practice mutuality in love for each other.

John Donne (1572-1631), an Anglican priest and a poet, understood this principle.  He wrote:

No man is an island,

Entire itself;

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

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If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were:

As well as if a manor of thy friend’s

Or of thine own were.

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Any man’s death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

The absence of mutuality many practiced during the COVID-19 pandemic os a recent memory as I write this post.  I recall, for example, an incident from August 2020, when I worked on the decennial census.  I remember that I wore a mask, consistent with (a) Census Bureau policy, (b) medical and public health advice, and (c) morality.  I recall that the mask was plain–white on one side and blue on the other.  I remember knocking on one door, only to face a conservative, anti-federal government man who, with open hostility, refused to answer any questions.  I recall him telling me:

That mask you are wearing represents Satan.

I cannot achieve my potential without the support of others.  Those whose paths cross mine cannot achieve their potential without any support either.  My experience composing hagiographies at SUNDRY THOUGHTS provides me with examples of people with initiative who succeeded in achieving their potential when others helped and encouraged them.  I think, for example, of Michael Faraday (1791-1867), a driven man.  I also understand that he would not ave become a great and influential scientist unless (a) the owner of a laboratory had offered him a job, and (b) Faraday had accepted it.

The denial of anyone’s potential diminishes the whole society.  We are all responsible to and for each other.  May more of us practice mutuality, for the common good and the glory of God.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 31, 2022 COMMON ERA

THE SEVENTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS

THE FEAST OF SAINT GIUSEPPINA NICOLI, ITALIAN ROMAN CATHOLIC NUN AND MINISTER TO THE POOR

THE FEAST OF HENRY IRVING LOUTTIT, JR., EPISCOPAL BISHOP OF GEORGIA

NEW YEAR’S EVE

THE FEAST OF ROSSITER WORTHINGTON RAYMOND, U.S. NOVELIST, POET, HYMN WRITER, AND MINING ENGINEER

THE FEAST OF SAINT ZOTICUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE, PRIEST AND MARTYR, CIRCA  351

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According to the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship (ILCW) Lectionary (1973), as contained in the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) and Lutheran Worship (1982)

Above:  All Saints

Image in the Public Domain

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Isaiah 26:1-4, 8-9, 12-13, 19-21

Psalm 34:1-10

Revelation 21:9-11, 22-27 (22:1-5) (LBW) or Revelation 7:2-17 (LW)

Matthew 5:1-12

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Almighty God, whose people are knit together

in one holy Church, the body of Christ our Lord: 

Grant us grace to follow your blessed saints

in lives of faith and commitment,

and to know the inexpressible joys

you have prepared for those who love you;

through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and forever.  Amen.

—Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), 36

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O almighty God, by whom we are graciously knit together

as one communion and fellowship

in the mystical body of Jesus Christ, our Lord,

grant us to follow your blessed saints

in all virtuous and godly living

that we may come to those unspeakable joys

which you have prepared for those who unfeignedly love you;

through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and forever.  Amen.

—Lutheran Worship (1982), 116

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The communion of saints is the whole family of God, the living and the dead, those whom we love and those whom we hurt, bound together in Christ by sacrament, prayer, and praise.

—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), 862

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Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.

—The Westminster Larger Catechism (1647)

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I am a ritualistic Episcopalian and a student of history.  Therefore, ecclesiastical history appeals to me.  The study of lives of the sains–glorified, canonized, beatified, declared venerable, or none of these–is a spiritually profitable venture.  Reading about how members of the family of Christ have lived their baptismal vows in a variety of cultures, places, and centuries can help one live one’s baptismal vows.  I find that my ongoing study of lives of the saints frequently makes me feel spiritually inadequate.

Notice the quote from the Episcopal catechism, O reader.  The communion of saints includes

those whom we love and whose whom we hurt.

Our spiritual kinfolk include those whom we do not recognize as being so.  Therefore, we hurt them.  We may even feel justified in doing this to them.

Who are your “secret” (to you) kinfolk in Christ, O reader?  Who are mine?

May we all, by grace, grow into our spiritual vocations of glorifying God, and fully enjoying God forever.  May we do this together.  And may we cease to hurt one another.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

AUGUST 21, 2022 COMMON ERA

PROPER 16:  THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST, YEAR C

THE FEAST OF SAINT BRUNO ZEMBOL, POLISH ROMAN CATHOLIC FRIAR AND MARTYR, 1942

THE FEAST OF SAINTS CAMERIUS, CISELLUS, AND LUXURIUS OF SARDINIA, MARTYRS, 303

THE FEAST OF SAINT MAXIMILLIAN OF ANTIOCH, MARTYR, CIRCA 353; AND SAINTS BONOSUS AND MAXIMIANUS THE SOLDIER, MARTYRS, 362

THE FEAST OF SAINT VICTOIRE RASOAMANARIVO, MALAGASY ROMAN CATHOLIC LAYWOMAN

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Adapted from this post

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He who is wise will consider these words,

Above:  Jesus Before Pilate, First Interview, by James Tissot

Image in the Public Domain

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The Collect:

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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The Assigned Readings:

Hosea 14:1-9 (Protestant and Anglican)/Hosea 14:2-10 (Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox)

Psalm 34

Colossians 3:12-4:6

John 18:28-40

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He who is prudent will take note of them.

For the paths of the LORD are smooth;

The righteous can walk on them,

while sinners stumble on them.

–Hosea 14:10, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures (1985)

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I would feel better about Colossians 3:12-4:6 if it did not accept slavery.

Repent and return to God, Hosea 14, urges.  Accept divine forgiveness and act accordingly.  Forgive each other.  After all, everybody needs forgiveness.  And, although grace is free, it is not cheap.  Become a vehicle of grace.  Remain a vehicle of grace.  And do not be an in instrument of injustice, as Pontius Pilate was.  That is my composite summary of the four readings.

And, of course, never accept cultural practices that run afoul of the Golden Rule.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JANUARY 8, 2021 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT THORFINN OF HAMAR, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP

THE FEAST OF A. J. MUSTE, DUTCH-AMERICAN MINISTER, LABOR ACTIVIST, AND PACIFIST

THE FEAST OF ARCHANGELO CORELLI, ROMAN CATHOLIC MUSICIAN AND COMPOSER

THE FEAST OF NICOLAUS COPERNICUS AND GALILEO GALILEI, SCIENTISTS

THE FEAST OF HARRIET BEDELL, EPISCOPAL DEACONESS AND MISSIONARY

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Adapted from this post:

https://lenteaster.wordpress.com/2021/01/08/devotion-for-the-fifth-sunday-in-lent-year-d-humes/

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Ne savez-vous pas que vous êtes le temple de Dieu, et que l’Esprit de Dieu habite en vous?

Above:  Ruins of Corinth, Greece, 1898

Image Source = Library of Congress

Reproduction Number = LC-DIG-matpc-07406

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For the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, Year 2

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Lectionary from A Book of Worship for Free Churches (The General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches in the United States, 1948)

Collect from The Book of Worship (Evangelical and Reformed Church, 1947)

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Almighty and Everliving God, mercifully look upon our infirmities,

and in all our dangers and necessities stretch forth Thy right hand to help and defend us;

through Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.

—The Book of Worship (1947), 129

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Jeremiah 33:6-9

Psalm 34

1 Corinthians 3:1-23

Matthew 8:1-13

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–1 Corinthiens 3:16, Nouvelle Version Segond Révisée (1978)

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The “you” in 1 Corinthians 3;16 is plural.  (Notice the French text, O reader.  It reads, vous, not tu.  Also, 1 Corinthians is a letter to a congregation, not an individual.)  This means that even the fractious Corinthian congregation, with which St. Paul the Apostle had problems, was a temple of God.  We know from the (First) Letter of St. Clement of Rome to the Corinthians that, at the end of the first century C.E. and the beginning of the second century C.E., the Corinthian church had not changed its ways and followed St. Paul’s advice.  We may also assume that the Corinthian church remained a temple of God nevertheless.

Congregations and individuals are temples of God in Pauline theology.  Also in Pauline theology, no person has a body.  No, a person is a body.  Likewise, a congregation is also a body, as the larger church is a body, too.

Christians belong to Christ, who is God and belongs to God.  (Don’t get me started on the deliberate confusion built into Trinitarian theology, O reader.  I am content to leave the divine mystery and the violations of human philosophical norms in place lest I commit a heresy by attempting to explain them.)  We belong to God, who judges and pardons.  We belong to God, who reaches out to and finds faith in Gentiles and Jews alike.  The praise of God should always be in our mouths, individually and collectively.

How many of us can, without issuing an “ahem,” affirm that the congregation to which we belong is a temple of God?  I can.  I do.  I think, however, of some of the congregations to which I have belonged.  I recall some of the rural, provincial, and narrow-minded congregations my father served as a minister in the South Georgia Conference of The United Methodist Church.  I have difficulty recognizing certain congregations in which I grew up as temples of God.  Yet I must affirm that if there was hope for the Corinthian church, there was also hope for the unpleasant, anti-intellectual congregations I knew as a youth and have happily relegated to my past.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 7, 2020 COMMON ERA

THE NINTH DAY OF ADVENT

THE FEAST OF SAINT MARIA JOSEPHA ROSSELLO, COFOUNDER OF THE DAUGHTERS OF OUR LADY OF PITY

THE FEAST OF ANNE ROSS COUSIN, SCOTTISH PRESBYTERIAN HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF EMMA FRANCIS, LUTHERAN DEACONESS IN THE U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS AND HARLEM

THE FEAST OF GEORG FRIEDRICH HELLSTROM, DUTCH-GERMAN MORAVIAN MUSICIAN, COMPOSER, AND EDUCATOR

THE FEAST OF WILLIAM GUSTAVE POLACK, U.S. LUTHERAN MINISTER, LITURGIST, AND HYMN WRITER AND TRANSLATOR

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They lived not only in ages past,

Above:  All Saints

Image in the Public Domain

THE FEAST OF ALL SAINTS (NOVEMBER 1)

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Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in the mystical body of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord:

Give us grace to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living,

that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you;

through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit

lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting.  Amen.

—Holy Women, Holy Men:  Celebrating the Saints (2006), 663; also Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), 59

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Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18

Psalm 34:1-10, 22

1 John 3:1-3

Matthew 5:1-12

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The Episcopal Church has seven Principal Feasts:  Easter Day, Ascension Day, the Day of Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, All Saints’ Day, Christmas Day, and the Epiphany.

The Feast of All Saints, with the date of November 1, seems to have originated in Ireland in the 700s, then spread to England, then to Europe proper.  November 1 became the date of the feast throughout Western Europe in 835.  There had been a competing date (May 13) in Rome starting in 609 or 610.  Anglican tradition retained the date of November 1, starting with The Book of Common Prayer (1549).  Many North American Lutherans first observed All Saints’ Day with the Common Service Book (1917).  The feast was already present in The Lutheran Hymnary (Norwegian-American, 1913).  The Lutheran Hymnal (Missouri Synod, et al, 1941) also included the feast.  O the less formal front, prayers for All Saints’ Day were present in the U.S. Presbyterian Book of Common Worship (Revised) (1932), the U.S. Methodist Book of Worship for Church and Home (1945), and their successors.

The Feast of All Saints reminds us that we, as Christians, belong to a large family stretching back to the time of Christ.  If one follows the Lutheran custom of commemorating certain key figures from the Hebrew Bible, the family faith lineage predates the conception of Jesus of Nazareth.

At Christ Episcopal Church, Valdosta, Georgia, where I was a member from 1993 to 1996, I participated in a lectionary discussion group during the Sunday School hour.  Icons decorated the walls of the room in which we met.  The teacher of the class called the saints depicted “the family.”

“The family” surrounds us.  It is so numerous that it is “a great cloud of witnesses,” to quote Hebrews 12:1.  May we who follow Jesus do so consistently, by grace, and eventually join that great cloud.

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Gendered language does not bother me.  Gender is, after all, a reality of human life.  Besides, neutering language frequently blurs the divide between the singular and the plural, hence my objections to the singular “they,” “them,” “their” and “themselves.”  One can–and should–be inclusive linguistically in such a way as to respect the difference between the singular and the plural.  I do understand the issue of clarity, however.  I know that how members of one generation, in a particular cultural context, perceive a gendered term, such as “sons,” differs greatly from how others elsewhere, at another time, do.  Certain modern English translations of the Bible, in an admirable attempt to be inclusive, obscure subleties of gendered terms sometimes.  However, translating a text literally does not make those subtleties clear, either.  Commentaries are necessary for that.

Consider, for example, Romans 8:14-17, O reader.  In that passage the Greek for “sons of God” often comes across in modern English as “children of God.”  Likewise, we read “children” when the Greek word means “sons.”  The cultural context, in which sons, but not daughters, inherited, is vital to understanding that portion of scripture, in which Christians, whether they are biologically sons or daughters, inherit, via Jesus.  Thus “sons of God” includes daughters.  None of that is superficially evident, however.

In contrast, “children,” as in “children of God, as opposed to “children of Satan,” in 1 John 3:1 and 3:10 is a literal translation from the Greek; the Greek word is not gender-specific.  That fact is not superficially evident, however, given the recent tendency to gloss over gendered language.  A commentary is necessary to understand that aspect of 1 John 3:1 and 3:10.

Our societies condition us in ways that frequently do not apply to the cultural contexts that informed ancient texts.

In 1929 Lesbia Scott wrote:

There are hundreds of thousands still,

The world is bright with the joyous saints

Who love to do Jesus’ will.

You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,

In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,

For the saints of God are just folk like me,

And I mean to be one too.

The apocalyptic hope present in Daniel 7, the community focus of Psalm 34, and the counter-cultural values of the Beatitudes should encourage us to persist is fidelity to God, to do so in faith community, and without resorting to serial contrariness, to lead lives that reject those cultural values contrary to the message of the Beatitudes.  We must do this for the glory of God and the benefit of people near, far away, and not yet born.  And, when our earthly pilgrimage ends, others will take up the cause we join what Hebrews 12:1 calls

a great cloud of witnesses.

Members of that great cloud of witnesses are sons and daughters of God–inheritors of the promise, by the grace of God.  Certain cultures restrict inheritance rights according to gender, but God does not.  Each of us, by grace and faith, can be among the sons of God and the children of the light.

And I mean to be one, too.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

SEPTEMBER 17, 2018 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT JUTTA OF DISIBODENBERG, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBESS; AND HER STUDENT, SAINT HILDEGARD OF BINGEN, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBESS AND COMPOSER

THE FEAST OF GERARD MOULTRIE, ANGLICAN PRIEST, HYMN WRITER, AND TRANSLATOR OF HYMNS

THE FEAST OF SAINT ZYGMUNT SZCESNY FELINSKI, ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF WARSAW, TITULAR BISHOP OF TARSUS, AND FOUNDER OF RECOVERY FOR THE POOR AND THE CONGREGATION OF THE FRANCISCAN SISTERS OF THE FAMILY OF MARY

THE FEAST OF SAINT ZYGMUNT SAJNA, POLISH ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MARTYR, 1940

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Adapted from this post:

https://ordinarytimedevotions.wordpress.com/2018/09/17/devotion-for-the-feast-of-all-saints-years-a-b-c-and-d-humes/

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Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest.

Above:  Caesar’s Coin, by Peter Paul Rubens

Image in the Public Domain

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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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Song of Songs 2:8-13 or Isaiah 59:1-4, 7-14, 20-21

Psalm 34:11-22

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Matthew 22:15-33

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The Song of Songs is a text between a man and a woman, lovers, perhaps married.  They are in mortal danger because of their love.  I reject overly metaphorical interpretation of the book, such as it is between YHWH and Israel or Christ and the Church.  Nevertheless, the affirmation that God is present in the details of our lives does sacramentalize them.

Speaking of our lives, we Christians have the calling to fulfill our roles in the Church, the body of Christ.  We are all important in that respect.  If we do not do our part, we diminish the Church.

The readings from which Isaiah 59 and Psalm 34 complement each other.  God does not separate Himself from us.  No, we separate ourselves from God.  We do this collectively and individually.  We do this via rife injustice.  We do this via idolatry.  We do this via violence.  These sins have consequences in this life and the next one, we read, but God remains faithful and merciful.  Divine judgment comes bound up with divine mercy, however.

Speaking of idolatry, what was one of our Lord and Savior’s supposedly devout adversary doing with that idolatrous, blasphemous Roman coin?  The Pharisaic trick question was, in the mind of the man who asked it, supposed to entrap Jesus, who might sound like a traitor by advising against paying the Roman head tax or might offend Zealots, Jewish nationalists.  The empire had instituted the head tax in the province of Judea in 6 C.E.  The tax had prompted insurrection.  The tax’s existence contributed to the First Jewish War, after the time of Jesus and before the composition of the Gospel of Matthew.  The tax was payable only in Roman coinage.  At the time of the scene the coinage bore the image of Caesar Tiberius (I) and the inscription (in Latin) translated

Jesus found the middle way and turned the tables, so to speak, on those seeking to ensnare him in his words.

Another trick question followed.  Some Sadducees, who rejected belief in the afterlife, asked a question, rooted in levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5-10).  At the time of the writing of that law, the concept of the afterlife was not part of Judaism.  Those Sadducees had missed the point and weaponized scripture.  Jesus challenged their religious authority.

Tip:  Do not attempt to entrap Jesus in his words.

If we will trust God to help us lead holy lives mindful of the divine presence in all details, especially those we might think of as mundane or not sacred yet not bad, we will find sacred meaning in tasks as simple as housework.  We will also be too busy finding such meaning that we will not act like those people condemned in Isaiah 59 or those who attempted to ensnare Jesus verbally.  No, we will be too busy being aware of living in the presence of God to do any of that.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

SEPTEMBER 16, 2018 COMMON ERA

PROPER 19:  THE SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST, YEAR B

THE FEAST OF SAINT CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE, BISHOP AND MARTYR, 258; AND SAINTS CORNELIUS, LUCIUS I, AND STEPHEN I, BISHOPS OF ROME

THE FEAST OF GEORGE HENRY TRABERT, U.S. LUTHERAN MINISTER, MISSIONARY, AND HYMN TRANSLATOR AND AUTHOR

THE FEAST OF JAMES FRANCIS CARNEY, U.S.-HONDURAN ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, MISSIONARY, REVOLUTIONARY, AND MARTYR, 1983

THE FEAST OF MARTIN BEHM, GERMAN LUTHERAN MINISTER AND HYMN WRITER

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Adapted from this post:

https://ordinarytimedevotions.wordpress.com/2018/09/16/devotion-for-proper-24-year-a-humes/

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Above:  All Saints

Image in the Public Domain

THE FEAST OF ALL SAINTS (NOVEMBER 1)

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The Episcopal Church has seven Principal Feasts:  Easter Day, Ascension Day, the Day of Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, All Saints’ Day, Christmas Day, and the Epiphany.

The Feast of All Saints, with the date of November 1, seems to have originated in Ireland in the 700s, then spread to England, then to Europe proper.  November 1 became the date of the feast throughout Western Europe in 835.  There had been a competing date (May 13) in Rome starting in 609 or 610.  Anglican tradition retained the date of November 1, starting with The Book of Common Prayer (1549).  Many North American Lutherans first observed All Saints’ Day with the Common Service Book (1917).  The feast was already present in The Lutheran Hymnary (Norwegian-American, 1913).  The Lutheran Hymnal (Missouri Synod, et al, 1941) also included the feast.  O the less formal front, prayers for All Saints’ Day were present in the U.S. Presbyterian Book of Common Worship (Revised) (1932), the U.S. Methodist Book of Worship for Church and Home (1945), and their successors.

The Feast of All Saints reminds us that we, as Christians, belong to a large family stretching back to the time of Christ.  If one follows the Lutheran custom of commemorating certain key figures from the Hebrew Bible, the family faith lineage predates the conception of Jesus of Nazareth.

At Christ Episcopal Church, Valdosta, Georgia, where I was a member from 1993 to 1996, I participated in a lectionary discussion group during the Sunday School hour.  Icons decorated the walls of the room in which we met.  The teacher of the class called the saints depicted “the family.”

“The family” surrounds us.  It is so numerous that it is “a great cloud of witnesses,” to quote Hebrews 12:1.  May we who follow Jesus do so consistently, by grace, and eventually join that great cloud.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

SEPTEMBER 13, 2018 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF PETER OF CHELCIC, BOHEMIAN HUSSITE REFORMER; AND GREGORY THE PATRIARCH, FOUNDER OF THE MORAVIAN CHURCH

THE FEAST OF GODFREY THRING, ANGLICAN PRIEST AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF JANE CREWDSON, ENGLISH QUAKER POET AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF NARAYAN SESHADRI OF JALNI, INDIAN PRESBYTERIAN EVANGELIST AND “APOSTLE TO THE MANGS”

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Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in the mystical body of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord:

Give us grace to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living,

that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you;

through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit

lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting.  Amen.

Year A:

Revelation 7:9-17

1 John 3:1-3

Psalm 34:1-10, 22

Matthew 5:1-12

Year B:

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 or Isaiah 25:6-9

Psalm 24

Revelation 21:1-6a

John 11:32-44

Year B:

Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18

Psalm 149

Ephesians 1:11-23

Luke 6:20-31

—Holy Women, Holy Men:  Celebrating the Saints (2006), 663; also Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), 59

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Revelation 7:(2-8), 9-17

1 John 3:1-3

Matthew 5:1-12

—Lutheran Service Book (2006), xxiii

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Adapted from this post:

https://neatnik2009.wordpress.com/2018/09/13/devotion-for-the-feast-of-all-saints-november-1/

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all wickedness and deceit, hypocrisy and jealousy and malicious talk of any kind.

Above:  St. Bartholomew, by Gregorio Bausa

Image in the Public Domain

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FOR THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY, ACCORDING TO A LECTIONARY FOR PUBLIC WORSHIP IN THE BOOK OF WORSHIP FOR CHURCH AND HOME (1965)

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Lord, who commanded your apostles to go into all the world,

and to preach the Gospel to every creature,

Let your name be great among the nations from the rising of the Sun

to the going down of the same.  Amen.

–Modernized from The Book of Worship for Church and Home (1965), page 86

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Habakkuk 2:18-20; 3:2-4

Psalm 52

1 Peter 2:4-10

John 1:35-51

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The assigned reading from 1 Peter is too brief.  One should, for full comprehension of 2:4-10, back up into chapter 1 and start reading.  We read that Gentile Christians are a holy people, a priesthood set apart to serve God, and a holy people, a priesthood set apart to serve God, and a temple all at once, via divine mercy.  With grace come obligations, of course.  We ought to put away

–1 John 2:1, The Revised English Bible (1989)

Not putting them away is inconsistent with being a light to the nations.

1 John 2:3 affirms that God is good, in an echo of Psalm 34:8.  That segue brings me to Habakkuk.  Once again the assigned reading is unfortunately truncated.  The overall context of the Book of Habakkuk is the Babylonian Exile.  The text struggles with how to affirm the goodness of God in light of a violent and exploitative international order.  The author seems less certain than the man who wrote Psalm 52.  The central struggle of Habakkuk is timeless, for circumstances change and time passes, but certain populations experience oppression at any given moment.

I have no easy answer to this difficult question, nor do I aspire to have one.  God has some explaining to do, I conclude.

The Roman occupation of the Holy Land was in full effect at the time of Christ.  A portion of the Jewish population sought a military savior who would expel the Romans.  Jesus disappointed them.  He did, however, astound St. Nathanael/Bartholomew.  All Jesus had to do was say he had seen the future Apostle under a fig tree.

This is an interesting section of John 1.  Every time I study 1:47-51 I consult resources as I search for more answers.  The Gospel of John is a subtle text, after all; it operates on two levels–the literal and the metaphorical–simultaneously.  St. Nathanael/Bartholomew acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah and follows him.  The fig tree is a symbol of messianic peace in Micah 4:4 (one verse after nations end their warfare and beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks) and in Zechariah 3:10 (one verse after God promises to remove the Israelites’ collective guilt in one day, in the context of the Babylonian Exile.  The context of the confession of St. Nathanael/Bartholomew then, is apocalyptic; an ideal future in which God reigns fully on the Earth is the hope.  So as for Jesus seeing St. Nathanael/Bartholomew under a fig tree, that feat seems to have indicated to the future Apostle that possessed unique insights.

The apocalyptic nature of the vision of St. Nathanael/Bartholomew sitting under a fig tree is juicier material, though.  I also wonder how well the future Apostle understood the messiahship of Jesus at the time of his confession.  The answer is that he did so incompletely, I conclude.  I do not mean that as a criticism; I merely make a statement of what I perceive to have been reality.

The question of now to make sense of the divine goodness in the context of a violent and exploitative world order remains.  I offer a final thought regarding that:  Is not hope superior to hopelessness?  Deferred hope is still hope.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

SEPTEMBER 4, 2017 COMMON ERA

LABOR DAY (U.S.A.)

THE FEAST OF PAUL JONES, EPISCOPAL BISHOP OF UTAH AND PEACE ACTIVIST; AND HIS COLLEAGUE, JOHN NEVIN SAYRE, EPISCOPAL PRIEST AND PEACE ACTIVIST

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