YOU CANNOT NOT DECIDE.

Above:  The Pool, by Palma il Giovane

Image in the Public Domain

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For the Third Sunday of the Season of God the Father, Year 2, according to the U.S. Presbyterian lectionary of 1966-1970

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Almighty God, who hast given us authority to rule the earth according to thy will:

enable us to manage things with reason and love,

that the whole creation may give thee praise;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

—The Book of Common Worship–Provisional Services (1966), 127

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Genesis 1:24-27

Romans 8:18-23

John 5:1-17

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We humans are not the only intelligent beings on the planet.  Studies of animal intelligence prove this point.  Mimi, the stray cat I feed and pet, possesses intelligence, is self-aware, and responds to her environment in a manner that keeps her alive, for example.  I suspect that she knows more about me than I know about her, actually.  Furthermore, dolphins and whales are highly intelligent.  We humans have a responsibility to protect our neighbors who belong to other species, for the common good.

We humans are the only ones, however, to bear the image of God, metaphorically.  God is spirit, after all.  We have dominion over stewardship, not ownership, of the planet and all that dwells therein.  With great power comes great responsibility.  May we exercise that responsibility well and faithfully, thereby leaving creation better than we found it.

May we also leave each other better than we found each other.  May we ignore irrelevant, dehumanizing, categories and respect the image of God in each other from womb to tomb.  This position cuts across the political spectrum, for, in this matter, labels such as liberal, moderate, and conservative are irrelevant and unhelpful.  The label “loving” is germane and helpful, though, especially when navigating morally gray areas and difficult decisions according to which harm will come to somebody regardless of the choice one makes.  A slogan I heard decades ago says,

When we decide, may the love of Christ compel us.

What would Jesus do?  Which families would Jesus separate at the U.S.-Mexican border?  Whom would Jesus insult with racism?  Whom would Jesus exploit?  Whom would Jesus force to reside in substandard housing?  Whose life would Jesus disregard?  Which people would Jesus see and not recognize the image of God in them?

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JULY 26, 2019 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINTS ANNE AND JOACHIM, PARENTS OF SAINT MARY OF NAZARETH

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they were sad, you see.

Above:  Resurrection of the Dead

Image in the Public Domain

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For the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year 2, according to the U.S. Presbyterian lectionary of 1966-1970

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Help us, O Lord, to hold fast to the faith delivered to the apostles;

remove from our minds all unfounded and senseless belief,

and inspire us with such thoughts as are true, wise, and well-pleasing to thee;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

—The Book of Common Worship–Provisional Services (1966), 126

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Daniel 12:1-4

Romans 8:22-39

Matthew 22:23-33

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Ezekiel 37, from last week’s post, is about the restoration of Israel after the Babylonian Exile, not the resurrection of the dead.  Daniel 12, dating to the second century B.C.E., reflects the subsequent theological development of Judaism and does teach the resurrection of the dead.  The other assigned readings for this week are also about the resurrection of the dead.

Sadducees also rejected that doctrine.  As a children’s song explains, that’s why

The ludicrous question about levirate marriage and the resurrection was, therefore, an insincere question and a trap.  Jesus evaded that trap.

The resurrection of the dead satisfies an understandable psychological need.  We recognize rampant injustice in this life, so we need reassurance that justice will define the next life.  We need to hear and read that judgment and mercy, in balance, will be present.

I do not know the resurrection of the dead as a fact, but I accept it on faith.  This doctrine helps me to accept that God is just when the past and current events indicate rampant injustice.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JULY 25, 2019 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT JAMES BAR-ZEBEDEE, APOSTLE AND MARTYR

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Above:  Icon of the Holy Trinity, by Andrei Rublev

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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Isaiah 6:1-8

Psalm 29

Romans 8:12-17

John 3:1-8

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I aspire never to diminish the glorious mystery of God, or to attempt to do so.  The doctrine of the Trinity, which the Church developed over centuries via debates, interpretation, and ecumenical councils, is the best explanation for which I can hope.  However, the Trinity still makes no logical sense.  For example, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are co-eternal.  Yet the Son proceeds from the Father.  And, depending on one’s theology, vis-à-vis the filoque clause, the Spirit proceeds either from the Father or from the Father and the Son.  Huh?

No, the Trinity is illogical.  So be it.  I frolic in the illogical, glorious mystery of God, who adopts us as sons (literally, in the Greek text), and therefore as heirs.  I frolic in the mystery of the Holy Spirit, in whom is new new life.  I frolic in the mystery and worship the unity.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 29, 2019 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL APOSTLES AND MARTYRS

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Adapted from this post:

https://ordinarytimedevotions.wordpress.com/2019/06/29/devotion-for-trinity-sunday-year-b-humes/

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Above:  Pentecost Dove

Scanned from a Church Bulletin by Kenneth Randolph Taylor

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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:

Acts 2:1-21 or Joel 2:21-32

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Acts 2:1-21 or Romans 8:22-27

John 15:26-16:15

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My Episcopal parish recently held a few focus groups.  Our tasks were envision the congregation in a decade and to think about what the church should be then, to focus on goals and broad strokes, not technical details.  I stated my version of that future.  I also said, in broad terms, that we ought not to focus on what we can do or think we will be able to do, but on what God can do through us.  I vocalized the principle that we need to focus on divine agency, not human agency.

This has been the task of the Church since its birth on Pentecost 29 or 30 C.E., in Jerusalem.  God has always been central; human egos have imagined otherwise.

As we continue our collective and individual spiritual journeys in Christ, the Holy Spirit will accompany, advise, and advocate for us.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 29, 2019 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL APOSTLES AND MARTYRS

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Adapted from this post:

https://lenteaster.wordpress.com/2019/06/29/devotion-for-pentecost-sunday-year-b-humes/

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Above:   Moses Speaks to Pharaoh, by James Tissot

Image in the Public Domain

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For the Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year 2, according to the U.S. Presbyterian lectionary of 1966-1970

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O Lord Jesus, who set thy face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem:

deliver us from timid minds that shrink from the harder paths of duty;

and prepare us to welcome thy command to take up our cross and follow thee,

who art the Author and Finisher of our faith.  Amen.

—The Book of Common Worship–Provisional Services (1966), 121

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Exodus 5:1-9

Romans 8:28-39

Mark 10:32-45

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The call to follow God is the summons to embark on important, potentially dangerous work.  it is not always monumental as confronting the Pharaoh of Egypt and leading the Hebrew people out of slavery and into the Sinai Desert, of course.  The work from God is about service, not status.  Jesus, who served, died, and rose again, is the exemplar.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God, but many people reject that love.  That makes no sense, but neither does much else of human behavior.  If we accept that love, however, we also accept the call to service, for which God will equip us.  We need not fear.  We need not trust in our inadequate powers; God is before, with, and behind us.  The victory will belong to God, as it should.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 24, 2019 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF THE NATIVITY OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST

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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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For I reckon that the sufferings we now endure bear no comparison with the glory, as yet unrevealed, which is in store for us.

Above:  Christ and the Rich Young Ruler, by Heinrich Hofmann

Image in the Public Domain

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

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O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity:

Mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace, that we,

running the way of your commandments, may obtain your gracious promises,

and become partakers of your heavenly treasure;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

–Modernized from The Book of Worship for Church and Home (1965), page 139

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1 Samuel 9:15-17; 10:1

Psalm 17

Romans 8:14-39

Luke 18:18-30

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–Romans 8:18, The Revised English Bible (1989)

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Suffering can have a multitude of possible causes; one might be innocent, one might have brought one’s fate on oneself, or reality might be complicated.  One might suffer for the sake of righteousness, due to political perfidy, or one’s misplaced spiritual attachments, among other reasons.

Let us consider wealth, one of the issues in Luke 18:18-30.  We are reading from the Gospel of Luke, which tells us that the poor are blessed (6:20) and the rich (woe to them, the text says) have received their consolation (6:24).  Wealth and poverty are major themes in the Gospel of Luke.  The greater matter in this story, however, is attachment–in this case, to wealth.  To reduce the question to wealth is to oversimplify it and let many people off the hook.  Anything that becomes a crutch, thereby preventing one from acknowledging one’s total dependence on God, is functionally a spiritual problem.

Although we read in Luke 18:23 that the man went away sorrowful, the story is open-ended.  One might wonder if he eventually reordered his priorities.  One function of open-ended stories in the Bible is to invite the reader/listener into the narrative, and thereby to ask him or her how he or she will respond to any given story.

This story challenges me, for I have my own attachments.  You, O reader, also have your attachments.  All of us have attachments that stand between us and God.  The story should therefore challenge all of us.  How will we deal with the challenge?

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JANUARY 5, 2018 COMMON ERA

THE TWELFTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS

THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN NEPOMUCENE NEUMANN, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF PHILADELPHIA

THE FEAST OF ANTONIO LOTTI, ROMAN CATHOLIC MUSICIAN AND COMPOSER

THE FEAST OF SAINT GENOVEVA TORRES MORALES, FOUNDRESS OF THE CONGREGATION OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS AND THE HOLY ANGELS

THE FEAST OF MARGARET MACKAY, SCOTTISH HYMN WRITER

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