According to the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship (ILCW) Lectionary (1973), as contained in the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) and Lutheran Worship (1982)
God (YHWH, Elohim, or whichever other name one prefers to use; a Christian term is God the Father) is one. God is sovereign. God is just. These characteristics come from the assigned readings from the Hebrew Bible, before I turn to Romans 8 and John 3.
The readings from Romans 8 and John 3 add Jesus and the Holy Spirit to the mix. Thus, we have all the ingredients for the formula of the Trinity. The word “Trinity” never appears in the New Testament. The ingredients of it do, however. The current, orthodox form of that doctrine is the result of successive councils and rebuttals against heresies during the first few centuries of Christianity.
I have read enough books and portions of books to know that every Trinitarian heresy began as a well-meaning attempt to explain the Trinity. So, I choose not to play that game. No, I embrace the mystery and focus on its meanings. One meaning is that, although God is one, God is complex, not simple.
In Christian terms, spiritual birth via the Holy Spirit is essential. This may be quiet or dramatic. Itay include an event one can mark as the time of spiritual renewal or it may sneak up on someone. I belong the company of people who have, within their active memory, always known God via Jesus. The dates I can mark on a timeline are mostly sacramental. They include one baptism, one confirmation, and three reaffirmations, with each of the last four occurring in the presence of a bishop in Apostolic Succession.
Lutheran minister and liturgist Philip H. Pfatteicher tells us that Trinity Sunday is:
not the feast of a doctrine but…the celebration of the richness of the being of God and the occasion of a thankful review of the now-completed mystery of salvation, which is the work of the Father thorugh the Holy Spirit.
—Commentary on the Lutheran Book of Worship: Lutheran Liturgy in Its Ecumenical Context (1990), 301
So, on Trinity Sunday, as well as all other days, may we thank God for the
now-completed mystery of salvation.
And, with the author of Psalm 96, may we ascribe glory and might to God. May our words, thoughts, and actions glorify God.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MARCH 27, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE TWENTY-NINTH DAY OF LENT
THE FEAST OF CHARLES HENRY BRENT, EPISCOPAL MISSIONARY BISHOP OF THE PHILIPPINES, BISHOP OF WESTERN NEW YORK, AND ECUMENIST
THE FEAST OF SAINTS NICHOLAS OWEN, THOMAS GARNET, MARK BARKWORTH, EDWARD OLDCORNE, AND RALPH ASHLEY, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYRS, 1601-1608
THE FEAST OF PETER LUTKIN, EPISCOPAL COMPOSER, LITURGIST, AND MUSIC EDUCATOR
THE FEAST OF ROBERT HALL BAYNES, ANGLICAN BISHOP OF MADAGASCAR
THE FEAST OF SAINT RUPERT OF SALZBURG, APOSTLE OF BAVARIA AND AUSTRIA
THE FEAST OF STANLEY ROTHER, U.S. ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, MISSIONARY, AND MARTYR IN GUATEMALA, 1981
Psalms 146-150 constitute the concluding doxology of the Hebrew Psalter. Pulling these texts together, a partial list of statements about God emerges:
God heals, restores, and delivers individuals and communities.
God, the Creator, is evident in nature and history.
Nature itself praises God.
God is universal and sovereign.
God, who grants military victory, punishes the wicked.
These themes recur in the Hebrew Psalter, from Psalm 1 to Psalm 145. Rather than repeat many comments from previous posts in this series, I prefer to focus on a point that has become prominent in my theology and prayers. This is also a point about which I have written in this series. Some repetition is inevitable in this series.
I grew up learning about sin. It seemed abstract to me for a long time. The sins about which I learned were mostly personal peccadilloes; collective, institutional sins received less attention. As I aged and read more deeply, I began to focus less on personal peccadilloes (without ignoring them) and to focus more on collective, institutional sins. My inner Reinhold Niebuhr asserted itself. Later, I incorporated sin and repentance into my concept of “God’s best.” I came to think of congregations, communities, et cetera enjoying God’s best for them, and to pray that God’s best for them would be their reality. So, repentance and amendment of life are not mostly about angering or grieving God, lest punishment ensue. No, repentance and amendment of life are mostly about responding faithfully to God in love, awe, and loyalty, and growing into full potential in God. “God’s best” is shalom–complete well-being.
Thank you, O reader, for joining me on this journey through the Book of Psalms. As we take leave of each other, I wish you shalom. May you and yours grow into your full potential in God. May God’s best for you–both individually and in community–become your reality.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
FEBRUARY 25, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE FOURTH DAY OF LENT
THE FEAST OF SAINT GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS THE ELDER, SAINT NONNA, AND THEIR CHILDREN: SAINTS GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS THE YOUNGER, CAESARIUS OF NAZIANZUS, AND GORGONIA OF NAZIANZUS
THE FEAST OF BERNHARDT SEVERIN INGEMANN, DANISH LUTHERAN AUTHOR AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINT FELIX VARELA, CUBAN ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND PATRIOT
THE FEAST OF JOHN ROBERTS, EPISCOPAL MISSIONARY TO THE SHOSHONE AND ARAPAHOE
THE FEAST OF KARL FRIEDRICH LOCHNER, GERMAN LUTHERAN MINISTER AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF THEODOR FLIENDER, RENEWER OF THE FEMALE DIACONATE; AND ELIZABETH FEDDE, NORWEGIAN LUTHERAN DEACONESS
Psalm 145 teaches a profound thought: God’s faithfulness holds creation together. God is the glue and the binding force of the universe. This faithfulness manifests in daily reliability to human beings, we read. So, the God of Psalm 145 is simultaneously transcendent and imminent.
To repeat Psalm 145 is to confess the insufficiency of self and the sovereignty of God. It is, in a real sense, to live in a different world–not in an escapist sense, but in the sense that God’s claims, values, and priorities inevitably put us at odds with a prevailing culture that promotes autonomy. In other words, Psalm 145 invites us to live in the world of God’s reign, the world where the fundamental reality and pervasive power is the gracious, compassionate, and faithful love of God.
–J. Clinton McCann, Jr., in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 4 (1996), 1261
St. Augustine of Hippo understood the truth of Psalm 145 well:
…because you made us for yourself, and our hearts find no place until they rest in you.
When we mere mortals engage in delusions of grandeur and self-sufficiency, we miss the truth of our existence. God is, to borrow a term from Paul Tillich, the Ground of Being. God loves us. God defines us. We are precious to God. All this should suffice. Yet, for many people, it does not.
You, O reader, are precious to God. I am precious to God for the same reason you are. And we all depend upon God, as well as each other. Interdependency should be obvious on both the micro- and the macroscales. Soldiers depend upon each other. In a global economy, a recession in Country A affects its trading partners. And people depend upon the labor of others. We all live in a web of connectedness.
Each human being is precious to God. Yet many people are not precious to themselves. And many other people are precious to themselves. And many other people are precious to themselves, yet they seem to think that few others are precious. Even the most pious and benevolent saint may experience thinking of some people as being precious, even to God. So, we have a spiritual challenge to confess to God. May God help us to recognize ourselves and each other for what we are: precious. Then may we treat each other accordingly. And may we rest in God, in this life and the next one.
Psalm 87 is textually difficult and has problematic syntax, as commentaries explain in detail. I note those matters for the sake of thoroughness and move along to the point of the psalm.
Psalm 87, which prompts me to start humming “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken, Zion, City of Our God,” extols Jerusalem as the chosen city of God and the Temple as the physical dwelling of God. Jerusalem is the center of the world, according to the text. And Gentiles who convert to Judaism join the people of God. The nations of the known world will acknowledge the sovereignty of God, we read.
I am a Gentile and a Christian. I also affirm that God lives everywhere. God is as present in southwestern Georgia as in Jerusalem. So, the psalmist and I have some differences of opinion. Yet we agree more often than we disagree.
The psalmist’s known world was much smaller than the world as I know it. Nevertheless, the claim of divine sovereignty over the world reminds us that, for the author of Psalm 87, YHWH was no mere tribal of national deity. No, for the psalmist, YHWH was the sole deity. That claim makes sense to me. However, it sounds as ridiculous to a host of people in 2023 as it did to many people in antiquity. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
My faith does not depend on God being resident in a particular place, above all others. In fact, I prefer a Sufi saying:
God is closer to you than your jugular vein.
And, despite all appearances to the contrary, God is sovereign. Many people–as in antiquity–are oblivious, though. So, the hope Psalm 87 expresses awaits fulfillment; all the world will acknowledge divine sovereignty eventually.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
FEBRUARY 3, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINTS ANSKAR AND RIMBERT, ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOPS OF HAMBURG-BREMEN
THE FEAST OF ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER, ENGLISH POET AND FEMINIST
THE FEAST OF SAINT ALFRED DELP, GERMAN ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MARTYR, 1945
THE FEAST OF SAINTS JAMES NICHOLAS JOUBERT AND MARIE ELIZABETH LANGE, FOUNDERS OF THE OBLATE SISTERS OF PROVIDENCE
THE FEAST OF JEMIMA THOMPSON LUKE, ENGLISH CONGREGATIONALIST HYMN WRITER; AND JAMES EDMESTON, ANGLICAN HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAMUEL DAVIES, AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER AND HYMN WRITER
Psalm 85 flows from a deep spring of communal ennui from either the Babylonian Exile or the period immediately following it. Either timeframe of origin is plausible. The text assumes that divine forgiveness of collective sins (understood as the main cause of the Babylonian Exile in Deuteronomistic theology) is requisite for the divine restoration of the Jewish people and their ancestral homeland.
Truth must precede reconciliation. Remorse for sins must precede amendment of life. These statements apply in both communal and individual cases.
Psalm 86 follows a familiar formula for a personal lament, which may reflect communal, postexilic concerns. An observant reader of the Book of Psalms may identify certain motifs readily, These include a plea for deliverance, an expression of confidence in divine mercy, an assertion of divine sovereignty, and a sense that God is not listening. Why else would the psalmists try to attract divine attention?
Walter Brueggemann notes the “unusual nature of uses of the second person pronouns” in Psalm 86. The scholar concludes:
This repeated use makes an appeal that presents the situation of trouble as squarely Yahweh’s problem…. This psalm is concerned for God’s will or intentionality, and so it engages in persuasion.
—The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary (1984), 62
The interpretation of Psalm 86 as reflecting communal concerns in the wake of the Babylonian Exile makes sense to me, given the content of Third Isaiah (Isaiah 24-27 and 56-66), as well as the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. This is hardly a unanimous scholarly opinion. For example, Father Mitchell J. Dahood, S.J.’s notes indicate that he thought Psalm 86 was a prayer for an Israelite king. And other exegetes interpret the text as an individual lament, but not a lament of a monarch. The citing of Exodus 32-34 (in which God forgave a disobedient people) in Psalm 86 bolsters the communal interpretation.
Imagine the situation, O reader; try a thought experiment. Imagine being a Jewish exile at the end of the Babylonian Exile. Perhaps you are elderly and recall your homeland from half a century prior. Or maybe you, born in the Chaldean Empire, have no memories of the ancestral homeland. Imagine feeling excited about the prospect of ceasing to live in exile. You have high hopes of what that land will be like. Imagine the disappointment you felt upon settling in that homeland and not finding the verdant paradise prophets had predicted. Imagine the frustration over having to struggle with politics over issues as basic as rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem as well as the Temple. Imagine the communal ennui.
Individual faith is an appropriate focus much of the time. Indeed, this is a prominent topic in the Bible. So is communal faith, a topic to which my individualistic culture gives short shrift. The faith of a people or of a congregation is a matter entire books of the Bible address.
Imagine the collective malaise in the wake of the Babylonian Exile. Then notice that, despite concerns that God may not be listening, Psalm 86 indicates hope that God will listen then act consistent with hesed–steadfast love.
The longer I live, the less confident I become regarding alleged certainties I learned in childhood. This is fine; an adult should have a mature faith, not an immature one. The longer I live, the more comfortable I become with uncertainty. Trusting in God can be difficult, even when God does not seem to be remote. Yet this move is essential; the quest for certainty is idolatrous when God requires faith.
Now, O reader, apply these themes to communal faith. Perhaps a congregation has been struggling faithfully for years or decades. Maybe hardships have been a group’s reality for decades or centuries. God may have seemed remote for a long time. Why has God not delivered these groups? And to whom can these groups turn for help?
Faithfulness to God–communal or individual–does not guarantee success as “the world” measures it. Consider the case of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (213-268) and his flock, O reader.
St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, whom Origen had converted to Christianity, was a lawyer in Neocaesarea, Pontus, Asia Minor, Roman Empire (now Turkey). The church in Neocaesarea consisted of seventeen people when it elected him Bishop of Neocaesarea. St. Gregory served dutifully for decades, during which he shephereded his flock through plagues, natural disasters, the Gothic invasion, and the Decian Persecution. When St. Gregory died, his flock still numbered seventeen.
May we, as groups, live into our best possible character in God. May we discern what God calls us to do and to be. May we disregard prejudices which we may have learned yet which violate the Golden Rule. And may we always trust in God, even when doing so is difficult.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
FEBRUARY 2, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF THE PRESENTATION OF JESUS IN THE TEMPLE
Psalm 83 contains elements already familiar to me as I blog my way through the Psalter:
A prayer for national deliverance,
The identification of the enemies of Israel and Judah as the foes of God,
Petitions for revenge against those adversaries, and
The assertion of divine sovereignty.
I understand that all governments–even the most benevolent ones–are merely human. Therefore, I do not assume that the adversaries of Israel and Judah (including the modern State of Israel) were/are necessarily enemies of God. No government is beyond legitimate criticism, after all.
The real point of Psalm 83 seems to be to pray for what, in Christian terms, we call the fully-realized Kingdom of God. The venom in the prayers of the attacked is both predictable and understandable. Yet that venom is also spiritually toxic. Giving voice to that venom for the purpose of purging the system has benefits. Marinating in revenge fantasies has no benefits, though.
So, as we–regardless of our circumstances–await the fully-realized Kingdom of God, may injustice fill us with righteous indignation. May we–both collectively and individually–act to leave the world and some corners of it better than we found them. May we act as agents of God. And may we never marinate in revenge fantasies.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JANUARY 31, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF CHARLES FREDERICK MACKENZIE, ANGLICAN BISHOP OF NYASALAND, AND MARTYR, 1862
THE FEAST OF ANTHONY BÉNÉZET, FRENCH-AMERICAN QUAKER ABOLITIONIST
Psalm 82 is a timeless text containing a linguistic fossil of abandoned Jewish polytheism. So, “the gods” or “the divine beings” (depending upon translation), formerly members of the divine council, are the elohim, literally. They are demoted deities in the text. “God” is also elohim, literally. One elohim condemns the other elohim in Hebrew wordplay.
The demoted elohim have failed to administer the earth justly. They have judged dishonestly/perversely (depending upon translation) and favored the wicked. The demoted elohim have failed to grant justice to the poor, the orphaned, the lowly, and the wretched. Therefore, God has condemned the demoted elohim to mortality. And God, who is sovereign, is alone the true and just judge. God is universal; the gods of the other peoples are not the masters of their allegedly patron nations.
Arise, O God, judge the earth,
for You hold in estate all the nations.
–Psalm 82:8, Robert Alter
The echo of Jewish polytheism, which took centuries to purge from the faith, does not surprise me. The Bible speaks of this topic elsewhere–in prophetic writings, especially. Archaeology also confirms it. Yet I am not content to read Psalm 82 only on this level. The ancient text contains a message for today, regardless of variations in circumstances.
Who are our elohim? Who are those who are supposed to administer injustice yet do not? Who are those who judge dishonestly and favor the wicked? Who are those who deny justice of the poor, the orphans, the lowly, and the wretched? Who are those who exploit others? Those are our elohim.
Psalm 82 tells them:
Yet indeed like humans you shall die,
and like one of the princes, fall.
–Verse 7, Robert Alter
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JANUARY 30, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF LESSLIE NEWBIGIN, ENGLISH REFORMED MISSIONARY AND THEOLOGIAN
THE FEAST OF SAINT BATHILDAS, QUEEN OF FRANCE
THE FEAST OF SAINT DAVID GALVÁN BERMÚDEZ, MEXICAN ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MARTYR IN MEXICO, 1915
THE FEAST OF FREDERICK OAKELEY, ANGLICAN THEN ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST
THE FEAST OF SAINTS GENESIUS I OF CLERMONT AND PRAEJECTUS OF CLERMONT, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS; AND SAINT AMARIN, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT
THE FEAST OF SAINT JACQUES BUNOL, FRENCH ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MARTYR, 1945
Psalm 68 is either the most difficult entry in the Psalter or one of the most difficult psalms, depending on the Biblical scholar with whom one agrees. The disjointed text contains 15 words found nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, plus many words rare in that canon. Psalm 68, which reads like a series of first lines of psalms, describes the divine victory over God’s foes and affirms Jerusalem’s status as the place of divine dominion.
Psalm 68 does have a coherent message, though:
The reign of God is never fully manifested; it is always opposed. The people of Israel and Jerusalem were regularly assaulted; Jesus was crucified. Or, to put it in slightly different terms, the proclamation of God’s reign is always polemical. For the psalmist, to say that Yahweh is sovereign means that Baal is not. For first-century Christians, to say that Jesus is Lord meant that Caesar is not. For contemporary Christians, to say that God rules the world, and that Jesus is Lord is to deny ultimacy and ultimate allegiance to a host of other claims–national security, political parties, economic systems, ethnic heritage, job, family, self. Indeed, the underlying temptation represented by Baalism is perhaps more prevalent than ever–that is, to conclude that human beings can manipulate the deity and thus ensure security by our own efforts.
–J. Clinton McCann, Jr., in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 4 (1996), 947
The illusion of control may be near the top of the list of most common idols. This illusion feeds our egos and creates and exacerbates a plethora of unnecessary problems. Indeed, to accept the sovereignty of God entails surrendering other sources of identity. In some contexts, to accept to accept the sovereignty of God may make on a traitor, as in the case of Christians for centuries during the Roman imperial period. In the context of the Roman imperial cult:
Christianity was, quite unambiguously, a cosmic sedition.
–David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (2009), 124
And the Book of Revelation, which denounces the Roman Empire as being Satanic, constitutes treason against the Roman Empire. The Apocalypse of John is not a go-along, get-along text.
Our identities as people of God are properly rooted in God. God properly and fully defines us. Our accomplishments do not properly and fully define us. Neither do our socio-economic status, our careers, our partisan affiliations, our cultures, our skin colors, our genders, or anything else. And we depend on God. Can we handle these truths?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JANUARY 23, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN THE ALMSGIVER, PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA
THE FEAST OF CHARLES KINGSLEY, ANGLICAN PRIEST, NOVELIST, AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF EDWARD GRUBB, ENGLISH QUAKER AUTHOR, SOCIAL REFORMER, AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF GEORGE A. BUTTRICK, ANGLO-AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR; AND HIS SON, DAVID G. BUTTRICK, U.S. PRESBYTERIAN THEN UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST MINISTER, THEOLOGIAN, AND LITURGIST
THE FEAST OF JAMES D. SMART, CANADIAN PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF PHILLIPS BROOKS, EPISCOPAL BISHOP OF MASSACHUSETTS, AND HYMN WRITER
Psalm 48 focuses on God, who protects Jerusalem. The text refers also to international conflicts.
Psalm 48 was a text which pilgrims to Jerusalem recited in antiquity.
The historical problem is obvious: Powers have destroyed Jerusalem more than once. So, according to one interpretation, divine protection of the city has failed numerous times.
A deeper reading of the text reveals a different interpretation, though. Psalm 48 uses metaphors effectively. Jerusalem is not just Jerusalem; it represents the reign of God in all times and places. Jerusalem symbolizes the sovereignty of God. No human power can thwart divine sovereignty. That is hopeful.
Those devout Jews who prayed Psalm 48 after the termination of the Babylonian Exile understood that Jerusalem was not indestructible. So did those who prayed this text after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. Neither was the psalmist naïve.
The psalmists knew…and we still know that we live in a time and space as part of a world that is fragile and troubled, terrified, and terrifying. Yet, in the midst of it all, we join the psalmist in proclaiming a new reality: God rules the world! What’s more, we claim to live by that reality above all others. For the psalmist, the vision of Jerusalem, the city of God, reshaped time and space….
–J. Clinton McCann, Jr., in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 4 (1996), 874
Realized eschatology holds that the Kingdom of God does not come; it is. We mere mortals live in linear time; God does not. So, the reality of the Kingdom of God may seem to be partial or delayed, from a human perspective. Certain events, in linear time, make the reality of the Kingdom of God more evident than it had seemed.
Realized eschatology may be sound theology, but it may also provide little comfort for people in war zones and other unpleasant circumstances. I concede that point readily. However, I return to the matter of hope, related to the sovereignty of God. If we lack hope, we may be unable to move forward spiritually. If we lack hope, we may be unable to continue living. If we lack hope, we may have no standard by which to establish an ideal. If we lack hope, we may surrender to the darkness.
May we, in God, maintain hope.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JANUARY 10, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN THE GOOD, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF MILAN
THE FEAST OF ALLEN WILLIAM CHATFIELD, ANGLICAN PRIEST, HYMN WRITER, AND TRANSLATOR
THE FEAST OF LOUISE CECILIA FLEMING, AFRICAN-AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONARY AND PHYSICIAN
THE FEAST OF SAINT MARIA DOLORES RODRIGUEZ SOPEÑA Y ORTEGA, FOUNDER OF THE CENTERS OF INSTRUCTION, THE ASSOCIATION OF THE SOLIDALITY OF THE VIRGIN MARY, THE LADIES OF THE CATECHETICAL INSTITUTE, THE ASSOCIATION OF THE APOSTOLIC LAYMEN/THE SOPEÑA LAY MOVEMENT, THE WORKS OF THE DOCTRINES/THE CENTER FOR THE WORKERS, AND THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL WORK SOPEÑA/THE SOPEÑA CATECHETICAL INSTITUTE
THE FEAST OF W. SIBLEY TOWNER, U.S. PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR
THE FEAST OF WILLIAM GAY BALLANTINE, U.S. CONGREGATIONALIST MINISTER, EDUCATOR, SCHOLAR, POET, AND HYMN WRITER
Psalms 47, 93, and 95-99 are kingship psalms, for they refer to God as king.
God is sovereign over the created order, time, and all nations. God is the God of the covenant. YHWH is the sole deity; the false gods are “ungods.” The Jews are the Chosen People, yet YHWH is no mere tribal or national deity. Gentiles come into the fold, too.
The eschatological vision and high poetry of these psalms may prompt the same sigh of disappointment as do promises that the Kingdom of God is at hand in the New Testament. One may recall the lament of Alfred Loisy (1857-1940), from 1902:
Jesus came proclaiming the kingdom, and what arrived was the Church.
Yet Psalms 47, 93, and 95-99 hold up hope:
And the hope of these psalms is important, for without this powerful transformative symbol, the pitiful regimes of the present age claim to be, and seem, absolute and eternal. Thus, without this disruptive metaphor, oppressive regimes seem to be eternally guaranteed. It is not different on the American scene with our absolutizing of military capitalism. But we live in hope, because this metaphor keeps all present power arrangements provisional. They are all kept under scrutiny and judgment by this one who will finally govern.
–Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary (1984), 151-152
One function of eschatological vision is to provide a standard against which to measure the current world disorder. The eschatological standard reveals how far regimes, institutions, and societies fall short of the divine ideal. Therefore, one has a solid basis on which to confront these subpar regimes, institutions, and societies. One can say conclusively that we all answer to God, sovereign in everything and everyone.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JANUARY 9, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF JULIA CHESTER EMERY, UPHOLDER OF MISSIONS
THE FEAST OF EMILY GREENE BALCH, U.S. QUAKER SOCIOLOGIST, ECONOMIST, AND PEACE ACTIVIST
THE FEAST OF GENE M. TUCKER, UNITED METHODIST MINISTER AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR
THE FEAST OF JOHANN JOSEF IGNAZ VON DÖLLINGER, DISSIDENT AND EXCOMMUNICATED GERMAN ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, THEOLOGIAN, AND HISTORIAN
THE FEAST OF SAINT PHILIP II OF MOSCOW, METROPOLITAN OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA, AND MARTYR, 1569
THE FEAST OF THOMAS CURTIS CLARK, U.S. DISCIPLES OF CHRIST EVANGELIST, POET, AND HYMN WRITER
BLOGA THEOLOGICA 
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