Archive for the ‘Luke 6’ Tag
Above: A Vineyard
Image in the Public Domain
Loving Like Jesus
APRIL 28, 2024
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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)
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Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:24-30 (LBW) or Psalm 22:25-31 (LW)
1 John 3:18-24
John 15:1-8
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O God, form the minds of your faithful people into a single will.
Make us love what you command and desire what you promise,
that, amid, all the changes of this world,
our hearts may be fixed where true joy is found;
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), 22
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O God, you make the minds of your faithful to be of one will;
therefore grant to your people that they may love what you command
and desire what you promise,
that among the manifold changes of this age our hearts
may ever be fixed where true joys are to be found;
through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.
—Lutheran Worship (1982), 53
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A common thread running through the readings for this Sunday is asking and receiving. For example:
Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
–1 John 3:21-23, Revised Standard Version–Second Catholic Edition (2002)
In other words, if we want what God desires, and if we pray for that, we will receive it. That makes sense. This message contradicts Prosperity Theology, an old heresy popular in certain quarters these days. If I, for example, need reliable transportation, praying for that is morally and spiritually acceptable. And I may receive a Chevrolet, not a Cadillac. I will, however, get from Point A to Point B safely and reliably. On a related note, the good life, in terms of the Book of Psalms, includes having enough for each day, not necessarily being wealthy.
Elsewhere in the New Testament, one can read about having the mind of Christ. That concept applies to the material for today. We have Jesus as, among other things, our role model. We, as Christians, must follow his example. We must love as he loved. When we consider that Christ’s love led to his execution, we realize that this mandate is serious business, not a mere slogan. The Right Reverend Robert C. Wright, the Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta, says to
love like Jesus.
Bishop Wright understands that this is serious business, not a mere slogan.
Think, O reader, what may happen to you if you were to love like Jesus in your context and to pray for causes consistent with the will of God? How would that change you? How would it change your community, your nation-state, and the world? What repercussions might you face for loving like Jesus? How many professing Christians would oppose you?
During my research for my M.A. thesis, I found a case in point. J. Robert Harris was the pastor of the Fort Gaines Baptist Church, Fort Gaines, Georgia, in the early and middle 1950s. He left that position under a cloud between August and November 1955. The chatty local newspaper never mentioned his departure, which followed either his firing or his forced resignation. (I read two versions of the story.) Harris had publicly supported the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and involved an African-American youth in his church’s vacation Bible school. Harris became the pastor of the Plains Baptist Church, Plains, Georgia, which he served until his resignation in the late 1960s. Failing health was the official cause of the resignation. However, the pastor’s recent sermon in favor of civil rights had been unpopular with his congregation. Harris had once preached a sermon in which he had asked his flock, in so many words:
If being Christian were a crime, would there be enough evidence to convict you?
In the case of J. Robert Harris, the answer was affirmative. He loved like Jesus and ran afoul of other professing Christians entrenched in racist social norms.
Loving like Jesus makes one a radical in a world with upside-down standards. Loving like Jesus entails living the Golden Rule. Loving like Jesus entails living both versions of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5 and Luke 6). Loving like Jesus entails bearing much fruit (John 15:8).
Psalm 22 speaks of God acting. In Hebrew thought, the actions of God reveal the divine character. Likewise, my actions reveal my character. And your actions, O reader, reveal your character. Is it a godly character?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MARCH 22, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE TWENTY-FIFTH DAY OF LENT
THE FEAST OF SAINT DEOGRATIAS, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF CARTHAGE
THE FEAST OF EMMANUEL MOURNIER, FRENCH PERSONALIST PHILOSOPHER
THE FEAST OF JAMES DE KOVEN, EPISCOPAL PRIEST
THE FEAST OF THOMAS HUGHES, BRITISH SOCIAL REFORMER AND MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
THE FEAST OF WILLIAM EDWARD HICKSON, ENGLISH MUSIC EDUCATOR AND SOCIAL REFORMER
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Link to the corresponding post at BLOGA THEOLOGICA
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Above: Good Shepherd
Image in the Public Domain
Sacred Violence and Good Shepherds
APRIL 21, 2024
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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)
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Acts 4:23-33
Psalm 23
1 John 3:1-2
John 10:11-18
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God of all power,
you called from death our Lord Jesus Christ,
the great shepherd of the sheep.
Send us as shepherds to rescue the lost,
to heal the injured,
and to feed one another with knowledge and understanding;
through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.
OR
Almighty God,
you show the light of your truth to those in darkness,
to lead them into the way of righteousness.
Give strength to all who are joined in the family of the Church,
so that they will resolutely reject what erodes their faith
and firmly follow what faith requires;
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), 22
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Almighty God, merciful Father,
since you have wakened from death the Shepherd of your sheep,
grant us your Holy Spirit that we may know the voice of our Shepherd
and follow him that sin and death may never pluck us out of your hand;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.
—Lutheran Worship (1982), 52
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The Fourth Sunday of Easter is Good Shepherd Sunday on more than one lectionary.
- YHWH is the Good Shepherd in Psalm 23. In that text, only divine goodness and steadfast love either pursue or accompany the psalmist. The enemies, not invited to the divine banquet, do not harm the psalmist.
- Jesus is the Good Shepherd in John 10. He knows his sheep, who, in turn, recognize him. And the Good Shepherd sacrifices himself for his sheep.
- Yet many in the “the world”–kosmos, in Greek–fail to recognize God and Jesus. These spiritually blind people live according to the values which the Beatitudes (Matthew 5) and the Beatitudes and Woes (Luke 6) contradict. Many of these spiritually blind people are conventionally religious, by the standards of their cultures or subcultures.
“Sacred violence” is a value of the kosmos, the morally disordered world. Notice the absence of “sacred violence” in Psalm 23 and John 10, O reader. God does not smite the psalmist’s foes. God does, however, force them to watch a grand banquet to which God did not invite them. And the perpetrators of the violence in John 10 are not acting out of divine love. These two readings contradict some disturbing stories of violence committed in the name of God and allegedly in obedience to divine commands. Elijah’s massacre of the prophets of Baal Peor (1 Kings 18:40-41) comes to my mind immediately.
I, having read the full canon of the Bible–all 73 books–reject the stereotype of God changing character between Testaments. Divine judgment and mercy exist in balance in both the Old and the New Testaments. Beautiful passages about divine mercy exist in both Testaments. Likewise, so do harrowing passages about divine judgment.
I am a Christian. Therefore, my concept of God hinges on Jesus of Nazareth. I read stories about Jesus dying violently, not having people killed. I read about Jesus expressing righteous anger, something everyone should do. Yet I read no stories about Jesus ordering hatred or violence. So, God, as I understand God, does not order hatred and violence either. No, God is love. God triumphs over hatred and violence with love.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MARCH 21, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE TWENTY-FOURTH DAY OF LENT
THE FEAST OF JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH, CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL BACH, AND JOHANN CHRISTIAN BACH, COMPOSERS
THE FEAST OF SAINT LUCIA OF VERONA, ITALIAN ROMAN CATHOLIC TERTIARY AND MARTYR, 1574
THE FEAST OF SAINT MARK GJANI, ALBANIAN ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MARTYR, 1947
THE FEAST OF SAINT NICHOLAS OF FLÜE AND HIS GRANDSON, SAINT CONRAD SCHEUBER, SWISS HERMITS
THE FEAST OF SAINT SERAPION OF THMUIS, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP
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Link to the corresponding post at BLOGA THEOLOGICA
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Above: Embrace of Elizabeth and the Virgin Mary
Image in the Public Domain
Humility and Arrogance
JUNE 1, 2020
DURING THE SEASON AFTER PENTECOST
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The Collect:
Almighty God, in choosing the virgin Mary to be the mother of your Son,
you made known your gracious regard for the poor and the lowly and the despised.
Grant us grace to receive your Word in humility, and so made one with 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), 33
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The Assigned Readings:
1 Samuel 2:1-10
Psalm 113
Romans 12:9-16b
Luke 1:39-57
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Depending on the date of Easter, and therefore of Pentecost, the Feast of the Visitation can fall in either the season of Easter or the Season after Pentecost.
The history of the Feast of the Visitation has been a varied one. The feast, absent in Eastern Orthodoxy, began in 1263, when St. Bonaventure introduced it to the Order of Friars Minor (the Franciscans), which he led. Originally the date was July 2, after the octave of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (June 24). Pope Urban VI approved the feast in 1389, the Council of Basel authorized it in 1441, propers debuted in the Sarum breviary of 1494, and Pope Pius V added the feast to the general calendar in 1561. In 1969, during the pontificate of Paul VI, Holy Mother Church moved the Feast of the Visitation to May 31, in lieu of the Feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which Pope Pius XII had instituted in 1954. The Episcopal Church added the Feast of the Visitation to its calendar in The Book of Common Prayer (1979). The feast had long been July 2 in The Church of England and much of Lutheranism prior to 1969. Subsequent liturgical revision led to the transfer of the feast to May 31 in those traditions.
The corresponding Eastern Orthodox feast on July 2 commemorates the placing of the Holy Robe of the Mother of God in the church at Blachernae, a suburb of Constantinople.
The theme of humility is prominent in the assigned readings and in the Lutheran collect I have quoted. A definition of that word might therefore prove helpful. The unabridged Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language (1951), a tome, defines humility as
Freedom from pride and arrogance; humbleness of mind; a modest estimate of one’s own worth; also, self-abasement, penitence for sin.
Humility refers to lowliness and, in the Latin root, of being close to the ground. God raising up the lowly is a Lukan theme, as is God overthrowing the arrogant. After all, the woes (Luke 6:24-26) follow the Beatitudes (6:20-25), where Jesus says,
Blessed are you who are poor,
not
Blessed are you who are poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3).
The first will be last and the last will be first, after all.
Wherever you are, O reader, you probably live in a society that celebrates the boastful, the arrogant. The assigned readings for this day contradict that exultation of the proud, however. They are consistent with the ethic of Jeremiah 9:22-23:
Yahweh says this,
“Let the sage not boast of wisdom,
nor the valiant of valour,
nor the wealthy of riches!
But let anyone who wants to boast, boast of this:
of understanding and knowing me.
For I am Yahweh, who acts with faithful love,
justice, and uprightness on earth;
yes, these are what please me,”
Yahweh declares.
—The New Jerusalem Bible (1985)
St. Paul the Apostle channeled that ethic in 1 Corinthians 1:31 and 2 Corinthians 10:17, among other passages.
That which he understood well and internalized, not without some struggle, remains relevant and timeless.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JUNE 1, 2018 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT JUSTIN MARTYR, CHRISTIAN APOLOGIST AND MARTYR
THE FEAST OF SAINT PAMPHILUS OF CAESAREA, BIBLE SCHOLAR AND TRANSLATOR; AND HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS
THE FEAST OF SAMUEL STENNETT, ENGLISH SEVENTH-DAY BAPTIST MINISTER AND HYMN-WRITER; AND JOHN HOWARD, ENGLISH HUMANITARIAN
THE FEAST OF SAINT SIMEON OF SYRACUSE, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONK
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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2018/06/01/humility-and-arrogance-part-ii/
https://ordinarytimedevotions.wordpress.com/2018/07/12/devotion-for-the-feast-of-the-visitation-of-mary-to-elizabeth-years-a-b-c-and-d-humes/
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Above: Odd Fellows Widows’ and Orphans’ Home, Corsicana, Texas, 1910
J149681 U.S. Copyright Office
Copyright deposit; Jno. J. Johnson; 1910
Copyright claimant’s address: Ennis, Tex.
Photographer = John J. Johnson
Image Source = Library of Congress
Reproduction Number = LC-USZ62-133853
The Idol of Public Respectability
MAY 18, 2023
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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:
Proverbs 1:1-7
Psalm 119:145-176
Mark 12:35-37 or Luke 20:41-47
1 John 2:3-29
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The term “fear of God” should be “awe of God,” for the latter translation conveys the concept accurately. Certain distractions can draw our attention away from God and the awe thereof. Among these are suffering (not necessarily a distraction, per Psalm 119, yet a distraction for many), worldly appetites (also not necessarily distractions inherently, but distractions for many), and false teaching (always a distraction). The issue is idolatry. An idol is an object, teaching, philosophy, or practice that draws attention and awe away from God. Many idols for many people are not idols for many other people. If someone treats something as an idol, it is an idol for that person.
One can seem to be holy and free of idols yet be disingenuous. In the parallel readings from mark (extended) and Luke Jesus condemns those who put on airs of righteousness yet crave public respectability and devour the property of widows, in violation of the Law of Moses. The spiritual successors of the scribes Jesus condemned are numerous, unfortunately. Some of them even have their own television programs.
Public respectability is not a virtue in the Gospel of Luke:
Alas for you when the world speaks well of you! This was the way their ancestors treated the false prophets.
–Luke 6:26, The Jerusalem Bible (1966)
That saying’s companion is:
Happy are you when people hate you, drive you out, abuse you, denounce your name on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice when that day comes and dance for joy, then your reward will be great in heaven. This was the way their ancestors treated the prophets.
–Luke 6:23, The Jerusalem Bible (1966)
This is a devotion for the Feast of the Ascension. The selection of these lections seems odd, I admit, but one can make the connection. After the Ascension Jesus was no longer physically present with his Apostles. Afterward, however, the Holy Spirit descended upon them and empowered them to do much to spread the word of Jesus and to glorify God. Of the original Apostles (including St. Matthias, who replaced Judas Iscariot) only two did not die as martyrs. St. John the Evangelist suffered much for God and died of natural causes. Those Apostles (minus Judas Iscariot) did not crave and did not receive public respectability. They did, however, glorify God and change the world for the better.
May we resist the idol of public respectability and, by grace, live so as to glorify God and benefit our fellow human beings.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
OCTOBER 12, 2016 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF MARTIN DOBER, MORAVIAN BISHOP AND HYMN WRITER; JOHANN LEONHARD DOBER, MORAVIAN MISSIONARY AND BISHOP; AND ANNA SCHINDLER DOBER, MORAVIAN MISSIONARY AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF EDITH CAVELL, NURSE AND MARTYR
THE FEAST OF SAINT KENNETH OF SCOTLAND, ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONARY
THE FEAST OF SAINT NECTARIUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE, ARCHBISHOP
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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2016/10/12/the-idol-of-public-respectability/
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Above: The Prophet Isaiah, by Gustave Dore
Image in the Public Domain
Hospitality and Grace
APRIL 30, 2022
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The Collect:
Eternal and all-merciful God,
with all the angels and all the saints we laud your majesty and might.
By the resurrection of your Son, show yourself to us
and inspire us to follow Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 33
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The Assigned Readings:
Genesis 18:1-8
Psalm 30
Luke 14:12-14
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Genesis 18:1-8 and Luke 14:12-14 offer lessons regarding hospitality and the spirituality thereof.
Hospitality often defined the difference between life and death in Biblical times, as it continues to do. Extending hospitality was a moral duty, according to Old Testament authors and Jesus. It was, for them, part of the Law of Love and the web of obligations binding members of society together in mutual responsibility and in interdependence.
In the rural U.S. South in the 1800s it was commonplace for a farmhouse to have a guest room which opened onto the front porch and not into any room. A traveling stranger might need to spend the night. That type of accommodation saved the lives of many people.
The two examples of hospitality in the main readings for this day differ from each other. In Genesis 18 Abraham lavishes hospitality on three men, presumably God and two angels. We learn that they are present to announce Sarah’s upcoming and most improbable pregnancy. One might project words from Psalm 30 backward in time and place them into the mouth of Sarah, once she stopped laughing:
You have turned my wailing into dancing;
you have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.
Therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing;
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks for ever.
–Verses 12 and 13, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
The reading from Luke 14 is part of a scene. Jesus is dining at the home of a leader of the Pharisees on the Sabbath. Our Lord and Savior heals a man with dropsy in verses 1-6. Already Christ’s host and the other guests are hostile, for they watch him closely. Dropsy, aside from being a physical condition, functions as a metaphor for greed, for, although the affected man’s body retained too much fluid, he was thirsty for more. Jesus heals the sick man–on the Sabbath, in the presence of critics, no less, and symbolically criticizes his greedy host and other guests while restoring the man to wholeness. Then our Lord and Savior notices how the other guests choose the positions of honor in contrast to Proverbs 25:6-7a:
Do not exalt yourselves in the king’s presence;
Do not stand in the place of nobles.
For it is better to be told, “Stop up here,”
Than to be degraded in the presence of the great.
—TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985)
This is a story from the Gospel of Luke, with a theme of reversal of fortune, so the incident fits the Gospel well.
Jesus sounds much like the subsequent James 2:1-13. Sit in the lowest place, he advises; do not exalt oneself.
For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted?
–Luke 14:11, The New Revised Standard Version (1989)
Likewise, Jesus continues, invite and honor the poor, the lame, the blind, and the crippled with table fellowship. This ethos of the Kingdom of God’s priorities being at odds with those of the dominant perspectives of the world is consistent with the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-11) and the Beatitudes and Woes (Luke 6:20-26).
Give to those who can never repay, Jesus commands us. And why not? Has not God given us so much that we can never repay God? The demand of grace upon us is in this case is to do likewise to others–to do unto others as God has done unto us, to give without expectation of repayment.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 20, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT, YEAR C
THE FEAST OF SAINT DOMINIC OF SILOS, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT
THE FEAST OF SAINT PETER CANISIUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST
THE FEAST OF WILLIAM JOHN BLEW, ENGLISH PRIEST AND HYMN WRITER
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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2015/12/20/hospitality-and-grace/
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Above: Goliath Laughs at David, by Ilya Repin
Image in the Public Domain
Unexpected Agents of Grace
APRIL 21-23, 2022
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The Collect:
O God of life, you reach out to us amid our fears
with the wounded hands of your risen Son.
By your Spirit’s breath revive our faith in your mercy,
and strengthen us to be the body of your Son,
Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 33
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The Assigned Readings:
1 Samuel 17:1-23 (Thursday)
1 Samuel 17:19-32 (Friday)
1 Samuel 17:32-51 (Saturday)
Psalm 150 (All Days)
Acts 5:12-16 (Thursday)
Acts 5:17-26 (Friday)
Luke 24:36-40 (Saturday)
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Hallelujah!
Praise God in his holy temple;
praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him for his mighty acts;
praise him for his excellent greatness.
Praise him with the blast of the ram’s horn;
praise him with the lyre and harp.
Praise him with timbrel and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe.
Praise him with resounding cymbals;
praise him with loud-clanging cymbals.
Let everything that has breath
praise the LORD.
Hallelujah!
–Psalm 150, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
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The reasons to praise God are myriad, beyond any human capacity to count. One of those reasons is that God frequently works via people some of us (at best) consider unlikely agents of grace.
Consider David, O reader. Yes, I know that 2 Samuel 21:19 has Elhanan, son of Jair from Bethlehem kill Goliath of Gath, and that 1 Chronicles 20:5 has the same Elhanan kill Lahmi, brother Goliath. If that is not sufficiently confusing, David plays the lyre for King Saul in 1 Samuel 16 yet has not gone to work for the monarch yet in chapter 17. These contradictions result from the combining of differing traditions in the canon of scripture. Such contradictions are commonplace in the Old Testament, starting in the early chapters of Genesis. One needs merely to read the texts with great attention to detail to detect them.
I use 1 Samuel 17, in which David, not Elhanan, kills Goliath, for that is the version the framers of the lectionary I am following chose.
In 1 Samuel 17 young David seemed to be the least likely person to rid Israel of the menace Goliath posed. A crucified troublemaker from the Galilee seemed to be an unlikely candidate for an inspiring and timeless religious figure. Apostles hiding in fear after the crucifixion of Jesus seemed to be unlikely candidates for leaders in a movement to change the world. They faced persecution; most of them died as martyrs. As Jesus said,
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
–Luke 6:22-23, The New Revised Standard Version (1989)
The theme of seemingly unlikely agents of grace occurs in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). It is easy to overlook the fact that many in the original audience found the idea of a good Samaritan shocking, even beyond improbable.
The real question I address is not the identities of agents of grace but human biases regarding who is more or less likely to be one. We mere mortals need to learn theological humility, especially regarding how we evaluate each other. Do we even attempt to look upon each other as God perceives us?
The composite pericope from Acts 5 reminds us that functioning as an agent of grace might lead one to harm. Sometimes people suffer for the sake of righteousness because the light exposes darkness for what it is.
…the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
–John 1:5, The New American Bible–Revised Edition (2010)
Perhaps we do not recognize agents of grace sometimes because we are caught up in the darkness and are oblivious to that fact. Mustache-twirling villains, commonplace in simplistic morality plays, are rare in real life. Most “bad guys” imagine themselves to be good, or at least engaged in necessary, if unpleasant work.
Another reason for failing to recognize agents of grace is functional fixedness. We simply do not expect something, so we do not look for it. We seek agents of grace as we know them and miss those agents of grace who do not fit our preconceptions.
How might God surprise you, O reader, with unexpected (to you) agents of grace? And what will that grace cost you?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 18, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF MARC BOEGNER, ECUMENIST
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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2015/12/18/unexpected-agents-of-grace/
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Above: Christ Before Pilate, by Mihaly Munkracsy
Image in the Public Domain
Jesus, Threat
APRIL 2, 2022
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The Collect:
Creator God, you prepare a new way in the wilderness,
and your grace waters our desert.
Open our hearts to be transformed by the new thing you are doing,
that our lives may proclaim the extravagance of your love
given to all through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 29
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The Assigned Readings:
Exodus 12:21-27
Psalm 126
John 11:45-47
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When the LORD restored Zion
it was as though we were dreaming.
We could not speak for laughing,
we could only utter cries of joy.
Then the saying arose among the nations,
“The LORD has done something great with these people.”
The LORD has done something great with us;
we were delighted.
–Psalm 126:1-3, Harry Mowvley, The Psalms Introduced and Newly Translated for Today’s Readers (1989)
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The remembrance of what God has done (as in Psalm 126) and was about to do (as in Exodus 12) was supposed to inspire reverence for God, measurable in various ways, including how people treated others. The plot to scapegoat Jesus (in John 11) contradicted that ethic.
Celebrating Passover, the annual commemoration of God liberating the Hebrew slaves from Egypt, in occupied Jerusalem was politically sensitive. Furthermore, the Temple was the seat of collaboration with the Roman occupying forces. Jesus was a threat to the Temple authorities and, by extension, to their Roman overlords and partners. When he entered the city at the beginning of that fateful week leading up to his crucifixion, Jesus arrived in the manner of a triumphant king en route to peace talks after a battle. Our Lord and Savior, the Gospel of John makes clear, rejected offers to seek to expel the Romans, but many people, including Pontius Pilate, thought that Jesus might lead an insurrection. Even after Pilate realized that Jesus was not a political rebel, he understood our Lord and Savior to be a threat nevertheless. Jesus was a threat, but not in the way Pilate thought.
Jesus was a threat to a form of piety which privileged wealth and depended on a certain amount of it in a society which consisted primarily of illiterate peasants. Jesus was a threat to religious legalism. Jesus was a threat to religious practices which draped economic injustice in the cloak of piety.
Above: The Table of Contents from The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus (1925), by Bruce Barton
Scan by Kenneth Randolph Taylor
Jesus remains a threat to such practices in our time. We cannot kill him again. Besides, he did not remain dead for long the last time. We are capable, however, of attempting to domesticate Jesus. People left, right, and center have been engaged in this practice for a very long time. One might, for example, ignore the Beatitudes and Woes from Luke 6:17-26, downplay or ignore his apocalyptic teachings, or portray him as always nice and smiling. The genuine article, however, was–and remains–a threat to a variety of misconceptions about Jesus. I like to think that, even if I had not grown up in the Christian faith, I would have become a Christian because of the portrayal of Jesus in the four canonical Gospels.
The remembrance of what God has done and some awareness of what God is doing compel me to have reverence for God. Among the examples to which I point is Jesus. His life invites me to examine my life. Much of what he reveals to me makes me uncomfortable, but identifying a problem is the first step in correcting them.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 4, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF THOMAS COTTERILL, ENGLISH PRIEST, HYMN WRITER, AND LITURGIST
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN CALABRIA, FOUNDER OF THE CONGREGATION OF THE POOR SERVANTS AND THE POOR WOMEN SERVANTS OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE
THE FEAST OF JOSEPH MOHR, AUSTRIAN ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND HYMN WRITER
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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/jesus-threat/
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Above: A Watchtower in a Vineyard, 1898
Image Source = Library of Congress
Reproduction Number = LC-DIG-matpc-06021
Of Grapes and Fruit
MARCH 19, 2022
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The Collect:
Eternal God, your kingdom has broken into our troubled world
through the life, death, and resurrection of your Son.
Help us to hear your word and obey it,
and bring your saving love to fruition in our lives,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 28
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The Assigned Readings:
Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 63:1-8
Luke 6:43-45
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O God, you are my God, I seek you,
my soul thirst for you; my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is not water.
–Psalm 63:1, The Book of Worship of the Church of North India (1995)
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That is what a good grape from Isaiah 5:1-7 and a good fruit from Luke 6:43-45 would say. Unfortunately, the grapes are wild and the fruits are bad in those readings.
The excellent translation of Isaiah 5:7 from TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985), attempting to bring the effect of the Hebrew wordplay into English, rings inside my head:
For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts
Is the House of Israel,
And the seedlings He lovingly tended
Are the men of Judah.
And He hoped for justice,
But beheld, injustice;
For equity,
But behold, iniquity!
Social justice in the context of community, with responsibility of people to and for each other, and with all people accountable to God, is an essential part of the Law of Moses. I wonder, in fact, why I did not learn this growing up in the church–in a series of parsonages, actually. I had to learn this truth from a book after joining a Historical Jesus reading group in Athens, Georgia. In fact, much of my adult spiritual pilgrimage has consisted of abandoning what I learned as a child, for most of it was either wrong or woefully incomplete.
God commands us to live in love, to love each other as we love ourselves. Love of this variety leaves no room for any form of prejudice or animosity, or for any other obstacle to practicing the Golden Rule. This is a lesson I understand more intellectually than viscerally, but I continue to struggle with it. This is progress, at least, in my effort to cooperate with God to be a good grape and a good fruit.
May you, O reader, strive to be a good grape and a good fruit also. May you succeed, by grace.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 19, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF JOHANN HERMANN SCHEIN, GERMAN LUTHERAN COMPOSER
THE FEAST OF F. BLAND TUCKER, EPISCOPAL PRIEST
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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2015/11/19/of-grapes-and-fruit/
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Above: Fruit of the Christ Passion, an Icon
Image in the Public Domain
Upside-Down
MARCH 5, 2022
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The Collect:
O Lord God, you led your people through the wilderness and brought them to the promised land.
Guide us now, so that, following your Son, we may walk safely through the wilderness of this world
toward the life you alone can give, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 27
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The Assigned Readings:
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
John 12:27-36
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Psalm 91 reads in part:
Because you have made the Lord your refuge
and the Most High your stronghold,
There shall no evil happen to you,
neither shall any plague come near your tent.
–Verses 9 and 10, Common Worship (2000)
That stands in stark contrast to Jesus’s experience in John 12:27-36, for his time to die was near. His exaltation was a form of execution the Roman authorities intended to be humiliating.
Often reality contradicts expectations. Following God faithfully does not necessarily lead to peace and prosperity. God can transform shame into glory, pain into a means of salvation, death into life, and defeat into victory. The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-11 and Luke 6:20-23) and Woes (Luke 6:24-26) contradict conventional wisdom. God steadfastly refuses to fit into our figurative boxes.
One might find that reality maddening or liberating. The reality of Hod frees us (if we permit it to do so) from illusions and folly dressed up as wisdom. So yes, the crucifixion proved inadequate to keep Jesus dead. And the recurring theme of the reversal of fortunes in the Gospel of Luke has challenged readers of that text for nearly 2000 years. I refuse to avoid discomfort with those passages by distorting their plain meanings. The Kingdom of God seems upside-down relative to the dominant human order, but the latter is actually upside-down.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 10, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF EDWIN HATCH, ANGLICAN PRIEST, SCHOLAR, AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINT LEO THE GREAT, BISHOP OF ROME
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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2015/11/10/upside-down/
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Above: Moses With the Tablets of the Law, by Rembrandt Van Rijn
Image in the Public Domain
Wrestling With Biblical Texts
MAY 27, 2023
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The Collect:
O God, on this day you open the hearts of your faithful people
by sending us your Holy Spirit.
Direct us by the light of that Spirit,
that we may have a right judgment in all things
and rejoice at all times in your peace,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 36
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The Assigned Readings:
Exodus 20:1-21
Psalm 33:12-22
Matthew 5:1-12
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Shall we unpack the Ten Commandments, at least a little?
- Many more commandments follow immediately, starting in Exodus 20.
- Many of the Ten Commandments are self-explanatory, so not committing adultery against a neighbor are straight-forward, for example.
- Swearing falsely by the name of God refers to insincere oaths and to attempts to control God, not to certain curse words and related expressions.
- On the troubling side, the text classes wives with property and livestock (20:14) and allows for slavery (20:10).
- The commandment to have no other gods might deny the existence of other deities or mean simply not to worship them while acknowledging their existence. Hebrew Bible scholars debate that point. Yet I know that many Hebrews during Biblical times not only acknowledged the existence of other deities but worshiped some of them.
- Sometimes displaying the Ten Commandments constitutes idolatry, which intention defines.
Exodus 20:5-6 requires some explanation. Does God really punish descendants for someone’s sins? Or is this a description of behaviors repeated across generations? The ultimate context in which to consider any passage of Scripture is the entire canon thereof. Thus I point out that a note on page 149 of The Jewish Study Bible (2004) lists Deuteronomy 24:6; Jeremiah 31:29-30; and Ezekiel 18:1-20 as passages which state that God punishes a person for his or her sins alone. This nuance helps to fill out the picture. Sometimes Biblical authors wrote of effects as if they were divine purposes, even when they were not. Human understandings have changed, even if God has not.
If we read Exodus 20:5-6 as descriptive and interpret it within the context of the previously listed passages from Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, a certain understanding takes shape. One’s good and bad behaviors might echo for three or four or more generations. I can, for example, identify positive and negative legacies from two of my paternal great-grandfathers which have affected me. I, being aware of my responsibility for my own actions, have endeavored to keep the good and to break with the bad. God know how successful that has proven so far.
The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes are about, among other things, how faithful people of God ought to live with God and in community. Depending on one’s community, living with God properly might contradict the former and lead to persecutions–even death. The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12 and Luke 6:20-23) say that God’s order is not the dominant human one in which a person lives. The Beatitudes are counter-cultural. And Luke 6:24-26 (the Woes) goes beyond anything Matthew 5:3-12 indicates. If one really reads them, one should recognize that the Beatitudes and Woes remain political hot potatoes.
One part of the honest–not autopilot–interaction with the Bible I like is that we must wrestle with texts and reconsider aspects of our opinions, culture, politics, and economics–even ones which we like and which benefit us. This is healthy to do. We will do it if we take the Bible seriously and seek to cut through confirmation bias and defense mechanisms.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 20, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE TWENTIETH DAY OF ADVENT, YEAR A
THE FEAST OF SAINT DOMINIC OF SILOS, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT
THE FEAST OF SAINT PETER CANISIUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST
THE FEAST OF KATHERINA VON BORA LUTHER, WIFE OF MARTIN LUTHER
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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/wrestling-with-biblical-texts/
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LENTEN AND EASTER DEVOTIONS 
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