Archive for the ‘Southern Presbyterian Church’ Tag
Above: The Taking of Christ, by Jacques de l’Ange
Image in the Public Domain
Loving Like Jesus
MARCH 20, 2022
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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 6:1-11
Psalm 103:1-18
Colossians 2:6-19
John 18:1-14
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Looking for Jesus is a theme in the readings from the New Testament. The germane question is why one seeks him–to control or arrest him, with ultimate lethal intent or to follow him. One can never control Jesus, of course. But one can follow him. Doing so entails repentance–actions, not just words or intentions. Fortunately, God seems to like repentance.
Aspects of the readings from Hosea 6 and Colossians 2 require unpacking. Hosea 6:4-11 condemns mistaking sacred rituals for talismans. The Law of Moses, of which the Book of Hosea is fond, mandates certain rituals, but does not mistake them for talismans. Obey the Law of Moses, with its moral obligations and keep the rituals, Hosea 6 teaches. Likewise, there are Hellenistic cultural contextual issues at work in Colossians 2. May you, O reader, and I never repeat the error of the General Assembly of the old Presbyterian Church in the United States (the “Southern Presbyterian Church”), which approved the following resolution:
There is no warrant for the observance of Christmas and Easter as holy days, but rather the contrary (see Galatians iv. 9-11; Colossians ii. 16-21), and such observance is contrary to the principles of the Reformed faith, conducive to will-worship, and not in harmony with the simplicity of the gospel in Jesus Christ.
The theme of the reading from Colossians 2 is the proper use of Christian liberty. We are free in Christ to follow him. The worldly distractions you, O reader, and I may contend with may be quite different from those for the original audience of the Letter to the Colossians. May we not mistake culturally specific examples of timeless principles for those principles.
Loving one’s neighbor as one loves oneself can get one in deep trouble. Obeying the moral obligations of divine commandments can be perilous. Of course, the servant is not greater than the master.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JANUARY 7, 2021 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF FRANÇOIS FÉNELON, ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CAMBRAI
THE FEAST OF SAINT ALDRIC OF LE MANS, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP
THE FEAST OF SAINT ANGELA OF FOLIGNO, PENITENT AND HUMANITARIAN
THE FEAST OF SAINT GASPAR DEL BUFALO, FOUNDER OF THE MISSIONARIES OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD
THE FEAST OF SAINT LUCIAN OF ANTIOCH, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR, 312
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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2021/01/07/loving-like-jesus-part-iv/
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Above: St. Titus
Image in the Public Domain
Difficulty
FEBRUARY 25, 2024
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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:
Genesis 9:18-27
Psalm 39:4-8a
Titus 2:1-10
Matthew 12:38-42
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Some of the readings for this Sunday are difficult. Genesis 9:18-27 gives us the misnamed Curse of Ham (“Cursed be Canaan,” verse 25 says). This curse follows a euphemistic description of either the castration or the incestuous and homosexual rape of Noah by his son Ham. As one acquainted with the shameful history of racism, slavery, and institutionalized racial segregation in the United States knows well, the misuse of this passage to justify these sins is an old story. I know that story well, due to reading in both primary and secondary sources. Primary sources include back issues of The Presbyterian Journal (founded as The Southern Presbyterian Journal), a publication by and for ardent defenders of racism and institutionalized racial segregation in the 1940s forward, some of whom went on to found the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), schismatic to the Presbyterian Church in the United States, or, informally, the old Southern Presbyterian Church, in 1973. (The events of 1942-1972 are not ancient history!) I have index cards from which I can cite many examples of quoting this and other passages of scripture to criticize efforts to work for the civil rights of African Americans, so nobody should challenge me regarding the facts of this objective matter.
Titus 2:1-10 is likewise troublesome. Insisting upon submissive wives and slaves is indefensible. If one thinks that Jesus might return during one’s lifetime, one might not argue for social reform. God will take care of that, right? Maybe not! Besides, do we not still have the moral obligation to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. The epistle dates to the first century C.E. I am typing this post in 2017, however. The passage of time has proven the inaccuracy of the expectation that Jesus would return in the first century C.E.
David Ackerman summarizes these two readings as focusing
on ways in which God calls Christians to repent of misusing the Bible to the unjust exclusion and oppression of others.
—Beyond the Lectionary (2013), pages 37-38
The lack of faith of certain scribes and Pharisees is evident in Matthew 12, for they request a sign from Jesus. (Faith requires no signs.) Our Lord and Savior replies in such a way as to indicate
rejection experienced in death yet God’s victory over it.
—The New Interpreter’s Study Bible (2003), page 1768
The possibility of death is evident in Psalm 39. A sense of awareness of one’s mortality and vulnerability pervades the text. The author turns to God for deliverance.
Sometimes deliverance from death does not come. Yet, in God, there is victory over death.
May, via God, there also be an end to
unjust exclusion and oppression of others.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JUNE 6, 2018 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF FRANKLIN CLARK FRY, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA AND THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA
THE FEAST OF SAINT CLAUDE OF BESANCON, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, MONK, ABBOT, AND BISHOP
THE FEAST OF HENRY JAMES BUCKOLL, AUTHOR AND TRANSLATOR OF HYMNS
THE FEAST OF WILLIAM KETHE, PRESBYTERIAN HYMN WRITER
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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/difficulty/
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Above: A Germane Source Card from My Collection of Research Note Cards
Image Source = Kenneth Randolph Taylor
Liberating Grace
APRIL 27 AND 28, 2023
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The Collect:
O God our shepherd, you know your sheep by name
and lead us to safety through the valleys of death.
Guide us by your voice, that we may walk in certainty and security
to the joyous feast prepared in your house,
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 33
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The Assigned Readings:
Exodus 2:15b-25 (19th Day)
Exodus 3:16-22; 4:18-20 (20th Day)
Psalm 23 (Both Days)
1 Peter 2:9-12 (19th Day)
1 Peter 2:13-17 (20th Day)
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You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me;
you have anointed my head with oil,
and my cup is running over.
–Psalm 23:5, Book of Common Worship (1993)
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Names have power, or so many people believed in the time of Moses. To know someone’s name was usually to have some power over that person, hence God provides more of a description than a name–and a vague one at that–in response to the query of Moses. The transliterated Hebrew text reads:
Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh,
which is how TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985) renders it. The germane footnote in the that translation says:
Meaning of Heb. uncertain; variously translated: “I Am That I Am”; “I Am Who I Am”; “I Will Be What I Will Be”; etc.
The relevant note in The Jewish Study Bible (2004) begins:
God’s proper name, disclosed in the next verse, is YHVH (spelled “yod-heh-vav-heh” in Heb.; in ancient times the “vav” was pronounced “w”). But here God first tells Moses its meaning: Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh, probably best translated as “I Will Be What I Will Be,” meaning “My nature will become evident from My actions.”
–page 111
“Ehyeh,” or “I Will Be,” is not a name that says much. It denies opportunities to attempt to have power over God and preserves mystery while indicating how to learn about God.
Volume I (1994) of The New Interpreter’s Bible informs me that the name YHVH/YHWH derives from the Hebrew verb meaning “to be,” so:
This God is named as the power to create, the one who causes to be. This God is the one who will be present in faithful ways to make possible what is not otherwise possible. This God is the very power of newness that will make available new life for Israel outside the deathliness of Egypt.
–page 714
The politics of Exodus 2 and 3 is that of liberation of the oppressed from their oppressors. God, these texts tell us, will free the Hebrews from the tyranny of the Pharaoh. Yet I read difficult politics–that of submission to authority, regardless of its moral nature–in 1 Peter 2:13-17. The next pericope is more chilling, for it tells slaves to obey their masters. There have been different forms of slavery over the course of time, of course, but I propose that this, for the point I am making today, is a distinction without a difference; no form of human slavery is morally acceptable. 1 Peter comes from a time when many Christians were attempting to prove that they did not constitute a threat to the Roman Empire, which had executed the founder of their religion via crucifixion. And many Christians thought that Jesus might return soon, so social reform or revolution was not a priority for some.
The relationship of Christians to civil authority has long been a challenging one, especially in Lutheran theology. And the arch-conservative (racist and reactionary, really) Presbyterian Journal, which helped to give birth to the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) denomination in December 1973, spent much of the 1940s through the 1960s lambasting civil rights efforts and activists and quoting the Bible to justify Jim Crow laws. (I have examined original copies of the publication and possess the notes to prove the statement I just made.) The Journal writers, who called Martin Luther King, Jr., a Communist even after he had died, did not approve of his opposition to the Vietnam War either. They, in fact, criticized in very strong terms even conscientious objectors and all forms of civil disobedience, claiming them to be contrary to Christianity. The beating of this drum continued into the 1970s. In the 30 October 1974 issue, on pages 11 and 16, Editor G. Aiken Taylor commended and reprinted words by one Joan B. Finneran, whom he called
an elect lady of Simpsonville, MD.
Finneran wrote that the Bible commands us to obey earthly authority, for God establishes governments. Therefore:
When a Herod or a Hitler comes into power, we must thereby assume this is the Lord’s plan; He will use even such as these to put His total plan into effect for the good of His people here on earth.
God is in control, Finneran wrote, even if we, in our ignorance, do not understand divine plans. And we Americans ought to vote carefully and to pray for our elected officials–and obey them, of course. Finneran’s message, cloaked in details of Reformed theology,was one of submission to authority–even genocidal tyrants. That fact overrides any technically correct parts of her case in my mind.
I reject Finneran’s message, for, if one cannot disobey the Third Reich righteously, which regime can one oppose properly? Even the very conservative Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America understood the limits of obedience to human authority well in 1896, when the Synod passed a resolution condemning the Ottoman Empire for its massacres of Armenians and declaring that the Sultan’s regime had lost its moral right to govern.
I must, in all fairness and accuracy, point out that the Presbyterian Church in America has (subsequent to 1974) approved of civil disobedience in some cases and (in 2004) approved a pastoral letter condemning racism.
The Old Testament reveals the character of God mostly by recounting what God has done. God has, among other things, freed people. The central theme of the Bible is liberation to follow God. Our patterns of behavior reveal our character. Do we even try to follow God? Do we even attempt to aid those who suffer? Do we even care about the oppressed? Good intentions are positive, of course; they are preferable to bad ones. Yet we need grace to succeed. That, fortunately, is plentiful from God, who makes life itself and new life free from tyranny possible.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 16, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE SIXTEENTH DAY OF ADVENT, YEAR A
THE FEAST OF GUSTAF AULEN, SWEDISH LUTHERAN THEOLOGIAN
THE FEAST OF SAINT ADELAIDE, HOLY ROMAN EMPRESS
THE FEAST OF MARIANNE WILLIAMS, ANGLICAN MISSIONARY
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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/liberating-grace/
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Above: Christ Episcopal Church, Norcross, Georgia, March 11, 2012
Image Source = Bill Monk, Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta
Exodus and Mark, Part I: Liberation Via Jesus
MARCH 26, 2023
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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 everlasting 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:
Exodus 1:1-22
Psalm 84 (Morning)
Psalms 42 and 32 (Evening)
Mark 14:12-31
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Some Related Posts:
A Prayer to See Others As God Sees Them:
http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/a-prayer-to-see-others-as-god-sees-them/
A Prayer for Compassion:
http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/a-prayer-for-compassion/
A Prayer to Embrace Love, Empathy, and Compassion, and to Eschew Hatred, Invective, and Willful Ignorance:
http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/a-prayer-to-embrace-love-empathy-and-compassion-and-to-eschew-hatred-invective-and-willful-ignorance/
A Prayer of Thanksgiving for the Holy Eucharist:
http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/a-prayer-of-thanksgiving-for-the-holy-eucharist/
Prayer:
http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/prayer-for-the-fifth-sunday-in-lent/
Prayer of Praise and Adoration:
http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/prayer-of-praise-and-adoration-for-the-fifth-sunday-in-lent/
Prayer of Confession:
http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/prayer-of-confession-for-the-fifth-sunday-in-lent/
Prayer of Dedication:
http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/prayer-of-dedication-for-the-fifth-sunday-in-lent/
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Sin permeates and corrupts our entire being and burdens us more and more with fear, hostility, guilt, and misery. Sin operates not only within individuals but also within society as a deceptive and oppressive power, so that even men of good will are unconsciously and unwillingly involved in the sins of society. Man cannot destroy the tyranny of sin in himself or in his world; his only hope is to be delivered from it by God.
–Total Depravity Paragraph, A Brief Statement of Belief (1962), Presbyterian Church in the United States
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The midwives who spared Hebrew boys were heroines. Too often readers of Exodus might read past the names of Shiphrah and Puah quickly. Yet may we pause and repeat these names with much respect. They put themselves at great risk for strangers. It was the right thing to do.
Jesus, in the other main reading, was about to put himself at risk. (Look ahead: Gethsemane occurs in the next day’s Gospel lection.) He put himself at risk for those he knew and many more he did not–in his generation and succeeding ones. First, though, he instituted the Holy Eucharist, a sacrament in which we take him (literally) into our bodies. If we are what we eat and drink, may the Holy Eucharist make us more like our Lord and Savior.
I have heard and pondered a convincing theological case that the Exodus is the central theme of the Christian Bible. the miracle of the Exodus, according to the Book of Exodus, is not that the waters parted. 14:21 speaks of
a strong east wind
(TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures),
an attempt at a natural explanation. (If one accepts nature as an expression of God, divine workings through nature are natural, not supernatural; no they are just a form of natural we might not understand in the way in which we grasp other natural events.) No, the miracle of the Exodus is that God freed the Hebrews from slavery.
Is not the message of the living Jesus (from the Incarnation to the Resurrection) liberation? Is it not the message of liberation from societal sin (including economically exploitative and/or religiously-backed systems), not just personal peccadilloes? As a supporter of civil rights for all people, I know that this conviction has fueled movements to end Jim Crow in the United States and Apartheid in South Africa, to name just two examples. “Sacrament” derives from the Latin word for or an oath or a solemn obligation. (Thanks to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language for that information.) The solemn obligation I make every time I partake of the Holy Eucharist is to follow my Lord, including in social liberation for my fellow human beings.
Recently I spent a rather intense two days working on a local history project for a fellow parishioner. Athens, Georgia, is the home of the Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery, an abandoned resting place for the remains of African Americans in Clarke County. I prepared a spreadsheet presenting information (derived from death certificates issued from 1919 to 1927) and available from the State of Georgia online) for 236 people. How old were they when they died? Why did they die? What did they do for a living? As I worked two-hour shifts I learned a great deal. And I wondered what their lives were like. Many were former slaves. Others had been born after emancipation. But all who died between 1919 and 1927 lived at the height of Jim Crow in Georgia. And I know that many self-described God-fearing white Christians defended Jim Crow, as many had done for the same relative to slavery. Some argued that God had ordained slavery and segregation–or just segregation. (I have read some of these defenses. I have note cards full of citations and can point to secondary studies on the subject.) Those whites, I am convinced, did not love all of their neighbors as they loved themselves, for they would not have subjected themselves to such an oppressive system and second-class citizenship.
I wonder what my racial attitudes would have been had I been born in 1873, not 1973. It is easy for me to be a racially liberal white person in 2012, but what would I have thought in Georgia in 1912, given the socialization then? Damning racist forebears is like picking low-hanging fruit, not that there is anything wrong with that. Yet I need to examine my own attitudes for the higher-hanging fruit. Everyone needs to examine himself or herself for negative attitudes. Which neighbors (especially as defined by groups) do we love less than others? And which, if any, do we dismiss, despise, or consider inferior? Which, if any, do we think unworthy of fewer civil liberties and civil rights? Do not all of us bear the image of God? Yet we approve of these sinful hierarchies and place ourselves in privileged positions at the expense of others.
The liberation via Jesus is not just of others from ourselves and of each of us from our personal peccadilloes; it is also liberation from ourselves, our biases, our prejudices, and our blind spots. It is liberation to love all our neighbors, people who bear the image of God.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MAY 29, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF THE FIRST U.S. PRESBYTERIAN BOOK OF CONFESSIONS, 1967
THE FEAST OF JIRI TRANOVSKY, HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINTS LUKE KIRBY, THOMAS COTTAM, WILLIAM FILBY, AND LAURENCE RICHARDSON, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS AND MARTYRS
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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/exodus-and-mark-part-i-liberation-via-jesus/
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LENTEN AND EASTER DEVOTIONS 
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