Proper 27, Year C

Above:  Salonica, Greece, Between 1910 and 1915

Image Source = Library of Congress

Reproduction Number = LC-DIG-ggbain-11634

Image Created by the Bain News Service

Vindication by God

The Sunday Closest to November 9

Twenty-Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

NOVEMBER 6, 2022

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The Assigned Readings:

Haggai 1:15b-29 and Psalm 145:1-5, 18-22 or Psalm 98

or 

Job 19:23-27a and Psalm 17:1-9

then 

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

Luke 20:27-38

The Collect:

O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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Some Related Posts:

Prayer of Praise and Adoration:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/prayer-of-praise-and-adoration-for-the-twenty-fifth-sunday-after-pentecost/

Prayer of Dedication:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/prayer-of-dedication-for-the-twenty-fifth-sunday-after-pentecost/

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I know that I have a living Defender

and that he will rise up last, on the dust of the earth.

After my awakening, he will set me close to him,

and from my flesh I shall look on God.

–Job 19:25-26, The New Jerusalem Bible

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The root word for “redeem” descends from the Latin verb meaning “to buy.”  Thus, if Christ has redeemed us, he has bought us.

The root word for “vindicate” descends from the Latin word meaning “avenger.”  One definition of “vindicate,” according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3d. Ed. (1996), is:

To justify or prove the worth of, especially in the light of later developments.

Job, in the book, which bears his name, had confidence in God’s vindication of him.  The author of Psalm 17 wrote in a similar line of thought.

Sometimes we want God to do for us more than we want to do for God’s glory.  Thus we might neglect a task (such as rebuilding the Temple in Haggai 1).  No surviving Jew about 2500 years ago recalled the splendor of Solomon’s Temple.  It was a splendor created by high taxes and forced labor, but those facts did not occur in writing in Haggai 1.  Nevertheless, the call for a Second Temple remained.  And the Sadducees in the reading from Luke asked an insincere and irrelevant question about levirate marriage and the afterlife.  They sought to vindicate themselves, not find and answer to a query.

Knowing sound teaching can prove difficult.  How much is flawed tradition and how much is sound tradition?  I have been adding many of the sermon outlines of George Washington Barrett (1873-1956), my great-grandfather, at TAYLOR FAMILY POEMS AND FAMILY HISTORY WRITINGS (http://taylorfamilypoems.wordpress.com/).  According to him, my fondness for rituals detracts from true spirituality, the fact that my Rector is female constitutes a heresy, and even my rare alcoholic drink is sinful.  I label his positions on these matters as of his time and subculture, not of God.  I am myself, not my great-grandfather.  Yet certain basics remain indispensable.  The lordship of Christ is among them.

Cultural and subcultural biases aside, may we cling securely to Jesus, our Redeemer, Defender, and Vindicator, whose Advent we anticipate liturgically and otherwise.  May we want more to do things for his glory than we want him to do for us.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 3, 2013 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT MORAND OF CLUNY, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONK AND MISSIONARY

THE FEAST OF SAINTS LIPHARDUS OF ORLEANS AND URBICIUS OF MEUNG, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOTS

THE FEAST OF THE MARTYRS OF UGANDA

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/vindication-by-god-2/

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