Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?

Above:  The Feast of Esther, by Jan Lievens

Image in the Public Domain

Hesed

OCTOBER 29, 2023

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Esther 7:1-10; 9:20-22 or Isaiah 61:10-62:3

Psalm 35:1-3, 9-18

1 Corinthians 13

Matthew 22:34-46

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Today’s readings from the Hebrew Bible reflect danger and divine deliverance.  In Esther and Isaiah the agents of divine deliverance are human beings.

The appeal for divine deliverance is the request for hesed, or loving kindness, steadfast love, keeping of faith.  That is a form of love that is covenantal and beyond sentimentality.  That is the human love in 1 Corinthians 13.  That is the love for God and neighbor in Matthew 22:34-40, quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, and sounding much like the then-fairly recently deceased Rabbi Hillel.

Two words I often hear misused are “love” and “friend.”  I like chocolate, not love it.  In the age of social media “friend” has taken on superficial and shallow connotations.  Regardless of how many “friends” one has on any given social media website, one is fortunate if one has a few friends face-to-face–people who will proverbially go through hell for one.  I mean no disrespect to Joseph Scriven (1820-1886), author of the hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”  Yet the passage,

Take it to the Lord in prayer!

is inaccurate.  If we define a friend as an individual who behaves as a friend, those alleged friends in the hymn are actually enemies.  If one has “friends” such as those, one joins the company of Job, afflicted by four enemies by the time the final author of that book wrote.

May we be agents of hesed to one another.  May we have hesed for God.  After all, God has hesed for all of us.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

SEPTEMBER 17, 2018 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT JUTTA OF DISIBODENBERG, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBESS; AND HER STUDENT, SAINT HILDEGARD OF BINGEN, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBESS AND COMPOSER

THE FEAST OF GERARD MOULTRIE, ANGLICAN PRIEST, HYMN WRITER, AND TRANSLATOR OF HYMNS

THE FEAST OF SAINT ZYGMUNT SZCESNY FELINSKI, ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF WARSAW, TITULAR BISHOP OF TARSUS, AND FOUNDER OF RECOVERY FOR THE POOR AND THE CONGREGATION OF THE FRANCISCAN SISTERS OF THE FAMILY OF MARY

THE FEAST OF SAINT ZYGMUNT SAJNA, POLISH ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MARTYR, 1940

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2018/09/17/hesed-part-iii/

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Above: The Madonna in Sorrow, by Sassoferrato, 1600s

“Holy Mary, Mother of God….”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Assigned Readings for This Feast:

Isaiah 61:10-11

Psalm 34 or Psalm 34:1-9

Galatians 4:4-7

Luke 1:46-55

The Collect:

O God, you have taken to yourself Blessed Mary, mother of your incarnate Son: Grant that we, who have been redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of your eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

One day in the middle 1990s, when I was late in my undergraduate college career, I sat in a mall food court in Brunswick, Georgia, with my parents and one my mother’s coworkers, a woman of the Protestant Pentecostal/Charismatic persuasion.  I had just purchased a two-CD set of settings of the Stabat Mater (a Roman Catholic devotional text about Jesus’ mother at the foot of the cross) composed in the 1600s and 1700s.  My mother’s coworker made a remark about the death of the Holy Mother of Our Lord, and I responded by affirming St. Mary’s assumption.  At that moment I realized how far I had moved from my Protestant upbringing and how glad I was to have done so.  I knew also that I did not live in the same theological universe as did many Protestants.

The Western Christian Church calendar contains multiple feasts of the Mother of God; this is the generic one on the Episcopal calendar.  (This is, however, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary on the Roman Catholic calendar.)  All such events are really feasts of Jesus, for St. Mary does not matter except within the context our Lord and Savior.  Jesus honored his mother; may we do likewise.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 13, 2010

THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST, YEAR C

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

From the Stabat Mater text:

Love’s sweet fountain, Mother tender,

haste this hard heart, soft to render,

make me sharer in Thy pain.

Fire me now with zeal so glowing,

love so rich to Jesus flowing,

that I favor may obtain.

Holy Mother, I implore Thee,

Crucify this heart before Thee-

Guilty it is verily!

Published Originally at SUNDRY THOUGHTS OF KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR on June 13, 2010