Above:   The Baptism of the Eunuch, by Rembrandt van Rijn

Image in the Public Domain

Comfort and Discomfort with Divine Love

MAY 30, 2016

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The Collect:

Merciful Lord God, we do not presume to come before you

trusting in our own righteousness,

but in your great and abundant mercies.

Revive our faith, we pray; heal our bodies, and mend our communities,

that we may evermore dwell in your Son,

Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.  Amen.

—Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 38

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The Assigned Readings:

Jonah 4:1-11

Psalm 5

Acts 8:26-40

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The lection from the Book of Jonah challenges audiences.  The main character is a fool who resists God’s call on a part of his life–to give Assyria, the archenemy, one last chance to repent.  Jonah, of course, cannot flee from God (Who can?), and he eventually accepts the vocation reluctantly.  He succeeds, much to his dismay.  He, like the author of Psalm 5, wants the evil to suffer for their sins.  Yet God loves the Assyrians also, and chastises Jonah.  The Book of Jonah.  The Book of Jonah ends without revealing the reluctant prophet’s reply to God.  The ambiguous ending of the great work of religious satire challenges all of us who like to think of ourselves as godly while clinging to resentments.

St. Philip the Deacon (not the apostle) became an instrument in the life of the Ethiopian eunuch, who desired to understand the Bible yet lacked a good teacher.  St. Philip, unlike Jonah, answered the call of God obediently and readily.  To do just that is a challenge for each of us.  Will we answer and act affirmatively or will we prefer that those hostile to us perish than repent?

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

FEBRUARY 29, 2016 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF JEMIMA THOMPSON LUKE, ENGLISH CONGREGATIONALIST HYMN WRITER; AND JAMES EDMESTON, ANGLICAN HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF BERNHARDT SEVERIN INGEMANN, DANISH LUTHERAN AUTHOR AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF EDWARD HOPPER, U.S. PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN CASSIAN, DESERT FATHER

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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/comfort-and-discomfort-with-divine-love/

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Above:  The Baptism of the Eunuch, by Rembrandt van Rijn

Joshua and Acts, Part II:  Religion and Nationalism

JUNE 27, 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:

Joshua 2:1-24

Psalm 36 (Morning)

Psalms 80 and 27 (Evening)

Acts 8:26-40

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Among the few named women in the Matthew version of our Lord’s family tree is Rahab, a prostitute of Jericho.  Danna Nolan Fewell, in her chapter on the Book of Joshua (pages 63-66) from The Woman’s Bible Commentary (1992), edited by Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, makes much of Rahab’s marginal status.  Yet the prostitute recognized Yahweh’s power, and thereby became an insider.  Four chapters later, she and her family found refuge in the midst of slaughter.

The notes on page 466 of The Jewish Study Bible (2004) explain how Jewish and Christian interpreters have dealt with a Bible story in which a prostitute is a heroic figure.  One tradition says that she converted, married Joshua, and became the mother of prophets.  Or perhaps, some have said, she was an innkeeper, not a harlot.  They point to the linguistic similarity between two Hebrew words.  Yet I think that the scandal of the story is something to accept, not from which to flee.

Another outsider who became an insider was the Ethiopian eunuch who struggled with Isaiah 53 until St. Philip the Evangelist, one of the early deacons, helped him to understand.  Of St. Philip we know little, but he did obey God and aid the eunuch in coming to Christ.

These stories point toward the universality of God’s call to we human beings.  The old (and yet current) notion of a tribal deity who favors just one nation or country is both inadequate and inaccurate.  Unfortunately, that tribal God notion pervades the Book of Joshua, which also contains the Rahab story, which offers a different vision.  The concept of a tribal God can prove quite appealing and comforting, for we assume quite often that God is on our side.  If, for example, God favors the State of Israel, what about the oppressed Palestinians? (They are people too.)  When does one cross a dangerous line and erect a national religion?  I am an American.  Is God always on the my country’s side in wars?  No!  My leaders, like those of all other countries, are mere mortals.

In my country’s past the Confederate States of America (CSA) fought for, among other things, the preservation of slavery; its founders said so before they claimed otherwise after the Civil War.  The CSA understood God to be on its side.  This was a great misapprehension.  I have read postwar church documents from the South.  In late 1865, for example, the newly-renamed Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), founded four years earlier as the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America (PCCSA), expressed official shock and confusion over Confederate defeat.  God could not have been angry about the existence of slavery, for the Bible condoned and commanded that institution, they reasoned.  So maybe Southerners had not managed the institution properly, they said.  They misunderstood the situation.  As Abraham Lincoln said, the real question is not whether God is on our side but whether we are on God’s side.

May we–you, O reader, and I–be on guard against religious nationalism, which misrepresents God.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JULY 17, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF BENNETT J. SIMS, EPISCOPAL BISHOP OF ATLANTA

THE FEAST OF THE MARTYRS OF COMPIEGNE

THE FEAST OF SAINT NERSES LAMPRONATS, ARMENIAN APOSTOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF TARSUS

THE FEAST OF WILLIAM WHITE, PRESIDING BISHOP OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/joshua-and-acts-part-ii-religion-and-nationalism/

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Above:  The Divergence of Two Paths

Image Source = Daniel Case

Joshua and Acts, Part I:  Two Paths

JUNE 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:

Joshua 1:1-18

Psalm 15 (Morning)

Psalms 48 and 4 (Evening)

Acts 8:1-25

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Saul of Tarsus, fresh from witnessing the execution of St. Stephen, undertook a persecution of branches of the nascent Church.  The future Apostle seemed to be mired in his own sin.  He was–for the time being–until God called him.  And Simon Magus knew how to work wonders yet lacked the Holy Spirit.  His attempt to buy it, not repent, has given us the word “simony,” the buying and selling of church offices.  He remained mired in his sin despite the opportunity to start a new, better life because of his choice.  The counterpoint to Simon Magus and Saul of Tarsus (pre-conversion) was St. Philip the Evangelist, one of the early deacons.  He did as the Holy Spirit directed him.

Back in Joshua 1, God commissioned Joshua, son of Nun, to lead the Israelites after Moses died.  This commissioning entailed reminding him to obey God’s commandments as revealed to Moses.

Although we human beings will always have sin within us, we need not be bound by it, for the means of liberation is always close to us.  Since one day nearly two thousand days ago, just outside the old walls of Jerusalem, that means has been Jesus.  We cannot purchase this liberation.  No, it is free yet not cheap.  And it requires us to surrender that which would conflict with the costly demands of free grace.  There are no short cuts in Jesus.

Ironically, I have heard works-based piety affirmed in substance yet denied in name in some Protestant congregations.  I have heard people tell children to be good so that they will go to Heaven after they die.  Nevertheless, these same adults have claimed to affirm grace over works in salvation.  They have sent mixed messages, perhaps out of theological laziness or ignorance.  They have denied the reality of the costliness of grace and the relative difficulty of following Jesus.

Two paths lie before us.  One is the road of repentance and of the grace.  The other trail leads to destruction and grief.  The latter is easier yet the former is superior.  The choice of which path to follow remains with each of us.  Although one is on one path, one retains the free will to switch to the other end–for better or for worse.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JULY 17, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF BENNETT J. SIMS, EPISCOPAL BISHOP OF ATLANTA

THE FEAST OF THE MARTYRS OF COMPIEGNE

THE FEAST OF SAINT NERSES LAMPRONATS, ARMENIAN APOSTOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF TARSUS

THE FEAST OF WILLIAM WHITE, PRESIDING BISHOP OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/joshua-and-acts-part-i-two-paths/

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