Fr. James' Lectionary

Felix: Acts 24 with poem by Alice Cary, The Noble Life

2007-01-28T18:57:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 30, Genesis 26, Isaiah 27:2-13, Acts 24

Daily Text: Acts 24

Paul before Felix at Caesarea
Five days later the high priest Ananias came down with some elders and an attorney, a certain Tertullus, and they reported their case against Paul to the governor. When Paul had been summoned, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying:

‘Your Excellency, because of you we have long enjoyed peace, and reforms have been made for this people because of your foresight. We welcome this in every way and everywhere with utmost gratitude. But, to detain you no further, I beg you to hear us briefly with your customary graciousness. We have, in fact, found this man a pestilent fellow, an agitator among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. He even tried to profane the temple, and so we seized him. By examining him yourself you will be able to learn from him concerning everything of which we accuse him.’

The Jews also joined in the charge by asserting that all this was true.

Paul’s Defence before Felix
When the governor motioned to him to speak, Paul replied:

‘I cheerfully make my defence, knowing that for many years you have been a judge over this nation. As you can find out, it is not more than twelve days since I went up to worship in Jerusalem. They did not find me disputing with anyone in the temple or stirring up a crowd either in the synagogues or throughout the city. Neither can they prove to you the charge that they now bring against me. But this I admit to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our ancestors, believing everything laid down according to the law or written in the prophets. I have a hope in God—a hope that they themselves also accept—that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous. Therefore I do my best always to have a clear conscience towards God and all people. Now after some years I came to bring alms to my nation and to offer sacrifices. While I was doing this, they found me in the temple, completing the rite of purification, without any crowd or disturbance. But there were some Jews from Asia—they ought to be here before you to make an accusation, if they have anything against me. Or let these men here tell what crime they had found when I stood before the council, unless it was this one sentence that I called out while standing before them, “It is about the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you today.” ’

But Felix, who was rather well informed about the Way, adjourned the hearing with the comment, ‘When Lysias the tribune comes down, I will decide your case.’ Then he ordered the centurion to keep him in custody, but to let him have some liberty and not to prevent any of his friends from taking care of his needs.

Paul Held in Custody
Some days later when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, he sent for Paul and heard him speak concerning faith in Christ Jesus. And as he discussed justice, self-control, and the coming judgement, Felix became frightened and said, ‘Go away for the present; when I have an opportunity, I will send for you.’ At the same time he hoped that money would be given to him by Paul, and for that reason he used to send for him very often and converse with him.
After two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus; and since he wanted to grant the Jews a favour, Felix left Paul in prison.

Felix
Acts 24 is a courtroom scene. There are witnesses, a lawyer for the prosecution, a defendant, and a judge. Everything is present except the will to make a judgement. It becomes obvious that there is no case against Paul, but there are high-ranking people against him. Felix’ own weakness is really what is on trial here. And beyond the weakness, his venality and political maneuvering become very apparent [cf. 549:473-4]. It is amazing how dispiriting this common failure in the public realm is upon those being harmed. Truth is often sacrificed on the altar of expediency, and lies learn to be told while we are quite young, and yet everyone about whom a lie is told reacts with disbelief. To hear a parent lie, or a child, is to feel betrayed. Truth is so fundamental to life and yet so often absent. Peculiar how truth is associated with God.

In the Roman system of justice truth is presupposed, and in the course of Felix’ hearing out it comes. Obviously, he recognizes the truth, but acknowledging it and releasing Paul is not in his self-interest as he sees it. So Paul is imprisoned and those perjuring themselves leave without penalty.

The Noble Life
Alice Cary, 1820-1871

True worth is in being, not seeming;
In doing each day that goes by
Some little good—not in the dreaming
Of great things to do by-and-by.
For whatever men say in blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,
There’s nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.

We get back our mete as we measure;
We cannot do wrong and feel right;
Nor can we give pain and gain pleasure,
For justice avenges each slight.
The air for the wing of the sparrow,
The bush for the robin and wren,
But always the path that is narrow
And strait for the children of men.
407:1158

A Clear Conscience: Acts 23 with poem by Abram J. Ryan, Better Than Gold

2007-01-27T18:51:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 24, Genesis 25, Isaiah 26:1-27:1, Acts 23

Daily Text: Acts 23

While Paul was looking intently at the council he said, ‘Brothers, up to this day I have lived my life with a clear conscience before God.’ Then the high priest Ananias ordered those standing near him to strike him on the mouth. At this Paul said to him, ‘God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting there to judge me according to the law, and yet in violation of the law you order me to be struck?’ Those standing nearby said, ‘Do you dare to insult God’s high priest?’ And Paul said, ‘I did not realize, brothers, that he was high priest; for it is written, “You shall not speak evil of a leader of your people.” ’

When Paul noticed that some were Sadducees and others were Pharisees, he called out in the council, ‘Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. I am on trial concerning the hope of the resurrection of the dead.’ When he said this, a dissension began between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, or angel, or spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge all three.) Then a great clamour arose, and certain scribes of the Pharisees’ group stood up and contended, ‘We find nothing wrong with this man. What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?’ When the dissension became violent, the tribune, fearing that they would tear Paul to pieces, ordered the soldiers to go down, take him by force, and bring him into the barracks.
That night the Lord stood near him and said, ‘Keep up your courage! For just as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must bear witness also in Rome.’

The Plot to Kill Paul
In the morning the Jews joined in a conspiracy and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink until they had killed Paul. There were more than forty who joined in this conspiracy. They went to the chief priests and elders and said, ‘We have strictly bound ourselves by an oath to taste no food until we have killed Paul. Now then, you and the council must notify the tribune to bring him down to you, on the pretext that you want to make a more thorough examination of his case. And we are ready to do away with him before he arrives.’
Now the son of Paul’s sister heard about the ambush; so he went and gained entrance to the barracks and told Paul. Paul called one of the centurions and said, ‘Take this young man to the tribune, for he has something to report to him.’ So he took him, brought him to the tribune, and said, ‘The prisoner Paul called me and asked me to bring this young man to you; he has something to tell you.’ The tribune took him by the hand, drew him aside privately, and asked, ‘What is it that you have to report to me?’ He answered, ‘The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the council tomorrow, as though they were going to inquire more thoroughly into his case. But do not be persuaded by them, for more than forty of their men are lying in ambush for him. They have bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink until they kill him. They are ready now and are waiting for your consent.’ So the tribune dismissed the young man, ordering him, ‘Tell no one that you have informed me of this.’

Paul Sent to Felix the Governor
Then he summoned two of the centurions and said, ‘Get ready to leave by nine o’clock tonight for Caesarea with two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two hundred spearmen. Also provide mounts for Paul to ride, and take him safely to Felix the governor.’ He wrote a letter to this effect:

‘Claudius Lysias to his Excellency the governor Felix, greetings. This man was seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them, but when I had learned that he was a Roman citizen, I came with the guard and rescued him. Since I wanted to know the charge for which they accused him, I had him brought to their council. I found that he was accused concerning questions of their law, but was charged with nothing deserving death or imprisonment. When I was informed that there would be a plot against the man, I sent him to you at once, ordering his accusers also to state before you what they have against him.’

So the soldiers, according to their instructions, took Paul and brought him during the night to Antipatris. The next day they let the horsemen go on with him, while they returned to the barracks. When they came to Caesarea and delivered the letter to the governor, they presented Paul also before him. On reading the letter, he asked what province he belonged to, and when he learned that he was from Cilicia, he said, ‘I will give you a hearing when your accusers arrive.’ Then he ordered that he be kept under guard in Herod’s headquarters.

A Clear Conscience
R. B. Rackham has written concerning Paul’s use of the word ‘conscience,’ “The conscience is a consciousness which bears testimony with, or to, our personality within; and the subject matter of the testimony is the moral value of actions, the testimony itself being a pronouncement whether they are right or wrong. A good conscience gives a good verdict, and this it can only do if the faculty of judgment is itself clear” [in 549:449]. Whatever Paul intended in Acts 23, what he said angered the high priest enough to have him slapped
around. It is difficult to imagine why it was as offensive as it was, unless he was deliberately suggesting that no one in that chamber could have a clear conscience, and that does not appear to be the case. Perhaps just claiming innocence offended Ananias. Whatever the case Paul’s response indicates that he is not at all cowed by the legal process or his judges. Whether this is because he is aware that his formal hearing will not take place before the Sanhedrin, or because he is so relaxed in Christ that whatever happens is alright with him. This latter attitude was not unlike that of Jesus going to the cross. They answered differently, Jesus never giving passionate offense while Paul was unconcerned that he gave offense. Still the confidence lying behind their lack of fear was similar.

The conspiracy of the 40 men with the chief priests and the elders was itself pretty bold. They must have known that the tribune was in a compromised position.

from Better Than Gold
Abram J. Ryan, 1838-1886

Better than gold is a conscience clear,
Though toiling for bread in an humble sphere,
Doubly blessed with content and health,
Untried by the lusts and cares of wealth,
Lowly living and lofty thought
Adorn and ennoble a poor man’s cot;
For mind and morals in nature’s plan
Are the genuine tests of an earnest man.
407:1108

A Confusion: Acts 22 with poem by George Wither, The Conversion of S. Paul

2007-01-26T06:54:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 29, Genesis 24, Isaiah 25, Acts 22

Daily Text: Acts 22

‘Brothers and fathers, listen to the defence that I now make before you.’
When they heard him addressing them in Hebrew, they became even more quiet. Then he said:

‘I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today. I persecuted this Way up to the point of death by binding both men and women and putting them in prison, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify about me. From them I also received letters to the brothers in Damascus, and I went there in order to bind those who were there and to bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment.

Paul Tells of His Conversion
‘While I was on my way and approaching Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” I answered, “Who are you, Lord?” Then he said to me, “I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.” Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me. I asked, “What am I to do, Lord?” The Lord said to me, “Get up and go to Damascus; there you will be told everything that has been assigned to you to do.” Since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, those who were with me took my hand and led me to Damascus.

‘A certain Ananias, who was a devout man according to the law and well spoken of by all the Jews living there, came to me; and standing beside me, he said, “Brother Saul, regain your sight!” In that very hour I regained my sight and saw him. Then he said, “The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear his own voice; for you will be his witness to all the world of what you have seen and heard. And now why do you delay? Get up, be baptized, and have your sins washed away, calling on his name.”

Paul Sent to the Gentiles
‘After I had returned to Jerusalem and while I was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and saw Jesus saying to me, “Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.” And I said, “Lord, they themselves know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. And while the blood of your witness Stephen was shed, I myself was standing by, approving and keeping the coats of those who killed him.” Then he said to me, “Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.” ’

Paul and the Roman Tribune
Up to this point they listened to him, but then they shouted, ‘Away with such a fellow from the earth! For he should not be allowed to live.’ And while they were shouting, throwing off their cloaks, and tossing dust into the air, the tribune directed that he was to be brought into the barracks, and ordered him to be examined by flogging, to find out the reason for this outcry against him. But when they had tied him up with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, ‘Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who is uncondemned?’ When the centurion heard that, he went to the tribune and said to him, ‘What are you about to do? This man is a Roman citizen.’ The tribune came and asked Paul, ‘Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ The tribune answered, ‘It cost me a large sum of money to get my citizenship.’ Paul said, ‘But I was born a citizen.’ Immediately those who were about to examine him drew back from him; and the tribune also was afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him.

Paul before the Council
Since he wanted to find out what Paul was being accused of by the Jews, the next day he released him and ordered the chief priests and the entire council to meet. He brought Paul down and had him stand before them.

A Confusion
There is a confusion in Acts 21 and Acts 22 that is difficult to clarify. That is, whether or not those seeking Paul’s life, on this occasion, are Christians or non-Christian Jews. Obviously, the leadership under James supports Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles. Still James counsels caution for there are thousands of ‘believing’ and observant Jews who have heard that Paul instructs Jews to ignore the Torah and Moses’ recommendations. The leadership knows that is not true, but these Christian Jews do not. They are therefore to be mollified. They are not mollified because some Jews have come from Asia to stir up trouble against Paul, and they do. Ultimately Paul is brought before the Sanhedrin, quite likely made up of very few Christians. So are the Jews rioting for Paul’s life Christians or not? James’ words suggest ‘yes’. The evidence seems to point to Jews not embracing belief in the Messiah. Maybe both are involved.

In Paul’s defense, the riotous crowd listens quietly until Paul mentions that the Lord sent him to the Gentiles. They then erupt. This issue, that of extending the promises of God to the Gentiles, continues to be a volatile one among both Christian Jews and non-Christian Jews. The reason is rather clear. Jewish identity rested in their faith in the one God who had chosen them to be his people. To share that with Gentiles, particularly without requiring them to become Jews, threatens their distinctiveness, their identity. Further, Paul and others make the claim in the New Testament that Christians, whether Jew or Gentile, become the true inheritors of Abraham and Moses. That rankles even today.

The Conversion of S. Paul
George Wither

A blessed conversion, and a strange
Was that, when Saul a Paul became:
And, Lord, for making such a change,
We praise and glorify thy name.
For whilst he went from place to place,
To persecute thy truth and thee;
(And running to perdition was)
By powerful grace called back was he.

When from thy truth we go astray,
(Or wrong it through our blinded zeal)
Oh come, and stop us in the way,
And then thy will to us reveal;
That brightness show us from above
Which proves the sensual eyesight blind:
And from our eyes those scales remove,
That hinder us the way to find.

And as thy blessed servant Paul,
When he a convert once became,
Exceeded thy Apostles all,
In painful preaching of thy name:
So grant that those who have in sin
Exceeded others heretofore,
The start of them in faith may win,
Love, serve, and honor thee the more.
396:252

About Suffering: Acts 21 with poem by W. H. Auden, In Musee des Beaux Arts

2007-01-24T05:37:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 27, Genesis 23, Isaiah 23, Acts 21

Daily Text: Acts 21

Paul’s Journey to Jerusalem
When we had parted from them and set sail, we came by a straight course to Cos, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara. When we found a ship bound for Phoenicia, we went on board and set sail. We came in sight of Cyprus; and leaving it on our left, we sailed to Syria and landed at Tyre, because the ship was to unload its cargo there. We looked up the disciples and stayed there for seven days. Through the Spirit they told Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. When our days there were ended, we left and proceeded on our journey; and all of them, with wives and children, escorted us outside the city. There we knelt down on the beach and prayed and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home.
When we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemais; and we greeted the believers and stayed with them for one day. The next day we left and came to Caesarea; and we went into the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the seven, and stayed with him. He had four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy. While we were staying there for several days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. He came to us and took Paul’s belt, bound his own feet and hands with it, and said, ‘Thus says the Holy Spirit, “This is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.” ’ When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, ‘What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.’ Since he would not be persuaded, we remained silent except to say, ‘The Lord’s will be done.’

After these days we got ready and started to go up to Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Caesarea also came along and brought us to the house of Mnason of Cyprus, an early disciple, with whom we were to stay.

Paul Visits James at Jerusalem
When we arrived in Jerusalem, the brothers welcomed us warmly. The next day Paul went with us to visit James; and all the elders were present. After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. When they heard it, they praised God. Then they said to him, ‘You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the law. They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs. What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. So do what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself observe and guard the law. But as for the Gentiles who have become believers, we have sent a letter with our judgement that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.’ Then Paul took the men, and the next day, having purified himself, he entered the temple with them, making public the completion of the days of purification when the sacrifice would be made for each of them.

Paul Arrested in the Temple
When the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, who had seen him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd. They seized him, shouting, ‘Fellow-Israelites, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against our people, our law, and this place; more than that, he has actually brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.’ For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. Then all the city was aroused, and the people rushed together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and immediately the doors were shut. While they were trying to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in an uproar. Immediately he took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. When they saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. Then the tribune came, arrested him, and ordered him to be bound with two chains; he inquired who he was and what he had done. Some in the crowd shouted one thing, some another; and as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks. When Paul came to the steps, the violence of the mob was so great that he had to be carried by the soldiers. The crowd that followed kept shouting, ‘Away with him!’

Paul Defends Himself
Just as Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the tribune, ‘May I say something to you?’ The tribune replied, ‘Do you know Greek? Then you are not the Egyptian who recently stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand assassins out into the wilderness?’ Paul replied, ‘I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of an important city; I beg you, let me speak to the people.’ When he had given him permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned to the people for silence; and when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language....

About Suffering
With half-a-dozen warnings about going up to Jerusalem, Paul kept his intention clear. He was going, knowing that it would turn out to be uncomfortable. It is to be presumed that he knew the difference between the Lord’s telling him not to go somewhere and the Lord’s telling him that when he does go, suffering, his own suffering will be part of the consequence. He was well-warned by many friends, and not a few prophets by the time he arrived in Jerusalem as recorded in Acts 21.

The persecution he faced in Jerusalem appears to be at the hands of Jewish Christians, rather than Jewish non-Christians. And yet the persecution appears to be similar. It is instigated by non-Christian Jews from Asia, and carried out by Christian Jews from Jerusalem. The issue is his preaching to the Gentiles without requiring them virtually to become Jews. Even though the Jewish church leadership, i.e., James and the elders, did support Paul’s mission to the Gentiles, the rank and file Jewish Christian did not. Even from the earliest time, Christians could be angry with and attack other Christians. Such behavior should have been unacceptable, but in the minds of the perpetrators was not.

In Musée des Beaux Arts
W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking
dully along….
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
323:76

Overcoming Human Nature: Acts 20 with a poem by Rosemary Dobson, Eutychus

2007-01-23T06:47:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 25, Genesis 22, Isaiah 22, Acts 20

Daily Text: Acts 20

Paul Goes to Macedonia and Greece
After the uproar had ceased, Paul sent for the disciples; and after encouraging them and saying farewell, he left for Macedonia. When he had gone through those regions and had given the believers much encouragement, he came to Greece, where he stayed for three months. He was about to set sail for Syria when a plot was made against him by the Jews, and so he decided to return through Macedonia. He was accompanied by Sopater son of Pyrrhus from Beroea, by Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, by Gaius from Derbe, and by Timothy, as well as by Tychicus and Trophimus from Asia. They went ahead and were waiting for us in Troas; but we sailed from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we joined them in Troas, where we stayed for seven days.

Paul’s Farewell Visit to Troas
On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight. There were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were meeting. A young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into a deep sleep while Paul talked still longer. Overcome by sleep, he fell to the ground three floors below and was picked up dead. But Paul went down, and bending over him took him in his arms, and said, ‘Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.’ Then Paul went upstairs, and after he had broken bread and eaten, he continued to converse with them until dawn; then he left. Meanwhile they had taken the boy away alive and were not a little comforted.

The Voyage from Troas to Miletus
We went ahead to the ship and set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul on board there; for he had made this arrangement, intending to go by land himself. When he met us in Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene. We sailed from there, and on the following day we arrived opposite Chios. The next day we touched at Samos, and the day after that we came to Miletus. For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia; he was eager to be in Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.

Paul Speaks to the Ephesian Elders
From Miletus he sent a message to Ephesus, asking the elders of the church to meet him. When they came to him, he said to them:
‘You yourselves know how I lived among you the entire time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, enduring the trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews. I did not shrink from doing anything helpful, proclaiming the message to you and teaching you publicly and from house to house, as I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus. And now, as a captive to the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me. But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace.

‘And now I know that none of you, among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom, will ever see my face again. Therefore I declare to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son. I know that after I have gone, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who are sanctified. I coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothing. You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions. In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” ’

When he had finished speaking, he knelt down with them all and prayed. There was much weeping among them all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, grieving especially because of what he had said, that they would not see him again. Then they brought him to the ship.

Overcoming Human Nature
Three issues involving clear connections with the Holy Spirit are present in Acts 20. They are the gift of healing, the gift of prophecy and the gift of discernment. Healing meant raising a young man from the dead and it was done almost without interrupting Paul’s discourse that long night in Troas, before he took his leave for Jerusalem. Prophecy included believing that he would lose his freedom in Jerusalem. Captive anyway to the Holy Spirit, Paul seemed unconcerned. His only thought was to complete his mission of spreading the news to all concerned. Finally, discernment is exercised with this great discourse for the Ephesian elders who come from the city to meet with Paul in Miletus while he waits for his ship to carry him on. Luke evidences no knowledge of the epistles in Acts, and yet this presentation heard by him is full of the sort of thing that Paul says to other churches in other years. He is concerned that these leaders will be alert to protect the church for which Jesus died. He knows that there will arise certain ones to tear the church apart to gain power and followers. In fact, he predicts that some even among those he addresses will do that very thing. And yet what he suggests is what happens in every place and every time, human nature being what it is. Because of that, what he has to say is of even greater importance, for he is essentially saying that by the power of the Holy Spirit it is possible for these leaders to give such wise leadership that they may overcome human nature itself to nurture the followers of Christ. He is also painting a picture for the contemporary church that seemingly has no Paul to instruct them. Leaders simply build their ministries around themselves. The Church stumbles when it could soar with the power of God.

Eutychus
Rosemary Dobson

The first day of the week he spoke to them
In Troas when they met to break their bread,
And preached till midnight. Eutychus afterwards
Could not remember anything he said.

This was an irony not easily faced:
Indeed, he kept it largely unconfessed
That after travelling many days and nights
In dangers often, and by hardships pressed,

To hear the words of Paulus and receive
Some healing comfort for his troubled mind
He could not fix his thoughts, was sorely vexed
By others pushing in the crowd behind,

Till, smarting with discomfiture and grief,
He reached a window not above his height
And climbing on the sill and looking out
Breathed in the soporific air of night.

To saints who have received the word of God
One lifetime is too short for telling all
The joyful news. And certainly an hour
Did not suffice in Troas for Saint Paul.

His discourse lengthened. Eutychus’s head
Sank on his chest (and for his sake we weep),
The saint in words that none who heard forgot
Spoke of Damascus. Eutychus was asleep.

Now they were gathered in an upper room
That rose three lofts above, as it is said,
And from his window Eutychus fell down
And those that took him up pronounced him dead.

Saint Paul went straightway to the youth and held
His body in his arms, and cried to those
Who stood about, “Be troubled not. For see
His life is in him.’ And the young man rose,

His troubled mind at peace, his body healed.
And others there were saved that else were lost.
And in the morning paul went on afoot
To reach Jerusalem by Pentecost.

I like this story of young Eutychus
For I, like him, am troubled too, and weak,
And may, like him, be too preoccupied
To listen if a saint should come to speak.

And yet, I think, if some event befall
To bring me face to face with holiness,
I should not fail to recognize the truth
And spring to life again, like Eutychus.
396:261

Jesus' Baptism: Acts 19 with poem by William Shakespeare, from Comedy of Errors

2007-01-22T04:50:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 23, Genesis 21, Isaiah 21, Acts 19

Daily Text: Acts 19

Paul in Ephesus
While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the inland regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. He said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?’ They replied, ‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’ Then he said, ‘Into what then were you baptized?’ They answered, ‘Into John’s baptism.’ Paul said, ‘John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.’ On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied— altogether there were about twelve of them.

He entered the synagogue and for three months spoke out boldly, and argued persuasively about the kingdom of God. When some stubbornly refused to believe and spoke evil of the Way before the congregation, he left them, taking the disciples with him, and argued daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.

The Sons of Sceva
God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, ‘I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.’ Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit said to them in reply, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?’ Then the man with the evil spirit leapt on them, mastered them all, and so overpowered them that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. When this became known to all residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, everyone was awestruck; and the name of the Lord Jesus was praised. Also many of those who became believers confessed and disclosed their practices. A number of those who practised magic collected their books and burned them publicly; when the value of these books was calculated, it was found to come to fifty thousand silver coins. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.

The Riot in Ephesus
Now after these things had been accomplished, Paul resolved in the Spirit to go through Macedonia and Achaia, and then to go on to Jerusalem. He said, ‘After I have gone there, I must also see Rome.’ So he sent two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he himself stayed for some time longer in Asia.

About that time no little disturbance broke out concerning the Way. A man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the artisans. These he gathered together, with the workers of the same trade, and said, ‘Men, you know that we get our wealth from this business. You also see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her.’

When they heard this, they were enraged and shouted, ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’ The city was filled with the confusion; and people rushed together to the theatre, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s travelling-companions. Paul wished to go into the crowd, but the disciples would not let him; even some officials of the province of Asia, who were friendly to him, sent him a message urging him not to venture into the theatre. Meanwhile, some were shouting one thing, some another; for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. Some of the crowd gave instructions to Alexander, whom the Jews had pushed forward. And Alexander motioned for silence and tried to make a defence before the people. But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours all of them shouted in unison, ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’ But when the town clerk had quietened the crowd, he said, ‘Citizens of Ephesus, who is there that does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the temple-keeper of the great Artemis and of the statue that fell from heaven? Since these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash. You have brought these men here who are neither temple-robbers nor blasphemers of our goddess. If therefore Demetrius and the artisans with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls; let them bring charges there against one another. If there is anything further you want to know, it must be settled in the regular assembly. For we are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.’ When he had said this, he dismissed the assembly.

Jesus’ Baptism
Two issues seem to be paramount in Acts 19 for the young church: the question of John’s vs. Jesus’ baptism and the possibility that converts to the faith might adversely affect the economy of the local culture.

If Paul actually re-baptized these twelve believers in Ephesus it is the only example of rebaptism in the New Testament. It will be my assertion that he did not re-baptize them in water, but that Jesus’ baptism, from early in the church’s history had a different connotation and that was that baptism with the Holy Spirit was Jesus’ baptism. This is the common understanding in all three of the synoptic Gospels (Mt. 3:11, 12; Mark 1:7, 8; Luke 3:16-17). Since these Gospels reflect a common source, that same source would have been available to Luke when he later wrote the Acts of the Apostles. Therefore what Paul did for these twelve was the laying on of hands. He baptized them by the laying of hands and with this act came the realized power of the Holy Spirit in their lives, a power they had not previously known. For Jesus what was important was making all of the formerly sacramental and symbolic acts of godliness real. And ‘realness’ comes through the power of the Spirit of God. That was demonstrated in this very chapter by the seven sons of Sceva! I’m reminded of Robert Browning’s poem, Religion.

Religion’s all or nothing; it’s no mere smile
O’ contentment, sigh of aspiration, sir—
No quality o’ the finelier-tempered clay
Like its whiteness or its lightness; rather, stuff
O’ very stuff, life of life, and self of self.
552:103

In the contemporary world the early Pentecostals had it right. And they did not have it right because of their superior theological understanding, but because they, like the twelve in Ephesus, experienced the power of God in the outpouring of the Spirit.

Demetrius, the silversmith, probably over reacted, but he understood fully that a population converted to Jesus Christ would affect his income radically. Likewise, if Christians today really became serious about shunning the idolatry of materialism that is practiced in so-called honor of the birth of Christ on December 25th each year, our merchants would be screaming just as loudly. It has happened to some extent with the efforts made by a few leading Fundamentalists in this country, but they have not been joined seriously by a significant number of Christians so the cries of the merchants are rather muted. What if we all took the $100’s or $1000,s of dollars we spend each year at Christmas and gave that money to the poor through groups like Habitat for Humanity or The Heifer Project, what then? We too might see an uproar like that seen in Ephesus.

from Comedy of Errors
Act I, Scene ii, lines 97 ff.
William Shakespeare

They say this town is full of cozenage,
As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such-like liberties of sin.
549:391

Clarity: Acts 18 with poem by Rudyard Kipling, Gallio's Song

2007-01-21T16:43:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 22, Genesis 20, Isaiah 20, Acts 18

Daily Text: Acts 18

Paul in Corinth
After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together—by trade they were tentmakers. Every sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks.

When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with proclaiming the word, testifying to the Jews that the Messiah was Jesus. When they opposed and reviled him, in protest he shook the dust from his clothes and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’ Then he left the synagogue and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshipper of God; his house was next door to the synagogue. Crispus, the official of the synagogue, became a believer in the Lord, together with all his household; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul became believers and were baptized. One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.’ He stayed there for a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal. They said, ‘This man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the law.’ Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, ‘If it were a matter of crime or serious villainy, I would be justified in accepting the complaint of you Jews; but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I do not wish to be a judge of these matters.’ And he dismissed them from the tribunal. Then all of them seized Sosthenes, the official of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of these things.

Paul’s Return to Antioch
After staying there for a considerable time, Paul said farewell to the believers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he had his hair cut, for he was under a vow. When they reached Ephesus, he left them there, but first he himself went into the synagogue and had a discussion with the Jews. When they asked him to stay longer, he declined; but on taking leave of them, he said, ‘I will return to you, if God wills.’ Then he set sail from Ephesus.
When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up to Jerusalem and greeted the church, and then went down to Antioch. After spending some time there he departed and went from place to place through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

Ministry of Apollos
Now there came to Ephesus a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria. He was an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures. He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord; and he spoke with burning enthusiasm and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue; but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the Way of God to him more accurately. And when he wished to cross over to Achaia, the believers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. On his arrival he greatly helped those who through grace had become believers, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the scriptures that the Messiah is Jesus.

Clarity
The clarity with which those early Christians based Jesus heritage as Messiah on the prophetic word has long been lost to Christian teaching. It is not very convincing any longer in the Western Church and it is to be presumed that this is a result of critical scholarship. And yet it was convincing for those early apologists. Acts 18 reinforces this in the teaching of Paul, Aquilla and Priscilla, as well as in that of Apollos. Also missing from much of the present church is this clear teaching that Jesus is Lord and that every person needs to recognize him as such. So then, every person must be confronted with his Lordship and given the opportunity to accept it or reject it. Where ever in the church this doctrine, issuing in fervent evangelism, is missing or unenthusiastically taught, there the power of the Spirit and new believers are missing, as well. The ‘burning enthusiasm’ of Apollos is to be commended.

Gallio’s Song
Rudyard Kipling

All day long to the judgment-seat
The crazed Provincials drew—
All day long at their ruler’s feet
Howled for the blood of the Jew.
Insurrection with one accord
Banded itself and woke,
And Paul was about to open his mouth
When Achaia’s Deputy spoke—

“Whether the God descend from above
Or the Man ascend upon high,
Whether this maker of tents be Jove
Or a younger deity—
I will be no judge between your gods
And your godless bickerings.
Lictor, drive them hence with rods—
I care for none of these things!

One thing only I see most clear,
As I pray you also see.
Claudius Cæsar hath sent me here
Rome’s Deputy to be.
It is Her peace that ye go to break—
Not mine, nor any king’s.
But, touching your clamour of ‘Conscience sake,’
I care for none of these things.

Whether ye rise for the sake of a creed,
Or riot in hope of spoil,
Equally will I punish the deed,
Equally check the broil;
Nowise permitting injustice at all
From whatever doctrine it springs—
But—whether ye follow Priapus or Paul,
I care for none of these things!”
396:259

Including Philosophers: Acts 17 with poem by H. E. Henley, Invictus

2007-01-19T19:07:00.001-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 21, Genesis 19, Isaiah 19, Acts 17

Daily Text: Acts 17

The Uproar in Thessalonica

17After Paul and Silas had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three sabbath days argued with them from the scriptures, 3explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you.’ 4Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. 5But the Jews became jealous, and with the help of some ruffians in the market-places they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar. While they were searching for Paul and Silas to bring them out to the assembly, they attacked Jason’s house. 6When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, ‘These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, 7and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.’ 8The people and the city officials were disturbed when they heard this, 9and after they had taken bail from Jason and the others, they let them go.

Paul and Silas in Beroea

10 That very night the believers sent Paul and Silas off to Beroea; and when they arrived, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11These Jews were more receptive than those in Thessalonica, for they welcomed the message very eagerly and examined the scriptures every day to see whether these things were so. 12Many of them therefore believed, including not a few Greek women and men of high standing. 13But when the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Beroea as well, they came there too, to stir up and incite the crowds. 14Then the believers immediately sent Paul away to the coast, but Silas and Timothy remained behind. 15Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and after receiving instructions to have Silas and Timothy join him as soon as possible, they left him.

Paul in Athens

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there. 18Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.’ (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.’ 21Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.
22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said,
“For we too are his offspring.”
29Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’
32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ 33At that point Paul left them. 34But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

Including Philosophers
With the exception of Phillipi, where it appeared that there was no synagogue, Acts 17 resets Paul’s pattern of going into the synagogue to proclaim the Messiah proclamation of Jesus, until they would accept or reject Jesus. Here in Thessalonica they reject the message and in Beroea, they accept it. But in the end he is spirited away from trouble to go to Athens and await his companions. Did he have time on his hands? The synagogue isn’t mentioned, but it appears that he wanders the streets and engages in conversation with whomever he meets, including philosophers. Ultimately, he is asked to go to the Areopagus, a distinguished forum for presenting religious ideas, and Paul does that. There he makes an argument based on an altar or two which he has seen dedicated to an unknown god. He claims his God as that unknown one. In his presentation he quotes in turn from Epimenides, an Epicurean, and Aratus, a Stoic. Epimenides’ lines, from which he quoted one, are as follows:

They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one—
The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!
But thou art not dead; thou livest and abidest for ever;
For in thee we live and move and have our being.
549:359

The Epicureans, founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.), espoused pleasure as the chief end of life, a pleasure bounded by great tranquillity. They paid little attention to the gods for they were convinced that the gods paid little or no attention to humankind. The Stoics, on the other hand, were pantheists, believing in a world-state in which all men were citizens. They emphasized living with nature and depending upon their own intellect. Their founder Cypriote Zeno lived from 340-265 B.C. Two English poets sum up their philosophies quite well in the following examples: first the Epicureans and then the Stoics. All of the above follows F. F. Bruce [549:349 ff.].

The Garden of Proserpine
A. C. Swinburne

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to the sea.
549:350

Invictus
W. E. Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
549:350

Map Quest: Acts 15:36-16:40 with poem by Emily Dickinson, On Paul and Silas it is Said

2007-01-19T10:15:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 20, Genesis 18, Isaiah 18, Acts 15:36-16:40

Daily Text: Acts 15:36-16:40

Paul and Barnabas Separate

After some days Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Come, let us return and visit the believers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.’ Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul decided not to take with them one who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not accompanied them in the work. The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and set out, the believers commending him to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

Timothy Joins Paul and Silas

Paul went on also to Derbe and to Lystra, where there was a disciple named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer; but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the believers in Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him; and he took him and had him circumcised because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they went from town to town, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in numbers daily.

Paul’s Vision of the Man of Macedonia

They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

The Conversion of Lydia

We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshipper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.’ And she prevailed upon us.

Paul and Silas in Prison

One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, ‘These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.’ She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, ‘I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out that very hour.

But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market-place before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, ‘These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.’ The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They answered, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

When morning came, the magistrates sent the police, saying, ‘Let those men go.’ And the jailer reported the message to Paul, saying, ‘The magistrates sent word to let you go; therefore come out now and go in peace.’ But Paul replied, ‘They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.’ The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens; so they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. After leaving the prison they went to Lydia’s home; and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there, they departed.

Map Quest
Without his sponsor, Barnabas, Paul now begins his ministry in earnest. Acts 16 documents his journeys back into Syria and Cilicia, picking up converts and a new companion, Timothy. But the highlight of his journey is its supernatural direction by the Holy Spirit, a sort of internal map quest. Don’t preach in Asia, don’t go into Bithynia, but do go to Macedonia—there are those waiting there for what you have to proclaim. Immediately, without hesitation, Paul goes to Troas and embarks on a ship across the Aegean to the Macedonian port of Samothrace. Philippi is evidently a Gentile city, that is, there are not ten male Jews to form a minyan. No synagogue, but Paul hears of a prayer place outside the city on the bank of the river Gangites. There he meets Lydia, a Gentile and a God-fearer, whose trade brings her to Philippi. Her conversion, the first in Macedonia gives him a home within which to meet his converts. These house churches are the common meeting place for the Christians. Presumably, the Jews have dedicated synagogue meeting places in most towns, but the not the Christians. The synagogues serve until its members become unhappy with the Christians. The jailer presumably provides another place for meeting and so the infant church grows. A third convert may well have been the young slave girl whose demon is cast out by Paul. In the name of Jesus her attractiveness to her owners as a source of income from telling fortunes disappears. If Jesus was followed because he was able to say the word and the miraculous took place, it has become apparent that his followers can do the same by invoking his name.

Jesus! the name high over all,
In hell, or earth, or sky:
Angels and men before it fall,
And devils fear and fly.
[549:333]

One key to the difficulties that these early Christians faced was the public nature of their ministries. They did what did in the open, and the results upset anyone whose ox happened to be gored. So often today we succeed somehow in keeping our ministry more private. We take few risks, observing the cultural boundaries familiar to us all. No one is offended, no one is upset and no persecution ensues. The privacy of it may have something to do with its vacuousness.

On Paul and Silas It Is Said
Emily Dickinson

Of Paul and Silas it is said
They were in Prison laid
But when they went to take them out
They were not there instead.

Security the same insures
To our assaulted Minds—
The staple must be optional
That an Immortal binds.
396:256

The Jerusalem Council: Acts 15:1-35 with poem by Henry B. Robins, Of One Blood Hath God Created

2007-01-17T09:40:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 17, Genesis 16, Isaiah 17, Acts 15:1-35

Daily Text: Acts 15:1-35

The Jerusalem Council
This most important council, addressed in Acts 15, was initiated because some free-lance theologians from Jerusalem made their way to Antioch where they found that the church was growing by leaps and bounds with Gentiles. Now Gentiles had been accepted previously, in Caesarea and other places, but it now becomes apparent that they will soon outnumber the Jewish believers. What to do? Include them, but treat the Gentiles as a sect of Judaism so that the mother religion will not be lost. To include them requires circumcision and observance of the Torah, and these matters these free-lancers insisted upon. Even Peter and Barnabas began to bow to their insistence (cf. Galatians 2:1-10). But the church was increasingly a Gentile church and these Christians understood that there had to be a better answer, and that answer needed to come from the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas were sent there to clarify the issue and the Jerusalem Council issued from that visit.

Debate ensues and after hearing all parties Peter stands and speaks for the Gentiles. Though in Antioch Peter was called on Paul’s carpet for bowing down to those who insisted on the letter of the law, he evidently held no hard feelings. He recognized that what God had shown him in the vision at Joppa and in the coming of the Holy Spirit in Caesarea, must become the rule of the young church. There must be no unnecessary barriers placed before Gentile converts to the new faith. Grace, not works, is the word of the day, the theological watchword. James, after also hearing Paul and Barnabas, concludes similarly. With a courtesy resolution that the Jews not be offended by food choices and pagan sexual practice, he sides with Simon Peter. He will write a letter and send it by a couple of trusted lieutenants who will accompany Barnabas and Saul back to Antioch. He will not risk putting the missionaries into the bind of speaking for the Council, but will support them by sending his own emissaries. This was an important early decision, and upon it rested the whole future of the Christian movement. Out of human debate has come an act of God.

Of One Blood Hath God Created
Henry B. Robins, 1874

Of one blood hath God created
Every kindred, tribe and tongue;
His is every fane and altar,
Though man’s empire be far-flung;
Even though some flout the others,
Underneath are they blood-brothers;
And shall learn, some crucial day,
How to walk a common way.

God of all the warring peoples,
Still art Thou the God of Peace;
Love art Thou, but Love in Sorrow,
Wounded until wars shall cease;
Until Right shall win, our burden
Thou, too, bearest; ‘tis the guerdon
Of that dauntless Saviour-hood
Which shall rear the common good.

Keep before us, clear, the vision
Of Thy Holy common-wealth;
Guide us, Thou, in each decision;
Save us from the subtle stealth
Which would fill our souls this hour
With race-hatred, lust of power,
Alienate our life from Thee
And Thy Kingdom, yet to be.

May we, with the Man of Sorrows,
Tread the dangerous path of duty;
Seeking not our own, but serving,
May we grasp, O Lord, the beauty
Of Thy Holiness, wherever
Flames a Love that faileth never,
Burning out the waste and dross,
Saving men from shame and loss.

Grant to us a sense of presence:
Make us all aware of Thee;
May Thy Holy Love unite us
In the bond that sets men free—
Free to understand each other,
Free to claim each as his brother,
Free to build in unity,
Free, O God, yet bound to Thee.
407:1813

Persecution: Acts 14 with poem by W. M. Praed, Intolerance

2007-01-16T21:47:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 14, Genesis 15, Isaiah 16, Acts 14

Daily Text: Acts 14

Persecution
Wherever they went in Acts 14 Paul and Barnabas proclaimed the word, won converts were persecuted, and fled. But their fleeing was misleading for having gone to the far border of the province, they returned by the same route they had originally come, went back into the same cities where they had suffered opposition, harassment, threat, and stoning. There they encouraged their converts, organized the church by appointing leaders, and went on to the next city where they had been unwanted. This continued until they arrived back in the original Antioch of their commissioning.

Paul must have made an indelible impression, especially in Iconium for in the second century Acts of Paul, there is our best description of what he looked like and historians believe it to be fairly well founded on local tradition. “One Onesiphorus, a resident in Iconium, sets out to meet Paul, who is on his way to the city. ‘And he saw Paul approaching, a man small in size, with meeting eyebrows, with a rather large nose, bald-headed, bow-legged, strongly built, full of grace, for at times he looked like a man, and at times he had the face of an angel’” [549:288].

There is much demeaning of the value of persecution in literature. For example, Sir Thomas Browne,1605-1682 wrote: “Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plant religion” [413:86:15]. Baron Macaulay , 1800-1859 in his History of England sarcastically noted that “Persecution produced its natural effect on them. It found them a sect; it made them a faction” [413:325:35]. On the other hand, Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745, in his discussion of state religion in his Thoughts on Religion, wrote, “I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular but some degree of persecution” [413:520:37].

In Acts, however, persecution seems to have provided a continual impetus for further mission work and the effective spread of the young church. Kenneth Scott Latourette,1953, wrote: “So radical are the claims of the Gospel, so sweeping are its demands on the faithful, so uncompromising does it render those who yield themselves fully to it, that opposition and even persecution are to be expected” [40:81]. And again, “Crude and misinformed though many of the criticisms of Christianity were, here was an awareness that a force was entering the world which if given free scope would overturn the existing culture. Dimly, to be sure, and imperfectly, but with an appreciation of the actualities, non-Christians sensed that because of its revolutionary nature, its uncompromising character, and its claim on the allegiance of all man kind, Christianity was more to be feared by the established order than any of its many competitors….”[40:82].

Intolerance
W.M. Praed, 1802-1839

And when religious sects ran mad,
He held, in spite of all his learning,
That if a man’s belief is bad,
It will not be improved by burning.
407:1406

Change in Leadership: Acts 13 with an anonymous poem, More Grace

2007-01-15T21:50:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 13, Genesis 14, Isaiah 15, Acts 13

Daily Text: Acts 13

Change in Leadership
Acts 13 is a continuation of the recital left off in Acts 11. There is a solid group of teachers in Antioch, enough so that Barnabas and Saul can be spared for mission work, and they were ordained to go. When they left Antioch, Barnabas led the mission that he and Saul were sent upon. By the time they left Paphos, Paul was the leader. Presumably, Barnabas was very happy with this change in leadership. He had early spotted Paul’s potential and supported him in the new ministry. God-fearers, and Hellenists seemed to be the ones who responded most readily as they traveled, though there must have been many Jews who took up faith with this newly proclaimed Messiah, as well. But in Perga the leading Jews were quite threatened by the enthusiastic hearing that Paul and Barnabas were receiving and they drove them from the region. Not to be daunted the new disciples, the ones who continued in Perga, were filled with great joy as Paul, Barnabas and company departed.

More Grace
Unknown

It takes more grace than I can tell
To play the second fiddle well.
549:266

The Hand of God: Acts 12 with poem by Madame Jeanne Marie Guyon, A Prisoner's Song

2007-01-14T18:06:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 12, Genesis 13, Isaiah 14, Acts 12

Daily Text: Acts 12

The Hand of God
Herod is pictured here, in Acts 12,in his true colors—repressive, destroying the good, imprisoning the faithful, reveling in divine accolades. He receives what he deserves, death in a moment, death, as Luke and his source believed, at the hand of God. He represents some of the worst of humankind. Josephus has a record of his death and its circumstances.
“At Caesarea, Agrippa exhibited shows in honour of Caesar, inaugurating this as a festival for the emperor’s welfare. And there came together to it a large number of the provincial officials and others of distinguished position. On the second day of the shows Agrippa put on a robe made of silver throughout, of altogether wonderful weaving, and entered the theatre at break of day. Then the silver shone and glittered wonderfully as the sun’s first rays fell on it, and its resplendence inspired a sort of fear and trembling in those who gazed on it. Immediately his flatterers called out from various directions, using language which boded him no good, for they addressed him as a god, and invoked him with the cry, ‘Be gracious unto us! Hitherto we have reverenced thee as a man, but henceforth we acknowledge thee to be of more than mortal nature.’ He did not rebuke them, nor did he repudiate their impious flattery. But soon afterwards he looked up and saw an owl sitting on a rope above his head, and immediately recognized it as a messenger of evil as it had on a former occasion been a messenger of good; and a pang of grief pierced his heart. at the same time he was seized by a severe pain in his belly, which began with a most violent attack. He was carried quickly into the palace…and when he had suffered continuously for five days from the pain in his belly, he died, in the fifty-fourth year of his age and the seventh of his reign” (Antiquities xix.8.2 from 549:254).

Peter’s imprisonment and his release is remarkable. The hand of God is surely seen in it, though why he was released and James was killed is one of those human imponderables. But the miracle of it all is repeated earlier when John and Peter were imprisoned by the High Priest. The humor of the serving girl’s thoughtless excitement must have convulsed friends of the man for years after. It reminds us that we too seldom see the power of God in such a practical fashion.

A Prisoner’s Song
Madame Jeanne Marie Guyon, 1648-1717

A little bird I am,
Shut from the fields of air;
And in my cage I sit and sing
To Him Who placed me there;
Well pleased a prisoner to be,
Because, my God, it pleases Thee.

Naught have I else to do:
I sing the whole day long;
And He Whom I most love to please
Doth listen to my song:
He caught and bound my wandering wing;
But still He bends to hear me sing.

Thou hast an ear to hear,
A heart to love and bless;
And though my notes were e’er so rude,
Thou wouldst not hear the less;
Because Thou knowest as they fall,
That love, sweet love, inspires them all.

My cage confines me round;
Abroad I cannot fly;
But though my wing is closely bound,
My heart’s at liberty;
My prison walls cannot control
The flight, the freedom of the soul.

Oh, it is good to soar
These bolts and bars above,
To Him Whose purpose I adore,
Whose providence I love;
And in Thy mighty will to find
The joy, the freedom of the mind.
407:1392

A Party of Inquiry: Acts 11 with poem by Stephen Phillips, Benediction

2007-01-13T17:23:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 11, Genesis 12, Isaiah 13, Acts 11

Daily Text: Acts 11

A Party of Inquiry
The spread of the church following the martyrdom of Stephen must have given many a Jerusalem apostle a sleepless night. Every time they heard of a new approach to the Gentiles, or even the Hellenists, they sent a party of inquiry. Peter and John, then Peter, and now Barnabas, in Acts 11, has been sent to investigate reports of matters spinning out of Jerusalem’s control. They must have felt like modern-day bishops with the clergy and people in rebellion. And to make matters worse, the emissaries usually approved of what was happening and fostered it. They did this because they quickly became convinced that it was the work of the Holy Spirit and not that of the local Christians. God will not be bound by our assumptions. It is we who are bound by our assumptions.

Benediction
From “Herod”
Stephen Phillips,1868-1915

Now unto Him who brought His people forth
Out of the wilderness, by day a cloud,
By night a pillar of fire; to Him alone,
Look we at last and to no other look we.
407:286

The Kerygma: Acts 9:32-10:48 with poem by Reobert Herrick, The Widows' Tears

2007-01-12T07:50:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 10, Genesis 11, Isaiah 12, Acts 9:32-10:48

Daily Text: Acts 9:32-10:48

The Kerygma
Acts 9:32-10:48 tell a remarkable story. The passage begins with Peter announcing the healing of a man paralyzed for eight years, being brought to a woman, Tabitha, who had died and raising her as simply as Jesus did the young girl in Mark 5. In fact, there are a number of parallels in this chapter with Mark’s gospel. The healing and the raising from the dead are only the first two. But we go on to the matter of Peter’s conclusion about the ending of Jewish ceremonial food laws as in Mark 7:19b. According to Bruce, these food prohibitions were a large part of the hesitancy of Jews in associating with Gentiles. With these prohibitions removed, much of the stigma was also removed. The preaching itself, this kerygma or basic message, is an outline of the book of Mark according to Bruce quoting C.H. Dodd [549:226]. And finally, the Gentiles received the Holy Spirit ‘just as we have’ [10:47]. It is clear in this passage that the Holy Spirit is not a substitute for faith or for baptism. It is a separate blessing from the Lord Jesus. One could say this was only on the inauguration of the ministry to the Gentiles, but it has occurred in similar fashion with other groups and will continue to happen in this fashion. Philip’s ministry with the Samaritans was not complete until Peter and John came into Samaria and proclaimed this same blessing. Remember Simon and his bribe?

The Widows’ Tears: or, Dirge of Dorcas
Robert Herrick

Come pity us, all ye, who see
Our harps hung on the willow-tree:
Come pity us, ye passers by,
Who see, or hear poor widows cry:
Come pity us; and bring your ears,
And eyes, to pity widows’ tears.
Chor. And when you are come hither;
Then we will keep
A fast, and weep
Our eyes out all together.

For Tabitha, who dead lies here,
Clean washed, and laid out for the bier;
O modest matrons, weep and wail!
For now the corn and wine must fail:
The basket and the bin of bread,
Wherewith so many souls were fed
Chor. Stand empty here for ever:
And ah! the poor,
At thy worn door,
Shall be relieved never.

Woe worth the time, woe worth the day,
That reaved us of thee Tabitha!
For we have lost, with thee, the meal,
The bits, the morsels, and the deal
Of gentle paste, and yielding dough,
That thou on widows didst bestow.
Chor. All’s gone, and death hath taken
Away from us
Our maundy; thus,
Thy widows stand forsaken.

Ah Dorcas, Dorcas! now adieu
We bid the cruse and pannier too:
I and the flesh, for and the fish,
Doled to us in that lordly dish.
We take our leaves now of the loom,
From whence the house-wives cloth did come.
Chor. The web affords now nothing;
Thou being dead,
The worsted thread
Is cut, that made us clothing.

Farewell the flax and reaming wool,
With which thy house was plentiful.
Farewell the cots, the garments and
The sheets, the rugs, made by thy hand.
Farewell thy fire and thy light,
That ne’er went out by day or night:
Chor. No, or thy zeal so speedy,
That found a way
By peep of day,
To feed and cloth the needy.

But, ah, alas! the almond bough,
And olive branch is withered now.
The wine press now is ta’en from us,
The saffron and the calamus.
The spice and spikenard hence is gone,
The storax and the cinnamon,
Chor. The carol of our gladness
Has taken wing,
And our late spring
Of mirth is turned to sadness.

How wise wast thou in all thy ways!
How worthy of respect and praise!
How matron-like didst thou go dressed!
How soberly above the rest
Of those that prank it with their plumes;
And jet it with their choice perfumes.
Chor. Thy vestures were not flowing:
Nor did the street
Accuse thy feet
Of mincing in their going.

And though thou here li’st dead, we see
A deal of beauty yet in thee.
How sweetly shows thy smiling face,
Thy lips with all diffused grace!
Thy hands (though cold) yet spotless, white,
And comely as the chrysolite.
Chor. Thy belly like a hill is,
Or as a neat
Clean heap of wheat,
All set about wit lilies.

Sleep with thy beauties here, while we
Will show these garments made by thee;
These were the coats, in these are read
They monuments of Dorcas dead.
These were thy acts, and thou shalt have
These hung, as honors o’er thy grave,
Chor. And after us (distressed)
Should fame be dumb;
Thy very tomb
Would cry out, Thou art blessed.
396:256

Turn-around: Acts 9:1-31 with poem by W. S. Di Piero, Near Damascus

2007-01-11T19:49:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 9, Genesis 10, Isaiah 10:33-11:16, Acts 9:1-31

Daily Text: Acts 9:1-31

Turn-around
Whatever it was that galvanized Paul around the death of Stephen to lead the challenge against the Christians, that motivation carried him from Jerusalem to Damascus. But on the road near that city, he was arrested by a great light and a dialogue with Jesus. His conversion was instantaneous, and his baptism and instruction followed quickly in Damascus. Without hesitation he begins championing the cause he was previously persecuting. This was a passionate, quickly deciding individual. Even before the ink was dry on his letters to the synagogues, he was there proclaiming the Jesus he had come to persecute.

It sounds in Acts like he stayed in Damascus a few days and then headed right back to Jerusalem. Galatians 1:15-20, however, asserts that he did not go up to Jerusalem until three years later. Lacking better information, we must suppose that he knew in Galatians the chronology of his own travels. He may have stayed right there in Damascus, after a brief sojourn in Arabia, for the three years.

While his conversion was radical, involving a complete turn-around, the commitment required is that expected of all Christians. God grant us all the wisdom to receive God’s call and God’s gifts so readily that we too will be immediately serving in Christ’s name.

Near Damascus
W. S. Di Piero

The antlered scarab rolled a dungball
for its brood; a red ant, tipsy,
bulldozed a flinty wedge of chaff.
Mud slots from the recent rain,
now crusted over by the heat—
moon mountains seen close up; my mouth
plugged with road grit and surprise
just when I tried to shout no
to the blunt lightning spike that stopped me…

In the mountains of the moon I saw
a wasp dragging a grasshopper
to a frothing nest, grubs lingering
through their episode, and larvae
I’d have chewed like honeycomb
if it would have saved my sight.
Antaeus inhaled force from dirt;
he was luckier, never much
for visions, and too far gone.

In my head, I see this body
dumped flat. Painted in above,
the horse twists and straddles me,
his eyes flare, ecstatic, new,
contemptuous of the thing that fell,
while the light-shaft curries his flank
and nails me down, the unloved me,
rousted, found out, blasted, saved
down in the road’s pearly filth.
396:251

A Jewish God-fearer: Acts 8 with poem by Roger Williams, God Makes a Path

2007-01-10T10:16:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 7, Genesis 9, Isaiah 10:5-32, Acts 8:1b-40

Daily Text: Acts 8:1b-40

A Jewish God-fearer
The first of the seven deacons, Stephen is dead and his death has sparked a persecution of the Hellenistic church in Jerusalem. Acts 8 is about a second of those deacons, Philip by name, who is forced out of Jerusalem in the ensuing persecution. Fleeing for his freedom and his life, he preaches as he travels to a Samaritan city, possibly Gitta, that history tells us was the home of one Simon Magus. That fellow responds to the signs and wonders performed within Philip’s ministry and he is converted more or less, baptized and becomes a companion of the said deacon. That is, he does until Peter and John come down from Jerusalem to instruct concerning the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Then he is so impressed that he reverts and offers Peter money (the act of simony) if he will teach him how to do this ‘trick!’ What a mistake that was, for Peter reams him out for fair. Simon Magus, if he is the same one, built a reputation for opposing Peter in Rome in later years. If that is so, Peter’s rebuke served to show him who he was, and to create an enemy not forgotten in a lifetime [cf. 549:184].

When Peter and John return to Jerusalem, Philip must have accompanied them, for the very next reference in this chapter is that of an angel appearing to Philip and sending him down the Jerusalem road to Gaza, which is southwest of Jerusalem, not at all in the vicinity of a Samaritan city. Here Philip joins a traveling Ethiopian official, a Jewish God-fearer, and explaining the words of the prophet Isaiah to him, makes another convert for Christ. Ethiopian’s have a long tradition in Jewish-Christian history dating back to the Queen of Sheba visiting King Solomon. Many of them in Ethiopia, now with numerous Christians, continue to be Jews. They claim to have the original ark from the tabernacle of David and Solomon’s time. When Jerusalem fell in 597 the ark disappeared and the Ethiopian’s assert that they rescued it and took it to their own land for safe-keeping. At any rate, thes Ethiopian eunuch fits into this historical pattern of one who worships Israel’s God, becomes a Christian, and takes this renewed faith back to his own nation. God is quickly at work spreading the faith from Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth. Philip the deacon is implicated deeply in this movement.

God Makes a Path
Roger Williams

God makes a path, provides a guide,
And feeds a wilderness;
His glorious name, while breath remains,
O that I may confess..

Lost many a time, I have had no guide,
No house but a hollow tree!
In stormy winter night no fire,
No food, no company;

In Him I found a house, a bed,
A table, company;
No cup so bitter but’s made sweet,
Where God shall sweetening be.
505:185

Creating a Martyr: Acts 7 with poem by Sir John Suckling, Upon Stephen Stoned

2007-01-09T02:32:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 54, Genesis 8, Isaiah 8:1-9:7, Acts 7

Daily Text: Acts 7

Creating a Martyr
Stephen’s response to the queries from the high priest concerning the charges against him—that he spoke frequently against the temple and Moses—was a recital of the history of the people of God. In Acts 7 this recital was from a particular understanding of the purposes of God and this understanding said clearly that both the leaders and people of Israel continually rejected the saviours sent by God, as they have done with Jesus and unspoken though implicit, as they are doing with Stephen. In addition, he defends what he and Jesus have said about the temple by pointing out that God does not dwell in houses made with hands, but in the hearts of his people. Here he is making the point that because they are so fixated on the temple they cannot themselves be the temple of God. Certainly, he is making no effort to conciliate the Council, but by telling them the way it is he stirs up their wrath to the point that they stone him without further considerations. Stephen loses his life and the Council loses the ‘war’ by creating a martyr.

Upon Stephen Stoned
Sir John Suckling

Under this heap of stones interred lies
No holocaust, but stoned sacrifice
Burnt not by altar-coals, but by the fire
Of Jewish ire,
Whose softest words in their hard hearts alone
Congealed to stone,
Not piercing them recoiled in him again,
Who being slain
As not forgetful, whence they once did come,
Now being stones he found them in a tomb.
396:249

The Ministry of the Word of God: Acts 6 with poem by John Oxenham, To Win the World

2007-01-08T14:29:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 6, Genesis 7, Isaiah, 7 Acts 6

Daily Text: Acts 6

The Ministry of the Word of God
The ministry of the word of God is the choice made here both by the apostles and by the Luke. What do I mean? In Acts 6 the apostles ask the community of fractious Christians to choose seven men who may administer the economic resources of the new community in order that they, the apostles, may continue with the ministry of the word of God. They do so. Stephen is the new deacon upon whom Luke chooses to focus and what is Stephen doing? Ministry of the word of God; Luke simply doesn’t illustrate at all Stephen’s new duties as deacon in the distribution of economic resources to meet the need of the poorer of the company. No, he is arguing with the men of the Freedmen synagogue and shortly after that before the Council of the Jews.

What is this ‘ministry of the word of God?’ It seems to include ‘signs and wonders,’ articulate defense of the new Christian understanding of the faith, powerful sharing of the good news, teaching, prayer and presumably exercise of other spiritual gifts. Stephen has the same ministry as do the apostles, in addition to his duties as deacon. And he dies as a result of this ministry long before any of the Twelve. It is a wonderful example that the ministry of the word is that of every Christian even though there are some who are set apart to do only that. Verse 7 is the focus of this as Luke reports that “the word of God continued to spread.” A secondary point made in this ‘report’ verse is that ‘a great many priests became obedient to the faith.’ In the beginning there was no conflict between being a faithful and participating Hebrew, even a priest, and being one who embraced the new understanding that Jesus was the messiah, the long looked-for one, of this same Hebrew faith!

To Win the World
John Oxenham

Would you win all the world for Christ?
One way there is and only one;
You must live Christ from day to day,
And see His will be done.

But who lives Christ must tread His way,
Leave self and all the world behind,
Press ever up and on, and serve
His kind with single mind.

No easy way,--rough—strewn with stones,
And wearisome, the path He trod.
But His way is the only way
That leads man back to God.

And lonesome oft, and often dark
With shame, and outcastry, and scorn,
And, at the end, perchance a cross,
And many a crown of thorn.

But His lone cross and crown of thorn
Endure when crowns and empires fall.
The might of His undying love
In dying conquered all.

Only by treading in His steps
The all-compelling ways of Love,
Shall earth be won, and man made one
With that Great Love above.
407:1519

Loving Integrity: Acts 4:32-5:42 with poem by Dylan Thomas, There Was a Saviour

2007-01-07T08:15:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 5, Genesis 6, Isaiah 6, Acts 4:32-5:42

Daily Text: Acts 4:32-5:42

Loving Integrity
If there is a single theme in this passage, Acts 4:32-5:42, that theme is ‘loving integrity.’ Giving to the young church was a matter of whole-souled integrity. Note the illustration of the ones who tried to pawn their giving off as generosity. Or, be aware that the apostles continue to be the witnesses they are called to be even when threatened, when imprisoned, and when flogged. It is God whom they obey, not the authorities. They even rejoice over their suffering. They have given their lives to God. Nothing else and no one else demands of them ultimate loyalty.

There Was a SaviourDylan Thomas

There was a saviour
Rarer than radium,
Commoner than water, crueller than truth;
Children kept from the sun
Assembled at his tongue
To hear the golden note turn in a groove,
Prisoners of wishes locked their eyes
In the jails and studies of his keyless smiles.

The voice of children says
From a lost wilderness
There was calm to be done in his safe unrest,
When hindering man hurt
Man, animal, or bird
We hid our fears in that murdering breath,
Silence, silence to do, when earth grew loud,
In lairs and asylums of the tremendous shout.

There was glory to hear
In the churches of his tears,
Under his downy arm you sighed as he struck,
O you who could not cry
On to the ground when a man died
Put a tear for joy in the unearthly flood
And laid your cheek against a cloud-formed shell:
Now in the dark there is only yourself and myself.

Two proud, blacked brothers cry,
Winter-locked side by side,
To this inhospitable hollow year,
O we who could not stir
One lean sigh when we heard
Greed on man beating near and fire neighbour
But wailed and nested in the sky-blue wall
Now break a giant tear for the little known fall,

For the drooping of homes
That did not nurse our bones,
Brave deaths of only ones but never found,
Now see, alone in us,
Our own true strangers’ dust
Ride through the doors of our unentered house.
Exiled in us we arouse the soft,
Unclenched, armless, silk and rough love that breaks all rocks.
396:248

A Second Pentecost: Acts 4:1-31 with poem by Richard Chenevix Trench, Prayer

2007-01-05T08:04:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 2, Genesis 4, Isaiah 10:1-4, 5:11-24, Acts 4:1-31

Daily Text: Acts 4:1-31

A Second Pentecost
The resurrection becomes the issue immediately In Acts 4. The leaders don’t want to recognize this, but what can they do? Produce a body? The apostles have already demonstrated evidence of the power of God—speaking in tongues, healing, quoting from Scripture.
All of these things add up to irrefutable evidence, tying the hands of the would-be persecutors, and keeping them from being able to do more than threaten. Klausner [549:104] is quoted as saying:
This was the first mistake which the Jewish leaders made with regard to the new sect. And this mistake was fatal. There was probably no need to arrest the Nazarenes, thus calling attention to them and making them ‘martyrs.’ But once arrested, they should not have been freed so quickly. The arrest and release increased the number of believers; for these events showed on the one hand that the new sect was a power which the authorities feared enough to persecute, and on the other hand they proved that there was no danger in being a disciple of Jesus (he, of course, being the one who had saved them from the hand of their persecutors!)

Peter and John, once threatened and released, go immediately to their friends and report. What a privilege to have such a body of friends with whom to associate and share the dangers. The group’s response is to pray and ask for boldness to keep on speaking and God’s response is to send the Holy Spirit again, as on the day of Pentecost, and to fill them with the boldness they were requesting. Such explicit answers to prayer!

Prayer
Richard Chenevix Trench

Lord, what a change within us one short hour
Spent in Thy presence will prevail to make!
What heavy burdens from our bosoms take,
What parched grounds refresh as with a shower!
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower;
We rise, and all, the distant and the near,
Stands forth in sunny outline brave and clear;
We kneel, how weak! We rise, how full of power!
Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong
Or others, that we are not always strong,
That we are ever overborne with care,
That we should ever weak or heartless be,
Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer,
And joy and strength and courage are with Thee!
427:163

A Second Moses: Acts 3 with poem by John Newton, I Knew Not What I Did

2007-01-04T07:38:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 3 Genesis 3 Isaiah 4:2-5:10 Acts 3

Daily Text: Acts 3

A Second Moses
An extension of the power of God on Pentecost is the healing of the lame man in Acts 3 at the Gate Beautiful, more properly called the Nicanor Gate [549:83]. The healing is offered rather than the alms requested.

Cornelius a Lapide tells us how Thomas Aquinas called upon Pope Innocent II once when the latter was counting a large sum of money. “You see, Thomas,” said the Pope, “the Church can no longer say, ‘Silver and gold have I none’.” “True, holy father,” said Thomas, “and neither can she now say, ‘Arise and walk’ [549:84].

This healing occurs in the Name of Jesus. Peter explains more completely to the people after he and John have been to their prayers. This same man in whose name the lame man is healed, is the Author of life, whom they and their leaders put to death!. Paradox for sure, but God did not allow it remain a paradox, he restores Jesus to life, and Peter claims, it is this man, the Author of life, who has brought the lame man to perfect health. I suspect, included in that ‘perfect health’ is a restored relationship with the Author of life, himself, restored by “the faith that is through Jesus”[Acts 3:16].

Peter is generous with the crowd for though he charges them with Jesus’ rejection, he allows that they rejected him in ignorance, not understanding that he was the prophet foretold by Moses, a veritable second Moses. Now, however, seeing this continuing power of Jesus through the healing, they are no longer ignorant, but knowledgeable of the significance of this man for Israel and for them. He cinches this with references to the suffering servant of Isaiah 52-53. He goes on to say that continuing in their ignorance will confirm that they will be rooted out of the people of God, but by repenting they can not only confirm their place among the people of God, but receive the blessings offered by God to his own.

I Knew Not What I DidJohn Newton

Alas! I knew not what I did,
But now m tears are vain;
Where shall my trembling soul be hid?
For I my Lord have slain.

A second look He gave, which said:
“I freely all forgive;
This blood is for thy ransom shed;
I die, that thou mayest live.”

Thus, while His death my sin displays
In all its blackest hue;
Such is the mystery of grace,
It seals my pardon too.

With pleasing grief and mournful joy
My spirit now is filled,
That I should such a life destroy,
Yet live through Him I killed.
549:91

A Reversal of Babel: Acts 2 with poem by Charles Wesley, O Thou Who Camest From Above

2007-01-03T09:58:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 2, Genesis 2:4-25, Isaiah 2:22-4:1, Acts 2

Daily Text: Acts 2

A Reversal of Babel
On this day of Pentecost the apostles were gathered in one place. The reference seems to be the twelve, cf. 1:26. However, the 120 of 1:15 could conceivably be intended. There is no reference to the upper room in Acts 2, and the most likely place of meeting was the temple. J.G. Davies reckons that the speaking in legitimate languages, understood by the thousands hearing the disciples speaking in ‘tongues,’ was a reversal of Babel, that event when no one understood another (549:64) The sound of the rushing mighty wind might just have been wind. This author recalls a Pentecost liturgy when a wind, so great that the occupants of the building wondered whether it could stand, occurred as this reading from Acts 2 began and subsided with the completion of this one reading! Unfortunately, the other marks of this early Pentecost did not accompany the great wind. But of fear and awe there was aplenty.

Peter’s sermon explaining the significance of this event brought over 3000 of the hearers to their knees in repentance on that marvelous day. The significance of it all was that the power of God was present not only for the filling of the Holy Spirit within the lives of the gathered believers, but it was present also for the conversion of the gathered unbelievers. The question ever since is whether or not this power is present for us today in like fashion. Those of Pentecostal persuasion would say, ‘yes,’ and there is ample historical data to warrant their claims. Like the Mosaic covenant of Deuteronomy 29, this act of God is for those of all time, according to Peter in Acts 2:39. God indeed wills that all miscommunication and disharmony be resolved by and in his presence, and that all sing the praises of the name of God.

O Thou Who Camest From Above
Charles Wesley

O Thou who camest from above
The pure celestial fire to impart,
Kindle a flame of sacred love
On the mean altar of my heart!

There let it for Thy glory burn
With inextinguishable blaze;
And trembling to its source return
In humble prayer and fervent praise.

Jesus, confirm my heart’s desire
To work, and speak, and thk for Thee;
Still let me guard the holy fire,
And still stir up Thy gift in me.

Ready for all Thy perfect will,
My acts of faith and love repeat,
Till death Thy endless mercies seal,
And make the sacrifice complete.
549:55

Completing the Resurrection: Acts 1 with poem by James Joyce, The Ballad of Joking Jesus

2007-01-02T05:41:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 1, Genesis 1:1-2:3, Isaiah 2:1-21, Acts 1

Daily Text: Acts 1

Completing the Resurrection
Volume II of Luke’s writings begin in Acts 1 with the appearances of Jesus in to the apostles and other believers in the forty days following the resurrection. He gives them instructions about being filled with the Holy Spirit and their immediate response is related to the fulfillment of Israel’s destiny as a world power. Is this the occasion for the coming of the Kingdom of God in time, space and political reality? No, says Jesus. It is not. That piece of reality is not yours or mine to predict, at least in terms of time and space. That is completely and solely within the Father’s prerogative, under his authority. No, this is for you to receive the power to become effective witnesses to what I have preached and done while with you.

He then leaves them rather peremptorily, shrouded in cloud and mystery, attested to by angels. This cloud is not unlike that of the Mount of Transfiguration or the Tabernacle in Moses’ day, and the temple in Solomon’s time. It is not about pre-Copernican metaphysics. It is about completing the resurrection, alive, present and in a new plane of existence, that of the Father.

The Ballad of Joking Jesus
James Joyce

--I’m the queerest young fellow that you ever heard.
My mother’s a jew, my father’s a bird.
With Joseph the joiner I cannot agree,
So here’s to disciples and Calvary.

--If anyone thinks that I amn’t divine
He’ll get no free drinks when I’m making the wine
But have to drink water and wish it were plain
That I make when the wine becomes water again.

--Goodbye, now, goodbye. Write down all I said
And tell Tom, Dick and Harry I rose from the dead.
What’s bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly
And Olivet’s breezy…Goodbye, now, goodbye.
396:242

Book of Remembrance: Malachi 3:16-4:6 with poem by George Herbert, Easter Wings

2006-12-31T07:39:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 66, I Maccabees 16, Malachi 3:16-4:6, Luke 24

Daily Text: Malachi 3:16-4:6

Book of Remembrance
The difference between the revering ones and the wicked ones is in their service to the LORD, not in their intrinsic goodness. However, the outcomes are going to be as different as their patterns of relationship and service to the name of the holy one. When the prophet speaks God’s message in Malachi 3:16-4:6, those that revere the name of the LORD respond immediately and note is taken in the presence of God with the formation of a Book of Remembrance. The ‘wicked’ evidently ignore the message. They will not be able to ignore judgment day, however. How true that will be for each of us.

Easter Wings
George Herbert

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poor:
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did begin:
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sin,
That I became
Most thin.
With thee
Le me combine,
And feel this day thy victory:
For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.
395:463

Collect for the Day
Helper and Defender of Israel, rescue the peoples of the world from destructive anger, and set us free to love and serve each other in the peace of Christ our Lord.

[476:884:Psalm 124 Psalm prayer]

Day of the Lord: Zechariah 14 with poem by Edward Wight, How Do I Know?

2006-12-31T07:22:00.000-05:00

The Feast of St. Stephen

Daily Readings
Psalm 31, I Maccabees 12, Zechariah 14, Acts 6:8-7:2a, 51-60

Daily Text: Zechariah 14

Day of the Lord
Zechariah 14 discloses the climax of the LORD’s intervention in human affairs on the eschatological Day of the LORD. This intervention will require that the LORD will establish Jerusalem as his capital and that from it he will reign over the world. Here he attacks the nations with plague, with psychological attacks and with Jerusalem’s own defense. Once he has established himself as supreme, the nations will come yearly to worship him in Jerusalem. This is the conclusion to his promises throughout redemption history to make Israel chief among the nations. His own oneness, or integrity, will be established, presumably for all time.

How Do I Know?
Edward Wight

How do I know, you ask, that in the end
God’s power will conquer all, and through
Eternity His love prove master of
Our souls? Need I have proof?
I tell you, sir, between a world of chaos
And a world where God works on
Through moments men call time there lies a choice,
And I choose God.
546:35

Collect for the Day
We give you thanks, O Lord of glory, for the example of the first martyr Stephen, who looked up to heaven and prayed for his persecutors to your Son Jesus Christ, who stands at your right hand; where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

[BCP:237 Saint Stephen]

Tithes and Offerings: Malachi 2:17-3:15 with poem by Henry C. Spear, Calling For God

2006-12-30T07:33:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 65, I Maccabees 15, Malachi 2:17-3:15, Luke 23

Daily Text: Malachi 2:2:17-3:15

Tithes and Offerings
The message of the prophet comes out in startling clarity in Malachi 2:17-3:15. You have continually turned aside from my ways. The appropriate response is to return to my ways. How can you do that? By bringing the full tithe and offerings into my house, for you have been robbing me by withholding them. And if you will bring them to my storehouse, I will bless you with more than you could wish for, so much so that the nations will call you the land of delight. This seems to be much more than a promise of agricultural plenty, but also of spiritual bounty. We can take note or we can continue withholding! It is a very practical response. It probably doesn’t matter where we begin our full commitment, as long as we begin it somewhere. In time growing integrity will lead to full commitment in every area of our life. Doing so in the economic arena is probably the simplest and easiest area of all to turn over to God.

Calling For God
Henry C. Spear
Where is the God of Justice? Malachi 2:17

God made the world both beautiful and good.
Then turned it over to His children fair,
A place to work and play in brotherhood,
To love and grow and blessings vast to share.
But what a mess man has made of God’s gift!
How selfishness and hate have marred the plan!
The human race bewilderedly adrift,
The image of the God all blurred in man.
Why doesn’t God assert His sovereign rights?
And make His subjects live as He desires?
His plan is seen as Jesus Christ invites
Devotion to the service love inspires.
God came to earth through Jesus Christ that is true,
He’ll only come again through me and you.
377:763

Collect for the Day
Helper of the helpless, comfort of the afflicted may your servants who stand in the midst of evil find strength in the knowledge of your presence, and praise you for the wonders of your love; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer.

[476:742:Psalm 31 Psalm prayer]

Connections: Malachi 2:1-16 with poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, Whoever grasps

2006-12-29T07:29:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 64, I Maccabees 14, Malachi 2:1-16, Luke 22

Daily Text: Malachi 2:1-16

Connections
The covenant with Levi is highlighted in Malachi 2:1-16. For in it is set the expectation that the priest will instruct young and old, to model reverence for the Name, to guard knowledge, and to live in integrity and right living. The problems are several: the priests say the words, but do not mean and certainly do not live them. For these reasons God will curse their blessings, that is, contradict even their most sacred pronouncements.

Verses 10-12 set the expectation for loyalty within the religious family of Judah, but not only is that not forthcoming, these priests do not even keep faith within their own personal families. Their wives are sent away, and God hates sending away. When this occurs there is little chance of raising one’s children in the godly life. In reality loss of integrity in any part of one’s life leads to that loss in every other part. All of life is connected; all spirit is connected.

Whoever grasps
Rainer Maria Rilke

Whoever grasps the thousand contradictions of his life,
pulls them together into a single image, that man, joyful
and thankful, drives the rioters out of the palace,
becomes celebratory in a different way, and you are the guest
whom he receives on the quiet evenings.

You are the second person in his solitude,
the tranquil hub of his talking with himself;
and every circle he draws around you
lifts him out of time on those compass legs.
548:36

Collect for the Day
Gracious God, in times of sorrow and depression, when hope itself seems lost, help us to remember the transforming power of your steadfast love and to give thanks for that new life we cannot now imagine. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Saviour.

[476:812:Psalm 79 Psalm prayer]

A Certain Readiness: Malachi 1 with poem by Thomas Curtis Clark, Malachi, The Messenger

2006-12-28T07:24:00.000-05:00

The Feast of the Holy Innocents

Daily Readings
Psalm 124, I Maccabees 13, Malachi 1, Matthew 2:13-18

Daily Text: Malachi 1

A Certain Readiness
Malachi is often thought of as a continuation of the emphases of the second part of Zechariah (chs. 9-14). Each employs the unusual heading of ‘oracle’, a message or burden of the Lord’s imminent coming to judge the world, and the whole world does seem to be in mind. Malachi 1 clearly picks up on this theme as he deals with priests who are offering blemished animals as sacrifices and thus despising and defiling the Lord’s name. Malachi then goes on to claim in verse 11 that in other nations across the world the name of the Lord is celebrated as they are about to offer a pure offering, a fragrant one for His name. The use of the impassive suggests a certain readiness, rather than completion of said offerings (cf. 529:230). This use of the impassive may be understood in view of Malachi’s soon-coming intervention by the Lord. The LORD has been clear about his love for Israel, and his openness to love for the other nations. This is more clearly worked out in the Christian testament, but prefigured here.

Malachi, The Messenger
Thomas Curtis Clark

Of Judah and her treachery he spake
The messenger of God. On tables vile
Her priests made tainted offerings
And every law of truth and good they brake.
To foreign gods they turned, and pagan vice
Was seen among the people whom God loved.
But there would come a messenger with wrath
Upon his lips. Their heartless sacrifice
Should burn as by a grim refiner’s fire.
And they should be redeemed! And God would bless.
No longer would he curse their offerings,
But as father give them food. His ire
At last should pass, and he, the mighty God,
Would smite the spoilers from his sacred sod.
377:676

Collect for the Day
We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[BCP:238 The Holy Innocents]

His Own Associate: Zechariah 13 with poem by Elizabeth Cheney, There is a Man on the Cross

2006-12-24T05:53:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 45, I Maccabees 10, Zechariah 13, Luke 20

Daily Text: Zechariah 13

His Own Associate
God demands the removal of both idols and false prophets in Zechariah 13. Even their parents will accuse them of lying and will pierce or stab them at home. Obviously, their unpopularity has spread for they face questions about their own integrity at home and abroad. As their parents accuse, they lie to protect themselves claiming neither prophetic status nor prophetic interest. They leave the customary prophet’s clothing at home and claim to be simple farmers. When asked about the marks of self-flagellation on their body that are indicative of the ecstatic prophet, they promulgate the falsehood that these bruises or scars were received in the house of friends. How this helps is unknown, for such bruising would suggest homosexual activity and certainly they would not try to ‘protect’ themselves with such a claim. Whether or not their protective words actually protected them, we know that they were dissembling.

In the passage, verses 7-9, we have a poem that suggests that God slays, or allows to be slain, his own associate, one who stands next to him. This is far more remarkable than the portion against false prophets, for this shepherd seems to be one of a true calling, even associated with God himself. And once he is slain, the people scatter and two-thirds of them end up dead themselves. The remaining third are brought through as if by fire in a testing mode, and these become the people of God. This image of shepherd seems to have influenced Jesus mightily for he uses it often [Baldwin 529:198]. “The very fact that the passage is to a degree enigmatic is an invitation to meditate on it, and there are indications that it influenced the thinking of Jesus more than any other shepherd passage in the Old Testament (cf. John 10, with its repeated emphasis on the shepherd laying down his life for the sheep, and on the scattering of the sheep).

There is a Man on the Cross
Elizabeth Cheney

Whenever there is silence around me
By day or by night—
I am startled by a cry.
It came down from the cross—
The first time I heard it.
I went out and searched—
And found a man in the throes of crucifixion,
And I said, “I will take you down,”
And I tried to take the nails out of his feet.
But he said, “Let them be
For I cannot be taken down
Until every man, every woman, and every child
Come together to take me down.”
And I said, “But I cannot hear you cry.
What can I do?”
And he said, “Go about the world—
Tell everyone that you meet—
There is a man on the cross.”
427:143

Collect for the Day
Gracious God, your love unites heaven an earth in a new festival of gladness. Lift our spirits to learn the way of joy that leads us to your banquet hall, where all is golden with praise. We ask this through Jesus Christ the Lord.

[476:763:Psalm 45 Psalm prayer]

The Cup of Reeling: Zechariah 12:1-13:1 with poem by William Cowper, The Fountain

2006-12-23T06:21:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 60, I Maccabees 9, Zechariah 12-13:1, Luke 19

Daily Text: Zechariah 12-13:1

The Cup of Reeling
Baldwin [529:188] follows Lamarche in seeing this passage as poetic prose with little figures of speech related to each like the ‘the cup of reeling’ and the stone that cannot be lifted. The oracle itself requires the remainder of the book. In Zechariah chapter 12 the LORD is seen as the creator of the whole earth and he makes Jerusalem a cup of reeling, i.e., a source of inebriation for all of the surrounding nations that for some reason besiege the holy city en masse. Judah is part of this, caught up in the siege that ensues. Jerusalem is likened to a heavy stone that though the nations cooperate in trying to lift, all find themselves with hernias! Then in verse 4 there seems to be a cavalry charge and the LORD blinds the horses and drives the riders mad with the exception of warriors of Judah. Somehow Judah sees that Jerusalem’s strength is coming from the LORD, and they quietly change sides joining in the defense of Jerusalem. Like a blazing pot in a thicket they destroy their erstwhile allies right and left. The LORD allows Judah this victory so that she can join with Jerusalem as an equal partner and not be dominated by the city’s defenders. Meanwhile, the LORD seeks to destroy the other nations.

And now, beginning in verse 10, there is a curious matter that is almost impossible to sort out. Following Baldwin [529:194], a spirit of compassion and I suspect repentance is given to the house of David and the people of Jerusalem for one they have killed, pierced actually, one who is somehow related to the LORD himself. This was obviously a premeditated and deliberate killing. Remarkably, this spirit of compassion leads to a fountain of healing and forgiveness being opened on the Day of the LORD, to cleanse the people from this sin and to purify them (13:1).

The Fountain
William Cowper

There is fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day;
And there may I, as vile as he,
Wash all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
Till all the ransomed church of God
Be saved,--to sin no more.

E’er since, by faith I saw the stream,
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be,--till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I’ll sing thy power to save;
When this poor, lisping, faltering tongue
Lies silent in the grave.

Lord, I believe thou hast prepared
(Unworthy though I be)
For me a blood-bought free reward,
A golden harp for me!

‘Tis strung, and tuned, for endless years,
And formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father’s ears
No other name but thine.
395:462

Collect for the Day
Almighty and eternal God, who drew out a fountain of living water in the desert for your people, as they well knew, draw from the hardness of our hearts tears of compunction, that we may be able to lament our sins, and may merit to receive you in your mercy.

[286:106:344 Latin, late 14th century]

Leadership: Zechariah 11:4-17 with poem by Virginia Fraser Boyle, Abraham Lincoln

2006-12-22T06:04:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 59, I Maccabees 8, Zechariah 11:4-17, Luke 18

Daily Text: Zechariah 11:4-17

Leadership
Leadership is the theme of Zechariah 11:4-17 and the leadership is not good. The prophet is asked to become a shepherd (leader) of a doomed people and does so. In an allegory in which the prophet represents the Lord, he hires on as a leader (shepherd) and then decides not to continue. Breaking his staff he demonstrates that the Lord has ended his relationship with Israel his people, allowing them to be doomed. The merchants who pay the shepherd's salary are given the option of doing so or not since he has broken his covenant to care for them. They do pay him and he throws the money into the Temple treasury and walks away. This is a clear and dramatic rejection of their hold over the people, and paying tribute to the spiritual source of Judah's life. As he does this he breaks his second staff which represents the tie between Judah and Israel. In a final stanza the Lord asks the prophet to take on the characteristics of a worthless shepherd and he does so taking advantage of the people himself, like a shepherd who lives high on the meat of the animals he is supposed to protect. This kind of dishonest shepherd is to be broken himself becoming lame and blind. This last image of leadership is so like what we see in our own time. Not much has changed through the centuries.

Abraham Lincoln
Virginia Fraser Boyle

No trumpet blared the word that he was born,
Nor lightning flashed its symbols on the day;
And only Poverty and Fate pressed on,
To serve as handmaids where he lowly lay.

No royal trappings fell to his rude part,
A simple hut and labor were its goal;
But Fate, stern-eyed, had held him to her heart,
And left a greatness on his rugged soul.

And up from earth and toil, he slowly won,
Pressed by a bitterness he proudly spurned,
Till by grim courage, born from sun to sun,
He turned defeat, as victory is turned.

Sired deep in destiny, he backward threw
The old heredities that men have known;
And round his gaunt and homely form he drew
The fierce white light that greatness makes its own.

Nor flame nor sword nor silver tongues availed
To turn his passion from its steady flow;
The compact of the Fathers had not failed:
He would not let an angered people go.
542:I:319

Collect for the Day
Grant us, O Lord, loyalty of heart,
that as we demand that others should be faithful to us,
we also may be faithful to them;
for Jesus Christ’s sake.

[475:120:210]

Demise of the Bad Shepherds: Zechariah 10:2-11:3 with poem by Matthew Arnold, The Good Shepherd with the Kid

2006-12-20T05:53:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 58, I Maccabees 6, Zechariah 10:2-11:3, Luke 17

Daily Text: Zechariah 10:2-11:3

Demise of the Bad Shepherds
This passage, Zechariah 10:2-11:3, has two poems; the first, 2-3a, is against the false leaders of the people, while the second, goes back to the victory theme of chapter 9 and rejoices in the deliverance first of Judah and then of Ephraim, called Joseph here.

The people go in a wrong direction because their leaders consult false sources of direction. Today we would probably ignore all outside sources of guidance and try to rely on ourselves [529:171]. Because of such misdirected leadership, the people wander without leadership and God’s anger is directed at those leaders.

Immediately, in 3b the theme changes to God’s care for Judah and how he will bless her as if a proud army. This second poem is in two stanzas, 3b-8 and 9-12. The first stanza begins with Judah and her new leadership, transitions in verse 6 and ends with Israel’s return from exile. In both cases vs. 6 and vs. 12 projects a strengthening of these two tribal entities of God’s people.

A short poem, 11:1-3 concludes this section with reference to alien nations whose leadership likewise has been inadequate and therefore they are despoiled. Like lions whose habitat has been destroyed, these nations go on a rampage of disordered violence.

The Good Shepherd with the Kid
Matthew Arnold

He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save.
So rang Tertullian’s sentence, on the side
Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried:
“Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave,
Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave.”
So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed,
The infant Church! of love she felt the tide
Stream on her from her Lord’s yet recent grave.

And then she smiled; and in the Catacombs,
With eye suffused but heart inspired true,
On those walls subterranean, where she hid
Her head ‘mid ignominy, death, and tombs,
She her Good Shepherd’s hasty image drew—
And on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid.
542:IV:2088

Collect for the Day
Heavenly Father,
your light overcomes darkness;
take everything in my life that is dark
and transform it into glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[475:195:383]

A Victory Banquet: Zechariah 9 with poem by Edward Taylor, Meditation Seventy-seven

2006-12-19T04:42:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 57, I Maccabees 5, Zechariah 9:1-10:2, Luke 16

Daily Text: Zechariah 9:1-10:2

A Victory Banquet
This second part of Zechariah may have been written in pre-exilic times, though no final determination is possible. Some evidence points in that direction and other evidence points later. Zechariah 9 is very hopeful for Israel. Ephraim and Judah are seen as being reunited and used by the Lord in His work. Rather than the nations coming from the north and descending upon Israel, we see God coming from the north and exercising his sovereignty over each nation in turn. First the northern nations in verses 1-4 and then the southern ones in verses 5-8 claim God’s attention. There is no question in the prophet’s mind, the Lord will be victorious and will reclaim all of his people, Gentiles and Jews alike [529:162].

Beginning in verse 9 we see the coming of the messianic king and the result will be peace for Judah and Israel and a consonant cessation of war. He will wield his own people, Judah and Israel, peacefully, but as effectively as if it were war. This king is just and salvation grace is with him. He will ride on the sometimes mount of kings, a donkey, and his dominion shall spread over the entire earth. These were obviously familiar words among the Jews in Jesus day, for they immediately knew and understood their implications when they heard them. Ephraim and Judah will be brought together at a great banquet. The warlike language of the RSV and NRSV does not fit with the total picture here of a victory banquet and peace in city and countryside. Even the weather will cooperate in chapter 10:1 to bring about a new abundance unheard of in war. All of this will be the result of the rule of the Messianic king.

Meditation Seventy-seven
Second Series
Edward Taylor

A state, a state, oh! dungeon state indeed.
In which me headlong, long ago sin pitched;
As dark as pitch; where nastiness doth breed:
And filth defiles: and I am with it ditched.
A sinfull state: This pit no water’s in’t.
A bugbear state: as black as any ink.

I once sat singing on the summit high
‘Mong the celestial choir in music sweet:
On highest bough of paradisal joy;
Glory and innocence did in me meet.
I as a gold-finched nighting-gale, tuned o’er
Melodious songs ‘fore glory’s palace door.

But on this bough I tuning perched not long:
Th’infernal foe shot out a shaft from Hell;
A fiery dart piled with sins poison strong:
That struck my heart, and down I headlong fell:
And from the highest pinnacle of light
Into this lowest pit more dark than night.

A pit indeed of sin: No water’s here:
Whose bottom’s furthest off from Heaven bright.
And is next door to Hell gate: to it near:
And here I dwell in sad and solemn night.
My gold-finched angel feathers dappled in
Hells scarlet dye fat, blood red grown with sin.

I in this pit all destitute of light
Crammed full of horrid darkness, here do crawl
Up over head, and ears, in nauseous plight:
And swinelike wallow in this mire and gall:
No heavenly dews nor holy waters drill:
Nor sweet air breeze, nor comfort here distil.

Here for companions, are fears, heart-aches, grief,
Frogs, toads, newts, bats, horrid hob-goblins, ghosts,
Ill spirits haunt this pit: and no relief:
Nor cord can fetch me hence in creatures coasts.
I who once lodged at Heaven’s palace gate
With full fledged angels, now possess this fate.

But yet, my Lord, thy golden chain of grace
Thou canst let down, and draw me up into
Thy holy air, and glory’s happy place,
Out from these hellish damps and pit so low.
And if thy grace shall do’t, My harp I’ll raise,
Whose strings touched by this grace, will twang thy praise.
395:461

Collect for the Day
Our favourite party-games are…
when we are so happy
that we don’t know what to do with ourselves,
keep your still peace at the centre of our hearts, Lord—please.

[475:197:387]

The Homely Example: IV Maccabees 18 with poem by Mamie Gene Cole, The Child's Appeal

2006-12-18T09:22:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 74, I Maccabees 4, IV Maccabees 18, Luke 15

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 18

The Homely Example
Concluding his treatise, the author in IV Maccabees 18, summarizes the benefits of family life and honoring God, and goes on to recommend these patterns and these persons to the Hebrew population as worthy examples. The homely example of the father of the seven brothers reading to them the stories of Abel slain by Cain, of Isaac as sacrifice, of Joseph in prison and a number of others is a heartwarming ending to this emotionally disturbing work. His point about the exercise of reason as master of the emotions has been made over and over again, and yet here at the end it is simply mentioned in verses one and two, with humbler images capturing us at the end.

The Child’s Appeal
Mamie Gene Cole

I am the Child.
All the world waits for my coming.
All the earth watches with interest to see
what I shall become.
Civilization hangs in the balance,
For what I am, the world of tomorrow will be.

I am the Child.
I have come into your world, about which I
know nothing.
Why I came I know not;
How I came I know not.
I am curious; I am interested.

I am the Child.
You hold in your hand my destiny.
You determine, largely, whether I shall
succeed or fail.
Give me, I pray you, those things that make
for happiness.
Train me, I beg you, that I may be a blessing
to the world.
407:1085

Collect for the Day
O God, when violence threatens and destruction seems at hand, help us to remember that you maintain your cause and still rule your universe through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

[476:802:Psalm 74 Psalm prayer]

Five Metaphors: IV Maccabees 17 with poem by Robert Browing, Religion

2006-12-17T16:06:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 56, I Maccabees 3, IV Maccabees 17, Luke 17

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 17

Five Metaphors
IV Maccabees 17 is in praise of the martyrs and five metaphors are used to flesh out this encomium. The first is that of architecture, the mother being a roof set on the seven pillars of her son’s lives. The second is that of painting, a mural of the Hebrew religion including the facts of the martyrs. The third is a funerary inscription marking the exploits of the martyrs, and the fourth is an athletic contest. As athletes the martyrs are contestants, Antiochus, the tyrant, an adversary, and the world and the human race were spectators. The prize was immortality. There is a fifth metaphor, that of religious sacrifice. In this metaphor the martyr’s effectively purified their nation by their sacrifice becoming a ransom for the sin of the nation and an atoning sacrifice. So great was their honor that the antagonist used their courage and indomitability as examples for his own troops and they were strengthened by them, not against the Hebrews, but against their true enemies.

Religion
from “Mr. Sludge, ‘The Medium’”
Robert Browning, 1812-1889

Religion’s all or nothing; it’s no mere smile
O’ contentment, sigh of aspiration, sir—
No quality o’ the finelier-tempered clay
Like its whiteness or its lightness; rather, stuff
O’ the very stuff, life of life, and self of self.
407:1150

Collect for the Day
O God, I know that if I do not love thee with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul and with all my strength, I shall love something else with all my heart and mind and soul and strength. Grant that putting thee first in all my lovings I may be liberated from all lesser loves and loyalties, and have thee as my first love, my chiefest good and my final joy.

[286:81:238 George Appleton]

Parental Love: IV Maccabees 16 with poem by Joaquin Miller, The Greatest Battle That Ever Was Fought

2006-12-16T09:41:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 55, I Maccabees 2, IV Maccabees 16, Luke 13

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 16

Parental Love
Our author continues to heighten the intensity of his argument in IV Maccabees 16; he has progressed from an old man, to seven very young men, and now he comes to an elderly woman, each of the above having despised the fiercest tortures, and each with the same powers of divine reason. But he makes the case that this old mother has suffered the greatest tortures of all, greater even than the fires of the famed fiery furnace withstood by the three Hebrew children. The fires of parental love complicate her tortures as she watches and urges her sons to die willingly. Her argument to her sons was that as they were given the gift of life by God, so they were to suffer willingly for God. In fact, our author argues, it is unreasonable for people who have religious knowledge not to withstand pain. This mother is favorably compared to Abraham, to Isaac, to Daniel and to the three Hebrew children. More powerful than a man, she conquers the tyrant himself. What a tribute to this woman, the point being, however, that this is a climax of tribute to pious reason and its triumph over the emotions. Is any more proof necessary?

The Greatest Battle That Ever Was Fought
Joaquin Miller, 1841-1913

The greatest battle that ever was fought—
Shall I tell you where and when?
On the maps of the world you will find it not:
It was fought by the Mothers of Men.

Not with cannon or battle shot,
With sword or nobler pen;
Not with eloquent word or thought
From the wonderful minds of men;

But deep in a walled-up woman’s heart;
A woman that would not yield;
But bravely and patiently bore her part;
Lo! there is the battlefield.

No marshalling troops, no bivouac song,
No banner to gleam and wave;
But, Oh, these battles they last so long—
From babyhood to the grave!

But faithful still as a bridge of stars
She fights in her walled-up town;
Fights on, and on, in the endless wars;
Then silent, unseen goes down!

Ho! ye with banners and battle shot,
With soldiers to shout and praise,
I tell you the kingliest victories fought
Are fought in these silent ways.
407:1066

Collect for the Day
We give them back to thee, dear Lord, who gavest them to us. Yet as thou didst not lose them in giving, so we have not lost them by their return. What thou gavest thou takest not away, O Lover of souls;; for what is thine is ours also if we are thine. And life is eternal and love is immortal, and death is only an horizon, and an horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight. Lift us up, strong Son of God, that we may see further; cleanse our eyes that we may see more clearly; and draw us closer to thyself that we may know ourselves to be nearer to our loved ones who are with thee. And while thou dost prepare for us, prepare us also for that happy place, that where they are and thou art, we too may be for evermore.

[489:154:August 22 William Penn,1644-1718]

The Ark of Reason: IV Maccabees 15 with poem by John Donne, Holy Sonnet V

2006-12-15T06:20:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 53, I Maccabees 1, IV Maccabees 15, Luke 12

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 15

The Ark of Reason
Hadas [462:219] claims that IV Maccabees 15 is the acme of his treatise on reason. It is an encomium on the behavior, faith, reason, endurance, nobility and love of the mother of the seven. No praise is too great for this one who chooses between life for a time and life for all eternity. She overcomes all advocates, nature, parental love, family and torture, to choose death by torture in order to obtain eternal life. Again, reference is made to Abraham for this woman has his fortitude as she makes her decision by right and devout reason. Like Noah and the ark, bringing hope to the world through the survival of Noah’s family (cf. Wisdom of Solomon 14:6), hope to the world is sustained by the ark of reason in this woman that faith in God might persist.

Holy Sonnet V
John Donne

I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements, and an angelic sprite,
But black sin hath betrayed to endless night
My world’s both parts, and (oh) both parts must die.
You which beyond that heaven which was most high
Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write,
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,
Or wash it if it must be drowned no more:
But oh it must be burnt! alas the fire
Of lust and envy have burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler; Let their flames retire
And burn me ô Lord, with a fiery zeal
Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal.
395:63

Collect for the Day
Lord Jesus, you alone are the resurrection and the life; those who believe in you will never die. Come to us, and speak new life upon all our dyings. Look upon us as we stand at the thresholds of our entombing experiences, unable to see or move because of the grave clothes which bind us. Set us free. In your name we pray. Amen.

[479:325]

The Mind of Abraham: IV Maccabees 14 with poem by Bink Noll, Abraham's Madness Poem

2006-12-14T08:02:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 52, III Macabees 7, IV Maccabees 14, Luke 11

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 14

The Mind of Abraham
The number seven figures largely in this passage: seven youths, seven tortures, seven-fold fear and seven days of creation. The number seven, the sacred hebdomad, is invoked to bring to perfection the sacrifice of our story. “Several passages in Philo celebrate the virtues of the number seven, e.g., De opif. Mundi 90: ‘I doubt whether anyone could adequately celebrate the properties of the hebdomad, for they are beyond all words.’ Philo then mentions some of these, properties and concludes (ibid. 128): ‘These and yet more than these are the statements and reflections of men on the number seven, showing the reasons or the very high honor which that number has attained in Nature, the honor in which it is held by the most approved investigators of the science of Mathematics and Astronomy among Greeks and other peoples, and the special honor accorded to by that lover of virtue, Moses’” [462:216].

All of the above is simply a transition to the more amazing feat of reason accorded the mother of the seven. Her torture was more diverse than theirs and therefore more excruciating, leaving reason even more honored than in her sons. For she endured the birth pangs seven times, she had the sympathy that every parental creature has for its young. Here our author cites examples from natural history, birds and bees defending their own, and this instinctual behavior was also part of the torture overcome by the mother bringing her to the mind of Abraham, that is, sacrificing willingly that which is most dear to her in the entire world, her own flesh and blood, sons of her womb.

Abraham’s Madness Poem
Bink Noll

When Isaac watched his father strain back
the ram’s head, its throat separate and bleed,
evisceration, and fat turn to smoke,

not he had heard any angel speak
but felt sharply where the rope still cut,
how his own neck cracked, his own flesh burned.

I likewise learned to distrust my sire
whose god in our house was powerful
as revenge shuddering through a plot.

Mornings, his story would begin,
“My dear boy, God will provide the lamb,”
when I knew I went the only lamb,

knew the god had repeated his demand
and violence on this man who adored
both of us past any hope of reason.

I was proving tall, bright, soft of voice.
Then he—his love wild to get me grown—
would change and cheat the law, then reach out

to slay some cheap and easy innocent,
then stop the silence raging in his ear
by reports of angels I never heard.

How we sons lay awake to ponder
the misery of such divided men
to whom the patriarchal lies come true.

My son shall not watch me in a fury
of faith take fire to the altar where
I sacrifice nothing I cherish.

He may feel my hands grab like priest hands,
his eyes may die in the brightness
that I have meant obedience entire.

So much I walked with my mad Abraham.
395:81

Collect for the Day
Lord Jhesu Crist, that madest me,
That boughtest me on rode-tree
And fore-ordainedst that I be,
Thou knowst what Thou wouldst do with me;
Do with me now as pleseth Thee.
Amen, Jhesu, for Thy pyte.

[286:89:271 King Henry VI, 1421-1471]

Willing Martyr: IV Maccabees 13 with poem by Xenophon, from Cyropedia

2006-12-13T06:22:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 51, III Maccabees 6, IV Maccabees 13, Luke 10

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 13

Willing Martyr
IV Maccabees 13 begins the application of the emotional examples of the brothers’ martyrdom, which illustrated the supremacy of reason. Fascinating that the examples of reason over emotions are in themselves so emotional!

The reference to the three Hebrew children in vs. 9 is appropriate because it is generally thought that Daniel was written out of the same political impetus that spawned IV Maccabees [462:211]. The reference to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in vs. 17 is even more fascinating. Hadas writes: “If Daniel and his companions offer the closest parallel to our martyrs, especially in the use of fire, Isaac as a patriarch remains the primal pattern of the willing martyr.” [462:211]. Seldom has the Church considered Isaac as a martyr; rather it has wrestled with Abraham’s felicidal act. The martyrdom of the seven brothers brings all of this into fresh focus, while at the same time suggesting the ‘armor’ of God as their divine protection (cf. Ephesians 6:11, 13-18)..

from Cyropedia
Xenophon
Those who are sprung from the same seed,
nursed by the same mother,
reared in the same home,
loved by the same parents…
how are they not the closest of all?”
462:213

Collect for the Day
Blessed are all thy Saints, O God and King, who have travelled over the tempestuous sea of this mortal life, and have made the harbour of peace and felicity. Watch over us who are still in our dangerous voyage; and remember such as lie exposed to the rough storms of trouble and temptations. Frail is our vessel, and the ocean is wide; but as in thy mercy thou hast set our course, so steer the vessel of our life toward the everlasting shore of peace, and bring us at length to the quiet haven of our heart’s desire, where thou, O our God, are blessed, an livest and reignest for ever and ever.

[286:123:413 St. Augustine, 354-430]

Feelings Like His Own: IV Maccabees 12 with reading by William Shakespeare, Hath Not a Jew Eyes?

2006-12-12T06:06:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 50, III Maccabees 5, IV Maccabees 12, Luke 9

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 12

Feelings Like His Own
Our author heightens the dramatic tension of the death of the 7th brother in IV Maccabees 12 by eliciting the sympathy of the king, the youth of the brother, and the apparent advice of the mother that he succumb to the kings blandishments (cf. 462:206). The mother speaks in Hebrew to her son, obviously a language unknown by the king, and immediately after speaking to him, the boy requests that he be freed of his fetters in order that he may speak to the king and his friends. Once free, however, he runs to the fires and from there makes his speech condemning the king’s actions with words of human sympathy. That is, he confronts the king with the obvious, that the men whose tongues he has cut out has feelings like his own, hopes, fear, dreams like his own. He curses the king to punishment ‘both in the present life and when (he is) dead.’ And then he takes his own life in the braziers and cheats the king and his henchmen of further torture.

Hath Not A Jew Eyes?
from The Merchant of Venice, III.i. 63
William Shakespeare

Hath not a Jew eyes?
hath not a Jew hands,
organs, dimensions, senses,
affections, passions?
fed with the same food,
hurt with the same weapons,
subject to the same diseases,
healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled
by the same winter and summer,
as a Christian is?
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh?
if you poison us, do we not die?
and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
413:464:8

Collect for the Day
In these dark days when negation has so deeply entered into thought,
and the futility of life oppresses man souls,
when belief and unbelief appear indifferent
and what is left
is natural passion to express the pride of life,
or the empty void of nothingness
when the nerve to live and to create is weakened and suicides increase—
O Lord, forgive the failures of your Church to witness to the world
that justice should run down as water
and righteousness a mighty stream,
O Lord, forgive the failure of the Christian life
that lives so worldly
that few can see the life of Spirit
that must proclaim the kingdom of God’s love
to glorify his Name.

[286:108:353 Fr. Gilbert Shaw, 1886-1967]

Jury of Righteous Plaintiffs: IV Maccabees 11 with poem by Theodore Watts-Dunton, John the Pilgrim

2006-12-10T19:09:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 49, III Maccabees 4, IV Maccabees 11, Luke 8

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 11

Jury of Righteous Plaintiffs
This family is like a jury of righteous plaintiffs. The more apparent their virtues, the more judgment they heap upon the head of Antiochus Epiphanes, the tyrant king. On the other hand, by means of pious reason they have clear in their minds the image of a waiting paradise.

The brothers, five and six, bring a new note to this recital in that the fifth brother jumps up voluntarily and the sixth articulates their triumph, i.e., he tells the king that he and his brothers have “paralysed your tyranny!” Indeed they have, far from cursing the tyrant and his actions they have embraced them, to his undoing, they clearly say, but without regret, without a storm of invective. They willingly go to their deaths for the sake of their family, their nation and their God.

John the Pilgrim
Theodore Watts-Dunton
1832-1914

Beneath the sand-storm John the Pilgrim prays;
But when he rises, lo! an Eden smiles,
Green leafy slopes, meadows of chamomiles,
Claspt in a silvery river’s winding maze:
“Water, water! Blessed be God!” he says,
and totters gasping toward those happy isles.
Then all is fled! Over the sandy piles
The bald-eyed vultures come and stand at gaze.

“God heard me not,” says he, “blessed be God!”
And dies. But as he nears the pearly strand,
Heav’n’s outer coast where waiting angels stand,
He looks below: “Farewell, thou hooded clod,
Brown corpse the vultures tear on bloody sand:
God heard my prayer for life—blessed be God!”
407:1346

Collect for the Day
O God, who broughtest me from the rest of last night
Unto the joyous light of this day,
Be thou bringing me from the new light of this day
Unto the guiding light of eternity.
Oh! from the new light of this day
Unto the guiding light of eternity.

[286:165:548 from Carmina Gadelica, tr. Alexander Carmichael (1961)]

Eternal Torments: IV Maccabees 10 with poem by John Milton, Satan's Pride

2006-12-10T19:02:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 48, III Maccabees 3, IV Maccabees 10, Luke 7

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 10

Eternal Torments
One of the elements in each of the speeches of the seven brothers is their condemnation of the tyrant to eternal torments. They are dying for their righteous adherence to the family and the Law of God, but the tyrant is building for himself a record of heinous deeds and eternal suffering. In contrast their willingness to suffer for the good will yield them the beneficence of God. The second and third brother in II Maccabees declare that they will get their lives back again, presumably in the resurrection. IV Maccabees has no such affirmation, however, it is perhaps implied as the opposite of the torments reserved for the tyrant.

The 4th verse of IV Maccabees 10 is missing in the text of the New Revised Standard Version, but other texts include it as follows: “So if you have any instrument of torture, apply it to my body; for you cannot touch my soul, even if you wish.” Eleazar in II Maccabees 6:30 suggests the same as does Matthew 10:28.

Satan’s Pride
from “Parasdise Lost,” Book IV
John Milton
1608-1674

Is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, ad my dread of shame
Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent. Ay me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain,
Under what torments inwardly I groan.
While they adore me on the throne of Hell,
With diadem and sceptre high advanced,
The lower still I fall, only supreme
In misery: such joy ambition finds!
But say I could repent, and could obtain,
By act of grace, my former state; how soon
‘Would highth recal high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feigned submission swore! Ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void
(For never can true reconcilement grow
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep);
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse
And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear
Short intermission, bought with double smart.
This knows my Punisher; therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging, peace.
All hope excluded thus, behold, instead
Of us, outcast, exiled, his new delight,
Mankind, created, and for him this World!
So farewell hope, and, with hope, farewell fear,
Farewell remorse! All good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my Good.
407:1297

Collect for the Day
O Lord, my maker and protector, who has graciously sent me into this world, to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which thou hast required. When I behold the works of thy hands and consider the course of thy providence, give me grace always to remember that thy thoughts are not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways. And while it shall please thee to continue me in this world where much is to be done and little to be known, teach me by thy Holy Spirit to withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties vainly curious and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which thou has imported, let me serve thee with active zeal and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge. Grant this, O Lord, for Jesus Christ’s sake, amen.

[286:116:378 Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784]

A Living God: Bel and the Dragon with poem by Madame Guyon, Since God is There

2006-12-09T09:08:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 44, III Maccabees 2, Bel and the Dragon, Luke 6

Daily Text: Bel and the Dragon

A Living God
In Bel and the Dragon, Daniel continues with these two stories of the prophet’s exploits for the Lord God against pagan deities. There is a common theme running through these two vignettes, that of the nature of a living God. Cyrus believes Bel to be living because of the amount of food the god consumes. Daniel simply laughs at the possibility. His living God doesn’t consume food at all, so ‘living’ for Daniel means something entirely different. Finally, convinced that Bel is not eating, the king is unconcerned that Daniel destroys the idol. But when the dragon, or preferably the snake god, is called to his attention he challenges Daniel that this god lives. Again Daniel, with a different definition of divine life, presents to the king a challenge. If I can kill the ‘dragon’ even without recourse to a killing weapon, will you then believe me that this is no god either? The king consents to his friend’s challenge for obviously no god can die. When he does, the king continues unconcerned until he gets so much domestic static that he has to act and in this case consign Daniel to the lion’s den for the second time in Daniel’s life, only this time for seven days!

So long is his stay in the lion’s den that Daniel’s God intervenes and coerces the prophet Habbukuk into bringing Daniel a meal on his sixth day with these ferocious lions. In the Septuagint the story is credited to Habbukuk, while in our Theodotion text Habbukuk is brought by an angel, carried by the hair of his head, to feed Daniel. His coming is evidence for Daniel that God does not forget those he loves. Undoubtedly, this story was a great comfort to some besieged people. To summarize, Daniel’s living God may not have to eat or be fed, though to be fair sacrifices were made to him, but life is demonstrated by the power to answer prayer, to act, to remember, to care for God’s own.

Since God is There
Madame Guyon, 1648-1717
transl. from the French by William Cowper, 1731-1800

My Lord, how full of sweet content,
I pass my years of banishment!
Where’er I dwell, I dwell with thee,
In Heaven, in earth, or on the sea.

To me remains nor place nor time;
My country is in every clime:
I can be calm and free from care
On any shore, since God is there.
407:227

Collect for the Day
O God, I am Mustafah the tailor and I work at the shop of Muhammad Ali. The whole day long I sit and pull the needle and the thread through the cloth. O God, you are the needle and I am the thread. I am attached to you and I follow you. When the thread tries to slip away from the needle it becomes tangled and must be cut so that it can be put back in the right place. O God, help me to follow you wherever you may lead me. For I am really only Mustafah the tailor, and I work at the shop of Muhammad Ali on the great square.

[286:88:266 A Muslim’s first prayer as a Christian]

Theodotion's Text: Susanna with poem by William Shakespeare, from the Merchant of Venice

2006-12-08T07:34:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 47, III Maccabees 1, Susanna, Luke 4

Daily Text: Susanna

Theodotion’s Text
Susanna has often been considered as the first chapter of Daniel even though in the Greek text it is the 13th. The early church substituted Theodotion’s version of Susanna for the Greek or Septuagintal text early on. Moore [544:92] suggests that it may have been because God is named rather than an angel and Daniel is more prominent in Theodotion’s text. For whatever reasons, this is one of the more delightful tales in the Apocrypha.

Susanna is placed in a position of moral tension by the two judges for they threaten her that if she does not have sex with them they will call witnesses that she was with a young man and they interrupted and caught them. If she consents to their coercion she sins against God and man. If she refuses to be coerced by them, she will die at the hand of the congregation. She chooses to obey God rather than save her own life and calls out for help in the garden.

The judges are even more brazenly hypocritical in the court scene for they lay their hands on her head and swear in the biblical fashion, Leviticus 24:14, that she has been a blasphemer by her betrayal of her marriage vows.

Daniel’s intervention serves to build the young prophet’s reputation among the Jewish community before he becomes famous in the Babylonian court. This story fits in with others in Daniel 1-6, though it is totally within the Jewish community, unlike the stories in the canonical text of Daniel. His intervention is directly linked to God’s action in response to the righteous Susanna’s prayer.

How often ordinary mortals find themselves in ethical and moral situations that require the truth and a damaged reputation or a lie and an unblemished public reputation. Perhaps, in addition to the subject material of Susanna, this has contributed to the popularity of this story. Generally, it is assumed that this story was originally written in Hebrew, although no such original text survives.

from The Merchant of Venice, iv.i.222
William Shakespeare
A Daniel come to judgment! yea a Daniel!
O wise young Judge, how I do honour thee!
535:209

Collect for the Day
O Lord, who has taught us that to gain the whole world and to lose our souls is great folly, grant us the grace so to lose ourselves that we may truly find ourselves anew in the life of grace, and so to forget ourselves that we may be remembered in your kingdom.

[286:119:393 Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892-1971]

The Thread of Life: IV Maccabees 9:10-32

2006-12-07T05:12:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 61, Daniel 12, IV Maccabees 9:10-32, Luke 4

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 9:10-32

The Thread of Life
The two oldest brothers are tortured and killed in IV Maccabees 9:10-32. Their language is a little removed from the circumstances. They sound like mouthpieces for the author as they continue to talk rationally about the superiority of pious reason as their bones are being broken and the skin is flayed off those same bones. The second brother even refers to the sweetness of dying for their ancestral religion. Clearly, their commitment to the Most High God is complete. The oldest brother is speaking words of encouragement to the younger brothers as his life drains from him. The last word of the author refers to this brother’s last words and then he writes, ”When he had said this, the saintly youth broke the thread of life. The second brother “lighten(s) his pain by the joys that come from virtue.” Why is it in our time that so many of us shy away from any public witness whatsoever?

A Tale From the Talmud
William Dearness

In Judah, in the days of story,
When chronicles were gilt with glory,
Heroic dames and virgins then
The equal honors earned with men;
And God himself the prophet taught
To praise and bless them as he ought.

My heart exults to contemplate,
My rhyme runs eager to relate
Their courage firm, their high resolve,
Their faith that nothing could dissolve.
Oh, that enthusiasm strong
Would from the theme inspire the song;
That in this sad, degenerate time
I’d write in poetry sublime—
What might some grace of emulation
Raise in a faint and prostrate nation.

I leave to men of deeper knowing
The task of God’s inerrant showing;
How nature’s best and noblest sons
Are cursed and crushed by worthless ones;
But this I know, that virtues holy
Are brightened by contrasting folly,
And constant courage best was shown
When persecutors had the throne,
And columns high had ne’er been reared,
Had no invading foe appeared;
And when to desperate straits we’re brought,
Then God’s deliverance is wrought.

When Judah by the Gentile arms
Had seen th’ extreme of war’s alarms,
O’erthrown her temple and her city,
Her children slaughtered without pity;
The demon conqueror intended
Her name and fame would both be ended.
He thought one dreadful, dire example
Of horrid torture might be ample,
Now that Jehovah’d them forsaken
And from his folk his flight had taken.

One matron from the drove he chooses,
Her seven sons he also looses;
In public presence will them test,
To answer his supreme behest.

The eldest, he him sets before;
“Now, bending down, our gods adore.”
“The Lord forbid,” he reverent cries;
“His holy law such act denies.
I to no image—neither thee—
Shall kiss the hand nor bend the knee.”

His life made forfeit then was taken—
His trust in Israel’s God unshaken.

The next that sacred household cherished,
Who witnessed how his brother perished,
At once responded: “Shall I less
Than his my faith in God confess?

I love God’s law—its second word
Is none but he is Israel’s Lord.”
And so he died for truth and faith.
The third, undaunted, also saith:
“None but Jehovah worship I”—
And likewise he was drawn to die.
The fourth the traitor’s awful doom
Sets forth: “Who in Jehovah’s room
Shall worship hero, god or demon”—
His young life, too, the sword makes claim on.

“Our God is one,” the Scripture saith,
“And him alone I’ll own in death.”
So died the fifth; our watchword brave
Fresh courage to the next one gave:
“Jehovah—terrible is he
Who, Israel, dwells in midst of thee;
He may his awful plans conceal,
But in his time he’ll them reveal.”
So passed the youthful sixth, in dying,
“Jehovah, take me,” meekly sighing.

Assuming now a tender mien
The tyrant pleads: “My boy, you’ve seen
How vain it its to trust in one
Who utmost unconcern has shown.
‘Tis only to respect our law—
I’d put your countrymen in awe;
For Rome, supreme, must be obeyed—
Nor gods nor emperor gainsaid.
The test from thee’s a simple thing—
In front of Jove I’ll drop my ring,
Stoop down and pick it up; no thought
Of inferential change is wrought.”

The bright-cheeked boy, his eyes upturned,
The tyrant’s seeming mercy spurned;
His soul kept free from heathen stains
Breaks forth in rapt prophetic strains:

“Forever reigns our glorious Lord—
Performed shall be his faithful word;
His kingdom raised, while ruined thine
He’ll to oblivion consign
As chastened Israel suffers now,
So shall he purer offerings vow.
His faith in days that have gone by
Endear him to his God most high,
And future glories wait the day
When all mankind shall own his sway;

“But thou might’st save thy soul if He
Were but to show His power to thee.”
He thus to Chaldea’s king made known
His sovereign Lord and God alone.
The prostrate king the world obeyed
And favor found and humbly prayed.
To God’s own folk he mercy showed
And so was blessed in his abode;
But thou, nor truth nor mercy giving,
Are but for greater vengeance living.

“To death!” the raging tyrant cries.
Prevention weak the mother tries,
With arms enfolding makes her plea:
“O let him not be torn from me—
My seventh, my last, my life, my all!
On me let first they vengeance fall.
Sword, come on me, nor let me see
The death of one so dear to me!”

“Nay, nay,” the scoffer made reply,
“Your law forbids that you should die;
‘Ye dare not slay the dam that day
Ye take the offspring’s life away.’”

“Thou scourge of man, thou hand of God!
Thy sins thy guilty soul shall load,
Till down to depths thou shalt be driven,
Transcending all that fell from heaven.

But go, my son, when Abra’m thou
In blissful peace shalt meet, avow
Superior reverence to me—
For I gave seven, but one gave he—
But tempted was his faith when tried,
See mine performed—my Isaacs died.

“What shall I add?” Her reason flown,
Why should she linger here alone—
Wandering unguarded, heedless, fell
She whom her Lord had honored well.

Has Judah now no valiant dame
That might such awful honors claim?
For answer: In my northern home
You’ll see, ere wintry weather come,
The fields the cheery flowers adorn,
Bejeweled bright at early morn;
Then fierce the driving, biting storm
Will bare the meads of every form
That spring and summer spread around
So lavish on the fertile ground.
But brightly then the heather bell
Purple the hills I love so well.
When dangerous foxgloves, crimson clover
Lie hid till winter storms are over;
The bloom upon the Arcadian hills
Is blown by that which verdure kills.

If Judah’s winter comes again,
Her hero dames shall bloom amain.
403:313

Collect for the Day
May the source of peace send peace to all who mourn, and comfort to all who are bereaved. Amen.

[266:494]

Eat and Be Freed: IV Maccabees 8:1-9:9 with poem by David Gascoyne, De Profundis

2006-12-06T17:06:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 50, Daniel 1:2-45, IV Maccabees 8:1-9:9, Luke 3

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 8:1-9:9

Eat And Be Freed
In a rage over his failure to coerce Eleazar to his his pork, the tyrant, Antiochus Epiphanes, demands new victims with the same promise: eat and be freed or refuse and be tortured. This victim was a family, a family of seven brothers and their aged mother. So handsome, modest, noble and accomplished are they, that Antiochus is genuinely attracted to them and offers friendship and positions in his administration if they will obey him and reject their ancient national religion. But his coercion is not all with a silk glove. He makes no bones about it, eat or die.

The brothers, as if a Greek chorus, speak with one voice: “Save your sweet promises for someone else. You’ve obviously learned nothing from our esteemed priest, Eleazar. Is it more fitting for an old man to die than for a young one? Put us to the test. We will die and win the prize of virtue and of being with God, while you will face divine justice and eternal torment by fire.” This taunt throws the tyrant into a fury, as one might imagine, and the killing begins.

De Profundis
David Gascoyne

Out of these depths:

Where footsteps wander in the marsh of death and an
Intense infernal glare is on our faces facing down:

Out of these depths, what shamefaced cry
Half choked in the dry throat, as though a stone
Were our confounded tongue, can ever rise:
Because the mind has been struck blind
And may no more conceive
Thy Throne.

Because the depths
Are clear with only death’s
Marsh-light, because the rock of grief
Is clearly too extreme for us to breach:
Deepen our depths,

And aid our unbelief.
513:43

Collect for the Day
Lord, I yearn only to be near You,
though at times I seem remote.
Lord, I cannot find the way unaided:
teach me the faithful service You would have me do.
show me Your ways, guide me, lead me,
release me from the prison of unknowing
while I still can make amends.
Do not despise my lowly state.
Before I grow so weak, so heavy with mortality
that I bend and fall,
and my bones, brittle with age,
become food for moth and worm,
be my help, O be my help!
Where my forebears went, there go i.
Yes, I know it.
Their resting-place is mine.

I know it.
Like them I am a stranger passing through this life.
Since the womb of earth is my allotted portion,
and since I’ve chased the wind from the beginning of my days,
when will I come to set my house in order?
The passions You Yourself have made a part of me
have kept me rapt within the passing scene,
and how, enslaved to passion as I’ve been,
a prey to fierce and fiery hungers,
how, I ask, could I have served You as I needed to?
But now the time has come to ask:
why all this ambition, why the quest for high estate,
when tomorrow I must die?
Why this expense of spirit,
when tomorrow I mourn the passing time?
These days and nights combine to bring me to the end;
they scatter my thought to the winds,
they return my frame to the dust.
What now can I say in my defense:
What brave words remain to shield me from my truth?
My nature has pursued me, possessed me, driven and flayed me,
a doubtful friend from childhood on.
What then do I really have besides Your presence?
Stripped of my pretensions, naked at the last, here I stand,
and only Your goodness can clothe and shelter me.
for nothing now remains but this:
Lord, I yearn only to be near You!
266:477

Live to God: IV Maccabees 7 with poem by St. John of the Cross, Songs of the Soul

2006-12-05T05:06:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 46, Daniel 10:1-11:1, IV Maccabees 7, Luke 1

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 7

Live to God
This author is persistent. He writes an ode to Eleazar and then concludes chapter 7 with a summarizing discourse on the sovereignty of pious reason over the emotions. The ode is prefaced by two metaphors. One of the metaphors is of the sea with a ship, waves, storms and through it all a steady hand on the tiller. Another metaphor suggests that Eleazar is like a city under siege, but in spite of the tortures and racks he conquers his besiegers with the shield of pious reason. The ode itself soars with praise for Eleazar’s worthiness, his endurance and above all his example for the congregation.

In the discourse, verses 16-23, the author uses the phrase ‘live to God’, a phrase that is common in Paul’s writing, e.g. Romans 6:10. Here are seeds of resurrection teaching, that may or may not have been influenced by Christian theology. This discourse introduces in a new and explicit way that reason dominating emotion is only possible in the one who lives his life toward God with integrity.

Songs of the Soul in Intimate
Communication and Union with
the Love of God
St. John of the CrossTransl. from the Spanish by Roy Campbell

Oh flame of love so living,
How tenderly you force
To my soul’s inmost core your fiery probe!
Since now you’ve no misgiving,
End it, pursue your course
And for our sweet encounter tear the robe!

Oh cautery most tender!
Oh gash that is my guerdon!
Oh gentle hand! Oh touch how softly thrilling!
Eternal life you render,
Raise of all debts the burden
And change my death to life, even while killing!

Oh lamps of fiery blaze
To whose refulgent fuel
The deepest caverns of my soul grow bright,
Late blind with gloom and haze,
But in this strange renewal
Giving to the belov’d both heat and light.

What peace, with love enwreathing,
You conjure to my breast
Which only you your dwelling place may call:
While with delicious breathings
In glory, grace, and rest,
So daintily in love you make me fall!
513:168

Collect for the Day
Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praises; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.

[286:64:173 St. Augustine, 354-450]

Vicarious Expiation Requested: IV Maccabees 6 with poem by Edmund Spenser, Easter Morning

2006-12-04T11:13:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 45, Daniel 9, IV Maccabees 6, ` Revelation 22

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 6

Vicarious Expiation Requested
Several plays on words occur in IV Maccabees 6 as the soldiers ready Eleazar for torture and death. The first is that though they strip him, his piety gracefully clothes him. Again, as they flog him and he falls, his reason remains upright! Our author never forsakes his thesis.

When he raises his eyes to heaven he assumes the classic martyrs attitude [462:177]. Obviously, this is meant to signify prayer. The metaphor of the athlete of virtue is evidently a favorite one of the Stoics [462:178], and in his denial of the cessation of torture by play-acting in the matter of eating pork, the old priest asserts the importance of living with integrity all the way to death. In a final prayer he begs God to allow his death to suffice for the people. In this request for vicarious expiation, Eleazar asks that his blood purify others and that God take his life in exchange for theirs. Such a notion is first expressed in Isaiah 53:5-12, and is seen again, of course, in the Gospels.

Easter Morning
Edmund Spenser1552?-1599

Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day
Didst make thy triumph over death and sin,
And, having harrowed hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win;
This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
And grant that we, for whom thou didst die,
Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin,
May live forever in felicity:
And that thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love thee for the same again:
And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,
With love may one another entertain.
So let us love, dear love, like as we ought;
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
407:644

Collect for the Day
Lord Jesus Christ, king of glory, Son of the living God, who for sinners gave your body over into the hands of enemies, and deigned to surrender yourself to death, I implore you in your pity mercifully to rescue me from the hands of all my enemies, by your glorious body which we here adore in the form of bread, by your blood through which today the world is sanctified. And I beg too, O Lord, that I and all my friends and my enemies and all Christians, at the separation of body and soul, may be led through true faith into eternal life.

[286:157:521 Latin, 14th century, tr. Edmund Colledge]

Worthy of Emulation: IV Maccabees 5 with poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Every Stoic Was a Stoic

2006-12-03T11:13:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 43, Daniel 8, IV Maccabees 5, Revelation 21

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 5

Worthy of Emulation
Antiochus in chapter 5 give a Stoic’s speech to Eleazar, chiding him for not looking upon the king’s demand for eating pork with more equanimity. After all, he is a learned man and should be able to rise above his primitive religion. Eleazar, on his part, denies the possibility of equanimity and rationalization. He defends his integrity and the integrity of his religion with superior stoical arguments and the perspicacity to see how his people’s Law is superior to Stoicism, accomplishing all of Stoicism’s purposes and going beyond to the one, true God. In essence his God will enable him to be a godly man in the face of the worst Antiochus Epiphanes can throw at him. The New Revised Standard Version in a note records that in Antioch, the place the Christians remembered this as happening, a church was built in honor of Eleazar and the seven young martyrs and their mother. Here was a man worthy of emulation.

Every Stoic Was a Stoic
from Essays, New England Reformers,
ii. Self-Reliance
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882

Every Stoic was a Stoic;
but in Christendom
where is the Christian?
413:200:45

Collect for the Day
From that which we fear, O Lord, make us fearless.
O bounteous One, assist us with your aid.
Drive far the malevolent, the foeman.

May the atmosphere we breathe
breathe fearlessness into us:
fearlessness on earth
and fearlessness in heaven!
May fearlessness guard us
behind and before!
May fearlessness surround us
above and below!

May we be without fear
of friend and foe!
May we be without fear
of the known and the unknown!
May we be without fear
by night and by day!
let all the world be my friend!

[286:283:858]

Angels on Horseback: IV Maccabees 3:19-4:26 with poem by Adelaide Anne Procter, Who is the Angel That Cometh?

2006-12-02T09:41:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 42, Daniel 7, IV Maccabees 3:19-4:26, Revelation 20

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 3:19-4:26

Angels on Horseback
Hadas [462:160] entitles this passage an ‘historical preamble’ to the narrative that will follow in coming chapters. The author’s historical accuracy is weak, even when his source, II Maccabees, has it correct. Seleucus Nicanor was the not king, he was a general fighting with Alexander the Great. The king in question was Seleucus IV Philopater, the predecessor to Antiochus Epiphanes who was his brother, not his son! Nonetheless in our story, God once again comes to the aid of his people in the form of angels on horseback with swords flashing and governors stricken to the ground.

The upshot of the preamble is that Antiochus Epiphanes comes to power and he recognizes few of the precedents followed in previous administrations. He removes the high priest and places a puppet in his place, a puppet who cannot even then please the master. So Antiochus Epiphanes comes to Jerusalem to enforce his will and is unable to. This sets the stage for what is to follow, the important material in this book.

Who Is The Angel That Cometh?
Adelaide Anne Procter
1825-1864

I
Who is the Angel that cometh?
Life!
Let us not question what he brings,
Peace or Strife,
Under the shadow of his mighty wings,
One by one,
Are his secrets told;
One by one,
Lit by the rays of each morning sun,
Shall a new flower its petals unfold,
With the mystery hid in its heart of gold.
We will arise and go forth to greet him,
Singly, gladly, with one accord;--
“Blessed is he that cometh
In the name of the Lord.”

II
Who is the Angel that cometh?
Joy!
Look at his glittering rainbow wings—
No alloy
Lies in the radiant gifts he brings;
Tender and sweet,
He is come to-day,
Tender and Sweet:
While chains of love on his silver feet
Will hold him in lingering fond delay.
But greet him quickly, he will lnot stay,
Soon he will leave us; but though for others
All his brightest treasures are stored;--
“Blessed is he that cometh
In the name of the Lord!”

III
Who is the Angel that cometh?
Pain!
Let us arise and go forth to greet him;
Not in vain
Is the summons come for us to meet him;
He will stay,
And darken our sun;
He will stay
A desolate night, a weary day.
Since in that shadow our work is done,
And in that shadow our crowns are won,
Let us say still, while his bitter chalice
Slowly into our hearts is poured,--
“Blessed is he that cometh
In the name of the Lord!”

IV
Who is the Angel that cometh?
Death!
But do not shudder and do not fear;
Hold your breath,
For a kigly presence is drawing near.
Cold and bright
Is his flashing steel,
Cold and bright
The smile that comes like a starry light
To calm the terror and grief we feel;
He comes to help and to save and heal:
Then let us, baring our hearts and kneeling,
Sing, while we wait this Angel’s swoerd,--
“Blessed is he that cometh
In the name of the Lord!”
407:1407

Collect for the Day
O everlasting God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of angels and men in a wonderful order; Mercifully grant, that as thy holy angels alway do thee service in heaven, so by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[286:250:773 Book of Common Prayer]

To Deny Himself: IV Maccabees 2:24-3:18 with poem by William Wordsworth, Ode to Duty

2006-12-01T09:16:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 41:2-29, Daniel 6, IV Maccabees 2:24-3:18, Revelation 19

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 2:24-3:18

To Deny Himself
This passage begins with a reference to the topic introduced in 1:5, i.e., the impossibility of reason ruling its own emotions, those of the intellect, seem patently obvious to the author. He is likely having reference to Stoic notions of the relationships between the body and the soul [462:157]. The issue is that while reason cannot eradicate undesireable emotions it can direct them.

As an example, the author uses King David’s thirst, a story told in II Samuel 23 and I Chronicles 11. Longing for a drink from inside the enemies camp, two of his soldiers learning of this, steal through the enemy lines and bring to David a pitcher of the desired water. In II Samuel and I Chronicles the details are a little different, but the import of the story is the same. David recognizing that his men had risked their lives for his whim, decided not to drink their gift of water, but to offer it to the LORD. His reasoning may have been that only the LORD was worthy of such a life-threatening risk. At any rate his reasoning led him to deny himself the water, the whole point of the author. Point well-taken. This now is the transition from argument to example in our author’s treatise.

Ode to Duty
William Wordsworth
1770-1850

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free;
And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth;
Glad hearts, without reproach or blot,
Who do thy work and know it not:
Oh! if through confidence misplaced
They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power,
around them cast.

Serene will be our days, and bright
And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security;
And they a blissful course may hold
Even now, who, not unwisely bold,
Live in the spirit of this creed;
Yet seek thy firm support according
to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried,
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,
Too blindly have reposed my trust;
And oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred
The task, in smoother walks to stray;
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul,
Or strong compunction in me wrought,
I supplicate for thy control,
But in the quietness of thought.
Me this unchartered freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance-desires:
My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead’s most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face:
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through thee,
are fresh and strong.

To humbler functions, awful Power!
I call thee; I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh, let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give;
And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live. 407:1214

Collect for the Day
O God, help me to victory over myself, for difficult to conquer is oneself, though when that is conquered, all is conquered.

[286:298:908 Jain Scriptures]

Reason to Rule: IV Maccabees 2:1-23 with poem by Shakespeare, How All Occasions

2006-11-29T06:22:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Isaiah 40:1-41:1, Daniel 4, IV Maccabees 2:1-23, Revelation 17

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 2:1-23

Reason To Rule
In chapter 2:1-23 the author addresses some examples of reason ruling emotion in the matters of sexual passion, greed, leniency in favor of the law with those one loves, and the ‘more violent emotions’ listed as lust for power, vainglory, boasting, arrogance, malice and above all anger. The essay closes with the observation that the emotions, gentle and violent, are gifts from God, and rational judgement is given to control them, not to destroy them, to rule, not to be ruled by them.

How All Occasions
from Hamlet iii.iv.32
William Shakespeare
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unus’d.
413:436:15

Collect for the Day
Almighty God, create in us a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within us, that amid the din and confusion of this noisy world we may always choose the more excellent way. Through Christ. Amen.

[479:247]

Rational Judgment: IV Maccabees 1 with poem by Joseph Addison, In Reason's Ear

2006-11-26T21:22:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 149, Daniel 2, IV Maccabees 1, Revelation 15

Daily Text: IV Maccabees 1

Rational Judgment
This work was written about 40 A.D. by an Hellenized person in commemoration of the death of the martyrs (cf. 1.10) [462:115]. The philosopher author is at pains to discuss the sovereignty of reason over human emotional life, and he sets about to describe it and illustrated it in clear Greek prose. He describes this ‘reason’ as rational judgment or ‘prudence’ if we may use the word used later in history, as well as in Wisdom 8:7, meaning right judgment or action. Perhaps the most helpful matter in this discussion is the relationship of reason to wisdom. Rational judgment, according to our author, prefers the life of wisdom, defined as the knowledge of divine and human matters. Education is thus part of wisdom, that may come in four kinds. They are rational judgment, justice, courage and self-control. Without elaborating the author suggests that these four kinds wisdom inform and support each other, so that the courage faced by the martyrs whom we will meet in chapter 4 and beyond, has a component of self-control that allows rational judgment to continue functioning in the face of the most terrible and painful persecutions. The emotions themselves are listed as gluttony, lust, malice, anger, fear, desire, delight, sorrow and the most comprehensive of all pleasure and pain. It is at times difficult to read IV Maccabees and remember through the examples given that this is a treatise about reason. Its importance for our own time is perhaps obvious, for our contemporary tendency is to suggest that emotions simply are and to allow the individual the right to express them even in their unbridled forms. That self-control and prudence are possible under even the most trying situations is important knowledge, knowledge that might lead to some wisdom even today.

In Reason’s Ear
Joseph Addison1672-1719

In Reason’s ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious Voice,
For ever singing as they shine,
‘The Hand that made us is Divine.’
413:2:28

Collect for the Day
Accept our praise, God of justice, defender of the oppressed. Give us grace to join in this your holy work, that all the world may see your glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[476:909:149 Psalm prayer]

The Pathos of Lonliness:II Esdras 16 with anonymous hymn, Hymn from Qumran

2006-11-26T21:14:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 148, Daniel 1, II Esdras 16, Revelation 14

Daily Text: II Esdras 16

The Pathos of Lonliness
Chapter 16 of II Esdras encompasses calamities or tribulations that will come to the entire Roman Empire, and later in the reading, to the people of God. For those nations that are ungodly, there is no escape. Death will be so widespread that individuals will long to see another human being, will long to simply hear a voice other than their own.

For the people of God these same calamities will be visited upon their heads partly because they fear the Lord. And the Most High recommends that they sit loose with their usual vocational pursuits, for no outcome will be predictable as long as these disasters continue. Regardless of their provocation they are to be steadfast in their belief in the Lord, and above all they are not to deny their iniquity. The Lord knows the thoughts and intentions of their hearts for he made them. And any denial of sin will call down upon them his anger. Rather, admit sin, and steadfastly put it away in service to God. In that way God will see them through this difficult time.

Written late in the 3rd century this Christian tract recalls for both Christians and Jews the need to put God first and to trust in his promises.

Hymn from Qumran
transl by G. Vermes
‘The torrents of Satan shall reach
to all sides of the world.
In all their channels
a consuming fire shall destroy
every tree, green and barren, on their banks;
unto the end of their courses
it shall scourge with flames of fire,
and shall consume the foundations of the earth
and the expanse of dry land.
The bases of the mountains shall blaze
and the roots of the rocks shall turn
to torrents of pitch;
it shall devour as far as the great Abyss.’
539:295

Collect for the Day
Blessed are you, Lord our God, creator of heaven and earth; you open our eyes to see the wonders around us, and our hearts and mouths to praise you. Now give us strength for loving service, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[476:908:148 Psalm prayer]

The Color of Fire: II Esdras 14 with poem by John Dryden, Inspiration of the Bible

2006-11-24T09:26:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 146, Esther 9, II Esdras 14, Revelation 12

Daily Text: II Esdras 14

The Color of Fire
In the seventh vision, II Esdras 14, Ezra under inspiration rewrites the holy Scripture in twenty-four books, and writes 70 books of apocalyptic writings. The twenty-four are what we know as the Hebrew Scriptures, the seventy put emphasis on the many Hebrew apocalyptic texts, which were then in dispute. Obviously, the author feels that they are full of wisdom and ought to be retained and studied by the wise. Ultimately, these were rejected by the Pharisees of this author’s time [cf. 539:272].

Ezra is seen as a second Moses in this passage, God speaking to him from the bush, and then taking forty days to write the 94 books of Scripture. Only Ezra writes in a field, while Moses received the Torah on Mt. Sinai. (Fascinating, that in Matthew 5 ff. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is also seen in Luke 6 as the Sermon on the Plain.) In this chapter Ezra is translated as were Enoch and Elijah and perhaps Moses as expressed in the pseudephigraphic book, The Assumption of Moses. The cup of liquid, something like water, but the color of fire, puts Ezra into an ecstatic state that lasts day and night for forty days. References like ‘tongues of fire’ in Acts two seem to be in correlation with this ecstatic note. Ezra is ever after credited with inventing the modern square Hebrew letters, even by Jerome [cf. 543:623]. While, Ezra’s attitude has changed from being critical in chapter 3 to trusting God in everything in chapter 14, still his purpose in requesting that he be able to reproduce the Scripture was to give his fellow Israelites a ‘map’ for negotiating the evil world, death, and judgment. He wants humankind to have every opportunity for doing what is right and ending in the presence of the Most High. We should feel in concert with his concern.

Inspiration of the Bible
John Dryden
Whence, but from Heaven, could men unskill’d in arts,
In several ages born, in several parts,
Weave such agreeing truths? or how, or why,
Should all conspire to treat us with a lie?
Unask’d their pains, ungrateful their advice,
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price.

If on the book itself we cast our view,
Concurrent heathens prove the story true:
The doctrine, miracles; which must convince,
For Heaven in them appeals to human sense;
And though they prove not they confirm the cause,
When what is taught agrees with nature’s laws.
Therefore the style, majestic and divine,
It speaks no less than God in every line:
Commanding words; whose force is still the same
As the first fiat that produc’d our frame.
All faiths beside, or did by arms ascend;
Or sense indulg’d has made mankind their friend:

This only doctrine does our lusts oppose:
Unfed by nature’s soil, in which it grows;
Cross to our interests, curbing sense and sin;
Oppress’d without, and undermin’d within,
It thrives through pain; its own tormentors tires,
And with a stubborn patience still aspires.
403:9

Collect for the Day
God our creator and redeemer, inspire your people, in prosperity or adversity, to turn always to you, eternal source of life, health, and goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[476:905:146 Psalm prayer]

The Breath of Our Life: Lamentations 4 with anonymous poem, Lament for Zion

2006-11-23T21:35:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 137, Jeremiah 42:1-43:7, Lamentations 4, Baruch 3

Daily Text: Lamentations 4

The Breath of Our Life
As in the second and third poems, Lamentations 4 has reversed the acrostic with the letters Ayin and Pe so that Pe comes first (cf. vss. 16 and 17). While this could have been a scribal reversal, and the verses could make sense in the opposite direction, it is unlikely that scribes would make the same error in three poems running. Why it is that way is completely unknown. Could Pe have preceded Ayin in the alphabet in some faraway time?

This poem is that one that says very clearly that mothers ate their children, so fearsome was this siege. This is not unusual in these desperate circumstances, but it generally is thought to occur among those with bad character to begin with. However, Deuteronomy 28:53-57 predicts this sort of horrific behaviour in the midst of a terrible siege.

Reference to Zedekiah the king comes in verse 20, ‘the breath of our life.’ This is a very old phrase seen a thousand years before in the Tell Armarna letters [532:92]. The only question is who would have thought Zedekiah was this exalted, king or no. But the importance of the role, regardless of the person, is always real, and no more may be meant than the ritual recognition of the importance of the king.

Lament For Zion
Anonymous
We drew near to find out how our mother was faring.
We stood at her door and wept.
The watchmen found us, beat us, wounded us:
‘Away, unclean ones!’ they shouted.

Again we came but did not draw near;
from afar, we stood at the top of the Mount [of Olives].
The solitary one appeared before us;
she looked out from her prison as she faced us.

We raised our eyes to see her but could not recognize her,
so wasted did she look.
She had lost her shape, her form was gone;
she was bound in chains and weighed down by her fetters.

We raised our voices in lament
for the desecration of Mount Moriah
and for our poor mother,
who had nothing left to sustain her.

Our cries reached her ears and she too wept aloud.
She wept and implored and lamented:
‘How like a widow am I!

‘My children have gone into captivity,
my sanctuary is laid waste,
and I am left naked and bare—
for these things do I weep!’
443:250

Collect for the Day
God of courage and compassion, comfort the exiled and oppressed, strengthen the faith of your people, and bring us all to our true home, the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

[476:895:137 Psalm prayer]

The Sixth Vision: II Esdras 13 with poem by John Oxenham, The Coming Day

2006-11-23T21:23:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 145, Esther 8.1-12, Addition E, 8.13-17, II Esdras 13, Revelation 11

Daily Text: II Esdras 13

The Sixth Vision
The sixth vision of II Esdras 13 is that of the dramatic appearance of the Messiah, Son of the Most High, rising out of the sea. As the depths of the sea cannot be plumbed so the mysteries of the Messiah likewise cannot be known before he is revealed. When his voice is heard by the warring nations, they stop fighting each other, unite and come as a mighty force to make war with the figure of the man. He calmly cuts out a mountain, Mt. Zion, the new Jerusalem prepared and fully built, and standing upon it raises no weapon of war against his adversaries. However, he reproves the assembled nations for their ungodliness with a storm full of sparks, reproaches them for their evil thoughts with his flaming breath and destroys them without effort by means of the fiery torah, the teaching of God. They are burnt to cinders.

This figure like a man then summons the ten lost tribes of Israel, here called the nine tribes, the former Northern Kingdom, to come back from the land to which they had trekked in order to live according to the statutes of God they had failed to follow in Samaria. In addition there seem to be Jews already within the borders, presumably southern kingdom Jews, and a host of others captive Jews and converted Gentiles. This a vision of fulfillment of all that the Hebrew people had ever hoped for. Note also that it reflects a Jewish understanding of the Messiah that could explain much of the misunderstanding surrounding Jesus in his own time. For here the Messiah, though not unlike Jesus in character, is very unlike him in exercised power.

The Coming Day
John Oxenham
1852-1941

Beyond the war-clouds and the reddened ways,
I see the Promise of the Coming Days!
I see His Sun arise, new charged with grace
Earth’s tear to dry and all her woes efface!
Christ lives! Christ loves! Christ rules!
No more shall Might,
Though leagued with all the Forces of the Night,
Ride over Right. No more shall Wrong
The world’s gross agonies prolong.
Who waits His Time shall surely see
The triumph of His Constancy;--
When without let, or bar, or stay,
The coming of His Perfect Day
Shall sweep the Powers of Night away;--
And Faith, replumed for nobler flight,
And Hope, aglow with radiance bright,
And Love, in loveliness bedight,
Shall greet the morning light!
407:670

Collect for the Day
Almighty God, give us grace to know you more and more, that knowing we may love and loving we may praise, that the whole world may hear your name and worship you, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[476:905:145 Psalm prayer]

Despised: II Esdras 12:3b-51 with poem by Arthur B. Rhinow, Victory

2006-11-22T07:38:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 144, Esther 6:14-7:10, II Esdras 12:3b-51, Revelation 10

Daily Text: II Esdras 12:3b-51

Despised
Chapter 12 is the interpretation of II Esdras 11, and it assumed that it made perfect sense in 100 A.D. Today, however, it is about as obscure as the vision itself. Some matters are clear. Twelve Roman emperors are a parallel to twelve Greek kings in Daniel’s vision. Generally, they are thought of as the Julian emperors beginning with Julius Caesar, and Augustus, who ruled the longest. The three heads are generally, thought to be the Flavians, Vespasian, the middle head, Domitian, the right one and Titus, the left head [cf. 540:300ff]. These last were the emperors who pursued the Jewish wars and destroyed Jerusalem by the hand of Titus in 70 A.D. Vespasian was the larger in that he was father to Domitian and Titus. They were particularly despised and that comes through in this text, 12:22-28.

The people seek out Ezra who has been absent for the seven days of preparation for this vision, fearful that he has left them for good. He is the last of the prophets, the only one left to them. And they express that if that he had indeed abandoned them they might better have died with the others in Jerusalem and been spared the following terrible years. Ezra reassures them and sends them back to their homes to wait until he finishes seeking mercy for them and the loss of their sanctuary.

Victory
Arthur B. Rhinow

I…… What a fine statue!
Myself It is Victory.
I Proud figure!
Myself We won the war.
I Why, there’s a tear in her eye!
Myself I know. We did not win the enemy.
407:1753

Collect for the Day
Generous and bountiful God, give compassion to the prosperous and comfort to the needy, that all people may come to love and praise you, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[476:903:144 Psalm prayer]

The Wars Continue: II Esdras 11:1-12:3a with poem by Homer, The Trojan Camp at Night

2006-11-20T18:06:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 143, Esther 6:1-13, II Esdras 11:1-12:3a, Revelation 9

Daily Text: II Esdras 11:1-12:3a

The Wars Continue
The eagle arises out of the sea, the Mediterranean Sea, that is, the western sea, the evil sea. For Ezra, no good comes of it. Its wings cover the world, ruling, oppressing, universally dominate without significant challenge. With rapidly changing leaders, the voice heard comes from the middle of the body, in this case, perhaps, the Roman Senate, for while the leaders are changing, Rome continues, the wars continue.
The lion found in II Esdras 11:1-12:3a is the Messiah, the one who will address the eagle and bring it to judgment and to death, this cruel and unjust master. The end of the eagle’s rule is foreseen as a consequence both of God’s intention and the eagle’s evil action. And that end comes in flames of fire as did the end of the fourth kingdom in Daniel 7, with which this beast, this eagle is associated, reinterpreted (cf. 11-13) and identified.

The Trojan Camp at Night
from “Iliad VIII”
HomerTranslated by Alfred Tennyson

So Hector said, and sea-like roared his host;
Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke,
And each beside his chariot bound his own;
And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep
In haste they drove, and honey-hearted wine
And bread from out the houses brought, and heaped
Their firewood, and the winds from off the plain
Rolled the rich vapor far into the heaven.
And these all night upon the bridge of war
Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed:
As when in heaven the stars about the moon
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
And every height comes out, and jutting peak
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
Break open to their highest, and all the stars
Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart.
So many a fire between the ships and stream
Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy,
A thousand on the plain; and close by each
Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire;
And champing golden grain the horses stood
Hard by their chariots, waiting for the dawn.
542:2825

Collect for the Day
God of our hope, when we are distracted by care and sickness, help us to recognize your image in ourselves and others, that we may be made whole and the world become the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

[476:902:143 Psalm prayer]

Abandon Us? Never: II Esdras 9:26-10:59 with poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, My Own Heart

2006-11-20T07:27:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 141, Esther Addition D, 5, II Esdras 9:26-10:59, Revelation 8

Daily Text: II Esdras 9:26-10:59

Abandon Us? Never
Somehow, in II Esdras 9:26-10:59, Ezra relaxes incrementally with the tension he has felt between his own grief about the children of men proceeding hell-bent to torment, and God’s ability to give humankind true freedom to choose Him or to spurn Him. By this passage Ezra has come back to focus upon Israel alone and through his experience with the woman who has lost her son, he comes to accept God’s will as best in every experience. How often we change after we more objectively see another’s grief and foolishness. That seems to be Ezra’s experience, for he gets downright angry at the woman who grieves her son’s untimely death to the point of threatening a pious suicide.

Intriguing how God brings Ezra around as his dream vision of the woman-cum-Jerusalem enables him to see that the destruction of Jerusalem is already accounted for in God’s prescient provision of a New Jerusalem. The implication for Israel is that Jerusalem may be destroyed, either in 587 B.C. or 70 A.D., but God has no intention of giving up on his people. He has already provided a new city, a new locus for the presence of God among humankind. Abandon us? Never. Ezra felt abandoned and cried out in panic for Uriel in this text, and then realized that he had not been alone for a moment. All the while God had been there, in his experience, in his present, in his future. That was eminently true in the coming of Jesus, and is eminently true in the apocalyptic Christian text of Revelation. Note in chapter two verse one that Jesus is the one who walks among the churches. We, along with Ezra, may be heartened.

My Own Heart
Gerard Manley Hopkins
My own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst’s all-in-all in a world of wet.

Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
’s not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather – as skies
Betweenpie mountains – lights a lovely mile.
513:50:55

Collect for the Day
Gracious God, in times of sorrow and depression, when hope itself seems lost, help us to remember the transforming power of your steadfast love and to give thanks for that new life we cannot now imagine. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Saviour.

[476:812:79 Psalm prayer]

Wind and Fire: II Esdras 8:19b-9:25 with poem by Abu-al-'ala'al-Ma'arri, Bill of Sale

2006-11-19T05:27:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 140, Esther 4, Addition C, II Esdras 8:19b-9:25, Revelation 7

Daily Text: II Esdras 8:19b-9:25

Wind and Fire
As a note in the superscription to Ezra’s confession, we read “before he was taken up.” This is the first reference in II Esdras to Ezra’s translation without going through death. The regard with which the man is held compares with that of Enoch and Elijah, the two men in the Hebrew Scriptures that were taken up to the presence of the divine without dying.

The confession itself is radically beautiful. It lists among a number of divine attributes the ability on command to change angels to ‘wind and fire’, and not surprisingly, asks God to forgive the sins of the wicked even without their cooperation. It is the mercy of God for which Ezra pleads. His insistence about the tragedy of sinful man’s demise through the judgment which is to come never wavers throughout these three visions, and we must confess, neither does God’s commitment to free will and righteous behavior. Ezra may not love the creation as much as God, but the author is not terribly convincing on that score. Ezra declares that the goodness of God will be fully recognized when he has mercy on those for whom there is no store of good works. Fascinating that this is exactly the claim made by Jesus and his followers. God so loved the world that he died for humankind even while they were in their sin and rebellion against him. No store of good works is needed, only faith in the work completed by Jesus. But that faith continues to be required.

The righteous in II Esdras, however, will be saved on the basis of their good works or their faith. Both are desirable.

Bill of Sale
Abu-al-‘Alā’ al-Ma’arriTranslated from the Arabic by George Wightman and Abdullah al-Udhari

God help us, we have sold our souls, all that was best,
To an enterprise in the hands of the Receiver.
We’ve no dividends, or rights, for the price we paid.
Yet should our wills choose between this corrupt business
And a paradise to come, rest assured they’d want

The world we have now.
513:16

Collect for the Day
Save us, Lord, from all terror and oppression; strengthen us to maintain the cause of the poor, that justice may roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord.

[476:899:140 Psalm prayer]

Many Are Invited, But Few Accept: II Esdras 7:107-8:19a with poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Follow the Christ

2006-11-18T07:30:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 138, Esther 3:1-13 [Apoc.] Addition B, 3:14-15, II Esdras 7:102-8:19a, Revelation 6

Daily Text: II Esdras 7:102-8:19a

Many Are Invited, But Few Accept
The existence of God is acknowledged and within His life, all life subsists. That seems to be recognized in 8:7. Still Ezra speaks out suggesting that it were better that humankind not be born than that it perish in torments. Ezra suggests that only one-ten thousandth of humankind may be saved! This number is not meant as an estimate or a cap, but a reality that those who serve God are rare among humankind. The great of mass of others may not even be interceded for on the day of judgment. Intercede continuously while they live in their mortal flesh, but once they pass into immortality, intercession is no longer possible. The pain Ezra feels over this is excruciating. In Christian literature this heart for those headed for perdition is given to each follower of Christ. But as in II Esdras, so in Matthew 22; the man not ready for the wedding feast is thrown into outer darkness without hesitation.

Follow the Christ
Alfred Tennyson1809-1892
from: “Idylls of the King: Gareth and Lynette”

Man am I grown, a man’s work must I do,
Follow the deer? follow the Christ, the King,
Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King—
Else, wherefore born?
407:803

Collect for the Day
God of creation and fulfilment, help us to seek and discover your purposes, that we may become willing instruments of your grace, and that all the world may come to love and praise your name, in the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

[476:896:138 Psalm prayer]

The Earth Renewed: II Esdras 7:45-101 with poem by James Montgomery, Well Done

2006-11-17T07:24:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 136, Esther 2 [Apoc.], II Esdras 7:45-101, Revelation 5

Daily Text: II Esdras 7:45-101

The Earth Renewed
Ezra here begins to realize the implications of the final judgement for humankind. Only a few will be saved, while almost everyone who ever lived will be lost to final torment. Since the judgement was created by God before the earth, Ezra suggests that it might have been better if humankind had never been created. Uriel does not seem concerned at all. Precious in the eyes of the Lord are those who have served him faithfully. Like precious metals, gold, silver and bronze, their rarity creates the notion that they are precious. Iron, lead and clay, on the other hand, are so available that they are not prized. So it is with the righteous and the unrighteous. While God is imminently patient during a human being’s life, that patience will be reflected not at all in the judgment. Humankind makes up its own mind as to what it will do with the Torah and the reality of God during his or her lifetime. There is a suggestion here that both the present world and the world to come were created for the exercise of righteousness. That most ignore it and choose otherwise changes not the intent one whit. In that sense the righteous are the triumphant ones even in this world.

The world to come is not another world, it is this one renewed. The judgement separates the ‘two,’ for during the period of time after the last human dies and the judgment, the earth is to be renewed. During that time this passage details the torments of the wicked and the delights of the righteous, a series of psychological torments and delights, that have little or nothing to do with outer darkness, fire or isolation, but much to do with the realization and anticipation of loss and benefit. Such does not make either less helpful than some other characterization; they are sufficient. These descriptions in II Esdras 7:45-101 help make clear the background of Jewish-Christian expectations in the first century A.D.

Well Done
James Montgomery
1771-1854

Servant of God, well done!
Rest from thy loved employ:
The battle fought, the victory won,
Enter thy Master’s joy.
The pains of death are past,
Labour and sorrow cease,
And Life’s long warfare closed t last,
Thy soul is found in peace.
407:1872

Collect for the Day
Maker and Sustainer of all things, Source of all life and goodness, help us always to love and serve one another, and to worship you with joy and gladness, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[476:894:136 Psalm prayer]

Adam's Sin: II Esdras 6:35-7:44 with poem by Geoffrey Hill, Genesis

2006-11-16T04:40:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 135, Esther 1 [Apoc.] Addition A, II Esdras 6.35-7.44, Revelation 4

Daily Text: II Esdras 6.35-7.44

Adam’s Sin
After his preparation and aroused distress, Ezra in II Esdras 6:35-7:44, begins anew to question the Archangel Uriel, who speaks for God.

Ezra: You created the world, and you did so for Israel. Why has Israel not received the world as his inheritance?

Uriel: Ezra, why do you focus only on the present? Can you not see the promise of the world to come when the righteous shall be rewarded and the wicked punished? The difficulty in the present world has been made necessary by Adam’s sin and that of every other human being.

The Messianic kingdom and the end of the world will one day be revealed. My son the Messiah will then also be revealed with all who are with him. They shall rejoice 400 years. After that the Messiah will die as will all who draw human breath. The world will retreat to primeval silence for seven days, after which the world not yet awake shall be roused, the righteous to life and the corruptible to death. Compassion will no longer be available. Judgement will occur by the standard of truth alone. Paradise and hell shall be disclosed and the nations will see and understand in the light of the glory of the Most High. You alone, Ezra, are being shown these things.

Genesis
Geoffrey Hill

I
Against the burly air I strode
Crying the miracles of God.

And first I brought the sea to bear
Upon the dead weight of the land;
And the waves flourished at my prayer,
The rivers spawned their sand.

And where the streams were salt and full
The tough pig-headed salmon strove,
Ramming the ebb, in the tide’s pull,
To reach the steady hills above.

II
The second day I stood and saw
The osprey plunge with triggered claw,
Feathering blood along the shore,
To lay the living sinew bare.

And the third day I cried: “Beware
The soft-voiced owl, the ferret’s smile,
The hawk’s deliberate stoop in air,
Cold eyes, and bodies hooped in steel,
Forever bent upon the kill.”

III
And I renounced, on the fourth day,
This fierce and unregenerate clay,
Building as a huge myth for man
The watery Leviathan,

And made the long-winged albatross
Scour the ashes of the sea
Where Capricorn and Zero cross,
A brooding immortality—
Such as the charmed phoenix has
In the unwithering tree

IV
The phoenix burns as cold as frost;
And, like a legendary ghost,
The phantom-bird goes wild and lost,
Upon a pointless ocean tossed.

So, the fifth day, I turned again
To flesh and blood and the blood’s pain.

V
On the sixth day, as I rode
In haste about the works of God,
With spurs I plucked the horse’s blood.

By blood we live, the hot, the cold,
To ravage and redeem the world:
There is no bloodless myth will hold.

And by Christ’s blood are men made free
Though in close shrouds their bodies lie
Under the rough pelt of the sea;

Though Earth has rolled beneath her weight
The bones that cannot bear the light.
395:17

Collect for the Day
God of freedom, you brought your people out of slavery with a mighty hand and gave them a law of love and justice. Deliver us from every temptation to be satisfied with false imitations of your will: with talk of peace that masks the face of war, and thanks for plenty that leaves the poor unfed. We pray for the coming of your kingdom, founded in Jesus Christ our Lord.

[476:893:135 Psalm prayer]

In the New Age: II Esdras 5:21-6:34 with poem by Gertrude Ryder Bennett, These Times

2006-11-15T05:20:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 134, Nehemiah 9:38-10:39, II Esdras 5:21-6:34, Revelation 3

Daily Text: II Esdras 5:21-6:34

In the New Age
Prayer and fasting at the beginning of each of these visions, as in II Esdras 5:21-6:34, is an apocalyptic preparation for the divine revelation [539:136]. As he completes his seven days of fasting and prayer, Ezra renews his questioning of the Most High. And he does so by rehearsing the many natural metaphors God has used for his people and then asking, why it is that after choosing so specifically this one people God turns Jacob over to the many nations for punishment rather than administering discipline personally? Uriel, while not named in this vision, is the archangel who speaks for God.

Uriel: You’ll never understand Ezra. You are not suggesting are you, that you love Israel more than the Creator does?

Ezra: But if I can not understand there is no reason for living.

Uriel: Sorry, in the end God will discipline and judge personally, as in the beginning he created without intermediate cause.

Ezra: If so, why have the intermediate period? Why did you not create everyone at once and judge sooner?

Uriel: Because there is in creation a natural order of beginning and development and because the earth could not hold everyone from all generations at once, that is, there is an ecological necessity built into my universe.

Ezra: Then, how can everyone be judged at the end? What makes that different? And if there must be different ages, how can they be recognized?

Uriel: There are different ages, but they are seamless. As Jacob’s hand on Esau’s heel, so it will be in the Messanic age with the Messiah’s hand on Rome’s heel. Both Esau and Rome continue simultaneously with the beginning of the new age, but in the end evil will be blotted out and truth revealed more effectively than the giving of the Torah changed forever the way the world experienced the LORD. This is so, because in the new age human hearts will be changed.

These Times
Gertrude Ryder Bennett
Our motors pierce the clouds. They penetrate
The depth of oceans. Microscopes reveal
New worlds to conquer, while we dedicate
Our intellects to strength of stone and steel.
We are as proud as those who built a tower
To reach to heaven. Recklessly we rear
Our lofty Babels, arrogant with power.
How dare we boast of cities while we hear
The nations groping through the dark along
The road of life? What right have we for pride
Till Truth is steel, and Faith is iron-strong,
Till God and man are working side by side?
Then let our prayers and labors never cease;
We act the prologue of a masterpiece.
407:1292

Collect for the Day
God our creator and redeemer, give us grateful hearts and willing hands, that we may worthily praise your name and build your kingdom among all people, to the glory of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ.

[476:891:134 Psalm prayer]

The Weight of Fire: II Esdras 4:1-5:20 with poem by Alfred Tennyson, Flower in the Crannied Wall

2006-11-14T08:40:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 131, Nehemiah 9:1-37, II Esdras 4:1-5:20, Revelation 2

Daily Text: II Esdras 4:1-5:20

The Weight of Fire
In this section of the second vision, II Esdras 4:1-5:20, the archangel Uriel maintains that God’s ways are beyond comprehension. Ezra, holding up his side of the dialogue, cannot agree, for life is not worth living if one has the faculty of understanding without the information to make that faculty whole. Clever are the stratagems offered by the author, e.g., tell me the weight of fire, giving his theological understanding in the words of Uriel, and perhaps the tension of human struggle in the questions of Ezra [cf. 540:180].

Flower in the Crannied Wall
Alfred Tennyson1809-1892

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
407:54

Collect for the Day
God of earthquake, wind, and fire, may we know you also in the voice of silence. Teach us the way of quiet, that we may find our peace in your presence, in the pattern of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

[476:889:131 Psalm prayer]

Law and the Evil Root: II Esdras 3 with poem by Ibbie McColm Wilson, The Sentinel of the Ages

2006-11-13T05:43:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 130, Ezra 10, II Esdras 3, I Esdras 8:91-9:36

Daily Text: II Esdras 3

Law and the Evil Root
The crux of II Esdras 3 is the struggle the prophet sees in the hearts of men, that is within them is planted God’s Law and the evil root, side by side. The perplexity he experiences implicitly holds God responsible for this condition, for God does not hinder the human being from choosing to live out the evil and to ignore the good [cf. 540:181]. Adam lived in paradise with eternal life as his right, but being given one prohibition, he transgressed it and the Lord immediately appointed death as the result. The issue here is that righteousness leads to life and sinfulness leads to death. Following Adam all human beings participated in his transgression and repeatedly God tried to start over in different ways—the flood, choosing Abraham, Jacob, and David. The result was always the same and God always punished his people. Ezra is struggling with what seemed the reality that Israel, following God’s command imperfectly, suffered, while the remainder of the nations following God’s Torah not at all, flourished. Where’s the justice in this?

Chapters 3-14 are a manuscript to themselves, that is, chapters 1 and 2, 15 and 16 were added to the main body of this work. This work, 3-14, was probably written originally in Hebrew around 100 A. D. Ezra himself did not live until the 5th century, so he could not have been around in the 6th century, 557 B.C., as suggested in verse 1. It is likely that the book is coded to speak of Rome’s depredations on Jerusalem in 70 A.D., not Babylon’s in 587 B. C. Like in the book of The Revelation of Jesus to John, Babylon is a code word for Rome. Ezra’s struggle with sin is the same struggle Paul was having in Romans and that we have in our own day.

The Sentinel of the Ages
Ibbie McColm Wilson

Under shining, under shadow,
At the gates of every land,
All adown the lengthening ages,
Men have seen a Sentry stand;
Looming grandly on the beauty
Of the blue day’s crystal light,
Then anon, in darkness blending
With mystery of night;
It is not for his defection
That the Jew has met the sword:
Christians slay their fellow-Christians,
In the name of their own Lord.

Has he sinned—this Jew immortal?
Ay; but he is not alone;
Christ is crucified forever
In the House He calls His own.
Multitudes bow down before Him
And profess to own his sway,
While their hearts are filled with idols,
And they, Judas-like, betray
Him who comes, as their Messiah,
And their fealty would claim;
But they pierce His soul with sorrows,
Shouting praises to His name.

Sinned the Jew? Well; he has suffered.
When he saw his judgment come
He bowed meekly to his sentence;
Like the shorn lamb, he was dumb:
Bearing shame, contempt, revilings,
Grief and anguish, pain and death;
Only saying: “God is holy;
He is One,” with latest breath.
Like to Christ, in his submission
He has met a martyr’s fate.
But his resurrection cometh;
Though it tarry, he can wait.

Yes! Already we perceive him,
Rising up on every hand;
Gliding into power and station,
With the world’s wealth at command.
In the forum, in the senate,
Lo! he wins immortal fame,
Halls of learning, marts of commerce,
Ring with echoes of his name,
On each plane of high endeavor
He is foremost in the strife
Culling everlasting laurels
From the battlefields of Life.

So God’s ancient, chosen people
As His Sentinel still stands
With the standard of Jehovah
In the strong, uplifted hands;
With his jewelled breastplate gleaming
On his proudly heaving chest;
And a lamp forever burning,
On his helmet’s lofty crest;
While he welcomes the down-trodden
To his hospitable shores,
And in streams of richest bounty
Blessings on his brethren pours.

Standing thus, as great exemplar
To the world, the Jew appears;
Bringing hope, as well as warning,
To Humanity’s late years,
Showing how, as King, God ruleth,
When mankind would test His sway,
Yet is tender as a Father
When, as children, they obey.
Prophet, statesman, warrior, scholar,
Israel’s glories shall increase,
When he claims his royal birthright;
Brother to the prince of Peace.
403:523

Collect for the Day
Rescue us, O God for whom we wait, from the depths of depression and despair. May we trust in your mercy, know the fullness of your redemption, and share in the glory of your kingdom; through our Saviour Jesus Christ.

[476:888:130 Psalm prayer]

Pause and Be Quiet: II Esdras 2:10-48 with poem by Charles Poole Cleaves, Rest Where You are

2006-11-12T07:18:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 129, Ezra 9, II Esdras 2:10-48, I Esdras 8:68-90

Daily Text: II Esdras 2:10-48

Pause and Be Quiet
Verses 10-48 of Chapter 2 turn to what appears to be the Church. Israel’s privilege is given to her. Addressed as the ‘Mother’ in verses 15-32, with a short parenthesis referring to her as ‘nurse’, the Church is encouraged to shepherd her flock for she will be assisted by God who will send Isaiah and Jeremiah, the twelve minor prophets and the twelve apostles as resources. She is to care for the vulnerable and the dead, and God will in the end, raise them up. Ezra though rejected by Israel finds the Church responsive to his message.

Reference to Isaiah 30:15 seems to be made with the passage ‘Pause and be quiet’ because your rest will come (vs. 24). Turbulent seems to be the watchword of the world this author inhabits, but his signature seems to claim a peace that is provided by God in the middle of it all. Such words came in Genesis on the 7th day and in Hebrews as an eternal promise. In that sense this author is centered in Hebrew thought.

Rest Where You Are
Charles Poole Cleaves

When spurred by tasks unceasing or undone
You would seek rest afar
And cannot, though the rest be fairly won,
Rest where you are.
Not in event, restriction, or release,
In journeys near or far,
But in the heart lies restlessness or peace,
Rest where you are.
404:II:154

Collect for the Day
Save us, gracious God, from the dark forces that threaten the lives of your people, in nations and societies and in the human spirit. Deliver us from cynicism and violence, from jealousy and indifference, from fear and despair. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord.

[476:887:129 Psalm prayer]

New People of God: II Esdras 1:1-2:9 with poem by Israel Zangwill, Moses and Jesus

2006-11-11T12:08:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 128 Nehemiah 13 II Esdras 1:1-2:9 Revelation 1

Daily Text: II Esdras 1:1-2:9

New People of God
Scholarly research seems to concur that II Esdras 1:1-2:9, as well as the remainder of chapter two, were written in the middle of the second century A.D. by a Christian author. That author was familiar with the Greek text of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Septuagint. That is known because the list of the twelve minor prophets in 1:39-40 follow the Septuagintal order. It is supposed that chapters 1 and 2 were composed in Greek, though they have come down to us only through a Latin translation. Written as if Ezra’s call and prophecy were given directly by God and prior to the events described, this passage discusses classically the disobedience and rejection of Israel. Ezra ‘prophecies’ the coming of a new people that will replace Israel in God’s favor. They will have as their heritage the patriarchs and prophets. God’s judgement upon Israel is pronounced in the beginning verses of chapter two, and Sodom and Gomorrah are given as examples of nations that live contrary to God’s law.

II Esdras 1:28-32 express God’s care for Israel in sympathetic, even heart-rending terms and several of the references appear to be quotes from the synoptics, Matthew and Luke, and again from II Corinthians [cf. 539:85] . God as father may be seen in II Corinthians 6:16-18 and while there are Old Testament precedents they do not follow this form precisely. The reference to gathering them together as a hen gathers her brood is a close match with Matthew 23:37and Luke 13:34, while the reference to killing the prophets may well come from Matthew 23:34-36 and Luke 11:49-57. While these references alone do not make certain that the Church is the new people to inherit from defunct Judaism, it seems likely that this is intended by the author.

Moses and Jesus
Israel Zangwill
Methought on two Jews meeting I did chance—
One old, stern-eyed, deep browed; yet garlanded
With living light of love around his head;
The other young, with sweet, seraphic glance.
Round them went on the Town’s Satanic dance,
Hunger a–piping while at heart he bled.
Salom Aleikem mournfully each said,
Nor eyed the other straight, but looked askance.

Sudden from Church outrolled an organ hymn,
From Synagog a loudly chanted air,
Each with its prophet’s high acclaim instinct,
Then for the first time met their eyes swift-linked
In one strange, silent, piteous gaze, and dim
With bitter tears of agonized despair.
403:557

Collect for the Day
Gracious God, giver of life in its fullness, you take no pleasure in human want but intend your bounty to be shared among your children. Lead us in the ways of justice and peace, for Jesus Christ’s sake.

[476:887:128 Psalm prayer]

Epilogue: Judith 16:18-25 with poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Judith

2006-11-10T04:28:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 126, Nehemiah 7:73b-8:18, Judith 16:18-25, Jude

Daily Text: Judith 16:18-25

Epilogue
Judith 16:18-25 serves as an epilogue to this account, and as in Job and canonical Esther, it is essentially a happy ending. God blesses Judith abundantly for her righteous service and she is honored and honorable throughout a life that lasts 105 years. Modeled after YHWH’s action with Israel, she also frees her slave, the young woman who accompanied her to the Assyrian camp. Interestingly, it appears that she did this not long before her death, which would imply that the maid lived as long as she did and longer enjoying her new freedom! That, of course, is not the point. The point is the incidental witness to the freeing of slaves, God’s will when possible. It is another of those ‘goods’ with which the texts of the ancients are peppered. Freeing slaves was a counter-cultural act, and only those with great influence could do so with wide-spread approval.

from Judith
Thomas Bailey Aldrich1836-1907

So, by God’s and this one woman’s hand,
The tombs and temples of the Just were saved;
And evermore throughout fair Israel
The name of Judith meant all noblest things
In thought and deed; and Judith’s life was rich
With that content the world takes not away.
And far-off kings, enamoured of her fame,
Bluff princes, dwellers by the salt sea-sands,
Sent caskets most laboriously carved,
And cloths of gold, and papyrus scrolls, whereon
Was writ their passion; then themselves did come
With spicy caravans, in purple state,
To seek regard from her imperial eyes.
But she remained unwed, and to the end
Walked with the angels in her widow’s weeds.
411:455

Collect for the Day
Praise to you, god of our salvation. Your generous gifts surpass all that we can ask or imagine. You have delivered us from lthe exile of sin and restored us to new life in Jesus Christ our Saviour. Glory and honour and praise to you for ever and ever.

[476:885:126 Psalm prayer]

Cunning and Vulnerability: Judith 15:8-16:7 with poem by Swithun, Judith

2006-11-09T05:57:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 127, Ezra 8, Judith 15:8-16:17, III John

Daily Text: Judith 15:8-16:17

Cunning and Vulnerability
Judith 15:8-16:17 complete the tribute to Judith by the high priest and the people and lead rhythmically into dance and song in procession to Jerusalem. The text of 15.9 has often been used in the centuries since the appearance of Judith to praise the Virgin Mary and more recently, Joan of Arc [534:246]. Surely, these words of Joakim could devolve no greater praise upon Judith than they do. He pronounces as in benediction the pleasure of God for Judith’s behavior and the Almighty’s blessing accompanies these words.

From the plunder of the Assyrian encampment Judith is brought as gift all that belonged to the erstwhile Holofernesl. One can almost visualize these treasures being passed down through Manasseh’s family as heirlooms, with stories attached to many of the pieces of furniture and the dinnerware. But no, in the Epilogue she gives them to the temple in Jerusalem. The climax of these honors comes from the women who surround and include and join Judith in her song and in a dance that wends its graceful way from Bethulia to nearby Jerusalem. The song celebrates Israel’s God, rehearses the movements of the war, describes the Lord’s exploits and Judith’s decisive role:
Her sandal ravished his eyes,
her beauty captivated his mind,
and the sword severed his neck!
All of this is quick and to the point. These musical phrases tell the story in compressed fashion. Cunning and vulnerability complement each other in the telling detail.

from Judith
Swithun, Bishop of Winchester
Then the whole people,
Preëminent race, for all a month’s space,
Curly-locked conquerors, carried and led
To the glorious city, gleaming Bethulia,
Helmets and hip-swords, hoar-grayish burnies,
Brave ones’ battle-gear embellished with gold,
Ornaments grander than any man living,
Though never so wise, could name or could tell of;
So much did the men-of-war mightily ‘complish
Bold under banners on the battle-field gory
Through the wise, clever counsel of Judith,
Mood-valiant woman. For her meed brought they,
Spear-brave earlmen, from the journey fetched, then,
Holofernes’s battle-grim blade and blood-gory helmet,
His war-burnie spacious and splendid, sparkling and shining
And red with its gold, and all that the ruler of heroes,
Arrogant, of treasure did own or of heirlooms a-precious,
Of rings and rarest of gems, they this to the radiant Judith,
To the wise-of-counsel did give. For all this gave, then, Judith
Glory to the Lord God of Hosts, who had given her honor,
Worship ‘mid men of this world, and, likewise, reward in the
heavens,
Meed in the mansions of glory, for keeping unminished her faith
On the Almighty fixed for aye; forsooth, at the end she doubted not
The reward that she long had wished for. For this to the
well-lovèd Lord God
Be glory for ever and ever, who made the air and the wind,
Firmament and far-spreading wolds, and, likewise,
the foam-dashing waters
And the raptures of heaven by his own great mercy.
537:16

Collect for the Day
Gracious Father, watch over the Church, built on the foundation of your love. Help us so to live and proclaim the gospel that many may find life in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

[476:886:127]

Power of Witness: Judith 14:1-15:7 with poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Judith

2006-11-08T05:49:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Psalm 125, Ezra 7, Judith 14:1-15:7, I Esdras 8:1-67

Daily Text: Judith 14:1- 15:7

Power of Witness
In Judith 14.1-15.7 Judith has earned her chevrons. She issues order to the men making careful consideration of the psychological impact of the beheading on the Assyrian and mercenary forces. So she instructs the military to make a show of attack without actually carrying out the attack until the troops discover Holofernes demise and begin to flee before little Israel in panic. In due time that happens and Jewish soldiers throughout the country are called to play their part in destroying the defeated army. As is so often the case when God wins a victory, the mopping up exercises are left to his people. This is as true post-resurrection in the New Testament, as it was at Bethulia in this story.

One of Judith’s orders involves summoning Achior to herself. He could give unequivocal identification of Holofernes and he does so by passing out in a dead faint. Aroused he gives obeisance to Judith and praise to God. It is God who has done this, and it is to God Achior turns. He is converted, circumcised and made part of the household of God. The power of witness is always important, no less so here. Judith carries the human responsibility, but obviously she gives all the credit to God. Achior does not mistake this. The statement that he continued as part of the Israelite people “to this day” suggests that the writing of the account of Judith follows not more than one generation after these events. Scholars generally disagree that this is borne out by the textual evidence. Again, the question of historicity is in play. In spite of the fact that many scholars do not treat this as an historical text, in the sense that it actually happened, still it is so convincingly written that one is drawn into considering it as genuine reportage.

from Judith
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
1836-1907

The hours dragged by, and in the Assur camp
The pulse of life was throbbing languidly.
When from the outer waste an Arab scout
Rushed pale and breathless on the morning watch,
With a strange story of a Head that hung
High in the air above the City’s wall,--
A livid Head with knotted, snake-like curls,--
And how the face was like a face he knew,
And how it turned and twisted in the wind,
And how it stared upon him with fixt orbs
Till it was not in mortal man to stay;
And how he fled, and how he thought the Thing
Came bowling through the wheat-fields after him.
And some that listened were appalled, and some
Derided him; but not the less they threw
A furtive glance toward the shadowy wood.

Bagoas, among the idlers, heard the man,
And quick to bear the tidings to his lord,
Ran to the tent, and called, “My lord, awake!
Awake, my lord!” and lingered for reply.
But answer came there none. Again he called,
And all was still. Then, laughing in his heart
To think how deeply Holofernes slept
Wrapt in soft arms, he lifted up the screen
And marvelled, finding no one in the tent
Save Holofernes, buried, as it were,
Head foremost in the canopies. He stoopt,
And drawing back the damask folds, beheld
His master, a grim torso lying dead.

As in some breathless wilderness at night
A leopard, pinioned by a falling tree,
Shrieks, and the echoes mimicking the cry,
Repeat it in a thousand different keys
By lonely heights and unimagined caves:
So shrieked Bagoas, and so his cry was caught
And voiced along the vast Assyrian lines,
And buffeted among the hundred hills.
Then ceased the tumult sudden as it rose,
And a great silence fell upon the camps,
And all the people stood like blocks of stone
In some deserted quarry: then a voice
Blown through a trumpet clamored:
He is dead!
The Prince is dead! The Hebrew witch hath slain
Prince Holofernes! Fly, Assyrians, fly!

As from its lair the mad tornado leaps,
And seizing on the yellow desert sands,
Hurls them in swirling masses, cloud on cloud:
So, at the sounding of that baleful voice,
A panic seized the mighty Assur hosts,
And flung them from their places. With wild shouts
Across the hills in pale dismay they fled,
Trampling the sick and wounded under foot,
Leaving their tents, their camels, and their arms,
Their horses, and their gilded chariots.
Then with a dull metallic clang the gates
Of Bethulia opened, and from each
A sea of spears surged down the arid hills
And broke remorseless on the flying foe,--
Now hemmed them in upon a river’s bank,
Now drove them shrieking down a precipice,
Now in the mountain-passes slaughtered them,
Until the land, for many a weary league,
Was red, as in the sunset, with their blood.
And other cities, when they saw the rout
Of Holofernes, burst their gates, and joined
With trump and banner in the mad pursuit.
Three days before those unrelenting spears
The cohorts fled, but on the fourth they past
Beyond Damascus into their own land.
411:454

Collect for the Day
Lord, surround your people with your presence. Do not let us stretch out our hands to evil deeds, or be destroyed by the snares of the enemy, but bring us to share the land prepared for the saints in light, where you live and reign, God, now and forever.

[476:885:125]

O Praise Him: Judith 13:10b-20 with poem by James Montgomery, Sonnet

2006-11-07T04:19:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 51, Nehemiah 12:27-47, Judith 13:10b-20, II John

Daily Text: Judith 13:10b-20

O Praise Him
Reminiscent of Elizabeth’s words to Mary in Luke 3, Uzziah the elder in Bethulia says essentially, “Blessed are you among women” in addressing Judith upon her return. Even more exciting than the adulation of her people, is Judith’s ringing declaration as she approaches the gates of the city with Holofernes’ head in the food bag. Those words were, “Open, open the gate! God, our God, is with us, still showing his power in Israel and his strength against our enemies, as he has done today! [13:11] It is that recognition that we need to raise up in our daily lives, in the lives of the continuing people of God. We want and need to recognize that our God continues to demonstrate his love and his power in our lives. The Israelites had essentially forgotten that God could and would defend them until Judith stepped out on faith, even risking her life, to follow YHWH. She is a living reminder to them that God continues alive and well. And she can be a living reminder to us as well. When by faith we expect God to work, and by faith we step out in radical obedience of his leading in the smallest of matters, he will see us through and lead us on to matters not small at all. Expectation, faith, obedience and praise are thus intimately connected. Then we can say with Judith, “Praise God, O praise him! Praise God, who has not withdrawn his mercy from the house of Israel”, but has accomplished our prayers by our hand this very night!

Sonnet
On Judith Returning To Bethulia
With The Head of Holofernes In Her Hand
James Montgomery, 1771-1854
from the Italian of Giovanni Battista, Felice Zappi, 1667-1719

She held the head all-horrible with gore;
Nor of the woman in that act was seen
Aught save the alluring locks and beauteous mien:
“Hail, heroine, hail!” all voices cried before.

At the glad news, the damsels came with speed;
Some kissed her feet and some her garment’s hem,
None her right-hand, for terrible to them
Was the remembrance of that fatal deed.

A hundred prophets sang the matron’s fame;
“Fly round the world, thine everlasting name!
The sun through all his march shall tell thy story.”
Great from that dread achievement though she rose,
Greater she stood at this triumphant close,
For she was humble in the height of glory.
411:448

Collect for the Day
Almighty God, by whose grace thy people gain courage through looking unto the heroes of faith: We lift our hearts in gratitude to thee for all who have lived valiantly and died bravely that there might be truth, liberty, and righteousness in our land. Help us to prize highly, and to guard carefully, the gifts which their loyalty and devotion have bestowed upon us. Grant us the joy of a living and vigorous faith, that we may be true as they were true, loyal as they were loyal, and serve thee and our country selflessly all the days of our life, and at last receive the victor’s crown; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[504:126:C]

Beheading: Judith 12:10-13:10a with poem by Swithun, Judith

2006-11-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 49, Nehemiah 11:1-12:26, Judith 12:10-13:10a, I John 5

Daily Text: Judith 12:10-13:10a

Beheading
The focus here in Judith 12:10-13:10a is the killing, the beheading, but prominent in the middle of that focus is once again a prayer. The author has Judith praying from the beginning of her sortie right through its execution (perhaps we should say, Holofernes execution) and final celebration. Twenty-first century sensitivities outside of the theater of our wars would not celebrate Judith’s act. Remove it from us and place it back in the Middle East and we are happy to embrace bloodletting politically as long as we don’t have to look at it except via the television screen. We haven’t changed much except that we do not celebrate death, we simply deal it out.

But in Judith’s centuries, human life was not prized culturally as it is today. That is probably due to the influence of Jesus, but never mind that. Even most of us Christians don’t recognize that he stands for peace not war, for negotiation not violence, for punishment without retribution, for crucifixion with a “Father forgive them.” Not so in Judith’s time and so prayer for the aid of God was not at all contradictory. In Judith 13:20 she is praised as “walking in the straight path before our God” [cf. 534:234]. Obviously, her people had no difficulty with the ethical implications of doing something good by immoral means. The end clearly justified the means in this story.

from Judith
Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, 836 [1]

“Oh, God of Creation and Spirit of Comfort,
Oh, Son of the Highest, I beseech thee hear me,
Oh, Might of the Trinity, and thy mercy grant me,
So sorely needing it. Mightily my heart is
Stirred up within me and anxious my spirit,
Exceedingly troubled with sorrows; grant me, Sovereign of Heaven,
Victory and faith unswerving, that I with this sword may be able
To slay this dispenser of slaughter; safe do thou keep me,
Puissant Prince of Heroes: ne’er had I more pressing need of ‘
Thy all-protecting mercy: avenge now, mighty Lord,
Splendid Dispenser of Glory, the pain that my spirit endureth,
The grief that gnaweth my heart.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Then, the curly-locked lady
With flashing falchion smote the foeman detested,
The hostile-hearted one, that she half cut through, then
Severed his neck, that swooning he lay there
Drunken and wounded. Not dead was he yet, now,
Nor gave up the ghost: again vehemently,
With might and main, the mood-valiant woman
Smote the heathen hound that his head whirled rapidly
Forth on the floor; lay the foul carcass
Lifeless behind, his spirit departed
Down ‘mid the damned in dire abasement,
Ever thereafter in agony fettered,
With serpents bewound, in torments bound,
Firmly fastened in the flames of perdition,
When death took him off. Not e’er might he hope, now,
Encompassed with darkness to come away thence,
Leave that dragon-hall, but shall dwell in its horrors
Forever and ever, in endless perdition,
In that horrid home, hopeless, wretched.

[537:8]

1Attributed to Swithun by A.S. Cook. Others suggest Caedmon or Cynewulf [cf.537:3].

Collect for the Day
Purge the heart and mind and soul of this thy servant, we beseech thee, O Lord, of all that is unworthy of thy Presence, and grant that he, being purified of all earthly dross, may be counted worthy to serve thee among thy redeemed; through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

[504:120:C]

New Intelligence: Judith 11:1-12:9 with poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Judith

2006-11-05T17:56:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 48, Nehemiah 7:4-73a, Judith 11:1-12:9, Esdras 9:37-55

Daily Text: Judith 11:1-12:9

New Intelligence
The level of honest dialogue between Holofernes and Judith in chapter 11 is relatively sparse. Holofernes promises Judith about anything, even allowing her to conspicuously serve her own God, while prohibiting everyone else. Judith, likewise, says what she thinks is needed to trick the man into trusting her. She does defend Achior and his knowledge of the strength of the Judeans. But, she suggests, she has knowledge that they are momentarily ready to sin, something Achior could not have known. This is new intelligence, and Judith claims to have means of knowing when they do commit their sin against the Lord. That means is communication from the Lord God, and she is to receive that communication in the night within two or three days. So she receives permission to go out each night for communing with her deity, and ‘providentially’ providing her own escape route when she commits the murder for which she has come. ‘Murder’ is a little harsh, assuredly, for Holofernes is at war with Bethulia and Jerusalem. Judith sees herself as one of the Lord’s warriors, and certainly the commander is a worthy and acceptable target for a soldier—even if it is an assassination Without God’s intervention through Judith, all of Judea would probably have been destroyed, in story and to the extent of the historicity of this account, in fact.

from Judith
Thomas Bailey Aldrich1836-1907

Before his tent, stretched on a leopard-skin,
Lay Holofernes, ringed by his dark lords,--
Himself the prince of darkness. At his side
His iron helmet poured upon the grass
Its plume of horse-hair; on his ponderous spear,
The flinty barb thrust half its length in earth,
As if some giant had flung it, hung his shield,
And on the burnished circuit of the shield
A sinewy dragon, rampant, silver-fanged,
Glared horrible with sea-green emerald eyes;
And as the sunshine struck across it, writhed,
And seemed a type of those impatient lords
Who, in the loud war-council here convened,
Gave voice for battle, and with fiery words
Opposed the cautious wisdom of their peers.
So seemed the restless dragon on the shield.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . .Judith, who knew all the mountain paths
As one may know the delicate azure veins,
Each crossing each, on his belovèd’s wrist,
Had stolen between the archers in the wood
And gained the straggling outskirts of the camp,
And seeing the haughty gestures of the chiefs,
Halted, with fear, and knew not where to turn;
Then taking heart, had silently approached,
And stood among them, until then unseen.
And in the air, like numerous swarms of bees,
Arose the wondering murmurs of the throng,
Which checking, Holofernes turned and cried,
“Who breaks upon our councils?”
But drinking then the beauty of her eyes,
And seeing the rosy magic of her mouth,
And all the fragrant summer of her hair
Blown sweetly round her forehead, stood amazed;
And in the light of her pure modesty
His voice took gentler accent unawares:
“Whence come ye?”
“From yon city.”
“By our life,
We thought the phantom of some murdered queen
Had risen from dead summers at our feet!
If these Judæan women are so shaped,
Daughters of goddesses, let none be slain.
What seek ye, woman, in the hostile camps
Of Assur?”
“Holoferenes.”
“This is he.”
“O good my lord,” cried Judith, “if indeed
Thou art that Holofernes whom I seek,
And seeking dread to find, low at thy feet
Behold thy handmaid, who I fear has flown
From a doomed people.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Then the crowd fell back,
Muttering, and half reluctantly, because
Her beauty drew them as the moon the sea—
Fell back and lingered, leaning on their shields.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The fame of Judith’s loveliness had flown
From lip to lip throughout the canvas town,
And as the evening deepened, many came
From neighboring camps, with frivolous excuse,
To pass the green pavilion—long-haired chiefs
That dwelt by the Hydaspe, and the sons
Of the Elymeans, and slim Tartar youth;
But saw not her, who, shut from common air,
Basked in the twilight of the tapestries.

But when night came, and all the camp was still,
And nothing moved beneath the icy stars
In their blue bourns, except some stealthy guard,
A shadow among shadows, Judith rose,
Calling her servant, and the sentinel
Drew back, and let her pass beyond the lines
Into the valley. And her heart was full,
Seeing the watch-fires burning on the towers
Of her own city: and she knelt and prayed
For it and them that dwelt within its walls,
And was refreshed—such balm there lies in prayer
For those who know God listens
Straightway then
The two returned, and all the camp was still.
411:451

Collect for the Day
O Saviour of the world, who by thy Cross and precious Blood hast redeemed us, Save us, and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

[286:246:755 Good Friday liturgy, Western Rite]

Behavioral Clarity: Judith 10 with poem by Swithun, Judith

2006-11-04T09:30:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 47, Nehemiah 6:1-7:3, Judith 10, I John 4

Daily Text: Judith 10

Behavioral Clarity
Very quickly now in Judith 10, she dresses, meets the town officials, is permitted to leave Bethulia, goes through the valley and provokes her own capture. Through it all her focus as the instrument of God’s action is unswerving. She acknowledges God when praised, she exhibits no fear when accosted and taken into captivity by an Assyrian patrol in the desert alone in the middle of the night. She meets Holofernes with a proper mixture of respect and assertiveness. At all times, she seems to exhibit behavioral clarity in such a way as to accomplish all that she needs to in order to achieve her God-inspired ends. How unusual! Even the clearest thinking persons regularly lose their objectivity in the emotion of the moment, whether that emotion be pride, empathy, fear or timidity. Clarity is so much easier in the quietness of one’s home or study.

from Judith
Swithhun, Bishop of Winchester, 856 [1]

She his [2] gifts doubted (not)
On this broad-stretching earth; early found she, then,
Defence from the famous King, when she felt most need of
The almighty Judge’s favor, that from terror the greatest
God the Creator would free her: the Father in heaven
Glorious did grant her this boon, since the greatest faith she
Ever reposed in the Lord almighty. Olofernes, ‘tis told me,
A wine-feast gladly proclaimed, and a wondrously sumptuous
Banquet he bade to be spread: all the best of his thanemen
The leader of armies did summon. They early anon
Did as he bade, shield-bearing men; to the mighty war-captain
The chiefs of the folk came flocking. The fourth day this was
Since the gracious Judith, sagacious in spirit,
Elf-lovely lady, the leader first sought for.
537:8

1Attributed to Swithun by A.S. Cook. Others suggest Caedmon or Cynewulf [cf.537:3].
2God’s gifts

Collect for the Day
My Father, teach us not only thy will, but how to do it. Teach us the best way of doing the best thing, lest we spoil the end by unworthy means.

[286:92:283 Revd J. H. Jowett, 1846-1923]

Judith's Prayer: Judith 9 with poem by Chorley and Ellerton, God, The Omnipotent

2006-11-03T21:25:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 46, Nehemiah 5, Judith 9, I John 3

Daily Text: Judith 9

Judith’s Prayer
The influence of what is happening in Jerusalem in the temple is reflected in the timing of Judith’s prayers. How pervasive the hours for temple prayers were for the faithful!

Judith’s prayer is the focus for the entire of Judith chapter nine. In it her ancestor Simeon is glorified as Judith identifies with this tribal progenitor. In Genesis 34 Simeon’s sister, Diana, is raped and even though the man would do anything to have her for his wife, Simeon and his brothers slaughtered all of the adult males in the Hivite village by trickery and deceit. The author of Genesis does not approve of his behavior, but Judith does, even calling it an act of God.. She plans and prays to achieve victory over the Assyrians with likeminded deceit and cunning. The difference seems to be that while Simeon’s act was uncalled for, Judith’s act is one of great necessity. She sees them similarly.

A theology of omnipotence and omniscience—all power and all knowing—are spelled out in Judith. This is a theology of Deuteronomic orthodoxy. God is not recognized by the nations and Judith wishes for that. God is responsible for all acts of history because he foreknows them and thus essentially plans them. That was true in Simeon’s case, she maintains, and she prays that her own act will bring about the glory of God and will also be seen as part of God’s knowing and doing. There is a sense that she is convinced that this is God’s will anyway, and she prays then to be simply his tool in carrying it out. Today we would tend to embrace the foreknowledge without acknowledging the design, believing that while God knows the future, he does not tamper with the action of physical laws or the exercise of free will, that might bring that future about. No such distinction is made in the Deuteronomic order of things. The book of Job reflects this view, while the prophets and the psalmists occasionally go beyond it and recognize the power of human will.

God, The Omnipotent
Henry F. Chorley, 1808-1872
John Ellerton, 1826-1893

God, the omnipotent! King, who ordainest
Great winds thy clarions, lightnings thy sword;
Show forth thy pity on high where thou reignest,
Give to us peace in our time, O Lord.

God the All-merciful! earth hath forsaken
Thy ways of blessedness, slighted Thy word;
Bid not Thy wrath in its terrors awaken:
Give to us peace in our time, O Lord!

God the All-righteous One! man hath defied Thee,
Yet to eternity standeth Thy word;
Falsehood and wrong shall not tarry beside Thee:
Give to us peace in our time, O Lord!

God the All-wise! By the fire of Thy chastening
Earth shall to freedom and truth be restored;
Through the tick darkness Thy kingdom is hastening:
Thou wilt give peace in Thy time, O Lord!

So shall thy children with thankful devotion
Praise Him who saved them from peril and sword,
Singing in chorus from ocean to ocean,
Peace to the nations and praise to the Lord.
407:1495

Collect for the Day
Eternal God, whose image lies in the hearts of all people,
We live among peoples whose ways are different from ours,
whose faiths are foreign to us,
whose tongues are unintelligible to us.
Help us to remember that you love all people with your great love,
that all religion is an attempt to respond to you,
that the yearnings of other hearts are much like our own and known to you.
Help us to recognize you in the words of truth, the things of beauty,
the actions of love about us.
We pray through Christ, who is a stranger to no one land more than another,
and to every land no less than to another.

[286:373:1119 World Council of Churches, Vancouver Assembly, 1983]

No One Spoke Ill of Her: Judith 8 with poem by Fanny E. Lacey, Judith and Holofernes

2006-11-02T17:57:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 45, Nehemiah 4, Judith 8, I John 2

Daily Text: Judith 8

No One Spoke Ill of Her
Genealogy is that ancient story device of establishing one’s bona fides at the beginning of a story. Here in Judith 8, Judith has an amazing sixteen ancestors, naming a colleague of Moses, Shelumiel, silently including Simeon who was Sarasadai’s father, the tribal progenitor, and Isaac the patriarch, known also as Israel. But not only does she have an illustrious pedigree, she has lived a praiseworthy life, respected by all. Hearing of the crisis she summons the town officials and harangue’s them for their weakness in leading the people into virtually testing God. Unrepentant, Uzziah, the leading man of Bethulia, defends his behavior. Evidently, short tempered with their rationalizations, Judith offers to effect a resolution to the crisis herself. The officials are to meet her that night at the city gate to let her out on her mission. They assent and give their blessing.

This is a woman of action, as well as good breeding, sound mind and pious practice. Immediately, we see someone whose stature is head and shoulders above that of the local politicians. Much has been made of the statement that this makes for the status of women in ancient times. Ridicule, irony, and humor are all at the expense of the men. However, this author suspects that the leadership of this woman was simply what was needed in that crisis and that little or no diminishment of the men took place. Deborah, Jael and Esther come immediately to mind. God uses women readily when a woman’s leadership is needed and available. How many other times he used women, but that use went unrecorded will always remain a mystery. “No one spoke ill of her,” including these men who probably considered it an honor to be summoned to her home and asked to give their blessing on her planned action.

Judith and Holofernes
Fanny E. Lacey
Judith viii.32

With beauty’s wile the tyrant to ensnare,
O’er her fair brow she braids her perfumed hair;
The glittering sandals bind her dancing feet,
As their gay silver bells responding sweet
To her light step: in harmony she floats;
While he, enraptured, gazes till he doats.
“What ho, ye serfs, my bondsmen here, what ho!
Crown ye the board, and let the red wine flow;
Fill to the goblet’s brim!” he joyous cries;
“This Hebrew damsel lifts me to the skies!
Here in my tent I will that she abide,
And with her beauty grace a conqueror’s side,”
And wily Judith hears, to glad employ,
And still renew, the spell that make his joy:
But when his ravish’d senses own the power
Of the full revel and entrancing hour,
Sleep doth enchain him with oblivious thrall,
And on his couch she views him powerless fall.
Pass’d hath the midnight watch, the music ceased;
The weary eye turns from the remnant feast,
The tapers faintly gleam: on the still air
No echo falls, and she alone is there;
On Israel’s sleeping foe awhile to gaze,
“God of my fathers, ‘tis Thy judgment-hour;
As unto Israel’s God she inward prays:
Thine is the strength, the glory, and the power;
Nerve Thou my woman’s arm; unto my heart
Thy ministering angel’s wrath divine impart.
Behold my feeble hand his falchion wield;
Bod of my fathers, be my strength and shield;
Thus for the righteous cause,” inspired she cries,
“Thus by my hand our heathen foeman dies.”
Fearless she strikes; and oh, so young, so fair,
Glowing as God’s avenging angel there;
While thousand voices shout with one accord,
Israel victorious in the glory of the Lord!
411:449

Collect for the Day
King of Glorie, King of Peace,
I will love thee;
And that love may never cease,
I will move thee.

Thou hast granted my request,
Thou hast heard me;
Thou dist note my working breast,
Thou hast spar’d me.

Wherefore with my utmost art
I will sing thee,
And the cream of all my heart
I will bring thee.
…………..

Small it is, in this poor sort
To enrol thee:
E’en eternitie’s too short
To extol thee.

[286:5:10 George Herbert, 1593-1663]

A Waiting Game: Judith 7 with poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Judith

2006-11-01T06:01:00.000-05:00

All Saints’ Day

Daily Readings
Sirach 44, Nehemiah 3, Judith 7, Revelation 7:2-4, 9-17

Daily Text: Judith 7

A Waiting Game
The day has come for the vast army, now 170,000 strong, to move against Bethulia. And they do, moving up to the source of the city’s water supply. The NRSV, in Judith 7, says this water source was one of springs, the Vulgate says an aqueduct [534:173].
“Now Holofernes, in going out, found that the fountain which supplied them
with water, ran through an aqueduct outside the city on the south side; and he commanded their aqueduct to be cut off. Nevertheless, there were springs not far from the walls, out of which they were seen secretly to draw water, to refresh themselves a little rather than too drink their fill” (Vg. 7:6-7).
If this Vulgate text is accurate it explains why the foreign mercenaries in his army subsequently recommended that he capture the springs and let the people die of thirst (7:12-13). By dominating the water supply and surrounding their points of egress on all sides, the Assyrians insure their downfall, and they do so without risking loss of life.

Fascinating is the recognition that though the foreign mercenary troops did not want to wait for Bethulia and the Jews to displease their God, when it came time to attack they themselves recommended patience and a waiting game—precisely what Achior had recommended, and for which he was banished.

from Judith
Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Now Holofernes with his barbarous hordes,
The scum of twenty servile sovereignties,
Crost the Euphrates, laying waste the land
To Esdraelon, and, falling on the town
Of Bethulia, stormed it night and day
Incessant, till within the leaguered walls
The boldest captains faltered; for at length
The wells gave out, and then the barley failed,
And Famine, like a murderer masked and cloaked,
Stole in among the garrison. The air
Was filled with lamentation, women’s moans
And cries of children: and a night there came
A fever, parching as a fierce simoon.
Yet Holofernes could not batter down
The brazen gates, nor make a single breach
With beam or catapult in those tough walls:
And white with rage among the tents he strode
Among the squalid Tartar tents he strode
And curst the gods that gave him not his will,
And curst his captains, curst himself, and all;
Then, seeing in what strait the city was,
Withdrew his men hard by the fated town
Amid the hills, and with a grim-set smile
Waited, aloof, until the place should fall.
All day the housetops lay in sweltering heat;
All night the watch fires flared upon the towers;
And day and night with Israelitish spears
The bastions bristled.
411:449

Collect for the Day
Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with lyou land the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

[BCP 245 All Saints’ Day]

Greatness: Judith 5:22-6:21 with poem by Stephen Spender, "I Think Continually of Those----"

2006-10-31T04:22:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 43, Nehemiah 2, Judith 5:22-6:21, I John 1

Daily Text: Judith 5:22-6:21

Greatness
Nothing unexpected occurs in Judith 5:22-6:21. Not trusting a military escort for Achior, Holofernes sends his personal aides with Achior to Bethulia. The transfer is contentious, but uneventful. Achior is, on the other side of the city walls, interrogated by the Jewish leadership, believed, and fêted; their prayers are renewed. What Achior has to say fits everything they have already surmised for themselves. Nothing has changed.

While Achior is indeed a hero, in this case one who has stood with integrity in the highest counsels of two opposing camps, nothing he has done changes anything. What is it that forms a man or a woman a Mandela, a Bishop Tutu, a Martin Luther King or a Judith, while many others, just as integrious, make little difference? Many a man and a woman fill a great role with lackluster, while others are great with or without the role. None of this is meant to disparage Achior. He was in his own right a great man. Far better to be an Achior than a Holofernes, who simply ends up by being a fool and a dead one at that! Parallels, in our own political, national and religious life, are close at hand.

“I Think Continually of Those------“
Stephen Spender
I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are fêted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.
Born of the sun they travelled a short while toward the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.
407:910

Collect for the Day
O thou great Chief, light a candle in my heart, that I may see wht is therein, and sweep the rubbish from thy dwelling place.

[286:108:351]

Knowledge, Intelligence and Counsel: Judith 5:1-21 with poem by Bliss Carman, Lord of the Far Horizons

2006-10-30T06:36:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 42, Nehemiah 1, Judith 5:1-21, Philemon

Daily Text: Judith 5:1-21

Knowledge, Intelligence and Counsel
Judith 5 focuses on the report that alone of all the peoples of the region the Jews are resisting Holofernes. Puzzled he asks his advisors from the region—Moab, Ammon and Philistia—what this is about. Essentially, Holofernes is requesting whatever they have, i.e., knowledge, intelligence and counsel. Achior, leader of the Ammonites, responds loyally with all three. He knows intimately the history of this people. He understands how their God works with them for good and for ill, and finally, he suggests a safe process for defeating them without angering their God.

But no one in that company wants to admit that they are subject to the whims of Israel’s God. What is fascinating here is the contributing and parallel advice given Holofernes by Achior and later by Judith. Achior, knowing that God’s favor rests on Jewish obedience, counsels patience. Judith, when she is addressing Holofernes in chapter 11 knows and says the same thing, but she offers the addition al virtue of knowing the manner by which they are about to sin. So interwoven is the testimony of Achior and Judith that Holofernes, given the added incentive that he is thoroughly entranced by Judith sexually, is finally ready to listen, and he does so without question. It is obvious to this author that Holofernes understood Achior’s integrity from the beginning and only treated him as he did because of the impatience of his other advisors.

Note finally, that once again the people of God behave differently from the people of every other nation. It is this difference that God always asks. The behavior of one who lives for and trusts God implicitly is very different from the behavior of one whose religion does not define his/her life, but is only a part of it.

Lord of the Far Horizons
Bliss Carman1861-1929

Lord of the far horizons,
Give us the eyes to see
Over the verge of sundown
The beauty that is to be.
Give us the skill to fashion
The task of Thy command,
Eager to follow the pattern
We may not understand.

Master of ancient wisdom
And the lore lost long ago,
Inspire our foolish reason
With faith to seek and know.
When the skein of truth is tangled,
And the lead of sense is blind,
Foster the fire to lighten
Our unillumined mind.
407:934

Collect for the Day
O he sons of the Buddha! The radiant body of the Tathāgata
in innumerable ways bestows benefits upon all beings.

It benefits us with its universal illumnination which vanquishes
the darkness of ignorance harboured in all beings.

It benefits us through its great compassionate heart,
which saves and protects all beings.

It benefits us through its great loving heart,
which delivers all beings from the misery of birth and death.

It benefits us by giving us a firm belief in the truth
which cleanses all our spiritual impurities.

The innumerable rays of the light of intelligence emanate
everlastingly from the spiritual body of the Tathāgata.

Whoever sees this light obtains the purest eye of the Dharma.

[476:309:941]

Holding the Tale of Herodotus: Judith 4 with poem by Robert Hillyer, Thermopylae and Golgotha

2006-10-29T08:50:00.000-05:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 41, Ezra 4:6-4, Judith 4, I Esdras 2:16-30

Daily Text: Judith 4

Holding the Tale of Herodotus
Judith’s author sets the time for his story yet again in chapter 4, this time shortly after the return from exile and the re-consecration of the temple, ca. 515 B.C. As with other dates and times in the book of Judith, it is difficult, if not impossible to make complete sense of it. However, this is, for the author, the critical time of action. Of greater interest is the call by Joachim, the high priest in Jerusalem for the mysterious city of Bethulia to take certain mountain passes and defend them against the Assyrians. Arnoldo Momigliano argues that the author of Judith was aware of Herodotus’ account of Sparta’s war against Persia at Thermopylae [534:154]. Caponigro makes a similar case in “Judith, Holding the Tale of Herodotus” [536:47 ff.]. Their point is that Judith’s author fashioned his story with Thermopylae in mind. Moore’s contention is that even if such is true, and it certainly could be, it has to little or nothing to add about the book’s historicity. This is a religious story, written to inspire Jewish hearts toward a God who continues to care for them in a world where the odds are not in their favor. Little wonder that this story has continued to inspire the faithful down through the generations into our own time.

The leaders and the people humbled themselves with fasting and prayer, and the Lord heard them and respected their petition. The God who has intervened throughout their past on their behalf is ready to act once again. What he did in Egypt, he did in Caanan. What he has done in Canaan, he has done in ‘Assyria.’ What God has done in Assyria he will certainly accomplish in second century Persia and beyond.

Thermopylae and Golgotha
Robert Hillyer
Men lied to them and so they went to die.
Some fell, unknowing that they were deceived,
And some escaped, and bitterly bereaved,
Beheld the truth they loved shrink to a lie
And those there were that never had believed,
But from afar had read the gathering sky,
And darkly wrapt in that dread prophecy
Died trusting that their truth might be retrieved.

It matters not. for life deals thus with Man;
To die alone deceived or with the mass,
Or disillusioned to complete his span.
Thermopylae or Golgotha, all one—
The young dead legions in the narrow pass;
The stark black cross against the setting sun.
407:1739

Collect for the Day
It is glory enough for me
That I should be Your servant
It is grace enough for me
That You should be my Lord.

[286:332:1027 Arabic prayer]

Fear and Dread: Judith 2:28-3:10 with poem by Thomas Curtis Clark, Apparitions

2006-10-28T08:46:00.000-04:00

Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude

Daily Readings
Sirach 40, Deuteronomy 32:1-4, Judith 2:28-3:10, Ephesians 2:13-22

Daily Text: Judith 3:28-3:10

Fear and Dread
The result of the campaign is the spreading of fear and dread throughout the region. Now the populace turns out as if welcoming the advent of Holofernes. They offer themselves and everything they have without expressed reservations in unconditional surrender. It seems that he then spares them and their livelihood, but he continues to destroy completely their sacred shrines and religious expressions. Scholars and translators disagree as to whether Holofernes or Nebuchadnezzar ordered that from this time forth the people may worship only Nebuchadnezzar as god [cf. 534:144]. They treated him as a man, even as one man, in 1:11, and now they are being forced to treat him as the one and only god. The sense of the story leads one to assume that since Nebuchadnezzar gave explicit instructions to Holofernes with the admonition that he not depart from the details of his mandate, then Nebuchadnezzar must also be responsible for the religious policy espoused by Holofernes. On the other hand, the reputation of the historical Nebuchadnezzar was always one of leniency towards the gods of conquered lands. It was Antiochus Epiphanes who arrogated to himself divinity. Nonetheless, the results of Holofernes progress toward Jerusalem preceded him and the Jews awaited his coming with fear and trembling, as was true of all their neighbors. Perhaps the religious menace was greater for them than the military, though neither was discounted.

Apparitions
Thomas Curtis Clark

Who goes there, in the night,
Across the storm-swept plain?
We are the ghosts of a valiant war—
A million murdered men!

Who goes there, at the dawn,
Across the sun-swept plain?
We are the hosts of those who swear:
It shall not be again!
407:1740

Collect for the Day
O God, we thank you for the glorious company of the apostles, and especially on this day for Simon and Jude; and we pray that, as they were faithful and zealous in their mission, so we may with ardent devotion make known the love and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[BCP 245 Saint Simon and Saint Jude]

Snub and Revenge: Judith 2:1-27 with poem by Geoffrey Chaucer, De Oloferno

2006-10-27T07:31:00.000-04:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 39, Ezra 6, Judith 2:1-27, I Esdras 6

Daily Text: Judith 2:1-27

Snub and Revenge
The snub in chapter 1 motivates the expressed resentment in Judith 2 as Nebuchadnezzar plans his revenge on the region. Nebuchadnezzar’s revenge took place the year following his campaign against Media. Once entrained Nebuchadnezzar lost no time in carrying out his designs.

General Holofernes is instructed exactly how to go about his campaign, and he does it with dispatch and thoroughness. If the line of march is a little puzzling, it detracts not at all from the intent of his campaign, which is the destruction of crops and villages, of domestic beasts and people. Obviously, Holofernes is competent, determined and thorough. The story is told as if Judah is the climax of his campaign, not unexpectedly since this is a tale of Judah and her God.

De Oloferno
from The Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer

Was nevere capitain under a king
That regnes mo putte in subjeccioun,
Ne strenger was in feeld of alle thing
As in his time, ne gretter of renoun,
Ne moore pompous in heigh presumpcioun
Than Oloferne, which Fortune ay kiste
So likerously, and ladde him up and doun,
Til that his heed was of er that he wiste.

Nat oonly that this world hadde him in awe
For lesinge of richesse or libertee,
But he made every man reneye his lawe.
Nabugodonosor was god, seide he;
Noon oother god sholde adoured be.
Agains his heste no wight dorste trespace,
Save in Bethulia, a strong citee,
Where Eliachim a preest was of that place.

But tak kepe of the deeth of Olferne:
Amidde his hoost he dronke lay a-night,
Withinne his tente, large as is a berne;
And yet, for all his pompe and al his might,
Judith, a womman, as he lay upright
Slepinge, his heed of smoot, and from his tnete
Ful prively she stal from every wight,
And with his heed unto hir toun she wente.
538:587

Collect for the Day
All that we ought to have thought and have not thought,
All that we ought to have said and have not said,
All that we ought to have done, and have not done;

All that we ought not to have thought and yet have thought,
All that we ought not to have spoken, and yet have spoken,
All that we ought not to have done, and yet have done;
For thoughts, words and works, pray we, O God, for forgiveness.

[286:333:1028 from an ancient Persian prayer]

Once Upon A Time: Judith 1 with poem by Angela Morgan, To-Day

2006-10-26T07:39:00.000-04:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 38, Ezra 5, Judith 1, I Esdrus 6

Daily Text: Judith 1

Once Upon A Time
There is a fundamental conflict in this story. The historical information related to the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, and the war against Arphaxad is placed in a pre-exilic period. The context of Judith and the Jews, as well as the non-Jewish names, e.g., Holofernes, Bagoas, et. al., are post-exilic. The two do not coincide. There have been many attempts to reconcile the differences from calling Judith a novel, to renaming Nebuchadnezzar, Artaxerxes III. After defeating the fabled King Arphaxad and his capitol at Ecbatana, ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ and his troops returned for four months to Nineveh, the Assyrian capital (destroyed in 612 B.C. prior to Nebuchadnezzar’s coming to power in ca 604B.C). Even the opening words of Judith 1 may have been intended to set the stage for a fable, one the general reader in subsequent times misses. The apparent contradictions may have been recognizable like “Once upon a time” is in our day. The war between Nebuchadnezzar and Arphaxad was used to set the stage for the later threat to Judah and Jerusalem [comment ff. Moore, 534:Introduction].

To-Day
Angela Morgan

To be alive in such an age!
With every year a lightning page
Turned in the world’s great wonder book
Whereon the leaning nations look.
When men speak strong for brotherhood,
For peace and universal good,
When miracles are everywhere,
And every inch of common air
Throbs a tremendous prophecy
Of greater marvels yet to be.
O thrilling age,
O willing age!
When steel and stone and rail and rod
Become the avenue of God—
A trump to shout His thunder through
To crown the work that man may do.

To be alive in such an age!
When man, impatient of his cage,
Thrills to the soul’s immortal rage
For conquest—reaches goal on goal,
Travels the earth from pole to pole,
Garners the tempests and the tides
And on a Dream Triumphant rides.
When, hid within the lump of clay,
A light more terrible than day
Proclaims the presence of that Force
Which hurls the planets on their course.
O age with wings
O age that flings
A challenge to the very sky,
Where endless realms of conquest lie!
When, earth on tiptoe, strives to hear
The message of a sister sphere,
Yearning to reach the cosmic wires
That flash Infinity’s desires.

To be alive in such an age!
That blunders forth its discontent
With futile creed and sacrament,
Yet craves to utter God’s intent,
Seeing beneath the world’s unrest
Creation’s huge, untiring quest,
And through Tradition’s broken crust
The flame of Truth’s triumphant thrust;
Below the seething thought of amn
The push of a stupendous Plan.
O age of strife!
O age of life!
When Progress rides her chariots high,
And on the borders of the sky
The signals of the century
Proclaim the things that are to be—
The rise of woman to her place,
The coming of a nobler race.

To be alive in such an age—
To live in it,
To give to it!
Rise, soul, from thy despairing knees.
What if thy lips have drunk the lees?
Fling forth thy sorrows to the wind
And link thy hope with humankind—
The passion of a larger claim
Will put thy puny grief to shame.
Breathe the world thought, do the world deed,
Think hugely of thy brother’s need.
And what thy woe, and what thy weal?
Look to the work the times reveal!~
Give thanks with all thy flaming heart—
Crave but to have in it a part.
Give thanks and clasp thy heritage—
To be alive in such a age!
407:1120

Collect for the Day
Your eternal providence has appointed me to watch over the life and health of Your creatures. May the love for my art actuate me at all times; may neither avarice nor miserlienss, nor the thirst for glory or for a great reputation engage my mind, for the enemies of truth and philanthropy could easily deceive me and make me forgetful of my lofty aim of doing good to Your children. May I never see in a patient anything but a fellow creature in pain. Grant me strength, time and opportunity always to correct what I have acquired, always to extend its domain, for knowledge is immense and the spirit of man can extend indefinitely to enrich itself daily with new requirements.

Today he can discover his errors of yesterday and tomorrow he may obtain new light on what he thinks himself sure of today.

O God, You have appointed me to watch over the life and death of Your creatures. Here I am, ready for my vocation.

[286 274:833 Maimonides, 1135-1204, The Medical Oath]

Remarkable Obedience: Haggai 1 with poem by John Chagy, Haggai

2006-10-25T09:34:00.000-04:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 37, Ezra 3:1-4:5, Haggai 1, I Esdras 5:47-73

Daily Text: Haggai 1

Remarkable Obedience
The text of Haggai 1 is self explanatory. What is remarkable is that Haggai gives this warning in August/September of 520 after several years of living back in Jerusalem. Three weeks later, after the harvest, the people all turn out to begin the re-building of the temple in earnest. This is remarkable obedience from the rulers in the city to the peasant in the field. God rejoices and gives them his imprimatur, the word that God will be with them. Everyone is joyful, encouraged and active.

Haggai
John Chagy

Shealtiel, governor of Judah,
And Jehozadak, his friend, the high priest,
Had no time for prophecies. But their sons,
Zerubbabel and Joshua, listened,
And there was fear in their hearts as Haggai
Admonished them. “Your fathers say the time
Has not yet come to build the second Temple,
Therefore the Lord has kept the heaven back.
The drought upon the land has starved the cattle,
Withered the fig-tree, dried the pomegranate.
Your hands are calloused and weary with labor
Yet your wives and little ones go hungry.
The Jews run every man for his own house
And so are scattered, weak and separate
Even in Jerusalem, without a Temple.
Last night I heard the Lord of host again,
He bade me stir your hearts to build His House.
Then in a dream I saw the Temple site;
The Temple stood there on that highest hill
More glorious than any of our buildings.
From within I heard the sound of pipes and oboes,
Trumpets, harps, shofars, cymbals and singers—
The leader had the sweetest voice in Israel.
The Lord appointed me His messenger
To urge you land the remnants of the people
To consider your ways and hearken unto the Lord.
And from the day the Temple’s completed
The acorn and vines and olive-trees shall blossom
And in this land there shall be peace again.
Israel’s one home is in the House of the Lord.”
395:457

Collect for the Day
God of mercy, God of grace,
teach me to hold my will attentive
in the liberty thou gavest me,
that I may will with thee to do thy will
as thou dost show it me;
draw me to respond to thee
in each separate occasion of the passing time
that when the vanities of earth are passed
I may remain for ever
in the loving rhythm of thy everlasting peace.

[286:87:261 Fr. Gilbert Shaw, 1886-1967]

Can Something Holy Be Contagious: Haggai 2 with poem by Thomas Curtis Clark, The Message of Haggai

2006-10-24T09:30:00.000-04:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 36, Ezra 2, Haggai 2, I Esdras 5:7-46

Daily Text: Haggai 2

Can Something Holy Be Contagious
Difficult indeed is Haggai 2. What does the prophet mean by his recognition that the new temple falls far short of the old? Obviously, he understands that there are those who remember the Solomonic temple and are completely discouraged about this new replacement. But the word from the LORD is not discouraging; it indicates that the new temple will surpass the old!

Two months later, the prophet is asking what appear to be profound questions related to both the holiness code and the purity code. Can something holy be contagious? He asks the priests for a ruling. “No” came the unequivocal reply. Holiness can only come from the Lord. Can something unclean be contagious? ”Yes,” comes the equally unequivocal reply. So it is with my people and this nation, says the LORD. Well, what does that mean? It apparently means that prior to this day even a holy people could not make holy the temple sacrifices for the temple itself, or what there was of it, was unclean. But from this 18th day of December 520: B.C. it will be different. Why? Because evidently on that day there was a ceremony of consecration for the 2nd temple. Ezra 3:10-13 describes this ritual and the emotional response of the people to it. Some of them still mourned the loss of the old, but the majority rejoiced in the re-founding of the new. With re-consecration, the LORD made the temple and the altar holy and the sacrifices of the people would be from then on considered holy. Not only that, the LORD’s blessing would be poured out upon them continuously. Haggai has become the LORD’s instrument to work his grace on this entire rebuilding effort.

The Message of Haggai
Thomas Curtis Clark
My house lieth waste, saith Jehovah,
And ye live in ceiled houses.
And Zerubbabel the governor heard,
And Josiah the high priest heard,
And the people heard.
Consider your ways, saith Jehovah;
Go up to the mountain and bring wood
And build my house.
Thus spoke Jehovah though Haggai the prophet.
And Zerubbabel and Josiah and the people
Were stirred and did build God’s house.

Then saith Jehovah:
Consider my house as it was
In its former glory.
But be ye strong, O Zerubbabel and Josiah.
I will shake the nations
And the precious things of all the nations
Shall come.
And I will fill this house with glory.
And the latter glory of the place
Shall be greater than the former.
For the silver is mine and the gold is mine.
Be ye strong, O Judah and Jerusalem,
For I have chosen thee.
377:676

Collect for the Day
May God in the plenitude of his love pour upon you the torrents of his grace, bless you and keep you in his holy fear, prepare you for a happy eternity, and receive you at last into immortal glory.

[286:172:571 Blessing at the Consecration of Coventry Cathedral]

Vision of Mercy: Habakkuk 3 with poem by William Broome, Habakkuk's Prayer

2006-10-23T07:42:00.000-04:00

Feast of St. James of Jerusalem

Daily Readings
Sirach 35, Acts 15:12-22, Habakkuk 3, Letter of Jeremiah

Daily Text: Habakkuk 3

Vision of Mercy
In Habakkuk 3 resolution of all of the questions, all of the tension between God’s intentions and the prophet’s understanding, comes about. YHWH gives Habakkuk the vision of his mercy towards Judah. He realizes that it will not be immediately experienced, but it will come.

The vision is of God’s coming in wrath (vss.3-15) against the oppressing nations. Even those nations incidental to his wrath will be terrified at that coming; even the natural world is convulsed. This is a vision of direct intervention, YHWH entering history and making changes. “Victory over chaos was the theophany, par excellence.” [531:149].

So affected is the prophet by the terribleness of God’s coming that he trembles, loses his strength and finally quietly accepts God’s intentions as experienced in the vision (vs. 16). He goes on to make a vow of trust even though he knows that there will be no outward sign of God’s salvation (vss. 17, 18), and then in the final verse his confidence in God’s promise soars almost to ecstasy. What a difference from his fears in 1:2! This vision pales in contrast to God’s intervention in Jesus. How much more should we be able to trust and rest confidently in God’s promise through Jesus!

Habakkuk’s Prayer
William Broome1689-1745

Yet though the fig-tree should no burden bear,
Though vines delude the promise of the year;
Yet though the olive should not yield her oil,
Nor the parched glebe regard the peasant’s toil;
Though the tired ox beneath his labors fall,
And herds in millions perish from the stall!
Yet shall my grateful strings
Forever praise Thy name,
Forever Thee proclaim
The everlasting God, the mighty King of kings.
411:444

Collect for the Day
Grant, O God, that, following the example of your servnt James the Just, brother of our Lord, your Church may give itself continually to prayer and to the reconciliation of all who are at variance and enmity; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

[BCP 245 Saint James of Jerusalem]

The Promise of Vision: Habakkuk 2 with anonymous poem, He Cometh Late

2006-10-22T07:17:00.000-04:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 34, Ezra 1, Habakkuk 2, I Esdrus 2:1-15

Daily Text: Habakkuk 2

The Promise of Vision
After the prophet’s complaint in chapter one, he waits by his watchpost to see what God’s response will be to his criticism. And he doesn’t watch long before God comes to him again and promises a vision for the appointed time, a vision of the end time. Habakkuk is to write it down and wait for it.

The crux of Habakkuk 2 is the promise of a vision. It is the vision that claims the faithful. That one is not ‘fainthearted’ for he will walk in its light and live by its faithfulness [cf. 531:104]. On the other hand, the arrogant wealthy (vs. 5) will be treacherous, will ultimately not succeed and will himself be overthrown, a laughingstock and subject to those he formerly oppressed. Wait for the vision of YHWH, then, for it is substantive and worth making the centerpiece of one’s life, for the LORD is in his holy temple! Waiting for him to act is no sign of the LORD’s absence. The vision itself is the subject of the final oracle in chapter 3.

He Cometh Late
Author Unknown

The strings of camels come in single file,
Bearing their burdens o’er the desert sands.
Swiftly the boats go plying on the Nile—
The needs of men are met on every hand,
But still I wait
For the messenger of God who cometh late.

I see a cloud of dust rise on the plain.
The measured tread of troops falls on my ear.
The soldier comes, the empire to maintain,
Bringing the pomp of war, the reign of fear.
But still I wait
For the messenger of God who cometh late.

They set me watching o’er the desert drear,
Where dwells the darkness, as the the deepest night;
From many a mosque there comes the call to prayer—
I hear no voice that calls on God for light.
But still I wait
For the messenger of God who cometh late.
377:638

Collect for the Day
Save us while waking, and defend us while sleeping, that when we awake we may watch with Christ, and when we sleep we may rest in peace.

[286:102:328 Antiphon at Compline]

Questioning God: Habakkuk 1 with poem by Habakkuk, Wall Street, 600 B.C.

2006-10-21T07:22:00.000-04:00

Daily Readings
Sirach 32:24-33:35, Jeremiah 44, Habakkuk 1, Baruch 5

Daily Text: Habakkuk 1

Questioning God
Habakkuk (1) is a man of a different stripe. Most prophets challenge the people they are sent to. Habakkuk, like Job, questions God [cf. 533:47]. He complains that those who are evil surround and oppress and make a mockery of justice. “Why,’ he asks? When God responds that he has engaged the Chaldeans to bring his own judgment on Judah, Habakkuk strikes back with a response that this is unsatisfactory. “Why (O, Lord) do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they?” Having challenged God this second time, Habakkuk waits for YHWH’s answer (Hab. 2:1).

Verse 11 is a very difficult passage. Most translators treat it as if it were a continuation of the oracle, however, J. M. M. Roberts [531:90 ff] makes a strong case for the verse being the prophet’s response to God’s word. Robert’s translation is as follows:
Then the spirit passed on,
it departed, and I was astonished:
“This one (takes) his might as his god!”
Note that to be ‘astonished’ fits exactly with God’s prediction in vs. 5, the beginning of God’s words. Read that way, it becomes a transition for the prophet’s challenge to YHWH. What a man Habakkuk must have been. He faithfully presents God’s words to his people, and at the same time publically questions them. He must have been as terrified as he was courageous.

Wall Street, 600 B.C.
Habakkuk
They take up all of them with the angle,
they catch them in their net,
and gather them in their drag;
therefore they sacrifice unto their net,
and burn incense unto their drag;
because by them their portion is fat,
and their meat plenteous.
377:591

Collect for the Day
O God, make the door of this house wide enough to receive all wo need human love and fellowship; narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride and strife.

Make its threshold smooth enough to be no stumbling-bock to children, nor to straying feet, but rugged and strong enough to turn back the tempter’s power. God make the door of this house the gateway to thine eternal kingdom

[286:73:211 on St. Stephen’s Walbrook, London. Bishop Thomas Ken, 1637-1711]