Imprisoned for twelve years, his crime: preaching without a license from the Anglican Church. But injustice turned to good for during this time the classic book The Pilgrim's Progress (Penguin Classics) was penned by John Bunyan, who died this day, August 31, 1688. It’s a story of a man who flees the City of Destruction, and is directed by Evangelist to follow a narrow path to the City of Zion. The friends and dangers he meets along the way inspired the modern story of the Wizard of Oz. Translated into over one hundred languages, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was found in every home in colonial America, along with the Bible.

Federer, B. (2003). American minute. St. Louis, MO.: Amerisearch, Inc.

Trust God, who is one,
and not the world because it is many.
--- J.B. Lightfoot

... from here, there and everywhere

29 Who has misery? Who has regret?
     Who fights and complains all the time?
     Who gets bruised for no good reason?
     Who has bloodshot eyes?
30 Those who spend their time over wine,
     those always trying out mixed drinks.
31 Don’t gaze at the red wine
     as it gives its color to the cup.
     It may glide down smoothly now;
32 but in the end, it bites like a serpent—
     yes, it strikes like a poisonous snake.
33 Your eyes will see peculiar things,
     your mind will utter nonsense.
34 You will feel as if lying on the waves of the sea
     or sprawled on top of the mast—
35 “They hit me, but I didn’t feel it!
     They beat me up, and I didn’t even know it!
     When will I wake up?…
     I’ll go get another drink.”

Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible-OE
: An English version of the Tanakh (OT) and
B'rit Hadashah (NT) (1st ed.). Clarksville, Md.: Jewish
New Testament Publications.

                         
My joy … your joy

     That My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. --- John 15:11.

     What was the joy that Jesus had? It is an insult to use the word happiness in connection with Jesus Christ. The joy of Jesus was the absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice of Himself to His Father, the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do. “I delight to do Thy will.” Jesus prayed that our joy might go on fulfilling itself until it was the same joy as His. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce His joy to me?

     The full flood of my life is not in bodily health, not in external happenings, not in seeing God’s work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the communion with Him that Jesus Himself had. The first thing that will hinder this joy is the captious irritation of thinking out circumstances. The cares of this world, said Jesus, will choke God’s word. Before we know where we are, we are caught up in the shows of things. All that God has done for us is the mere threshold; He wants to get us to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim Who Jesus is.

     Be rightly related to God, find your joy there, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. Be a centre for Jesus Christ to pour living water through. Stop being self-conscious, stop being a sanctified prig, and live the life hid with Christ. The life that is rightly related to God is as natural as breathing wherever it goes. The lives that have been of most blessing to you are those who were unconscious of it.

Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest

All in vain. I will cease now
My long absorption with the plough,
With the tame and the wild creatures
And man united with the earth.
I have failed after many seasons
To bring truth to birth,
And nature's simple equations
In the mind's precincts do not apply.

But where to turn? Earth endures
After the passing, necessary shame
Of winter, and the old lie
Of green places beckons me still
From the new world, ugly and evil,
That men pry for in truth's name.

R.S. Thomas Selected poems, 1946-1968

     No one played a larger role in the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe than Karol Wojtyla of Krakow. During the Nazi occupation of Poland, Wojtyla had attended an underground Catholic seminary by dodging military patrols and taking secret classes in convents, churches, and homes. At length he graduated, donned clerical robes, and traveled to a small Polish village to serve as priest. Communists, meanwhile, were replacing Nazis as the oppressors of Eastern Europe; but with intrepidity, Wojtyla performed baptisms, heard confessions, offered Mass, foiled the secret police, and thwarted authorities.

     The years passed, and by 1978, the village priest had advanced to become the first non-Italian pope in 456 years—John Paul II. On one of his first outings, the new pope heard someone in the crowd shout, “Don’t forget the Church of Silence!” (that is, the church under Communism). John Paul replied, “It’s not a Church of Silence anymore, because it speaks with my voice.”

     John Paul soon returned in triumph to Warsaw where his plane landed over the protests of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Oceans of faces met him everywhere, weeping, praying, shouting. Communist leaders in Russia and Poland trembled as they listened to his words: “Dearest brothers and sisters! You must be strong with the strength that flows from faith! There is no need to be afraid. The frontiers must be opened.”

     Within a year, spontaneous strikes occurred throughout Poland; and in Gdansk, Lech Walesa stood atop an excavator and announced a strike in the shipyards. Back at the Vatican, John Paul watched, prayed, and spoke to a group of Polish pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square. “All of us here in Rome are united with our compatriots in Poland,” he said, signaling his blessings on the strikers. Within a week the Communists made historic concessions, and on August 31, 1980 the Gdansk Accords were signed, permitting the first independent union in Eastern Europe. There was no mistaking the role of the Polish pope, for Lech Walesa signed the papers using a brightly colored Vatican pen featuring a picture of John Paul II.

     The Iron Curtain was crumbling.

     I’ll tell you what it really means to worship the LORD.
     Remove the chains of prisoners who are chained unjustly.
     Free those who are abused!
     Share your food with everyone who is hungry;
     Share your home with the poor and homeless.
     Give clothes to those in need;
     Don’t turn away your relatives.
          Isaiah 58:6,7.

Morgan, R. J. On This Day 365 Amazing And Inspiring Stories About Saints, Martyrs And Heroes

     All Israel are guarantors one for the other.

     BIBLE TEXT / Leviticus 26:36–37 / As for those of you who survive, I will cast a faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight. Fleeing as though from the sword, they shall fall though none pursues. With no one pursuing, they shall stumble over one another as before the sword. You shall not be able to stand your ground before your enemies.…

     MIDRASH TEXT / Sifra Be-ḥukkotai 7:4–5 / The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korḥah said, “Once we were sitting among the trees, and the wind blew and smacked the leaves one against the other. We stood up and ran, saying, ‘Woe to us! The horsemen will catch us!’ After some time, we turned around and saw there was no one. We sat in our places and cried, saying, ‘Woe to us! The verse “the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight. Fleeing as though from the sword, they shall fall though none pursues” has been fulfilled through us, due to our lack of power.’ ”

     They shall stumble over one another. Over one another’s sins, teaching that all Israel are guarantors one for the other.

     CONTEXT

     Chapter 26 of the Book of Leviticus contains blessings and curses. The Bible promises that these will come upon the Israelite nation depending on whether they have followed, or deviated from, the laws of the Torah. Verses 14–38 lay out what God will bring upon Israel “if you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments”—famine, drought, wild beasts, pestilence, and enemy armies shall destroy the land and its inhabitants. We are then told that fear will overwhelm the people, so that they will imagine all manner of horrors even when these are not real.

     Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korḥah lived in the second half of the second century. He was witness to the terrors that followed the Bar Kokhba rebellion against the Romans (132–135 C.E.). Rome cracked down harshly on the Jews following this second major armed uprising (the first coming in the year 70, resulting in the destruction of the Temple). Rabbi Yehoshua was among the younger students of Rabbi Akiva, a leader of the rebellion who was, according to Rabbinic tradition, tortured and executed by the Romans. According to one tradition (likely apocryphal), Yehoshua was the son of Akiva. We can understand the fear he must have felt during this period, always imagining that the Romans were after him. A reader of the verse in the Torah—“The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight”—might say, “How can anyone be frightened by the sound of a leaf?” Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korḥah comes to tell us, “Believe it! That exact scenario once happened to me.”

     The Midrash then goes on to give an explanation of another phrase from the next verse, “They shall stumble over one another.” The contextual meaning of this verse is that, in the great panic that ensues from the fear caused by the sound of the leaves, people will trample one another. The Rabbis give this verse a very different understanding: People will fall and stumble not physically, but metaphorically—over one another’s sins. One person will commit a sin; the punishment for the sin is the horrors listed in Leviticus 26. But other people, aware of their “neighbor’s” sin, will also be punished for not having prevented the wrong. The conclusion drawn from this interpretation is that we are judged not merely as individuals, but also as a community. Each of us is responsible for what every other member of our group does. All Israel are guarantors one for the other. The Hebrew word עֲרֵבִים/areivim is a term signifying a surety, something held in pledge, or a bond. It is not simply as Jews that we are responsible one for another; we are “co-signers” of a promise. If a fellow Jew cannot pay what he owes, we—every other member of the Jewish people—are obligated to make good on it. The same is true in the moral sphere. We may not close our eyes to what is happening around us. We cannot say, “What other people do is none of my business.” It is our business. If our neighbor does wrong and we do nothing about it, then we are the ones who will stumble and fall.

Katz, M., & Schwartz, G. Searching for Meaning in Midrash: Lessons for Everyday Living Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society.

     The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. --- John 3:35

     We are told, “He had to go through Samaria” (John 4:4).” (Heaven's Grand Repository; or The Father's Love to the Son, and Depositing All Things into His Hand, A Strong Encouragement to Faith) The purpose was to give from his grace to a poor, sinful harlot there. Was there a blessed necessity for his suffering at Jerusalem? Yes: “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” (Luke 24:26). Even so, there is a blessed necessity for his applying the beneficial power of his death and sufferings, by pouring out his Spirit and communicating his grace for that purpose.

     Consider, that though Christ is exalted to this honor and majesty of having everything placed in his hands, yet it is not possible that he would be therefore proud and disdainful, so as not to regard the case of poor sinners, for quite the contrary is the truth. Because he is thus honored, therefore he humbles himself. Read his mind on this with wonder and admiration: “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he… began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him” (John 13:3–5). What was the reason, then, that Christ stooped down to wash his disciples’ feet? Because he knew the Father had put everything in his hands. Was he therefore proud? No, he was therefore humble.

     There is a twofold humiliation of Christ. First, he humbled himself to come down into human nature and shed his blood for us. Secondly, being exalted, he humbles himself to come down into our hearts, our filthy hearts, and wash them in his blood.

     He is exalted for this very purpose: to pardon and purge guilty and polluted sinners. As high and honorable as he is, he thinks it his honor to give out grace. He knows that the lower he stoops the higher will he be honored in the hearts of his people. I appeal to all believing hearts—the lower that he condescended to you—didn’t your hearts exalt him the more and wonder at his glory? O sinner, then, do not think he is too high to look down toward you. The higher he is, the lower he stoops, and therefore the higher you believe he is, the more hope you may have of his pity and favor toward you, and the more you see is placed in his hands, the more do you expect to get out of his hands; faith has the more footing.
--- Ralph Erskine

Wallis, D. (2001). Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers

PROPER 17, WEDNESDAY
YEAR 1

Psalms (Morning) Psalm 38
Psalms (Evening) Psalm 119:25–48
Old Testament 1 Kings 9:24–10:13
New Testament James 3:1–12
Gospel Mark 15:1–11

Index of Readings

PSALMS (MORNING)
Psalm 38

A Psalm of David, for the memorial offering.
1 O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger,
or discipline me in your wrath.
2 For your arrows have sunk into me,
and your hand has come down on me.

3 There is no soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation;
there is no health in my bones
because of my sin.
4 For my iniquities have gone over my head;
they weigh like a burden too heavy for me.

5 My wounds grow foul and fester
because of my foolishness;
6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
all day long I go around mourning.
7 For my loins are filled with burning,
and there is no soundness in my flesh.
8 I am utterly spent and crushed;
I groan because of the tumult of my heart.

9 O Lord, all my longing is known to you;
my sighing is not hidden from you.
10 My heart throbs, my strength fails me;
as for the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
11 My friends and companions stand aloof from my affliction,
and my neighbors stand far off.

12 Those who seek my life lay their snares;
those who seek to hurt me speak of ruin,
and meditate treachery all day long.

13 But I am like the deaf, I do not hear;
like the mute, who cannot speak.
14 Truly, I am like one who does not hear,
and in whose mouth is no retort.

15 But it is for you, O LORD, that I wait;
it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.
16 For I pray, “Only do not let them rejoice over me,
those who boast against me when my foot slips.”

17 For I am ready to fall,
and my pain is ever with me.
18 I confess my iniquity;
I am sorry for my sin.
19 Those who are my foes without cause are mighty,
and many are those who hate me wrongfully.
20 Those who render me evil for good
are my adversaries because I follow after good.

21 Do not forsake me, O LORD;
O my God, do not be far from me;
22 make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation.

PSALMS (EVENING)
Psalm 119:25–48

25 My soul clings to the dust;
revive me according to your word.
26 When I told of my ways, you answered me;
teach me your statutes.
27 Make me understand the way of your precepts,
and I will meditate on your wondrous works.
28 My soul melts away for sorrow;
strengthen me according to your word.
29 Put false ways far from me;
and graciously teach me your law.
30 I have chosen the way of faithfulness;
I set your ordinances before me.
31 I cling to your decrees, O LORD;
let me not be put to shame.
32 I run the way of your commandments,
for you enlarge my understanding.

33 Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes,
and I will observe it to the end.
34 Give me understanding, that I may keep your law
and observe it with my whole heart.
35 Lead me in the path of your commandments,
for I delight in it.
36 Turn my heart to your decrees,
and not to selfish gain.
37 Turn my eyes from looking at vanities;
give me life in your ways.
38 Confirm to your servant your promise,
which is for those who fear you.
39 Turn away the disgrace that I dread,
for your ordinances are good.
40 See, I have longed for your precepts;
in your righteousness give me life.

41 Let your steadfast love come to me, O LORD,
your salvation according to your promise.
42 Then I shall have an answer for those who taunt me,
for I trust in your word.
43 Do not take the word of truth utterly out of my mouth,
for my hope is in your ordinances.
44 I will keep your law continually,
forever and ever.
45 I shall walk at liberty,
for I have sought your precepts.
46 I will also speak of your decrees before kings,
and shall not be put to shame;
47 I find my delight in your commandments,
because I love them.
48 I revere your commandments, which I love,
and I will meditate on your statutes.

OLD TESTAMENT
1 Kings 9:24–10:13

24 But Pharaoh’s daughter went up from the city of David to her own house that Solomon had built for her; then he built the Millo. 25 Three times a year Solomon used to offer up burnt offerings and sacrifices of well-being on the altar that he built for the LORD, offering incense before the LORD. So he completed the house.

26 King Solomon built a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. 27 Hiram sent his servants with the fleet, sailors who were familiar with the sea, together with the servants of Solomon. 28 They went to Ophir, and imported from there four hundred twenty talents of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.

10 When the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, (fame due to the name of the LORD), she came to test him with hard questions. 2 She came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices, and very much gold, and precious stones; and when she came to Solomon, she told him all that was on her mind. 3 Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her. 4 When the queen of Sheba had observed all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, 5 the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his valets, and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the LORD, there was no more spirit in her. 6 So she said to the king, “The report was true that I heard in my own land of your accomplishments and of your wisdom, 7 but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. Not even half had been told me; your wisdom and prosperity far surpass the report that I had heard. 8 Happy are your wives! Happy are these your servants, who continually attend you and hear your wisdom! 9 Blessed be the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel! Because the LORD loved Israel forever, he has made you king to execute justice and righteousness.” 10 Then she gave the king one hundred twenty talents of gold, a great quantity of spices, and precious stones; never again did spices come in such quantity as that which the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

11 Moreover, the fleet of Hiram, which carried gold from Ophir, brought from Ophir a great quantity of almug wood and precious stones. 12 From the almug wood the king made supports for the house of the LORD, and for the king’s house, lyres also and harps for the singers; no such almug wood has come or been seen to this day.

13 Meanwhile King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba every desire that she expressed, as well as what he gave her out of Solomon’s royal bounty. Then she returned to her own land, with her servants.

NEW TESTAMENT
James 3:1–12

3 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2 For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4 Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7 For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, 8 but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

GOSPEL
Mark 15:1–11

15 As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. 2 Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered him, “You say so.” 3 Then the chief priests accused him of many things. 4 Pilate asked him again, “Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you.” 5 But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed.

6 Now at the festival he used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked. 7 Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. 8 So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom. 9 Then he answered them, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” 10 For he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over. 11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead.

The Episcopal Church. Book of Common Prayer Lectionary