The groans of a dying man kept him awake in the little inn outside New York. He was hardened to the cries because a college friend had persuaded him to be an atheist. The next morning he learned the man who died in the night was none other than his college friend. His faith renewed, he became America’s first foreign missionary. His name was Adonirum Judson, born this day, August 9, 1788. Adonirum and his wife sailed for India, but were forced by the British East India Tea Company to flee to Burma. There they translated Scriptures, started schools, and their work grew to over a half-million people.

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

It was not the outer granduer of the Roman
but the inner simplicity of the Christian
that lived through the ages.
--- Charles Lindbergh

... from here, there and everywhere

16 Both oppressing the poor to enrich oneself
and giving to the rich yield only loss.

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.

                         
Prayer in the Father’s hearing

     Father, I thank Thee that thou hast heard Me. --- John 11:41.

     When the Son of God prays, He has only one consciousness, and that consciousness is of His Father. God always hears the prayers of His Son, and if the Son of God is formed in me the Father will always hear my prayers. I have to see that the Son of God is manifested in my mortal flesh. “Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost,” the ‘Bethlehem’ of the Son of God. Is the Son of God getting His chance in me? Is the direct simplicity of the life of God’s Son being worked out exactly as it was worked out in His historic life? When I come in contact with the occurrences of life as an ordinary human being, is the prayer of God’s Eternal Son to His Father being prayed in me? “In that day ye shall ask in My name.…” What day? The day when the Holy Ghost has come to me and made me effectually one with my Lord.

     Is the Lord Jesus Christ being abundantly satisfied in your life or have you got a spiritual ‘strut’ on? Never let common sense obtrude and push the Son of God on one side. Common sense is a gift which God gave to human nature; but common sense is not the gift of His Son. Supernatural sense is the gift of His Son; never enthrone common sense. The Son detects the Father; common sense never yet detected the Father and never will. Our ordinary wits never worship God unless they are transfigured by the indwelling Son of God. We have to see that this mortal flesh is kept in perfect subjection to Him and that He works through it moment by moment. Are we living in such human dependence upon Jesus Christ that His life is being “manifested in our mortal flesh”?

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

Convergences
of the spirit! What
Century, love? I,
Too; you remember --
Brescia? This sunlight reminds
Of the brocade. I dined
Long. And now the music
Of darkness in your eyes
Sounds. But Brescia,
And the spreading foliage
Of smoke! With Yeats' birds
Grown hoarse,
          Artificer
Of the years, is this
Your answer? The long dream
Unwound; we followed
Through time to the tryst
With ourselves. But wheels roll
Between and the shadow
Of the plane falls. The
Victim remains
Nameless on the tall
Steps. Master, I
Do not wish, I do not wish
To continue.

H'm: Poems by R. S. Thomas

     Christianity fell away following the American Revolution. A Scotsman traveling through the South saw “few religious people.” Francis Asbury found “not one in a hundred” concerned about religion. Alcoholism was rampant, and universalism and deism captivated the infant nation.

     But in 1800 scattered revivals erupted like geysers in the backlands of Kentucky. People gathered under makeshift arbors while the gospel was preached, sometimes accompanied by emotional outbursts. Barton Stone, pastor of the Presbyterian church at Cain Ridge (near Lexington), hearing of the camp meetings, witnessed one for himself—The scene was passing strange. Many fell down as slain in battle and continued for hours in an apparently motionless state—sometimes for a few moments reviving and exhibiting symptoms of life by a deep groan or by a prayer for mercy most fervently uttered.

     His church at Cain Ridge immediately planned a camp meeting for the first weekend of August, 1801. The church could hold 500; but workers, fearing an oversized crowd, threw up a large tent. Church families opened homes, barns, and cabins to the expected visitors.

     But they didn’t expect 20,000! Hordes arrived by horse, carriage, and wagon. Prayer and preaching continued around the clock on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Excitement mounted; cries and screams pierced the hazy summer air; men swooned; women were seized by spasms; children fell into ecstasy; so many fainted that the ground was covered with bodies like a battlefield. Then the “jerks” broke out. Their heads would jerk back suddenly, frequently causing them to yelp. I have seen their heads fly back and forward so quickly that the hair of females would crack like a whip.

     On Monday, August 9, 1801, food and supplies were exhausted, and so were the worshipers. Many left; but others came to take their places. Four more days of singing, preaching, shrieking, and jerking continued before the geyser died down. Between 1,000 and 3,000 had been converted, and the news was the buzz of the region. People across the new nation began discussing the revival of Christianity, and the Cane Ridge Revival is considered one of the most important religious gatherings in American history.

     Always be joyful and never stop praying. Whatever happens, keep thanking God because of Jesus Christ. This is what God wants you to do. --- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

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

     Hearing isn’t like seeing.

     BIBLE TEXT / Exodus 19:7–9 / Moses came and summoned the elders of the people and put before them all that the Lord had commanded him. All the people answered as one, saying, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do!” And Moses brought back the people’s words to the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses, “I will come to you in a thick cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.” Then Moses reported the people’s words to the Lord.…

     MIDRASH TEXT / Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Yitro 2 / Then Moses reported.… Rabbi Elazar ben Parata says, “But what did the Omnipresent One say to Moses to tell Israel? And what did Israel tell Moses to say to the Omnipresent One? Since it says, ‘Moses went and repeated to the people [all the commands of the Lord and all the rules]’ (Exodus 24:3). He [Moses] said to them, ‘If you receive the punishments with joy, you also receive the reward. And if not, you’ll receive misfortunes.’ Thus, they received the punishments with joy.” Rabbi says, “But what did the Omnipresent One say to Moses to tell Israel? And what did Israel tell Moses to say to the Omnipresent One? They said, ‘We want to hear it directly from our king. Hearing from an underling is not like hearing from the king.’ The Omnipresent One said, ‘Give them what they asked for, “that the people may hear when I speak with you” ’ ” (Exodus 19:9). Another interpretation: They said, “We want to see our king. Hearing isn’t like seeing.” The Omnipresent One said, “Give them what they asked for, ‘for on the third day the Lord will come down, in the sight of all the people, on Mount Sinai’ ” (Exodus 19:11).

     CONTEXT / When the Israelites stood at Sinai, ready to receive the Law from God, Moses acted as intermediary between God and the people. Moses tells the people God’s laws, and the people answer that they will faithfully observe these laws. Moses repeats this to God. (The Rabbis call God הַמָּקוֹם/Ha-Makom, “the Place,” because of the belief that God could be found in every place. Thus, we have translated Ha-Makom as “the Omnipresent One.”) Moses reports God’s instructions to the people and the people’s responses to God.

     There is one interchange that particularly interested the Rabbis:

     And the Lord said to Moses, “I will come to you in a thick cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.” Then Moses reported the people’s words to the Lord.…

     Rabbi Elazar ben Parata therefore asks, “But what did the Omnipresent One say to Moses to tell Israel?” God spoke to Moses, but there was no instruction to Moses to repeat these words to the people, nor does the text say—as it does explicitly elsewhere—that Moses reiterated God’s commands to the Israelites. In addition, “What did Israel tell Moses to say to the Omnipresent One?” The text says that “Moses reported the people’s words to the Lord,” How could Moses report what was not said, or at least not said explicitly in the text? (Elsewhere, we’re told exactly what the people said, and that Moses repeated those same words to God.)

     Rabbi Elazar ben Parata then answers his own question: Since it says, ‘Moses went and repeated to the people [all the commands of the Lord and all the rules]’ (Exodus 24:3). Rabbi Elazar contends that these are the words that they shared. The exact conversation is simply not recorded in the Bible itself. Often, the Rabbis fill in details in the biblical text, based on either oral tradition or what they assumed happened. Rabbi Elazar offers a plausible conversation that “took place” between God, Moses, and the Israelites:

     He [Moses] said to them, “If you receive the punishments with joy, you also receive the reward. And if not, you’ll receive misfortunes.” Thus, they received the punishments with joy.

     Another explanation is given by Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi, the political head of the Jewish community of Israel in the third century and the codifier of the Mishnah. He envisions that they, the Israelites, said, “We want to hear it directly from our king. Hearing from an underling is not like hearing from the king.” The Omnipresent One said, “Give them what they asked for—and then, quoting a verse from this chapter—‘that the people may hear when I speak with you.’ ”

     Another interpretation, this one anonymous: They, the Israelites, said, “We want to see our king. Hearing isn’t like seeing.” Rather than saying “We don’t want God’s agent,” they say, “We want to see—not only hear—God.” The Omnipresent One said, “Give them what they asked for. God agrees, and the proof for this can be found in verse 11, which states that “on the third day the Lord will come down, in the sight of all the people, on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:11).” God has agreed to “come down” to the people, not only to be heard but also to be seen by them.

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

     Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay. --- Habakkuk 2:3

     Sudden or slow, dramatic or invisible, “it will certainly come.” (Classic Sermons on Hope (Kregel Classic Sermons Series))

     And, says the prophet, it “will not delay.” That is the fear that often haunts us. That “too late” is a grievous reality, a grim and fearful fact of life.

     Often that is what we feel about ourselves. Once we might have really closed with Christ and taken what he offers us. But now the character is fixed, our habits are settled, the channels are cut that the rivers must run in to the end. It is too late. And there is dreadful truth in that.

     “Are you still sleeping?” said the Master sadly, the glorious office he had offered his friends left unaccepted; sleep on, it does not matter now. The chance is lost, the opportunity is past, sleep on!

     Every failure, in a way, is irremediable. Always our record must be by that amount less than it might and should and could have been. And we look wistfully across at Christ and then sadly enough at what we are. That is what I might have been, and this is what I am; that is what I was offered, and this is what I chose! Fool that I was, but now—it is too late.

     But the whole point of the gospel is that, in one glorious way, it is not yet too late for anyone. If you have not seen that in Christ, have you seen Christ at all? Always he faced the poorest, the most soiled and tangled life with the sure confidence that even yet it could be righted; yes, and he would do it now. And how often and how strangely he was justified in cases that looked just impossible! Aye, and why should he not be so in you and me? It is to us, remember, to plain ordinary folk like you and me that he gives his bewildering promises; it is on us he makes his staggering claims; it is for us he prays those astounding prayers of his with their tremendous hopes! To that, then, he feels even yet we can attain.

     No, it is not too late, even for you and me, to throw ourselves on Jesus Christ, really to take, really to use that strange power that he offers and so really grow into his blessed likeness, not too late for God’s dream of us to come really true.

     Up! up! and back into the thick of things with steady hearts and quiet eyes. And, even though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.
---Arthur John Gossip

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

PROPER 14, TUESDAY
YEAR 1

Psalms (Morning) Psalm 97, 99 (100)
Psalms (Evening) Psalm 94 (95)
Old Testament 2 Samuel 14:1–20
New Testament Acts 21:1–14
Gospel Mark 10:1–16

Index of Readings

PSALMS (MORNING)
Psalm 97, 99 (100)

1 The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice;
let the many coastlands be glad!
2 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
3 Fire goes before him,
and consumes his adversaries on every side.
4 His lightnings light up the world;
the earth sees and trembles.
5 The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the Lord of all the earth.

6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness;
and all the peoples behold his glory.
7 All worshipers of images are put to shame,
those who make their boast in worthless idols;
all gods bow down before him.
8 Zion hears and is glad,
and the towns of Judah rejoice,
because of your judgments, O God.
9 For you, O LORD, are most high over all the earth;
you are exalted far above all gods.

10 The LORD loves those who hate evil;
he guards the lives of his faithful;
he rescues them from the hand of the wicked.
11 Light dawns for the righteous,
and joy for the upright in heart.
12 Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous,
and give thanks to his holy name!

1 The LORD is king; let the peoples tremble!
He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!
2 The LORD is great in Zion;
he is exalted over all the peoples.
3 Let them praise your great and awesome name.
Holy is he!
4 Mighty King, lover of justice,
you have established equity;
you have executed justice
and righteousness in Jacob.
5 Extol the LORD our God;
worship at his footstool.
Holy is he!

6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests,
Samuel also was among those who called on his name.
They cried to the LORD, and he answered them.
7 He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud;
they kept his decrees,
and the statutes that he gave them.

8 O LORD our God, you answered them;
you were a forgiving God to them,
but an avenger of their wrongdoings.
9 Extol the LORD our God,
and worship at his holy mountain;
for the LORD our God is holy.
[

A Psalm of thanksgiving.
1 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Worship the LORD with gladness;
come into his presence with singing.

3 Know that the LORD is God.
It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him, bless his name.

5 For the LORD is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
]

PSALMS (EVENING)
Psalm 94 (95)

1 O LORD, you God of vengeance,
you God of vengeance, shine forth!
2 Rise up, O judge of the earth;
give to the proud what they deserve!
3 O LORD, how long shall the wicked,
how long shall the wicked exult?

4 They pour out their arrogant words;
all the evildoers boast.
5 They crush your people, O LORD,
and afflict your heritage.
6 They kill the widow and the stranger,
they murder the orphan,
7 and they say, “The LORD does not see;
the God of Jacob does not perceive.”

8 Understand, O dullest of the people;
fools, when will you be wise?
9 He who planted the ear, does he not hear?
He who formed the eye, does he not see?
10 He who disciplines the nations,
he who teaches knowledge to humankind,
does he not chastise?
11 The LORD knows our thoughts,
that they are but an empty breath.

12 Happy are those whom you discipline, O LORD,
and whom you teach out of your law,
13 giving them respite from days of trouble,
until a pit is dug for the wicked.
14 For the LORD will not forsake his people;
he will not abandon his heritage;
15 for justice will return to the righteous,
and all the upright in heart will follow it.

16 Who rises up for me against the wicked?
Who stands up for me against evildoers?
17 If the LORD had not been my help,
my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.
18 When I thought, “My foot is slipping,”
your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up.
19 When the cares of my heart are many,
your consolations cheer my soul.
20 Can wicked rulers be allied with you,
those who contrive mischief by statute?
21 They band together against the life of the righteous,
and condemn the innocent to death.
22 But the LORD has become my stronghold,
and my God the rock of my refuge.
23 He will repay them for their iniquity
and wipe them out for their wickedness;
the LORD our God will wipe them out.

[
1 O come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
3 For the LORD is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and the dry land, which his hands have formed.

6 O come, let us worship and bow down,
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.

O that today you would listen to his voice!
8 Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your ancestors tested me,
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they do not regard my ways.”
11 Therefore in my anger I swore,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
]

OLD TESTAMENT
2 Samuel 14:1–20

14 Now Joab son of Zeruiah perceived that the king’s mind was on Absalom. 2 Joab sent to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman. He said to her, “Pretend to be a mourner; put on mourning garments, do not anoint yourself with oil, but behave like a woman who has been mourning many days for the dead. 3 Go to the king and speak to him as follows.” And Joab put the words into her mouth.

4 When the woman of Tekoa came to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and did obeisance, and said, “Help, O king!” 5 The king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “Alas, I am a widow; my husband is dead. 6 Your servant had two sons, and they fought with one another in the field; there was no one to part them, and one struck the other and killed him. 7 Now the whole family has risen against your servant. They say, ‘Give up the man who struck his brother, so that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he murdered, even if we destroy the heir as well.’ Thus they would quench my one remaining ember, and leave to my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.”

8 Then the king said to the woman, “Go to your house, and I will give orders concerning you.” 9 The woman of Tekoa said to the king, “On me be the guilt, my lord the king, and on my father’s house; let the king and his throne be guiltless.” 10 The king said, “If anyone says anything to you, bring him to me, and he shall never touch you again.” 11 Then she said, “Please, may the king keep the LORD your God in mind, so that the avenger of blood may kill no more, and my son not be destroyed.” He said, “As the LORD lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground.”

12 Then the woman said, “Please let your servant speak a word to my lord the king.” He said, “Speak.” 13 The woman said, “Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in giving this decision the king convicts himself, inasmuch as the king does not bring his banished one home again. 14 We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up. But God will not take away a life; he will devise plans so as not to keep an outcast banished forever from his presence. 15 Now I have come to say this to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid; your servant thought, ‘I will speak to the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his servant. 16 For the king will hear, and deliver his servant from the hand of the man who would cut both me and my son off from the heritage of God.’ 17 Your servant thought, ‘The word of my lord the king will set me at rest’; for my lord the king is like the angel of God, discerning good and evil. The LORD your God be with you!”

18 Then the king answered the woman, “Do not withhold from me anything I ask you.” The woman said, “Let my lord the king speak.” 19 The king said, “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?” The woman answered and said, “As surely as you live, my lord the king, one cannot turn right or left from anything that my lord the king has said. For it was your servant Joab who commanded me; it was he who put all these words into the mouth of your servant. 20 In order to change the course of affairs your servant Joab did this. But my lord has wisdom like the wisdom of the angel of God to know all things that are on the earth.”

NEW TESTAMENT
Acts 21:1–14

21 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. 2 When we found a ship bound for Phoenicia, we went on board and set sail. 3 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. 4 We looked up the disciples and stayed there for seven days. Through the Spirit they told Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. 5 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 6 and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home.

7 When we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemais; and we greeted the believers and stayed with them for one day. 8 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. 9 He had four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy. 10 While we were staying there for several days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11 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.’ ” 12 When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem. 13 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.” 14 Since he would not be persuaded, we remained silent except to say, “The Lord’s will be done.”

GOSPEL
Mark 10:1–16

10 He left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him; and, as was his custom, he again taught them.

2 Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” 5 But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

10 Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

The Episcopal Church. Book of Common Prayer Lectionary