Today is Betsy Ross Day. She was born January 1, 1752 to a Quaker family in Philadelphia, the 8th of 17 children. She apprenticed as a seamstress, where she fell in love with an upholsterer named John Ross, son of an Episcopal rector and nephew of George Ross, who signed the Declaration of Independence. As Quakers forbade interdenominational marriage, John and Betsy eloped. They attended Christ’s Church and their pew was next to George Washington’s. During the Revolution, John died when a munitions depot he was guarding blew up. Shortly after General Washington asked Betsy Ross to sew the American Flag.

William J. Federer. American Minute

T is heaven alone that is given away,
'T is only God may be had for the asking;...
--- James Russell Lowell, The Vision of Sir Launfal, 1848


We must learn to regard people
less in the light of what they do or omit to do,
and more in the light of what they suffer.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

... from here, there and everywhere

7     The fear of ADONAI is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

8     My son, heed the discipline of your father,
and do not abandon the teaching of your mother;
9     they will be a garland to grace your head,
a medal of honor for your neck.

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.

                Will you go out without knowing?

     He went out, not knowing whither he went. --- Hebrews 11:8.

     Have you been ‘out’ in this way? If so, there is no logical statement possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the difficulties in Christian work is this question—‘What do you expect to do?’ You do not know what you are going to do; the only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. Continually revise your attitude towards God and see if it is a going out of everything, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in perpetual wonder—you do not know what God is going to do next. Each morning you wake it is to be a ‘going out,’ building in confidence on God. “Take no thought for your life, … nor yet for your body”—take no thought for the things for which you did take thought before you ‘went out.’

     Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is. Do you believe in a miracle-working God, and will you go out in surrender to him until you are not surprised an atom at anything He does?

     Suppose God is the God you know Him to be when you are nearest to Him, what an impertinence worry is! Let the attitude of the life be a continual ‘going out’ in dependence upon God, and your life will have an ineffable charm about it which is a satisfaction to Jesus. You have to learn to go out of convictions, out of creeds, out of experiences, until, so far as your faith is concerned, there is nothing between yourself and God.

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

But behind the flower
is that other flower
which is ageless, the idea
of the flower, the one
we smell when we imagine
it, that as often
as it is picked blossoms
again, that has the perfection
of all flowers, the purity
without the fragility.
          Was it
a part of the plan
for humanity to have
flowers about it? They are many
and beautiful, with faces
that are a reminder of those
of our own children,
     though they come painlessly
from the bulb's womb. We trouble
them as we go by, so they hang
their heads at our unreal
progress.
          If flowers had minds,
would they not think they were the colour
eternity is, a window that gives
on a still view the hurrying
people must come to and stare at and pass by?

R.S. Thomas The Poems of R.S. Thomas

     The story of Creation, or cosmology, that opens the Book of Genesis differs from all other such accounts that were current among the peoples of the ancient world. Its lack of interest in the realm of heaven and its economy of words in depicting primeval chaos are highly uncharacteristic of this genre of literature. The descriptions in Genesis deal solely with what lies beneath the celestial realm, and still the narration is marked by compactness, solemnity, and dignity.

     There is abundant evidence that other cosmologies once existed in Israel. Scattered allusions to be found in the prophetic, poetic, and wisdom literature of the Bible testify to a popular belief that prior to the onset of the creative process the powers of watery chaos had to be subdued by God. These mythical beings are variously designated Yam (Sea), Nahar (River), Leviathan (Coiled One), Rahab (Arrogant One), and Tannin (Dragon). There is no consensus in these fragments regarding the ultimate fate of these creatures. One version has them utterly destroyed by God; in another, the chaotic forces, personalized as monsters, are put under restraint by His power.

     These myths about a cosmic battle at the beginning of time appear in the Bible in fragmentary form, and the several allusions have to be pieced together to produce some kind of coherent unity. Still, the fact that these myths appear in literary compositions in ancient Israel indicates clearly that they had achieved wide currency over a long period of time. They have survived in the Bible solely as obscure, picturesque metaphors and exclusively in the language of poetry. Never are these creatures accorded divine attributes, nor is there anywhere a suggestion that their struggle against God could in any way have posed a challenge to His sovereign rule.

     There is abundant evidence that other cosmologies once existed in Israel. Scattered allusions to be found in the prophetic, poetic, and wisdom literature of the Bible testify to a popular belief that prior to the onset of the creative process the powers of watery chaos had to be subdued by God. These mythical beings are variously designated Yam (Sea), Nahar (River), Leviathan (Coiled One), Rahab (Arrogant One), and Tannin (Dragon). There is no consensus in these fragments regarding the ultimate fate of these creatures. One version has them utterly destroyed by God; in another, the chaotic forces, personalized as monsters, are put under restraint by His power.

     This is of particular significance in light of the fact that one of the inherent characteristics of all other ancient Near Eastern cosmologies is the internecine strife of the gods. Polytheistic accounts of creation always begin with the predominance of the divinized powers of nature and then describe in detail a titanic struggle between the opposing forces. They inevitably regard the achievement of world order as the outgrowth of an overwhelming exhibition of power on the part of one god who then manages to impose his will upon all other gods.

     The early Israelite creation myths, with all their color and drama, must have been particularly attractive to the masses. But none became the regnant version. It was the austere account set forth in the first chapter of Genesis that won unrivaled authority. At first it could only have been the intellectual elite in ancient Israel, most likely the priestly and scholarly circles, who could have been capable of realizing and appreciating the compact forms of symbolization found in Genesis. It is they who would have cherished and nurtured this version until its symbols finally exerted a decisive impact upon the religious consciousness of the entire people of Israel.

     The mystery of divine creativity is, of course, ultimately unknowable. The Genesis narrative does not seek to make intelligible what is beyond human ken. To draw upon human language to explain that which is outside any model of human experience is inevitably to confront the inescapable limitations of any attempt to give verbal expression to this subject. For this reason alone, the narrative in its external form must reflect the time and place of its composition. Thus it directs us to take account of the characteristic modes of literary expression current in ancient Israel. It forces us to realize that a literalistic approach to the text must inevitably confuse idiom with idea, symbol with reality. The result would be to obscure the enduring meaning of that text.

     The biblical Creation narrative is a document of faith. It is a quest for meaning and a statement of a religious position. It enunciates the fundamental postulates of the religion of Israel, the central ideas and concepts that animate the whole of biblical literature. Its quintessential teaching is that the universe is wholly the purposeful product of divine intelligence, that is, of the one self-sufficient, self-existing God, who is a transcendent Being outside of nature and who is sovereign over space and time.

     This credo finds reiterated expression in the narrative in a number of ways, the first of which is the literary framework. The opening and closing lines epitomize the central idea: “God created.” Then there is the literary structure, which presents the creative process with bilateral symmetry. The systematic progression from chaos to cosmos unfolds in an orderly and harmonious manner through a series of six successive and equal units of time. The series is divided into two parallel groups, each of which comprises four creative acts performed in three days. The third day in each group is distinguished by two productions. In each group the movement is from heaven to terrestrial water to dry land. Moreover, the arrangement is such that each creation in the first group furnishes the resource that is to be utilized by the corresponding creature in the second group. The chart below illustrates the schematization.

     The principle of order, deliberation, and direction is further inculcated by means of the progression from inorganic matter to the lowest forms of organic life to four categories of living creatures: fish and fowl, reptiles, the higher animals, and finally humankind. In addition, the entire narrative adheres to a uniform literary pattern. Each of the literary units begins with a declaration formula, “God said,” followed by a command, a statement recording its fulfillment, a notice of divine approbation, and a closing formula, “There was evening and there was morning,” with the accompanying numbered day.

     Finally, the Narrator employs the device of number symbolism, the heptad, to emphasize the basic idea of design, completion, and perfection. The opening proclamation contains seven words; the description of primal chaos is set forth in twice seven words; the narrative’s seven literary units feature seven times the formula for the effectuation of the divine will and the statement of divine approval; and the six days of creation culminate in the climactic seventh.

     This seven-day typology is widely attested in the ancient world. As early as the twenty-second century B.C.E., King Gudea of Lagash, in southern Mesopotamia, dedicated a temple with a seven-day feast. The literatures of Mesopotamia and Ugarit are replete with examples of seven-day units of time. Most common is a state of affairs that lasts for six days with a climactic change taking place on the seventh. While the Creation narrative conforms to this literary convention, it is unique in that a different action occurs each day, with no activity at all on the seventh.

JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis . Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.

     Genesis is a book about origins: the origins of humankind, the origins of Israel, and the origins of the unique relationship between God and a particular people.

     The fifty chapters of Genesis divide into three main subject units, presented chronologically: a description of Creation (1:1–2:3); the emergence, development, and degeneration of the human race (2:4–11:26); and (in the bulk of the book) the account of the lives of the founding fathers of the people of Israel (11:27–50:26). In its entirety the book claims to cover a time span of 2,309 years, a figure that is computed from the data found in the narratives and the genealogies in the traditional Hebrew text. It offers a rapid sketch of 1,948 years of universal human history, from Adam to the birth of Abraham, with the remaining 361 years to the death of Joseph comprising the bulk of the work. Put otherwise: Nearly 80 percent of the contents of Genesis is devoted to about 17 percent of the time span that is covered.

JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis . Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.

     “Not many of you came from important families,” Paul told the Corinthians. Not many, perhaps, but some—like the one born three centuries after Christ in a wealthy Christian home in Caesarea of Cappadocia (Turkey). His parents named him Basil, meaning Kingly. They sent him to the finest schools in Constantinople and Athens, and Basil graduated with honors. He thought highly of himself and returned home dreaming of becoming great in public life. But his sister, who led him to faith in Christ, counseled humility. “It’s better to be faithful before God,” she insisted, “than famous before men.”

     Basil craved a quiet life of study, prayer, and writing. He settled along the bank of the Iris River on the family estate, preaching to and helping the poor. But his stature was already so great that Emperor Julian the Apostate, though a fierce opponent of Christianity, tried to recruit him as advisor. Basil declined.

     But he couldn’t refuse the appeal of his own bishop, Eusebius, who warned that the church faced both imperial attacks from without and dangerous heresy from within. Basil left his quiet retreat to spend the rest of his life in public ministry. He championed orthodoxy, preaching and writing brilliant messages on the nature of Jesus Christ and the composition of the Trinity.

     In 370, Basil succeeded Eusebius and proved himself a gifted bishop who organized the ministries of the church. Using his own fortune, Basil founded a hospital, perhaps the first in Christian history, for the care of lepers. He was a kind man, often personally treating the diseased. Basil’s complex of churches, schools, hospitals, hostels, monasteries, and almshouses outside Caesarea became a town within itself called Basiliad. His rules for monks and monasteries are used to this day in the Greek church.

     Worn out before his fiftieth year, Basil died on January 1, 379. News spread like wildfire the next day, and he was mourned deeply. He is remembered every January 2, which is designated in Western tradition as the Feast Day of St. Basil the Great.

     Everyone should be humble toward everyone else. The Scriptures say, “God opposes proud people, but he helps everyone who is humble.” Be humble in the presence of God’s mighty power, and he will honor you when the time comes.
--- 1 Peter 5:5,6.

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

     You made both summer and winter. --- Psalm 74:17.

     It is easy to believe that God made the summertime. (Highways of the Heart (Morrison Classic Sermon Series, The) ) Beauty is everywhere. The singing of the birds, the warmth of the sun, the amazing prodigality of life—these draw our hearts to the Giver of them all and make it easy to say, “You made summer.” With winter it is different. It is not so easy to see the love of God there. There is a great deal of suffering in winter, for both the animals and for people. It may therefore aid the faith of some who are tempted to doubt the love of God in winter if I suggest some of winter’s spiritual services.

     One service of winter is to deepen our appreciation of the summer. We would be blind if summer were perpetual. We must feel the grip of winter, before we fully appreciate the summer. It is not the one who lives in bonnie Scotland who feels most deeply how beautiful Scotland is. It is the exile, yearning for the mountains and the glens. It is not the one with unbroken health who feels most deeply the value of health. That is realized when health is shattered.

     Another service of winter is the larger demands it makes on the will. In summer it is comparatively easy to get out of bed at the appointed hour, for the earth is warm, the birds are singing, the light streams through open windows. But in winter, to fling the covers off and get up when it is dark and cold—that calls for a certain resolution, an instant demand on the will. Winter—when life is difficult and it takes some doing even to get up—is God’s tonic for his children’s will. Summer is languid; winter makes us resolute. We have to do things when we don’t feel like doing them.

     Another service of winter is to intensify the thought of home. The thought of home is sweetest and richest and most beautiful in the dark and cold of winter. We talk in the same breath of hearth and home, and it is in winter that the hearth is glowing. Now think of everything we and the nation owe to home. Home is the basis of national morality.

     [A final] service of winter is how it stirs our hearts to charity. It unseals the springs of pity. It moves us with compassion for the destitute, and to be moved so is very Christlike.

     Such thoughts as these in icy days, when we are tempted to doubt the love of God, make it easier to say with David, “You made… winter.”
--- George H. Morrison

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

JANUARY 2
YEAR 2

Psalms (Morning) Psalm 34
Psalms (Evening) Psalm 33
Old Testament 1 Kings 19:1–8
New Testament Ephesians 4:1–16
Gospel John 6:1–14

Index of Readings

PSALMS (MORNING)
Psalm 34

Of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.

1 I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul makes its boast in the LORD;
let the humble hear and be glad.
3 O magnify the LORD with me,
and let us exalt his name together.

4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me,
and delivered me from all my fears.
5 Look to him, and be radiant;
so your faces shall never be ashamed.
6 This poor soul cried, and was heard by the LORD,
and was saved from every trouble.
7 The angel of the LORD encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
8 O taste and see that the LORD is good;
happy are those who take refuge in him.
9 O fear the LORD, you his holy ones,
for those who fear him have no want.
10 The young lions suffer want and hunger,
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

11 Come, O children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
12 Which of you desires life,
and covets many days to enjoy good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil,
and your lips from speaking deceit.
14 Depart from evil, and do good;
seek peace, and pursue it.

15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous,
and his ears are open to their cry.
16 The face of the LORD is against evildoers,
to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
17 When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears,
and rescues them from all their troubles.
18 The LORD is near to the brokenhearted,
and saves the crushed in spirit.

19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the LORD rescues them from them all.
20 He keeps all their bones;
not one of them will be broken.
21 Evil brings death to the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
22 The LORD redeems the life of his servants;
none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

PSALMS (EVENING)
Psalm 33

1 Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous.
Praise befits the upright.
2 Praise the LORD with the lyre;
make melody to him with the harp of ten strings.
3 Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

4 For the word of the LORD is upright,
and all his work is done in faithfulness.
5 He loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.

6 By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,
and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
7 He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle;
he put the deeps in storehouses.

8 Let all the earth fear the LORD;
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
9 For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.

10 The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
11 The counsel of the LORD stands forever,
the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
12 Happy is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.

13 The LORD looks down from heaven;
he sees all humankind.
14 From where he sits enthroned he watches
all the inhabitants of the earth—
15 he who fashions the hearts of them all,
and observes all their deeds.
16 A king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
17 The war horse is a vain hope for victory,
and by its great might it cannot save.

18 Truly the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
19 to deliver their soul from death,
and to keep them alive in famine.

20 Our soul waits for the LORD;
he is our help and shield.
21 Our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
22 Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.

OLD TESTAMENT
1 Kings 19:1–8

19 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” 3 Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there. 4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. 7 The angel of the LORD came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” 8 He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

NEW TESTAMENT
Ephesians 4:1–16

4 I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

7 But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it is said,

“When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;
he gave gifts to his people.”

9 (When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) 11 The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. 15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

GOSPEL
John 6:1–14

6 After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. 2 A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. 3 Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. 5 When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” 10 Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” 13 So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

The Episcopal Church. Book of Common Prayer Lectionary

     DON'T LAUGH IT OFF: READ: LUKE 6:27-36; Love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return.
--- Luke 6:35.

     Driving a huge truck over the icy roads of northern Alaska would seem to be a task that requires a sense of humor. But when one driver heard another driver named Alex laugh often and rather loudly over the truck-to-truck communication system, he grew irritated. So he made some disparaging remarks about Alex and his good natured guffaws.

     Not long after that, the critical driver lost control of his big rig and ended up in a ditch---up to his axles in snow. And guess who came along the isolated road and saw his predicament?? That's right. Alex.

     So, what would you do? keep on trucking right past with a hearty laugh at the other guy's trouble? That's not what Alex did. He stopped and spent several hours helping dig his critic out. When he was done, he simply said, "Any opportunity I can have to make amends, I'm happy to do it." And then, of course, he laughed.

     What lesson for all of us. Isn't that what Christ commanded us to do in Luke 6 --- to help out even those who seem to be our enemies? The next time someone says something about you that you don't like, think of Alex --- and don't just laugh it off. Do something positive for that person, and in so doing, you may make a friend.
-- Dave Branon

     Doing good to those who hate us,
     Lord, is difficult to do;
     Help us by Your grace to love them,
     Praying they will turn to You. ---Sper

     A good example is the best sermon.


Our Daily Bread, RBC Ministries