The same year the United States won California from Mexico, some workers constructing a sawmill for John Sutter on the south fork of the American River, discovered gold. News spread like fire and soon “Forty-Niners,” as the prospectors were called, poured in from all parts of the world. Quickly populated, California became the thirty-first State on this day, September 9, 1850. The Constitution, which prohibited slavery, stated in its Preamble: “We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do establish this Constitution.”

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

Life is a culmination of the past,
an awareness of the present,
an indication of a future beyond knowledge,
the quality that gives a touch of divinity to matter.
--- Charles Lindbergh

... from here, there and everywhere

15 Don’t lurk like an outlaw near the home of the righteous,
     don’t raid the place where he lives.
16 For though he falls seven times, he will get up again;
     it’s the wicked who fail under stress.

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.

                         
Do it yourself

     Determinedly Discipline other Things.

     Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. --- 2 Cor. 10:5.

     This is another aspect of the strenuous nature of sainthood. Paul says—“I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ.” (Moffatt.) How much Christian work there is to-day which has never been disciplined, but has simply sprung into being by impulse! In Our Lord’s life every project was disciplined to the will of His Father. There was not a movement of an impulse of His own will as distinct from His Father’s—“The Son can do nothing of Himself.” Then take ourselves—a vivid religious experience, and every project born of impulse put into action immediately, instead of being imprisoned and disciplined to obey Christ.

     This is a day when practical work is over-emphasized, and the saints who are bringing every project into captivity are criticized and told that they are not in earnest for God or for souls. True earnestness is found in obeying God, not in the inclination to serve Him that is born of undisciplined human nature. It is inconceivable, but true nevertheless, that saints are not bringing every project into captivity, but are doing work for God at the instigation of their own human nature which has not been spiritualized by determined discipline.

     We are apt to forget that a man is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation; he is committed to Jesus Christ’s view of God, of the world, of sin and of the devil, and this will mean that he must recognize the responsibility of being transformed by the renewing of his mind.

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

A gofid gwerin gyfan
  Yn fy nghri fel taerni tan.
      Dewi Emrys

I have looked long at this land,
  Trying to understand
  My place in it--why,
  With each fertile country
  So free of its room,
  This was the cramped womb
  At last took me in
  From the void of unbeing.

Hate takes a long time
  To grow in, and mine
  Has increased from birth;
  Not for the brute earth
  That is strong here and clean
  And plain in its meaning
  As none of the books are
  That tell but of the war

Of heart with head, leaving
  The wild birds to sing
  The best songs; I find
  This hate's for my own kind,
  For men of the Welsh race
  Who brood with dark face
  Over their thin navel
  To learn what to sell;

Yet not for them all either,
  There are still those other
  Castaways on a sea
  Of grass, who call to me,
  Clinging to their doomed farms;
  Their hearts though rough are warm
  And firm, and their slow wake
  Through time bleeds for our sake.

R.S. Thomas Selected poems, 1946-1968

     Mary Redfern lived in the small English village of Haddon in Derbyshire. Her mother was bedfast, and all the care for her eight younger siblings fell onto Mary’s shoulders. One day in 1769, she heard a commotion in the street. A little man was preaching before a crowd in the open. His name was John Wesley.

     Soon after, Richard Boardman, one of Wesley’s evangelists, came preaching. He had recently lost his wife, and his demeanor was tender and poignant. He spoke from 1 Chronicles 4:9 about Jabez, “the most respected son in his family.” Mary was deeply moved and never forgot the story of Jabez. She moved to Manchester, married, and named her firstborn Jabez. And when Wesley preached in Manchester’s Oldham Street Church Mary brought little Jabez. The great evangelist touched the child and blessed him.

     Little did he know he was blessing his future successor.

     Young Jabez often heard Wesley preach, and he developed a great love for the gospel. As a lad he would walk miles to hear preaching, returning to deliver his own little sermons to long-suffering sisters, using his father’s shirts as ministerial robes. When 19 he preached his first official sermon in Sodom, near Manchester, and shortly thereafter he was ordained to the ministry.

     Jabez quickly advanced in Methodism, but he often proved hardheaded and strong-willed. When he rose to leadership following Wesley’s death, he ruled with a strong hand. His slogan was: “Methodism hates democracy as it hates sin.” One of several controversies occurred on September 9, 1825, when the Brunswick Chapel opened in Leeds, England. A dispute arose over whether an organ should be installed. Many members opposed it, but Bunting and the leaders installed it anyway. The organ, it was later said, cost 1,000 pounds and 1,000 Methodists.

     Jabez was called the Pope of Methodism. But he preached a clear gospel and brought Methodist theological training and world missions into their own. His influence lasts to this day.

     You must watch over everyone God has placed in your care. Do it willingly in order to please God, and not simply because you think you must. Don’t be bossy to those people who are in your care, but set an example for them.
--- 1 Peter 5:2b,3.

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

     The two rabbis in our Midrash offer very different explanations of the ritual of the Red Heifer. In so doing, they actually present two very different approaches to the significance and meaning of religion. Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Zakkai admits to his students that the ritual is a great mystery and is beyond our comprehension and understanding. God decrees the ritual; therefore we obey. It is enough for us to know that in performing the ritual, we are following God’s will. The very act of going through all the prescribed steps should bring us closer to God. Why these particular steps is something that we can never fathom. And exactly what happens when we do these steps is also a secret. Having thus been drawn closer to God, we surrender ourselves over to the divine plan, confident that somehow all this is for the best. Rabbi Yoḥanan might tell us that “God is in the details.” Doing the ritual with all its particulars brings us into contact with the divine.

     Rabbi Aivu takes an entirely different approach. The meaning of the ritual, and the beauty of it, lie in its logic, which is simple. Sinning requires atonement; atonement comes through a sacrifice. Since the sin was committed with a (golden) calf, the atonement should come through the sacrifice of a (red) cow; the mother should clean up after her child!

     Applying this approach to religion in general, Rabbi Aivu might tell us that the goal of religion is not to have us surrender, but to push us to search. The ritual has a message to convey to us. If we perform it blindly, without thinking about its deeper meaning, we are missing the whole point. God gave us rituals pregnant with meaning. We perform them, and it is our search for “the message-that-lies-within” that helps to change us in very significant ways.

     The Red Heifer or cow was, in one way or another, about purification. The closest thing that we have today to such a ritual, in content (if not in form), is our observance of Yom Kippur. Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Zakkai, sitting through the twenty-five hours of the Day of Atonement, might say to us: It’s the solemn mood of the day that makes Yom Kippur so powerful: the gathering at twilight, the wearing of the tallit after dark, the daylong fasting, the heart-wrenching melody of Kol Nidrei, the sadness of the Yizkor prayers for the dead, the confession of sins accompanied by the beating of the breast, and the terror of the words reminding us that God decides who will live and who will die. An overpowering, mysterious atmosphere is created, and, coming to synagogue, we are brought closer to God.

     Rabbi Aivu might see it differently. We’ve sinned, so we need to do teshuvah, to turn around our lives. We accomplish this by spending long hours sitting (or standing) and meditating on our shortcomings and how we might best make up for them. The prayers we recite, the melodies we hear, the sermons we listen to, all inspire us to repent and become better human beings. It’s all very simple: We resolve to stop sinning and do better.

     Both approaches are committed to the rituals; where they differ is about the purpose of those rituals.

     ANOTHER D’RASH

     At first blush, the story of the king, the servant woman, and her child may seem rather crude. The Hebrew word translated as “filth,” צוֹאָה/tzo-ah, also means “excrement.” The king can wave his hand and command, “Let his mother come and wipe up the filth.”

     However, on a deeper level, the parable may be less coarse than we think—if we reconsider the reaction of the king. He is not looking for blame. He does not ask, “Why did this happen?” He simply wants his palace cleaned up (and it would be improper for a king to do it himself). Were he a vengeful ruler, he could have said, “Off with the head of the child who sullied my palace!” Or “That mother did not watch over her son. Let her rot in jail!” Rather than focusing on blame, vengeance, or justice, the king instead asks, “Whose mess is it?” so that he or she may clean it up.

     The Rabbis often use “king parables” to speak of the relationship between God (the King) and the Jewish people (God’s subjects). If the king in the story is less concerned with finding fault than with righting the situation, then perhaps we should reassess our view of God. The Rabbis may be saying that God does not want to punish us for what’s wrong; rather, God wants to remind us to remedy the inequities. If this is God’s focus, then it should be ours as well.

     Imagine the following: It’s Shabbat morning, and the Torah scroll, in preparation for reading, is being taken out of the Ark. The gabbai hands the scroll to Bernie, the uncle of the Bat Mitzvah girl, who turns to face the congregation. All of a sudden, before anyone can do anything about it, Bernie stumbles and the Torah falls to the floor. What should happen next?

     Here’s what we don’t do next:

• A discussion on why the sefer Torah fell and who was at fault.
• A heated meeting on the side of the pulpit to discuss honors at future Bat Mitzvah ceremonies.
• An angry explanation to all assembled that those with honors must pay attention to the three steps leading up to the Holy Ark.

     What should happen when a Torah scroll falls?

• We pick it up!
• After Shabbat, we fix the Torah if it needs repair.
• During the week, we may fast or give to tzedakah as a sign of our communal remorse.

     We are saddened that this happened. Our first—and most important—reaction should be to right the wrong. Rabbi Yoḥanan is teaching us that we can be too focused on theory and philosophy. His approach reminds us: “If something is amiss, then clean it up!”

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

     In my Father’s house are many rooms. --- John 14:2.

     Let all be thus exhorted to seek admittance to a room in heaven. (Jonathan Edwards, “Many Mansions,” on the Sabbath after the seating of the new meeting house, December 25, 1737; from Jonathan Edwards.com Web site, at www.jonathanedwards.com, accessed Aug. 21, 2001.) If those enjoy a high privilege who have seats in kings’ courts or in apartments in kings’ palaces—especially those who have dwellings there equal in quality to the king’s children—then how great a privilege will it be to have a room assigned to us as God’s children in his heavenly palace! How great is their glory and honor that are admitted to the household of God!

     And seeing there are many rooms there, rooms enough for us all, our folly will be the greater if we neglect to seek a place in heaven, having our minds foolishly taken up about the worthless, fading things of this world.

     Consider how little a while you have any place of abode in this world. [Here] you have a dwelling amongst the living, a house or room of your own, or at least one that is at present for your use. But in a very little while, the place that now knows you in this world will know you no more. The residence you have here will be empty of you; you will be carried dead out of it or will die at a distance from it and never enter it anymore—or any other dwelling in this world. Your room or dwelling place in this world, however convenient or comfortable it may be, is only a tent that will soon be taken down. Your stay is as it were but for a night. Your body itself is only a house of clay that will quickly decay and tumble down, and you will have no other dwelling here in this world but the grave.

     Therefore, take warning, and don’t be such fools as to neglect seeking a place and room in heaven. Let it be your main care to secure an everlasting dwelling for hereafter.

     Consider that when you die, if you have no room in the house of God in heaven, you must have your place in the dwelling of devils. There is no middle place between them, and when you go from here, you must go to one or the other of these. Consider how miserable those must be who shall dwell with devils to all eternity. Devils are foul spirits, God’s great enemies. Their dwelling is a place of darkness, utmost filthiness, abomination, darkness, disgrace, and torment. O, how would you rather ten thousand times have no place of abode at all, have no being, than to have [such] a place!
--- Jonathan Edwards

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

PROPER 18, FRIDAY
YEAR 1

Psalms (Morning) Psalm 40, 54
Psalms (Evening) Psalm 51
Old Testament 1 Kings 18:20–40
New Testament Philippians 3:1–16
Gospel Matthew 3:1–12

Index of Readings

PSALMS (MORNING)
Psalm 40, 54

To the leader. Of David. A Psalm.
1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the desolate pit,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the LORD.

4 Happy are those who make
the LORD their trust,
who do not turn to the proud,
to those who go astray after false gods.
5 You have multiplied, O LORD my God,
your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
none can compare with you.
Were I to proclaim and tell of them,
they would be more than can be counted.

6 Sacrifice and offering you do not desire,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.
7 Then I said, “Here I am;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
8 I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.”

9 I have told the glad news of deliverance
in the great congregation;
see, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O LORD.
10 I have not hidden your saving help within my heart,
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
from the great congregation.

11 Do not, O LORD, withhold
your mercy from me;
let your steadfast love and your faithfulness
keep me safe forever.
12 For evils have encompassed me
without number;
my iniquities have overtaken me,
until I cannot see;
they are more than the hairs of my head,
and my heart fails me.

13 Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me;
O LORD, make haste to help me.
14 Let all those be put to shame and confusion
who seek to snatch away my life;
let those be turned back and brought to dishonor
who desire my hurt.
15 Let those be appalled because of their shame
who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”

16 But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation
say continually, “Great is the LORD!”
17 As for me, I am poor and needy,
but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
do not delay, O my God.

To the leader: with stringed instruments. A Maskil of David, when the Ziphites went and told Saul, “David is in hiding among us.”

1 Save me, O God, by your name,
and vindicate me by your might.
2 Hear my prayer, O God;
give ear to the words of my mouth.

3 For the insolent have risen against me,
the ruthless seek my life;
they do not set God before them. Selah

4 But surely, God is my helper;
the Lord is the upholder of my life.
5 He will repay my enemies for their evil.
In your faithfulness, put an end to them.

6 With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you;
I will give thanks to your name, O LORD, for it is good.
7 For he has delivered me from every trouble,
and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.

PSALMS (EVENING)
Psalm 51

To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgment.
5 Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.

6 You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you have no delight in sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem,
19 then you will delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.

OLD TESTAMENT
1 Kings 18:20–40

20 So Ahab sent to all the Israelites, and assembled the prophets at Mount Carmel. 21 Elijah then came near to all the people, and said, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” The people did not answer him a word. 22 Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the LORD; but Baal’s prophets number four hundred fifty. 23 Let two bulls be given to us; let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it; I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. 24 Then you call on the name of your god and I will call on the name of the LORD; the god who answers by fire is indeed God.” All the people answered, “Well spoken!” 25 Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many; then call on the name of your god, but put no fire to it.” 26 So they took the bull that was given them, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, crying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no answer. They limped about the altar that they had made. 27 At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” 28 Then they cried aloud and, as was their custom, they cut themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushed out over them. 29 As midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no answer, and no response.

30 Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come closer to me”; and all the people came closer to him. First he repaired the altar of the LORD that had been thrown down; 31 Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the LORD came, saying, “Israel shall be your name”; 32 with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD. Then he made a trench around the altar, large enough to contain two measures of seed. 33 Next he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood. He said, “Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” 34 Then he said, “Do it a second time”; and they did it a second time. Again he said, “Do it a third time”; and they did it a third time, 35 so that the water ran all around the altar, and filled the trench also with water.

36 At the time of the offering of the oblation, the prophet Elijah came near and said, “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. 37 Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” 38 Then the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench. 39 When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The LORD indeed is God; the LORD indeed is God.” 40 Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape.” Then they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon, and killed them there.

NEW TESTAMENT
Philippians 3:1–16

Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.

To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a safeguard.

2 Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh! 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh— 4 even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. 16 Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.

GOSPEL
Matthew 3:1–12

3 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.’ ”

4 Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9 Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

The Episcopal Church. Book of Common Prayer Lectionary