You ARE Called: Week 3
Video: Commentary From Bishop Michael Smith
Sunday 23 June 2019
Prayer
Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen
Reflection
Judges 4:4-10
At that time Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the Israelites came up to her for judgement. She sent and summoned Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, ‘The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you, “Go, take position at Mount Tabor, bringing ten thousand from the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Zebulun. I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin’s army, to meet you by the Wadi Kishon with his chariots and his troops; and I will give him into your hand.” ’ Barak said to her, ‘If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.’ And she said, ‘I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.’ Then Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh. Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; and ten thousand warriors went up behind him; and Deborah went up with him.
Daily journaling
Prayer for courage
Monday 24 June 2019
Prayer
Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen
Reflection
John Henry Newman (1801-1890) studied at Oxford, was ordained in the Church of England, and returned to Oxford to teach and preach. His sermons were deeply influential not only at the university but all over England…This sermon, preached at Oxford in the 1830s, when he was till a member of the Church of England, deals with the nature of faith and, in a very different way, with Kierkegaard’s question: how can we receive a call to faith where nearly everyone is brought up as a Christian?[1]
John Henry Newman, “Divine Calls”
For in truth we are not called once only, but many times; all through our life Christ is calling us. He called us first in Baptism; but afterwards also; whether we obey His voice or not, He graciously calls us still. If we fall from our Baptism, He calls us to repent; if we are striving to fulfill our calling, He calls us from grace to grace, and from holiness to holiness, while life is given us….
It were well if we understood this; but we are slow to master the great truth, that Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by His hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us follow Him. We do not understand that His call is a thing which takes place now. We think it took place in the Apostles’ days; but we do not believe in it, we do not look out for it in our own case. We have not eyes to see the Lord; far different from the beloved Apostle, who knew Christ even when the rest of the disciples knew Him not. When He stood on the shore after His resurrection, and bade them cast the net into the sea, “that disciple who Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord” (John 21:7).
And these Divine calls are commonly, from the nature of the case, sudden now, and as indefinite and obscure in their consequences as in former times. The accidents and events of life are, as is obvious, one special way in which the calls I speak of come to us; and they, as we all know, are in their very nature, and as the word “accident” implies, sudden and unexpected. A man is going on as usual; he comes home one day, and finds a letter, or a message, or a person, whereby a sudden trial comes on him, which, if met religiously, will be the means of advancing him to a higher state of religious excellence….
Let us beg and pray Him day by day to reveal Himself to our souls more fully; to quicken our senses; to give us sight and hearing, taste and touch of the world to come; so to work within us that we may sincerely say, “Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and after that receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee: my flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever” (Ps. 73:24-26)[2]
Daily Journaling
The covenant of baptism
Tuesday 25 June 2019
Prayer
Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen
Reflection
John Calvin (1509-1564) grew up in France, where he joined the Protestant cause in his early twenties. Passing through the Swiss city of Geneva in 1536, he was recruited to provide religious leadership for its newly born Protestantism; what had been intended to be an overnight stay occupied all but three years of the rest of his life. Calvin’s goal was to make the whole city of Geneva what medieval monasteries had been at their best—a foretaste of God’s kingdom. This selection comes from his greatest work, Institutes of the Christian Religion, originally published in 1536 but constantly revised….Calvin sets out the basic principles of the Christian life and then turns to what he has to say about calls.[3]
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, “The Lord’s Calling a Basis of Our Way of Life”
Finally, this point is to be noted: the Lord bids each one of us in all life’s actions to look to his calling. For he knows with what great restlessness human nature flames, with what fickleness it is borne hither and thither, how its ambition longs to embrace various things at once. Therefore, lest through our stupidity and rashness everything be turned topsy-turvy, he has appointed duties for every man in his particular way of life. And that no one may thoughtlessly transgress his limits, he has named these various kinds of living “callings.” Therefore each individual has his own kind of living assigned to him by the Lord as a sort of sentry post so that he may not heedlessly wander about throughout life. Now, so necessary is this distinction that all our actions are judged in his sight by it, often indeed far otherwise than in the judgment of human and philosophical reason. No deed is considered more noble, even among philosophers, than to free one’s country from tyranny. Yet a private citizen who lays his hand upon a tyrant is openly condemned by the heavenly judge (1 Sam. 24:7,11; 26:9)
But I will not delay to list examples. It is enough if we know that the Lord’s calling is in everything the beginning and foundation of well-doing. And if there is anyone who will not direct himself to it, he will never hold to the straight path in his duties. Perhaps, sometimes, he could contrive something laudable in appearance; but whatever it may be in the eyes of men, it will be rejected before God’s throne. Besides, there will be no harmony ordered when it is directed to this goal. For no one, impelled by his own rashness, will attempt more than his calling will permit, because he will know that it is not lawful to exceed its bounds. A man of obscure station will lead a private life ungrudgingly so as not to leave the rank in which he has been placed by God. Again, it will be no slight relief from cares, labors, troubles, and other burdens for a man to know that God is his guide in all these things. The magistrate will discharge his functions more willingly; the head of the household will confine himself to his duty; each man will bear and swallow the discomforts, vexations, weariness, and anxieties in his way of life, when he has been persuaded that the burden was laid upon him by God. From this will arise also a singular consolation; that no task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight…[4]
Daily Journaling
Obedience to calling
Wednesday 26 June 2019
Prayer
Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen
Reflection
Thomas Keating; Open Mind, Open Heart
Take everything that happens during the periods of centering prayer peacefully and gratefully, without putting a judgment on anything Even if you should have an overwhelming experience of God, this is not the time to think about it. Let the various kinds of thoughts come and go. The basic principle for handling them in this prayer is this: Resist no thought, retain no thought, react emotionally to no thought. Whenever an image, feeling, reflection, or experience attracts your attention, return to the sacred word.
Don’t judge centering prayer on the basis of how many thoughts come or how much peace you enjoy. The only way to judge this prayer is by its long-range fruits: whether in daily life you enjoy greater peace, humility, and charity. Having come to deep interior silence, you begin to relate to others beyond the superficial aspects of social status, race, nationality, religion, and personal characteristics.
To know God in this way is to perceive a new dimension to all reality. The ripe fruit of centering prayer is to bring back into the humdrum routines of daily life not just the thought of God, but the spontaneous awareness of God’s abiding presence in, through, and beyond everything. He Who Is—the infinite, incomprehensible, and ineffable One—is the God of pure faith. In this prayer we confront the most fundamental human question: “Who are you, Lord?”—and wait for the answer.[5]
Daily Journaling
Knowing God
Thursday 27 June 2019
Prayer
Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen
Reflection
Anonymous,The Cloud of Unknowing
Chapter 12
That in contemplation sin is destroyed and every kind of goodness is nourished.
And so to stand firmly and avoid pitfalls, keep to the path you are on. Let your longing relentlessly beat upon the cloud of unknowing that lies between you and your God. Pierce that cloud with the keen shaft of your love, spurn the thought of anything less than God, and do not give up this work for anything. For the contemplative work of love by itself will eventually heal you of all the roots of sin. Fast as much as you like, watch far into the night, rise long before dawn, discipline your body, and if it were permitted—which it is not—put out your eyes, tear out your tongue, plug up your ears and nose, and cut off your limbs; yes, chastise your body with every discipline and you would still gain nothing. The desire and tendency toward sin would remain in your heart.
What is more, if you wept in constant sorrow for your sins and Christ’s Passion and pondered unceasingly on the joys of heaven, do you think it would do you any good? Much good, I am sure. You would profit no doubt and grow in grace but in comparison with the blind stirring of love, all this is very little. For the contemplative work of love is the best part, belonging to Mary. It is perfectly complete by itself while all these disciplines and exercises are of little value without it.
The work of love not only heals the roots of sin, but nurtures practical goodness. When it is authentic you will be sensitive to every need and respond with a generosity unspoiled by selfish intent. Anything you attempt to do without this love will certainly be imperfect, for it is sure to be marred by ulterior motives.
Genuine goodness is a matter of habitually acting and responding appropriately in each situation, as it arises, moved always by the desire to please God. He alone is the pure source of all goodness and if a person is motivated by something else besides God, even though God is first, then his virtue is imperfect. This is evident in the case of two virtues in particular, humility and brotherly love. Whoever acquires these habits of mind and manner needs no others, for he will possess everything.[6]
Daily Journaling
Humility and brotherly love
Friday 28 June 2019
Prayer
Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen
Reflection
Richard Baxter (1615-1691) maintained a moderate Puritan throughout the political changes in England during his life. By the end of the 1630s he had rejected the idea that the church should have bishops; this put him on the side of the “nonconformists” against the established Church of England. In the midst of conflicts among Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Independents, Baxter tried to find grounds for cooperation and mutual respect. This excerpt shows his characteristic moderation and common sense.[7]
Richard Baxter, Directions about Our Labor and Callings
For that calling may be one man’s blessing which would another’s misery and undoing. A weak body cannot undergo those labors that require strength, and a dull and heavy mind and wit cannot do the works which require great judgment and ingenuity. It has been the calamity of the church, and undoing of many ministers themselves, that well-meaning parents out of love to the sacred work of God have set their children to be ministers that were unfit for it; and many self-conceited persons themselves are ready to thrust themselves into that holy office when they have some inconsiderable smattering of knowledge and some poor measure of gifts, overvalued by themselves, that know not what is required to so great a work. Be sure that you first look to the natural ingenuity of your children (or yourselves) and then to their grace and piety, and see that none be devoted to the ministry that have not naturally a quickness of understanding and a freedom of expression, unless you would have him live upon the ruin of souls and wrong of the church and work of God and turn an enemy to the best of his flock, when he sees that they value him but as he deserves; and let none be so unwise as to be a preacher of that faith and love and holiness which he never had himself. And even to the calling of a physician none should be designed that have not a special ingenuity, and sagacity, and natural quickness of apprehension, unless he should make a trade of killing men, for it is a calling that requires a quick and strong conjecturing ability, which no study will bring a man that hath not a natural acuteness and aptitude thereto. Thus also as to all other callings; you must consider not only the will of the child or parents, but their natural fitness of body and mind.[8]
Daily Journaling
Natural abilities
Saturday 29 June 2019
Prayer
Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen
Reflection
Howard Thurman (1899-1981) grew up in poverty in Florida, raised by his grandmother, a former slave. Educated at Morehouse, Columbia, and Rochester Seminary, he served many years as pastor of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco and Dean of the Chapel at Boston University. His commitment to non-violence deeply influenced Martin Luther King, Jr., and other leaders of the civil rights movement. He gave this sermon, based on Matthew 4:1-11, many time, beginning in the 1920s.[9]
Howard Thurman, “What Shall I Do with My Life?”
In the first temptation Jesus was hungry…Jesus was hungry because he had foregone these demands under the impelling power of a great concentration. He was caught in the agonizing grip of a great challenge: What shall I do with my life? What must be for me an adequate disposition of my life?
…The danger for a hungry man in such a reflection is that the importance of food may be greatly overemphasized, for it is very natural to idealize possessions which we are denied. With reference to the problem before him Jesus reached an amazingly significant conclusion. Man must live on bread but not bread alone. There is more besides, and it is this that reveals the true stature of the man. Man must have food, yes. But admitting this and seeing its practical significance in terms of actual survival, what then? He must let the bias of his life be on the side of those needs that cannot be adequately included in creature demands. …My interests in creature needs must be genuine and practical, but I must see these needs as things which may stand clearly in the way of the realization of the higher ends of life. Feed the hungry? Yes, and always. But I must know that man is more than his physical body. There is something in him that calls for beauty and comradeship and righteousness. I love Jesus for the shaft of light that he throws across the pathway of those who seek to answer the question, What shall I do with my life?
In the second temptation Jesus is facing the problem of one of life’s great illusions. The tempter suggests to him that if he were to go to the pinnacle of the temple and cast himself down, he would not be hurt; in other words, the operation of what we call natural law would be interrupted in his behalf and God would perform a miracle on the spot. For, the tempter quietly whispers, the world of nature is not really orderly. …His choice here was on the side of the normal, natural working of the simple laws of life, demanding nothing of them that dared to stretch them out of shape. To do so would have been to deceive himself and to have created a spiritual problem for which no solution could have been found..It is a terrible truth that life does not have a habit of making exceptions in our case even though we may be good in general, even though our fathers may be great men and our reputations of outstanding merit. Let us not be deceived by the great illusions, but let us see the finger of God moving in the natural unfolding of antecedents and consequences. I love Jesus for the shaft of light that he throws across the pathway of those who seek to answer the question, What shall I do with my life?
In the third temptation the tempter strikes at the center of Jesus’ dominant passion, to bring society under the acknowledged judgment of God and thereby insure its purification. More and more as he lived, Jesus became the embodiment of this great desire. He thought of himself as the example of the judgment and of the salvation of God. The tempter said to him, “Behold the kingdoms of the world. You want them to become the Kingdom of God. But they belong to me.” It seems to me that the full realization of the tempter’s thought came to Jesus with tremendous shock. His reasoning may have been, “God created me; God created the world of nature; God created all mankind. Therefore, God is the creator of the relationships that exist between men.” At this point the devil suggested, “You may be logical, but you are not true. I made the relationships between men.”
..It seems to me that experience reveals a potent half-truth; namely, that the world can be made good if all the men in the world as individuals become good men. After the souls of men are saved, the society in which they function will be a good society. This is only a half-truth…It is not enough to save the souls of men; the relationships that exist between men must be saved also.
…We must, therefore, even as we purify our hearts and live our individual lives under the divine scrutiny, so order the framework of our relationships that good men can function in it to the glory of God. I love the shaft of light that he throws across the pathway of those who seek to answer the question, What shall I do with my life?[10]
Daily Journaling
Living in community
[1]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 343.
[2]John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons (London: Longmans, Green, 1900), 11-15, 17-19.
[3]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 232.
[4]John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill and trans. For Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminister, 1967), 2:974-976.
[5]Thomas Keating; Open Mind, Open Heart (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1986), pp. 127-128.
[6]Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. By William Johnston (New York: Doubleday, 1973), pp. 63-64.
[7]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 278-279.
[8]Richard Baxter, The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter(London: James Duncan, 1830), 577-87, Spelling and punctuation modernized.
[9]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 385.
[10]Howard Thurman, “What Shall I Do with My Life? in A Strange Freedom, ed. Walter Earl Fluker and Catherine Tumber (Boston: Beacon, 1998), 30-34.