The Home Council

Jesus Visits Friends At Home In Bethany

As they continued their journey, Jesus came to a village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him to her house. She had a sister called Mary, who seated herself at the Master’s feet, and listened to his teaching; but Martha was distracted by the many preparations that she was making. So she went up to Jesus and said:

“Master, do you approve of my sister’s leaving me to make preparations alone? Tell her to help me.”

“Martha, Martha,” replied the Master, “you are anxious and trouble yourself about many things; but only a few are necessary, or rather one. Mary has chosen the good part, and it shall not be taken away from her.”

—Luke.

A Summary Of Jesus’ Teaching

Service of all men, even of the least, in material needs as well as in spiritual, in little things as well as in great, springing from love, or a social, brotherly spirit, carried, if need be, to the point of complete self-sacrifice—such was plainly the teaching of Jesus. Coupled with this teaching was a profound conviction of the alienation of men from God, of their sinfulness, and their need of social and spiritual redemption. It is no mystery, why Jesus so taught. The mystery, if any, is why the world has not accepted His teaching. For His social principles are so plainly the only ones by which men can satisfactorily live together that they might just as well forget the law of gravitation as forget these principles. When one forgets the principles of gravitation, one must expect some hard bumps. So when our human world forgets these principles of right living together, it must expect some hard lessons—such as it has been receiving.

—C. A. Ellwood.

Religious Education

The whole period of youth is one essentially of formation, education, instruction,—I use the words with their weight in them—intaking of stores, establishment in vital habits, hopes, and faiths. There is not an hour of it but is trembling with destinies,—not a moment of which, once past, the appointed work can ever be done again, or the neglected blow struck on the cold iron. Take your vase of Venice glass out of the furnace and strew chaff over it in its transparent heat, and recover that to its clearness and rubied glory when the north wind has blown upon it; but do not think to strew chaff over the child fresh from God’s presence, and to bring the heavenly colors back to him—at least in this world.

—John Ruskin.

Education For Good Behavior

Education does not mean teaching people to know what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave. It is not teaching the youth the shapes of letters and the tricks of numbers, and then leaving them to burn their arithmetic to roguery, and their literature to lust. It is, on the contrary, training them into the perfect exercise and kingly continence of their bodies and souls. It is a painful, continual, and difficult work, to be done by kindness, by warning, by precept, and by praise, but, above all,—by example.

—John Ruskin.

Golden Bands To The Throne Of God

During a long life I have proved that not one kind word ever spoken, not one kind deed ever done, but sooner or later returns to bless the giver, and becomes a chain, binding men with golden bands to the throne of God.

—Earl of Shaftesbury.

Alternate Reading: Jonah 3:10 to 4:11.

Youth In Old Age

My God gives me back my youth; I can regain it in Thee. Let the shadows of my life be rekindled into morning’s glow, let my heart be lit with Thine eternal youth. Thou hast promised us eternal life, and what is that? Not merely life forever, but life forever young. Thine eternal life can make me a child again, a child without childishness.

—George Matheson.

Grow Old Along With Me

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith a “Awhole I planned,
Youth shows but half; Trust God: see all nor be afraid!”

Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth’s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

Let us not always say
“Spit of this flesh to-day
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!”
As the bird wings and sings, Let us cry “All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!”

Therefore I summon age
To grant youth’s heritage,
Life’s struggle having so far reached its term:
Thence shall I pass, approved
A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute; a god though in the germ.

—Robert Browning.

Alternate Reading: I Peter 2:1-10.

Jesus Teaching A Lawyer

Just then a Student of the Law came forward to test Jesus further.

“Teacher,” he said, “what must I do if I am to ‘gain Immortal Life’?”

“What is said in the Law?” answered Jesus. “What do you read there?”

His reply was—

“‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thou dost thyself.'”

“You have answered right,” said Jesus; “do that, and you shall live.”

But the man, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus: “And who is my neighbor?” To which Jesus replied:

The Good Samaritan

“A man was once going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him of everything, and beat him and went away leaving him half dead. As it chanced, a priest was going down by that road. He saw the man, but passed by on the opposite side. A Levite, too, did the same; he came up to the spot, but, when he saw the man, passed by on the opposite side. But a Samaritan, traveling that way, came upon the man, and, when he saw him, he was moved with compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, dressing them with oil and wine, and then put him on his own mule, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two florins and gave them to the inn-keeper. ‘Take care of him,’ he said, ‘and whatever more you may spend I will myself repay you on my way back.’ Now which, do you think, of these three men,” asked Jesus, “proved himself a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?”

“The one that took pity on him,” was the answer; on which Jesus said:

“Go and do the same yourself.”

—Luke.

The Value Of Creative Thought

A man might form and let loose a star to roll in its orbit, and yet not have done so memorable a thing before God as he who lets a golden-orbed thought to roll through the generations to come.

—Henry Ward Beecher.

The Ship That Is Waiting For Me

As I stand by the cross, on the lone mountain’s crest,
Looking over the ultimate sea,
In the gloom of the mountain a ship lies at rest,
And one sails away from the lea;
One spreads its white wings on the far-reaching track,
With pennant and sheet flowing free;
One hides in the shadow with sails laid aback—
The ship that is waiting for me.

But lo! in the distance the clouds break away,
The gate’s glowing portals I see,
And I hear from the outgoing ship in the bay
The song of the sailors in glee.
So I think of the luminous footprints that bore
The comfort o’er dark Galilee,
And wait for the signal to go to the shore
To the ship that is waiting for me.

—Bret Harte.

The Eternal Goodness

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.
And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.
No offering of my own I have,
Nor works my faith to prove;
I can but give the gifts He gave,
And plead His love for love.
And so beside the silent sea
I wait the muffled oar;
No harm from Him can come to me
On ocean or on shore.
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.

—John G. Whittier.

Alternate Reading: Psalms 121. Note: This Psalm was read by David Livingstone the day he sailed for Africa.

The Ship That Is Waiting For Me

As I stand by the cross, on the lone mountain’s crest,
Looking over the ultimate sea,
In the gloom of the mountain a ship lies at rest,
And one sails away from the lea;
One spreads its white wings on the far-reaching track,
With pennant and sheet flowing free;
One hides in the shadow with sails laid aback—
The ship that is waiting for me.

But lo! in the distance the clouds break away,
The gate’s glowing portals I see,
And I hear from the outgoing ship in the bay
The song of the sailors in glee.
So I think of the luminous footprints that bore
The comfort o’er dark Galilee,
And wait for the signal to go to the shore
To the ship that is waiting for me.

—Bret Harte.

The Eternal Goodness

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.
And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.
No offering of my own I have,
Nor works my faith to prove;
I can but give the gifts He gave,
And plead His love for love.
And so beside the silent sea
I wait the muffled oar;
No harm from Him can come to me
On ocean or on shore.
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.

—John G. Whittier.

Alternate Reading: Psalms 121. Note: This Psalm was read by David Livingstone the day he sailed for Africa.

What Is So Rare As A Day In June?

(The most beautiful nature poem ever written.)

What is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life munnur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature’s palace;
The little bird site at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings.
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,—
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

—James Russell Lowell.

God In All Things

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That, changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in earth, as in the ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent:
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part;
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns
As the rapt Seraphim, that sings and burns;
To him, no high, no low, no great, no small—
He fills, he bounds, connects and equals all…
All nature is but art, unknown to thee:
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see:
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good.

—Alexander Pope.

Alternate Reading: I Peter 1:13-22.

What Is So Rare As A Day In June?

(The most beautiful nature poem ever written.)

What is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life munnur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature’s palace;
The little bird site at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings.
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,—
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

—James Russell Lowell.

God In All Things

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That, changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in earth, as in the ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent:
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part;
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns
As the rapt Seraphim, that sings and burns;
To him, no high, no low, no great, no small—
He fills, he bounds, connects and equals all…
All nature is but art, unknown to thee:
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see:
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good.

—Alexander Pope.

Alternate Reading: I Peter 1:13-22.

The Mission Of The Seventy-Two

After this, the Master appointed seventy-two other disciples, and sent them on as his Messengers, two and two, in advance, to every town and place that he was himself intending to visit.

“The harvest,” he said, “is abundant, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray to the Owner of the harvest to send laborers to gather in his harvest. Now, go. Remember, I am sending you out as my Messengers like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse with you, or a bag, or sandals; and do not stop to greet any one on your journey. Whatever house you go to stay at, begin by praying for a blessing on it. Then, if any one there is deserving of a blessing, your blessing will rest upon him; but if not, it will come back upon yourselves. Remain at that same house, and eat and drink whatever they offer you; for the worker is worth his wages. Do not keep changing from one house to another. Whatever town you visit, if the people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick there, and tell people ‘The Kingdom of God is close at hand.’ But, whatever town you go to visit, if the people do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say ‘We wipe off the very dust of your town which has clung to our feet; still, be assured that the Kingdom of God is close at hand.’ I tell you that the doom of Sodom will be more bearable on that Day than the doom of that town.”

The Return Of The Seventy-Two

When the seventy-two returned, they exclaimed joyfully: “Master, even the demons submit to us when we use your name.” And Jesus replied:

“I have had visions of Satan, fallen, like lightning from the heavens. Remember, I have given you the power to ‘trample upon serpents and scorpions,’ and to meet all the strength of the Enemy. Nothing shall ever harm you in any way. Yet do not rejoice in the fact that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names have been enrolled in Heaven.”

—Luke.

A pure heart in a pure home is always in whispering distance of Heaven.

“Choose you this day whom you will serve;—but as for me and my home, we will serve God.”

—Joshua.

Keeping Memorial Day

When the May has culled her flowers for the summer waiting long,
And the breath of early roses wooe the hedges into song.
Comes the throb of martial music and the banners in the street,
And the marching of the millions bearing garlands fair and sweet—
Tis the Sabbath of the Nation, ’tis the floral feast of May!
In remembrance of our heroes
We keep Memorial Day.

They are sleeping in the valleys, they are sleeping ‘neath the sea,
They are sleeping by the thousands till the royal reveille;
Let us know them, let us name them, let us honor one and all,
For they loved us and they saved us, springing at the bugle call;
Let us sound the song and cymbal, wreathe the immortelles and bay.
In the fervor of thanksgiving
We keep Memorial Day.

—Kate B. Sherwood.

The Dead To The Living

O you that still have rain and sun,
Kisses of children and of wife,
And the good earth to tread upon,
And the mere sweetness that is life,
Forget not us, who gave all these
For something dearer, and for you!
Think in what cause we crossed the seas!
Remember, he who fails the challenge
Fails us, too.

Now in the hour that shows the strong—
The soul no evil powers affray-
Drive straight against embattled Wrong:
Faith knows but one, the hardest, way.
Endure; the end is worth the throe.
Give, give; and dare, and again dare!
On, to that Wrong’s great overthrow!
We are with you, of you; we the pain and
Victory share.

—Laurence Binyon.

Alternate Reading: James 5:1-16.