Saturday in Epiphany 6: The summer-power of love

Opening Sentence

From the rising of the sun to its setting my Name shall be great among the nations, and in every place incense shall be offered to my Name, and a pure offering; for my Name shall be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. Malachi 1:11

Commemoration: Martin Luther

Almighty God, the sender in every age of faithful men and women to recall the Church to its task, and to renew its life: raise up, in this our day, prophetic heralds and evangelists, whose voices, like that of your servant Martin, will give strength to your Church, that your will may be done and your name be glorified, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever. Amen.

Psalter: Psalm 107:33-43, 108

Lessons: Genesis 35:1-20, 1 John 3:11-18, John 11:1-16

A ministers who has pure intellection only to offer to his people is like one who would in winter drag a plow over the frozen ground. He marks it, but does not furrow it. He who has to make the seed of truth grow in living men into living forms must have power to bring summer to men's hearts, -- light and heat; and then culture, whether it be by the plow or the harrow, by the hoe or the spade, will do some good. It is the summer-power of love, first, middle, and last, that every teacher and Christian preacher ought to seek. It is this that you ought to seek in the closet, in meditation, and in intercourse one with another. You must have a heart so alive and full of genial, sympathizing love that you feel yourself related to everything on the globe that lives and has the power of enjoyment. How this noble conception has been felt by the old ministers of New England! No man can read the writings of Jonathan Edwards, of Hopkins, and others of that school, without seeing how they were filled with this sense of doing for others, and the desire to confer blessings upon universal sentient being. Their system was, in many respects, very imperfect, but, after all, the ideal was in their mind. They had a true conception of the all-pervading power of love in the hearts of men, which ought to be the very center, out of which the whole ministry is to grow.

Henry Ward Beecher

Yale Lectures on Preaching, 1872

A Mighty Fortress is Our God