January 1

Today in 45 BCE, the Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar) went into effect, making today January 1. There are a lot of saints to report on today: 

Today is the day, in the year 404 CE, that Saint Telemachus jumped into the gladiatorial arena in order to stop the combat. The outrage crowd spontaneously stoned him to death, but that became the last gladiatorial event in the Roman Empire. His sacrifice stopped the normalization of killing for entertainment. 

On this calendar day in 630, the Prophet Muhammad began marching to Mecca from Medina with 10,000 followers. He would go on to conquer the polytheistic trading center of Mecca, and it would become a site of holy pilgrimage for Islam. 

Today is the birthday, in 1484, of Huldrych Zwingli, Swiss Reformation theologian and pastor, who preached sermons that diverged from the official Catholic teachings on hell, dietary regulations, and the veneration of saints that launched the Reformation in Zurich. His liberalizing ideas, though, stopped short of allowing Anabaptists to refuse baptism for their infants. 

Today is the birthday, in 1940, of Prathia Hall, womanist theologian, American Baptist pastor, civil rights activist, and the inspiration for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech. 

Reflection:

Basil the Great wrote to the rich words that we need to hear today: 

“You begrudge your fellow human beings what you yourself enjoy; taking wicked counsel in your soul, you consider not how you might distribute to others according to their needs, but rather how, after having received so many good things, you might rob others.

…'But whom do I treat unjustly,' you say, 'by keeping what is my own?' Tell me, what is your own? What did you bring into this life? From where did you receive it? It is as if someone were to take the first seat in the theater, then bar everyone else from attending, so that one person alone enjoys what is offered for the benefit of all in common — this is what the rich do. They seize common goods before others have the opportunity, then claim them as their own by right of preemption. For if we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who lack, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, and no one would be in need.” 

Basil the Great

Courtney Pace quotes a sermon by Prathia Hall in her book Freedom Faith: The Womanist Vision of Prathia Hall: 

“If we continue to ignore the maternal and feminine in Scripture then we have a distorted view of humanity. . . . Do you speak of the divine in male terms only because it’s easier—you feel better and besides, it’s risky to do otherwise. …I must tell you—that this is not about our comfort level—I am just as uncomfortable as you are right now. But much is at stake. Our humanity and God’s divinity have been misrepresented.” 

Prathia Hall (from Jann Aldredge-Clanton’s blog)