Brothers and sisters:
Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
bearing with one another and forgiving one another,
if one has a grievance against another;
as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.
And over all these put on love,
that is, the bond of perfection.
And let the peace of Christ control your hearts,
the peace into which you were also called in one body.
—Colossians 3:12-17
We count the generations
and trace the family line
from Abraham to David—
but oh, what shame we find.
Yet this our God has chosen,
our littleness and sin:
His mercy new each morning
makes God himself our kin.
The glorious son of heaven
on earth has come to live
that we may be his kindred—
our broken bread is his.
Then may I cast off hatred
as he cast off his crown
and bend to serve my neighbor
as he himself knelt down,
and put on over all things
the perfect bond of love,
For God so loved our smallness
he knit himself thereof.
As Jesus Christ our brother
put on our very dust,
so may we love each other
and rise to where he was.
A typical Jesse Tree of the Late Medieval period, detail of the Spinola Hours of Ludwig by the Master of James IV of Scotland, (1510-20) Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29732235
Kate Bluett 