Feast

Now thus says the LORD of hosts:
Consider your ways!
You have sown much, but have brought in little;
you have eaten, but have not been satisfied;
You have drunk, but have not been exhilarated;
have clothed yourselves, but not been warmed;
And whoever earned wages
earned them for a bag with holes in it.
Haggai 1:1-8

You made this world to be our feast,
created and laid down in love,
and told your children, come and eat—
We did, and oh, what have we done?

We took and ate, but hunger grew
and burned unceasing in our flesh,
for what we took was not of you,
and all our feasting turned to ash

We planted, but we grew no grain;
we've eaten, but we hunger still.
Our endless labor brings no gain,
our hearthfire cannot warm the chill.

We drink, but cannot lift our hearts;
our gold has nothing good to buy.
There is no end to our false starts;
our thirst is never satisfied.

But all creation is your feast:
We walk the table you have set.
You made us for this eucharist;
you made us for your gift of bread.

Teach us, O Lord, to feast again:
Give us the water that is life.
Give us the voice to say Amen
to all that truly satisfies.

Floris Claesz. van Dyck 001 By Floris van Dyck – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=150586

First and Last

Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.
Matthew 20:16

When all our ranks and rites are past,
the first go not before the last.
When all who go, go there as dust.
the last go not before the first.

The fruit is from the selfsame vine:
Adorned in gold and jewels fine
or dressed in rags, or starved or dined,
alike the selfsame shroud shall wind.

The rich have not a rarer breath;
their grasping cannot beggar death,
and paupers, too, new wine will press:
the resurrection of this flesh.

No gold or rags, but blood and bone,
no jewels but the eyes alone:
So poor and rich shall rise as one
to bow before th'incarnate son.

Then all we've hidden shall be seen,
all we have failed to be or been,
all cut and mended, stitched and seamed—
each ragged edge shall be redeemed.

And all the gilded and adorned,
the battered, broken, bent, and torn
shall stand alike before the Lord
and drink the selfsame wine outpoured.

The Dance of Death (1493) by Michael Wolgemut, from the Nuremberg Chronicle of Hartmann Schedel Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=490534

Something Bigger

So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more,
but each of them also got the usual wage.
And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying,
‘These last ones worked only one hour,
and you have made them equal to us,
who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’
He said to one of them in reply,
‘My friend, I am not cheating you.
Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?
Take what is yours and go.
What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?
Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?
Are you envious because I am generous?’
Matthew 20:1-16a

You called us from the market
and from our own affairs
to labor for your harvest,
and we have done our share.
But you pay us as others
whose work cannot compare.
Shall mercy be unjust, then?
Should mercy not be fair?

We labor for forgiveness,
for working off our debt,
as if our sins were figures,
writ on a balance sheet.
Such hope is all too little—
a crumb instead of bread.
You offer something bigger:
You offer us yourself.

Of heaven's feast you tell us:
You sowed, and we shall reap
beyond all we can reckon,
beyond the count we keep.
Your mercy keeps no record,
though what you paid was steep.
Instead, you make us welcome
and bid us take and eat.

Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard: Workers on the field (down) and pay time (up), Byzantine Gospel of 11th century, BnF, Cod. gr. 74 By Unknown author – Byzantine gospel. Paris, National Library., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9472307

Allwheres

It is the LORD who goes before you; he will be with you and will never fail you or forsake you. So do not fear or be dismayed.
Deuteronomy 31:8

Through all the days that lie ahead
and all the nights when dawn's unsure,
along the ways laid for your steps,
remember that he walks with you.

Though cliffs rise up on every side
and mountains tumble to the sea,
yet go, for still your guard and guide
is with you, when all others flee.

With every step that you may take,
his heavens on their axis spin;
encircling you, asleep, awake,
without beginning, without end.

Awake, asleep, astray, at home:
it is his road before your feet,
and you will not step out alone.
At every turn, it's him you meet.

So go, and even when you fear,
you still are somewhere in his palm,
and every step, away or near,
allwheres you go, to him you come.

A paved Roman road in Pompeii By Paul Vlaar – http://www.neep.net/photo/italy/show.php?3390, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=173413

Tears

When the Lord saw her,
he was moved with pity for her and said to her,
“Do not weep.”
He stepped forward and touched the coffin;
at this the bearers halted,
and he said, “Young man, I tell you, arise!”
The dead man sat up and began to speak,
and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Luke 7:11-17

You beheld the widow weeping—
Did you know then what would come:
at the cross her station keeping, 
Mary with belovèd John?
You stepped in and raised the sleeping,
gave the widow back her son.

Knowing how Eve wept for Abel,
Rachel for her children wept,
knowing Martha—faith unshaken—
mourned when you delayed your steps,
did you guess what Mary's fate held,
keeping vigil at your death?

Eden tore us all asunder;
life by dying was undone.
Bread of life, you knew our hunger:
Make our separation one.
Give us back to one another,
death by dying overcome.

Tears have been our bread since Eden,
since the day we took and ate.
We have had our fill of feasting,
sated since the days of Cain.
You who joined us in our weeping, 
let it be the bread you break.

Take these tears and make them hallowed;
let our weeping make us one.
Let them, then, give way to dancing;
let rejoicing come with dawn.
Let the widow's prayers be answered:
Give her back her only son.

Resurrection of the son By Wilhelm Kotarbiński – cyfrowe.mnw.art.pl, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23801336

Scars

O God, look down from heav'n and see:
Alone, you pierce the veil
and know the wounds that do not bleed,
the grief of hopes that fail.

So bend your ear to heart-rent cries
gone hoarse with all the years,
too soft to pierce the distant skies:
Hear us and count our tears.

What if these wounds should never heal,
these wrongs be not undone?
Before you throne then shall we kneel
as torn as your own son?

For surely he has borne our pain
as he has died our death,
and still the marks on him are seen,
yet peace is in his breath.

Shall heaven be a wedding feast
where all the broken come,
called from the highways to their seats
around a broken groom?

He drew his brother to the wound
and bid him touch the heart.
See, Father, we are wounded, too:
Let Christ dwell in our scars.

“The incredulity of Thomas” from an English manuscript, c. 1504 By Unknown author – This image is available from the National Library of WalesYou can view this image in its original context on the NLW Catalogue, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44920993

Seven Times

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
Matthew 18:21-35

How often, Lord, should we forgive?
Is seven times enough?
As often as we are forgiv'n 
by your unfailing love,
as often as you send our crimes
as far as east from west?
Yes, seven times and seven times
and seven times again.

For when you came to seek and save,
you fell beneath our doom,
but you bring life out from the grave
and mercy from the tomb.
Yet shall you look upon out crimes
and still forgive us then?
Yes, seven times and seven times
and seven times again.

And all that bears us down to death
from Eden to the tomb
shall fall and sink down farther yet
while we rise up with you.
Our hearts, unbound from all their crimes,
lift up a great amen!
Yes, seven times and seven times
and seven times again.

This depiction by Jan van Hemessen (c. 1556) shows the moment when the king scolds the servant. By Jan Sanders van Hemessen – http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-1959-sl-1.108/1959_1.108.JPG?from=index;lasttype=boolean;lastview=thumbnail;resnum=1;sel9=ic_exact;size=20;sort=relevance;start=1;subview=detail;view=entry;rgn1=ic_all;q1=hemessen, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54308916

Dare

The clouds hang darkly overhead,
but rain is more than I can hope.
Long days the gaping ground has pled,
but heaven's only word is “no.”

And so this aching thirst remains;
dry tinder dreads the spark of hope,
for who will quench the rav'ning flames,
and what is left when ash has flown?

Unless there are such things as seas
and rivers ever onward run,
but deserts dare not oceans dream
when they must meet the morning sun.

Until some spark should split the sky,
'til mercy plummets from the clouds
and thund'ring angels “Holy!” cry
and heaven pours its graces out.

Let me remember this, O God:
That mercy always pours again
upon my troubled, tinder heart;
that I may dare to dream of rain.

Raindrops falling on water Here comes rain again By Juni from Kyoto, Japan – Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=356231

To Do the Work

To do the work you've given me to do,
to carry what you've given me to bear,
and if you let me, then to see it through,
or lay it down and give it to your care.

To love whom you have given me to love,
to feed the hunger you give me to feed,
and trust that you will lay the good I've done
upon the table where we all will eat.

To follow when I cannot see the way,
to trust that in the dark you guide my steps.
To hope you work for good in my mistakes.
to sing your name with every single breath.

O Father, lay the road before my feet,
the valleys and the mountains I will climb,
for I will stay the course you set for me
and seek you in the footsteps of my life.

U.S. Route 95 in Churchill County, Nevada, is an example of a typical two-lane, bi-directional road found throughout the rural areas of the United States that are designed for light traffic. By Famartin – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39452786

Set Loose

“Amen, I say to you,
whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again, amen, I say to you,
if two of you agree on earth
about anything for which they are to pray,
it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them.”
Matthew 18:15-20

What we set loose on earth is loosed in heaven,
and what we bind is bound with heaven's chains.
What we forgive indeed has been forgiven,
and what we punish perishes in flames.

Where two or three are gathered, you are present,
as real as once in Bethlehem new-born.
We bathe your feet with tears in our forgiveness,
or crown you with our own resentment's thorns.

O Christ, you came to loose the floods of mercy,
to bind the tempter far from those he'd harm.
Give us to drink that flood, for we are thirsty,
and gether us in heaven's open arms.

Set free all those you call sisters and brothers,
and bind the sins that we so often choose.
Let it be mercy we set loose for others,
and let us bind ourselves ever to you.

Brooklyn Museum – Two or Three Gathered in my Name (Deux ou trois personnes assemblées en mon nom) – James Tissot – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2007, 00.159.43_PS2.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10957342