From North They Come

Jesus passed through towns and villages,
teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.
Someone asked him,
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”
He answered them,
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough.
After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door,
then will you stand outside knocking and saying,
‘Lord, open the door for us.’
He will say to you in reply,
‘I do not know where you are from.
And you will say,
‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’
Then he will say to you,
‘I do not know where you are from.
Depart from me, all you evildoers!’
And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth
when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
and all the prophets in the kingdom of God
and you yourselves cast out.
And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last.”
Luke 13:22-30

From north they come and south they come,
from west they come and east,
to enter that eternal home
where Jesus keeps the feast.

The gate is small, the way is long,
and who shall enter there?
'Tis not the rich, 'tis not the strong,
but one who kneels in prayer,

who sits and listens at his feet
or seeks him in the night
and in each stranger that they meet:
All these will dwell with Christ.

The way is long, the gate is small,
and weary they may grow,
but on his mercy they will call,
who come his love to know.

O Christ, let me be one of them
who knows not just your name,
but reaches out to touch your hem
and bows to pass the gate,

who does not rest on wealth or strength
or even what I've done,
but ever seeks to see your face
until you bring me home.

A church portal relief in Dortmund referencing Jesus’s use of “camel through the eye of a needle” aphorism. By Mathias Bigge – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2783562

Fill Us

All-present God who fills all things
beyond what they can bear
and spans the spaces in between,
now fill the empty here.

You who sustain us, give us food;
our hungry stomachs fill.
You made us and you called us good:
Now hold us in your will.

For you do not desire the death
of anything you made;
then fill our bodies with your breath
and still come to our aid.

Fill every darkened cell with light
and every shade with rest;
fill every sprirt with delight
to hear you called them blest.

Come fill us in our every need
as you fill every world
in every spinning galaxy
across the sky unfurled.

You made us hollow, hungry hearts:
Now all your mercies pour
and overflow all that we are.
Fill all of us, O Lord.

Pieter Claesz (c. 1597–1660), *Still Life with Salt Tub* – http://www.rijksmuseum.nl : Home : Info : Pic, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22074009

O Father of Us All

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones,
for I say to you that their angels in heaven
always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.
What is your opinion?
If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray,
will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills
and go in search of the stray?
And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it
than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.
In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father
that one of these little ones be lost.”
Who are the greatest in your sight,
O Father of us all?
The ones replete with wealth and might,
or powerless and small?
The ones invested with command,
whose every word is law?
Are they the treasures in your hand,
or only so much straw?

Look down, O Father, on the ones
who from the soil thrust up,
who, like your own Incarnate Son,
walk only in the dust,
whose lives are hours of light and rain,
touched by the fleeting bow.
You treasure every joy and pain
of those who live down low.

Then let not one of them be lost,
O Father of the least,
but seek them out at any cost
and bring them to your feast.
They bear your image and your name,
the holiest holy things;
then seek them out, wheree'er they've strayed,
and bring them home again.
Matthew 18:10-14

Christ blessing the Children By Lucas Cranach the Younger – http://www.botschaftderwoche.de/pics/bild061008.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22737097

O Little Flock

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not be afraid any longer, little flock,
for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.
Sell your belongings and give alms.
Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out,
an inexhaustible treasure in heaven
that no thief can reach nor moth destroy.
For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.
Gird your loins and light your lamps
and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding,
ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those servants
whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.”
Luke 12:32-48

To the tune FINLANDIA:

O little flock, the time for fear is over!
The kingdom waits, and even now appears.
Sell what you have, to gain a better treasure,
and give to all, for Christ in them draws near.
As you have giv'n, to you it will be measured:
Hold nothing back, not doubt or pain or tears.

So we shall live as strangers and sojourners:
the world as ours to have, but not to hold.
Though we may grieve, we do not go as mourners;
though we may want, we shall not cling to gold.
Though wand'ring still, we journey ever homeward;
though weary yet, our hearts shall not grow cold.

So may we meet our Savior soon returning,
and be awake to tend the master's needs,
as he did ours to end his long sojourning,
who broke the bread and knelt to wash our feet.
Whate'er the hour, oh, let our lamps be burning
to welcome Christ, and enter heaven's feast!

An etching by Jan Luyken illustrating Luke 13:41-48 in the Bowyer Bible, Bolton, England. By Phillip Medhurst – Photo by Harry Kossuth, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7550884

I Begged For Rescue

I begged for rescue from the flood:
You heard and drew me out,
and when I knew that you were good,
you plunged me into drought.

And when I begged for flowing streams
to quench my thirsting soul,
you opened floodgates in the deep
and let the billows roll.

Yet in the depths or in the sands,
in daylight or the dark,
I know that I am in your hands,
and you are in my heart.

When waters rise to reach my lips
and steal away my breath,
then send a fish or send a ship
or walk to me yourself.

And when the desert stretches on,
come with me as my guide,
a tow'r of cloud the whole day long,
a tow'r of flame by night.

Then in the desert or the depths,
at midnight or at noon,
through every length and height and breadth,
I walk beside my groom.

Brooklyn Museum – Saint Peter Walks on the Sea (Saint Pierre marche sur la mer) By James Tissot – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2007, 00.159.140_PS2.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10195992

When John the Baptist Died

When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist,
he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns.
When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd,
his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.
When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said,
“This is a deserted place and it is already late;
dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages
and buy food for themselves.”
He said to them, “There is no need for them to go away;
give them some food yourselves.”
But they said to him,
“Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.”
Then he said, “Bring them here to me.”
Matthew 14:13-21

We followed you into your grief
when John the Baptist died,
but not to offer you relief:
For our own needs we cried.

And we who'd gathered at the shore
to hear him call us back,
we hungered then for something more
and followed in your tracks.

Although you sought a place to mourn,
we dogged your weary feet
and begged you'd not leave us forlorn:
You gave us bread to eat.

But not the bread of village shops
or new loaves for a guest;
what scraps we had, you took them all
and gave them to us, blessed.

No meagre crumbs to tide us o'er
or teach us how to fast,
but all our hunger filled and more,
as if all wants were past!

So John decreased and you increased,
and in that desert place,
you hosted his memorial feast
and fed us by your grace.

Feeding the multitude. Armenian manuscript. Daniel of Uranc gospel, 1433. By Daniel of Uranc – Michel Bakni, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98280902

And If This Night

But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves
but are not rich in what matters to God.”
Luke 12:13-21

And if this night my life should end,
if I should stand before my God,
then all the gifts that filled my hands
will fall untended to the sod.

Oh, let them be as scattered seeds
that fall in death to rise in spring,
a harvest for the endless needs
from shoots that turn the furrows green,

and not as votives for the dead
to moulder buried in the ground
while those my riches could have fed
to their own hungry graves go down.

Give ear, O God, to this my prayer,
as you have given all I have:
What I cannot forever bear
let me not carry to the grave.

Let death not be the only thing
that pries my fingers from bright gold,
and all the good that wealth can bring,
oh, let me only loosely hold.

That when I stand before your throne
I stand unburdened by their weight.
And let it be my soul that grows
when I go planting not too late.

Rembrandt – Parable of the Rich Man – WGA19247 – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15417407

Martha, Mary, and Lazarus

For their feast:

Like Martha in her kitchen, I am strong,
and like her sister Mary, I seek peace,
but when the endless work goes on and on,
how can I stop and sit there at your feet?

But Lazarus, he knows what I will learn:
that every working hour must have its end,
and rest will come unbidden and unearned
and wrapped in silence like a linen band.

When you sit at my table, you will eat,
but give me grace to let myself receive
the peace that comes from sitting at your feet
and letting time run outward from my sieve.

When I have strength to work, then let me work;
when I have need of rest, then give me rest;
and when they lay my body in the dirt,
then come, O Lord, and raise me from the dead.

*Jesus at the home of Martha and Mary* by Tintoretto, 16th century – 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=3137050

Enough

Enough for each day, is every day's hunger;
enough for our hunger, the bread God has giv'n.
Enough for that bread, the rain and the thunder
awakening seedlings to rise up and live.

Enough for the seeds, the earth turning over;
enough for that turning, the hand on the plow.
Enough for the hands, the grain that is growing,
the sun in heavens, the goodness of now.

Consider the birds, with nothing to harvest;
consider the flowers in Solomon's robes.
Consider the gifts poured out from the Father,
creation unfolding in wonders untold.

Consider the stars, their worlds without number;
consider the sparrow whose falling is known.
We walk in God's care, among all these wonders:
We're never abandoned and never alone.

Then come lift your hands in praise of the Father,
and come lift your voices, for love of the Son,
and lift up your hearts, the Spirit to honor,
the Trinity praising, whose love is our own.

Field of Lilies – Tiffany Studios, c. 1910 By Daderot. – I took this photo at the Richard H. Driehaus Gallery of Stained Glass, on the Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois, USA. This artwork is now in the public domain because of its age. There were no prohibitions on photography at the gallery, and no assertions of copyright or any other form of restriction on reproduction., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1297504

Forgive

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him,
“Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test.”
Luke 11:1-13

Give ear unto the words
you once taught us to pray:
Forgive me all my debts, O Lord,
for I cannot repay.

My crimes have justly earned
the anger of your flames,
but listen to the pleas you've heard
for glory of your name!

Forgive me all my debts
and teach me to forgive—
and if, as well, you give me bread,
then I will eat and live.

The breath that fills my lungs;
the blood that in me moves;
your praise in every earthly tongue:
All this I owe to you

but cannot pay a cent,
nor could I ever earn
enough to buy my innocence
or make you a return.

Not if my debtors paid
and filled my hands with coins
could I afford a single day
or reason to rejoice.

Then let me cancel, too,
the trespasses I'm owed,
for all of it is first your due.
Forgive us all, O Lord.