Lay aside your hammer—
Lord, set down the lathe.
Hang your square on the rafter;
still the rasping plane.

Loose the snares of the wicked.
Untie the tempter’s nets.
Cut through the tangled, twisted
Gordian knot of death.

Gather the threads and fragments,
saving our smallest scraps.
Weave from our fig-leaves’ tatters
glory’s robes at last.

Carpenter, turn tailor—
Pierce the needle’s eye.
Clothe in life, O Savior,
all those doomed to die.

Make us wedding garments—
Oh, let us enter in!
Dress us for the harvest
and let the feast begin!

Painting by Rubens of St James the Less clutching a try square, a symbol associated with several Christian saints. By Peter Paul Rubens – http://www.artbible.info/art/topics/rubens-apostles-series, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32560020

Who among you would say to your servant
who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field,
‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’?
Would he not rather say to him,
‘Prepare something for me to eat.
Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink.
You may eat and drink when I am finished’?
Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded?
So should it be with you.
When you have done all you have been commanded,
say, ‘We are unprofitable servants;
we have done what we were obliged to do.’
—Luke 17:5-10

Labor

We labor in the sowing,
in hope for all that’s grown;
in reaping, then, and mowing
we bring the harvest home.

Which one we serve would say then
when we have worked the fields,
“Sit down with me, I pray you,
and taste your labor’s yields”?

Though we are merely servants,
yet, Lord, you wash our feet,
prepare for us a banquet,
and bid us sit and eat.

For you have sown a seed here—
the root, O Christ, is you—
to grow a different kingdom
and make the old things new.

As deserts turn to vineyards
we labor through the days,
and growing here within us
new hearts for your new ways.

We labor not for markets
or profits, but for love,
so we may taste the harvest
you, Lord, have told us of.

Vincent van Gogh – Wheatfield with a reaper – Google Art Project – BgFGcS3ucZqeRA at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22621957

Come with me, Lord, into the night
on a road I cannot see.
I don’t expect you to be light,
but keep me company,
and even if we reach the dawn,
somehow, I think, the road goes on.

And no one else can walk this way—
how could they?  Some draw near,
but they carry still the light of day
and do not feel this fear.
The darkness is as light to them;
my light is growing yet more dim.

But you have walked the shadows, Lord;
this valley knows your name.
The river running down this gorge
devoured you when you came.
If I must go, you went there, too:
Our dark awhile was dark to you.

Then come with me, come once again—
or do I ask too much?
Those highest peaks are in your hand;
this valley knows your touch:
You will not let me walk alone.
Each step, I walk along your bones.

So you will never let me go,
not even if I climb
or sink all other worlds below.
Even there, Lord, I will find
your hands forever holding me.
Someday all this I, too, will see.

“The valley of the shadow of death” Crimean War photograph. Dirt road in ravine scattered with cannonballs. 27.6 × 34.9 cm (10 7/8 × 13 3/4 in.), salted paper print. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. By Roger Fenton Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48284503

A temple once, and now they call it ruins,
the architect’s stark lines against the sky
still stand here like some half-forgotten blueprints
that show where offerings were meant to lie,
abandoned—none but sparrows wander through it—
but it was beautiful in days gone by.
The light comes in where windows are no more,
and stretching shadows pace the mossy floor.

The arches open to the constellations,
and swallows swoop where rafters used to be.
The only pilgrims left, they keep their station,
and each new day a miracle they see.
The Spirit still descends as dawn awakens,
and moves within the ruins, and they speak:
“O Lord, once more you open up my lips;
my apse proclaims your praise, my nave, my crypt.

“The stones you stacked are falling as the night does:
Inevitably they sink into the ground,
but still they have not fallen into silence.
These rocks behold your mercy and cry out.
I crumble, yes, I break to age and violence,
yet still you come to me. You still sink down
and kindle life here, even in my tomb,
for what is death but just another womb?”

Now where the altar was a sapling’s growing;
the sparrow finds a home there for her young,
and year by year new leaves and branches showing
weave shelters where new melodies are sung.
The temple yet resounds in twilight’s gloaming,
though no one chants the hours, no bells are rung.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust in truth,
yet life takes root there, making all things new.

The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel (Louis Daguerre), 1824 (Google Art Project) – YwEH1vGfMtqgXw at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27062850

We cannot bear the sight—
a sword edge bright and keen—
and so the angels veil their light
and come to us unseen.

They blunt the sharpened point,
soften the swifter slice
between the marrow and the joint:
We’re struck, yet we survive

because they take the weight,
transmute it for our sense,
turn glory to a commonplace,
unmagnify the immense.

A note of song, a book,
a color weaves a clue,
that we may see, where we will look,
eternity break through.

The feather-tip that paints
an ordinary word
that raises seasons up and saints
was never from a bird.

The angels of the Lord
descend on every stone,
and they will lead us heavenward
to see what they have known.

Kenny Harris (American, born 1974)
Ordinary Acts, 2017
Oil on canvas
54 x 48 inches
Private collection

It always happens in the midst of things,
the house a wreck, their shoes strewn on the floor:
Your eye caught by the sudden gleam of wings
stops you dead in the middle of the chores

and you don’t watch to see the half-sink fill,
the coffee-pot in pieces in your hands.
Arrested by the sunlight as it spills
from what you do not recognize, you stand.

But it knows you.  You never had a name
until you read it written in this ink
that burns across your vision as a flame.
Enraptured, you stand frozen at the sink.

You see what had been hidden just before,
see it now welling, streaming from all things—
the spilling sink, the shoes there on the floor—
all feathers fallen from the angel’s wings.

When the poor man died,
he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.
The rich man also died and was buried,
and from the netherworld, where he was in torment,
he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off
and Lazarus at his side.
—Luke 16:19-31

Beneath the jewels, the skin;
beneath the skin, the breath,
and all the silks we wrap us in
cannot cheat death.

Beneath the clothes, the flesh;
beneath the flesh, the bone.
We crave and gain and then oppress,
yet alms atone.

Alike we all are dust,
the rich as well as poor,
and sorrow come to one of us
makes all woe more,

but mercy come to one
is mercy meant for all.
To do as unto us was done:
This is our call.

Then come to mercy’s stream
and dip your finger in
to quell the thirst of one who needs
and cool the skin.

Does gold our freedom bind?
Oh, let the hungry eat!
And if we cannot so, then Christ
must set us free.

I’ll take what you have given, Lord,
though all things pass away,
and make what adds to no one’s hoard:
This bread is for today.

All flesh will come to what it must;
to dust we shall return.
For all creation comes to dust—
that’s all we ever were.

Let it be flour, then, reaped and ground,
that all things shall be bread.
Then dwell in it—in it be found,
as life where all was dead.

O Lord, in what you made, you lurk,
and will all things remake.
So may it be—but this my work
is here to knead and bake

no sacred gift on the altar laid
but ordinary food—
yet fashioned from the works you made,
and you had called them good.

Then may this bread be good for us,
our bodies and our souls,
and when we go, Lord, knead our dust:
Remake us to be whole.

Woman baking bread (c. 2200 BC); Louvre, Photo By Rama, CC BY-SA 3.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69938567

You laid a table’s bounty
in sight of your enemies,
and laid yourself upon it,
then bid us come and feast,

because this is love’s true token—
the belovèd one is fed—
and this is why we’re broken,
for we were always bread.

Born from another’s body
in tears and blood and sweat,
then nurtured, mothered, fathered,
in all our helplessness:

So you were born, O Savior;
so given, as are we,
like bread upon the table
for someone else to eat.

You kneaded us in Eden,
hands wrist-deep in the clay,
and so you must have seen then,
you would be here one day,

but you have made it holy,
this breaking, dying dust,
that we might be as you are,
for you became like us.

Genter altar, lamb adoration – Jan van Eyck – Web Gallery of Art:   Image  Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56859347

A widening slice of golden light
slides across the road:
a curtain pulled back from the night.
He kicked against the goad,

but each night this sliver wends
along the trodden dust
untiring, to where the highway bends.
The trees move at a gust

that does not touch the candle flame.
God bless the ones who roam
on such a night.  Who speaks their names
and waits for them at home?

And now the wind tears at the leaves.
The curtain should fall back
but doesn’t—are they bandits, thieves
adown the midnight track?

The eyes that watch too long grow dim—
surely not—this is false, too—
So many times they didn’t see him—
can it be now they do?

The curtain drops.  The door swings wide,
caught in the rising wind
that shakes the reaching candle light.
“Father, I have sinned….”

The Return of the Prodigal Son (Leonello Spada, Louvre, Paris) – http://www.pintura.aut.org, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7349982

I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth,
so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
–-Luke 16:1-13

Lord, you give by your good measure
more than we could ever ask,
shaken down and packed together,
overflowing in our laps:
Good the earth we reach unknowing,
good the glowing sun and rain,
good the plowing and the sowing,
good the ripening of the grain.

Lord, our hands are small and feeble—
This is more than we can hold,
yet you give us all and freely,
filling us with wealth untold:
Rich the soil beneath the shadows,
rich the root and rich the vine,
growing first and harvest after,
rich the tasting of the wine.

Lord, we’re born in need and hunger;
mercy like a flood released
spills on us in joy and wonder.
You have made the world a feast:
Sweet the footsteps of the pilgrims
coming here to break your bread;
sweet the wine you give your children;
sweet the new life from the dead.

Lord, you hold back nothing from us;
all we have is of your gift.
Joy becomes a solemn promise
in the saving cup we lift:
Good the bounty ever growing;
rich the gifts we can’t repay;
sweet it passes, overflowing
from our hands to all this day.

A vineyard in Napa Valley, California By Brocken Inaglory – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8377659