Enemies

For Pentecost:

From the thistles east of Eden
where our sorrow soaked the ground,
where the stones cried out in grieving
Cain had struck his brother down,
we were always locked in combat,
always at each other's throats
'til a falling flame changed all that,
'til it touched us and we spoke.

From the rising heights of Babel
to the walls fo Jericho
we have lived each day a battle,
turned our swords against a foe.
'Til a rushing wind from elsewhere
whispered in our hearts a word,
'til it turned our swords to plowshares,
'til it touched us and we heard.

We are enemies and others;
we are Parthians and Medes;
we are killers of our brothers,
but the truth will make us free
when it fills us with one Spirit,
sings one song in every tongue,
when it speaks, when we can hear it,
then the Word will make us one.

Tower of Babel by M. C. Escher. Woodcut, 1928. By M. C. Escher – https://arthive.com/escher/works/200099~Tower_of_Babel, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8162683

Thistles

Cast out from our parents' garden,
poured our sweat into the soil:
Thorns and thistles for a harvest,
little for so great a toil.
Yet, O Lord, will you accept it
when we bring our sacrifice?
Will you, can you, take and bless it
if we have no greater tithe?

What you spoke at our beginning
when you took the formless world,
molded, shaped it, set it spinning,
called its dusks and dawnings good,
does that word still echo for us
though our shaping comes to naught?
Does that goodness still enfold us
if our harvest goes to rot?

Messy, naked, hungry, empty
we come from our mothers' wombs;
we will go forth in the same way
to the silence of our tombs.
Only you can fill these hands, Lord,
with the gifts you'd have us bring.
Take our nakedness and failure:
Let it be our offering.

Planta de cardo en flor, en una vereda de Montevideo By Fadesga – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=144819271

Not Eden

Each night we dream of Eden
and drench our beds with tears
until dawn burgeons eastward
and morning rises clear.

Those dreams are fit for nighttime,
for we have never seen
a home but this, our exile,
where harps hang on the trees.

For this, too, is a garden,
each year by sweat renewed
until the day of harvest 
when God shall make it new.

No more the fruit of knowledge, 
but apples sweet and red
and wine and rushing water
and every bite of bread.

The harps hung on the aspens
no songs of Eden play
but notes that leave us gasping
when breeze-led branches sway.

And Christ, who walked the furrows,
shall gather in all these
and in his lasting morrow
shall make of this his feast.

Late summer dawn over the Mojave Desert, California By Jessie Eastland – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64756573

Into the Garden

Come, O Lord, into the garden
where we tasted good and ill;
come restore the heart we hardened,
wash away the blood we spilled.
When you've sunk beneath our burdens,
drunk the cup that mercy filled,
take us through the tearing curtain
to a place that's holier still.

Lead us onward from our Eden—
our beginning, not our end—
out beyond the bounds of healing,
through the wounds we seek to mend.
Past repairing to redeeming,
more than we can comprehend,
where the angels host are singing
songs we'll finally understand.

From the hell that you have harrowed,
from the weeping-watered tomb,
on the roadway straight and narrow,
through the desert now in bloom,
lead us onward through all sorrows,
past the joy we thought we knew,
to the day beyond tomorrows—
Make us there with all things new.

Expulsion from Paradise, painting by James Tissot (c. 1896–1902) By James Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836 – 1902) (French)Google Art Projectでのアーティストの詳細 – igGZ-wF6_0XnlQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22493007

When Mercy Reached From Heav’n to Earth

When mercy reached from heav'n to earth,
forgiveness stretched out east to west,
the grass that springs up from the dirt
grew to a garden of the blest.

The barren ground of Calvary
now bears an ever-blooming rose.
The gates of Eden swinging free
encompass every flow'r that grows.

And we who sprang up with the dawn
to wither in the gath'ring dusk
find that we blossom on and on,
bear fruit that overflows the husk.

How can it be that we should bear
the grain of heav'n from earthly roots
unless the vine, with tender care,
entwines itself about our shoots?

O mercy, come to soak the ground
and drench the furrows where we sleep.
The heav'nly love that you pour down
will wash and wake the fallen seeds.

O Christ the blossom, Christ the vine,
transform the grasses into trees
where all the birds their shelter find
within the living shade of peace.

Holy church Maria of the Castle, Olivenza (Spain) By José Luis Filpo Cabana – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44932624

Then

An angel showed me the river of life-giving water,
sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God
and of the Lamb down the middle of the street,
On either side of the river grew the tree of life
that produces fruit twelve times a year, once each month;
the leaves of the trees serve as medicine for the nations.
Nothing accursed will be found anymore.
The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it,
and his servants will worship him.
They will look upon his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
Night will be no more, nor will they need light from lamp or sun,
for the Lord God shall give them light,
and they shall reign forever and ever.
Revelation 22:1-7

Then all the broken promises
and all the severed ties
will be restored with all that is,
where nothing ever dies.

And all that should be but is not
shall be forevermore,
and all that was and then was lost
to us us shall be restored.

The tree of life shall grow again
in orchards, rows on rows,
and Eden's gate be opened then
to everything that grows.

The flaming sword shall plow the ground
to open every grave,
and nothing cursed shall then be found
when all has been remade.

The bodies wedded to decay
shall taste the medicine
that was in Eden locked away,
and they shall live again.

Then all the broken will be healed,
the severed mended then,
and death to endless life shall yield—
but when, my God?  But when?

Painting of life tree in interoer of Shaki Khan palace, Azerbaijan NAtional Art Museum, Usta Gambar Garabagi By Urek Meniashvili – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26760866

Come All, Come All

For today’s readings, to the tune KINGSFOLD (“I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say”):

There was a garden, ripe and rich
and ready to our hand,
but we, too greedy in our reach,
were from its verdure banned.
Through barren wastes we restless search,
in every grain of sand,
to find the bounty we beseech:
Oh, God, restore our land!

The God of mercy hears our cry
and ready makes the feast,
lays out the tables on the height
with seats for first and least.
“Come all! Come all!” his angels light
about our hands and feet;
we turn and rend them in reply
and fight for sand to eat.

But still the feast is ready there:
rich food and choicest wines
set in a garden more than fair,
ripe wheat and dripping vines.
Come all! This message still they bear
who bear with God's design;
if we will but his garment wear
we welcomed are to dine.

Cast off, cast off the dusty gown;
scrape off the caked-on mud,
and see a servant kneeling down
to wash our hands of blood,
to wash the feet that fin'lly found
the road that leads to good.
Come all at last where grace abounds
and feast on angels' food!

This art from the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome may depict either the heavenly banquet or an agape feast. By Unknown author – Adapted from a picture in http://www.fortunecity.es/imaginapoder/artes/210/iconografia1.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=566562

The Garden

The garden where you bid us first
to multiply, our acts have cursed.
It now is lost to all our charts.
Will you replant it in our hearts?

The man and woman made of clay,
before your bidding could obey
broke faith, O Lord, broke right and good
and went to till a barren world.

No garden grows but by your might,
but by your gifts of rain and light;
relentless, though, we plow and sow
and bid the seed by our work grow.

By sweat of brow and stoop of back
we seek to burgeon where we lack,
but not a seed we plant bears fruit
excepting Christ himself is root.

The harvest gifts of fruit and grain
come after storm and after pain
or don't, and we are barren left,
lamenting all that we're bereft.

'Twas in a garden, sweating blood,
that Christ accepted for our good
the bitter passion of his end,
and planted something new to tend.

Naught but his touch could break the soil—
not all our groaning, all our toil—
none but his pow'r could plant the seed
where all the birds now rest and feed.

O, gard'ner of that Easter morn,
let what you plant in us be born,
a gift as pure as rain-washed earth:
your life, your will, and our rebirth.