tithe

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.

From the piercing light of early morn
when my alarm bell rings
to the evening hush that stills the world
and second shift begins,
let my work be pleasing to you, Lord,
not just the cash it brings.

For the labors of my working days
are more than settled bills;
they're my working out how I am saved
before my works are stilled.
My work itself must sing your praise
before the coffer's filled.

My all is in the tenth I bring
carved out of field and fold,
as every note of praise I sing
contains the world I hold.
Take them, and see my everything,
and love it well, O Lord.

For you alone look at the heart
where we look at the face:
See me in what I do, O God,
where others see my wage.
And bless my work, and bless my all,
and let it bring you praise.

Frescos in Ferapontov Monstery – Lesson of the widow’s mite and Healing of two blind men, Ferapontovo, Vologda Oblast, Russia By Dionisius – http://www.dionisy.com/rus/museum/120/200/index.shtml, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97153736

Tag: tithe

Thistles